Tag: 2024

Cement Garden

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McEwan, Ian. The Cement Garden. Simon and Schuster, 1978.

Reason read: McEwan celebrates a birthday in the month of June. Read in his honor.

Put your mind right before you read The Cement Garden. If you think of it like Lord of the Flies by William Golding, only Lord of the Flies family-style, you will be fine. Cement Garden is dark. Really dark. It deals with really difficult subjects. A family of four children, the youngest being six and the oldest, fifteen, are left alone for the summer. The do not have neighbors, teachers, parents, relatives, town officials, anyone to look after them. No one knows these four are alone. They don’t have many friends, either. Left to their own devices a quiet chaos within the house ensues. Told through the fourteen year old character of Jack, McEwan’s psychological exploration of naivety and stunted societal growth is captured in the themes of death, sexuality, and relationships as the children do not know how to deal these things. The death of their mother, coming of age impulses, and interactions with the outside world confound them and they react inappropriately. Beyond death, sex, and interpersonal relationships, the subtle emotional themes of grief, jealousy, and love are also probed. It’s a blessing that is mercifully short.

Pet peeve: I can sometimes get obsessed with details. The siblings are in Julie’s room when they pull down Sue’s pants. So when Jack wanted her to get dressed, why did he throw her skirt at her? Why wasn’t it a skirt of Julie’s? Why wasn’t it the pants they originally removed from Sue?

Author fact: So far I have read Atonement, Cement Garden, Amsterdam, and Comfort of Strangers. I have five other novels on my challenge list.

Book trivia: The Cement Garden is McEwan’s first novel.

Playlist: “Happy Birthday”, “Greensleeves”, and “Get Your Kicks on Route 66” by the King Cole Trio.

Nancy said: Pearl didn’t say anything specific about The Cement Garden.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Ian McEwan: Too Good To Miss” (p 149).

Winds of War

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Wouk, Herman. Winds of War. Simon & Schuster, 1974.

Reason read: Memorial Day is in May. Read to remember those no longer with us.
Confessional: I read most of this as an ebook. I made a lot of notes and highlighted many passages, but had to return it before I could transfer the information here.

The year is 1939 and Germany busily bullies the world into a clash that would later become the infamous World War II. The advances of Hitler into Poland and eventually England, France, and the Soviet Union indicate a man hellbent on world domination; all the while citing the “Jewish problem” as his justification and motivation. Wouk will take you on a panoramic journey through the intimate details of war. You will have a front row seat in the war room; be a voyeur in the bedroom; sit elbow to elbow in the libraries of world leaders as they speak in hushed tones about counterattacks. With a book this size (Winds of War is over one thousand pages long in paperback format), I wanted to make sure I kept track of all of the different characters. I wasn’t sure who was going to be worth remembering, real or imaginary. At the center is Berlin attaché Victor Henry (“Pug”), his glamorous but bored wife, Rhoda, and their three adult children. Winds of War begins when the parents are relocated with Germany on assignment. The three children, Byron, Warren, and Madeline are scattered across the globe. Pug desperately wants to captain a battleship but being relegated to serve as Naval attaché in Berlin has afforded him the opportunity to see the war fold out firsthand. As he gains the unusual trust of President Roosevelt he travels the world, gaining insight on future enemy tactics. Indeed, many real political powerhouses make an appearance in Winds of War.
A note about Winston Churchill: It is interesting to see how time blunts the sharp edges of an unfavorable reputation.
It is also interesting to see the varying opinions about the start of the war. Byron and his girl, Natalie, didn’t take it seriously until they were strafed in Poland and Natalie began to have troubles getting her Polish uncle out of Italy. Byron’s mother only had superficial societal concerns when Pug couldn’t accompany her to the opera. I mentioned she was the epitome of the bored housewife, didn’t I? She becomes even more cliché as the story progresses.
Separating fact from fiction: Did Hitler really have a remarkable smile?

Wouk certainly loved his women characters. As an aside, have you ever noticed that a woman’s breasts can be described with abandon (dressed or undressed), but barely (pun intended) anyone writes about the size of a man’s privates? Wouk is no different in the way he romanticizes the female body. Here are the breasts of Wouk: creamy breasts, pretty bosom, ample bosom,

Quotes to quote, “So they stood together, watching the Luftwaffe start its effort to bomb London to its knees. It was the seventh of September” (p 422).

