Category: NonFiction

Life on the Mississippi

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Twain, Mark. Life on the Mississippi. Oxford University Press, 1996.

Reason read: June is supposedly National River Cleanup month. I bet the Mississippi could stand a cleanup every now and again.

Twain was obviously in love with the Mississippi River. He gives a historical perspective of what was happening (and not) in the year 1542. He astounds the reader with a barrage of facts. I am not about the check validity of his claims, but here are a couple: You weren’t anyone until you got a job on the mighty river and pilot was the most coveted position. To put Life on the Mississippi into perspective, in 1874 there were only twenty-eight states and territories. The south was wide open territory.
One of the cool things about reading Life on the Mississippi is that the reader gains insight about Twain’s work in progress, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He calls it a story about “an ignorant village boy” and shares a chapter or two. Another insight is how Samuel Clemens became Mark Twain. While piloting the Mississippi Clemens learned that the words mark twain come from a call for the measured depth of a river. And just like that a pen name is born.
All in all, Twain is a masterful storyteller. Keep that in mind when you read Life on the Mississippi because not everything he says is true and the second half of the book is all over the place. Wouldn’t it be great to have dinner with Twain and ask him what he was thinking when he put together the second half of Life on the Mississippi? My favorite part was the detailed description of New Orleans and the cemeteries.

As an aside, does anyone else think that the portrait of Mark Twain looks like a scowling grump?

Favorite quote, “…there is music in the rush of water…” (p 145). Yes, yes there is. Here is another, “I killed Brown every night for months; not in the old, stale, commonplace ways, but in new and picturesque ones, – ways that were sometimes surprising for freshness of design and ghastliness of situation and environment” (p 224).

Author fact: Samuel Clemens was a very influential person in his community.

Book trivia: my copy of Life on the Mississippi contained over three hundred illustrations. Another point to note: in addition to Twain’s story there is one page for the editor’s note, nineteen pages for the foreword (written by Shelley Fisher Fishkin), twenty-two pages for the introduction (written by Willie Morris), eighteen pages for the afterword (written by Lawrence Howe), the table of contents takes up eight pages, the list of illustrations takes up another six, and there are 30 pages of appendices.

Music: “Buffalo Gals, Can’t You Come Out?” “Battle of Prague”, “Bird Waltz”, “Arkansas Traveller”, “Rosin the Bow”, “Marseilles Hymn”, “On a Barren Isle”, “The Last Link is Broken”, “She Wore a Wreath of Roses”, “Go, Forget Me”, “Long Long Ago”, “Days of Absence”, “A Life on the Ocean Wave”, “Bird at Sea”,

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapters called “Companion Reads” (p 63) and again in “Rivers of Words” (p 202). Here’s what I find really interesting. Nancy does not have a “Mark Twain: Too Good To Miss” chapter in any of her Lust books. Why not? She certainly lists a few he has penned: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the Adventures of Huckleberry Sawyer, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Innocents Abroad, Life on the Mississippi, the Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg, Roughing It and even essays in In a Fog. Mr. Twain is indexed in all three Lust books.

Iberia

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Michener, James. Iberia: Spanish Travels and Reflections. Random House, 1968.

Reason read: There is a fiesta that happens every May in Madrid, but this took me through June.

There is an intimacy to James Michener’s Iberia. The way he lovingly describes Spain from every angle and walk of life is a work of art and the photography, even though it is in black and white, is just gorgeous. Religion, art, history, bullfighting, theater, politics, architecture, education, transportation, tourism, ecology, labor, society, food, weather, dancing, fashion, family. I don’t think there is a single subject that Michener doesn’t touch upon. Michener is proud to call Iberia: Spanish Travels and Reflections the “book of a tourist”. Indeed, he has experience as a world traveler. He spent time in Pakistan and the Soviet Union, to name a couple of places, so he developed a keen understanding of foreign cultures. This is demonstrated thoroughly in the pages of Iberia. Be forewarned! The information is extremely dated so it is hard to discern current fact from history. Is the cab situation as bad as it was in the 1960s? Michener’s now and then comparisons were humorous considering how old Iberia has become. Here are a few more examples: Madrid used to be dark, but at the time Iberia was written, new streetlights lined the roads. What about now? Fashion prices used to be low. There were few elevators, but there were more newspapers. The drink of choice used to be wine. Now in the 1960s, people drink beer. Indeed, the 1960s seems fashionable, especially when remembering what a good year 1594 was…
Interesting facts: the hideous costume of the Ku Klux Klan was “borrowed” from a religious procession in Sevilla.

