Tag: biography

Carry On, Mr Bowditch

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Latham, Jean Lee. Carry On, Mr. Bowditch. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1955.

Read this in a day. May is National History month and while that alone was a good excuse to read Carry On I also chose to read it because of Kon-Tiki. Seemed like the perfect transition.

This was reminiscent of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s account about growing up in the unorganized territories of the midwest in the Little House series; better known as historical fiction. I call it biographical with a little imagination thrown in. It covers the life of Nathanial Bowditch, navigator extraordinaire. While the details of his childhood and subsequent personal adult years are somewhat abbreviated for adults, the content is perfect for children. I appreciated the way Latham didn’t minimized or sugarcoat the tragedy in Bowditch’s life. Nor did she gloss over his relationships with his first wife Elizabeth, or Polly, his second. What does come across is Bowditch’s love of mathematics and the seriousness with which he applies it to navigating the high seas. He does not suffer fools easily but his passion for teaching is enthusiastic and patient.

Favorite lines: “Sometimes women get a little upset about the sea” (p 71). Well, can you blame them? Husbands were gone for months and even years. Sometimes they didn’t come home at all. Another line I liked “You know, you’re real humanlike – in spite of your brains” (p 86). Funny.

Book Trivia: Carry On, Mr. Bowditch won Latham a Newbery Medal.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Historical Fiction for Kids of All Ages” (p 114).

It’s Not About the Bike

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Armstrong, Lance. It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life.New York: Berkley Books, 2001.

I read this in one sitting, again as a passenger on a trip from Maine. I had the luck (?) of traffic on my side so instead of the usual 4.5 hours to get home it took us over six.

I will be 100% honest. I don’t know what to think about this book. When I first finished it I was expecting some sort of lesson to be learned, some sort of moral to the story. Instead I found the ending as well, an ending. The end. I’m not sure why it wasn’t more for me. I guess it’s because in comparison with Matthew Long’s recovery back to athletics Long’s process was more drawn out, more detailed. I felt that Long’s experience was more painful and not as easy to cope with emotionally. I think that was due, in part, to how little time Armstrong spent describing his road to recovery. In comparison to Long, Armstrong made it a much simpler process with much less emotion. To be fair, one man was hit by a bus and another was hit by cancer in three different areas of his body. Only two similarities really rise between the two men. Both men were ordained by doctors to die and both had an insane willpower to defy all odds and, ultimately, get back to the sports they loved so much.

Everyone knows Lance Armstrong’s story – man with cancer defies the odds and wins the Tour de France a shocking seven consecutive times. But, as the title of Armstrong’s story suggests it’s not about the bike. Instead it is about a different kind of competition. Fighting cancer. Ultimately, as near death moments will do, cancer changed him. It woke him up to the possibilities of a fuller, more meaningful life. He never would have become a philanthropist without the experience of personal pain. It’s Not about the Bike is that journey from hotshot cyclist to a powerhouse with a greater purpose.

Favorite lines: “If there is a defining characteristic of a man as opposed to a boy, maybe it’s patience” (p 65). “During our lives we’re faced with so many different elements as well, we experience so many setbacks, and fight such hand-to-hand battle with failure, head down in the rain, just trying to stay upright and to have a little hope” (p 69). Finally, “We watched the World Series and tried to act like we were interested in the outcome – as much as anybody really cares about baseball before brain surgery” (p 110 – 111).

Author fact(s): Two of my favorite details about Armstrong as the person (and not the writer) is he is also a marathoner (three times) and allegedly agnostic.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Best for Teens” (p 23)

Cloudsplitter

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Banks, Russell. Cloudsplitter. New York: Harper Collins, 1998.

