Tag: biography

Age of Napoleon

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Horne, Alistair. Age of Napoleon. Modern Library, 2004.

Reason read: Napoleon was born on August 15th. Read in his honor.

After already covering Napoleon’s military career in Master of Europe and How Far From Austerlitz, Alistair Horne felt he could concentrate on writing a book about Napoleon’s contributions to French society above and beyond his military career (although that is not left out of the story). Architecture (the construction of the Quai d’Orsay and rescuing Paris’s Sorbonne University), society (encouraging freedom of religion by restoring the relationship with the Vatican and restoring the sanctity of marriage after the Revolution), art, and even the renumbering of streets. Napoleon liked the finer things in life, but could turn on a dime and have little tolerance for those individuals making his beautiful things come to life. Even his wife Josephine was fired from the job of being his wife because she couldn’t produce an heir fast enough.
Horne simultaneously looks future forward as well as historically back to tell Napoleon’s story. He reminds his audience more than once that Napoleon was “no Hitler” and he makes multiple comparisons to World War II. Yet, for all of Napoleon’s military shortcomings, Horne is quick to point out, his legacy was that he was instrumental in creating important and lasting social equalities.

As an aside, I couldn’t help buy think of Dermot Kennedy’s line, “his eyes lit up with all the power” when reading Age of Napoleon. Napoleon was touted as being a hands-on leader. These days, I think his subjects would call him a micromanager or deranged. Just the fact he would ban plays if he didn’t care for them shows his ego.

Author fact: Is it any wonder that Alistair Horne is a British historian? Of course he is.

Book trivia: Age of Napoleon is a quick read, less that 200 pages.

Music: Beethoven’s Fidelo, Te Deum, Chopin, Edith Pilaf, and Le Triomphe de Tra Jan opera.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “The Complex Napoleon” (p 53).

In My Father’s Footsteps

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Matthews, Sebastian. In My Father’s Footsteps. W.W. Norton & Company, 2004

Reason read: Matthews was born in August. Read in his honor.

How do you pay homage to a person who repeatedly broke your heart and let you down as a child; a good guy with harmful tendencies in adulthood? Sebastian Matthews, by turns loved and looked to respect his father. From an early age, father and son had a complicated relationship. When William Matthews died of a heart attack at just 55 it was a shock, but no one was surprised. A womanizer, a drinker, and a smoker (and maybe a midnight toker), Matthews senior was a force to be reckoned with. In My Father’s Footsteps is aptly named for Sebastian followed closely behind his father: a lifelong jazz enthusiast, becoming a writer, and poet unable to commit to any relationship for more than a few dates. Deeply buried resentments over the divorce of his parents; standing in the shadow of his father’s brilliance as a poet and professor; trying to understand the complexity of his inheritance, Matthews carefully picks his way through the emotions to share a loving, yet brutally honest tribute to his father.

Confessional: there was a part of Matthews’s story when he was watching father and son bricklayers build a wall. It reminded me of an earlier story I read about a son following in his father’s footsteps as a bricklayer until he found science.

Author fact: I want to believe Sebastian has found happiness in marriage and fatherhood. As of the publication of In My Father’s Footsteps he still lived in Asheville.

Book trivia: both of Matthews’s parents were poets. At times Matthews would put poetry from each parent side by side.

As an aside, when the police were at Matthews’s father’s apartment they went from room to room turning on lights. Why don’t do they do that in the movies?

Personal connection: Dying alone requires the procurement of a court order before gaining permanent access to the deceased residence. If you die in public, even if it is of natural causes, your body is considered a crime scene and cannot be moved until fully investigated.

Setlist: James Taylor, Cowboy Junkies. Indigo Girls, Joni Mitchell’s Hejira album, Tommy Flanagan, Booker Erwin, John Handy, Carnell Jones, Horace Silver’s “Song for My Father,” Gerry Mulligan, Joe Henderson, Alfredo Kraus, Elton John’s “Your Song,” Bob Dylan’s “On a night Like This” “Idiot Wind,” “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go,” “Shelter From the Storm,” and “Blood on the Tracks,” Mozart, Ella Fitzgerald, Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks, Duke Ellington’s “Cottontail,” “Amazing Grace,” Bach, Miles Davis’s “Flamenco Sketches,” Tallest Trees album, “All Blues,” and “Kind of Blue,” Bob Marley’s Babylon By Bus album, Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section, John Coltrane, Stan Getz’s “Sweet Rain,” the Jazz Messengers, Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Sonny Rollins, Lester Young, Earl Hines, Mal Waldron, Billie Holiday’s “I Can’t Get Started,” and “Miss Brown to You,” John Bunch Trio, Charlie Mingus’ Alum, “Goodbye Porkpie Hat,” and “Better Git It in Your Soul,” Thelonius Monk’s “Round Midnight,” Dexter Gordon, JJ Johnson, Bud Power, “Some Other Spring,” Getz and Gilberto’s “Girl from Ipanema,” Prince, Sweetheart of the Rodeo, Grateful Dead, Anita O’Day, the Police’s Zenyatta Mondatta album, “Easy Living,” “Let’s Get It On,” and “John Wesley Harding.”

