Tag: book review

Inside Passage

gr4c5Leave a comment

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”

gr4c5Leave a comment

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).

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

gr4c5Leave a comment

Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: an Indian History of the American West. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970.

Trail of Tears. Manifest Destiny. Phrases and words we have heard before, definitely learned about in high school but, I’m guessing, the origins of which we haven’t given much thought. Bury My Heart at Wounded  Knee has a subtitle of “an Indian History of the American West”  and what a sad history it is! Before each chapter in the book is a snapshot of what shape the country was in that historical moment. A great deal was going on as it was during the American western expansion and the discovery of gold, starting in 1860 when the Navaho leader, Manuelito, was beaten down until surrendering to the white man. It’s a shameful book to read. So many broken promises. So many different times a white man approached a tribal leader with negotiations and treaties that only ended in bald faced lies. This was a difficult book for me to read.

Reason read: May is History Month and boy, is this some ugly history!

Author fact: Dee Brown’s real name is Dorris Alexander Brown and he died in 2002.

Book trivia: The portraits of each tribal chief is pretty amazing. Many thanks to the Smithsonian for the courtesy of reproduction. Tosawi or Silver Knife of the Comanches is my favorite.

BookLust Trivia: from Book Lust in the chapter called “American History: Nonfiction” (p 21).

Art Student’s War

gr4c5Leave a comment

Leithauser, Brad. The Art Student’s War. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 2009.

Right off the bat I have to mention the author’s note. If you are someone who normally skims or even completely skips this part, in a word: Don’t. It’s touching. For starters, I don’t know many men who have a decent relationship with their mothers-in-law much less those who find inspiration in them, but Leithauser has done those guys one better. He goes on to say that The Art Student’s War “must serve as a tribute…” to his mother-in-law. Classy. Seriously.

I didn’t think I would like The Art Student’s War because I’m not a big fan of the overly dramatic. Within the first fifty pages Bianca Paradiso’s family is rocked by scandal: her aunt accidentally reveals a breast when her bathing suit slips. The dynamics between the two families is never the same after that. Yes, I know the times are different now and you can almost expect to see a bare breast on a beach these days, but the amount of anguish the entire family suffers at the hands of this one mistake seems a little exaggerated…until I read on. First of all, mental illness plays a part here. And. And! And, I should have known better. Bianca’s character has been melodramatic from the start. Once, she was moved to anxious tears because she regretted not talking to a soldier on a bus. She lamented he didn’t hear her say thank you.
As the story deepens, and you get to know the characters better, Bianca rounds out to be a steadfast good girl with all the dreams and aspirations of becoming a worthy artist. Those dreams are first realized when she is asked to help with the war effort: to use her talents to draw portraits of wounded soldiers in the local hospital, the very hospital where she was born. It is here that she meets Henry. The relationship that blooms is complex and sets Bianca’s Coming of age in motion.
Halfway through the book there is a weird break that is told from the perspective of Bea’s uncle. It’s a glimpse into the future and doesn’t quite fit with the flow of the story. If you are paying attention, it gives away the plot and reveals more than it should. When we come back to Bea, she is a married woman with twin six year old sons. She has remained close to a few childhood friends, but is not the artist she used to be. Life goes on. Detroit is like another character in the book, growing along with Bea.

An added benefit of the Art Student’s War is the art history lesson you get along the way.

Reason read: Coleman Young, Detroit’s first black mayor, was born in the month of May.

Author fact: Leithauser is a Detroit native who studied at Harvard. That should tell you something – street smarts and book smarts!

Book trivia: scattered throughout The Art Student’s War are illustrations. These are the illustrations his mother-in-law drew that inspired the book. Leithauser also includes a photograph of Lormina Paradise. Very nice.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Definitely Detroit” (p 74). As an aside, Pearl calls Leithauser’s writing “magical” and I couldn’t agree more.

Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg

gr4c5Leave a comment

Keating, H.R.F. Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg. New York: Doubleday, 1971.

You know you are in for an interesting ride when one of the first sentences of the book reads like this, “From the moment that he had been landed with the business only the afternoon before he had raged at the lack of anything he could get his teeth into, and now that the chance was near he was going to let nothing delay him” (p 1). In a word, delicious.
It has been fifteen years since the wife of a prominent local official unexpectedly passed away. At the time, it was ruled an accident, the ingestion of bad lime pickles or something. But, suspicions have arisen about her death and Inspector Ghote is ordered to look into it a bit more closely. Only, no one wants him there. Even the local Swami is fasting until Ghote leaves town. This is a comedy in every sense of the word. Ghote arrives in town under the guise of a salesman of a new chicken feed product. He carries a carton of eggs on the back of his bicycle to “assist” with his disguise. Problem is, no one is buying it and Ghote doesn’t stick to his story all that well. Ghote comes across as a bumbling idiot at times, believing everything a suspect says, confronting the wrong witness, always one step behind his quarry. A whole lot of nothing seems to happen. Until it does. His life is threatened. He can’t trust anyone, including the people who hired him because no one is who they seem to be.

