Category: NonFiction

August Is…

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August is a day late. Sorry about that!

It is awful to wish the summer away. To look forward to Labor Day…but I can’t help it. The time has (finally) come for me to go home. And I haven’t been there since last October!  August is all about going back to the island. I’m bringing a truckload of books:

  • All is Vanity by Christina Schwartz (in honor of Womens Friendship Month)
  • Boy with Loaded Gun by Lewis Nordan (in honor of Lewis Nordan’s birthday)
  • Far Field by Edie Meidav (August is the best time to visit Sri Lanka, believe it or not)
  • Dog Handling by Clare Naylor (August has a “woman’s day” so I’m reading what Pearl calls “chick lit”)
  • Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester (National Language Month)

It seems traitorish to think that the island’s library won’t have any of these books, but I can’t take the chance by assuming they do…and here’s the funny part- I don’t leave until the latter half of the month. I’m acting as if I won’t read a word before then! I’m actually hoping to have All is Vanity and Boy with Loaded Gun finished and off my list before leaving.

I scored another LibraryThing Early Review:

Blackbird, Farewell by Robert Greer. I am excited about this new book for odd reasons. For starters, I love the title! There is something about blackbirds. I love how they are associated with something dark and ominous. Dangerous. If you ever get the chance, check out Jamie Wyeth’s art. He has some great blackbird paintings. I also love the song ‘Blackbird’ (Jerry Garcia’s version is my favorite). Nearly everyone who has ever made me a mixed tape has put that song on one for me. I don’t know why…Maybe they have insight about my broken wings and the need to fly? Anyway, this book doesn’t have anything to do with blackbirds….funny.

August is also a Police concert (awesome, awesome, awesome by the way – blog coming soon), more trips to see Sean Rowe, Swell Season in my back yard, maybe Rebecca Correia. Should be an interesting month! Speaking of flying, I hope it does!

May Was…

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A month of allergies. Lilacs. The end of the school year (yay). Dreams coming true. The final Chuck Lelas walk. A new haircut. The serious house hunt. Family time. Natalie Merchant performing with the Boston Pops and ten good books (Nine and a half…).

  • Educating Esme: Diary of a Teacher’s First Year by Esme Raji Codell (National Education Month)
  • Plain Speaking by Merle Miller (Harry Truman’s birthday, Merle Miller’s birthday, on the heels of a book about Roosevelt…it just made sense).
  • True Confessions: a Novel by Mary Bringle (Mothers & Daughters)
  • Dreamland by Kevin Baker (History. I have to admit, tail between my legs, that I didn’t finish this one. Once I found out what the reader doesn’t find out I didn’t want to continue. BooHiss).
  • Ground Beneath Her Feet by Salman Rushdie (Music month)
  • Murder on the Leviathan by Boris Akunin.

Books added to the list because I gave up on Dreamland:

  • Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie (celebrating Barrie’s birthday)
  • The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien for no ther reason than it was a great book!

For LibraryThing & the Early Review Program~two books!:

  • Best Girlfriends Getaways Worldwide by Marybeth Bond (really, really fun travel guide)
  • Home Girl: Building a Dream House on a Lawless Block by Judith Matloff. Interesting, considering I’m dreaming of houses these days…

 

 

Home Girl

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Matloff, Judith. Home Girl: Building a Dream House on a Lawless Block. New York: Random House, 2008.

I could not put this book down. From start to finish it had me looking to answer that What Happened Next? question.
Matloff trades in one adventurous life (as a foreign correspondent) for another (home owner and wife in New York City). The exchange seems benign until the reader (and Matloff herself) realizes the Victorian she is buying is decrepit; in need of repair in every possible way, the new neighborhood is a one of the biggest drug zones in the country, and on a daily basis she must protect her property from the addicts who have called it home. If that wasn’t enough, Matloffmust walk a fine line of graceful respect and distance with the dealers on the street while becoming a mother, a crime fighter and witness to the tragedies of September 11th. Throughout it all, Matloff remains humbled and humorous.

