Category: NonFiction

Tipping Point

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Gladwell, Malcolm. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2000.

Judging by how many people have Tipping Point in their LibraryThing libraries and how many reviews have been written about it I feel as though I am late to the Tipping Party. And I call myself a librarian! Sheesh!

This book was fascinating! Within the first 22 pages I was hooked. I found myself googling different references Gladwell made like the names Darnell McGee and Nushawn Williams. To explain a tipping point Gladwell used some variation of the word ‘yawn’ no less than 25 times. His point was yawning is contagious and by using the word over and over he could get me to yawn. He didn’t, but I understood his point.

Malcolm Gladwell explains the tipping point as epidemics, fast-paced mysterious changes in society such as the sudden interest in a fashion or a sharp decline in crime in an isolated area. It’s a fascinating look at why major shifts in societal influence happen so suddenly and without warning. He explains how a single idea or behavior can influence an entire population. Everything from fashion trends to severe life-threatening epidemics are analyzed. Have you ever wondered where the game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon came from? Gladwell explains it and the root of where it came from. You can thank a man named Stanley Milgram.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter, “BBB: Best Business Books” (p 33).

What’s a Mother (in-law) To Do?

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Angelich, Jane. What’s a Mother (in-law) To Do?: 5 Essential Steps to Building a Loving Relationship with Your Son’s New Wife. New York: Howard Books, 2009.

I have to start off by saying this was a May 2009 Early Review book from LibraryThing. That means roughly a year ago I was supposed to read and review this book. I received it in the mail today. Today. June 26th, 2010. I am assuming this has already hit book stores and doesn’t really need my promotion. However, because I respect the program and the review process I am still going to write about it.

My first impression of What’s a Mother (in-law) To Do? was, “wow, this is short!” Indeed, it’s an odd little book. Hardcover yet the size of a paperback and only 130 pages long. As a librarian I automatically went to the back pages to look for a bibliography of sorts. If this is a book that involved research I expected to see a works cited page. There wasn’t one.

In the end I was disappointed by What’s a Mother (in-law) to Do? because I felt like it was something any old MIL could write: all she would have to do is fill 131 pages with a variety of stories from other in-laws (mothers and daughters), sprinkle in a few personal experiences, and add a layer of common sense advice.  What would have been really interesting (and cater to a larger audience) is if Angelich researched building a relationship with your child’s new spouse. In other words, remove the specificity of the subject and make it work for any in-law relationship.

I honestly couldn’t take What’s a Mother (in-law) To Do? seriously. Angelich talks about conducting research but doesn’t provide real sources. She mentions “research conducted” but there’s no weight behind like what kind of research it was or who conducted it. She talks about taking advice from experts but doesn’t elaborate on how she solicited this advice. In short, I didn’t believe her “research.” This is a book I would have picked up and immediately put back, writing it off as “fluff” or pop psychology. I would recommend it for someone with a fair to mediocre relationship with their new daughter-in-law, but not to someone with a strained or terribly difficult one.

Making of the Atomic Bomb

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Rhodes, Richard. The Making of the Atomic Bomb. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986.

I think I should feel more disappointed that I didn’t get through this book. And yet, I don’t. Quite simply put – I’m just not that into atomic bombs. I think I knew this would happen when I said I didn’t exactly see it as summer reading, despite the clever connection of the first bomb being testing in July…

Here’s what I know – The Making of the Atomic Bomb won a Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In other words, people liked it. A lot. I can also tell you it is a thick read. Over 800 pages long (and the pictures don’t count). I got through the first 50 and called it quits. Again, no regrets.

If I had been able to devote more time to The Making of an Atomic Bomb I would have found it to be a portrait of personalities ranging from scientists (Einstein) to political leaders (Roosevelt). I would have found it to be a commentary on the state of world economics (The Great Depression) and warfare (World War II). I would have found it to be scientific and philosophical, psychological and historical. All those things.

Believe it or not, I do have a favorite line from the little I read: “As he crossed the street time cracked open before him and he saw a way to the future, death into the world and all our woe, the shape of things to come” (p13). This was in the opening paragraph and sets the stage for science to unleash its dangers.
BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Bomb Makers” (p 42).