Favorite quotes to quote, “What I am saying is that Spain is a very special country, and one must approach it with respect and his eyes wide open” (p 25), “…no humility to make them approach the country on its own term” (p 325), and “Any nation that can eat churros and chocolate for breakfast is not required to demonstrate courage in other ways” (p 431). I do not know what that means.

Author fact: Michener traveled Spain for forty years.

Book trivia: Iberia includes a robust 160 pages of full-sized back and white photographs taken by Robert Vavra.

Playlist: Albeniz, Alfredo Kraus, “Anchors Aweigh”, “Ave Maria”, Bach, the Beatles, Beethoven’s 5th and 3rd and 9th, Brahms, Carmen de Manuel de Falla, Claude Debussy, Don Luis Morondo, Dvorak, Garcia Lorcas, Granados Felipe Pedrell, Isaac Albeniz, Johann Sebastian Bach, Joan Sutherland, Juan del Encina, La tia de Carlos, “Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias”, Mass of Pope Macellus, Mahalia Jackson’s “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands”, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, “The Nun’s Song”, Officium Defunetorum, “Old Black Joe”, “Petenera”, Richard Strauss, Rigoletto, Schubert, Sibelius, “Soldiers Chorus”, “Torre Bermeja”, Turina, and many more.

Nancy said: Pearl called Iberia another good book to read about Spain.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the very simple chapter called “Spain” (p 218).

Old Glory

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Raban, Jonathan. Old Glory: an American Voyage. Simon and Schuster, 1981.

Reason read: read as a companion to Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain (which was read in honor of National River Cleanup month).

Raban was captivated by the story of Huckleberry Finn in 1949. He never forgot it, so in September of 1979 he decides to retrace Huck’s journey. Imagine traveling down the massive and mighty Mississippi River in a borrowed 16′ aluminum boat with just an outboard motor. He didn’t even have a radio to communicate with the larger tows.
Probably the biggest surprise of Old Glory was how much time Raban spends talking about being on shore comingling with the locals. He finds people to feed him and give him rides. He even spends a night or two in the homes of strangers and goes on a few dates. One date becomes serious enough for him to start using words like our garden and we went to church. He takes the time to hang out in bars to listen to the locals gossip and fight and gets caught up in both from time to time. He speaks to schoolchildren about his adventures (and they are not impressed). He hunts racoon, visits the Oscar Mayer factory workers on strike, attends a pig roast and crashes a house warming party. He stays with a taxidermist. He tries to talk politics by asking the locals about the upcoming election to get a sense of the political climate (and they are not impressed with Jimmy Carter). He romanticizes the writings of Twain, Dickens, Trollope, and Thoreau as he learns to listen to the Mississippi River’s moods and heed her whims.
One of my favorite parts was when Raban took on hitchhiking Monarch butterflies as they migrated down to Venezuela and Columbia.
In all honesty, I couldn’t tell if Raban was happy with the conclusion of his journey. Was it worth it and what did he do with the borrowed outboard motor boat?

As an aside, can I say I was shocked when Raban threw the empty cigarette pack into the river? I had to remind myself that Raban was not piloting down the Mississippi for the love of nature; that was not his goal.
On a personal note, Raban mentioned a poky little movie house in Northampton, Massachusetts; watching Twiggy in “The Boy Friend”. The year was 1972 so my husband’s family was not in town, but it was cool to see a town name I not only recognized, but had visited many, many times.

Lines I liked, “It is hard to make travel arrangements to visit a dream” (p 16) and “High wakes from towboats came rolling at me through my dreams” (p 48).

Author fact: other Raban books I have on my Challenge list include Passage to Juneau, Coasting, Waxwings, and Bad Land.

Playlist: Andre Kostelanetz, Aida, Barbra Streisand, Big Bopper’s “Chantilly Lace”, “Camptown Races”, Carol Lawrence’s “Tell All the World About Love”, Dave Brubeck, “Jingle Bell Rock”, Judy Garland’s “Meet Me in St. Louis”, “I Want That Mountain”, “It Is Well with My Soul”, Len Mink, Miles Davis, “Old Man River”, “On Blueberry Hill”, Patience and Prudence’s “Tonight You Belong To Me”, “Saints”, Scott Joplin, “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”, Smokey Robinson’s “You Better Shop Around”, “South Rampart Street Parade”, and Verdi’s requiem “Dies Irae”.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the forgotten chapter “Water, Water Everywhere” (p 254), and again in Book Lust twice. First, in the chapter “Companion Reads” (p 62) and again in “Rivers of Words” (p 202).

Early Days in the Range of Light

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Arnold, Daniel. Early Days in the Range of Light: encounters with legendary mountaineers. Counterpoint, 2009.

Reason read: In honor of nature.

