Tag: family

Walk of Ages

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Andersen, Withanee with Jim Andersen. Walk of Ages: a Generational Journey from Mt. Whitney to Death Valley. University of Nevada Press, 2024.

Jim Andersen made the journey from Mt. Whitney to Death Valley with three friends in 1974, back when he was thirty years old. They called themselves the Sandwalkers. Now, forty-three years later (in 2017) daughter Withanee wants to honor her father by retracing his footsteps across Death Valley as she turns thirty. She enlists the help of a coworker, her brother, and her boyfriend to accompany her on this epic journey.
With Walk of Ages only being 177 pages, and with a generous amount of photographs, the whole story can be read in one sitting. I definitely thought Withanee could have made it longer. There was so much potential for more. The landscapes are barely described in any detail. I wanted to know about their experiences besides a bum knee, blisters and beer. The different perspective of the same walk with memories from dad was interesting, but it would have been fun to have more narratives from others like Val or Shawn. What went through your mind when you kept making wrong turns and getting lost? What was it like to know you were going to propose to Withanee on this trip?
Confessional: I also want to know how many cases of beer the Sandwalkers Second Edition consumed on their journey. There seemed to be a never-ending supply on ice and I lost count of how many times they said they were motivated and/or powered by India Pale Ale! The craft beer scene has exploded since 2017. I am sure Withanee and Shawn have new favorites.
My only secret letdown was that Withenee and crew didn’t follow the original trip as faithfully as they could have. Withanee talks about walking in her father’s footsteps and while that was virtually impossible in some places, the Sandwalkers Second Edition took shortcuts to shave off miles wherever they could.

As an aside, as someone who participated in a three-day, sixty-mile cancer charity walk, I know all about the blister on blister phenomenon. The trick a series of treatments: Vaseline, moleskin, duct tape, double layer socks (Wright socks were my favorite) and cross trainers (Asics have always been my go-to shoe)…in that order. After that first year I never had another blister or hot spot.

Playlist: “Lookin’ for a Reason” by Creedence Clearwater Revival (their theme song), “Dem Bones”, and the National Anthem.

Book trivia: the title of the book is a play on the hymn Rock of Ages.

Last Resort

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Rogers, Douglas. The Last Resort: a Memoir of Zimbabwe. Harmony Books, 2009.

Reason read: Zimbabwe’s independence was won in April of 1980.

When President Robert Mugabe announced his plans reclaim Zimbabwe land from white farmers, it was not an idle threat. All across the landscape, white-owned properties and farms were first taken by decree then by force. People were arrested or even murdered and lives systematically destroyed, piece by piece and acre by acre. Douglas Rogers was born and raised in the Zimbabwe countryside with vibrant and industrious parents. His father had been a lawyer and his mother raised four children while writing a cookbook called “Recipes for Disaster.” Together they ran a game farm and tourist lodge called Drifters. By the time Mugabe was in office Ros and Lin’s children had grown and moved away. Douglas was a journalist in Europe. When Mugabe’s people threatened their property Douglas urged his parents to leave and when that didn’t work, he realized their struggle would make for a good memoir. By documenting the political strife on an extremely personal level, he would reach a wider audience and shed more light on the corrupt situation in his homeland. As the country slid into uncontrolled bankruptcy, Rogers’ parents struggle to keep their lives as normal as possible. Even when their resort was taken over as a brothel, their fields turned to pot (literally), and diamond dealers camped in their lodges. With shotgun in hand, they made light of the growing danger on their doorstep. How long can they keep their land?

As an aside, in my gluttonous life, I cannot imagine not being able to afford stamps and envelopes. I also couldn’t imagine bombs landing all around my house in the middle of the night and then to be expected to concentrate at school the next day.
As another aside, the resort Rogers’s family owned had a Friday night pizza bake. So did the show “Million Little Things.” So do I.

Playlist: 50 Cent’s “In Da Club”, Aretha Franklin, Bob Marley and the Wailers, Eminem, “Get Rich or Die Tryin'”, Hanli Slabbert, Jay-Z, Kanye West’s “Diamonds From Sierra Leone”, Kris Kristofferson, Macy Gray, Mos Def, Neil Diamond’s “Cracklin’ Rosie”, Puff Daddy, R Kelly’s “I Believe I Can Fly”, Snoop Dogg, Supergrass, Thomas Mapfumo, and “Yellow Submarine”. As an aside, “Yellow Submarine” has come up in two different books this month. Cool.

Author fact: Rogers has his own website (mentioned at the end of The Last Resort). Unfortunately, it does not have the photographs or video promised. Even the links to the podcast and ethics of visiting Zimbabwe are no longer available. I would have at least liked to see the frog that lived in the coffee pot. There is one video that still works and of course it is a promotion for the book.