I Don’t Know Why I Swallowed the Fly

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Maxwell, Jessica. I Don’t Know Why I Swallowed the Fly: My Fly Fishing Rookie Season. Seattle: Sasquach, 1997.

Jessica Maxwell takes on fly fishing. I Don’t Know Why I Swallowed the Fly is an account of her very first year learning the sport. As with any hunting sport Jessica needed to learn how to think like her prey. She needed to teach her body, muscle, bones and nerve, to perform the movements necessary for a perfect, flowing cast. As psychological as the game of golf, Jessica found herself untangling the intricacies of throwing out the flawless line. Rod and reel in perfect harmony with human dynamics. Aside from Jessica’s expanse of humor throughout I Don’t Know Why.. I was drawn to the vibrant imagery of the landscapes around her. I adored the way she described, nature – especially when it came to light. Sunlight, especially. Her words had a way of dancing like rays on water, sparkling and bright.
But I Don’t Know Why… isn’t just about one woman’s fly fishing adventure. Jessica subtly deals with the loss of her father with poignant memories and in the end, revelations about the man who shaped her future with a simple love for nature and of course, fishing.

I don’t know anything about fly fishing so, for me, this was a nice 101 about a typically male-dominated sport.

Favorite lines: “Every day somebody somewhere becomes obsessed with an idea that won’t turn them loose” (p 50), “Now the radio static was so bad, Sting sounded like Bob Denver” (p 101), and “My mind was gone to the joy of the memory of what was for a moment so long ago but couldn’t last, and to the pain of what could have been but wasn’t” (p 214).

Small question for Jessica: where is the wrong side of Oregon? I couldn’t find it on a map…

Side note: Make no mistake about it. I always at least glance at the acknowledgments. They are usually a long blahblahblah list filled with family names and “I’d like to thank my editor…” It’s like looking at a yearbook from a school you have never heard of. Names and faces mean nothing. Jessica Maxwell’s acknowledgment page is another yearbook, but a fun one. True, it’s all names I don’t know, but for once Jessica made me want an introduction.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, “Gone Fishin’ (p 101).

Writing Dangerously

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Brightman, Carol. Writing Dangerously: Mary McCarthy and Her World. New York: Clarkson Potter, 1992.

Mary McCarthy was born on June 2nd, 1912. Hence my reasoning for picking up her biography by Carol Brightman this month.

Mary reminds me of my friend, Ruth. Beautiful, outspoken inasmuch as she says what she feels, means what she says. In addition, she doesn’t take sh!t from anyone, yet has a heart of gold. She laughs when anyone else would have crocodile tears. She can confront fights with fire. She’s popular with the men with a come-hither glint in her eye and has no time for sugar cookie lies. Need I say, independent yet fidelis. I think I would have gotten along with Mary had I been in her day or she in mine.

Mary McCarthy was an outspoken critic of practically everything around her. From her humble beginnings as a self-proclaimed abused orphan Mary quickly grew into a witty writer and reporter with a constant comment about the world around her. No subject was off-limits whether it be about the abuse she suffered at the hands of her uncle, her contradictory religious views, losing her virginity at age 14, a scathing look at her peers in academia, Communism or war. Carol Brightman often quotes McCarthy to support her biography using both McCarthy’s fiction and nonfiction. Two sections of photography round out an already very thorough account of the controversial Mary McCarthy.

Favorite word, “bildungsroman” ( a genre of novel of complete self-development).

Favorite quote: “One of Mary McCarthy’s legendary attributes is that no matter how much fire and brimstone she and her fictional heroines traverse before they see the light, they never seem to get burned” (p 58).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, Literary Lives: The Americans (p 145).

June ’10 is…

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June is a weird month for me. I might have a Monhegan plan. I’m not sure. The one thing I know about June is that there will be music. Plenty of music and books. As two constants in my life, I doubt anyone is honestly surprised by that remark. Music and books. For music it is the lovely Rebecca Correia at the Iron Horse in Northampton. June 11, 2010 at 7pm. That same weekend it is the eternally talented Sean Rowe at the DreamAway Lodge in Beckett. June 13, 2010 at 8pm…I think. There is Phish somewhere in there as well…I know, don’t say it.