What makes Early Days in the Range of Light so special is that Arnold not only follows in the footsteps of great naturalists and mountaineers from 1864 to 1931, he truly wants to be in their company. He says of one excursion, “I joined their little camp, too, as best I could with 143 years between us” (p 11) and “They sat on top for an hour or so, and I shared their seat for half that time” (p 216). He imagines where each adventurer slept, ate, and placed every toehold while climbing majestic mountains. There is a romance to Arnold’s writing; a deep appreciation for the California mountains and the ghosts that linger there.
Having just spent three short days exploring the wonders of Yosemite, I could picture every landmark Arnold mentioned: Half Dome, Yosemite Fall, Glacier Point, El Capitan, I could go on. Early Days in the Range of Light is probably my favorite book I have read this year.

I love it when a book teaches me something unexpected. The art of Bolton Coit Brown is fantastic and I had never heard of him before. Joseph LeConte spent sixteen years to map the entire Sierra Range in comprehensive detail, the first of its kind. Naming a mountain peak after your institution of education was a thing.

Lines I liked, “But I have begun to see the limitations imposed by the lines we draw” (p 181) and “The mountains have a way of propagating human echoes” (p 244).

Natalie Merchant connection: Every time a man left his family to climb a mountain or spend days hiking in the wilderness I thought of the line, “Can you love the land and love me, too?” from Cowboy Romance.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” (p 64).

Meetings with Remarkable Trees

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Pakenham, Thomas. Meetings with Remarkable Trees. Random House, 1998.

Reason read: Arbor Day is in June in some states (the National Arbor Day is in April).

Thomas Pakenham proclaims Meetings with Remarkable Trees to be a “book of British tree portraits” and indeed, he has personified trees into categories of natives, travelers, shrines, fantasies, and survivors. He will tell you from where certain trees have immigrated like they are refugees of war. He will give their ages like gossip out of the tabloids.
My favorite section was about the trees he called shrines. These are the mystical trees that were sacred to the landscape and continue to hold ancient secrets. Remarkably beautiful.
In reading Meetings with Remarkable Trees I discovered that I absolutely love the Ginkgo biloba tree, but the Davidia Involucrata, the Handkerchief or Dove tree, is also truly beautiful. Another jaw-dropping fact I enjoyed learning concerned the Himalayan Magnolia and how its blooms grow to be almost a foot in diameter.
The unexpected delight of Meetings with Remarkable Trees was Pakenham’s subtle humor. I giggled when he called Aelian a killjoy. When Pakenham said he didn’t normally hugged trees I had to laugh because I do hug trees on a regular basis.
The true mastery of Meetings with Remarkable Trees is Pakenham’s ability to demonstrate the sheer size of each tree. Most photographs have a person standing next to the tree’s massive trunk for perspective. At the end of the book Pakenham includes a gazetteer which provides information on the National Trust trees, the Forest Enterprise trees, the trees that are regularly accessible to the public and those that are on private property.

Author fact: Pakenham is an Earl.

Book trivia: take the time to read Pakenham’s acknowledgments. He actually takes the time to thank landowners for allowing him to photograph trees on their property.

Playlist: Handel

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Dewey Deconstructed: 500s” (p 70).

Presenters Aren’t Robots

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Pettit, F. Annie. Presenter’s Aren’t Robots: a Practical Guide to Becoming a Fearless and Engaging Public Speaker. 2024.

Reason read: as a member of the Early Review program for LibraryThing I get to read interesting books. This is one of them.

I struggle to call Presenters Aren’t Robots a full length book. There are only seventy-five pages of text. Chapter one doesn’t begin until page eleven, but that’s me reading it on my phone. Maybe the print version will be different.
Practical is the key word to Presenters Aren’t Robots. Most of the suggestions were intuitive. I learned a few things (it was cool to see AI art options mentioned) and relearned a few things (handouts are still a thing). Some information was micro-detailed (like explaining the colored buttons on a clicker for a presentation), while other information was vague (like no suggestions of software for presentations). I appreciated the speaker checklist the most. I am sure I will use it in the future. Aside from a few typos and font changes, I found Presenters Aren’t Robots to be a helpful and friendly book.

As an aside, why all the illustrations of robots if presenters aren’t robots? Are the robots the audience?

Author fact: Pettit mentors people in public speaking and she is a marketing research author.

I Sleep Around

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Jaffarian, Sue Ann. I Sleep Around: the Humorous Memoir of a Nomadic Writer. Harbor Lane Books, 2024.

Reason read: An Early Review selection from LibraryThing…another travelogue book. I am sensing a pattern with my preferences. Ha!

