Tag: book lust ii

Those Tremendous Mountains

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Hawke, David Freeman. Those Tremendous Mountains: the Story of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1980.

Confession time: I thought I would be bored to hell and back by this book. History was never my strong point, even if I was supposed to relate to it. Ancestry or not, I couldn’t relate to anything historical. Those Tremendous Mountains was a different story. I was really amazed by how much I enjoyed it. To say that I loved every page wouldn’t be far off the mark. Hawke blends the diaries, notes and sketches of Captains Meriweather Lewis and William Clark with his own narrative to create a lively and creative account of the famous duo’s expedition. It is not a dry retelling of the trials and tribulations of traversing  daunting mountain ranges. It is a portrait of desire, courage, friendship and loyalty. Thanks to a very specific and detailed charge by Thomas Jefferson to count every tree, flower, river, animal, and weather condition along the journey and both Lewis and Clark’s insatiable desire and curiosity to discover the world around them they documented thousands of species never seen before, making their expedition that much more famous than those gone who had before them. Their curiosity for every new plant and animal they encountered gave them a wealth of information to send back to the President. Hawke also carefully portrays Lewis and Clark as humanitarians with a keen sense of diplomacy when dealing with the Native American tribes they encountered. Knowing they would need help crossing the Rockies Lewis and Clark made sure to have plenty of gifts for the natives. Bartering for the things they needed came easier with a show a respect rather than force. 

Probably my favorite parts in the book were the displays of friendship between Lewis and Clark. While President Jefferson continuously called it Lewis’ expedition, Lewis insisted Clark was his equal and it was their expedition. Even after Jefferson downgraded Clark’s rank from captain to second lieutenant Lewis the men on the expedition “never learned of his true rank and always called him Captain” (p 51). Probably my favorite lines comes at the end: “By then the trust  between them was complete and remained so to the end” (p 248). 

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust n the chapter called ” Lewis and Clark: Adventurers Extraordinaire” (p 136).

Turbulent Souls

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Dubner, Stephen J. Turbulent Souls: a Catholic Son’s Return to His Jewish Family. New York: William Morrow & Co., 1998.

In the beginning, Turbulent Souls started out slow for me. I’m not exactly sure why. I think, true to form, the background of any story is the least exciting. It’s the opening act, the warming up so to speak. This setting of the stage is vital to the story, though. Dubner needed to explain his Jewish parents conversion to Catholicism in order for the rest of his story to make sense.

Stephen Dubner was born into a large, upstate New York, Catholic family. Only, Stephen never really felt at home with his parents’ view on religion. Something just didn’t seem comfortable to him. As a young man in his 20’s he meets a Jewish actress who guides him to discover his family’s orginal faith. The more he learns of Jewish customs the easier it is for him to shed everything he memorized about Catholic customs. The more he practices Jewish customs the more it feels like a rediscovery, a return to a religion he left behind before birth. As a journalist Dubner begins to see his family has a story, an amazing one. He cannot ignore the fact that both his parents converted right around the time Jews were being murdered by the Nazis. He discovers Ethel Rosenberg was his mother’s first cousin. As he uncovers the secrets of his family he finds himself.

There were many, many great lines in this book. Here are a couple describing Dubner’s religious childhood: “The aberrant memory is of my father loading us all into the pink-and-gray Rambler for Sunday Mass…my father slamming his pinkie in the back door and yelling, “Shit!” I knew the word; I just didn’t know that my father did” (p 108). “The fires of Hell kept me from letting Dale Schaeffer cheat off my math test even though he offered me first a dollar and then a skull-bashing” (p 114).
Here’s one from Dubner’s college years that I particularly liked (reminded me of my house): “…but even the three of us were no match for the memories of the house. They overpowered us, sent us to bed early, made our supper conversation timid” (p 151).
And one from adulthood: “When I was an alter boy I would get nervous being alone with Father DiPace. He represented God; I represented human shortcoming” (p 201). There are many more fantastic lines, but I’ll stop there.

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

Professor and the Madman

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Winchester, Simon. The Professor and the Madman: a Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary. New York: Harper Perennial,1999.

I was supposed to read this last August and I ended up reading something completely different by accident. The titles were nothing alike but I kept getting them confused. Go figure.