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

Treetops

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Cheever, Susan. Treetops: a Family Memoir. Bantam Books, 1991.

Reason read: Read in honor of Cheever’s birth month in July.

Susan Cheever had already written a biography of her father called Home Before Dark so I was excited when she wrote in the introduction to Treetops that this was a book about the three generations of her mother’s family and Treetops as a place. By the end of the introduction she returns to the men: Tom Watson the inventor who assisted Alexander Graham Bell, Winter the grandfather who started the Yale School of Medicine and of course, her father, acclaimed writer John Cheever. Susan Cheever’s father dominates a great deal of the Treetops story…again. Cheever needs to share her father’s accolades and affairs with a healthy dose of name-dropping. It would have been refreshing if Treetops contained less about the man she had already written a full biography about and concentrated more on her mother’s life. Her mother is talked about as footnotes when she describes the short stories (in detail) of her father’s. Cheever would rather describe her father’s relationships with, and perception of, women as a gender. Most of the time the details of her mother as in reaction to something her father said, did, or wrote. The more Susan Cheever quoted her father’s short stories the less I enjoyed Treetops.

As an aside, when Cheever relived the invention of the telephone and detailed exactly what happened between Alexander Graham Bell and her great-grandfather Thomas Watson, I know she was setting up the historical backdrop to her family’s history, but I couldn’t help but think it was also device to subtly suggest Watson invented the telephone and Bell took all the credit.

Author fact: I have satisfied all of the Susan Cheever books I needed for the Challenge.

Book trivia: there are a smattering of photographs in Treetops.

Music: Ella Fitzgerald, Charlie Parker, and “Happy Birthday.”

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “All in the Family: Writer Dynasties” (p 5). Pearl put it perfectly when she said that when you related to someone famous there is almost an “irresistible temptation to write about the experience” (More Book Lust p 5). Cheever takes it a step further by writing about her famous great grandfather and notable grandfather as well.

Jack Rittenhouse

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Farmer, David R. Jack Rittenhouse: a Western Literary Life. University of New Mexico Press, 2026.

Reason read: As a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing I often get to read interesting books. This is one of those books.

I must preface this review by saying this was one of the best biographies I have read in a long time. I felt like I knew Jack Rittenhouse intimately by the time I was finished. An excellent if dense (said under breath), read!
Jack Rittenhouse’s childhood molded his fascination with books at an early age. He worked in a library as a teenager and helped print materials for the Boy Scouts. He wrote poems, plays, and essays in his spare time. As an adult he became a bookseller, started a private press and owned over 9,000 books. He seemed destined to always be surrounded by the written word. When he started to write his own books he concentrated on writing books on topics that fascinated him on a personal level. His first foray into authorship was a guidebook for the old Route 66. As a devotee to the desert, he romanticized the original 5,000 mile journey from Chicago to Los Angeles. His second was a niche subject about American horse-drawn vehicles. Always exemplary with his work ethic, Rittenhouse went on to display indefatigable ambition and a passion for researching a variety of topics. I found his commitment to attending meetings of the Western Historical Association impressive. For twenty-eight years he didn’t miss a one. There is so much more to Mr. Rittenhouse that you will just have to read for yourself.

As an aside, what happened to New York City’s book row? I have never heard of it.

Author fact: Farmer was once the library director for Southern Methodist University.

Book trivia: Jack Rittenhouse is the first ever biography of Rittenhouse.

Journey to the Frontier

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Stansky, Peter and William Abrahams. Journey to the Frontier: Two Roads to the Spanish Civil War. Little, Brown and Company, 1966.

Reason read: the Spanish Civil War ended in April.

