Tag: 2023

Literary Companion to Sex

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Pitt-Kethley, Fiona. The Literary Companion to Sex: an anthology of prose and poetry. Random House, 1992.

Reason read: July is National Parenting Month. Parenting comes about from having unprotected sex (among other ways) so…

I liked Pitt-Kethley’s approach to organizing The Literary Companion to Sex. It made sense to break the book into five sections according to the ages rather than a strict chronology that could be disputed. First we have the Ancient World which includes the Bible, Talmud and writings from such as Homer and Virgil. Next comes the eighteenth century with excerpts from Dafoe, Milton, and Marvell. (I think everyone knows “To His Coy Mistress”.) The nineteenth century features writings from Richard Burton, Honore de Balzac, and Emile Zola, to name a few. “The Magic Ring” from Kryptadia was one of my favorites. The twentieth century surprised me. Yes, I know Philip Roth, Henry Miller, and John Updike would be included, but what about Edmund White?
I also appreciated Pitt-Kethley’s statement that she “inserted the rude words omitted” like a warning to keep your hands inside the moving vehicle at all times. You have a more enjoyable ride if you know what’s coming. Pun totally intended.
Here is what I got out of reading The Literary Companion to Sex. Like all good pornography, the plot is minimal in most stories. Benjamin Franklin believed sex with an older woman was better because the woman they would be so grateful (among other reasons). Women can be harsh about other women’s bodies describing breasts that hang heavy and “navel-low”.
What I really want to know is how Pitt-Kethley found all of these juicy parts of poems, plays, novels, letters, journals, and essays? I cannot begin to imagine the research that went into compiling the contents of The Literary Companion to Sex.

Editor fact: Pitt-Kethley had a blog here where she lists cats and karate as interests.

Book trivia: I had a really hard time finding this in a local library. I couldn’t even borrow Literary Companion to Sex from any library across the state so I ended up reading it on Internet Archive.

Nancy said: Pearl didn’t say anything about The Literary Companion to Sex except to say it is a collection of the really “good” parts of novels.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Sex and the Single Reader” (p 218) as if the married reader couldn’t enjoy a romp between the pages every once in awhile.

Krakatoa: the Day the World Exploded August 27th, 1883

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Winchester, Simon. Krakatoa: the Day the World Exploded August 27th, 1883. HarperCollins Publishers, 2003.

Reason read: one hundred and forty years ago this month a volcano blew its top, killing 40,000 people.

Reading anything by Simon Winchester is like going into a restaurant that has a twenty-plus page menu. So much information and everything looks good. I personally find Winchester fun to read because he is not didactic, dry or stale. His personal anecdotes add flavor and spice to just about any topic he cares to write. In this case, “the day the world exploded,” the day the volcano, Krakatoa, erupted. Winchester delves into the science behind the disaster; what caused the eruption and the deadly tsunami that followed. For example, on the “explosivity index” Krakatoa was a seven; measured by the amount of material that is ejected and the height to which it is spewed through the atmosphere. Rest assured, he will tell you everything beyond the science as well. Death counts, survivor recollections, political implications, even information you didn’t know you needed like the origin story of time zones and anecdotal information about historical characters. He’ll joke about the different ways to spell Krakatoa and emphasize the fact that the original island was blown to smithereens.
My only letdown was that I was disappointed with the inclusion of a black and white photograph of Frederic Edwin Church’s painting of a sunset over ice on Chaumont Bay of Lake Ontario. The whole point of mentioning the painting was the colors most likely caused be Krakatoa. Not helpful as a black and white picture.

Quote I liked, “Krakatoa, after the final majestic concatenation of seismic and tectonic climaxes that occured just after ten that Monday morning, had simply and finally exploded itself out of existence” (p 257). Can you just imagine it? I picture a toddler having a ginormous, ear-piercing, destructive meltdown and then falling asleep without fanfare.

Author fact: I am reading seven books by Winchester. I couldn’t tell you which one has been my favorite thus far. Everyone knows The Professor and the Madman but I think I am looking forward to The River at the Center of the World.
Another small fact: at the time of publication Winchester was living in the Berkshires.