Is this a movie? If it isn’t, it should be. They say that truth is stranger than fiction and I agree. Dr. W.C. Minor was a brilliant American doctor who was found legally insane after committing murder. During his confinement in a mental institute in London, Minor embarked on a quest to help Professor James Murray compile submissions for the Oxford English Dictionary. His astounding contribution led Professor Murray to seek out Dr. Minor, learn of his confinement in an asylum for the criminally insane, and despite all that, become the closest of friends.

The story itself appears benign. Dr. Minor’s mental illness consists mostly of hallucinations and the paranoia that certain people were “messing with him.” As a result nothing could prepare me for the moment when Dr. Minor decided on December 3rd, 1902 to cut off his own penis (a procedure called autopeotomy). “In his delusional world he felt he had no alternative but to remove it. He was a doctor, of course, and so knew roughly what he was doing” (p 193). What the ??? It’s this tongue-in-cheek writing that makes The Professor and the Madman so much fun to read.

BookLust Twist: In both Book Lust and More Book Lust. In Book Lust in the chapter called, “Words to the Wise” (p 249), and in More Book Lust in the chapter called, “Dewey Deconstructed: 400s” (p 68).

Scarlet Letter

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Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. New York: Literary Classics, 1987.

I had to write a book report on this in high school (who didn’t?) then I had to write a critical analysis complete with symbolic meaning and themes in college. I don’t remember what grade I got on the high school paper. Not to brag, but I’m sure it was an A because high school lit classes were easy. In college my paper received a B+/A- because a) I didn’t quote the professor teaching the class (he was an authority on The Scarlet Letter apparently), and b) I didn’t delve deeper in the sexual side of Hester. 19 year old me wanted to concentrate on sin and the effects of that sin on everyone. To me, that’s exactly what The Scarlet Letter is all about.

The Scarlet Letter opens with Hester Prynne being led to the stocks. She is the sinner and as a result is being publicly ridiculed. Her crime is having an adulterous affair that resulted in the birth of a baby girl. She not only won’t disclose the father of her child, but she won’t repent for her affair. She is condemned to wear the letter ‘A’ as a punishment, as a constant reminder to the community that she is an adulteress. While there is residual shame, Roger Chillingworth does not want the public to know Hester is his wife. There is honor in Hester’s scandal – because she refuses to give up the name of her lover. Dignity prevails and she outwardly bears the burden of shame alone. Her lover also shoulders the guilt of sin in his own way as he plays an important part of the community.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in two different chapters. First, “Literary Lives: The Americans” (p 144). Second, “Wayward Wives” (p 231).

Morningside Heights

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Mendelson, Cheryl. Morningside Heights. New York: Random House, 2003.

I need to start off by saying wordy books are hard for me to get into right away. It takes me somewhat longer to “feel” the story, if that makes any sense. Mendelson has a doctorate in philosophy and she has practiced law in New York City. Teacher, philosopher, lawyer, and now writer. Morningside Heights is her first novel. Maybe it’s the combination of all these professions that creates the need for lots and lots of words to set the scene, any scene. True, there is more than enough social commentary to analyze, but, there is also more than enough description as well.

Here’s one of my favorite quotes: “The oligarchs wanted to keep all the bourgeois pleasures for themselves, along with the money, while proletarianizing everyone else, squeezing people with overwork and low pay, corrupting the liberal political forms so that they only answered to cash” (p 120).

Morningside Heightsis the first of a trilogy of novels about an area of New York City called Morningside Heights. Like Astoria is a part of Queens, Morningside Heights is a neighborhood in Manhattan. For as long as anyone can remember it has been a quiet, affordable community but lately, as older residents pass away, their apartments are being sold to upscale “suits” creating an economy the lifelong tenants ca no longer afford. The story centers around Anne and Charles Braithwaite and their circle of family and friends. As the neighborhood changes so does the social structure that the Braithwaites have come to rely on. Everything they hold sacred – their culture – is compromised until finally they are forced to consider a new life…in the suburbs.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “New York, New York” (p 170). Also, from More Book Lust in the chapters, “Barsetshire and Beyond” (p 16) and “Maiden Voyages” (p 159). I disagree with this last inclusion. Maiden voyage implies first book, fiction or nonfiction. Morningside Heights is actually Mendelson’s second book. First fiction, yes. But, not first book.

Enemy

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Child, Lee. The Enemy.New York: Delacourte Press, 2004.

