Tag: book review

Lost Kitchen

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French, Erin. Lost Kitchen: Recipes and a Good Life Found in Freedom, Maine. Clarkson Potter, 2017.

Reason read: because I was curious, plain and simple.

It all started with Finding Freedom, Erin French’s memoir about overcoming hardships to return to Maine and create one of the most sought after dining experiences in the world. It is truly a rags-to riches, triumph-over-tragedy, feel-good story. Finding Freedom led to me to television series, The Lost Kitchen and that in turn brought me to French’s cookbooks. Lost Kitchen (the cookbook) is gorgeous with just the right amount of memoir and menus. Photographs and recipes crowd nearly every single page. There is a bit of her biography in the beginning, but she glosses over the messy stuff in order to get to the endearing parts of her story: local girl comes home and makes her hometown a dining destination and here, she has shared some of her recipes with you.
Confessional: I am not interested in quail eggs, razor clams, or chicken livers. I can’t eat shrimp or grapefruit, either. What I did salivate over was anything rhubarb, fiddlehead, or parsnip. I was super excited to see the spicy tomato/tomatillo soup she made on one episode of The Lost Kitchen. She serves it as a summer soup, but I’m thinking it could even be a warm soup served with garlic croutons…

Walking After Midnight

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McCoy, Maureen. Walking After Midnight. Poseidon Press, 1985.

Reason read: Elvis was born in January. Read in his honor.

Lottie Jay is supposed to be this tough, sarcastic, wannabe country songwriter. Obsessed with Elvis Presley, Time magazine, and painting her nails, Lottie leaves her husband, goes on an alcoholic bender, crashes her 57 Chevy, and survives a stint in rehab. The premise is good. Sounds exciting. I like tough as nails women as protagonists. The only problem there was nothing else to endear me to Lottie. She leaves her farmer husband after he ridicules her songwriting abilities but not before she tapes her diaphragm to the bathroom mirror as some kind of perverse voodoo warning. Weird.
the plot mostly centers on Lottie’s bad choices in men. While she is not technically divorced from her alcoholic husband, Owen won Lottie over by taking her to see an Elvis impersonator concert, but Georgie won her over by looking like Elvis. Everyone is deeply flawed so you don’t know who to root for.
I did, however, love the character of tough-as-nails wheelchair bound Matilda. “Matt” was the best character in the book. McCoy paints her as a pathetic, fat and unhealthy lesbian, but I thought she was the most believable character in the whole book.
Confessional: there were sentences that I simply did not understand. For example, “I ran out the door just as a pack of redheaded woodpeckers tumbled from the sky and spun, doing mad things all over the yard (p 85), or “They had to envy Owen and wish they would look as fun, but turning the art of Cedar Rapids into oatmeal perfume was serious business” (p 98). What? But then there the sentences that were utterly visceral that I adored, “The hyena laughing broke into sobs” (p 25), and “The train formed a big loop of experience” (p 223). I don’t know what that last line means either, but I loved it.

Author fact: Walking After Midnight was McCoy’s first novel. It is the only one I am reading for the Challenge.

Book trivia: Walking After Midnight is a super short book. It can be read in a single day if you can stand putting up with Lottie for that long. I took her in small doses.

Playlist: Marty Robbins’s “El Paso”, Patsy Cline’s “Walking After Midnight”, Glen Campbell, Mick Jagger, Tammy Wynette’s “Stand By Your Man”, Judy Garland, Ernest Tubbs, the Rolling Stones, Loretta Lynn, Carole King’s “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?”, Kitty Wells, Hank Williams, the Osmonds, the Beatles, the Doors, Johnny Cash, Kenny Rogers, Chuck Berry, Conway Twitty, and a whole bunch of Elvis: “RockaHula”, “Girls, Girls, Girls”, “Love Me Tender”, “Return to Sender”, “C. C. Rider”, “I Was the One Who Taught Her to Kiss”, “Don’t Be Cruel”, “I Want You, I Need You, I Love You”, “Blue Suede Shoes”, “Heartbreak Hotel”, and “Hound Dog”.

Nancy said: Pearl didn’t say anything specific about Walking After Midnight.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Elvis On My Mind” (p 79).

Book of Nothing

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Barrow, John D. The Book of Nothing: Vacuums, Voids, and the Latest Ideas about the Origins of the Universe. Pantheon Books, 2000.

Reason read: January is supposed to be the month you clean the slate. A fresh start with nothing remaining from the previous year.