Reason read: this is going to sound strange, but I had too many titles to read for National Mystery Month (which is in January), so I searched for other reasons to read some of them. May is Egg Month. Don’t ask me how I know that. Since “egg” is in the title, I’m reading this in May.

Author fact: Keating has a website here. It’s a very clean site. Not much below the fold. I like that.

Book trivia: According to the website I am reading the sixth Ghote book.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called ” I Love a Mystery” (p 120).

French Revolutions

gr4c5Leave a comment

Moore, Tim. French Revolutions: Cycling the Tour de France. Read by Andrew Wincott.  Prince Frederick, MD: Recorded Books, 2009.

Funny. Funny. Funny. I like that Moore’s writing is unapologetic snarky. If you are sensitive to sarcasm and foul language, stay away! This book is lightly peppered with words only a hearty rant could benefit from. Take a slightly out-of-shape, thirty something year old British guy who gets it into his head he can ride the Tour-de-France. Outfit him with a bike and ridiculous clothes and the fact he has no idea what he’s doing. Suddenly you’ve got a beyond hilarious story. Tim Moore ignores all common sense reason and sets out to bike all 2,256 miles of the race before the actual professionals take the stage. Each chapter is a different leg of the Tour and what’s great about Moore’s account (aside from his incessant bellyaching) is the historical perspective he gives along the way. He isn’t shy about providing graphic descriptions of the trials and tribulations of the male body after eight to ten hours in the saddle, either. I could open French Revolutions any page and find something hysterically funny, and more often than not, off color.

Quotes: As I said, nearly every page had something worthwhile and funny, but here are just a few of my favorites: “Sadly, Dennis was an awful boy who cheated at Monopoly and avenged yet another Belgian victory in that year’s race by running amok in our flower-beds with the big lawnmower, so I did not at the time ascribe positive attributes to the focus of his obsession” (p 5), “I didn’t know whether to be glad or sad when I looked down while grabbing for a towel and saw that the elemental rigours of the day had apparently inspired my genitals to eat themselves” (p 116), and “The blathering torrent of self-pity was by this stage a staple of our telephonic encounters, and she listened patiently, as, dispensing with respiration or punctuation, I stated that I was in a town with no hotels, that she had the hotel book, and that having cycled 94,000 miles I had forgotten how to speak French” (p 255).

As an aside, I don’t know why all my audio books are read by people with accents.

Reason read: May is Bicycle Month…so go out there and ride!

Author fact: Moore has an incredibly patient and understanding wife named Birna.

Book trivia: Moore makes mention of taking photographs while “on tour” but sadly, none of them make the book. Not even one of himself.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Bicycling” (p 35). Simple and to the point.

Sex and Suits

gr4c5Leave a comment

Hollander, Anne. Sex and Suits: the Evolution of Modern Dress. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1994.

Let’s clear up one thing right away. Fashion is not just the clothes you wear. Since I was none the wiser before reading this book, I am truly one of the unfashionable. I would never cut it on Rodeo Drive.
Anne Hollander takes the history of fashion, and more specifically, the history of the tailored suit, thread by thread. In the beginning clothes for men and women were equally elaborate and meaningful. It wasn’t until the late eighteenth century when a divide between the sexes started to emerge. Fashion for men became simpler while women’s wear got more complicated. Styles for women boasted of sexuality while men were more subtle and subdued. Women took advantage of male fashion and twisted it to suit their statements. As with anything, the lines are being blurred again as men find inspiration in styles designed for women. One of the most fascinating points Hollander makes about dress for man and women is the phenomenon of identical identity. She argues that if men are dressed in identical tuxedos their unique faces would stand out in relief, just as women dressed in a variety of styles would all have the same face.

Quotes I liked, “Fashion in dress is committed to risk, subversion and irregular forward movement” (p 14), and “It corresponds to one very tenacious myth about women, the same one that gave rise to the image of the mermaid, the perniciously divided female monster, a creature inherited by the gods only down to the girdle” (p 61).

