Tag: book review

Giovanni’s Room

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Baldwin, James. “Giovanni’s Room.” Early Novels and Stories. New York: Library of America, 1998. 221 – 360.

I want to say Giovanni’s Room is ground breaking but that’s only because it puts homosexuality front and center at a time when one’s sexual orientation wasn’t so openly discussed (1956). The beauty of the story is that it could take place today or tomorrow in any city or town on the planet. Admitting homosexuality isn’t any easier today than it was over a half century ago. Giovanni’s Room has been called autobiographical because it mirrors Baldwin’s personal life: an American expatriate living in France openly engaged to a woman while secretly attracted to men. David is constantly questioning his manhood because he seeks the company of men. His engagement to Hella is nothing more than a cover for his true desires. When his Italian bartender/lover is accused of murder David’s world falls apart. More than the plot, Baldwin’s writing much be savored. The pictures he paints are raw and honest.

Favorite line: “And we got on quite well, really, for the vision I gave my father of my life was exactly the vision in which I myself most desperately needed to believe” (p 235). I think that is the most telling line of the whole story.

Author Fact: Baldwin was a child Pentecostal preacher before the age of 17. He died of stomach cancer in his early 60s.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “African American Fiction: He Says” (p 10).

Hitty: Her First Hundred Years

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Field, Rachel. Hitty: Her First Hundred Years. New York: Dell, 1957.

When I first learned of the premise for Hitty I cringed. It has gotten so hard for me to read outlandish stories. The suspension of belief is getting much harder to suspend these days. But, I am happy to say Hitty was different.

In a nutshell Hitty: Her First Hundred Years is about the first hundred years of a doll’s life. Made out of well-seasoned mountain-ash wood, Hitty is a sturdy, made to last doll. She is given to a small girl named Phoebe Preble sometime in the early 1800s. The Preble family makes their home outside of Portland, Maine and Phoebe’s father is a whaling captain. When we first meet Hitty, she is a resident of an antique store and has set out to write the memoirs of the first hundred years of her life. And what a life the first hundred have been! During her time with the Preble family she was abandoned in a church, kidnapped by crows, taken out to sea where her ship first springs a leak and later catches on fire; she becomes lost at sea, found again only to be given away as a heathen idol, and finally, dropped somewhere in India – never to be seen by the Preble family again. Hitty (whose real name is Mehitabel) goes on to be owned by a succession of little girls, some kind, some not. There are great periods of time when she is stored in an attic trunk or wedged in couch cushions. One hundred years goes by very quickly for both Hitty and the reader. (I was able to read the whole book in less than three hours.)
My only complaint – Hitty admitted to not knowing what a train was yet in India she recognized a cobra on sight.

Favorite line, “Which only goes to show how little any of us can tell about our own futures” (p112). I like this line because it’s in reference to not knowing when Hitty will return to Maine. I can relate.
The other element I liked about this book is the timelessness of it. Someone “threatens” to wear a nose ring when she is older. I can picture the same “threat” being made today. Another example: later Hitty attends a concert of a famous singer. The throngs of people crowding around the celebrity is very much like the crush of crowds at any concert today.

Author Fact(s): Field was originally from Stockbridge, MA and moved to Maine when she was 15 years old. She died when she was only 48.

Book Trivia: Hitty: Her First Hundred Years won two awards, the Newbery Award when it was first published in 1929 and the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award many years later.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the introduction (p x) – mentioned as a book Nancy Pearl read as a child.

Bonfire of the Vanities

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Wolfe, Tom. The bonfire of the Vanities.New York: Bantam Books, 1988

I will admit I never saw the movie of the same name. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because as a 19 year old I didn’t have time to go to the movies. I was working four different part-time jobs on a little island that has never boasted of a theater.