Author fact: Wouk won a Pulitzer for The Caine Mutiny.

Book trivia: Winds of War has been made into a mini series starring Ali MacGraw and Robert Mitchum. Of course I haven’t seen it. Confessional: I confuse Ali MacGraw with Ali Sheedy.

Playlist: “The Star Spangled Banner”, Chopin, “Star Dust”, Liszt, “Deutschland Uber Alles”, “Three O’clock in the Morning”, “Horst Wessel Lied”, “Bell Bottom Trousers”, “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon”, “Auld Lang Syne”, “This Can’t Be Love”, Bach, Schubert, Beethoven, Mozart, “There Will Always Be an England”, and “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”.

Nancy said: Pearl called Winds of War good fiction.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “World War II Fiction” (p 252).

Giants in the Earth

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Rolvaag, O.E. Giants in the Earth: A Saga of the Prairie. Translated by Lincoln Colcord. Harper & Brothers, 1927.

Reason read: a celebration of spring and Minnesota became a state in May.

Volume One of Giants in the Earth was published in Norway in 1924. The second volume was published a year later. Vern Lewis Parrington (editor) wrote an introduction. Rolvaag wrote the foreword. Forty-six pages later we begin the story…Per Hansa is moving his family from Minnesota to the the Great Plains of the Dakota Territory in the hopes of putting down roots.
A lot of comments have been made about Beret and her mental illness. Her uncontrolled fear of the Midwest was justified. She was in a strange land without the comfort of true community. There was an underlying fear of Indians – fear and fascination in equal measure. I am reminded of the 10,000 Maniacs’ song, “Gold Rush Brides” written by Natalie Merchant. The lines, “The land was free and the prices was right”, and “Who were the homestead wives? Who were the gold rush brides? Does anybody know?…Accounts of madness, childbirth, loneliness, and grief” are particularly poignant. When Beret uncovers an evil secret wrongdoing her husband committed she starts to question their entire relationship. She fears that evil everywhere and her husband seems oblivious to her growing concerns. No one in the community notices her distress until it is beyond breaking. They even make fun of her nonsense. Were they distracted by opportunity? Were they preoccupied with adversities such as the strain of long, harsh winters and plagues of locusts in the summers? Did they want to slough off their old world identities identities in the new world by choosing new names? The question becomes how does one honor traditions of Norway while forging a new existence in America?

Quote to quote, “But it was easier to warm his body than thaw his soul” (p 277).

Author fact: Rolvaag was born in 1876 on the island of Donna almost in the Arctic Circle.

Book trivia: The title comes from a Bible quote.

Nancy said: Pearl said Giants of the Earth is one of the earliest sagas written about the immigrant experience (More Book Lust p 123).

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “The Immigrant Experience” (p 123).

The Odd Women

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Gissing, George. The Odd Women. Stein and Day, 1968.

Reason read: Read in honor of Mother’s Day.

Society is the name of the game in The Odd Women. Think Victorian and you have The Odd Women in a nutshell. It is all about the sociable attitude and the intelligent female society: women live in shame if they do not marry a man who has a sense of honor (and carries gloves and a walking stick). There is a subtle analysis of the institution of marriage.
As an aside, I found myself getting increasingly annoyed by Edmund Widdowson’s behavior when he would not allow Monica to see her friend Milly alone. By the time he consented to let her see her friend for just an hour I was seething. Edmund insists on them always being together and criticizes her friends. It reminded me of the classic behavior of an abuser: alienating one from their friends and family, always wanting to be together, the possessiveness that turns rageful (my word). Meanwhile, there is Everard Barfoot and Rhoda. Rhoda fears that marriage would interfere with the best parts of her life. All in all, I did not care for Gissing’s barely veiled attitudes towards women’s love of fashion and gossip.

Lines I liked, “If I could move your feelings, (p 29), and “Not a word reached her understanding” (p 30), and “I would go any distance to see you and speak with you for only a few minutes” (p 67). That last line, while incredibly romantic, is also very telling.

Author fact: George Gissing helped a prostitute while he held a teaching position. He was later fired for the act, but he married the lady of the night.

Book trivia: the introduction to The Odd Women was written by Frank Swinnerton.

Playlist: “The Blue Bells of Scotland” and Schubert.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Companion Reads” (p 62).

Odd Woman

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Godwin, Gail. The Odd Woman. Ballantine Books, 1974.

