Tag: book lust ii

“Birdland”

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Knight, Michael. “Birdland.” Goodnight, Nobody. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2003.

Raymond, the protagonist of “Birdland,” knows how to capitalize on the African parrots that migrant every fall to his tiny town of Elbow, Alabama. The parrots have brought Ludmilla Haggarsdottir (aka The Blond), an ornithologist from New Hampshire. Having nowhere to stay, The Blond rents a room with Raymond and becomes his girlfriend. His second source of income is wood carvings of the parrots for all the tourists who “flock” to Elbow (pun totally intended). Elbow in and of itself is an interesting little community of less than 12 souls, all fixated on the game of college football. I fell in love with Raymond and his band of misfit neighbors. They live the simple life without telephones or tvs. The Blond is the most colorful thing he’s seen since the arrival of the parrots.

Quotes I loved, “The African parrot can live up to eighty years…and often mates for life, though our local birds have apparently adopted a more swinging sexual culture due to an instinctive understanding of the rigors of perpetuation in a non-indigenous environment” (p 5) and “I want to tell her that the past is not only for forgetting” (p 14).

Reason read: June is national short story month. Are you tired of me saying that?

Author fact: In 2003 Knight taught at the University of Tennessee. The sad thing is, when you do a Google search for “Michael Knight” the first thing that pops up is the television show “Knight Rider.”

Book trivia: I’m going to sound like a broken record saying this but most of Knight’s short stories appeared in magazines (like Playboy) before they were published as a collection.

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

“Crossing the Craton”

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McPhee, John. “Crossing the Craton.” Annals of the Former World. New York: Farrar, Straus and Grioux, 1998.

For starters, do not be intimidated by the subject matter: geology. McPhee writes with a folksy tone. Right away he is calling the reader “friend.” This is not to say the content of “Crossing the Craton” has been dumbed down. It hasn’t. McPhee doesn’t spare the reader from words like brachiopods, samarain, neodymium and nautiloids and his timelines are a confusing mess. It takes some getting used to but I have to say this, reading about the oldest rock (35 billion years old) from the Minnesota River Valley is pretty fascinating. “Crossing the Craton” is the last chapter in his behemoth book, Annals of the Former World and probably the shortest.

Best quote, “There would be more to tell you if you could sense what you can’t see” (p 626).

Reason read: I am treating the final chapter of Annals of the Former World as a short story since it is under 50 pages long. All the other “chapters” are actually separate books that I will be reading at different times.

As an aside, every since Natalie Merchant sang about the San Andreas fault I have always been curious about it. McPhee talks about it several times in “Crossing the Craton.”

Author fact: John McPhee has written over 24 different books. I only have six of them on my list.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “The Beckoning Road” (p 19).

Thirty Year Old Women Do Not Always Come Home

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Winegardner, Mark. “Thirty Year Old Women Do Not Always Come Home.” That’s True of Everybody.New York: Harcourt, Inc., 2002.

How often do you think about bowling? If you aren’t a member of a league, probably not very often. So, when I read “The average American home, Harry had read in a magazine, no longer contained a bowling ball” (p 3) I thought to myself, I’m sure he’s right. No home of mine has ever had a bowling ball. But, in “Thirty Year Old Women Do Not Always Come Home” Harry has a reason for being worried about bowling balls. As the owner of a bowling alley in Cuyahoga, Ohio if he wants to stay in business, he needs to care. He has two daughters, one is an artist in New York who only paints phalluses and is married to a man with whom Harry has a passive aggressive relationship. His second daughter, Jane, helps with the bowling alley. The real meat of the story centers around the disappearance of Harry’s new hire after two weeks on the job. It becomes his private obsession. “Thirty Year Old Women” is a slightly depressing story. You can’t help but feel sorry for Harry. He is an overcompensating wimp who couldn’t be more accommodating to the people in his life.

Funny line to remember, “The penis, Harry thought, truly is a sad, slouchy little guy. (p 7).

Reason read: June is short story month.

Author fact: Winegardner is the director of the creative writing program at Florida State University (or, at least he was, in 2002).

Book trivia: Like most short story complications, some of the short stories have been published elsewhere.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Good Things Come in Small Packages” (p 104).

Sound of Thunder

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Bradbury, Ray. “A Sound of Thunder.” R is For Rocket. New York: Doubleday, 1952.