Julian Bell (1908 – 1937) and John Cornford (1915 – 1936): Both were poets, intellectuals, English, and part of the aristocracy. Both had famous relatives (Bell was the nephew of Virginia Woolf and Cornford was the great-grandson of Charles Darwin). How did they both end up fighting for the Republic and ultimately dying in the Spanish Civil War?
Julian started at Cambridge as a soldier for peace in 1929. At twenty-six he was unsure of his future and the critical dilemma of his day was how to oppose the war and Hitler at the same time. His life was very full before heading to Spain: poetry, academia, literature, philosophy, politics, and even romance all vied for Julian’s attention. He lived all of it to the fullest, including an entanglement with a jealous and clingy yet decidedly married woman in China. What Julian said of the woman was quite amusing, “She’s such a devil when she cares to be, and yet completely charming” (p 292). That’s love for you.
One of the most poignant comments Julian Bell made, “It’s the most dramatic step I’ve taken, I think, after being born” (p 250).
Rupert John Cornford seemed destined for war, named after a poet who was eager to go on a military expedition. Like Julian Bell, Cornford was absorbed in literature. At fourteen he was critiquing his mother’s poetry (and was quite harsh, I might add). He once said of her, “I don’t believe chaos begins till things get lost” (p 197) in response to her lack of tidiness. The Young Communist League in London was the center of his life.
John Cornford was only supposed to be in Spain for a few days. He wanted to see the fighting and then get back before anyone missed him. Cornford’s companion in Spain, Franz Borkenau, supplements Cornford’s movements, filling in details and confirming events.
Confessional: I read about John’s end around the time of the ten year anniversary of Prince’s passing so when John, despite a nasty head injury left the hospital out of boredom I couldn’t help but think of Prince. Even though John’s body hadn’t healed properly he checked himself out for fear of missing out on the action.
Julian Bell set out to be an ambulance driver in the Spanish Civil War. What is interesting is that he didn’t know how to drive a lorry; he didn’t know how to speak Spanish; he didn’t know how to administer first aid; he didn’t know how to tell if someone was deceased. Nevertheless, he wanted to gain a first-hand military experience. Like John Cornford, Julian Bell had a companion, Richard Rees, to bolster his narrative.

Journey to the Frontier dips into the life of Lynton Strachey and examines E.M. Forster’s Howards End in the time of the Edwardian-era heyday.

Author facts: Stansky is a graduate of Yale and Abrahams is a graduate of Harvard.

Book trivia: It has been said that the title Journey to the Frontier is the fusion of two different works: On the Frontier, a play by Auden and Isherwood and Journey to the Border, a novel by Upward.

Music: Beethoven, Sibelius, “Pie in the Sky,” “Solidarity Forever,” “Bandiera Rossa,” “La Cucaracha,” “The Old Grey Mare,” and “She Was Poor but She Was Honest.”

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

Brontes: a Life in Letters

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Barker, Juliet. The Brontes: a Life in Letters. Overlook Press, 1997.

Reason read: March is considered Literature Month.

Arguably one of the best researched biographies of the Bronte family and definitely unique. Riding on the coattails of success from Juliet Barker’s first book, The Brontes, she came back with a follow-up. The Brontes: a Life in Letters offers new material in the forms of letters, manuscripts, the reminiscing of friends and teachers, and school documents on the lives of four of the Bronte siblings: Charlotte, Emily, Anne, and Branwell. (Sisters Maria and Elizabeth Bronte both died when they were eleven and ten respectively.) Nineteen new letters are published for the very first time.
Barker’s careful selection of letters creates a humanizing effect. You don’t think about well known “celebrity” types being real people with real feelings and faults. For example, waiting for the reviews of Jane Eyre to come out. As it was, Charlotte suffered from an inferiority complex when it came to social settings. She was truly shocked when people referred to her as a friend. On paper Charlotte had no problem being candid about the political climate of the day or, on a lighter subject, offering book recommendations on all sorts of subjects such as poetry, history, fiction, biography, natural history, and divinity. She and her siblings liked to live in the imaginary world of Gondal and were torn between several callings: teaching or writing or painting? Less is known about Emily, Anne and Branwell. Although Branwell’s involvement with a married woman and subsequent alcoholism complicated the lives of all the Brontes. Like a sniper of the disease variety, tuberculosis picked off the Brontes one by one. Branwell, Emily, and Anne all succumbed to the illness.
One of my favorite parts was learning that the Brontes wrote to established poets to inquire about their own future success as writers. Branwell wrote to William Wordsworth and Charlotte sought the advice of Robert Southey. The biography ramps up in interest when the three Brontes sisters decided to become published authors, cleverly disguised behind androgynous pseudonyms of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. However, The Westminster Review and W.M. Thackery both pegged the Jane Eyre author as being a woman. Charlotte wanted her books to be considered for the words she wrote rather than the sex of the author. What a progressive idea. I can only imagine the material she could have written into her old age.