How to describe I Sleep Around? Part primer on how to retire to a life on the road with tips and tricks to make the transition to fulltime traveler, part humorous travelogue and touching memoir. Sue Ann Jaffarian will help you keep your body, sanity, and snail mail healthy while on the road for long periods of time. She can help you chose an RV of the right size, the right amount of storage, and any other options you desire. She found “Novella”, her Winnebago Travato 59K, to be just perfect for her new life as a nomadic writer. When I Sleep Around takes a break from RV instruction in the first quarter of the book, Jaffarian talks about the business of writing as a professional before circling back to RV repairs. The second half detailed the places she visited along her five-year journey.
As an aside, I found it interesting that she chose to switch to RV life before officially retiring from her job as a paralegal. Juggling both the planning for a life on the road and finishing up a career must have been exhausting and emotional.
The section on RVing during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown was interesting for those of us who were housebound for that period.
Jaffarian makes the claim that travel changes you. I would have loved for her to expound on that. Tell me more about that metamorphosis. I am so curious! Another wish – I wish Jaffarian would have included a compiled list of all of the attractions she was able to take in along her journey. It would have been cool to have a directory of interesting places to visit. High on my list is the Tabasco factory. I put that sauce on everything! Pictures would have been cool, too.

Question: has Jaffarian read Gogarty? Paul’s Coast Road is a similar excursion.

Confessional: Jaffairian’s first test camp was Yosemite. I have decided to make visiting all the U. S. national parks a life goal. My first official park since choosing this challenge is Yosemite. Other things we have in common: she and I share the “alone” trait. She likes sightseeing and sleeping alone in parking lots. I prefer to run alone, watch tv, and cook alone. As she says, “loneliness is not about being alone” (a line I hope she keeps in I Sleep Around). I fully agree.

Author fact: I love Jaffarian’s independence, confidence and humor. If she wrote I Sleep Around to get people interested in her fiction, job well done. I plan to look her up on the socials and possibly read an earlier book or two. She wrote the Odelia Grey, Granny Apples, and Zelda Bowen series; as well as the Madison Rose Vampire mysteries.

On Being Different

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Miller, Merle. On Being Different. Random House, 1987.

Reason read: Merle Miller celebrated a birthday in May. Read in his honor.

The prejudice one has for homosexuals borders on insane, yet it exists. Why anyone would see a link between homosexuality and communism is beyond me. Same with thinking marriage could be a potential “cure” for homosexuality. These are the beliefs of the ignorant. It took Miller fifty years to come out of the closet. That is an unimaginable length of time to hide one’s true self yet it happens all the time. Miller’s essay “On Being Different” is a valiant attempt to respond to the ignorant and expose the human side of love. He discusses the prejudices and fears without flinching. There is grace threaded throughout his anger.

Book trivia: the foreword was written by Dan Savage. Afterword One was written by Merle Miller. Afterword Two was written by Charles Kaiser. Acknowledgments were written by Carol Hanley. On Being Different is only a twenty-one page essay, but with all these other additions and appendices A through C is becomes a much longer book.

Confessional: I, too, like Halloween for all of its mask wearing.

Playlist: Paul Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Peggy Lee’s “Love Story”, Liberace, Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, and “We Shall Overcome”.

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

Titan

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Chernow, Ron. Titan: the Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. Narrated by Grover Gardner. Blackstone Publishing, 2013.

Reason read: April is Banking Month.

Chernow has a knack for digging into the details of a person’s life, personally and professionally. He took on the project of writing John D. Rockefeller Sr’s life story after he studied other biographies about the man and discovered that significant parts of Rockefeller’s life had either been glossed over or omitted altogether. Other biographers (who shall remain nameless) focused more on Rockefeller the business man than Rockefeller the person after retirement. Even though it is true that John D. Rockefeller was history’s first billionaire, he had an interesting life beyond the lifelong quest for money. Never mind the fact that at a young age he did declare that someday “he was going to be the richest man in America.” There was more to the man than business smarts. He was a man of great contradictions. While he was a ruthless businessman hell bent on crippling competitors, he also understood the benefits of philanthropy and gave generous to causes and people in which he believed. He continuously bailed his brother out of debt time and time again while disowning his father just as often. More on that later.
By having unrestricted access to interviews and papers and by using Rockefeller’s own memoirs, Chernow was able to weave a first person voice throughout the history of the times.
I was always taught to respect my elders, no matter what my relationship to them. Rockefeller disowned his father at a very young age, telling people his father was dead; his mother, a widow. Indeed, “Big Bill” was a bigamist, scam artist, and liar. Not someone John D. wanted to be associated with. Luckily, John’s relationship with his own son, Junior, was not a contemptuous relationship.
By the end of Titan I was overwhelmed by number of projects to whom the Rockefeller name is attached: the Museum of Modern Art, the Grand Tetons, Acadia, Colonial Williamsburg, I could go on and on.