This is an incredibly short story that packs a punch. It’s one of those simple as hell stories that makes you think for hours afterwards. Take Concept #1: At the heart of the story is a travel/safari company that advertizes, “Safaris to Any Year in the Past. You Name the Animal. We Take You There. You Kill It.” Let that digest. That alone is definitely something to ponder. Concept #2: The main character of the story, Eckles, wants to kill a dinosaur. Not just any dinosaur, but the king of all prehistoric lizards – the tyrannosaurus rex. Contemplate that. What would it take to kill such a beast? Concept #3: the safari can only kill an animal predestined to die or else the future will hang in the balance. Kill the wrong thing and you might upset the whole apple cart of life as you know it. And guess what, Eckles accidentally kills a butterfly, upsetting the path to the present. Concept #4: before leaving present day Eckles learns that a benevolent leader has just beaten out a tyrannical dictator for President. You can see where this is going.

Reason read: June is National Short Story Month

Author fact: Ray Bradbury’s site is here. I’m sure it’s not the only one dedicated to the writer.

Story trivia: “A Sound of Thunder” was first published in magazines like Playboy (1956).

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Time Travel” (p 220).

Earthly Possessions

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Tyler, Anne. Earthly Possessions. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1977.

This is a super quick read. The fact that it was a made-for-television movie back in the 90s should tell you something: really good but without prolonged drama; couldn’t make it to the big screen. Here’s the quick and dirty of the plot: Charlotte Emory is at the bank, waiting to clean out her savings so she can run away from her married life. She’s the bored housewife of a boring preacher. While waiting to change her whole life, suddenly it is changed for her. She gets caught up in a robbery and is taken hostage. Since her captor is practically half her age she isn’t exactly afraid of him, or the gun he waves in her face. Almost willingly Charlotte finds herself on a road trip with Jake Simms, Jr – demolition derby racer, escapee from jail, and father to his teenage girlfriend’s unborn child. The three make an interesting pair. Tyler’s writing is sharp and funny. She gives us alternating time frames, bouncing between Charlotte’s escape in present day and the past – as if to explain how Charlotte’s life ended up so complicated.

Lines I liked, “I tripped over a mustard jar big enough to pickle a baby” (p 6). Who thinks like that? Another one, “That prodding black nubbin in the hand of a victim of impulse” (p 49).

Reason read: June is the most popular month to get married in…and divorced in, too. I have no idea why.

Author fact: Tyler graduated from Duke University at the age of nineteen. Are you doing the math? If there were four years spent at Duke she would have entered college at the age of fifteen.

Book trivia: Earthly Possessions was made into a television movie in 1999 and starred Susan Sarandon as the bored housewife. I can picture that completely.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Marriage Blues” (p 161).

“How to Revitalize the Snake in Your Life”

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Tinti, Hannah. Animal Crackers. “How to Revitalize the Snake in Your Life.”New York: Dial Press, 2004.

Holy cow does this short story creep up on you! I so want to spill the beans and spoil the ending, but I can’t! I must not! Suffice it to say this story will punch you in the gut and you will like it. Our protagonist is an unnamed former medical student who starts a wayward relationship with an edgy artist. You know from the first two sentences of the story that her relationship is doomed but what you don’t realize (until it’s way too late) is that this same woman has serious issues. There is a reason why she is a former medical student. When aforementioned edgy artist abruptly vanishes from her life he leaves behind a red tailed boa constrictor in her apartment and for awhile things are good. Until they aren’t. Like medical school, there is a reason why Fred says “don’t let the snake out of the cage.” I’ll leave it at that, except to say when Fred returns for his snake three months later, things are decidedly different at the former medical student’s apartment.

A shade of warning, “Then she turned and quietly fainted” (p 134).

Reason read: June is short story month

Author fact: Animal Crackers is Tinti’s debut.

Book trivia: the short story, “How to Revitalize the Snake in Your Life” is not mentioned on the inside flap so everything about the story was a complete surprise.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Good Things Come in Small Packages” (p 103).

Inside Passage

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Modzelewski, Michael. Inside Passage: Living with Killer Whales, Bald Eagles, and Kwakiutl Indians. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991.