As Branwell wrote to a friend, “Death only has made me neglectful of your kindness” (p 109). I wish I could send this quote to my friend.

As an aside, it was interesting to read about the struggling success of Wuthering Heights when in present day an adaptation is in the theaters.
Interesting sidenote: I read the lines about Charlotte’s death on March 30th, one hundred and seventy years after her passing.

Author fact:  According to her Wiki page, Barker was the curator and librarian of the Bronte Parsonage Museum from 1983 to 1989.

Book trivia: Brontes: a Life in Letters is thought to be a companion read to Barker’s earlier book called The Brontes. Both books are considered groundbreaking.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Literary Lives: the Brits” (p 146).

Rise of Theodore Roosevelt

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Morris, Arthur Edmund. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. Read by Mark Deakins.

Reason read: in honor of Roosevelt, the first American statesman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

When one thinks of Theodore Roosevelt, it is the big teeth, the massive mustache, the burly figure, and maybe the fact Roosevelt lost his wife and mother on the same day [Alice, of Bright’s disease and Mittie of typhoid fever, respectively]. In The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt Morris covers Theodore Roosevelt’s complicated and robust life up until the presidency. He skillfully reminds his reader about Roosevelt the author who wrote over a dozen histories and biographies to supplement his salary as an Assemblyman; Roosevelt the candidate who lost the bid to be mayor of New York; Roosevelt the complicated man who adored the west and had his heart set on becoming a rancher in the Badlands; Roosevelt the Harvard graduate; Roosevelt the police commissioner; Roosevelt the Assistant Secretary of the Navy; Roosevelt the naturalist; Roosevelt the family man. While Alice was the love of his life he managed to remarry (Edith Carow) and go on to have a happy family of six children. Morris also painted Roosevelt as a contradiction in health. Doctors deemed the future president a sickly asthmatic who somehow was able to perform great feats of athleticism like climbing mountains, hunting for days and hiking long distances.
The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt is thoroughly researched and highly entertaining. As an aside, I adored the ending.

As an aside, I would love to visit the Roosevelt mansion at 6 West 57th Street in Manhattan.

Author fact: Morris was born in Nairobi.

Book trivia: The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt has a great collection of black and white photographs.

Music: “America,” Gilbert and Sullivan, Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus, “Marching Through Georgia,” “Star Spangled Banner,” “There’ll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight,” “The Union Forever,” “My Country Tis of Thee,” “The White Plume,” and “Hail to the Chief.”

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Presidential Biographies” (p 192).

In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz

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Wrong, Michela. In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu’s Congo. Harper Collins, 2001.

Reason read: Mobutu Sese Seko died in October. He was Zaire’s first president. Read in his memory.

More than a biography of Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbedu wa za Banga, Michela Wrong set up to write a love letter to the Congo. Even though Mobutu was a dictator and the first and only president of Zaire, the history of his homeland is a tale that is just as interesting to tell. It is a story of great triumphs and devastating downfalls; a cautionary tale of corruption, greed and betrayal.
It is a small detail of In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz, but I appreciated knowing Mobutu’s origin story of his love of leopard print. I am sure it is exaggerated, but the story goes that Mobutu’s grandfather used to ridicule him for being afraid of leopards. After killing one its skin became Mobutu’s personal fashion plate for his hats. I like to think every time Mobutu wore a leopard print hat he was giving his grandfather the proverbial middle finger.
As an aside…Every time someone saw me with In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz in my hands they would murmur, “ah…Heart of Darkness…” followed by either “I hated that book” or “I loved that book.” No one ever said it was just okay.

Chilling quote, “Knowing nothing about the past, of course, frees a population from any sense of blame for the present” (p 59). Or future, I would add.

Author fact: Wrong was a correspondent. As an aside, I found her comment about the potential spread of AIDS to be somewhat naïve. She was describing a hospital where AIDS carriers and HIV negative patients were “indiscriminately mixed together, their narrow beds only inches apart” (p 138). Even if the mixed patients were holding hands the HIV negative person would not be infected unless they shared blood.

Book trivia: the title of the book comes from a character in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

Music: “As Time Goes By,” “Hotel California,” Koffi Olomide, Zaiko Langa, Papa Wemba, Mick Jagger, Bryan Ferry, Wenge Musica and its variations: Wenge Musica 4×4, Wenge Musica Maison Mere, Wenge Musica BCBG, Wenge Musica Kumbela, Wenge Musica Aile Paris, Tabuley Rochereau, Pepe Kalle, and Gregorian chants.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Africa: Today and Yesterday” (p 10).