For books it is:

  • Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brien ~ in honor of National Ocean month
  • Hatchet by Gary Paulsen ~ in honor of Adventure fiction month
  • Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron ~ in honor of Virginia becoming a state in June
  • Happenstance by Carol Shields ~ in honor of June being the most popular month to get married in…
  • Writing Dangerously: Mary McCarthy and Her World by Carol Brightman ~ in honor of Mary McCarthy’s birth month.

For LibraryThing’s Early Review program:

  • The House on Oyster Creek by Heidi Jon Schmidt

For the fun of it:

  • Master of Your Metabolism by Jillian Michaels

May ’10 was….

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Pretty in Pink

May. What to say about May? For obvious reasons it wasn’t the month for reading. I still haven’t mastered walking and reading without doing both at an excruciatingly slow pace!

  • Endless Love by Scott Spencer ~ apparently this was made into a movie. I am curious how they handled the anal sex scene…
  • You Make Me Feel Like an Unnatural Woman: Diary of a New (Old) Mother by Janet Newman ~ funny, funny, funny (although, an odd choice to honor Mother’s Day)
  • Wobegon Boy by Garrison Keillor ~ my first Keillor book. Now I know what all the fuss is about. Another funny one!
  • Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis ~I admit it. I gave up on this after 50 pages. I moved onto a Jillian Michaels book. More on that next month….

For LibraryThing & the Early Review Program:

  • Fundamental Weight Training by David Sandler
  • Fall Asleep Forgetting by Georgeann Packard ~ this should be a movie. It was weird but good!

For the hell of it:

  • Homer’s Odyssey by Gwen Cooper

Homer’s Odyssey

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Cooper, Gwen. Homer’s Odyssey: A Fearless Feline Tale, or How I Learned About Love and Life with a Blind Wonder Cat. New York: Delacorte Press, 2009.

A friend of mine gave this to me a few weeks ago. No, I take that back. She gave it to me several, several weeks ago. I meant to write a review about it in April but I wasn’t quite finished reading it. I wanted to make sure I was on page 287 (which is the last page in case you were wondering) before I wrote anything about it. The sad truth is, it took me until now to get to page 287. The training for Just ‘Cause simply took reading away from me for a few months (18 weeks to be exact). But, now that I am back on track I can finish what I started.

Gwen is great. Her story of Homer (the blind wonder cat) makes you fall in love with all things cats. I am clearly defined as a cat person (either you are or you aren’t) so this wasn’t a stretch for me. What I wasn’t prepared for was enjoying Gwen’s style of writing as much as I did. She is funny, sensible (dare I say logical?), and sometimes downright sassy. Homer’s Odyssey takes you on a journey from Homer’s start as a kitten, but you also get a sense of Gwen’s growth as well. How she handled the events of September 11th, 2001 and its aftermath are heroic and probably my favorite part of the entire story. If I had to gripe about any of it, it would be a small gripe and it would have to be about a story  towards the end. Homer gets sick and stops eating. I had a cat who stopped eating. I didn’t have to Google this to know what it could mean: cancer, tumors… Indeed, My Chessie died a few weeks later. But, I digress. Gwen’s detailed account of Homer’s listlessness and refusal to nibble at the most favorite of meals brought back painful memories. As I was reading I feared the worst and I honestly think that was Gwen’s plan. Decidedly, it was nothing more than a dirty drama trick. Homer regained his health and the illness was explained away as an unsolved mystery. But, as I said before this is a trivial gripe. It didn’t ruin the read for me. I’m sure Gwen has been asked (and asked and asked) about a Homer sequel. I, for one, would read it.

Fundamental Weight Training

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Sandler, David. Fundamental Weight Training: 102 Exercises to Start Training. Champaign: Human Kinetics, 2010.