This is, by far, the most wicked of social satires that I have read so far. Wolfe’s world in The Bonfire of the Vanities is a delicious clash of wealth and poverty, prejudices and avarice, sex and scandal. It seems like the perfect movie for the self indulgent 1980s. There is not a single likable character in the entire story. Everyone is on their way to being corrupted by greed. Greed for money, greed for power, greed for what they don’t have. In their worlds the grass is always greener on the other side of Central park, the other side of the marriage.
Bonfire of the Vanities takes a single incident and illustrates the domino effect one wrong turn and one bad mistake can have. Sherman McCoy is an unhappy Wall Street bonds man who is having an affair with the wife of an aging billionaire. He isn’t supposed to be with her, she isn’t supposed to be with him – a typical scenario for the story. So, when they take a wrong turn and end up lost in a bad section of the the Bronx their car strikes a black teenage boy, possibly killing him. They argue their way out of going to the police, convincing themselves it didn’t happen the way each of them think. Deciding not to tell is their downfall.
When the political Reverend Bacon hears of this “accident” from the mother of the victim the racial significance of the event is not lost on him. Witnesses claim the driver was white so he pushes alcoholic journalist, Peter Fallow, to pursue the story. Peter’s piece about a black youth who was the victim of a hit and run sends the media into a frenzy. Soon Bronx District Attorney Abe Weiss, up for re-election, is out for blood. He knows this is the perfect platform for garnering votes: hang the hit and run driver whatever it takes. Larry Kramer, assistant D.A., does exactly that with barely any evidence: an undamaged car, an eyewitness, and Sherman McCoy’s reluctance to cooperate.

Author Fact: probably the coolest thing (more relevant to me) was that Tom Wolfe used to be a reporter for the Springfield Union paper.

Book Trivia: Bonfire of the Vanities was made into a movie in 1990 and starred Tom Hanks and Melanie Griffith. Interestingly enough, it was a box office flop while the written word was a smashing success.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “100 Good Reads, Decade by Decade (1980s)” (p 179).

Pretty

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Lauren, Jillian. Pretty: a Novel. New York: Plume, 2011.

This is another one of those can’t-put-down books that I read in just seven hours time (on a car ride from Jamestown, New York to Western MA).  I was mesmerized by the characters, the story, everything. Beth “Bebe” Baker has just lost her boyfriend in a horrific accident. Disfigured from crawling over broken glass and deeply dependent on drugs she enters a halfway house to find sobriety and a sense of self. There, and at the cosmetology school, she meets a cast of misfit characters who take her under their own broken wings. It’s a troubling tale of coming to terms with not just the past, but the unknown future as well.
Before reading Pretty I had just finished reading Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts and I think I had that storyline running through my head because I found a few similarities where there shouldn’t have been. Letts’s character, Novalee Nation, shares many personality traits and similar experiences with Lauren’s character, Beth “Bebe” Baker. Both are young woman essentially far from home and practically homeless (Novalee lives in a Wal-Mart and Bebe lives in a rehab halfway house). Less than scrupulous men abandon both women. Both women deal with pregnancy. Both women adopt creatives outlets as a coping mechanism and a means of escape (Novalee takes up photography while Bebe studies cosmetology). Both women search for salvation in the arms of a quirky community of misfits. Both experience the return of lovers and learn to let go.
But for all that, this is where the similarities end. Lauren’s style of writing in Pretty is raw, gritty, real. While the title of the book is  Pretty Bebe is someone who isn’t always pretty. She has her moments of displaying downright ugly. This characteristic just makes her all the more human. One example of this reality is the wearing down of her resolve to stay away from someone less than good for her. This man is a connection to her drug addled past and Bebe knows that in order to remain sober she needs refuse all contact with him. She does well to ignore his phone calls until the rest of her life starts to unravel and she weakens…but isn’t that always the way?
This is a quick read…but that’s a good thing because that only means you’ll have time to start at page one and read it all over again.

Where the Heart Is

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Lette, Billie. Where the Heart Is. New York: Warner Books, 1995.

This was another “reread” book. I don’t know when I read it first, but I do remember not liking it as much as the second time. The first time I found everything just a tad unbelievable, the people and plot a little unreal. I have since changed my mind. About everything.

When we first meet Novalee Nation, she is seven months pregnant and about to be abandoned by her no-good boyfriend. Luckily for her, Novalee’s boyfriend picks a Wal-Mart in Sequoyah, Oklahoma where Novalee decides to take up residence when she realizes Willy Jack isn’t coming back. As a seventeen-year-old Novalee is incredibly conscientious. She keeps track of every item she takes from Wal-Mart while in residence (canned Spam, maternity clothes, a sleeping bag…) and during the day tries to be as inconspicuous as possible. No one questions this strange pregnant girl roaming around town. In fact, she befriends a few of the community members on the very first day by taking their picture. These caring, generous people will become Novalee’s lifeline and family after her baby girl, Americus, is born. In a sea of goodwill there are a few tragic events that give a well-placed reality to the story.The town of Sequoya suffers a devastating tornado and later Novalee’s best friend is brutally attacked by a man who originally seemed too good to be true. Finally, there is the return of Willy Jack. These events help temper the sticky sweetness of the rest of the plot.