Lyndon: an Oral Biography

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Miller, Merle. Lyndon: an Oral Biography. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1980.

Reason read: Lyndon’s birth month was in August. Read in his honor.

Merle Miller spent more than five years compiling Johnson’s oral history. The miles he put in, literally and figuratively, are astounding. Lyndon B. Johnson was a complicated man living in the time of the greatest society. Known for his aw-shucks attitude, he started out being a good ‘ole boy who voted against antilynching and antidiscrimination laws but ended his career as an instrumental advocate for federal aid to education, the creation of Medicare, changes in voter rights, and stronger civil rights. The death of Texas Congressman James P. Buchanan was a turning point in Johnson’s political trajectory. His campaigns were memorable – arriving by helicopter when running for senator. By the end of his political career Lyndon had weathered a tumultuous era: the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., the march in Selma, Alabama, the Vietnam War.
As with any oral history, the chronology jumps around a bit. Case in point: the birth of Lyndon’s first child came before the purchase of the radio station, KTBC.
Miller provides an intimate primer on the inner workings of the United States government. Probably the most fascinating section was the hour by hour, behind the scenes account of the Kennedy assassination and the transition of power to Lyndon B. Johnson. He also peeled back the curtain on Lady Bird Johnson’s life as well. Just as Lyndon was thrust into presidency, Lady Bird became the First Lady overnight. There was no time for preparation but she acclimated to her position with grace. As an aside, her note of encouragement to her husband was beautiful.

Author fact: Miller died when he was only 67 years old. My copy of Lyndon was signed by him.

Book trivia: Miller does not leave a detail unexplored. By default, readers get glimpses into the personality of President Roosevelt and a short biography of Lady Bird (Claudia)’s life leasing up to meeting her husband, to name a couple.

Music: Lena Horne, “I’ll Be with You When I’m Gone,” “Kate Smith on the South,” “God Bless America,” “San Antonio Rose,” “Dixie,” “The Eyes of Texas are Upon You,” Beethoven, “Hello, Dolly,” “The Eyes of Texas,” and “Ruffles and Flourishes.”

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Merle Miller: Too Good To Miss” (p 155). If Pearl wanted, she could have included Lyndon in the “Presidential Biographies” chapter as well.

Housekeeper’s Secret

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Schnakenburg, Sandra. The Housekeeper’s Secret: a Memoir. She Writes Press, 2024.

Reason read: as a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing, I often get to read interesting books. This was one book I inhaled.

Sandra Schnakenburg has always been good with numbers so it seemed like a natural fit for her to become an accountant, but an author? That seems a little farfetched until you learn that her childhood housekeeper of thirty years had a dying wish for Schnakenburg to tell her life story. Then when you read the stories Schnakenburg has to tell about her housekeeper and friend, Lee Metoyer, it all makes sense. This is an important story that needs to be told for many reasons. Lee’s life was as incredible as it was tragic. However, Schnakenburg’s own upbringing is just as compelling. Hers is a story worth telling, too. She grew up in an affluent neighborhood in an extravagant house with five siblings. This was a household where someone had to feed the koi that lived in the pond under the grand staircase. Someone had to iron the bedroom linen. Someone had to line up seven different breakfast juices so that the man of the house could take his pick. The list goes on. Hidden behind the curtain of Schnakenburg’s perfect childhood hides abuse, corruption, and fear. The Housekeeper’s Secret is a story of survival and triumph on multiple levels.
Confessional: sometimes I noticed little inconsistencies. In Housekeeper’s Secret Schnakenburg’s timeline becomes a little skewed. She was six years old when her father took the family to Disneyland, but in the previous chapter she is seven. [Schnakenburg also gets Disneyland confused with Disneyworld. I do, too.] In another scene Metoyer’s cup is empty but she takes a sip of coffee.

Quote of a quote to quote: “There is always that one summer that changes you” -Beth Merlin. Amen to that. I was 23. I experienced the first summer romance of my life and then my father died.

Music: Elvis, “Happy Birthday”, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”, Glenn Miller’s “When That Man is Dead and Gone”, “We Are Family”, and “Paper Doll” by the Mills Brothers.

Queen Victoria

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Longford, Elizabeth. Queen Victoria. Harper & Row, 1965.

Reason read: Queen Victoria celebrated a birth in May. Read in her honor.