If you want to fill your head with trivia to use as a neat party trick, read and retain interesting facts from The Book of Nothing. There is a plethora to chose from. You can start with knowing that a guy named Al-Kharizmi came up with the practice of grouping numerals in threes, separated by commas. Sound familiar? William Shakespeare, if you read his works carefully, explores the concept of nothing in Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear. The study of nothing helped scientists to understand barometric pressure. I could go on and on.
In short, The Book of Nothing is the exploration of the concept of nothing from every angle, but with a subtle sense of humor. Don’t believe me? Read the notes section of The Book of Nothing and you’ll see. Barrow’s comments are great.
The deepest pleasure I gleaned from reading The Book of Nothing was the myriad of quotations Barrow used from every walk of life. To illustrate his points Barrow quoted philosophers, educators, historians, musicians, artists, playwrights, mathematicians, the BBC, activists, scientists, psychologists, physicists, astronomers, comedians, even a Canadian naval radio conversation (which was my favorite, in case you were wondering).

Confessional: I had a hard time slogging my way through The Book of Nothing. Even the structure of modern mathematics was mind-boggling to me. Math and science were my least favorite subjects ibn school. The only word I really felt comfortable with was Boolean.

Author fact: Barrow wrote a ton of science and mathematics books. I am only reading the Book of Nothing for the Challenge.

Book trivia: The Book of Nothing is chock full of interesting illustrations and quotations, ancient and current.

Play list: Al Jolson, the Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever”, Cole Porter’s “Heaven Knows”, Queen, and Kris Kristofferson.

Nancy said: Pearl did not say anything specific about The Book of Nothing.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Zero: This Will Mean Nothing To You” (p 256).

The Royal Road to Romance

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Halliburton, Richard. The Royal Road to Romance. The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1925.

Reason read: Halliburton was born in January. Read The Royal Road to Romance in his honor.

The Royal Road to Romance opens with Halliburton’s Princeton days when the mere scent of apple blossoms could distract him from his studies. Indeed, he had an adventurous spirit from a very young age and was a self-proclaimed “horizon chaser.” Later he calls himself the “devil’s pet protégé”, unable to resist the call of the road.
Halliburton was a reckless adventurer. He yielded to illegal temptations all the time. He told a stranger he was “in quest of the pot of gold at the foot of the rainbow” (p 102). For some reason he and his roommate wanted to climb the Matterhorn so badly that they were willing to lie about their mountaineering experience and hide their lack of equipment. They traveled without an itinerary; going where the fancy took them. Halliburton made impetuous decisions – jumping off a train somewhere in Switzerland because he couldn’t get a sense of the countryside by rail, breaking into the gardens of the Generalife by scaling a wall protected by thorny rose bushes, or using lies to get where he anywhere needed to go. He told one farmer he was a horse doctor so that he could acquire a donkey. After he was arrested he told a guard he was a train robber and bigamist and then stole a copy of the Short History of Gibraltar as a souvenir of his penal adventure.
Other adventures include climbing the pyramids at night, swimming naked in the Nile, trekking to the city of Ladakh where only twelve white visitors are allowed each year (because he wants to see a town that practices polyandry) and climbing Mount Fuji in the offseason, just to say he did.

As an aside, Halliburton got me to look up the painting of Lady Recamier and the champagne, Paul Roget.

Lines I loved, “How many successes are plunged into failure by not letting well enough alone?” (p 87), “…we deliberately set about finding some way to circumvent our restrictions” (p 237), and “A common tongue is not vital to understanding when there is congeniality of spirit” (p 317).

Playlist: I only noticed Beethoven mention.

Book trivia: The Royal Road to Romance was dedicated to Halliburton’s Princeton roommates.

Author fact: It is my personal opinion that some of Halliburton’s escapades were greatly exaggerated. The attack of pirates and subsequent murders on the high seas was hard enough to swallow, but Halliburton’s reaction to it seem implausible.

Nancy said: Pearl said Halliburton’s books are a bit dated.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the interesting chapter called “Where in the World Do These Books Belong?” (p 258).

Tell My Horse

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Hurston, Zora Neale. Tell My Horse. Turtle Island, 1938.

Reason read: Hurston was born on January 7th. Read in her honor. I also needed a book written before 1940 for the Portland Public Library Reading Challenge for 2024. Tell My Horse was first published in 1938.

