Category: NonFiction

Citizen Soldiers

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Ambrose, Stephen E. Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army From the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany, June 7, 1944 -May 7, 1945. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.

Stephen Ambrose has the uncanny ability to take you back in time. His words pick you up and carry you hook, line and sinker, back to June 7, 1944 and forward through the great and terrible World War II. However, Citizen Soldiers is not a dry account of strategic war maneuvers. It is not a blah blah blah play by play of how Germany’s armies moved along the western/eastern slope while the Allies pushed further north or south. Those things did happen but Citizen Solders is more than that. It’s as if you have been dropped in the middle of hand to hand skirmishes or have the ability to eavesdrop on Hitler’s frequent phone arguments with a subordinate. You get to know people, places and events as if you are talking to the soldiers themselves, dodging bullets in the snow-covered country side, and witnesses skirmishes first hand. For once, the photographs and maps included do not make the storytelling vivid, they only enhance the words.

The version I read included an afterword where Ambrose talks about the reactions he has received upon publishing Citizen Soldiers. To me, this afterword was humble and gracious and yet, had an air of protective authority.

Things that made me go hmmmm. Little reminders that WWI and WWII were not really that far off. For example,  “There [Stoob] discovered that he had been wounded in the same small French village as had his father in 1914 – also in the head and leg” (p 111). There were also moments of humor: “Cooper examined the wreckage in the train and was surprised to find that invaluable space had been taken up with women’s lingerie, lipstick, and perfume, instead of desperately needed ammunition and food. “The Germans apparently had done a good job of looting all the boutiques in Paris when they pulled out”” (p 112), and “In Paris the whores put away their English language phrase books and retrieved their German versions” (p 205).

Author fact: Stephen Ambrose was born in the month of January, hence the reading of this book at this time.

Book Trivia: Citizen Soldiers was a New York Times bestseller.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “World War II Nonfiction” (p 253).

Two in the Far North

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Murie, Margaret E. Two in the Far North. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962.

Murie starts her first book, Two in the Far North with a look back at her first visit to Alaska when she was nine years old in the year 1911. The writing is full of exuberance and excitement. Her enthusiasm oozes from the pages and offers a unique perspective on the birth of an Alaskan frontier town from a child’s point of view. As she grows into an adult and returns from college the emphasis shifts to marriage (1924) and following her biologist husband as he does field research in the untamed parts of her beloved Alaska. On each expedition you can tell she never loses that joy from exploring everything that makes Alaska unique. (I can’t even tell you how many times she uses the word ‘happy’ to describe everyone and everything around her.) Murie’s chronicle of life in the Alaskan wilderness is honest and passionate from start to finish.

Favorite lines, “There was one wonderful spring when people had to move out of  their houses on Front Street, and rowboats were the thing, but this was fun only for the children” (p 54), “A rocking chair and a bed with springs are to be enjoyed whenever met” (p 210), and “If man does not destroy himself through his idolatry of the machine, he may learn one day tp step gently on his earth” (p 357).

Favorite Murie illustrations: p 167, p 195, and p201.

Author Fact: Margaret Murie had so many interesting facts about her I couldn’t chose just one. For starters, she lived to be 101! She studied at Simmons College in Boston for a short time (one year). There is a movie about her life called “Arctic Dance.”

Book Trivia: Two in the Far North is Murie’s first book and it is illustrated by her husband, Olaus.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Alaska” (p 17). Duh.

King of the World

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Remnick, David. King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero. New York: Random House, 1998.

I realize David Remnick needed to set the scene, to establish the boxing backdrop in order for Cassius Clay’s story to be fully appreciated, but in my opinion three whole chapters equaling 68 pages was too much pre-story information. There was too much detail about the Floyd Patterson/Sonny Liston rivalry. To be fair, the long introduction established the dangerous culture of the mafia-driven boxing world before Cassius Clay entered it and how lucky he was to escape it. It clearly illustrated the mold Cassius Clay was about to break while simultaneously solidifying Liston and Clay’s animosity towards one another. I just wish it didn’t take three chapters to do it.

I think the entire story of Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali can be summed up by one sentence late in the prologue, “He hit people for a living, and yet by middle age he would be a symbol not merely of courage, but of love, of decency, even a kind of wisdom” (p xvi). It is true Ali started out as a loud-mouthed, egotistical, “pretty” kid who could back up his bravado with a mean left hook. He hid his emotions under constant chatter. But, by the time the heart of Remnick’s biography leaves the story of Cassius Clay, Clay had barely become Muhammad Ali, had just beaten Sonny Liston in a November 22, 1965 fight to defend his heavyweight title, and was on the cusp of being a cultural icon. He had yet to sway the country as a force to be reckoned with. He would not become the beloved everyone thinks of today. It’s as if Remnick needs to write a King of the World: Part II and tell the rest of the story.