Aside from its daunting size (well over 700 pages) this was fascinating to read. Owen Brown, the third of John Brown’s sons, tells the story of his father’s controversial life, beginning with Owen’s own childhood. Cloudsplitter opens with a written apology to Miss Mayo, a young Columbia University student who had been rebuffed by Owen after she traveled to his remote mountainside home in Altadena, California in hopes of inviting him to a reception. After chasing Miss Mayo away Owen is feeling the pressures of mortality, for he is not a young man anymore, and decides to tell his entire story from start to finish. While he is apparently ambivalent to his father’s tragic path of life he is deeply reflective and apologetic, detailing the process of how his father become of of history’s most complex antislavery agitators and martyrs. Owen desperately wants to appear open and honest by saying, “I will tell all” over and over again. Seeing as how Cloudsplitter is told from the point of view of John Brown’s surviving son it is safe to say the story was not meant to be yet another retelling  of the famous yet failed raid on Harper’s Ferry specifically. It is more accurately an illustration of how one man’s religious beliefs can grow to become the catalyst for one of the most well known events in history, in this case, the anti-slave movement. While Banks’ style of writing is, at times, rambling and contradictory (a reflection of Owen’s ability to tell the story) he is able to seamlessly weave nonfiction into fiction; reality into imagined to create a vivid political and cultural 19th century landscape.

One of the reoccurring themes of Cloudsplitter is guilt, guilt driven by religion, guilt driven by family obligation and guilt driven by society. As the child of John Brown, Owen is pulled in many different directions by his guilt and it apparent in every story he tells.

Profound lines: “I was, during those first few weeks…precariously balanced between opposing commitments which were set to create the shape of the rest of my life, and I knew that not to chose between them would lead me inescapably to a resolution that expressed not my will, but my father’s” (p 199), “It was the year that Lyman Epps and I finished our elaborate dance, and I went howling into the wilderness, leaving wreckage and smoldering ruin behind me” (p 536), and “Our specialty would be killing men who wished to own other men” (p 549).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Biographical Novels” (p 38).

ps~ I have read four out of five of the Russell Banks books on my list.

January 2011 Was…

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I can’t help but sing ‘Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow” when I think of the month January has been. If you live in any state (besides Hawaii) you know what I am talking about. Even HotTopic-Lanta has gotten some snowfall. They haven’t known what to do with it, but they got it nonetheless! Needless to say the snow has kept me indoors and reading for the month of January! For the record, here are the books:

  • Breath, Eyes Memory by Edwidge Danticat ~ in honor of Danticat’s birth month. This was a movie in my head (or else a true-life story). Really, really good!
  • Cruddy by Lynda Barry ~ in honor of Barry’s birth month. This was one of the most disturbing books I have read so far. the violence and abuse was over the top.
  • King of the World by David Remnick ~ in honor of Muhammad Ali’s birth month. I didn’t know I wanted to know but I’m glad I know.
  • I, Robot by Isaac Asimov ~ in honor of Asimov’s birth month. Science fiction, of course. Interesting, but a little redundant in theme.
  • Two in the Far North by Margaret Murie ~ in honor of Alaska becoming a state in the month of January. Courage and adventure personified. I enjoyed this book a lot.
  • Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army From the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany, June 7, 1944 -May 7, 1945 by Stephen Ambrose ~ in honor of Ambrose’s birth month. It took me a little to get into this book but I’m glad I read it. It is slowly helping me get over my fear of Hitler and all things Nazi.
  • Another Song About the King by Kathryn Stern ~ in honor of Elvis Presley’s birth month being in January. This was a super fast, super fun read.

I was supposed to get an Early Review book but it hasn’t arrived yet. It will go on the February list of books, hopefully.

King of the World

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Remnick, David. King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero. New York: Random House, 1998.

I realize David Remnick needed to set the scene, to establish the boxing backdrop in order for Cassius Clay’s story to be fully appreciated, but in my opinion three whole chapters equaling 68 pages was too much pre-story information. There was too much detail about the Floyd Patterson/Sonny Liston rivalry. To be fair, the long introduction established the dangerous culture of the mafia-driven boxing world before Cassius Clay entered it and how lucky he was to escape it. It clearly illustrated the mold Cassius Clay was about to break while simultaneously solidifying Liston and Clay’s animosity towards one another. I just wish it didn’t take three chapters to do it.

I think the entire story of Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali can be summed up by one sentence late in the prologue, “He hit people for a living, and yet by middle age he would be a symbol not merely of courage, but of love, of decency, even a kind of wisdom” (p xvi). It is true Ali started out as a loud-mouthed, egotistical, “pretty” kid who could back up his bravado with a mean left hook. He hid his emotions under constant chatter. But, by the time the heart of Remnick’s biography leaves the story of Cassius Clay, Clay had barely become Muhammad Ali, had just beaten Sonny Liston in a November 22, 1965 fight to defend his heavyweight title, and was on the cusp of being a cultural icon. He had yet to sway the country as a force to be reckoned with. He would not become the beloved everyone thinks of today. It’s as if Remnick needs to write a King of the World: Part II and tell the rest of the story.