Confessional: I do not understand how someone considered frugal with a rural background cannot be fastidious. Maybe what Chernow was trying to say was that Rockefeller was frugal, and from a poor background, a skinflint. Rockefeller bought expensive clothes which he wore with impeccable immaculacy.

One degree of separation from Natalie Merchant: she and John D. Rockefeller, Sr. share a fascination with Joan of Arc.

Author fact: Chernow won a Pulitzer in 2011 for nonfiction biography. He also has his own website.

Book trivia: Titan includes two sections of black and white photographs. I have to say Rockefeller was a stern looking man.

Playlist: Beethoven, Handel, Mozart, Chopin, “Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow”, and “Hesitation Waltz”.

Nancy said: Pearl said if you like Chernow, you should read Titan.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Founding Fathers” (p 91). Confessional: this book shouldn’t be in this chapter. Rockefeller was not a founding father. Pearl included Titan because of Chernow’s other biographies.

Coast Road

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Gogarty, Paul. The Coast Road: a 3,000 mile journey around the edge of England. Robson Books, 2007.

Reason read: April is the month in which Earth Day is celebrated. Gogarty took the time to travel around his corner of the earth.

Gogarty faithfully records the sights, sounds, and smells of villages and people he meets along his journey around the coast of England. All 2,800 miles of it in a newly acquired emotive motorhome he named Sid Sundance. He is no stranger to traveling around England. Gogarty previously spent four month on a pilgrimage around 900 miles of England’s inland waterways. This time he is traveling from town to town following the sea. At every stop he meets interesting people. From refugees seeking asylum to fishermen and artists; a man who poses as Dracula for tourists.
There is a sadness to Gogarty’s observations and conversations with locals in these poor seaside towns. Like Coney Island in New York, the grandness of the metropole in the late 1800s has all been changed since the devastation of war. The nostalgic heyday of Joseph Conrad and Henry James has given way to gaudy health clubs and modern art galleries with bad art. Gogarty describes the depressed area like a deflated balloon long forgotten after a birthday party. The children have all gone home and the decorations droop neglected. But Coast Road is not just a travelogue. You will get history lessons, studies in architecture, a running commentary on ecology and natural history, humor.
Can I just say I loved Gogarty’s writing? Every sentence was a explosion of imagery filled with aching beauty. My heart broke for the fisherman who could not quit the sea even though he had long since resigned himself to a life on terra firma. I smiled at the delightful memory of the Gogarty family bombing down the road – mom and dad on a motorcycle while the kids (all three of them) snuggled in the sidecar. Fast forward to adulthood: the advance of technology and the ability to send copy from the comfort of the front seat of Gogarty’s car elicited a grin from me. I would like to visit the pub that can only serve three guests at one time.

As an aside, I liked Gogarty’s “see no” monkeys. He has four: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, and “hopefully do no evil”.
Second aside, I never thought about England being “stuck” between America and the Continent.
Third aside, how exactly does a Dutch auction work? It doesn’t make sense to me.

Quote I immediately identified with: “As an island race, we are all suckled by the sea, and whatever the particulars of the image seared on our memory, inside each of us there is an seaside all our own” (p xii). Amen.
Here is one I liked for its subtle humor, “the current PC climate has meant less of Punch knowing seven bells out of Judy” (p 68). Another amen. Another example of Gogarty being funny, “It has existed since 1050 and doesn’t look as if its had a lick of paint since” (p 270).

Author fact: Coast Road is actually Gogarty’s second travelogue. I am not reading the first, The Water Road.

Book trivia: Coast Road includes a collection of delightful color photographs.