“For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to live on an island” (prelude to Inside Passage, p xi). This is how Modzelewski starts his book. Kismet. How Michael Modzelewski ends up living on an island is one of those right place-right time kind of deals. While in a relationship he knew wouldn’t work out he met a man who lived on a deserted island in the Inside Passage. For those not in the know, the Island Passage is the waterway from Seattle, Washington to Alaska. The rest is history. Modzelewski lives with his new friend, Will Malloff, for three weeks before being left alone in the northern wilderness. He soaks up every opportunity to learn that he can. From fishing with Kwakiutl Indians and trying to save a wounded eagle to diving with killer whales and cooking a Thanksgiving dinner in a wood burning cook stove. Modzelewski seizes every moment to make an adventure. The one problem with Inside Passage? It’s too short. I can overlook the fact he didn’t include photographs if he had just written a few hundred more pages! Inside Passage is a short 184 pages with acknowledgments.

Great quotes, “I soon learned that some people appear in our lives briefly to connect us to other people or events that carry a lasting impact” (p xv), and”Human beings fail to realize that in destroying other forms of life, we shrink our own range of possibilities” (p 117). Two more about the ocean, “The ultimate design is when there is nothing left to take away” and “In the sea I found my sky” (both on page 164).

As an aside, when you listen to Natalie Merchant give interviews she is always crediting a book, documentary, news article or museum show for her musical inspiration. Modzelewski is no different. He credits the movie Jeremiah Johnson as his turning point.

Reason read: June is the best time to visit British Columbia, according to a few travel sites.

Author fact: Modzelewski has written for Sports Illustrated and Outside magazine, but Inside Passage is his first book.

Book trivia: I am always disappointed when pictures aren’t included. I mean, come on! Check out the title to this book! I want to see killer whales, bald eagles and even a Kwakiutl Indian!

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Living High in Cascadia” (p 150).

“Huckabuck Family”

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Sandburg, Carl. The Huckabuck Family and How They Raised Popcorn in Nebraska and Quit and Came Back. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1999.

Super cute short story that was pulled from the Rootabaga Stories and made into a book for children with fabulous illustrations! This was a joy to read (and a little odd). The Huckabuck family grew corn for popping. Maybe they were the Reddenbocker family, I don’t know. The first name of each member of the family is repeated because if daughter “Pony” doesn’t answer when called she might answer to “Pony Pony.” Interesting concept. But, here’s the thing about the Huckabuck family, besides the double name thing, one year they had a fire and all the popping corn popped and there was too much popcorn. They had to leave town for three years! Hence the title of the book, they raised popcorn in Nebraska, quit because they grew too much and then came back when they thought all the popcorn was gone.

Reason read: June is National Short Story month.

Author fact: Carl Sandburg is known for his poetry.

Book trivia: Two things. The Huckabuck Family story (children’s version) was illustrated by David Small. The original Huckabuck Family story came from a compilation called The Rootabaga Stories published in 1922.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “The Great Plains (Nebraska)” (p 155).

Oedipus the King

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Sophocles. Oedipus the King. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1954.

Okay. Raise your hands. Who had to read Oedipus in high school? Who had the name come up in at least one college psychology course? Better yet, who acted out the play at any time in their life? I’m guessing most people are not strangers to the story: Mythological king is destined to kill his father and marry his mother. End. Of. Story. That’s the gist of it anyway. There are many different versions out there, depending on which translation you read. MY take-away is this, if it was meant to happen, it will happen. There is no getting out of it. You can twist fate by taking someone else’s fortune cookie, but the right words are destined to find you. So, even though everyone knew the prophesy and tried to avoid the disaster, Oedipus still managed to come across his father, have an altercation, kill him and end up marrying the widow…his own mother. Like I said, you can’t sidestep what will be.

Confessional: Freud ruined this for me. Whenever I hear the name Oedipus I think “complex” and not “ancient Greek trilogy.”

Reason read: May is the best time to visit Greece.

Author fact: Sophocles was one of three Greek tragedians.

Book Play trivia: There’s a lot of music in Oedipus.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “The Alpha, Beta, Gammas of Greece” (p 11).

Winners and Losers

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Quigley, Martin. Winners and Losers. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1961.

Winners and Losers is such a stoic story! In Part I: Soldier, we first follow the life of Damon Mitchell as a staff Sergeant and patrol leader in World War II. It is while he is behind enemy lines in Germany that he learns of his younger brother Johnny’s death. In Part II: Boy, we jump backward in time to Mitchell’s teenage years to when his father loses his job in the Great Depression and family dynamics start to change. Damon must go out and get a job to help support the family. It’s at this point in the story we learn how close Johnny and Damon are as brothers and how removed Damon is from friendships and other meaningful relationships. In Part III: Man, Damon is becoming more and more successful. As he moves up the corporate ladder he becomes lonelier and lonelier. He is winning and losing at the same time.