Using private papers, journals, and letters, Elizabeth Longford has written thorough biographies of Queen Victoria several times over. Queen Victoria is more concise and compact than Longford’s other books on the subject of Victoria. If you are looking for a shorter version than Strachey or Hibbert, this is it. Longford touches on all the points: born Alexandrina Victoria in 1819, Victoria went on to have a long and thrilling life. She ascended the throne at eighteen, proposed to her beloved Albert a year later, had nine children, and went on to rule Britain, India, and Ireland. After the death of Albert, widow Victoria went into seclusion for eleven years. Twenty-nine years later, she dies. Backfill with the politics of the time (Disraeli, Bonaparte, Crimea, Prussia, and the Year of Revolutions), and Queen Victoria is a good representation of England from 1819 to 1901.

As an aside, I never thought about having someone wear a sprig of holly pinned to the neck of their dress in order to force one to keep her chin up.

Author fact: Elizabeth Longford has a literary prize named after her.

Book trivia: Do not confuse Queen Victoria with Queen Victoria: Born to Succeed (published one year apart).

Lines I loved, “…she would have married him anyhow, whatever the consequences” (p 139). Confessional: I would like to adopt Queen Victoria’s phrase, “We are not amused” (p 64).

Music: “God Save the King”, “The Wolf”, and Haydn’s “Funeral March”.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Queen Victoria and Her Times” (p 191).

Banvard’s Folly

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Collins, Paul. Banvard’s Folly: Thirteen Tales of Renowned Obscurity, Famous Anonymity and Rotten Luck. Picador Press, 2001.

Reason read: something about Australia.

What happened to the once popular toasts of the town when they fell into obscurity? Paul Collins not only wanted to know, he wrote an entire book about thirteen of these people.
The first character Collins chose to focus on was John Banvard. Even Charles Dickens was impressed with John Banvard for Banvard proved to be an interesting and ambitious guy. His first claim to fame was a panoramic of the entire Mississippi River. Banvard wanted to paint the largest (longest) painting the world had ever seen so he spent two years floating down the river sketching different views as he went. A misconception that stuck was that his painting was three miles long. Banvard later went on to paint panoramas of the Palestine and Nile rivers. In addition to being an actor and artist he could decipher hieroglyphics and often gave lectures on the skill.
Next, Collins moved on to a man who forged the great works of William Shakespeare. Even when the jig was up and William Ireland confessed to the forgeries, he could not get his father or even the general public to believe him. Adding insult to injury, when the papers came around to believing the hoax they pointed the finger at Ireland’s father instead.
After that came the interesting characters of Ephraim Wales Bull and his Concord grape; George Psalmanazer’s religion, John Symmes, a man obsessed with the idea of a hollow Earth; Rene Blondlot and his N Ray machine; Francois Sudre, Alfred Beach, Robert Coates, Augustus Pleasonton, Martin Tupper, Delia Bacon (another Shakespeare nut). Thomas Dick and, my personal favorite, Richard Locke, a self taught astronomer.
In the end there is always that one person who has to disprove a notion, debunk a myth, or pull back the curtain on a mystifying event. No one can just let the mystery be. Which is why so many of these people faded into obscurity over time.

Best imagery ever: “…man-bats lived in a land of towering sapphire pyramids and were accompanied by flocks of doves…picnicking on cucumbers” (p 262). Sounds like a place where you would find Prince hanging out. Sign me up.

As an aside, I leaned a new word: crapulous.

Author fact: When I searched for information about Paul Collins I found a writer who also is a rock and roll guy. They are not one and the same.

Book trivia: Banvard’s Folly includes photographs of each individual featured in the book.

Natalie connection: Collins includes a quote from Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself.” Natalie wrote a song honoring Whitman called “Song of Himself.”

Music: Elvis and Pink Floyd.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “People You Ought To Meet” (p 183).

Truman

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McCullough, David. Truman. Simon and Schuster, 1992.

Reason read: on honor of Presidents Day, celebrated the third week of February.