Book trivia: Krakatoa includes a bunch of black and white photographs and maps. I mentioned that already.

Playlist: Ebiet G. Ade’s “Jakarta 1”.

Nancy said: Pearl only mentioned two books in the chapter on Krakatoa.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Krakatau” (p 133).

Farewell Symphony

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White, Edmund. The Farewell Symphony. Alfred A. Knopf, 1997.

Reason read: I started White’s trilogy in June to celebrate pride month. Farewell Symphony is the last of the three.

We continue the autobiography of an unknown protagonist (okay, okay! It’s White). By now he is a full fledged adult and it is the early 1960s. Whereas the other books in the trilogy spanned a short period of time, Farewell Symphony is much longer and covers nearly thirty years, ending in the early 1990s. By the end of The Farewell Symphony Mr. Nameless has outlived most of his friends. AIDS has infiltrated his love life. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let us start at the beginning. Brice, a former lover, died six months before the story opens. From there, the author experiences a string of sexual encounters barely qualifying as relationships: the heartbreak over Sean, a man who was unobtainable. Lou and Kevin. Fox. I could go on. For the most part, Farewell Symphony seems to be a running commentary on sex within the homosexual community. The nameless protagonist prowls for hookups, threesomes, and orgies all fueled by an insatiable desperation to not go lonely. When he isn’t trying to get laid, he desires to be published. The most poignant and sorrowful portion of The Farewell Symphony is the bitter end. True to the title of the book, the symphony of gay men die off, one by one, leaving one voice to take a final bow.

I’ve having a mental block. I cannot think of the word when several coincidences occur at the same time. I just finished reading Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past and White’s character is also reading the epic story.

A weird moment of deja vu: I came across a passage in The Farewell Symphony where a character defends sex with children. I feel like that exact same passage was either earlier in the book or in a previous volume of the trilogy.

Quotes worth quoting, “I’ve never liked to feel things in the appropriate way at the right moment” (p 3), “I invited him home and found him to be complicated in ways that bored me” (p 23),

Author fact: at the time of publication, White was a professor at Princeton University.

Book trivia: some reviews of The Farewell Symphony called it trashy.

Setlist: George Thill’s “O Soave Fanciulla” from La Boheme, Sgt. Pepper, Haydn #45, Billie Holiday, Helen Morgan, “Chopsticks”, Verdi, Wagner, Aretha Franklin, Gerard Souzay-Dupare, “Why Did You Leave Me?”, “Strangers in the Night”, Muddy Waters, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Paolo Conte, Bartok, “the Magic Flute”, Frank Sinatra, “I’ll Be Seeing You in Apple Blossom Time”, Phoebe Snow, Diana Ross, Joni Mitchell, Bette Midler, Puccini, Schubert’s “Erlkonig”, “Up on the Roof” by the Nylons, and Helen Morgan.

Nancy said: Pearl said nothing specific about The Farewell Symphony.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the obvious chapter called “Gay and Lesbian Fiction: Out of the Closet” (p 93).

Lessons in Chemistry

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Garmus, Bonnie. Lessons in Chemistry. Read by Amanda Raison. AudioBook, 2022.

Reason read: while on a boat ride a friend suggested this book.

Preface: I honestly feel Lessons in Chemistry would be more relatable if everyone read a little Betty Friedan or Marilyn French beforehand. Friedan was a feminist who published The Feminine Mystique in the early 1960s and French came later with The Women’s Room. Both books articulate the feminist movement around the same time as Lessons in Chemistry. Elizabeth Zott is an uncompromising, quirky, brilliant chemist. Because this is the late 1950s, she can’t taken seriously as a scientist. She is a woman after all, and all women belong in the kitchen. Which, ironically, is where Zott ends up making her initial mark on society. This is a story about how your past can shape your future. Elizabeth is born to religious charlatan parents. Fraudulent scam artists. From this embarrassing upbringing Elizabeth promises to always be truthful to her illegitimate child. And speaking of Mad, I loved Zott’s precocious child who was named after the cookies from Proust’s Remembrance of Thing Past. My favorite character, and probably the best character is 6:30, the remarkable dog who understands nearly 1,000 words in the English language. Lessons in Chemistry is fun. Don’t overanalyze it. Have a good time with it. And if you listen to the audio version, try to ignore Raison’s weird accent for one of the characters.