I was first attracted to Hurston as a person when I learned that she was a visionary anthropologist. She dressed flashy and was considered outlandish and flamboyant. Quite the opposite of her writing which is considered serious, scholarly, didactic, and intellectual. I expected Tell My Horse to be a combination of the two and I was not disappointed. Hurston claims to have seen a real zombie, Felicia Felix-Mentor, and even photographed her! Sadly, she does not share them within the pages of Tell My Horse.
There is a sly humor hidden in Huston’s prose which is not easy to do when describing Haiti’s violent history. I particularly enjoyed the section on voodoo. Voodoo is a belief, almost like a religion or an ancient form of mysticism. Hurston is patient with her readers while she explains the culture, delving into the powers of a Mambo, a loa or houngan. Do not mess with Ogoun Feraille, god of war. Make sure to honor other gods like Damballa and Guede as well.
Tell My Horse is riddled with superstitions like do not sharpen hunting blades on the day of the hunt or your dogs will be killed. Soups have to be male (cock soup instead of chicken soup). There is a stone that urinates. A goat can be a consort. The story of Celestina and her goat, Simalo, was bizarre. Rumor had it Celestina and Simalo were married. In order to marry a wealthy man, Celestina needed a “divorce” from the goat. Her father ended up murdering the goat and giving it a Christian burial with flowers, closed casket, and smoking censora as the goat was Celestina’s father’s best friend.
In truth, I wished Tell My Horse came with a soundtrack. I would have enjoyed listening to the songs of invocation. There is a whole section at the end of Tell My Horse of songs of worship to voodoo gods.

Lines I liked, “By that time the place was on fire with life” (p 25), “At any rate, the palace food proved too rich for him, for less than a year after he had taken office he died of a digestive disturbance that his enemies called poison” (p 133),

As an aside, I will never look at the hand shake where thumbs are encircled the same way again. Such handshakes are seen as sexual!
I also want to know if it is still true that you should never pay a Haitian in advance because he (or she) will just steal off with your money without delivering the good or service.
And dare I say that President Stenio Vinient sounded like another delusional man who was once in office? I think I just did.

Author fact: the exact year of Hurston’s birth is a mystery. She lost her mother at the age of nine and left home when she was only fourteen. Like me. She also loved to read. One other “fact” – Hurston reminds me of Queen Latifa in some photographs. I think it’s the smile.

Book trivia: Tell My Horse is a phrase (parlay cheval ou) spoken by those “possessed” by guedes (spirits). As an aside, what is the deal with the cover of Tell My Horse? the man in the cover looks either dead or deep in a trance.

Playlist: “Donkey Want Water”, “Sally Brown”, “Lead kindly Light”, “Good Night”, Ludoric Lamotte, and “Erzulie, Nin Nin Oh!”.

Nancy said: Pearl said that Tell My Horse is a good book to read if you would like a little background history on voodoo.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust to Go in the chapter called “Cavorting Through the Caribbean: Haiti” (p 55).

A Full Net

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Daignault, Susan. A Full Net: Fishing Stories from Maine and Beyond. Islandport Press, 2023

Reason read: as a member of the Early Review program for LibraryThing, I occasionally review cool books.

Disclaimer: I have to say this upfront for the sake of being completely honest. I am not a fishing person. The last time I “fished” for anything, it was off the side of a 7′ skiff with my dad. We were dropping lines (complete with lead sinkers) for mackerel that were running in the harbor of Monhegan. I do not remember eating anything we caught, but I do remember winding up the line and the excitement I felt bringing up those beautiful speckled silver and blue fish. [As an aside, the general store used to smoke mackerel in a converted old fridge. They were delicious.]
Having admitted that I am not an avid fishing fan, it makes sense that I could not fully relate to Daignault’s acute passion/obsession for reeling in the biggest big one or the agony of the one(s) that got away. With the latter, I can only equate it to the pain of a DNF in the world of running road races. [There is nothing more embarrassing for a serious runner than a “did not finish” result attached to your bib number. But again, I digress.]
More importantly, because I am not passionate about fish when Daignault went deep into the fishing terminology I felt like she was speaking a foreign language. Luckily, she translates often.
Aside from fishing, as a person, I found Daignault to be an inspiration. She enthusiastically forged her way through what was considered a man’s world with fishing and her chosen career in the Coast Guard. She was the first woman assigned to the 180-foot buoy tender named Firebush in Kodiak, Alaska. Two years at sea in Alaska is no small feat!
Confessional: Beyond the fishing terminology I found A Full Net hard to read at times only because the stories are all over the place and have a chaotic timeline. One minute she is describing something from her childhood and then the story will jump to the 2020s. There is a bit of repetition I needed to battle as well (How many times could she say her family summered on Cape Cod where she had sand in her toes and salt in her hair?). It was if the chapters were written as stand-alone essays.
One last comment. The subtitle of A Full Net is Fishing Stories from Maine and Beyond. Because Daignault is so secretive about her favorite fishing spots, particularly in Maine, she could have titled her book Fishing Stories from the Southern Side of Pluto. I felt she mentioned other locals such as Costa Rica, Louisiana, Florida, the British Virgin Islands, Alaska, and Cape Cod just as often as Maine.

Book trivia: there is an abundance of photographs which add to the charm of Daignault’s story.