Gogarty likes his music! Playlist: Abba, “Aint No Stopping Us Now”, “Aint She Sweet”, Albert King, “All You Need is Love”, “And Then He Kissed Me”, Andy Sheppard Trio, Anthony Keidis, Bay City Rollers, Beatles’ “Love Me Do” and She Loves You” , Ben Waters’ Boogie Band, Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock”, Bob Dylan’s “New Morning”, Billy J Kramer’s “Bad To Me”, “Born to be Wild”, “Bunty’s Such a Big Girl Now”, “California Dreaming”, “Anything Goes” by Cole Porter, Charlie Drake, “Da-Doo-Ron-Ron”, “Delilah”, The Denisons, Des O’Connor, Dr John’s “Iko Iko”, Elvis Presley, Eminem’s “Cleaning Out My Closet”, “England Swings”, “Evergreen”, “A Fine Romance”, Four Tops, Gillian Welch, “God Bless the Child” by Billie Holiday, George Harrison, “God Save the King”, “Good Golly Miss Molly”, Hank Marvin, Hank Williams, “Hi Ho Silver Lining”, Howlin’ Wolf, “Imagine”, “It’s Raining Men”, JJ Cale’s Troubadour album, James Brown, Jalikunda Cissokho, Jamiroquai, “Jesu, Lover of My Soul”, John Lennon, John Martyn’s “London Conversation”, John Williams, “Joy and Pain” by Maze, Julian Bream, Keith Moon, “Land of Hope and Glory”, “Little Ukulele in My Hand”, Lulu, Luvvers’ “Shout”, Mary J Blige’s “No More Pain”, Miles Davis, Morrissey, the Mojos, “Mr Wu’s a Window Cleaner Now”, Nat King Cole, Nickleback, “Night and Day”, Nolan Sisters, O Jay’s “I Love Music”, The Pogues, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ringo, Robert Johnson, Roger Daltry, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, Rose Royce, Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Woman”, Ry Cooder, Screaming Lord Such, Sex Pistols, Skatalites, Solo’s “Blowing My Mind”, The Stranglers, Stevie Marriott, Stevie Wonder, “A Summer Place”, Temptations, Tom Jones’ “It’s Not Unusual”, Tonic, the Troggs’ “The Very Thought of You” and “I Can’t Control Myself”, Tower of Power’s “It Really Doesn’t Matter”, The Undertakers, “We are Family”, “Wild Thing”, Watership Brass, Waterson: Carthy, The White Stripes, Willie Nelson, Van Morrison, Vera Lynn, and “Uptown Girl”.

Nancy said: Pearl called Coast Road excellent.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Entering England” (p 76).

Out of Africa

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Dinesen, Isak. Out of Africa. Modern Library, 1992.

Reason read: Karen (Isak) Blixen Dinesen was born on April 17th, 1885. Read in her honor. I also needed a book for the Portland Public Library Reading Challenge in the category of a book with a bird on the cover.

Karen (Isak) Christenze Dinesen von Blixen-Finecke was a woman well ahead of her time. There is no denying her courage, independence, intelligence and strength. To be a Danish woman living alone on a four thousand acre coffee plantation in the early 1900s takes fortitude. Her famous memoir, Out of Africa, covers her adventurous life in Kenya from 1914 to 1931. Whether it is keeping a pet antelope named Lulu, being caught in the middle of a shooting tragedy, or being at the bedside of a dying Kikuyus chief, Dinesen seems to have a deep understanding of, and respect for, her surroundings. She understood the cultures of the tribes with whom she lived. Agreeing with Kikuyus custom of not burying their dead and letting the African wilderness take care of their remains is one such example. She was respected within the tribal communities.
Personally, the elephant in the Out of Africa room was who was the real squatter on this plantation. Dinesen acknowledged that the squatters (who she employed) were born there, and their fathers’ fathers before them. Instead of saying the land is their birthright she states, “they likely regarded me as sort of a superior squatter on their estate” (p 10). Note the use if the word likely. Dinesen, being from Denmark, technically had no right to claim the land as inheritably hers. By the end of Out of Africa she came to a different conclusion by saying, “It is more than their land that you take from the people, whose Native land you take” (p 385). This, as she was returning to Denmark and leaving her squatters to displacement.

Author fact: Dinesen married her second cousin but divorced him in 1921. She then took a lover until his untimely death in 1929. I appreciated the fact that Karen kept this personal part of her life out of the pages of Out of Africa. As a memoir about Kenya, her romances, failed or otherwise, had nothing to with it.

Book trivia: Out of Africa has been called a masterpiece. I would have to agree, but I would have liked to see at least one photograph besides the author photograph on the back flap of the book. Confessional: I wanted to see Denys’ face so I Googled him.

Natalie Merchant degree of separation: there is a section of Out of Africa where Dinesen discusses the killing of elephants for their ivory tusks. the entire time I was reading the passage I kept hearing the 10,000 Maniacs song, “Hateful Hate” and the line “Curiosity spilled the blood of these for their spotted skins and ivory.” If you know the song, you can hear the chains being dragged continuously through the whole song.

Quotes to quote, “It is a moving thing to work together with a demon” (p 40), “There is something strangely determinate and fatal about a single shot in the night” (p 93),

Playlist: Beethoven’s Piano Concerto in G Major.

Nancy said: since Pearl mentions Out of Africa three times, it is safe bet to say she liked it. There is a part of me, however, that wonders if she brings it up because it is a classic and, well, easy to include.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Dreaming of Africa” (p 76) and again in Book Lust To Go in the chapters called “Africa: the Greenest Continent” (p 7) and “Kenya” (p 122).