Because Truman’s life is well-documented around the time of his presidency, it is no surprise that McCullough’s biography thinly covers Truman’s childhood and coming-of-age stage of life. The bulk of the biography centers around Truman’s careers; starting with his early venture as a clothing store owner, an eastern judge, a senator, and of course, finally, president of the United States. Having said that, I appreciate biographies that peel back layers of a person’s lifestyle and personality, for better or worse. To know that Truman harbored bigoted thoughts and beliefs was startling but logical, considering the time of his upbringing. Even though he thought of himself as a good-for-nothing American farmer, he also believed he would amount to something great one day. Indeed, he would go from being a businessman with a failing men’s clothing store to earning a seat as an eastern judge and then state senator before becoming president. Not bad for a good ole boy.
As a president, Truman faced enormous difficulties, trials, and tribulations. Only seventy-seven years ago, this sitting president had to endorse anti-lynching legislation (essentially anti-murder legislation, if we are being honest). We can’t forget his decision to definitively end World War II, how he handled Palestine, the threat of communism, and our nation’s involvement in Korea. Not to mention he survived a pretty serious assassination attempt.
McCullough’s coverage of the second campaign, where Dewey was the well-known favorite, was riveting and read like a thriller. Also, it should be noted that McCullough wrote with astounding detail. I could picture Stalin drawing the heads of wolves with a red pencil while talking with Secretary Marshall, trying to save Western Europe.

As an aside, I found myself bonding with Truman just a little. We both studied piano (although while he kept with it, I gave up too early). Truman was an avid letter writer with the desperation to have someone write him back. Me too. Additionally, “he didn’t like the telephone under any circumstances” (p 81). Me neither! Even today, I find some commonality: he read Douglas Southall Freeman. I am currently reading Douglas Southall Freeman; a different book, but same author. Truman also studied the relationship between my favorite president, Abraham Lincoln, and General George B. McClellan. Truman wanted to know more about the Lincoln-McClellan crisis to inform his decisions about McArthur.

As another aside, I think it would have been fun to have known Cactus John Garner for his snarky view of the role of vice presidents.

Monhegan Six Degrees – in 1948 a painting by Andrew Wyeth called Christina’s World was all the rage (and made a mention in Truman). Andrew was Jamie’s father and Jamie is my neighbor.

Author fact: I am reading a total of five books by McCullough. Besides Truman I have only John Adams left on the Challenge list. I finished Johnstown Flood, Mornings on Horseback and Path Between the Seas.

Book trivia: There is a good selection of black and white photographs included.

Music: Andy Kirk’s “Clouds of Joy”, Bach, Beethoven’s Sonata Pathetique, Benny Goodman, “Cieto Lindo”, Chopin’s Funeral March, Bennie Moten Orchestra, Count Basie’s Kansas City Seven, “One O’clock Jump”, Cole Porter’s “Kiss Me Kate”, “Dixie”, “Enjoy Yourself, It’s Later Than You Think”, “Eternal Father, Strong to Save”, “Faith of Our Fathers”, Fanny Bloomfield Zeisler, Felicien David’s “La Perle du Bresil”, “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow”, “Goodbye to Broadway, Hello France”, “Hail to the Chief”, “Happy Days are Here Again”, Hot Lips Page, “Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight”, “It’s a Most Unusual Day”, “I’m Just Wild about Harry”, Jerome Kern’s “They’ll Never Believe Me”, Josef Lhevinne, “Keep the Home Fires Burning”, Julia Lee, “Last Rose of Summer”, Lena Horne, Lionel Hampton, Liszt, Mendelssohn’s “Songs Without Words”, “Mother Machree”, Mozart’s Ninth Sonata, “My Old Kentucky Home”, the Nighthawks, Opus 111, “Over There, Over There Send the Word”, “O God, Our Help in Ages Past”, Paderewski’s Minuet in G, Pee Wee Hunt’s version of “12th Street Rag”, Polka Brillante, Scarlatti’s Pastorale and Capriccio, Schubert, Schumann, Strauss, “Tipperary”, Tchaikovsky, Verdi, Von Weber Rondo Brillante amd Polacca Brillante, Weber and Grieg, “Woodland Sketches”, Walter Page’s “Blue Devils”, and “When Irish Eyes are Smiling”.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Presidential Biographies” (p 192). Also from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Midcentury: from World War II to Vietnam” (p 167).

Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow

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Whiteley, Opal. The Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow: the Mystical Nature Diary of Opal Whitely. Penguin Books,

Reason read: I was supposed to read The Diary of Opal Whiteley in honor of Oregon becoming a state in February, but it became too much of a pain in the ass to find the original. I settled for Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow and hope that it is considered a decent substitute. Another version is The Story of Opal: the Journal of an Understanding Heart. I will be 100% honest. I am not taking the time to learn of their differences.