I had many false starts trying to write a review for this book. My hesitancy directly related to my love-hate relationship with content and how it was arranged. There were many, many things to love about this book…and yet I found a few things to hate.

On the didactic side of things Fundamental Weight Training has it all. Simple weight lifting exercises for beginners that take into consideration using a professional gym, a home gym, or even just a person’s own body weight. There are simple black and white photographs to illustrate each exercise, showing correct form and posture. There is even sections on stretching, warming up and cooling down – all essential elements of working out and avoiding injury. In addition, Sandler goes above and beyond to explain gym etiquette and terminologies with a chapter called, “weight room language and protocol” (p 7). My favorite section was “Give it a Go” which gives the reader the opportunity to put lesson to life and try a series of exercises dedicated to a particular group of muscles like arms, for example.

But, here is where the hate comes in. The “Give it a Go” section assumes a person has every weight machine and accessory at his or her disposal. The exercises are a mix of free weights and machines usually found at the gym. Organization-wise, Fundamental Weight Training would have been easier for me if the “Give it a Go” section was combined with the “Take it to the Gym” and “Train at Home” sections rather than separate section.

A final frustration is, as with any exercise book, a person would need to not only memorize the names of each exercise but the proper way to perform them. Holding a book while trying to flex the a dumbbell is not all that easy. Flipping from the “Give it a Go” page to the section with the exercise can be frustrating.

All in all, I enjoyed reading Fundamental Weight Training. After reorganizing the information on my own I have a great training plan that I can take to the gym or use at home.

You Make Me Feel…

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Newman, Judith. You Make Me Feel Like an Unnatural Woman: Diary of a New (Older) Mother. New York: Miramax Books, 2004.

There are three reoccurring themes in You Make Me Feel Like an Unnatural Woman. Judith likes to portray herself as an over-forty, unhappily married,  yet wealthy woman with a moral on parenting: be careful what you wish for. While she is extremely funny about it, she is constantly criticizing her husband, John, for not being around more to help with twins, born after seven years and & $70,000 worth of IVF procedures. As an over-sixty man living at a different address, what exactly did she expect? He’s not about to change. Judith handles the trials and tribulations of raising twins with more aplomb and name dropping than any new mom I know. Having a $250 a day nanny certainly helps!

Favorite funny lines, “If he’s like most men I’ve known he’ll spend the rest of his life thinking of his dick as a masterpiece anyway. “Yes, honey, that’s art,” I said” (p 215).

My only complaint? Newman tries so freakin’ hard to be funny all the time that the tenderness of what she has (supposedly) longed for for so long gets lost. There were glimpses of caring at times, like, when she describes thinking her babies are beautiful. But, on the whole, it was if Newman was constantly “on” all the time. I never really thought I saw the real mother because she was veiled behind a thousand jokes.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, “Nagging Mothers, Crying children” (p 172). Appropriate for Mother’s Day, don’t you think?

May ’10 Is…

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  • Endless Love by Scott Spencer ~ in honor of Lust Month
  • Samuel Johnson is Indignant by Lydia Davis ~ in honor of National Short Story month
  • Wobegone Boy by Garrison Keillor ~ in honor of May being the month Minnesota became a state
  • The Victorians by A.N. Wilson ~ in honor of Antique Week
  • You Make Me Feel Like an Unnatural Woman: Diary of a New (Older) Mother by Judith Newman ~ in honor of Mother’s day

Promises. Promises. I should know better. With the Just ‘Cause walk happening (finally) this month I will refrain from writing any more than than this…

April ’10 was…

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April was that kind of month that just flew by without warning. When Just’ Cause is over I will get back to writing in the real sense… for now here is the literary month of April.