If given the entire afternoon and evening I could have finished this book in one sitting. I loved it. It had just the right balance of good guy with a bad attitude; just the right amount of law and order verses crime and chaos. I can see why Pearl was mesmerized by the writing of Lee Child because I was, too.

The Enemy opens with a heart attack. A two-star general is found dead of an apparent heart attack. Within hours his wife is murdered. Within days two special forces soldiers are murdered, one at a time. At the center of each death is Jack Reacher, a complicated military cop. Ordinarily considered one of the best, suddenly Reacher is starting to look more like a suspect instead. Normally a loner, Reacher finds himself working with a young, female partner trying to clear his name. It is obvious he is being set up and Reacher will stop at nothing to get to the truth including going AWOL and much worse. The Enemy is peppered with military jargon and violence but not overwhelmingly so. Reacher has a likable character. He is human enough to do the wrong thing from time to time. How he gets out of the trickier situations really makes the story. I was fascinated from start to finish.

One thing I was really drawn to was the fact there were four murders (teeny spoiler there) and all four murders *seemed* to be staged. The general wearing the condom, Carbone’s over-the-top sex crime, Brubaker’s drug dealing…and…now, I really would be spoiling it if I said anything about the fourth murder!

Best lines, “They don’t like you, they don’t bring you coffee. They knife you in the back instead” (p 4). I saw this as premonition of sorts.
“My brother was a man horrified by anything less than the best” (p 75).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, ” Lee Child: Too Good To Miss” (p 41). Nancy Pearl says it was Lee’s book, Persuader that sold her on reading everything else he wrote. She suggested starting with The Enemy since it’s the first Reacher book of the series. I agree.

Stillmeadow Road

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Taber, Gladys. The Stillmeadow Road. New York: Harper & Row, 1984.

This was first published in 1962 and reissued in 1984. I like books that make a comeback. It is 1960’s quaint. Whimsical, even. Taber has a way of writing that is light and airy. There is no other way to describe it. Well, maybe it just seemed that way since I read it along side Annie Proulx’s harsh Close Range: Wyoming Stories. Whereas Proulx is arid and brutal and ugly, Taber is lush and sweet and pretty. Like, for example, I found it interesting that Taber glossed over everything involving her good, good friend Jill. They lived at Stillmeadow together. They did everything together. Yet, when Jill dies there is only a paragraph or two dedicated to the tragedy. It almost seemed as if Taber was skirting around her friend’s illness and death as a way to avoid talking about what Jill really meant to her.
Stillmeadow Road is a time capsule memoir about a homestead in Connecticut that Taber purchases with her friend, Jill. It’s all about country living, each chapter separated by the seasons. Month by month Taber lovingly describes life in a farmhouse by the weather, what’s happening in nature, how humans react to it all. Her observations focus on the trees, flowers, animals, and condition of the house throughout the changing seasons. Why do squirrels stay active throughout the winter? Why does it rain during dog shows? Why are storm doors so ugly? At the same time Taber injects social commentary about raising children, dealing with death, being neighborly, sorting out religious beliefs, remembering childhood…the story jumps between country-life observation and spiritual introspection.

A couple of favorite parts: “I do not know whether this happens to everyone, but I always have channeled great shocks into as many smaller ones as I can think of” (p 167), and “I have discovered if you take two steps forward and slip back one, you are sill a step ahead, which is a cliche but a true one” (p 169).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Cozies” (p 57).

Skull Mantra

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Pattison, Eliot. The Skull Mantra. New York: St. Martin’s Minotaur, 1999.

This is the first piece of fiction I have read that has covered Tibetan culture in such great detail.

Shan Tao Yun is a former veteran police inspector – the perfect person to solve a murder. The clothing of the decapitated victim suggests he was either American or Chinese, and wealthy either way. With a delegation of American tourists arriving for a visit, the district commander is anxious to find the killer as soon as possible. Shan Tao Yun is enlisted except, there is one problem – Shan is currently serving time in a Tibetan prison for offending the Party in Beijing. He has been sentenced to the same hard labor as the Tibetan priests he reveres. Shan is given an ultimatum: find the killer or the priests get brutally punished. In the course of the investigation clues lead Shan to an illegal monastery, a mystical world of demons and spells, political upheaval, and historical tragedies bestowed upon the Tibetan people at the hands of China’s government.