Other observations: The picture on the inside cover indicates the title would have been Home Girl: Building a Dream Home in a Drug Zone. Not sure what I think about that.
I hope they keep the author’s note. Matloff’s sentiment about wishing the events weren’t true really intrigued me…really made me want to read the book.
Of course, there were quotes I absolutely loved, but I’ll keep them to myself until the book is published.

Plain Speaking

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harry s trumanMiller, Merle. Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman. New York: P.G. Putnam, 1973.

I think I mentioned before that reading this was good timing. For starters, both Truman and Miller share May as their birth month. Secondly, I just finished reading about Roosevelt for the Early Review program. This just seemed appropriate for the next book to read. There was “flow” to the subject material, if you will.

Comprised of interviews in chronological order, Miller talks to Truman (as former President) as well as Mary Jane Truman (Truman’s sister), fellow Battery D veteran Albert Ridge, even a childhood neighbor of Truman’s, Henry Chiles. The interviews (as opposed to Miller’s interpretation) allow for personalities to emerge. Miller spends more time delving into Truman’s political and military careers instead of the more personal subjects such as Truman’s childhood and relationships. There is a definite rapport between Miller and Truman and Miller is careful to avoid disrespect on several occasions.
While the interviews are very candid (I thoroughly enjoyed “hearing” Truman swear) I thought some sections were drawn out and much longer than they needed to be. I also found myself skipping some of the footnotes because they didn’t always relate to the subject. Another small criticism I had is while reading it was sometimes difficult to know the difference between Truman answering a question and Miller telling his reader something. While he used a different font for the questions posed to the respondent he didn’t for generalized comments to the reader.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter “Merle Miller: Too Good To Miss” (p 155).

Best Girlfriends Getaways

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Bond, Marybeth. Best Girlfriends Getaways Worldwide. Washington, DC: National Geographic, 2008.

I am thrilled I got this book to review. Not because I plan to jet off to Africa next week (because I’m not), and not because I even remotely consider myself a worldly traveler (definitely not), but because this book allowed me to imagine the possibilities. Written in such a style that seem to say go for it! Written in such a way that I started imagining some of my best female friends on such adventures with me. All of the information zeros in on what women would find interesting and worthwhile without making it seem too Sex in the City and cliche.
If I were to complain about any one aspect of Best Girlfriends it would be the organization of information. While I loved having such chapters as “Cosmopolitan Cities” (p 39) and “Floating Fantasies” (p 191) I would have loved all things France in one chapter, all things Spain in another. It’s one of those chicken-egg questions. Which comes first when it comes to travel, the location or the activity? I don’t know many people who chose their garden walk (p 211) before the country they would travel to.
Probably the best feature to Best Girlfriends is the wealth of information. Each chapter is organized into where to eat, where to stay, how to get there, points of interest, how to prepare for the trip, even events to fly in for. So much information on every page and not just about the destination, either. Tips on what to pack, how to stay safe, different aromatherapy oils, best luggage options, to name a few.
In addition to having interesting chapters Bond includes great first hand accounts of other women and their travels. Those stories were what really got me thinking about a trip with my mother, my oldest friend. The only information I would not heed is prices. What Bond quotes today might be completely different tomorrow. It is in her best interest to leave that information out and let the travelers research that when it’s time to get away.

Educating Esme

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Educating EsmeCodell, Esme Raji. Educating Esme:  Diary oi a Teacher’s First Year. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 1999.

Word to the wise: if you want to celebrate education month and you need something really quick to read, grab Educating Esme. Barely 200 pages it’s an entertaining, fast and funny book. This one interested me on so many different levels. For starters, at one time I thought I might be a teacher – even declared Education as my major for a while (until I found out that you never have time to read anything, you just pretend you do). It also interested me because I know two different people who have gone through that “first year” of teaching. They had completely different experiences and I wanted to compare notes.