Line I liked: “The doctors of Maine may have been accustomed to a relatively low level of fitness” (p 250).

One of the coolest things about King of the World was learning that Ali trained in Chicopee Falls, MA and that his second bout with Liston happened in Lewiston, Maine. I had fun researching the Schine family and the different hotels they owned (including one in Northampton that is still in operation today). An inside joke – Robert Goulet sang the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ before the Ali/Liston fight. He couldn’t remember the words nor could he hear the orchestra! Glouleeeet!

Author Fact: David Remnick is a member of the New York Public Library Board of Trustees. He was born in Hackensack, New Jersey (one of my old stomping grounds), is fluent in Russian and has won a Pulitzer Prize,

Book Trivia: One of the best things about King of the World is the photo layout. Instead of having the traditional group of photographs clumped in the middle of the book Remnick’s photos are spread throughout the book, making each section a little present.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter “Dewey Deconstruction: 700s” (p 74).

My Nine Lives

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Fleisher, Leon and Anne Midgette. My Nine Lives: a Memoir of Many Careers in Music. New York: Doubleday, 2010.

It took me a long time to get through this book. I would read five or six pages a day and never feel compelled to accomplish more. For me, it was definitely not a Cannot Put Down book. I found Fleisher long winded and didactic at times. Fleisher, for all his accomplishments, deserves to be wordy and authoritarian.  To be fair, I am not musically inclined. To make matters worse I know even less about the world of classically trained musicians. I think this put me at a disadvantage for enjoying the book. There was little to the story outside music. To be fair, this definitely would be an interesting read for musicians, especially pianists and composers.

As an aside: I think part of my problem with My Nine Lives was on a personal level. Fleisher doesn’t mince words or beat around the bush when describing his relationships with women. He had affairs and left marriages. He “traded up” as they say in the tabloids. Each woman seemed to be younger and prettier than the one before. Fleisher doesn’t make excuses for his actions and I respect that, but it definitely altered the way I read his story.

Best Nightmare on Earth

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Gold, Herbert. Best Nightmare on Earth: a Life in Haiti.New York: Prentice Hall Press, 1991.

I love reading books that hold hands. The Comedians by Graham Greene is mentioned a bunch of times in Hebert Gold’s Best nightmare on Earth. Because I had read (inadvertently) The Comedians before Nightmare I knew what Gold was talking about. I could relate and it just worked out that way. Funny how Pearl didn’t call these two books “companion reads” because they seem like they were meant to read together.
Herbert Gold discovered Haiti on a Fulbright Scholarship. This was to be the beginning of an addiction to a hellish paradise. For the next forty years Gold traveled between the States and the Caribbean trying this craving. Through Best Nightmare on Earth Gold does his best to explain this curious attraction while holding nothing back. He peels back the layers of politics and corruption to reveal exotic grace and mystery. Papa Doc (both father and son) rule the land while voodoo rules all. Gold’s descriptions of the violence, the celebrations, the loves and losses are as vivid as the realities of greed and poverty.

Favorite quotes, “Despite my yearning for privacy, I also needed sociability, the opening and the shutting of the mouth to utter companionable sounds” (p 112), “Wasn’t running something that human beings took up in hostile environments, in worlds of desert hunting and forest seeking, chasing animals, preening for partners, sometimes being chased?” (p 191), and “Proud despair is the mood of everyone” (p 199).

Author Fact: Herbert Gold was a member of the Beat Generation and dear friends with Allen Ginsberg.

Book Trivia: For those wanting to know more about Haiti (the good, the bad and the ugly) Best Nightmare on Earth is almost always listed in the bibliography.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “The Contradictory Caribbean: Paradise and Pain” (p 55).

Made in America

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Bryson, Bill. Made in America: an Informal History of the English Language in the United States. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1994.

Made in America has multiple personalities. It could be seen as a classification of American etymology, a short history of American culture, a collection of forgotten trivia, a handbook of conversation starters, a joke book of humor, or as most people see it, all of the above. The inside cover of Made in America sums up the book perfectly, “Bryson’s is a unique history, not only of American words, but of America through words.”

Favorite lines, “…Clark fared better. He became governor of the Missouri Territory and commanded it with distinction, though he never did learn to spell” (p122).

Favorite tidbits of information: Frederick Remington never saw a real cowboy and was too fat to ever get on a horse; foodcarts weren’t allowed to vend on residential streets so they moved to parking lots, removed their wheels and became restaurants; Sylvester Graham believed food with taste was immoral.