Line I liked: “The doctors of Maine may have been accustomed to a relatively low level of fitness” (p 250).

One of the coolest things about King of the World was learning that Ali trained in Chicopee Falls, MA and that his second bout with Liston happened in Lewiston, Maine. I had fun researching the Schine family and the different hotels they owned (including one in Northampton that is still in operation today). An inside joke – Robert Goulet sang the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ before the Ali/Liston fight. He couldn’t remember the words nor could he hear the orchestra! Glouleeeet!

Author Fact: David Remnick is a member of the New York Public Library Board of Trustees. He was born in Hackensack, New Jersey (one of my old stomping grounds), is fluent in Russian and has won a Pulitzer Prize,

Book Trivia: One of the best things about King of the World is the photo layout. Instead of having the traditional group of photographs clumped in the middle of the book Remnick’s photos are spread throughout the book, making each section a little present.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter “Dewey Deconstruction: 700s” (p 74).

Meaning of Everything

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Winchester, Simon. The Meaning of Everything: the Story of the Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.

I suppose since Winchester’s The Meaning of Everything serves as a follow-up to The Professor and the Madman: a Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary I should link to the review of The Professor…here.

I hate to admit this, but I didn’t care for The Meaning of Everything. Okay, while I’m being honest I’ll go for broke – I didn’t get beyond page 19. There. I said it. I was bored. As a person deeply connected to reading you would think I would be intimate with words, especially the origin of words. I mean, words form sentences and sentences form paragraphs and paragraphs form pages and pages fill books, right? And books are what it’s all about, right? No. I guess the bottom line is I don’t care about where the word came from. The word, when it stands alone, is boring. How sad is that? I need words strung together into sentences. Those sentences need to be woven together to ultimately make a story interesting. This, however, was not.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, “Dewey Deconstructed: 400s” (p 68).

August ’10 is…

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August is another trip homehome, this time for something happy – a wedding! Actually Kisa and I have two weddings to go to this month. We haven’t planned much of anything else because July was such a crazy busy month. Here’s the lowdown on the books:

  • Zarafa: a giraffe’s true story by Michael Allin ~ in honor of Napoleon being born in August
  • All-Girl Football Team: Stories by Lewis Nordan ~ in honor of Nordan being born in August
  • Zel by Donna Jo Napoli ~ in honor of August being fairy tale month
  • The Meaning of Everything: the story of the Oxford English dictionary by Simon Winchester
  • Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson and the Opening of the American West by Stephen Ambrose in honor of the Lewis & Clark expedition

I don’t know if I actually got an Early Review book from LibraryThing this month…

June ’10 was…

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June was a month of reconnection. By far, my favorite musical moment was the lovely Rebecca Correia at the Iron Horse. It is awful to say but every single artist that follows her on stage can’t compare. Not that they are NailsOnaChalkboard bad, but they have nothing on Rebecca. On the professional side of things June was a very frustrating month. On the personal sides I got one of the best hugs of my life (thanks, Gracie). For books, it was this:

  • Happenstance by Carol Shields ~ this should be a movie
  • Hatchet by Gary Paulsen ~ this also should be a movie
  • The Confession of Nat Turner by William Styron ~ this was a hard one to read
  • Writing Dangerously: Mary McCarthy and Her World by Carol Brightman ~ a very thorough biography that helped with my insomnia
  • I Don’t Know Why I Swallowed the Fly by Jessica Maxwell ~ first year fly fishing story
  • Less Than Angels by Barbara Pym ~ a sociology experiment in a land of anthropologists
  • Master & Commander by Patrick O’Brien ~ this took some time to get into…so much so that I didn’t finish it.
  • The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald ~ I needed to lick my wounds with something enjoyable!

For LibraryThing’s Early Review program:

  • The House on Oyster Creek by Heidi Jo Schmidt ~ once I got beyond the first chapter I loved it. Beautiful writing.