What went on LibraryThing:
Educating Esme: Diary of a Teacher’s First Year  is smart and funny. It’s a journey inside the mind of a young, fresh-minded educator hell bent on doing things her way. Her lessons and style of teaching are engaging. They allow students to be themselves and in the process learn something.  The students are not bribed or cajoled into lesson plans. Codell disguises education in a safe, fun environment. This is not to say she doesn’t have her share of problems. Chicago has it’s gang culture, it’s broken homes, it’s drug addled families; not to mention a difficult hierarchy within the school system. Codell encounters it all with grace and strength.

Funny quotes: “The way they sassed patrons they didn’t like. The way they seemed to know too much. A little like librarians” (p 62). You would think this quote would somehow offend me on some level…especially considering the fact Esme is describing prostitutes! LOL
“What sort of Jedi would I be if I don’t really face the Dark Side? Mr. Turner may be Vader, but is there an enemy that remains to be revealed , like that bossy old wrinkled guy who told Vader what to do?” (p 112).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter “Teachers and Teaching Tales” (p 230). I love how Pearl calls Codell “relatively” hip (p 231).

Language of the Land

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Hopkins, Martha and Michael Buscher. Language of the Land: The Library of Congress Book of Literary Maps. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1998.

This is a weird choice for the final book of April. I wanted to read something that represented tax time and that dreaded 4/15. Nancy didn’t include a whole lot of books on taxes in either Book Lust or More Book Lust so I decided to lump in government documents and publications as representation…It makes some sense, right?

Anyway, this book is really, really cool. I urge you to take a look at it for yourself. If you have ever seen Manguel’s The Dictionary of Imaginary Places you will get the gist of Language of the Land. I have to admit I’m a sucker for these kinds of things. To say that it is a collection of maps with the basis being about literature doesn’t really explain a whole lot. Here are some better examples (and some of my favorite “maps”): there are several Arthur Conan Doyle maps. One map shows the location of all the fictional places mentioned in the Sherlock Holmes mysteries. Another is the “Sherlock Holmes Mystery Map” (p 207) which allows SH fans to follow the famous detective’s footprints through different stories. Of course, the Odyssey has a few maps depicting the travels of Odysseus. Page 60 has a pictorial map of English literature while on page 70 shows the Beat Generation map. Every state has a map of famous authors. Of course I had to scrutinize Maine to see if they included Monhegan as a place and Stephen King as an author (they did). Then, I had to find the fictional places Robin Hood’s Sherwood Forest and Peter Pan’s Neverland. You would have to be a James Bond fan to know the significance of items in Ian Fleming’s “The Ian Fleming Thriller Map” (p 176) like the centipede in Bond’s glass or the Roman Numeral III tattooed on a blond girl’s arm. Most of the maps are in black and white although a handful are also represented in color. The Literary Map of Latin America (p 162) is beyond cool. So is The Call of The Wild by Jack London map (p 177).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter “Your Tax Dollars at Work: Good Reading From the Government (Really!)” (p 239). Pearl is serious. Language of the Land is great!

Dulce Et Decorum Est

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Owen, Wilfred. “Dulce Et Decorum Est.” The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen. London: Chatto & Windus, 1964. 55.

I think this has to be one of the most famous poems of all times. It is certainly the most famous poem about World War I that I can think of. It’s imagery is so vivid I often recoil from the words as I try to read them. I only think I can imagine the horror of what the soldiers experienced on the battlefields. I can only pretend to feel the pain of their mental and physical traumas. Wilfred Owen has you standing in the trenches with stench of blood and mud in your nose. He has you hearing the bombs whistle and explode in your ears. He has your eyes tearing as they burn from the green gasses and the death of friends.

Lines that killed me:
“As under a green sea, I saw him drowning”
“His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin…”

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter “Poetry Pleasers” (p 188).