Book Trivia: You could call Made in America a history of American words or words describing an American history.
Author Fact: Bill Bryson once worked in a psychiatric hospital. Doing what? Making the patients laugh out loud when things got too manic?

Book Lust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Bill Bryson: Too Good To Miss” (p 36).

Apology

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Plato. Dialogues of Plato: Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Symposium, Republic. Trans. Jowett. New York: Washington Square Press, Inc., 1962.

It has been argued long and hard that Plato’s Apology is the true account of the trial of Socrates. As a witness to the trial he transcribes Socrates’s speech in his own defense as he faces his accusers. The court affidavit states Socrates is a “doer of evil; does not believe in the gods of the State, but has other new divinities of his own.” He is, through his own philosophies, corrupting the youth of Athens. Despite his eloquent and passionate speech Socrates is found guilty and sentenced to death by hemlock. Apology covers the trial, the verdict and the sentencing.

I find it interesting that while Plato does not reveal the number of votes that warranted a guilty verdict Socrates states, “but now, had thirty votes gone over to the other side, I should have been acquitted”  (p 32). Found guilty by only 30 votes! Another interesting moment is when Socrates confronts one of his accusers, Meletus. Socrates gets him to contradict the affidavit by admitting he thinks Socrates is an atheist. How can Socrates be both an atheist and someone who worships personal deities?

Favorite lines: “I admit that I am eloquent” (p 5), and “…I was really too honest a man to be a politician…” (p32).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called What a Trial That Was! (p 243).

Nov ’10 was…

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More head in the sand, tail between my legs reading for the month. While it wasn’t an easy month I am happy to say it was better than October by a long shot!

  • The Harmless People by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas ~ in honor of November being the best time to visit Africa. This was an eye opener. I will never look at people the same way again.
  • The New Well-Tempered Sentence: A Punctuation Handbook for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed by Karen Elizabeth Gordon ~ in honor of Writing month. Information I will keep in mind but, because I’m a rebel, probably ignore. Case in point – this sentence!
  • Balsamroot: A Memoir by Mary Clearman Blew ~ in honor of Montana becoming a state in November. This was more about a favorite aunt’s slow decline than about Blew’s own personal life.
  • On the Road by Jack Kerouac ~ in honor of November being National Travel month. This was, I think, my favorite book of the month.
  • The Healing by Gayl Jones ~ in honor of November being Jones’s birth month. This was the hardest one of the bunch to read. I’ve decided I don’t care for stream of consciousness!
  • Ruby by Ann Hood ~ in honor of November being National Adoption month. This was a psychological book that had me pondering life’s bigger questions. It took me a weekend to read.
  • Brothers and Sisters by Bebe Moore Campbell ~ in honor of November being the month of Campbell’s passing. Once I got passed the stereotypical characters this was a great book!

For LibraryThing and the Early Review program: Final Flight: The Mystery of a WWII Plane Crash and the Frozen Airmen in the High Sierra by Peter Stekel. This book had everything I could want in a nonfiction: truth and mystery embedded in a well told tale. It was great!

Final Flight

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Stekel, Peter. Final Flight: the Mystery of a WWII Plane Crash and the Frozen Airmen in the High Sierra. Berkley: Wilderness Press, 2010

The backdrop for Final Flight is November 18, 1942 – the day a Beech 18 airplane went missing during a training mission in the mountains of the High Sierra. Peter Stekel, a longtime hiker of the Sierra Nevada, was introduced to the story in 2005 when a “Frozen Airman” was found and identified as part of the four-man crew in the Beech 18 crash. Stekel spends two years engrossed in the events surrounding the 63 year old tragedy, learning everything he can about the airmen on board, the weather conditions, the media reports (and misreports) and of course, the unforgiving landscape where the crash occurred. When he, himself, finds a second body in the High Sierra the research becomes a must-tell story. Enter Final Flight, the story Stekel just had to tell. I enjoy a “complete package” book: great story, compelling mystery, photographs that tell a little more, biographies that endear you to people, maps to ground you to location, references and details that urge you to learn more. I found Final Flight to have all of these elements and much, much more. First and foremost it is a true story. That alone draws you in. Then you learn two of the airmen are still missing despite reports that clearly state all four airmen were recovered and given a group burial in Golden Gate National Cemetery. Why the misinformation? That creates intrigue. Where are the remaining airmen? Will they ever be found? You want Stekel to keep digging only so he can keep you informed. The photographs not only give the visual boost to description of the glacier’s location high in the Kings Canyon National Park, but also illustrates just how difficult it was to find any remains in 1942. Finally (and above all else), Final Flight is a proper tribute to the families of the four airmen who lost their lives on November 18, 1942. Stekel’s story shows respect and offers closure.

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.