Best lines:  “And suddenly, Novalee knew- knew what she hadn’t known before. She wasn’t who she had been. She would never again be who she was before” (p 157).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Dewey Deconstructed: 600s” (p 73). Where the Heart Is is not mentioned in More Book Lustbecause of anything more than a mention of an orange almond bisque (the range of the 600s in the dewey decimal system includes applied sciences – cooking).

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant

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Tyler, Anne. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. New York: Berkley Books, 1983.

I don’t remember when I first read Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. I know that there was a time when I devoured anything Anne Tyler wrote. I’m sure this was first read during that phase. I’ve always pictured this as a movie. It should be a movie.

There is no doubt Tyler wanted Dinner to be a character novel. The plot moves slow enough so that more emphasis is placed on the people within the constraints of the narrow storyline. The characters swell and grow beyond the plot, making them the focal point. For example, Cody does enough rotten things that it should be impossible for the reader to like him and maybe even go so far as to hate him and yet, one finds ways to feel sorry for him because he is not his mother’s favorite child. He’s not even her second favorite. I find it interesting that no matter how rotten Tyler made Cody out to be I couldn’t help but pity him. His “lashing out” made me want to protect him and love him. He even had his quiet moments of kindness, “Cody took a pinch of Jenny’s coat sleeve so as not to lose her” (p 61). In fact, all of the characters are this way. Pearl Tull is an abusive, angry mother but you have to pity her because her husband walked out on her for apparently no reason. She is left to raise three small children completely on her own. Cody, the oldest, is only eight when his father leaves. Jenny is the middle child and Ezra is the youngest. All three children grow to be self-absorbed adults with difficult-to-love personalities. And yet, yet you want them to be okay.

Favorite revelations: “It was if, by mutual agreement, they had split the city between them” (p 80), “He’d had a long day – standing outside other people’s lives mostly – and he needed the exercise” (p 145), and “Couldn’t you classify a person…purely by examining his attitude towards food?” (p 162).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in three different chapters. First in “Families in Trouble” (p 82). Also, from the chapters called “Mothers and Sons” (p 161) and “100 Good Reads, Decade by Decade: 1980” (p 179). I’m reading Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant to celebrate food.

Longest Day

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Ryan, Cornelius. The Longest Day: June 6th, 1944. New York, Simon and Schuster, 1959.

I think people view history as a boring and tedious subject because they forget that flesh and blood people are often the backbone of historical events. Ancestors who could have been the reason for their very being. Cornelius Ryan didn’t forget that the importance of D-Day didn’t lie in how it happened but whomade it happen. In his introduction he makes it clear that The Longest Day is not an military account of June 6th, 1944 but “a story of people…” within a 24 hour time span. The detail and clarity with which Ryan writes about seemingly ordinary men and women makes The Longest Day extraordinary. I thoroughly enjoyed Ryan’s straightforward style.

Line that grabbed me: “Now on this great and awful morning the last phase of the assault from the sea began” (p 239).

Author Fact: Two things – Ryan was born on June 5th (ironically so close to D-Day) and he died a cancer victim.

Book Trivia: Longest Day was made into a movie in 1962. Ryan wrote the screenplay and it starred John Wayne and Richard Burton.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “World War II Nonfiction” (p 253). Pearl calls it a “classic” and suggests following up with Ryan’s A Bridge Too Far and The Last Battle.

Atonement

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McEwan, Ian. Atonement.New York: Anchor Books, 2001.

I love it when I find a book that I find impossible to put down. I read this in three stages: on the car ride to Syracuse (3.5 hours), in the hotel an hour before bed, and on the car ride home (another 3.5 hours). Finished it in that eight hour time span. It was that good. I know I will be reading it again. And again.

How to review a book that has already been “reviewed” over three hundred times in one place? Suffice it to say I could not (and will not) write a one line review, “this was boring.” Nor, will I say “I loved it” and leave it at that. Having not seen the movie I am relieved I cannot confuse the two.
Briony Tallis, as a thirteen year old girl, witnesses an exchange between her 23 year old sister, Cecelia, and the son of a house servant, Robbie Turner. Because she is not within hearing distance she perceives the situation based on body language and facial expression alone. Being young and impressionable she mistakes sexual tension for violence and anger. This misconception is further compounded when she witnesses Cecelia being “attacked” by Robbie later in the evening. Briony’s perceived reality is so horrifying she points the finger at Robbie when her cousin is raped by an unidentifiable man. The next two parts of the novel are from the point of Briony and Robbie five years later as they both deal with the horrors World War II. The final section is sixty years later when Briony is a successful author.