Edited to add: Some people prefer their poetry in a more lyrical manner. Check out “The Latin One” (10,000 Maniacs, Hope Chest – 1990) for their interpretation.

Love, Loss, and What I Wore

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Mr. StylishBeckerman, Ilene. Love, Loss, and What I Wore. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 1995.

This is on the list in honor of National Fashion Month. Someone told me it really does exists (this fashion month), so I’ve added a bunch of books to the April List. Go Figure.
Anyway, back to Love, Loss, and What I Wore. What a freakin’ cute book. At first I was a cynic and thought, geeze, if this is writing then anyone can do it! Basically Beckerman’s book is small, 139 page, 50% illustrated, all about what she wore throughout major moments of her life. We’re only talking about 65 pages of text which only took me 25 minutes to read (twice). But, in all actuality I loved it. Here are a few reasons why:
I have a lot in common with Beckerman despite the fact she grew up in New York City in the 1940’s and 50’s. For example:

  • Her sister had a significant other who didn’t like her name and insisted on calling her something completely different (ahem)
  • She sometimes wore clothing backwards because it suited her better that way ( 🙂 )
  • She went to Simmon College (yup)
  • She has a fur coat from Bonwit Teller (don’t hate me)
  • She has shopped at the Short Hills Mall (you have too, RT!)
  • She prefers black (duh)

Quotes that caused me to think:
“After I went to love with my grandparents, I never saw my father again” (p 40).
“In another drawer she kept a long, thick, auburn braid of hair that my mother had saved from when she was young and had cut her hair. It was about fourteen inches in length, and sometimes I wore it as a chignon” (p 86). Does anyone else find this a little funky?

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter “Do Clothes Make the Man (or Woman)?” (p 75).

Franklin And Lucy

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Persico, Joseph E. Franklin and Lucy: President Roosevelt, Mrs. Rutherfurd, and the Other Remarkable Women in His Life. New York: Random House, 2008.

Here’s what went on LibraryThing:
When I finally finished the last page of Franklin and Lucy I had two very different thoughts. The first was this was a well written, very thorough biography of the social side of the Roosevelts. It was written in an easy, conversational style that, at times, was hard to put down. The detail given to who, what, where, when, and why made you feel as though you were experiencing every aspect of the era. My second thought was it was an unfortunate title for a work comprised of so much more than just the relationships of Franklin D. Roosevelt. A more accurate title would have included Eleanor. A possible option could have been Franklin and Eleanor: Mrs Rutherfurd, and the Other Remarkable Women in their lives. Another option would be to remove any section dealing with Eleanor that didn’t include her husband’s involvement and focus solely on Franklin.
The other detraction from the book was Perisco’s almost obsessive need to repeatedly include Lucy Rutherfurd’s physical description in such flowery detail. While Franklin’s oft repeated “barrel chested” description was needed to stress his need to hide his disability (and to emphasize his physical decline before his death), and Eleanor’s lack of beauty was important in context to her character as being tragic and unlovable, they were not mentioned nearly as often as Lucy’s exquisiteness.

As an aside (something that didn’t go on LibraryThing), how awful is this? I kept comparing myself to Eleanor! Before you think I’ve gone crazy, hear me out: Perisco described Eleanor as:

  • when stressed Eleanor’s voice grew shrill
  • was insecure
  • was earnest instead of vivacious
  • “schoolmarm air about her”
  • Eleanor failed to recognize humor
  • oblivious to fashion, often choosing sensible over stylish
  • overwhelmed by children
  • suspicious about kindness
  • fought for the underdog

OKay, so I will never go onto greatness and my marriage is a thousand million trillion times better, but the other stuff fits. Kinda sorta maybe.

Three Roads to the Alamo

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Davis, C. William, Three Roads to the Alamo: The Lives and Fortunes of David Crockett, James Bowie, and William Barret Travis. New York: HarperPerennial, 1999.