Reason read: I needed a book for the Portland Public Library Reading challenge in the category of a book that takes place in the Midwest. The Odd Woman opens in a midwestern town. This is also a companion read for another book I am reading in honor of Mother’s Day.

On the outside, Jane Clifford has everything going for her. She is a respected professor, teaching Women in Literature (the British section) at a Midwestern college, but secretly Jane is a neurotic mess. She lives vicariously through the beloved characters of literature; every character is either a friend or a mentor or a villain. She gets all of her advice from these imaginary people. Poor Jane doesn’t know how to relate to people in the real world, especially her own mother. The death of her stylish grandmother sends Jane down upsetting memory lanes especially when she returns to her childhood home for the funeral.
To make matters worse, Jane’s love life revolves around a married man who has no plans to leave his wife. Gabriel patronizes Jane by being controlling and condescending and like a good girl, she puts up with it. He gently admonishes and corrects and chides. Pay attention to the language Godwin uses about Gabriel and his hands. He is always “trapping” Jane’s hand in his own. He holds all the cards because he is the married one.
In the end I didn’t know whether to cheer on Jane or cry for her.

Quotes that had me thinking for days, “If Jane Austen were putting me in a novel, how would she define me?” (p 27), and “Jane, face it: we are all just basically neurotic creatures trying to get through our days and nights” (p 46).

Author fact: Gail Godwin reported for the Miami Herald.

Book trivia: The Odd Woman is a bit dated. Written when flying meant you could sit wherever you wanted and planes had magazine racks.

Playlist: Mozart, Al Martino’s “Here in My Heart”, Glenn Miller’s “Little Brown Jug”, The Ink Spots’ “If I Didn’t Care”, and Nat King Cole’s “Somewhere Along the Way”.

Nancy said: Not only did Pearl suggest reading The Odd Women and The Odd Woman together as “companion reads, Godwin practically insisted upon it as well, albeit in a much more subtle manner. I found it a disappointment to do so. In The Odd Woman Godwin revealed a spoiler in The Odd Women that I wasn’t prepared to absorb. I did not want to know Monica died.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Companion Reads” (p 62) because Jane in Odd Woman is using George Gissing’s Odd Women in her Women in Literature class. Also in the chapter called “Mothers and Daughters” (p 159).

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.

Chef on Ice

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Kuhn, Sebastien J.M. Chef on Ice: Living and Working as a Chef in Antarctica.

Reason read: This is a LibraryThing Early Review win for the month of May.

Chef on Ice is sort of a misnomer. Kuhn does not just tell the story of cooking in Antarctica, he also describes starting up a pretzel business in the off months in Brisbane and Melbourne. He mentions other cooking gigs as well. A better title for the book would have been Adventure Chef: Daring to Cook Anywhere. Seriously. Sebastien sounds like one of those people who would be perfect for an assignment with CoolJobsdotcom. While not a professional writer, Kuhn writes with an abundance of emotion, briefly remembering the sights, sounds, experiences of his various cooking expeditions. He has fantastic subject matter but not the articulation to translate it to the written word. I would have liked more stories about the actual cooking – more about the meals served, sourcing the ingredients in such a remote area, food prep. That sort of thing.
Confessional: I had one head-scratching moment in terms of chronology. Admittedly, for most of the book I didn’t try to keep up, but when it came to Covid-19 Kuhn stated they endured a year and a half of lockdowns. Later he states he was back in business by November 2020. That would mean the Australian lockdown started September of 2018. I don’t know. Maybe I read that part wrong?
Most impressive moment: I was impressed with Sebastien’s level of respect when recounting the death of a crew member; never revealing the nature of the accident or the deceased’s identity. Other authors would sensationalize such a tragedy.

Confessional: I had to look up Kelly Slater and Zach Galifianakis.

Author fact: The entire time I was reading Chef on Ice I was wondering what kind of family Kuhn was leaving behind every time he ventured to Antarctica. He made mention of a mysterious partner and some dogs. It would have been better to leave them out of the story completely.

Book trivia: Chef on Ice includes a generous amount of color photographs. Some didn’t need an explanation, but some description would have been cool for others. It was hard to read on a phone. The formatting was strange. I could only read for less than thirty minutes at a time.

Playlist: none. There were plenty of opportunities for Kuhn to mention music but he never did. Blah.

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.