This book definitely opened my eyes to the Tibetan culture. I am a big fan of Tibetan music and have seen several documentaries about the Chinese invasion, but Skull Mantra not only illustrated the struggles of the Tibetan people, but their mysteries as well. My favorite scenes involved Dr. Sung, the medical examiner. Pattison created a sarcastic, funny woman who wasn’t afraid to speak her mind. Here’s a tiny example: “A soiled cardboard box was on an examining table, resting on top of a covered body. He [Shan] turned away as Dr. Sung removed the contents of the box and leaned over the body. “Amazing. It [the head] fits.” She made a gesture to Shan. “Perhaps you would like to try? I know. We’ll cut off the limbs and play mix and match.”” (p 126).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, “Crime is a Globetrotter: Tibet” (p 60).

Adventures of Tom Sawyer

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Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

A classic is a classic is a classic. No doubt about it. My copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was a facsimile of the first American edition so it includes the original illustrations, typeset, etc. This made reading really fun because the illustrations really add to the story. Truth be known, I had forgotten a great deal of the plot. While I remembered Tom was a troublemaker, I couldn’t remember details of his escapades. I’m glad I reread this.

Tom Sawyer is a typical Southern boy looking for adventure. I don’t think there are many young boys that would skin a cat or fake his own death so that he might attend the funeral, but the mischief of such a boy has always been there…and will always be there, too! Tom lives with his auntie and while he is well loved he is always looking for ways to run away. His sidekick, Huck Finn is eager to join him in adventures “down river.” Both are “smarties” as my grandfather would say. Showing off for their peers, and besting the adults -there is never a dull moment in Tom Sawyer’s world.

Two favorite lines: “The strangling hero sprung up with a relieving snort” (p 40), and “Huckleberry was cordially hated…” (p 63).

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

This Boy’s Life

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Wolff, Tobias. This Boy’s Life. New York: Perennial Library, 1989.

This Boy’s Life was spellbinding. Tobias Wolff’s personal memoir is not tremendous. It may even sound familiar to anyone who came from a broken home, had trouble with a step-parent, or had a mischievous streak growing up (who hasn’t?). What makes This Boy’s Life such a page turner is the honesty that radiates from every page, every sentence. It is not an overwhelming tragic tale, but it is painful and very real. Wolff does not paint a picture of hero, nor victim. It’s just an account of a troubled childhood. The writing is so clear, so unmuddied, that we can easily see bits of our own childhoods reflected in every chapter.

Probably one of my favorite parts was when Tobias (going by the name ‘Jack’ at this point) talks about altering his less than stellar grades in school. Report cards were written in pencil and ‘Jack’s’ admission of guilt is simply, “I owned some pencils myself” (p 184). It’s sly and smile evoking.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, “All in the Family: Writer Dynasties” (p 5).

Living High

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Burn, June. Living High: an Unconventional Autobiography. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1941.

I like books that make me ask questions. I like books that leave me wanting more. Not more of the story. Usually, the ending is adequate enough and I don’t need to know more about that. I am left wanting to know more about the author, about the life of the author at that time. Such was the case with June Burn. When I read Living High I held in my hands a first edition copy signed by June herself. Maddeningly, there were no pictures to guide my imagination. How old was she when she finished Living High? Where were her parents? What did she looked like? I pictured a fiery redhead with an unmatchable zest for life. But, I wanted the truth of who she was.

Living High is called an “Unconventional Autobiography” and I would have to agree. Not because it doesn’t cover a life from the sunrise of birth to the sunset of death, but because it has a moral to the story. There is a lesson to be learned within Living High’s pages and that lesson is live life to the fullest. Enjoy every single moment of each and every day. June is elegant and adventurous when describing living on the gumdrop island of Sentinel off Puget Sound with her husband, Farrar; or remembering walrus hunting and dogsledding in Alaska; or later, bombing around the west coast in the Burn’s Ballad Bungalow with Farrar and two kids (named North and South, I kid you not).

Best quotes: “Be thrifty with the things that count and you won’t have time to worry about whether your wallet is fullor not” (p 7), “To go on an island and pull the ladder up after us and live, untroubled by anything – that would be heaven” (p 11), and “the wind came howling out of the north, with icicles in its whiskers” (p 150). My favorite is, “When you walk you are somewhere at every step” (p 264).