Lines to like, “Long ago Damon had learned that asking questions just got you information” (p 37). Later in the story, if you are paying attention, you will notice just when Damon learns that lesson. One more, “They were precariously alone in the room” (p 217).

Reason read: April is National Sibling Month and Winners and Losers has two brothers. The story isn’t about them as brothers, though.

Author fact: This is really depressing but my copy of Winners and Losers didn’t come with any author information. So, I guess my author fact is that Martin Quigley isn’t plastered all over the internet.

Book trivia: My copy of Winners and Losers traveled from the Florida State library. Again, not a very popular author around here…

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “My Own Private Dui” (p 165). Pearl puts this in the category of “Books that are simply treasures and ought not go unread” (p 165). Also, from More Book Lust in two chapters, “Friend Makers” (p 95) and “Oh, Brother!” (p 180).

Thrush Green

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Read, Miss. Thrush Green. Read by June Barrie. Hampton, NH: BBC Audiobooks America, 2005.

High blood pressure? Stressful job? Crazy life? If your answer is yes to any of these questions, read Thrush Green for a small respite from a hectic, busy, insane world. There is no overwhelming fast paced drama in Thrush Green. Other reviewers have called it “quaint” and “pleasant” and it is both of those things and more. I personally would call it sweet. Thrush Green is a countryside community in England looking forward to their traditional May Day celebrations, especially the annual fair. Every member has a reason for wanting to go to the fair.  Young lovers looking for a chance to court. Older generations insisting on tradition. Children having fun. Miss Read uses the fair to create a focal point around which her characters circulate.

Note for the audio: June Barrie does a wonderful job with all the different voices. She had me laughing at times when she was the voice of the small boy.

Reason read: Miss Read was born in April.

Author fact: Miss Read is a pen name. Her real name was Dora.

Book trivia: Thrush Green is the first book in a whole series about the country community. I’m only reading the one.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Barsetshire and Beyond” (p 16). There is another Miss Read book mentioned in the chapter but it does not belong to the Thrush Green series.

War Within and Without

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Lindbergh, Anne Morrow. War Within and Without: Diaries and Letters of Anne Morrow Lindbergh 1939-1944. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980.

This is the last book in Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s series of diaries and letters. War Within and Without covers 1939 – 1944. In the beginning, the Lindberghs have just left France for America. The emphasis of War Within is World War II, of course, and the not so obvious private war the Lindberghs waged with public opinion concerning Charles’s views of Germany and the U.S involvement in the war. After spending nearly three years in Europe (England and France, mostly) the family returns to America where controversy over the political views of her husband continue to be criticized. All of this worries Anne very much as her husband is very vocal on these subjects. In view of the war, she has described this last book as coming full circle. World War I was raging when she was just seven years old. Underlying Anne’s very public life is the home life she struggled to keep private. Charles is “away” a great deal and Anne must entertain guests such as Antoine de Saint-Exupery on her own. She alludes to questioning what makes a good marriage. It leads one to believe there are hints of trouble with Charles. Anne does her best to convince the reader (herself, since it was her diary?) everything is fine. All the while she is crumbling under the pressure of being a good mother, writer, housekeeper, member of society, and of course, wife.

Telling quotes: “Both wars cracked open the worlds from which they erupted” (p xiii), “It is the striving after perfection that makes one an artist” (p 29), “Must get back to life after these days living in a world of the mind alone” (p 36), and “Then Monday he went off again and I have had a long week, tired from it, angry at myself, realizing I am doing too much and none of it well” (p 391).

Reason read: This is the last book I will read in honor of January being Journal Month. Finally!

Author fact: Lindbergh received six different honorary degrees from various institutions.

Book trivia: There is one grainy photo of Anne where credit is given to Charles. It makes me wonder who took the others. They seem “professional” compared to the intimacy of the one taken by Charles.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Journals and Letters: We Are All Voyeurs at Heart” (p 131).

House of Morgan

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Chernow, Ron. The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1990.

You can tell straight away that Chernow is going to tell you a great story, especially when he uses words like “brouhaha” to describe an economic catastrophe. There is a sly humor about his writing. How can you not smirk just a little when he writes, “Gooch was being groomed for a career of permanent subordination and forelock tugging” (p 8)? Or says things like “incorrigible Wall Street rascals” (p30)? Yet, his story is vastly inclusive and extremely informative. He takes you back before a time when each state has its own banking system and debts could be settled any which way. We watch the growth of international finance and step into a “wealth” of biographical portraits, if you excuse the pun (since we are talking about banking). I loved the little details; for example, the Morgans were the first private residential household to have electrical lighting in New York and a woman named Belle Greene was Pierpont’s “saucy librarian.” My one complaint – the book is massive. That’s because the tale is massive. Chernow needs every page to tell the story.