Book trivia: There are no photographs in The Last Resort. Not even one of the frog. I was disappointed because at the end of The Last Resort Rogers gives the url for his website and promises photographs, a short film, and an update on his parents’ farm. Yes, the information would be old (Rogers finished The Last Resort in May of 2009), but I was hoping for at least photos.

Nancy said: Pearl called The Last Resort engrossing.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the very last chapter called “Zipping Through Zimbabwe/Roaming Rhodesia” (p 268).

Easter Parade

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Yates, Richard. Easter Parade. Delacorte Press, 1976.

Reason read: Richard Yates was mentioned in More Book Lust in the siblings chapter for The Easter Parade and April is National Siblings Month. Also, Easter is traditionally in April. A couple of reasons for reading Easter Parade in April.

Easter Parade is an easy read about two sisters and their very different lives. Sarah Grimes marries quickly and has three children while Emily Grimes focuses on her career. Neither has a happy existence as each sister is deeply flawed. Easter Parade has been described as Yates’s most autobiographical novel. Many, if not all, of the characters are loosely based in real people in Yates’s lifetime. For some individuals, the veil that separates fiction from reality is spider web thin and they are easily identifiable. Many other details are just as transparent; right down to the name of the house on Long Island.
It has been determined through other documentation that Richard had based the character of Emily on himself. Interesting. I say interesting because I found Emily to be a sad and lonely woman. She bounced from one meaningless sexual encounter to another. Her relationships are shallow and fleeting because she is miserable at picking men or keeping friendships. At times I wanted her to find love while other times I was annoyed by her shrill personality.

As an aside, I want to know if Irving Berlin say his greatest fear is to reach for something and it isn’t going to be there? That is such a profound image. What do you take for granted? A favorite pen? An old lover? What will you reach for and discover its absence?

Favorite phrase, “…the room exploded into clarity” (p 150).

Author fact: Yates also wrote Revolutionary Road. I hope to be reading that in a few years.

Book trivia: Easter Parade addresses uncomfortable topics such as domestic violence, erectile dysfunction, alcoholism, and even hints at incest.

Setlist: “All the Things You Are”, “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered”, “Bye Bye Love”, Chopin, Everly Brothers, “Look for the Silver Lining”, Sinatra, “Welcome, Sweet Springtime”, and “Where Have All the Flowers Gone”.

Nancy said: Pearl called Easter Parade “perfection” and a book to be read with Off Keck Road by Mona Simpson and Our Kind by Kate Walbert. Confessional: I have already read Simpson so I will have to go back and read the review.

BookLust Twist: only from More Book Lust but mentioned quite a few times. First, in the chapter called “Literary Lives: the Americans” (p 145), then in the chapter called “Men Channeling Women” (p 166). Also mentioned in the chapter simply called “Sibs” (p 199). Lastly, The Easter Parade is included in “Two, or Three, are Better Than One” (p 226). Four times in one book! I think Pearl liked this one.

I Know This Much Is True

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Lamb, Wally. I Know This Much Is True. HarperCollins, 1998.

Reason read: March is considered Family Month. Brothers are family. Read in honor of brothers everywhere.

Thomas and Dominic. Identical twins.
Dominic’s life reminded me of a country song. You know the ones where anything that could go wrong eventually does. Consider: Dominic spent his entire life worrying about three things. One, who was his father? By not knowing his father Dominic feels he does not know himself. As a child he dreamed of his biological father and fantasized about the day this mystery man would swoop in and save him and Thomas from their abusive stepfather, Ray. Two, Dominic was convinced his mother loved his brother more. Maybe she really did because of Thomas’s mental illness. On her deathbed she makes Dominic promise to look after Thomas, all the while refusing to reveal the true identity of their father. Three, Thomas’s mental illness could be hereditary and sooner or later Dominic would inherit his brother’s schizophrenia. Was he just as crazy as his brother and just not know it? All of these worries weigh on Dominic as he tries to cope. In giving up his own life to fulfill the promise he made to his mother his marriage falls apart and he quit his job as a history teacher (ironically, it is history that sets him free).
In order for this story to be successful the reader needed to be grounded in the current events of the time, otherwise Thomas’s internal angst doesn’t make sense. Eric Clapton’s son falling from a window. Desert Storm. The beating of Rodney King. The world on fire. In addition to these unsettling times, Lamb throws in some equally difficult subjects like racism, AIDS, post traumatic stress suffered by veterans, diabetes, and of course, the complicated system of treating mental health.
I deeply love flawed characters; ones who find a way to change just enough that by the end of the book they are going to be okay, even if it is only somewhat okay. They haven’t gone from devil to angel but their lives are not the disaster they once were.

As another aside, the next time I am feeling threatened by anyone I think I want to try Dominic’s trick of protection – look your tormentor directly in the eye without flinching.

Author fact: Lamb also wrote She’s Come Undone, another fantastic book.