Benjamin Hoff, author of The Tao of Pooh, was fascinated by Opal Whiteley. Indeed, Opal Whiteley was, and still is, a conundrum. Critics still want to know who is this child? By 1903, at six years old, Opal allegedly had written a masterpiece on paper bags and leaves and hidden the pages in a rotting log. Over one hundred years later she is considered a Cascadia pioneer who truly loved the land. In her precocious yet controversial diary, Whiteley concocted elaborate names her animals and wrote passages in French and Latin. She spoke to potatoes, gave funerals for mice, christened pigs, and listened to sap rising in the maples. She was frequently whipped by “the mama” (who she denied was her real mother), punished by teachers who didn’t understand her abilities, and was often lonely with only her beloved animals, a few neighbors, and the trees to converse with. She is forever thought of as innocence personified. Yet, to read her diary, it is full of intelligent joy. Even when she was weeding the onions, watching the baby, bringing in the firewood, washing the dishes, tending to the chickens, scouring the pots and pans, churning the butter, sewing, or sweeping the floor she was seeing to these chores with a certain level of cheerful lightheartedness. The controversy lies in the belief that Opal wrote her diary when she was much older. The only word I can use to describe Opal’s diary is sweet, even if it is fraudulent. The caveat to all this is that Opal Whitely was mentally ill. She was committed to a hospital when she was 50 years old and lived there until her death at age 92.
As an aside, obviously Opal got to Hoff as well. He tried on numerous occasions to see Miss Whiteley without success.

Quote I adored, “And when I grow up, I am going to buy her a whole rain-barrel full of singing lessons” (p 192).
Sweetest moment: Opal lost a toad in class. A classmate rescued the amphibian and returned it to Opal’s pocket without the teacher seeing a thing.

Author fact: Whiteley also write The Fairyland Around Us (1918) for children.

Book trivia: Opal’s story was published in serialized form in the Atlantic. Later, the Atlantic Monthly Press published it in book form as The Story of Opal: the Journal of an Understanding Heart. You can also find an online version from the University of Oregon.

Music: “”Ave Maria”, “Chant d’Automne”, “Gloria Patri et Filio”, “Nearer My God to Thee”, “Rockabye Baby”, and “Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus Dominus”.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Living High in Cascadia” (p 148). As an aside, I have no idea why this wasn’t in the chapter called “Child Prodigies” (from More Book Lust p 43). Even though there is skepticism that Whitely wrote her diary at age six, inclusion of her book would make more sense than The Man Who Fell to Earth.

Truth and Beauty

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Patchett, Ann. Truth and Beauty: A Friendship. Read by Ann Patchett.

Reason read: December is a time for gifts. This is one I give to myself. Confessional: I read Lucy’s autobiography a long time ago. I was supposed to read Truth and Beauty directly afterwards for comparison. I may have to return to the review I wrote for Autobiography of a Face.

In a nutshell: this is the story of an unconventional friendship. Ann Patchett was befriended by the charismatic and neurotic Lucy Grealy when they were students at Sarah Lawrence College. From the age of nine, Grealy suffered from Ewing carcinoma of the jaw which left her terribly disfigured. She endured over thirty surgeries and multiple rounds of chemotherapy. Throughout her life, Lucy didn’t know who she was without her illness, her cancer, her surgeries. Due to her low self esteem, Grealy overcompensated by seeking out people to adore and worship her. She thrust her personality onto anyone who would listen, daring them to love and accept her. Confessional: I don’t know what to make of Truth and Beauty. There is a sheen of jealousy that lightly covers the entire narrative. It is if Patchett wants to paint Grealy as a self-centered narcissist while Patchett is the unconditional, sane, patient, all-loving friend. By sharing Lucy’s letters and hardly ever her own replies, Patchett skillfully makes the relationship seem off-balance and schizophrenic. Grealy’s low self-esteem forces her to constantly seek approval and love affirmations from Patchett. The two may have been friendly before they became successful writers, but Patchett’s word choices convey hints of resentment towards Lucy’s fame and even towards Lucy herself throughout the entire story. Every compliment comes across as backhanded and contrived, as if Patchett really wanted to say Lucy used her debilitating disease as a means to be coddled and cared for by everyone around her. I got the nagging sense that Patchett only tolerated Lucy and her illness because she knew Grealy’s story was a gold mine. In truth, I have no doubt there was affection shared between the two writers but I feel it was a more honest relationship before the drive to publish and the desire to be famous kicked in.
As an aside, I lost track of how many times Patchett referred to Grealy’s height and weight, as if she was envious of Grealy’s childlike stature.

Author fact: I am reading three books by Ann Patchett. Oddly enough, Bel Canto is not on the Challenge list.

Book trivia: There are no heartwarming photographs of any kind.

Playlist: the Talking Heads, Kylie Minogue, Rush, and Leonard Cohen.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Other People’s Shoes” (p 182).