Part One was definitely my favorite section. It’s the only point in the book where one character tells the story from a limited perception and another character circles back to describe the same situation from his or her point of view. The reader has the sense of circling the scene, seeing it from different angles, witnessing it from all sides.

Favorite quotes, “Cecelia longed to take her brother aside and tell him that Mr. Marshall had pubic hair growing from his ears” (p 48), “Every now and then, quite unintentionally, someone taught you something about yourself” (p 111), and “In love with her, willing himself to stay sane for her, he was naturally in love with her words. When he wrote back he pretended to be his old self, he lied his want into sanity” (p 191 – 192). I chose these three quotes because they seemed pivotal to turning points in the story: the first quote is lighthearted, a foreshadowing of how treacherous things are about to become; the second quote could sum up Briony’s entire existence; and the third quote illustrates true love in its finest moment.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Ian McEwan: Too Good To Miss” (p 149). I’ve read five books by McEwan so far and I have to say this one is, by far, my favorite. Atonement is also listed in More Book Lust in the chapter called “Tricky, Tricky” (p 222). This last inclusion is a head scratcher for me. While there were many twists and turns to the story I never once felt McEwan “tricked” me in any way. If anything, McEwan’s ending seemed logical and expected.

…And Ladies of the Club

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Santmyer, Helen Hooven. …And Ladies of the Club. New York: Berkley Books, 1985.

After 1,433 pages what exactly did Santmyer have to say? …because I have to confess, I didn’t finish it! …And Ladies of the Club is a sweeping, multi-generation saga that spans 64 years in a small town in Ohio. It begins when two college girls are invited to join a literary “club” to study and discuss influential authors of the day. The two girls take their invitation to membership very seriously and act accordingly. After all, their group consists of a mix of women with varying marital and political statuses. For example, Anne is chosen to go first. She studies the poetry of Browning to present a critique to the group and is chastised for being immature in her thinking. However as the group grows it is these different stages of life and opinion that sets the stage for Santmyer to paint the bigger picture – the trials and tribulations of life in a small town immediately following the Civil War. This is a time when men snickered at the silly, “harmless” interests of their wives. A time when health and reputation could deteriorate with a single, innocent event.
I will admit, this was a tedious book to read. In order to finish it within the prescribed 30 days of June I had to allocate 50 pages a day. I think that would have been realistic and maybe even fun had the main characters been more reined in and the story, well…more interesting. Any book that takes 50 years to write is going to have its share of inconsistencies. …And Ladies of the Club was no exception. Sometimes the plot dragged on minute by minute in great detail. Other times a whole year is covered in less than a blase chapter. My biggest complaint Santmyer spent more time (considerable more time) painstakingly recreating the era in which the characters lived than on personality development. That is to say, no one character was developed fully enough for me to have an understanding of, never mind much less like! There were so many characters (spanning several generations) that I couldn’t keep them straight. In a nutshell, …And Ladies of the Club uses a literary society to focus mainly on the political, social, and economic recovery of post Civil War Waynesboro, Ohio.

Best line: “If she could only reach Anne before the meeting – it would be dreadful to sit all afternoon with good news locked in your bosom” (p 58).

Author Fact: Santmyer was in a nursing home when …And Ladies of the Club was finally finished. Many feared she wouldn’t live to see its publication. She did and at age 88 she was a literary success thanks to clever marketing and publisher pushing.

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

Art and Madness

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Roiphe, Anne. Art and Madness: a Memoir of Lust Without Reason. New York: Doubleday, 2011.

From the start I struggled to find the purpose of this snapshot-in-time memoir. In the beginning there is a brief mention of Roiphe at age 11 but most of the book is confined to the 50s and 60s; Roiphe’s artistic coming of age. There is a parade of authors mentioned, name drops like Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Salvador Dali and on and on. Despite a yo-yo’ing time line across the decades there is a constant in Roiphe’s dedication to holding her male counterparts up for success. It was an era when use and abuse of women was the norm and Roiphe takes it all in stride. As she says, she was the muse instead of the writer. Throughout Art and Madness Roiphe illustrates a different side of motherhood as she shamelessly bares the truth about toting her daughter all over predawn New York to answer the drunken beck and call of prominent men. But, with destruction comes the need to rebuild. In the end, Roiphe finds a self-proclaimed redemption. The muse becomes a writer in her own right.