Krik? Krak!

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Danticat, Edwidge. Krik? Krak! SoHo, 1995.

Reason read: Danticat was born in January. Celebrating her birth month with Krik? Krak! I also needed a book for the Portland Public Library Reading Challenge of 2024 with a book about loss. This definitely fit the bill.

Right away, you know you are in the presence of a great writer when you read the very first short story of Krik? Krak! In “Children of the Sea” two teenagers who are in love keep journals when they are separated by dictatorship. Danticat keeps the two first person narratives clear by using capitalization and punctuation for one voice but not the other. The educated boy, a member of the Youth Federation, has escaped Haiti on a boat bound for Miami, Florida, while his young love (who does not use capitalization of punctuation) is left behind to endure military abuses. This was probably one of my favorites. Each subsequent story builds upon the next with the tiniest of threads. A minute detail will tie one story back to another.
“Nineteen Thirty-Seven” is a painful story about a woman visiting her mother in prison. Her mother is accused of flying. The government believes she is a witch, capable of rising like a bird on fire.
“A Wall of Fire Rising” tells the short but devastating story of a family barely making ends meet.
“Night Women” demonstrates the lengths a woman will go in order to provide for her child.
“Between the Pool and the Gardenias” is another heartbreaking story about loss.
“The Missing Peace” illuminates innocence abandoned.
“Seeing Things Simply” shares the story of an artist looking for beauty while ugliness crowds all around her.
“New York Day Women” demonstrates just how much a mother’s love can suffocate a daughter.
“Caroline’s Wedding” weaves a tale of expectation in age old customs.
“Women Like Us” is a message to daughters.
“In the Old Days” is an additional story for the twentieth anniversary edition of Krik? Krak! It tells the story of a woman asked to visit her dying father, a man she has never met.

The short stories of Krik? Krak!:

  • Children of the Sea
  • Nineteen Thirty-Seven
  • A Wall of Fire Rising
  • Night Women
  • Between the Pool and the Gardenias
  • The Missing Peace
  • Seeing Things Simply
  • New York Day Women
  • Caroline’s Wedding
  • Epilogue: Women Like Us
  • New to the 20th Anniversary Edition: In the Old Days

Quotes to quote, “At times I feel like I can just reach out and pull a star down from the sky as though it is a breadfruit or a calabash or something that could be of us to us on this journey” (“Children of the Sea” p 8), “I want him to forget that we live in a place where nothing lasts” (“Night Women” p 73), “They kept their arms close to their bodies, like angels hiding their wings” (“Nineteen Thirty-Seven” p 137).

Author fact: I am reading five books by Edwidge Danticat. Brother, I’m Dying in the last one.

Book trivia: reviewers call Krik? Krak! virtually flawless, passionate, lyrical, devastating, moving and luminous. I couldn’t agree more.

Nancy said: Pearl did not say anything specific about Krik? Krak!

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “The Contradictory Caribbean: Paradise and Pain” (p 55)

Maine Bucket List

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Gonzalez, Shirley. Maine Bucket List Adventure Guide: Explore 100 Offbeat Destinations You Must Visit! Canyon Press, 2022.

Reason read: I have the Maine bug. What can I say?

If you want a compilation of a bunch of random places to visit in Maine and you like your information willy nilly, Maine Bucket List is the guide for you. It comes with some caveats, though. Comprised of 125-ish places in Maine, Bucket List is sorted into “regions” and includes GPS coordinates for Google maps for each spot. Speaking of maps, though, there is not a one included. Not even one of the entire state of Maine. To make matters worse, I strongly disagree with the so-called regions. I found the organization of regions to be strange because if you don’t know the state of Maine, you have no idea why Gonzalez starts in Lewiston. Actually, I know Maine and have no idea why she chose to start with that town. To explain further – Lewiston, Augusta, and Bangor are the first three locations mentioned, but not one of them is in the same county (Androscoggin, Kennebec, and Penobscot respectively). They are all approximately an hour from each other. Gonzalez goes back to a Lewiston locale 75 pages later. Here are more head scratchers: Peaks Island (near Portland) is the page before Lubec, which is some 4-5 hours away. Then Lubec is followed by Gorham (again, 4-5 hours away). Baxter State Park is not in the table of contents under B for Baxter, nor is it under M for Millinocket (where the park is located). You can find Baxter State Park Park under B for Bangor…which is ninety miles away. As an aside, Millinocket has a pretty cool half marathon every December to help support the town.
But, enough of the “region” complaints. I think I made my point. My next gripe is the inclusion of just Will Kefauver’s studio gallery. Why not include any of the other hundreds of fantastic galleries? Why nothing about the Wyeth family or the gallery of Paul Niemiec? I hoped to see the Rockland Breakwater walk mentioned. It wasn’t. I was disappointed that while Gonzalez included the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens she didn’t mention their fantastic Gardens Aglow event that happens every Christmas. It is an outrageously beautiful display with thousands and thousands of Christmas lights. Every color of the rainbow lights up a winter wonderland. Walking through the park after dark with a cup of hot chocolate is an event not to be missed and so much more exciting than a bunch of trolls.
The guide isn’t all bad, though. Maine Bucket List introduced me to facts about my home state that I was not aware: there is an official memorial to the Underground Railroad, Robert E. Peary graduated from Bowdoin and you can tour his house, and Swans Island has a music festival. I made special mention of the Devil’s Footprint. I will have to check that out the next time I am home.