Unexpected Light

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Elliot, Jason. An Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan. Picador Press,

Reason read: Victory Day in Afghanistan was on April 28th.

Elliot writes about Afghanistan with a passion that takes you along with him. You can practically smell and see the shops where one can buy shampoo, faux leather watch straps, sticky honey, blank staring heads of goats, army green grenades, prayer carpets, cooking pots, rotting vegetables, astringent medicine, wooly socks, or steel rockets…anything to suit your needs. His mission? To prove to the world that is was possible to travel alone in the places others shunned. (As an aside, what does he think of our world now? It is still possible?)
Besides passion, Elliot also writes with lyrical elegance. His statement about time being a river was stunning. It left me pondering my fishing abilities for days. Words like spectral, silent, ghostly, and luminous describe a simple ride through town, but those words also make the journey extra eerie and dangerous. He takes this imagery a step further by adding a touch of royalty by saying they are “kings in the night on our wild chariot” (p 47). It is a romantic image in a dangerous town for Elliot and his companion are out after curfew and could be shot on sight.
Speaking of danger, the section on the diabolical designs of landmines was difficult to read. I cringed as I read about explosives that were made out of plastic so that they would avoid detection by x-ray in a victim’s body. Or mines that “jumped in the air to about the height of a man’s groin before exploding” to cause a man the most damage and bleed to death…I could go on. My favorite section was when Elliot needed to distract himself from paralyzing fear. He fantasized about riding on the back of a giant fantastical simurgh and seeing with landscape from high above.
Elliot met with people with eyes open; people who supported the Taliban and even defended their actions, pointing out how order has been restored. Perception is truth to most people.
Personal observations: Can you imagine receiving a fax from someone chatting about curtain colors after you have been in the center of incoming tank rounds? It sounds inane.
When Elliot described people ripping off parts of Russian tanks and selling them for scrap I instantly thought of the opening scene to one of the Star Wars movies.
As an aside, I would understand why Elliot would want a guide traveling through unknown territories, but why does he need someone to sherpa (my verb) all his crap, too?

I mentioned before how elegant and lyrical Elliot’s writing is. Here are other examples: a brilliant description of a mood change, “…fell across my feelings” (p 208) or the removal of an ammunition belt, “slithering to the floor like an anaconda” (p 233). When Elliot described a ride in an overburdened vehicle struggling up a steep and windy mountainside I felt his fear as if I were right beside him. Here is another quote of brilliance, “Fear has its own seductive language” (p 265).

One degree of separation from Natalie Merchant moment: When describing the mysterious world of Sufi mysticism Elliot compared it to the ancient tale of the blend men and the elephant. The same story Natalie set to music on her double album, Leave Your Sleep.

Author fact: Elliot has a very simple but cool website. There isn’t a lot of information about him, but it’s still cool. If I could meet Elliot I would ask him if Beat ever read his book and if so, did he recognize himself as the one with the idiotic smile?

Book trivia: An Unexpected Light was the winner of the Thomas Cook/Daily Telegraph Travel Book Award.

Music: Mir Fakhruddin, Pavarotti’s Nessun dorma, and Puccini.

Nancy said: Pearl called An Unexpected Light perceptive and exciting.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “The Islamic World” (p 126).

Poker Face

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Lederer, Katy. Poker Face: a Girlhood Among Gamblers. Crown Publishers, 2003.

Reason read: Chris Ferguson is a famous American professional poker player who celebrates his birthday in April.

To be honest, I am not sure what to think about Poker Face: a Girlhood Among Gamblers. I found Lederer’s short memoir to be incredibly sad. While she has reached critical acclaim with her poetry, I am left wanting something else by the end of Poker Face. I can’t put my finger on why or what is missing. I found everyone in the Lederer family to be depressing and I have to wonder what they thought of Lederer’s tell-all book. Dad was a teacher at a New Hampshire boarding school before authoring books on word games, while the rest of the family takes up gambling in one form or another (mom goes to work for her son). While on the surface, Poker Face is the personal memories of one woman’s coming of age, the story takes the reader deep inside the mysterious world of gambling in New York and Vegas; specifically the card game that made her siblings famous, poker. In truth, it is more a primer on the ins and outs of learning the game. I learned more about professional gambling then I ever thought possible. I had no idea someone wrote a book on “tells” – the mannerisms and facial expressions that inadvertently give away a player’s hand or next move.

As an aside, when Lederer’s mother goes on the gameshow, “Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?” I couldn’t help but think of the Oxygen taping of Natalie Merchant’s concert. The end result, what viewers at home saw, was nothing like what happened live in the studio. The magic of editing!

Confessional: if I saw my mother sitting in the dark drinking and crying, and playing solitaire I would be freaked out.