As an aside, I just finished reading Proust’s romans-flueve and had to laugh when Mad wondered about Krakatoa and if it would erupt again anytime soon. I, too, am reading about Krakatoa.

Author fact: Garmus took all her chemistry knowledge from a 1950s textbook in order to have complete accuracy for the time period.

Book trivia: I just learned Lessons in Chemistry will be a television series this fall. Interesting. Will I watch? Of course I will.

Playlist: Frank Sinatra and “Keep On the Sunny Side of Life”.

Jane Austen Had a Life

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Rutherford, V.S. Jane Austen Had a Life!: a guide to Jane Austen’s Juvenilia. Arcana Press, 2020.

Reason read: this is a selection from the Early Review Program with LibraryThing.

Disclaimer: the book came with a sticky note asking me to email the author my review. That was a first.

On my first reading of Jane Austen Had a Life I came away thinking it was very dense with interesting information from a variety of sources including biographers such as Virginia Woolf, John Halperin, and E. M. Forster. In addition to Jane’s life Rutherford includes small biographies of people to whom Austen dedicated her stories: Miss Lloyd, Francis William Austin, and the beautifull Cassandra, to name just a few. On my second reading I was distracted by repetitive information, the format being strange with choppy paragraphs, and frequent little one-line quotes everywhere. Maybe this is Australian, but style is also very different with italics and unusual spellings.
The biggest draw of Jane Austen Had a Life was not to discover secret love affairs or an exciting social life of Ms. Austen, but rather the summaries of Austen’s juvenilia. Having never read any of it, Rutherford’s compilation was thorough and well researched. This is not for the casual reader.

Author fact: Rutherford calls her own work “interesting and scholarly.”

Book trivia: Jane Austen Had a Life! was previously published in August 2020 by Arcana Press so not exactly an “early” review on my part. The cover photograph of a castle was taken by the author.

Rose Daughter

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McKinley, Robin. Rose Daughter. Greenwillow Books, 1997.

Reason read: August is supposed to be Fairytale month.

Everyone knows the story of Beauty and the Beast. What makes McKinley’s Rose Daughter different is the treatment of Beast. Yes, the moral of the story still stands that true love is blind and even a beast can find love…eventually. Yes, Beauty is selfless and kind, a lover of all nature (even bats and toads), but missing is the feeling she is a prisoner; that she is trapped with the beast. In Rose Daughter she can go home at any time. All she has to do is tend to the Beast’s roses to repay him for the dark red one her father stole. The other major difference is that Beauty does not end up with a charming prince at the end. I greatly appreciated the choices she had to make, especially the one at the end.
As an aside: Straight away you know you are in for a treat when a bad-tempered dragon on a leash is introduced on the very first page.
Everyone has a goofy name: Lionheart, Jeweltongue, Horsewise, Longchance, Treeworthy, Bestcloth,

Spoiler alert: Beauty puts the second rose petal on her tongue to get back to Beast. She is frantic because she has finally figured out that she loves him and if she doesn’t return to him in time he will die. She is in this mad rush to tell him, yes! Yes, she will marry him. In her confusion upon reentry to his world, she finds an old lady who takes several pages (and ages) to explain the curse put upon Beast. I know it is a tactic to bring the reader up to speed (Beauty couldn’t have known anything of this beforehand or else she wouldn’t have fallen in love with him properly), but the sense of urgency is lost and that suspense of “will she get back to Beast in time to save his life” is gone.

Author fact: I am reading four of McKinley’s novels for the Challenge. Spindle’s End and The Outlaws of Sherwood are the last two titles on my McKinley list.

Book trivia: Rose Daughter is McKinley’s second retelling of Beauty and the Beast.

Nancy said: Pearl said that Rose Daughter is a good choice for teenage girls.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Fractured Fairytales” (p 93).