Confessional: Art and Madness was something I would pick up and read voraciously for a day or two at a time. Yet, when I put it down weeks would go by before I would pick it back up again. I read it sporadically, compulsively, and yet, not obsessively. I have no idea why because it really was fascinating.

Friday the Rabbi Slept Late

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Kemelman, Harry. Friday the Rabbi Slept Late. Greenwich: Fawcett Crest Book, 1963.

Rabbi David Small is Barnard Crossing’s newest rabbi. His presence is a mixed blessing. While the community debates renewing his contact for the next year he is simultaneously fingered as the prime suspect in a murder case. It’s hard to dismiss the evidence – the murdered girl’s purse is found in his car and he admits being in the area at the presumed time of death. In the interest of clearing his name (and getting his contact renewed) Rabbi Small becomes a professional snoop, helping with the investigation. He becomes friendly with the lead detective and they share leads as well as discussions on religion. It is interesting to note how police work has changed! In this day and age Rabbi Small would never been able to interview the victim’s employer or search her room and yet, he does both; ultimately solving the case.

Favorite line: “The girls he went out with didn’t mean that to Mel…They were somebody he went to bed with, like he might go to a gym for a workout” (p 113) and “We Yankees don’t like anybody, including each other, but we tolerate everybody” (p 140).

Author fact: Kemelman was a Massachusetts man and died in Marblehead.

Book Trivia: Friday the Rabbi Slept Late was Kemelman’s first novel. It was also made into a made-for-television movie.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “I Love a Mystery” (p 119).

Persepolis

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Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood. New York: Pantheon, 2003.

Whenever I read a book like Persepolis I think about how gluttonous, how wanton, how extravagant my life within this country has been. Imagine being told what to wear and how to wear it. Imagine being told what to not to do or say. Imagine having a curfew. Imagine the banning of alcohol or parties. All common for coming of age, but as an adult? Imagine uncles being executed; bombs exploding and killing your entire family of neighbors. Here one day, gone the next. Persepolis was hard to read. Maybe it’s because Marjane is my age (younger by several months) so all along I kept comparing her her stages of growing up to my own. But, really, how can one compare such things when we are figuratively and literally worlds apart?

The Amercican version of Persepolis is a two-part story. Part one begins when Marjane Satrapi is ten years old. It’s her first year of having to wear the veil, of school segregation, and the disintegration of life as she knew it. The story follows the next four years of her life as she comes of age in revolutionary Iran. She is interested in all the things a typical pubescent girl should be: fashion, rock posters, friends. As she grows up her personal uprising and rebellion run parallel with her country’s political unrest. As the Iran/Iraq conflict escalates Satrapi’s childhood world becomes more and more dangerous. She struggles with religious trust versus media influences touting the extremist view. Finally, her Marxist parents decide her future is more certain if she is sent to a boarding school in Austria.

Striking line: “When I went back to her room she was crying. We were not in the same social class but at least we were in the same bed” (p 36).

Book Trivia: Persepolis was adapted into an animated film.

Author Fact: Satrapi speaks five different languages (according to the wiki I read).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Graphica” (p 105). Obviously.

City of Light

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Belfer, Lauren. City of Light. New York: Dial Press, 1999.

As a 36 year-old spinster Louisa Barrett is the headmistress of a well-to-do boarding school and she harbors a dark secret. While she is trusted and beloved by her community she is a contradiction in character. It’s this contradiction that makes her human and extremely likable. She worries about propriety and yet goes out of her way to create confusion about her personal life. She’s modern and yet knows her place in society when dealing with members of the opposite sex. At the height of Louisa’s tenure as headmistress Buffalo, New York is going through a metamorphosis. The husband of her late best friend owns a power plant that, by using nearby Niagara Falls, promises to light the entire region. Environmentalists are up on arms over the draining of the falls and suddenly people start dying. Somehow, Louisa finds herself in the middle of the mess. It’s her secret that has her tied to the drama.

City of Light is one of those books I like to call a “location” book. It brings the sense of a particular place to reality. For City of Light that place is Buffalo, New York and its famed Niagara Falls. Set in the early 1900s this is a period piece. A time when women barely held a place in society beyond practiced restraint and stiff decorum. City of Light is also an environment versus science debate as the development of a hydro-electric plant threatens to drain Niagara Falls of its rushing waters for the sake of lighting Buffalo and beyond. Set against the political and environmental debates of the era City of Light is also a mystery as two men are found dead under suspicious circumstances. It is hard to ignore they were both prominent men, connected to the power plant. Yet, no one can prove with absolute certainty they were murdered. Finally, City of Light is a nontraditional love story. Louisa learns the best way to love is to let go.