Reason: The Mercedes Benz Fashion Week takes place in May

Author fact: Hollander is an art historian. Makes sense that she would write about fashion. Fashion = art sometimes.

Book trivia: Sex and Suits has great illustrations and photographs of fashion. My favorite is the back cover; a woman leaping in the air with a raised umbrella over her head and pointed toes.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter “Do the Clothes Make the Man (or the Woman)? (p 75).

Oedipus the King

gr4c5Leave a comment

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).

Herzog

gr4c5Leave a comment

Bellow, Saul. Herzog. Greenwich, CT: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1964.

Moses Alkanan Herzog is a man experiencing a midlife crisis. His coping mechanism is to write letters in his head; if they make do it to paper, they are letters he most often does not mail. With each letter comes a flashback to a particular monumental time in Herzog’s memory. Most of his reminiscing centers on his two failed marriages and all the relationships to which he cannot commit. He is a well intentioned, extremely intelligent yet sad man. An example: sometime after the divorce from his second wife Herzog visits a friend and her husband on Martha’s Vineyard. Soon after arriving he realizes his friends are way too happy for his state of mind. He decides, moments after arriving, he he must leave immediately. Instead of facing his well-intentioned friends to explain the mistake, Herzog writes a note and slips away unnoticed. There is a singular self-satisfaction in the fact that he makes it back to New York City by 11pm. Herzog has a heart and deeply cares, despite the fact he is so misunderstood. When he suspects his daughter is being abused he travels to his ex-wife’s home to confront the abuser. His motives are good even though the end is not what he intended.

Confessional: I have this friend who passed away over a year ago. I don’t know why, but at times, Herzog reminded me of him. Maybe it was the multiple marriages and all the exotic relationships with women?

Favorite lines, “A person of irregular tendencies, he practiced the art of circling among random facts to swoop down on the essentials” (p 18), and “A free foot on a summer night eases the heart” (p 194). This last line totally made me think of my husband.

Reason read (April 20th – May 4th): Mr. Bellow passed away in April of 2005 and May is National Jewish American month. In this (rare) instance I am reading one book in two different months. It just worked out that way.

Author fact: Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer and Nobel Prize for literature.

Book trivia: Herzog won the National Book Award for fiction and was a New York Times best seller (also named top 100 of all “Time” by Time Magazine).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “The Jewish American Experience” (p 132).

Lotus Eaters

gr4c5Leave a comment

Soli, Tatjana. The Lotus Eaters. Read by Kirsten Potter. Blackstone Audio, 2010.

In the year of 1975 North Vietnam is still pushing towards Saigon. It’s the end of the Vietnam war (or American war, depending on who you ask). The Lotus Eaters opens with the city’s demise being eminent and the panic to escape, mounting. Caught in this frenzy is Helen Adams, a seasoned American photojournalist, and her Vietnamese lover, Lihn. Stepping back in time, we learn that Helen is following in the footsteps of her soldier brother, killed in action earlier in the war. She has come to Vietnam to research his death and ultimately falls in love with the war.  As we follow Helen from her first arriving in Saigon, we witness her naivete and her desperate need to belong. Quickly, she attaches herself to Sam Darrow, a fellow photojournalist who has been around the block a few times. He is supposed to be a hard-nosed, loner of a photographer, but he and Helen soon develop a romantic relationship that defies logic and marriage vows. Sam’s assistant, Lihn complicates things when he too falls in love with Helen. In the midst of well-worn war, emerges a not-so obvious love triangle.
In other reviews I have read the complaint is Soli takes the story too far, drags it out too long. I disagree. Each phase of Helen’s time in Vietnam, as well as her time away, builds a layer of her personality and adds to the complexity of her emotions. I am of two minds about the beginning, though. Soli reveals upfront that Lihn is Helen’s lover and they are desperate to get out of Saigon. That information nagged at me throughout the rest of the telling because I knew it was coming. For example, I expected something to happen to Darrow because the shift in Helen’s relationship with Lihn. It was a matter of when this something would happen that kept me guessing.

Reason read: Saigon fell in the month of April. Confessional: this was a little longer than I anticipated so I listened to it a few days into May.

Author fact: The Lotus Eaters is Tatjana Soli’s first book.

Reader fact: Kirsten Potter graduated from Boston University.

Book trivia: The Lotus Eaters won the James Tait Black Prize in 2010.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter simply called “Vietnam” (p 248). Duh.