As an aside: I love it when my reading converges. In House of Morgan Chernow mentions Dwight Morrow’s daughter, Elizabeth; how she couldn’t resist a comment about Pierpont Morgan’s legendary nose. Because I have been reading Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s diaries I know that Dwight is her brother and he named his daughter after a sister who passed away after a bout with pneumonia. If I hadn’t been reading Lindbergh the names Dwight and Elizabeth Morrow would have meant nothing to me.

Reason read: April is National Banking Month. And speaking of money, it’s also tax month…

Author fact: Chernow holds degrees from Yale and Cambridge.

Book trivia: Chernow won the National Book Award in 1990 for House of Morgan, his first book!

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Founding Fathers” (p 92). Yeah, yeah. I know. House of Morgan is not about a founding father, per se. Pearl mentions House of Morgan as a suggestion if you liked Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton.

“Aftermath”

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Sassoon, Sigfried. “Aftermath.” Modern British “Poetry. Ed. Louis Untermeyer. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1920. pp 220. Print.

This is a heartbreaking poem and the message is super clear. This is a plaintive cry to Sassoon’s fellow veterans, Do not get caught up in the glories of war! Do not let anyone tell you war is an excusable act just because time has softened your memory. I think there is a country song out there with the same message, but I think it was directed towards people not forgetting about September 11, 2001. The message is the same: don’t become complacent and forgiving when you have suffered so much. Sassoon clearly did.

Author fact: There are only two poems I am reading this month. Turner and Sassoon were friends.

Poem trivia: PBS has a great site dedicated to the Great War. Supposedly, you can listen to an audio recording of “Aftermath” but I couldn’t get it to play (which is why I didn’t include the link here). Google it for yourself if you are curious.

BookLust Twist: More Book Lust in the chapter called “Living Through War” (p 237).

Flower and the Nettle

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Lindbergh, Anne Morrow. The Flower and the Nettle: Diaries and Letters 1936 – 1939. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976.

The Flower and the Nettle is Anne’s return to the living. It covers 1936 to 1939. After the death of her first born son she and Charles take their second son, Jon, to England for an “indefinite” stay. They are literally driven out of their own country by the media’s insatiable need to photograph and question the family. First, it was Charles Lindbergh’s fame, then it was the kidnapping and murder of their first child. It is at a rambling rented cottage in England called Long Barn that Anne and Charles can finally relax and be themselves again. Jon is allowed to play freely on the lawn without massive hyper-vigilant supervision. Anne is able to concentrate on her writing. It is here that humor returns to her diaries and letters. She says things like, “It is so delicious” (p 30), and “living passionately in the present” (p 31). Later, after her third son Land is born, Anne and her family move to Illiec off the coast of France. This is the “flower” part of her life. The “nettle” is the approach of World War II and the ensnaring politics. Following Charles to Russia for business Anne vocalizes her discontent with the country. She uses words like dirty, hideous, mediocrity, drab, shoddy, third-rate and glum to describe such things as the poor middle class. She is quick to comment negatively on their fashions and complexions. This took me by surprise. What I needed to keep in mind is the intense scrutiny Anne and her family felt. The longer they stay away from America, the more “pro-Nazi” they are “villainized” as being.

One drawback of skipping a book in a series is the potential to not understand references made to that book in the next one. Because I didn’t read Locked Doors I didn’t grasp Lindbergh’s reference to a previous trip to Russia in 1933.

Favorite lines, “One gets so cramped in ordinary living” (p 76). A good excuse to get out there and do something extraordinary!

As an aside, looking at pictures of Long Barn I can’t help but think what a wonderful place! Don’t tell my husband, but it looks like my dream home! It would have been nice if Lindbergh had included maps of not only her travel destinations, but of the places she and her family lived in Europe.

Reason read: to continue the series started in January, in honor of Journal Month.

Book trivia: Maybe because The Flower and the Nettle is a longer book, there are more photographs. For the first time, Anne includes detailed pictures of the interiors of their residence. Long Barn looks like a place where I would like to live!

Author fact: At this point in Lindbergh’s life she considers herself a serious writer despite already publishing earlier.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Journals and Letters: We Are All Voyeurs at Heart” (p 131).