For the fun of it:

  • Winning By Losing by Jillian Michaels ~ I’m most interested by the subtitle on the cover of her book, “Change You Life.” I’m up for that. Really.

Writing Dangerously

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Brightman, Carol. Writing Dangerously: Mary McCarthy and Her World. New York: Clarkson Potter, 1992.

Mary McCarthy was born on June 2nd, 1912. Hence my reasoning for picking up her biography by Carol Brightman this month.

Mary reminds me of my friend, Ruth. Beautiful, outspoken inasmuch as she says what she feels, means what she says. In addition, she doesn’t take sh!t from anyone, yet has a heart of gold. She laughs when anyone else would have crocodile tears. She can confront fights with fire. She’s popular with the men with a come-hither glint in her eye and has no time for sugar cookie lies. Need I say, independent yet fidelis. I think I would have gotten along with Mary had I been in her day or she in mine.

Mary McCarthy was an outspoken critic of practically everything around her. From her humble beginnings as a self-proclaimed abused orphan Mary quickly grew into a witty writer and reporter with a constant comment about the world around her. No subject was off-limits whether it be about the abuse she suffered at the hands of her uncle, her contradictory religious views, losing her virginity at age 14, a scathing look at her peers in academia, Communism or war. Carol Brightman often quotes McCarthy to support her biography using both McCarthy’s fiction and nonfiction. Two sections of photography round out an already very thorough account of the controversial Mary McCarthy.

Favorite word, “bildungsroman” ( a genre of novel of complete self-development).

Favorite quote: “One of Mary McCarthy’s legendary attributes is that no matter how much fire and brimstone she and her fictional heroines traverse before they see the light, they never seem to get burned” (p 58).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, Literary Lives: The Americans (p 145).

Mountains Beyond Mountains

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Kidder, Tracy.  Mountains Beyond Mountains: the Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World. New York: Random House, 2003.

This was given to me as a gift, a well-timed, meaningful gift. I added it to the February list in honor to the Haitian people.

Mountains Beyond Mountains can be seen as a biography about Dr. Paul Farmer within the context of his love for Haiti. Mountains Beyond Mountains can also be seen as a travel book, a great way to learn about Haiti’s culture and climate, it’s people and politics. Haiti is a conflicted country so there is a lot to tell. Kidder is sensitive to Farmer’s intense passion for medicine and does not diminish the magnitude of sacrifices Farmer has made for it. Relationships and health suffer when Farmer single-minded tenacity neglects everything else.

There were a lot of really good quotes so my advice is just this: read it for yourself.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, “Guilt-Inducing Books” (p 110).

Last Lion

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Manchester, William. Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill – Visions of Glory 1874-1932. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1983.

The scope of daily life during Churchill’s lifetime is covered extensively in Manchester’s Preamble and Prologue to Last Lion. The changing social scene, the evolving cultures and ever-daring fashions are included; while these details are simple,  they bog down the biography making it long and tedious. The preamble and prologue to Last Lion are like an old buggy, a very slow start. As a result the first chapter doesn’t begin until page 110.

Once the reader gets to the real beginning of Manchester’s biography on Churchill the story is fascinating. Manchester does an amazing job including photographs and letters to illustrate Churchill’s fascinating life. Manchester’s style of writing flows freely. Humor gives the biography a certain sparkle.

Favorite lines, “Churchilll could be very difficult. When a plane was preparing to land and the NO SMOKING sign flashed on, he would light up a cigar. If he found himself driving in a traffic jam, he wheeled his car out on the shoulder or sidewalk and drove to the head of the line” (p 27). While those situations would annoy the crap out of me I couldn’t help but laugh at them, too.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, “Winston Churchill” (p 44). Go figure.

The Life You Save

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Elie, Paul. The Life You Save May Be Your Own: an American Pilgrimage. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003.