Fire Escape is Locked for Your Safety

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Baier, Molly J. The Fire Escape is Locked for Your Safety: On the Road in the Former Soviet Union. Lost Coast Press, 2001.

Reason read: I read somewhere that the Baltic Singing Revolution took place in August. Well, to be fair it took place between June and September 1987 – 1991.

The problem with reading some travel stories is that they become outdated and if you aren’t up on your geography or travel laws, the content becomes muddled. Example: are hotels in Eastern Europe still charging in 24-hour increments from the time you check in? Do trains still give provodnitsa-issued toilet paper to passengers? If you travel by bus in the Arctic, do you still pay by the kilometer and not the final destination? Is Finland still one of the most expensive countries? What about maple syrup? Do they know the breakfast condiment? Despite all these questions, Bier’s three-month solo trip in 1999 was a fun read. Her sense of humor peppers a no-nonsense travelogue. Some of my favorite moments were every time she challenged a ticket seller with Article 62 of the Russian Constitution, stating it was unlawful to sell a tourist an inflated priced ticket, whether it be for a museum or train ride. This happened a great deal. (Theroux mentions the same maddening system in Ghost Train to the Eastern Star.) A final comment. I was impressed with Baier’s travel philosophy. Her itinerary was not planned out to the minute. She seemed to go from place to place by the seat of her pants, never knowing how she was going to go from place or where she would stay when she got there.

Confessional: Bad timing on the title of this book. On the day I started to read it one of the buildings on my campus was hit by lightning and caught on fire. Despite only being a two-alarm fire, I heard the building is a total loss. On the day I finished The Fire Escape is Locked for Your Safety Maui was on fire. This fire took the lives of many people.

Author fact: Baier is not a prolific writer. I only have one book written by her for the Challenge.

Book trivia: The Fire Escape is Locked for Your Safety is illustrated by Lisa Jacyszyn.

Nancy said: Pearl; did not say anything specific about The Fire Escape is Locked for Your Safety.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “The Baltic States” (p 34).

Magic Circle

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Napoli, Donna Jo. The Magic Circle. Puffin Books, 1993.

Reason read: I read somewhere that August is National Fantasy Month. I have no idea if that is true.

This is the retelling of Hansel and Gretel from the viewpoint of the wicked witch. She is simply called Ugly One in Magic Circle. She may be ugly but Napoli wants you to think she has a good heart. Ugly One starts off as a loving single parent to a daughter named Asa and works as a healer blessed with magic powers. She is able to bring sick people back to health and dangerous pregnancies back from the brink of death. Her reputation as a sorceress borders on evil because with great powers comes temptations and an easy fall from grace. When the Ugly One starts accumulating gems and jewels as payment for her services, greed sets in. All she can see is her daughter clothed in wealth; “diamonds on the soles of her shoes.” Blinded by a gem, she makes a deal with the devil and her fate is at once sealed. She becomes a true witch who cannot bleed or cry; banished to live in the deep woods as a hermit and destine to eat small children. Enter Hansel and Gretel. Are they Asa’s children?
As an aside, the number nine seems to be important. Peter reads to the Ugly One for nine years and the Ugly One lives alone in her sugar cottage for nine years before Hansel and Gretel come along. I am sure there is religious significance with the number nine.
As another aside, the character of Bala reminded me of Iago. I never knew if I could trust her even though the Ugly One called her a friend.

Line I liked, “Forgiveness is a little thing when love is there” (p 114).

Author fact: I have four books by Donna Jo Napoli on my Challenge list. I have already read Spinners, Crazy Jack and now The Magic Circle. All that is left is Zel.

Book trivia: The Magic Circle is short – less than 200 pages long.

Nancy said: Pearl said The Magic Circle is a good read for teenage girls.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Fractured Fairytales” (p 93).

Caught Dead in Philadelphia

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Roberts, Gillian. Caught Dead in Philadelphia. Charles Scribner Press,

Reason read: another chance to celebrate the Global Fusion Festival in Philadelphia.