Favorite lines: “Love made me doubt myself” (p 24), “Magic had become science, science had become magic, everything was possible and the future was ours” (p 278), “…I wondered if Miss Love would attempt the challenging role of Marie Antoinette without her head; probably it was too much to hope for” (p 320).

Interesting word: “unmarriageable” Hm. I think it sounds like “unmanageable.” Wonder. Are they one in the same?
Statement that had given me pause the first time I read it – the air quality was better in electrified homes. Gaslights consumed oxygen; electricity did not. Interesting to think of what fuel consumed rather than what it put out into the air.

Author Fact: On her website Belfer names Jane Eyre as one of her favorite classics to reread.

Book Trivia: City of Light inspired a theater version. Interesting.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “American History: Fiction” (p 22).

PS ~As soon as I saw the map of Buffalo, New York my eyes scanned the streets looking for Pearl Street; the spot where I enjoyed an unforgettable grilled pear salad with drunken abandon in the post-concert buzz of too loud music.

Seabiscuit

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Hillenbrand, Laura. Seabiscuit: an American Legend.New York: Ballantine Books, 2001.

I love underdog stories (or, is it underhorse in this situation?). Seabiscuit is a head-scratcher of a racehorse. “Red” Pollard, his jockey, is a head-scratcher of a jockey. Their humble beginnings make them perfect partners for anything but success. But, succeed they did, as everyone who has seen the movie knows. Hillenbrand carefully reconstructs the era surrounding Seabiscuit’s unlikely “pony” start. The 1930s come alive as the fascinating characters of Seabiscuit’s entourage are introduced; his owner Charles Howard, trainer Tom Smith, jockey Johnny “Red” Pollard, the hungry-for-more media and of course, the fans who followed Seabiscuit’s every race. Hillenbrand writes with such clarity that every competition is pulse-pounding excitement. One can hear the roar of the crowd, taste the anticipation, see the pop of flash bulbs, and practically smell the winnings.
I admit I learned a few things about horse racing from this book. Who knew that the stakes were so high that before certain races there was the threat of horses being sponged and riders being kidnapped. Horses and riders required bodyguards!

Favorite lines: “The horse’s name was Seabiscuit, and for a bent-backed trainer on the other side of the backstretch, the brief exchange of glances between the horse and Tom Smith was the beginning of the end of a long, pounding headache” (p 34), “then, like a mighty shit Godzilla, it slid out to sea and vanished” (p 88).

Book Trivia: Seabiscuit was one hot read in 2001. Every media source from The New York Times to NPR and People Magazine acknowledged it as the best book of some sort.

Author Fact: Laura Hillenbrand graced the cover of “Natural Solutions” (March 2011, issue 132) to speak out about Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called ” Sports and Games” (p 225). I read Seabiscuit in honor of the Kentucky Derby always being held in May (May 7th this year).

Bintel Brief

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A Bintel Brief: Sixty Years of Letters From the Lower East Side to the Jewish Daily Forward. Isaac Metzker, ed. New York: Doubleday & Company, 1971.

Despite its small size (214 pages), A Bintel Brief contains the very essence of Jewish-American New York. Between its pages the culture, society, ideals, hopes and dreams of immigrants struggling to call America their own come pouring out. As a section in the Jewish Daily Forward newspaper, the Bintel Brief was a section of letters to the editor, edited by Isaac Metzker. Many of the letters were based on ethical conundrums; people seeking advice on issues like relationships, work ethic, and the daily struggle to make ends meet. The writers of these letters placed a high value on the opinion of the editor, seeking his advice, his blessing, his approval. However, some are attempts at communication with a missing loved one; a calling out of sorts. The Bintel Brief was a vehicle for exposing mistreated spouses, publicizing petty family arguments, and searching for loved ones.

Author Fact: When Metzker was 20 years old he came to America as a stowaway.

Favorite photo: “Shopping on Hester Street, 1895” (p 10-11). Looking into those eyes I can almost touch the desperation.

Most striking letter: “This is the voice of thirty-seven miserable men who are buried but not covered by earth, tied down but not in chains, silent but not mute, whose hearts beat like humans, yet are not like other human beings….” (p 110). how can that not draw you in?

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “The Jewish-American Experience” (p 133).