You know I can’t get away from being critical about information regarding Monhegan Island. I would disagree with the best times to visit the island. Gonzalez says between April and October. I would change that to June to September. Most of the “day tripping” boats don’t start running until Memorial Day weekend. Hotels do not open until the last week of May so if you arrive before the daily boats I hope you know someone to bunk with! Most accommodations are closed by the first or second week of October.                                                

Book trivia: editors of Maine Bucket List had a hard time spelling Mount Desert. It was either Mountt or Deseret. Other missed mistakes include the hours for a monastery: “daily mass at 7:30 a.m. on weekends and 8:00 a.m. on the weekends.” I think the first weekend mention should be weekDAYS. As they say in Maine, hard telling, not knowing. I suppose I could look it up…

Setlist: “State of Maine”

Roma

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Croce, Julia Della. Roma: Authentic Recipes from In and Around the Eternal City. Chronicle Books, 2004.

Reason read: Having just come back from Rome, a coworker gave this to me as a gift.

There is more to Roma than delicious recipes and luxurious photographs. Inside the pages of this cookbook you will find the history of some of Rome’s most traditional ingredients like polenta, olives, and artichokes. You will read about what Caesar liked to serve his guests (moray eels) and learn that Anzio was the birth place of Caligula and Nero. Croce also includes a section on where to eat and sleep in and around the ancient city. Because she includes addresses, phone numbers, and days of operations, it is strongly advised to doublecheck this information as Roma was published nearly twenty years ago. Some places may have not survived Rome’s devastating battle with Covid in 2020. There is a section of mail order resources, complete with address, phone number, fax, website and a brief description. Again, I would check for accuracy.
One of my favorite sections of Roma is the information on festivals. The ancient city celebrates everything from polenta, artichokes, flower artwork, fish, pork, lentils, bread salad, olive oil, and of course, grapes.
Croce ends Roma with information about cooking schools, wine courses and Italy tours, starting with her own Italian cooking school, La Vera Cucina and ending with “To Italy with Julia”, a culinary and cultural tour of Italy.
As an aside, I liked the phrase “an aggressive use of pepper” but it had me wondering exactly how much constituted “aggressive” in Croce’s eyes.

Book trivia: The gorgeous photographs within Roma were shot by Paolo Destefanis.

Author fact: I only have this one cookbook by Julia Croce. Probably because I am not a huge fan of Italian cuisine. I am a huge fan of Chronicle Books, though. I have several cookbooks from them.

As an aside, while I was in Rome for ten days I had the privilege of staying with a Roman family in the Laurentino district. On New Year’s Eve, my host cooked an elaborate ten course meal that included pasta, fish, salad, and bread. The last dish (served at 1:30am) was a lentil-sausage stew. The sausage rounds symbolized coins of wealth in the coming year. It was really delicious.

Finding Freedom

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French, Erin. Finding Freedom: Celadon, 2021.

Reason read: this was a gift from my sister. I read everything that comes from her, especially if it takes place in Maine.

To say Erin French is a fighter is an understatement. Let’s start with childhood with an mentally abusive father. I think about what kind of person I would be if, unless I was doing something for him, I never received honest love from my father. To watch him drown kittens would be enough to traumatize me for life. [That is the stuff of nightmares, especially if you are too young to understand the necessity of the act.]
Finding Freedom is not only a story of redemption, but one of tenacity. Coming from a small town is almost always seen as a curse. There is a stigma around being from Nowhere, America. You are considered a nobody if you can’t get out. Breaking free and escaping from your small provincial hometown to make it in the “real world” is always the unspoken goal. Erin almost made it out, but when she had a child out of wedlock and had to come crawling home to Freedom, Maine, it should have been a source of shame, but instead the act saved Erin’s life. Even though there were more adversities to come, her son Jaim gave her a reason to live, to fight, and to succeed. Because of him she was able to navigate a horrific (some would say diabolical) divorce, survive a bizarre custody battle for Jaim, conquer an all-consuming alcohol and prescription pill addiction, and find financial stability. She was able to break down every roadblock her ex-husband and her own demons put in front of her.
You may think I have given you spoilers for Finding Freedom. Believe me when I say I haven’t. There is so much more to Erin’s story. Read it for yourself to find out.