Meet Amanda Pepper, a thirty year old school teacher who just broke up with yet another boyfriend…much to her mother’s chagrin. When Amanda is not trying to quit boyfriends or smoking she is stumbling into deadly crime scenes. Only Liza Nichols is no stranger to Amanda. She was a coworker of Amanda’s and engaged to wealthy, influential senator-hopeful, Hayden Cole. She was also found murdered on Ms. Pepper’s living room floor. And that’s how the trouble started.
When it comes to the antics of Amanda Pepper, you have to let reality go. There are things she does and says that I cannot imagine a sane person doing or saying. The misconception that she and Liza were very close, for example. Mrs. Nichols, Liza’s own mother, was convinced Liza and Amanda were the best of best friends. Future mother-in-law, Mrs. Cole, thought they had been friends since childhood and knew each other as intimately as sisters. Why doesn’t Amanda think that these misconceptions are super weird and why isn’t she telling the police about them? As an aside, my doctor assumed I took an antibiotic before surgery and when I didn’t correct her (because I hadn’t), it bugged me for days.
When a second murder victim is found, again with ties to Amanda, she is assigned police protection in the form of a hunky date-material detective. Her sister and mother salivate at the thought of them as a couple.
Confessional: when they solve the crimes I wish Pepper had put two and two together sooner. Her knowledge of Shakespeare’s Macbeth would have cracked the case wide open if she had just done her homework.

Line I liked, “That primitive center of me still believed that saying things made them possible, and silence kept them from happening” (p 123).

Author fact: let Google autofill Gillian’s name and your first result will be a UTF athlete with flaming red hair. A proper search reveals that Ms. Roberts was born in Philly.

Book trivia: Caught Dead in Philadelphia is the first Amanda Pepper mystery. There are many others, but I am only reading three. The Bluest Blood and How I Spent My Summer Vacation are up next.

Nancy said: Pearl said Roberts writes perfect books for cozy mystery fans. She’s not wrong.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Philadelphia” (p 180).

Mister O

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Trondheim, Lewis. Mister O. NBM Publishing, 2004.

Reason read: in the spirit of cartoons I am reading Mister O. in honor of Otto Messmer’s birth month. Messmer was responsible for Felix the Cat.

This is the little story about a round little thing called Mister O. It doesn’t have a gender, but due to the Mister I am going to call it a he/him/his. Anyway, Mister O. needs to jump a crevasse of indeterminate depth. The reader never learns why Mister O. needs to do this, but one can tell he is obsessed with succeeding in this task. On his first attempt he first imagines himself covering the distance in a single leap, but when fear sets in he can’t follow through. What follows is a series of varying attempts to span the gap: filling it in with rocks, using rockets and birds to fly, rabbits to jump, farts to propel…it’s very silly. Even though Mister O. falls in this crevasse many, many times he always climbs back out. It reminded me of the very persistent Wile E. Coyote who would not and could not give up chasing the road runner. Wile E. died over and over again and yet, he came back every time. Just like Mister O.

Author fact: Trondheim has written quite a few books. This is the only one I am reading for the challenge.

Book trivia: even though Lewis Trondheim is a French cartoonist, there is not one single word in Mister O so nothing needs to be translated.

Nancy said: Pearl called Mister O “funny and heartbreaking” but I would disagree. Unless you consider the fact that when Mister O gets out of the chasm he doesn’t climb out on the side he wanted to reach and go on his merry way.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the simple chapter called “Graphica” (p 104).

Ghost Train To the Eastern Star

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Theroux, Paul. Ghost Train To the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Greatest Railway Bazaar. Houghton Mifflen, 2008.

Reason read: July is Train Month.