What do Flannery O’Connor, Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day and Walker Percy have in common? For starters, they are all authors who struggled not only with identity, but religious faith as well. It’s this search for religious truth through writing that binds them together. They conducted their searches and tested boundaries of Catholicism through the art of writing.  Mary Flannery O’Connor began her writing career in Georgia at a very young age and was considered a prodigy by many: Thomas Merton, just a couple of states north in Kentucky began his writing as a Trappist monk who wrote letters about his faith: Dorothy Day, while older than all the others, founded the Catholic Worker newspaper in New York: Walker Percy started out as a doctor in the furthest south of them all, in New Orleans, but quit medicine to become novelist. In time the group became known as the School of the Holy Ghost because of their pursuit of the answers to religion’s biggest questions. Paul Elie brings that School of the Holy Ghost back together again in a 2003 book called The Life You Save May Be Your Own containing biographies and literary criticisms of all four writers. Elie does a great job detailing all four lives and the times they lived in, but is more thorough with the women than the men. Flannery O’Connor gets the most attention while Thomas Merton gets the least.

I didn’t find any quotes that really spoke up or out, but my favorite part was Elie’s breakdown of Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer. I am almost tempted to read it again now that I have a better understanding of Percy and what he was trying to say.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, “Group Portraits” (p 109).

Quartered Safe Out Here

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Fraser, George MacDonald. Quartered Safe Out Here: a Recollection of the War in Burma. New York: Akadine Press, 2001. 

I was hoping to take this on my 60 mile cancer walk – thinking I would have quiet nights to read and recuperate. No such thing. I never opened a page. Instead, I took it home to Monhegan and on the second to last day got it read. Confession: no small feat because I found it dull, dull, dull.

Quartered Safe Out Here is George MacDonald Fraser’s “memoir” about being in Burma as a 19 year old soldier in World War II. While it’s a vivid and honest first hand account about being in the thick of battle, I found it slow moving and tiring. Fraser takes great pains to get every accent phonetically spelled out – so much so that the written page looks like a foreign language at times. But, it wasn’t the accents that I found the most tiresome. It was the fact that nearly every every other page contained a footnote containing a special explanation or definition. Fraser could have added another 50 pages if the footnotes were included in the body of the text. Probably the scene that held my attention the best was when Fraser was looking in bunkers for ‘Japs.’ His innocence to the danger is touching.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter ” Living Through War” (p 154).

Jameses

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Lewis, R.W.B. The Jameses: a Family Narrative. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1991.

Having read Lewis’s biography of Edith Wharton I knew what to expect when reading about the Jameses. Lewis approaches his subjects with an air of authority and an eye on detail and The Jameses: a Family Narrative was no different. Lewis covers the James family from 18th century Ireland up to the death of novelist Henry James in 1916. It is an impressive cast of characters. At best I could relate to Henry James, Sr., a man who railed against any model of institutionalized or organized religion. He spent a better part of his life on a quest to understand God, spirituality, and redemption. At times I found the rest of the narrative drawn out and too expansive. I have to admit, I did not finish.

Favorite quotes: “With Burnet as his agent, James bought Syracuse for $30,000” (p 12). Imagine that.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter, “Literary Lives: The Americans” (p 144).

January Was…

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January started off and ended with a head cold (damn you, kisa), a really nice dinner party, a re-commitment to the houses HOUSE (glutton for punishment that I am), a re-commitment to charities with a big one – training for a 20 mile walk for Project Bread, a huge re-commitment to friendships and huge changes at the library. For books it was:

  • Death Comes to the Archbishop by Willa Cather in honor of New Mexico becoming a state in January.
  • Red Death by Walter Mosely in honor of Walter’s birthday being in January
  • Biggest Elvis by P.F. Kluge in honor of both Elvis and P.F. celebrating their birthdays in January.
  • Devices and Desires by P.D. James ~ in honor of mystery month.
  • The Eleven Million Mile High Dancer by Carol Hill
  • Edith Wharton: a Biography by R.W.B. Lewis ~ in honor of Edith’s birthday on January 24th.
  • The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman ~ in honor of Barbara’s birthday.

For fun:

  • The Letters by Luanne Rice and Joseph Monninger ~ a story that partially takes place on Monhegan. How could I resist? This is the blog that was plagarized by some dumb-azz.
  • 30 pages of Nutritional Wisdom ~ a Christmas gift from my sister.

So I didn’t get a LibraryThing Early Review book in January. That’s not a big deal. I have certainly gotten my fair share over the course of the program so I’m not complaining. I do have to admit, I feel a little guilty. For the first time ever, I am really late publishing the review for the last ER book. Maybe that had something to do with it…who knows?

ps~ I did get one for February, or so I am told! 🙂