Book trivia: Each section of Finding Freedom is separated by a place in Maine: Hope, Unity, Prospect, Liberty, and Freedom. If people are not familiar with rural Maine they might think she is talking about something entirely different.

Quote to quote, “I didn’t want to live a life where dollar amounts dictated dreams” (p 52). Amen to that. My father always told me, do what you love and love what you do. If you live within the means of your passion you will never want for anything.

Playlist: Cesaria Evora, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, Bette Midler’s “Baby of mine”, Stevie Nicks, the Sound of Music soundtrack, and Whitney Houston.

A House in Corfu

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Tennant, Emma. A House in Corfu: a Family’s Sojourn in Greece. Henry Holt and Company, 2002.

Reason read: in January 1981 Greece joined the European community.

So you want a house on the Greek island of Corfu? It is going to take a lot of work…as Emma Tennant’s parents soon found out. In A House in Corfu it is the 1960s and Emma’s parents have been entranced by a spot at the mouth of a mythological bay. Supposedly, this is the spot where Odysseus came ashore; where Nausicaa took him in. The Tennants decide to build a house they name Rovina. Emma Tennant’s romantic descriptions make Rovina sound like a fairytale when it was all said and done, but first there was the initial build where troubles naturally abounded. Water was difficult to find. (The search went on for seven weeks while the family relied on rainwater.) Supplies needed to come by boat from a tiny harbor and hauled up the countryside. Then there were the island politics to navigate. The locals used the land as shortcuts to fishing spots. Then there was the one time Tennant couldn’t return to London. Because of a military coup led by Colonel Papadopoulos the planes refused to fly.
Tennant pays tribute to other Corfu writers like Homer, Durrell, and Edward Lear.
While I enjoyed Tennant’s romantic descriptions, her parenthetic comments and run-on sentences were tiring.

As an aside, I love learning new things. I did not realize Greeks have siestas. dhen pirazei means never mind.

As another aside, I am fascinated by the Judas trees Tennant described. I was able to see one that was one hundred years old while I was in Rome. Unfortunately, it was not in bloom.

Lines I loved, “Greece has entered our blood by now, and we can no longer remember the cool summers back home or the precautions taken when embarking on a picnic or a day by the sea: waterproofs, cardigans, rug that may never be unrolled due to sudden, half-expected rain” (p 148) and “The sea is a great cleanser, of body and soul: to feel at first that you are entering the heart of a sapphire or an aquamarine, then to sink deeper into the water that has cold springs as refreshing as a subaqueous shower, is to know that you will come out transformed, like a creature in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and begin the day again as if you had gone nowhere at all” (p 185).

Author fact: I found it interesting that Tennant does not mention a husband, only a son and friends that travel to Greece with her.

Book trivia: There are no photographs of Rovina in A House in Corfu.

Setlist: Melina Mercouri’s “Never On a Sunday”, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, and the Rolling Stones’ “I Can’t Get no Satisfaction”.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the simple chapter called “Corfu” (p 70).

And a Right Good Crew

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Kimbrough, Emily. And a Right Good Crew. Illustrated by Mircea Vasiliu. Harper and Brothers, 1958.

Reason read: A pleasant end of the year read.

Sophie and Arthur Kober, Howard and Dorothy Lindsay, and Emily Kimbrough make up the “right good” crew. This is the story of the five of them are canal cruising aboard first the Venturer and then the Maid Marysue. They travel between Staffordshire and London with plenty of adventure along the way.
Parts about Kimbrough that made me laugh: she was a self proclaimed arguer. She liked a persuasive dialogue challenge. Throughout And a Right Good Crew she was witty and humorous. I loved how she described herself and her companions as heathens who didn’t know how to make a proper pot of tea. She shamelessly uses her daughter’s pregnancy to gain special treatment while traveling and desperately wanted to see how a game of darts was played. I think I would have liked to be friends with Emily Kimbrough.
A few scenes I enjoyed: shopping in 1950s England. They didn’t supply shoppers with containers for their purchases, (What is old is new again. Maine does provide shopping bags, either.) Arthur Kober’s attempt to steer the Maid Marysue, and the ringing of the bells.
Beyond a pleasant memoir, And a Right Good Crew includes some practical late 1950s information about traveling by canal: a glossary of terms, a step by step directive of how to take a boat through a lock, a list of books for suggested reading, and a tally of basic expenses.