Theroux first made this journey in 1973, thirty-three years earlier. He was eager to make comparisons as he followed the old travel itinerary of The Great Railway Bazaar (with a few exceptions like skirting Iran and Pakistan and being able to enter Cambodia as it was no longer controlled by the Khmer Rouge, for examples). [Confessional: I wanted to read these books backwards so that I could understand Theroux’s references. I guess you could say I wanted that 20/20 vision and I appreciated his admittance of half truths in The Great Railway Bazaar.]
Retracing his own steps affords Theroux the ability to look up hotels he previously visited and people he met thirty-three years ago. He is pleasantly surprised when they remember him and dismayed to learn others thought him a pompous jerk on his first visit.
In addition to writing about a journey, readers get a glimpse of Theroux’s personality. I found it curious that he doesn’t like people eating and walking at the same time (no street fairs for him). By 2006 he hasn’t wanted to learn the lesson of his first marriage – it is self-indulgent to travel for four months, leaving a wife and/or family behind. The family sees this extravagance as abandonment. (Although the second wife was wiser thanks to technology. She demanded Theroux take a smart phone.) My favorite part of Ghost Train was Theroux’s conversation with Haruki Murakami about his first marriage. It felt like an honest, soul-exposing confession. The real Theroux came out, author to author.
Theroux also gauges a country’s cultural acceptance by their use of pornography. Not sure why, because if you think about it, pornography is only tantalizing because it is often hidden from view. If sex was as commonplace as talking or breathing no one would be scandalized by it. Uncommon to the eye is scintillating. As the book goes on, Theroux’s running commentary on the varying sex trades increases. As an aside, I will have nightmares about the kun kraks.
In terms of idioms, I felt Theroux was overly negative in his descriptions of towns: acid, broken, beleaguered, cruel, crummy, crumbling, dirty, dim, dark, derelict, dreary, dilapidated, disorder, desperate, decaying, fatigued, foul, filthy, gloomy, lifeless, muddy, miserable, melancholy, mournful, nightmare, neglected, poisonous, primitive, pockmarked, rust-stained, ramshackle, ragged, smoky, sticky, shadowy, stale, stink, stinky, sooty, tough, threadbare, unfriendly, ugly, wrecked, wasteland to name a few. But, as another aside, I love authors who use the word hinterland. Don’t ask me why. I think it’s a very romantic word.

Confessional: sometimes when I am traveling by car or train (ground level), I will spot someone and imagine their life as mine. What would be like to be mowing the lawn when a speeding train rushes by? Fishing on the banks of a river when a car rattles over the bridge? Would I glance up and wonder about the passengers? Where are they going?

Second confessional: because I am somewhat obsessed with the music of Josh Ritter, I thought of his lyrics all about trains while reading Theroux’s book.

Lines I liked, “And sometimes you just need to clear out” (p 13). Amen. “Luxury is the enemy of observation” (p 63). Interesting. And one last one, “But just when I thought that this icebound city represented nothing more than a glacial point of departure, I was sitting in the hotel bar and the gods of travel delivered to me a horse’s ass” (p 461).

Author fact: Theroux’s list of fiction and nonfiction is impressive. I am reading ten of his works (but only completed Mosquito Coast and Ghost Train to the Eastern Star).

Book trivia: while there is an illustration of a map of Theroux’s journey, there are no photographs to speak of. Bummer.

Nancy said: Pearl mentioned Theroux is a connoisseur of long train rides.

Setlist: Stevie Wonder, Thelonious Monk’s “Espistrophy” and “Crespucule with Nellie”, Elvis, Mahler, and Tchaikovsky’s “Variations on a Rococo theme.”

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Making Tracks By Train” (p 139).

Time Regained

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Proust, Marcel. Remembrance of Things Past: Time Regained. Vol. 7. Translated by Stephen Hudson. Illustrated by Philippe Jullian. Chatto & Windus, 1960.

Reason read: to finally, finally, finally, finish the series started in honor of National Writing Month. As an aside, I heard that some people take a decade to read Proust so I don’t feel that bad!

I had to roll my eyes when I saw Gilberte and Albertine’s names as early as page two. Was this going to be another obsessive missive about these women? Had Albertine lived! That is the refrain. Not exactly. Time Regained, as the final installment of Remembrance of Things Past is exactly that – a circling back to remembering people, places, and experiences long since past. It is a mediation on society, aging, relationships, art, beauty, and truth. Proust even goes back to the first moments with his mother detailed in the first volume, Swann’s Way. We all grow old and we all learn things along the way. I am not sure what message Proust is trying to make with the aging of his nameless protagonist. He never really learns anything profound except that relationships are precious. Gilberte and Albertine are two women he never should have taken for granted.