When I first picked up Three Roads I thought to myself there is no way I want to carry this thing around with me. It’s nearly 800 pages long, and despite the pages being super thin, it’s a heavy book. However, when I quickly calculated that in order to finish Three Roads by the end of March (the month Texas became a state), I would need to read over 40 pages a day I decided carry it around, I would! 
When I read the reviews for Davis’s book one word always seemed to pop up: exhaustive. Exhaustive research, exhaustive detail, exhaustive portraits, exhaustive this, exhaustive that. It’s true. There is so much detail given to not only the personalities and lives of Crockett, Bowie, and Travis, but to the culture and landscape of both politics and era as well. It’s as if the reader is witness to the pioneering growth of Louisiana, Texas and Virginia by default. History, politics and geography all rolled into one book.
Because not much is known about Crockett, Bowie and Travis each has become a legend beyond compare. Using as much information as he was able to research (exhaustively) Davis does a great job trying to dispel rumor and myth surrounding each man, admitting that these are men of folklorish proportions, but not much of it can be substantiated.
Confession: knowing there was no way I was going to finish this in time I skipped to the last chapter of the book. It is, of course, the end of Crockett, Bowie and Travis. Davis paints a tragic picture of what their last days must have been like in Alamo, Texas. The one image that kept playing in my mind was the uncertainty of their fates. When their families did not hear from them they could only speculate and worry. Word travelled slowly in those days. A telegram dispatched two weeks earlier can give loved ones the impression you are still alive despite the fact you died the next day.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter “Texas: Lone Star State of Mind” (p 233).

HUGE woops. This was supposed to be published last month!

Deep in the Green

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Raver, Anne. Deep in the Green: an Exploration of Country Pleasures. New York: Vintage, 1996. 

For LibraryThing: Anne Raver is a writer and gardener but it’s hard to tell which came first. Her enthuasism for growing things (outside for she doesn’t deal with indoor plants well) shows in every word she writes in every essay. In the beginning I wanted Deep in the Green to be one of those nonfiction journals about a gardener making a life for herself after divorce. Diving into the growing after a relationship dies. Instead, Deep in the Green is best described as a series of essays that barely connect to one another but have a central theme…gardening & growing. As a columnist for the New York Times I guess it’s easy to string a bunch of essays together and call it a book.

Favorite quotes:
“You know how the army is. they send you here , they send you there. Vietnam. Ohio. ‘I learned Thai no trouble, but I never did figure out what language they were speaking in Cleveland'” (p 24).
“Still we are drawn homeward, unable to erase our bloodlines” (p 42).
“I like to learn this way. Like learning to float or ride a bicycle. You can’t imagine doing it before you do it, but you have to imagine it in order to do it. And then you never forget” (p 155).
“I’m not sure what their religion is. Food, maybe” (p 173).

Thanks to this book I learned the latin name for a favorite flower I never bothered to look up (clematis jackmanni) and an interesting fact about poppies being illegal to grow (makes me think about how many times I’ve seen the federal law broken). Probably my favorite part about reading Deep in the Green is that once I got over the disjointed essays I read it with a salivating imagination. Anne Raver writes like I eat – straight from the garden, the bush or tree. I’ve tried to describe that foraging feeling – that satisfaction which comes from eating off Earth’s plate.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter “Gear Up For Gardening” (p 96).

Translator

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IMG_0486Hari, Daoud. The Translator: a Tribesman’s Memoir of Darfur. New York: Random House, 2008. (expected publish date 3/18/08)

This is the third Early Review book I received within a month. It’s the final reason why I put the BookLust challenge on hold for February. All in all, I’ve reviewed a total of nine books for the ER program with a 10th on the way.