As an aside, if you order a Bloody Mary in London, are you swearing at Mary?

Author fact: Kimbrough grew up in Chicago and developed a sense of wanderlust early on.

Book trivia: be forewarned, the details are a little dated. Case in point, the hire fee for a boat was twenty-nine pounds per week. A charge for a lad was six a week.

Head scratching lines, “He had phrased her incompetence delicately” (p 7), “We continued to impose our involuntary shock treatment” (p 180), and “Neither activity came even in the neighborhood of my comprehension” (p 224).

Setlist: Gershwin’s “A Woman is a Sometime Thing”.

Nancy said: Pearl included And a Right Good Crew as a humorous book about cruising. She had more to say about the book but you should check it out for yourself in Book Lust To Go (p 253).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Water, Water Everywhere” (p 253).

White Boots

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Streatfeild, Noel. White Boots. Illustrated by Milein Cosman. Puffin Books, 1963.

Reason read: Noel Streatfeild, if you couldn’t tell by her first name, was born on Christmas Eve. Read in her honor.

Who doesn’t love Noel Streatfeild’s “Shoes” books? Whether you read the British version (White Boots) or the American (Skating Shoes), either is just as cute. Ten year old Harriet is a frail child, recovering from a long illness that has left her legs “cotton-woolish” and weak. Her doctor prescribes exercise to rebuild her muscles. He knows just the sport, ice skating. There at the rink Harriet meets a girl her age, skating sensation Lalla. Lalla’s father was a world famous skater as well but died in an accident. His sister is tyranically determined to make her niece the next star on ice. Seeing that Harriet is a good influence on Lalla’s training, Harriet soon starts taking ice skating, dance and fencing lessons to keep Lalla engaged. I think you can see where this is going.
This is a story of opposites attract. Lalla is beautiful and wealthy. Harriet is plain and poor. Lalla’s skating prowess prompts her to be shallow and selfish. Harriet’s lack of privilege leaves her hungry for friendship. Harriet has a loud, loving, and large family while Lalla only has her nanny, her prim and proper aunt, and a home-schooling governess.
This is also a story of acceptance. Just because you have a world class athlete for a father doesn’t mean you have inherited the genes. All Lalla’s life she has been pushed into believing she had to be the skater her father was. She had been given every advantage to fulfill that expectation except she lacked one thing. Talent. Along comes a nobody of a girl. No fancy clothes. No world class father. No money to buy premier lessons. But Harriet did have one thing. Ability.
As an aside, times have changed. In today’s world it is incredibly rare for a sibling to start a paper route just to support his sister’s recovery. What kid does that? Alec is a smart brother. He knows exactly how much he will earn from delivering papers and he also knows how much the skate rental will cost. His business sense drives him to save the two extra shillings to put towards his father’s failing business. Again, what kid does that? I enjoyed the side story of the garden very much.

Confessional: when Streatfeild was setting up the family’s history of poverty, I couldn’t keep up with who lived in which house.
Father Christmas only has six tiny reindeer?

Author fact: Noel Streatfeild was born on Christmas Eve.

Book trivia: Originally published in 1951 in the United States as Skating Shoes.

Playlist: “Where the Rainbow Ends”, “The First Nowell” (Streatfeild’s spelling, not mine), “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”, and “O Come All Ye Faithful”.

Nancy said: Pearl said Streatfeild is best known for her shoe books.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Fantasy For Young and Old” (p 83). The “Shoe” books should not be included in this chapter because they are not fantasy. Pearl only mentions them because of The Fearless Treasure, which I have not been able to find.

Japanese By Spring

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Reed, Ishmael. Japanese By Spring. Athenaeum, 1993.

Reason read: Traditionally, December is the end of a term. Since Japanese By Spring is set in academia I thought I would read it in honor of the end of a trying term.

An ad promises Benjamin “Chappie” Puttbutt III that he will learn the language of Japanese by spring. He had started taking lessons to learn Japanese in the Air Force Academy in the mid 1960s. Only the lessons ended after he had been expelled from the Academy. In the beginning the reader has no idea why Puttbutt has been expelled, but hang on! That story is coming and it’s a doozy. In present day, Puttbutt teaches English at the Jack London College. His only ambition in life is to make tenure, but he is a miserable failure. [As an aside, I can tell you that tenure is not all that it is cracked up to be.] But anyway, Puttbutt is so desperate for this recognition that he jumps on the latest support bandwagon that will further his cause, even if it means derogatory talk about his own race and culture.
Reed’s tongue in cheek commentary on institutional endowments was pretty funny. A student can get away with murder because his father practically funds the entire college. Where have we seen that before? Be prepared for other snarky commentary on political hotbed topics like the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill scandal, LA riots and the beating of Rodney King, nationalism, racism, any ism you can think of. Speaking of racism, here is a snarky scene to ponder: a professor is exclaiming that racism has never existed on the Jack London College campus while a fraternity is having its annual “Slave Day.” I was tempted to play a drinking game with the words nationalism and Yoruba.