Author fact: Since this is the final time I will be talking about Proust, let’s recap everything I said about him. I said he was compared to James Joyce but that Flaubert was one of his biggest influences. I gave you his full name and explained that he was a recluse. The term romans-fleuves was coined to describe his novels and that he spent a year in the army. He was also an essayist and a literary critic. The end.

Translator fact: Proust’s long-time translator, C. K. Scott Moncrieff past away before he could work on Time Regained. Stephen Hudson was able to make a translator’s dedication to the memory of Moncrieff, saying he was a friend and an incomparable translator. That touched me.

Book trivia: as the final book in the Remembrance of Things Past series, the eighth part was originally published in 1927.
Book trivia II: I was very happy to return to the Chatto & Windus series just so I could enjoy Philippe Jullian’s illustrations. “Berma” is really special, but so is “Madame Verdurin.”
Book trivia III: Time Regained was made into a movie in 2000. Nope. Haven’t seen it.

Nancy said: for the last time, the only thing Pearl said about the entire Remembrance of Things Past is that the term romans-fleuve first came about to describe Proust’s work.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Romans-Fleuves” (p 208).

Back to Yoga

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Kelley, Steve. Back to Yoga: A Whole Body Routine You can Do Anywhere in 30 Minutes or Less to Increase Energy, Focus, Relief Stress, Lower Anxiety and Improve Flexibility, Balance and Strength. Amazon Books, 2023.

Reason read: I am a member of LibraryThing and occasionally I review books. This is one of them.

One of the first things you learn when starting to read Back to Yoga is that you will get a free gift if you jump through the tiny hoop of emailing the author. You also learn Back to Yoga is not written by a professional practitioner. All of Steve Kelley’s information comes from someone else. His biggest source of information is an article found in Medical News Today (a health website that pulls primary research from other sources). Did I mention you get a free gift when you email the author? Kelley makes it clear he offers no warranties or professional advice. The standard disclaimer: you must see a medical professional before starting his routine. Instead, the purpose of Back to Yoga is to show busy people that no matter their schedule or lifestyle, they can practice yoga. Despite that goal, Kelley never explains how to carve out that time.
As Kelley admits, there is a little redundancy to the information he does include (I call this stretching the content). Despite the redundancy I felt there was room for more information. I was disappointed by the number of poses included in Back to Yoga. Kelley only includes one routine of 24 poses. Maybe the idea is to practice these 24 poses until you master them? The best part of Back to Yoga is the section of illustrated poses. They drawings are cute and they were accurate and informative. Not sure what the QR code was all about as I did not scan it, but there was one on every illustration. By the way, if you email the author you will get a free gift. He mentions this no less than five times in Back to Yoga.
Author fact: Steve Kelley also wrote the Grow Your Business with ChatGPT book I reviewed last month. As always, I appreciate his humor.
Book trivia: I think I found a typo. Sync does not rhyme with inch so I think he meant to say cinch.

9 Highland Road

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Winerip, Michael. 9 Highland Road: sane living for the mentally ill. Pantheon Books, 1994.

Reason read: 9 highland Road is in New York. New York became a state in July so…

Winerip combines triumph of the spirit with the harsh realities of prejudice. The mentally ill have more than just their sickness to battle. People are afraid of what they do not understand. They make assumptions that all mentally ill are violent, crude, childlike, or sexually deviant. Unlike an obvious injury like a broken leg a schizophrenic or multiple personality disorder cannot wave their affliction in your face and tell you when it will be healed. No one wants the likes of them in their neighborhood. In the pages of 9 Highland Road Winerip pulls back the curtain on the political controversies and uncovers the fear-induced prejudices about group homes for the mentally ill. He does not sugarcoat the harsh realities of childhood traumas that are at the core of some patients’ initial break with reality: psychological, verbal and physical abuses in the form of violence, rape, incest and torture. What was particularly stunning were the varying degrees of responsibility families accept regarding the wellbeing of their son or daughter. Winerip also touches lightly on the problem of homelessness and delves more deeply into the miracles of modern medicine.