Seeing in the Dark

gr4c5Leave a comment

Ferris, Timothy. Seeing in the Dark: How Backyard Stargazers are Probing Deep Space and Guarding Earth from Interplanetary Peril. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002.

The night sky has always held a mystical place in my imagination. I had the thrilling good fortune to grow up in a place unpolluted by artificial light. No street lights to cut the night sky, no blinking traffic lights, no neon signs burning from storefront windows. Very few private homes had electricity so at most a soft glow from candles or kerosene lamps would emit from a window or two. That’s it. It was easy to look up into the Milky Way and get lost among its population of stars. To quote Natalie Merchant, “the stars were so many there, they seemed to overlap.” My favorite line her Maniacs song, The Painted Desert. Reading Seeing in the Dark set my memories on fire. I can remember stretching out, flat on my back, searching for satellites. We made a game of it. Who could first spot the unblinking light that moved so silently across the universe? But! I am so far in the weeds with this review.

Back to my last book for April…Ferris writes with such an easy style. This isn’t just about deep space, astronomy and star gazing. It is not dry and didactic. This is a memoir about Ferris’s childhood cardboard telescope dreams becoming reality. He takes us back to when he was just a kid, looking up in the Florida night sky, dreaming about rockets and moon walks; witnessing his first solar eclipse. It’s about sharing conversations with other amateurs, proving once and for all amateur stargazers really know what they are doing, despite not having the big buck telescopes and high-end gadgets. Seeing in the Dark is also about the collaborations between backyard stargazers and the people who have the money to make research happen. Take Brian May, for example. If he hadn’t been a musician be would have been an astronomer. Because of his success with his band, Queen, he has been able to support his hobby of backyard stargazing with better technology than the average hobbyist. Lastly, Seeing in the Dark is broad-based educational. I learned of a new place I want to visit, the Roden Crater in Arizona and I learned the difference between a meteoroid, a meteor, and a meteorite. I think too many people use those words interchangeably. Ferris cleared it up for me, once and for all.

Quotes I liked, “Love affairs can make you reckless and scar you for life, but what is life without love?” (p 82), “To put your eye or any other part of your anatomy at the focal point of a telescope pointed at the sun is like volunteering to be an ant under a magnifying glass” (p 76), and “…Charon, which orbits Pluto, which probably isn’t a planet” (p 104).

Reason read: April is National Astronomy month.

Author fact: Ferris has been nominated for a Pulitzer and four of his books are on my reading list.

Book trivia: It’s such a bummer that Ferris didn’t include any celestial photography. I love the night sky.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Astronomical Ideas” (p 27).

the dancer and the thief

gr4c5Leave a comment

Skarmeta, Antonio. the dancer and the thief. Translated by Katherine Silver. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008.

Due to overcrowding in a Chilean prison a select group of nonviolent prisoners have been granted amnesty by the President and released. From this prison come Angel Santiago and Nicholas Verga Gray. On the inside they were just criminals with numbers. On the outside they are vastly different from one another, yet nevertheless their lives are destined to intersect. Again. Twenty year old Santiago is anxious to avenge the horrible abuses he suffered in prison at the hands of other inmates as well as the warden. Sixty year old Gray wants nothing more than to put his life as a master thief behind him and reconnect with his estranged wife and son. Zealous protege meets reluctant master. Meanwhile, the prison warden, knowing that his life is in danger now that Angel Santiago has been freed, allows a violent inmate to go free for one month. While the rest of the world thinks this prisoner is in solitary confinement he is on the hunt for Angel Santiago. The mission is to kill him before he can kill the warden. If this wasn’t enough of a plot, add a teenage girl who has lofty dreams of becoming a dancer. Broke and broken Victoria meets broke and broken Angel. Now Angel needs money more than ever. Who better to get it from than a master thief? And, thanks to a dwarf, he has a plan.

Reason read: Chile gained her independence in April.

Author fact: Skarmeta is known for The Postman which I am reading…eventually.

Book trivia: The Dancer and the Thief was made into a movie in 2009 starring Ricardo Darin and Abel Ayala.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “It’s Chile Today” (p 115). Here’s the head scratcher about this chapter. The subject of Chile is not under ‘C’ for Chile but rather ‘I’ for It’s. So, let’s say someone asked me what Pearl would recommend for books that have a connection to Chile. I wouldn’t find Chile in the table of contents unless I knew to skip C and go right to I. Odd. To be fair, there are a lot of chapters like this but this is the first time I noticed it.

Winners and Losers

gr4c5Leave a comment

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

gr4c5Leave a comment

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

gr4c5Leave a comment

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).