Interesting side note: June changed her name and so did her second son, South. One day he decided he was Bobby or Bob.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, “Living High in Cascadia” (p 149). Go figure.

Don’t Look Back

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Fossum, Karin. Don’t Look Back. Orlando: Harcourt, Inc. 2002.

This is one of those mystery books you read on a rainy Saturday afternoon in one sitting. The story flows in a simplistic but compelling manner; An easy read with a great story line. As someone from LibraryThing once said suggested for a genre, “a bring-to-the-beach kind of book.” In that case Don’t Look Back was summer fare read too early (for me). It is the mystery of the death of a teenage girl. Known throughout her small town she was loved by nearly everyone. How could someone so charming, so lovable, so perfect die so young? Inspector Sejer is the lead investigator on the case. With calm and quiet tenacity he unravels a seemingly sweet life only to reveal lies and suspicions. This is the kind of mystery that keeps the pages turning as things become more and more complicated. Originally written in Norwegian and translated by Felicity David, Don’t Look Back urges the reader to keep turning the pages until compulsively, the entire book has been read from cover to cover.

Favorite lines: “Puberty was a really rough time. She was a sunbeam until she turned thirteen, then she began to snarl. she snarled until she was fourteen, then she began to bark” (p 71). ”

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter, “Crime is a Globetrotter: Norway” (p 59).

Edited to add: I read this back in 2009 but what I just discovered five years later is that it is also included in Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Norway: the Land of the Midnight Sun” (p 163). So there!

Slow Dancing on Dinosaur Bones

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Witt, Lana. Slow Dancing on Dinosaur Bones. New York: Scribner, 1996.

I don’t understand the title of this book. It should have been something about ghosts or Indians or something like that. Aside from the random primordial slime comment, dinosaurs don’t really factor into the title, figuratively or literally. And aside from the title confusion I loved, loved, loved this book! It provided me with laughs, cries, anger, confusion, fear, and even triumph. It was the kind of book that I couldn’t put down, yet I was terribly afraid of what would happen next.

Slow Dancing on Dinosaur Bones is a quirky story about a small town community. There is Gilman, the singing, bootlegging, gruff-but-loveable mechanic; Gemma, the town beauty with a viper’s heart; Ten-Fifteen, Gilman’s best friend; Tom, the from-out-of-town philosopher-turned-carpenter; and Rosalyn, the torch singer with a nasty secret. It’s that secret that supplies the suspense. Rosalyn has an ex-lover looking for her. Fearing harm, her friends hide her and take turns protecting her and falling in love with her. Meanwhile, to add to the drama there is a big, nasty, corporate coal company threatening to drill on Gilman’s land and a skeleton waiting in a prayer chamber for a shot of whiskey. There’s good old fashioned sabatoge and danger mixed with ancient love and laughter.

Best moments: “He remembered the exact moment he had decided to leave the beach and look for trouble, this decision coming from his belief that something and nothing are the same thing” (p 85).
“Sometimes you want to ask a person something, but it can’t be said in words, and you don’t know if he would understand it, anyway, so you think of other things to say, except the words won’t come out because they are trapped behind the question you want to ask” (p 114).
“I confused her when I gave her a glimpse of who I really am. Maybe a person should never try to be honest to their parents” (p 119).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, “Small-Town Life” (p 202).

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).

Speak

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Anderson, Laurie Halse. Speak. New York: Scholastic, 2003.

You have to admire Melinda. From day one of school she is harrassed and hated. She storms through the first marking period of high school, gnashing her teeth and muttering to herself. She has no friends and is openly tormented by everyone from peers to parents. Melinda has a secret that not only eats away at her little at a time, but by the end of the third marking period, steals away her voice until she is practically mute. While she puts on a good act of wit and sarcastic humor on the outside, inside she is a girl trapped by confusion and fear. As her grades plummet and her family life slowly falls apart, Melinda struggles to keep her sanity. Speak took me only a few hours to read. Anderson does an amazing job capturing the voice of a tormented teen. She portrays the relationships every young adult has to endure: teachers, principals, parents, ex-best friends…with such honesty I found myself cringing…

Favorite funny parts: “Our boys are unbeatable as long as they are the only team on the floor” (p 76). “We are reading The Scarlet Letter one sentence at a time, tearing it up and chewing on its bones” (p 100). And one sad line: “I stuff my mouth with old fabric and scream until there are no soulds left under my skin” (p 162).

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