As an aside, when NIMBY first came about a whole bunch of NIMBY signs popped up around Monhegan Most of them pertain to dog crap and wandering tourists.

As another aside, I just finished watching an episode of “The Fully Monty” and there was a character who was a talented artist but he was also a schizophrenic. At one point he tries to commit suicide because Jesus was telling him he could fly away from the devil.

Author fact: Winerip was nominated for a Pulitzer for his reporting.

Book trivia: a word of warning. When Winerip wrote 9 Highland Road the word retarded wasn’t considered offensive. If he were to rewrite the book today I am hoping he would refrain from using it.

Playlist: “We Got To Get Out Of This Place” by the Animals, “Nights in the Garden of Spain”, “Whiter Shade of Pale”, “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”, Beatles, “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen”, “Amazing Grace”, Georgia On My Mind”, Beethoven, Billy Joel, Mozart, Cat Stevens, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Bob Dylan, “Bye, Bye Miss American Pie”, “If I Had a Hammer”, “Feliz Navidad”, Maria”, “Let It Be”, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, “Without you” by Harry Nilsson, “Yesterday”, “Can’t Live Without You”, and Tom Petty.

Nancy said: Pearl called 9 Highland Road sensitive.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the simple chapter called “Social Studies” (p 204). Just a comment: we have such a widespread problem with the mentally ill that Pearl could have included a whole informative chapter on the subject.

Sheep Queen

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Savage, Thomas. The Sheep Queen/I Heard My Sister Speak My Name. Little Brown & Company, 2001.

Reason read: Idaho became a state in July.

This is the western saga of the Sweringen family. Emma Russell Sweringen is dubbed the Sheep Queen because in 1909 she had 10,000 head of Idaho sheep. Impressive for that time period, considering her gender. Men were supposed to be the dominant members of the family and yet Emma was so powerful she was not one to be messed with. She ran a tight operation and had high standards. Her daughter did nothing but disappoint yet she doted on her grandson. Time moves forward and backwards in Savage’s story. It is all about family, identity and legacy. Grandson, Tom, is all grown up with a family of his own when he is contacted by a woman claiming to be the granddaughter of the Sheep Queen; professing to be his sister. Amy is adopted and looking for her roots. Tom does not want to accept her but even he understands the power of identity. The theme of loss is also pervasive, sometimes subtle and sometimes profound. There is triumph in discovery. The controversy surrounding giving up children for adoption – should people research their biological families? What is the harm in that? What are the rewards? I found myself asking if one needs to pack up their entire life and physically move to escape ancestral ghosts.
I enjoyed the hints of the passage of time: new Palmer method replaced the Spencer script. Hem lines trend up over the knee.

Lines I liked, “We have not seriously considered divorce, but sometimes after a few martinis we should and pick at old scabs” (p 3) and “They were, then, never more than good friends, and there wasn’t anything wrong with that except that everything was wrong with it, but what exactly?” (p 33). Confessional: this line hurt. Another good line, “That’s what they all came down to the sea to hear” (p 153).

Author fact: Savage got a degree from Colby College.

Book trivia: The Sheep Queen was originally published under the title I Heard My Sister Speak My Name. My copy included a Reading Group Guide.

Playlist: “Tiger Lily Waltz”, Bach, Mozart, “Autumn”, Delius, Berlioz’s “Harold in Italy”, “Nola”, “Maryland, My Maryland”, “Marcheta”, “Tea for Two”, “The Life of a Rose”, “That Old Gang of Mine”, “Valencia”, “Gimme a Little Kiss”, Carrie Jacobs Bond’s “End of a Perfect Day”, “At Dawning”, Schumann, Chopin’s “Nocturnal”, “Everybody’s Doing It Now”, “Allah’s Holiday”, “Liebestraum”, Aida,

Nancy said: Pearl didn’t say much about Sheep Queen/I Heard My Sister Speak My Name except to say I Heard My sister Speak My Name is a much more evocative title.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in two different chapters. First, in “Idaho: And Nary a Potato to be Seen” (p 121) and again in “Men Channeling Women” (p 166).