Fair warning: the details are a bit dated and unbelievable. Chappie is powerful enough to have a plane brought back to the gate when he misses his flight. These days, a plane can still be at the date, but if the door is closed, you will not gain access no matter who you say you are. Not for anything.
Chappie’s mother had been kidnapped three years earlier by Arabs? Supposedly, she helped plan a bombing raid on Libya. This would make sense as Chappie’s father has been tapping his phone and his grandfather, who has been in hiding, had to kidnap him.
The satire drips thick in Japanese By Spring. Chappie’s main rival is a woman by the name of April Jokujoku and all I could think was April Fools. The president of the college is President Stool. The Berserkley left, I could go on and on.

Author fact: Ishmael Reed inserts himself into Japanese By Spring with real facts, like he was born in Tennessee and

Book trivia: Satire is even hidden in the Japanese words Reed peppers throughout Japanese By Spring, like bakamono.

Lines I liked: According to the copyright of Japanese By Spring , one cannot quote any part of this book for any reason. So. No favorite lines will be mentioned. Ugh! there was a line about pacifism that is so hilarious.

Setlist: “You Will Never Walk Alone”, Little Milton, Max Roach, Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, John Coltrane’s “Blue Trane”, Beatles, Michael Jackson, Prince, Hank Williams, Matata, Ice Cube, Sister Soulijah, George Clinton’s “Do Fries Go with That Shake”, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, and “Onward Christian Soldiers”.

Nancy said: Pearl called Puttbutt’s story “hilariously sad” (Book Lust p 3).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Academia: the Joke” (p 3).

D.B.

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Reid, Elwood. D.B. Doubleday, 2004.

Reason: I started this in the last week of November because the book opens with the date November 24th, 1971.

Does everyone know the real story of the man who used a bomb to skyjack a plane back in the early 70s? Elwood Reid takes the real-life events of D.B. Cooper and turns them into two parallel stories. Fitch’s sounds like a bad country song. He loses his wife, his job, and his Dodge Dart all in quick succession. In truth, it reminded me of a movie called Dead Presidents where a man, down on his luck, is forced into a life of crime because he cannot catch a break the honest way. He tries and tries but finally decides he needs a one-time, single-payout super crime. Something huge that will take him away from it all for the rest of his life. As an interesting aside, Dan Cooper, aka Fitch, skyjacks a plane for $200,000. Today, that same sum would be worth $1,519,362.96 Not too shabby.
On the other side of the narrative is newly retired FBI agent Frank Marshall. Typical of most law enforcement, Marshall can’t immediately give up all he has ever known for a life of leisure. He still feels the need to protect a female witness with whom he is slowly falling in love, he continuously carries the finger bone of a murder he couldn’t solve, and occasionally thinks about a man who jumped from a Seattle-bound 727. When a fresh faced eager agent approaches Marshall about putting down the bottle to help him with the still-open D.B. Cooper case, Marshall feels the tug of solving the old mysteries. Is it possible D.B. Cooper survived the jump? Is he still out there?

Confessional: this takes place in a different time so the details are a bit dated. This happened in a time when one could call an airline for the names of passengers on a certain day’s manifest. I appreciated how Reid used the presidents in office orientate the reader to the appropriate era.

A point of irritation: Dan Cooper asked the stewardess to sit next to him. He then looked at a note he had written on his wrist. Did Susan see that note? How could she not? I know seats were a little more comfortable in the 1970s, but surely she noticed this?

Author fact: While Reid wrote a bunch of novels, I am only reading D.B. for the Challenge. As an aside, Reid publicity shot looks like a head shot and he could be a stand in for Treat Williams.

Book trivia: D.B. is based on a true story.

Playlist: John Lennon’s “Imagine”, Carole King, “American Pie”, Blood Sweat and Tears, Nancy Sinatra, “Lara’s Theme”, Wagner, 96 Tears, Frank Sinatra, “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”, Bob Seger’s “Night Moves”, Willie Nelson’s “River Boy” and “Crazy”, Neil Young’s “Everyone Knows This is Nowhere”, Thelonious Monk’s “Crepuscule with Nellie”, “Over the Hills and Far Away”, Beatles, the Golden Variations, Roy Orbison, “Sister Ray”, and Velvet Underground.

Nancy said: Pearl called it a great read.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Plots for Plotzing” (p 185).