Anyway, back to the review book. Written so, so, so beautifully I could have quoted a passage that moved me on every single page. Here is a sampling of powerful and compelling quotes: I could write a blog about each one!
“You have to be stronger than your fears to get anything done in this world” (p 11). This reminds me of my good friend RT.
“It is hard to know where grace comes from” (p 26).
Ahmed’s arm on my shoulder was the gentleness of home” (p 48).
The best way to bury your pain is to help others and lose yourself in that” (p 63).
“You have to find a way to laugh a little bit each day despite everything, or your heart will simply run out of the joy that makes it go” (p 89).
“Poverty generously provides every man with a colorful past” (p 144).
“But what, not counting family, is more important that friendship?” (p 170)

There was humor in the words, as well:
“He looked the way British look when they are upset by some unnecessary inconvenience” (p 7)…and this is while our author hero has a gun to his head!
“to not get killed is a very good thing” (p 9). So now you know he got out of the aforementioned dilemma!
“These are the cruel commanders? It looks as though they eat all their prisoners” (p 148). This being said while overweight Sudanese generals make their way over to where Hari is being held prisoner! The LibraryThing review:

Despite the humor and lyrical language quoted above there is real pain in Hari’s story. This is not a CNN stale report or an 12 line article hidden on the back pages of the New York Times. This is a real, first-hand, in your face account of the atrocities happening in Darfur. Hari, working as a translator for the English speaking press, knows it all too well. After escaping the massacres he does only what a true hero and humanitarian would do, he goes back to Darfur to help journalists spread the word to the rest of the world. How he is able to recount vivid horrors of his community, his people, his family with such grace and compassion is beyond me. Even when he is captured and tortured there is a calm to his recounting. Thanks to Daoud Hari the world is learning…and trying to help.

This was probably the most influential Early Review book I have ever read. It has prompted me to register to run a 5K in Albany, New York this spring. In the words of David Bowie, “do whatever you can, however small.”

His Excellency

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IMG_0571Ellis, Joseph J. His Excellency: George Washington. New York: Afred A Knopf, 2004.

In honor of Presidents’ Day and Washington’s birthday. The LT review: Ellis writes in an easy, flowing style. Almost conversational in tone, Washington’s life comes alive as the pages turn. While not a great deal of evidence of Washington’s personal life has survived, Ellis does a fantastic job filling in the gaps with Washington’s military career and political rise to power. The text is supplemented by a few pages of photographs – mostly portraits Washington had commissioned of himself.

A few of my favorite quotes that make Washington seem less historical and more human. First, a  description of Washington as a 20-something year old man: “He was the epitome of the man’s man: physically strong, mentally enigmatic, emotionally restrained” (p 12).
A commnet on Washington’s unique military order: “…when a ranger…is killed in action, continue his salary for 28 days to pay for his coffin” (p 26).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter “Founding Fathers” (p 91). Last month I read about Benjamin Franklin from the same chapter. Note to self: Self, don’t read anything from that chapter in March!

American Century

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Evans, Harold. The American Century. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998.

Weighing in at over 700 pages, American Century is nothing short of gorgeous. Bold black and white photos stand out on nearly every page, while satiric comics adorn the others. I have always loved the Brown Brothers photo of the construction workers on the Woolworth Building and was pleasantly surprised to see its inclusion on page xvii. 

I liked learning that President Cleveland bought the “dirt” on an opponent and upon receiving the envelope burned it, unopened, on the spot. He also suffered from cancer of the mouth and had an entire artificial jaw.

“You feel small in the presence of dead men, and you don’t ask silly questions” (p 332).
Here’s the LibraryThing version of my review:
“Any history buff should have this sitting on his or her shelf (and have a shelf sturdy enough to support this 700+ book). Chock full of intriguing cartoons and mesmerizing photographs, American Century covers every aspect of U.S. history from 1889 to the mid 1990s. Well written with commentaries and first hand accounts, history comes alive. The people, the politics, the power, the pitiful downfalls. The 20th century is laid out and every historical moment of worth is described and detailed.”

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust and the chapter “American History: Fiction” (p 21). I have to explain that this isn’t fiction. Pearl referenced The American Century while talking about Ken Baker’s novels. Ken Baker helped Harold Evans with The American Century.