For books it was:

  • Affliction by Russell Banks ~ can’t wait to see the movie
  • Belshazzar’s Daughter by Barbara Nadel ~ speaking of movies, this should be one
  • Truth & Bright Water by Thomas King ~ probably my second favorite read of the month
  • South Wind Through the Kitchen by Elizabeth David ~ a collection of “best of” Elizabeth David
  • Without End by Adam Zagajewski ~ a collection of poetry
  • Water Witches by Chris Bohjalian ~ my favorite read of the month

For poetry it was:

  • “Luncheon on the Grass” by Carl Phillips (In the Blood, 1993.)
  • “Rebus” by Jane Hirschfield (Given Sugar, Given Salt, 2002.)
  • “Hospital” by Karl Shapiro (Poems: 1040-1953, 1953.)
  • “A Secret Life” by Stephen Dunn (Landscape at the End of the Century, 1999.)
  • “The Welcoming” by Edward Hirsch (Earthly Measures, 1994.)
  • “Prophet” by Carl Dennis (Practical Gods, 2001.)
  • “Funeral II” by — (New & Collected Poems, 2000.)
  • “Days of Pie and Coffee” by — (Shroud of the Gnome, 1997.)
  • “Try to Praise the Mutilated World” by Adam Zagajewski (Without End, 2002)
  • “Kaddish” by Allen Ginsberg (Kaddish and Other Poems 1958 – 1960, 2001)
  • “Wisdom of the Desert Fathers” by Katha Pollitt (the mind- body problem, 2009)
  • “Forgetfulness” by Billy Collins (Sailing Alone Around the Room, 2002)

For poetry set to music it was Natalie Merchant’s long awaited Leave Your Sleep. This is the track listing for the fantastically amazing album:

Part I

  1. Nursery Rhyme of Innocence and Experience by Charles Causley
  2. Equestrienne by Rachel Field
  3. Calico Pie by Edward Lear
  4. Bleezer’s Ice-Cream by Jack Prelutsky
  5. It Makes a Change by Mervyn Peak
  6. The King of China’s Daughter by Anonymous
  7. The Dancing Bear by Albert Bigelow Paine
  8. The Man in the Wilderness by Mother Goose
  9. maggie and milly and molly and may by E.E. Cummings
  10. If No One Ever Marries Me by Laurence Alma-Tadema
  11. The Sleepy Giant by Charles Edward Carryl
  12. The Peppery Man by Arthur Macy
  13. The Blind Men and the Elephant by John Godfrey Saxe

Part II

  1. Adventures of Isabel by Ogden Nash
  2. The Walloping Window Blind by Charles Edward Carryl
  3. Topsyturvey World by William Brighty Rands
  4. The Janitor’s Boy by Nathalia Crane
  5. Griselda by Eleanor Farjeon
  6. The Land of Nod by Robert Louis Stevenson
  7. Vain and Careless by Robert Graves
  8. Crying, My Little One by Christina Rossetti
  9. Sweet and a Lullaby by Anonymous
  10. I Saw a Ship A-Sailing by Anonymous
  11. Autumn Lullaby by Anonymous
  12. Spring and Fall: to a young child by Gerard Manley Hopkins
  13. Indian Names by Lydia Huntley Sigourney

For LibraryThing’s Early Review program it was: a browse through a weight training book. Full review coming next month…

For fun it was: The Book of Calamities by Peter Trachtenberg

The Book of Calamities

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Trachtenberg, Peter. The Book of Calamities: Five Questions About Suffering and Its Meaning. New York: Little, Brown & co., 2008

This was an off-list addition. Glutton for punishment? Maybe. April had already been a hard month and here I am, deciding to add to the drama by deciding to read a book about suffering. It’s perverse but I find comfort in my little, uneventful life when I am reminded of fates worse than mine…much, much worse than mine. It’s the same reason why I watch ugly shows about murder and drug addiction. It’s my constant reminder that anyone, at anytime, can fall from grace. And fall hard.

But, anyway, back to Calamities. I will be honest. I picked up the book after reading a dedication. After researching the recipients I realized I needed to know more. It wasn’t enough to be aware and move on. I wanted knowledge. Who were these people and why did they die? Notice I didn’t say how? That much was obvious. Their tragedy deserved more than two seconds of my time. Which led me to Peter Trachtenberg’s book.