Author fact: at the time of Poker Face‘s publication, Lederer was not even calling herself a writer. She worked for a proprietary trading firm.

Setlist: the soundtrack to Alanis Morrissette, Bob Marley, Chopin, Copland, “Convoy”, Duran Duran, Elvis, Phish, Sinatra, and Tracy Chapman.

Nancy said: Pearl called Poker Face fascinating.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Me, Me, Me: Autobiographies and Memoirs” (p 162).

Walk of Ages

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Andersen, Withanee with Jim Andersen. Walk of Ages: a Generational Journey from Mt. Whitney to Death Valley. University of Nevada Press, 2024.

Jim Andersen made the journey from Mt. Whitney to Death Valley with three friends in 1974, back when he was thirty years old. They called themselves the Sandwalkers. Now, forty-three years later (in 2017) daughter Withanee wants to honor her father by retracing his footsteps across Death Valley as she turns thirty. She enlists the help of a coworker, her brother, and her boyfriend to accompany her on this epic journey.
With Walk of Ages only being 177 pages, and with a generous amount of photographs, the whole story can be read in one sitting. I definitely thought Withanee could have made it longer. There was so much potential for more. The landscapes are barely described in any detail. I wanted to know about their experiences besides a bum knee, blisters and beer. The different perspective of the same walk with memories from dad was interesting, but it would have been fun to have more narratives from others like Val or Shawn. What went through your mind when you kept making wrong turns and getting lost? What was it like to know you were going to propose to Withanee on this trip?
Confessional: I also want to know how many cases of beer the Sandwalkers Second Edition consumed on their journey. There seemed to be a never-ending supply on ice and I lost count of how many times they said they were motivated and/or powered by India Pale Ale! The craft beer scene has exploded since 2017. I am sure Withanee and Shawn have new favorites.
My only secret letdown was that Withenee and crew didn’t follow the original trip as faithfully as they could have. Withanee talks about walking in her father’s footsteps and while that was virtually impossible in some places, the Sandwalkers Second Edition took shortcuts to shave off miles wherever they could.

As an aside, as someone who participated in a three-day, sixty-mile cancer charity walk, I know all about the blister on blister phenomenon. The trick a series of treatments: Vaseline, moleskin, duct tape, double layer socks (Wright socks were my favorite) and cross trainers (Asics have always been my go-to shoe)…in that order. After that first year I never had another blister or hot spot.

Playlist: “Lookin’ for a Reason” by Creedence Clearwater Revival (their theme song), “Dem Bones”, and the National Anthem.

Book trivia: the title of the book is a play on the hymn Rock of Ages.

Chasing Kangaroos

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Flannery, Tim. Chasing Kangaroos: a continent, a scientist, and a search for the world’s most extraordinary creature. Grove Press, 2004.

Reason read: I have no idea why.

Why do kangaroos hop? It sounds like the start to a marsupial joke. Tim Flannery wants to tell you the punch line. Chasing Kangaroos is a fun exploration into the evolution of kangaroos all the way up to the extinction of Australia’s megaflora. Flannery will explain the journey of kangaroos across the planet as Europeans brought them to places like London and Hawaii. Royalty wanted them as exotic pets to roam their palace grounds. Flannery’s style of explanation makes every kangaroo-related subject matter interesting and entertaining. I found myself pondering facts like the footbones of animals, kangaroo chromosomes, why some kangaroos do not hop, why some kangaroos live in trees, and how they are related to the possum. I know more about the male anatomy of a kangaroo than I ever wanted to know. For male readers, heads up. Flannery will urge you to trace your own male anatomy for evidence of ancestral evolution of the scrotum before the penis. You’re welcome.
At the end of Chasing Kangaroos Flannery ends on a hopeful note, speculating that some species previously thought extinct might actually still be around.

As an aside, I had to laugh at the mention of a mass spectrometer. I know what one looks like and how it functions, thanks to watching a true crime science show. I also know that some carpets are trilobal in nature, but that is neither here nor there.

Author fact: Everyone mentions The Weather Makers (Flannery’s landmark bestseller), but I am reading Thowim’ Way Leg and The Explorers.

Book trivia: Chasing Kangaroos has a gorgeous section of color photographs of quokka, wallaby, euro, bettong, and of course kangaroos. The author makes it into a few photographs as well.

Setlist: “Ave Maria”, “O Sole Mio”, “Back to Sorrento”, Tina Turner’s “Simply the Best”, Al Jolson, “My Mammy”, and “The Old at Home”.

Nancy said: Pearl said that Chasing Kangaroos was one that she enjoyed the most.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the obvious chapter called “Australia, the Land of Oz (Nonfiction) (p 26).