The Book of Calamities covers man-induced sufferings as well as the ones seemingly without explanation. The answer to each catastrophe lies in simple words like religion, nature, sanity, hatred, illness but try explaining those words beyond dictionary etymology and terminology. What exactly IS hatred? What drives two religions to war? How can Mother Nature be so cruel to the ignorant? Who defines mental illness and calls it insanity? These are hard questions but, Trachtenberg asks an even bigger question – why is suffering such a shock to us? It happens all the time. It happens everywhere. Why aren’t we more prepared for catastrophe? Is it a cultural thing? For some reason we, as a society,  have this sense of entitlement to happiness; this sense of denial that bad things always happen to someone, anyone, else but us. Not so.

I didn’t have favorite quotes in this book, but there was one particular event that stood out. Here is the quote: “The first thing they did for me was to make me stop, kindly, with care not to make me feel any more foolish than I already felt, for who feels more foolish than a failed suicide?” (p 95). The reason why this passage stood out to me is this – in my friend’s suicide note he made reference to being embarrassed by possible failure. He understood suffering and didn’t want to make compromises to accommodate that suffering. Here’s the thing – he didn’t need to be embarrassed. He didn’t fail on May 10th, 1993.

Downcanyon

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Zwinger, Ann Haymond. Downcanyon: A Naturalist Explores the Colorado River Through the Grand Canyon. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995.

When I first heard about Downcanyon I was romanced by Nancy Pearl’s description of it in More Book Lust, “Even if you’re not actually doing down the rapids of the Colorado, this book will make you feel as if you are” (p 173). I don’t know what I was expecting after reading that quote. Something pulse-pounding and riveting, I’m sure. I was sort of disappointed.

Downcanyon is a wonderfully illustrated down-the-river adventure, but I would suggest using it as more of a reference book or guide than a white-rapids read. The map is fascinating and it was certainly fun to read the travels along it. But, my favorite parts were the rest areas, the stopping for the night. Zwinger took that opportunity to focus on the flowers, the reptiles, and the animals and the rock formations. It is here that Zwinger zeros in on the very nature of things (the foraging and nesting of bumblebees, for example).
Another pleasing point to Downcanyon was the addition of quotes from other explorers before each chapter. It’s as if Zwinger is giving a nod to those who went down the Colorado with far less in every sense. Less equipment, less experience, less education. Those who went before were more daring, more adventurous, and without a doubt, put themselves in far more danger. Downcanyon is the exploration of the Colorado River for Zwinger and Zwinger alone.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, “Nature Writing” (p 173).

“Kaddish”

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Ginsberg, Allen.”Kaddish.” Kaddish and Other Poems; 1958-1960 San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2001. 7.

This took me forever to read. I think part of the reason was I wanted to find the absolute right moment to read it. I know that sounds odd, but consider this: “Kaddish” is said to be autobiographical. That, in and of itself, is extremely interesting to me because of how interesting and controversial Ginsberg was and still is to this day. Secondly, “Kaddish” is about mourning the passing of Ginsberg’s mother, Naomi Ginsberg. She was schizophrenic and  Natalie Merchant’s line “praise a crazy mother’s son” (King of May, Ophelia – 2006) only eludes to Naomi’s troubled mind. Thirdly, there is the religious aspect of Kaddish to consider, and finally, the poem “Kaddish” is said to be Ginsberg’s finest work. Having said all that it should be obvious why I wanted to devote my complete and undivided attention to reading it.

At first read “Kaddish” seems to be all over the place with only two central themes running through it: the death of Naomi Ginsberg and the strain her mental illness put on Ginsberg as a child. After the second reading I began to see how much of an influence art and history also had on the author. He is haunted by his mother’s fears of Hitler and the inability to escape the past. Her history is his history. By the third reading I was so moved by the descriptions  Naomi’s “treatments” that I couldn’t read any more.

One of these days I will research “Kaddish” to the fullest. I will find out why Naomi was afraid of Louis. I will discover the answer to the riddle of the Key in the window. Someday I will know what phrases like “Grand Canyons of asshole” and ” Lung Stew, & Stenka Razin” mean. Someday soon.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter “The Beats and Their Generation” (p 17). PS ~ I should note this was not indexed in More Book Lust but since it was mentioned in the chapter I wanted to include it.