Book trivia: this is a reread for me. I remember being intimidated by the number of pages. Some things never change.

Playlist: Aerosmith, “Age of Aquarius”, Beatles, “Beautiful Dreamer”, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley’s “One Love”, “Cool Jerk”, “Heartbreak Hotel” and “Hunka Hunka Burning Love” by Elvis, Eric Clapton, “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow”, “Good Lovin'”, “Happy Birthday”, “Hot Diggity Dog Diggity”, “I Shot the Sherriff”, Indigo Girls, John Lennon’s “Instant Karma”, “Marzy Doats” The Monkees, “My Country ‘Tis of Thee”, “Night Moves”, “Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown”, Olivia Newton-John, Question Mark and the Mysterians’s “Ninety-Six Tears”, Rolling Stones, Sam the Sham and the Pharaoh’s “Wooly Bully”, “The Boys are Back in Town”, “Three blind Mice”, Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got To Do With It?”, Verdi, “Wild Thing”, Willie Nelson’s “Heartland”, and Yanni.

Nancy said: Pearl called I Know This Much Is True an interesting portrait of therapists. She said more than that but you should check out Book Lust or More Book Lust for more.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Shrinks and Shrinkees” (p 221). Also from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Oh! Brother” (p 180).

A Good Fall

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Jin, Ha. A Good Fall: Stories. Pantheon Books, 2009.

Reason read: Jin’s birthday is in February. Read in his honor.

Twelve stories with themes like immigrants in transition, culture clashes, vanity, identity, and family traditions. Ha Jin’s characters are so well drawn they keep speaking to me after I have closed the book. I could see A Good Fall as a movie with interconnecting stories of Chinese immigrants living in Flushing, New York. Maybe they are all living in the same apartment and pass each other on the stairs? Each suffering their secrets in silence?
I do not think it is a spoiler to say that A Good Fall surprisingly ends on a hopeful note.

  • The Bane of the Internet
  • A Composer and His Parakeet
  • The Beauty
  • Choice
  • Children as Enemies
  • In the Crossfire
  • Shame
  • An English Professor
  • A Pension Plan
  • Temporary Love
  • The House Behind a Weeping Cherry
  • A Good Fall

Lines I liked, “After Zuming came, she would have to become a faithful wife again” (p 177). That sentence is packed with so much drama. And then there is this one, “Keep in mind, yours is not the worst sorrow” (p 236).

Author fact: Ha Jin is also a poet.

Book trivia: Many people have mentioned that the short stories of Ha Jin are very repetitious. For that reason I am spreading out my reading so that it does not become tedious. I have already read Ocean of Words and The Bridegroom. I am also reading Waiting but not until September of 2042.

Nancy said: Pearl did not say anything specific about A Good Fall.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “China: the Middle Kingdom” (p 61). Except…most of Jin’s stories take place in Flushing, New York. The characters are immigrants from China.

Brother of the More Famous Jack

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Trapido, Barbara. Brother of the More Famous Jack. Viking Press, 1982.

Reason read: Nothing is more annoying that not remembering why I chose a book to read within a certain month. Since I cannot remember the original reason I am just going to say I chose it for Valentine’s Day since one of the themes is finding the right relationship.

It all starts when John Millet takes Katherine to meet friends of his, the Goldman family. Only Katherine knows the mister of the family, Jake Goldman. He is her philosophy professor, but Katherine is meeting his family for the first time. If you can get over the misogynistic overtones of Brother of the More Famous Jack you will fall in love with some of Trapido’s characters. I loved Jane. Here is what I mean about the subtle disparagement of women: when Jacob complained that his wife, Jane, does not do enough around the house it set my teeth to grinding after Jane felt she needed to point out that she has brought the group tea, and has made them lunch, in addition to gardening and making music. Trapido says this of Jake, “He gains strength from the myth of his wife’s incompetence” (p 25). Katherine dates a man who didn’t like women when they turned into mothers. Mostly, I tried not to be too offended by the light banter about rape and abortion.
All in all, I wasn’t sure I liked Katherine. She is very unlucky in love and has this air of helplessness that bothered me throughout the entire book. She pines for a Goldman son even though it is apparent he never feels the same way. For six years she dates a married man who is ugly to her. This man left his previous wife because he lost respect for her when she became pregnant with his child. When Katherine finally escapes this relationship she runs straight back to the Goldman family. Why does she keep returning to these people? Because she has fallen in love with the entire family. Even after ten years away from them she finds herself ensconced in their lives.

Lines I liked, “Being in love and unable to acknowledge it, they were fond of generalizing about love” (p 92) and “…your brother dismantled my character” (p 161).

As an aside, I could relate to Katherine when she admitted she was afraid to ride a bicycle after breaking her arm riding one when she was nine years old. Sometimes, childhood trauma stays with a person for a very long time.

Author fact: Even though Trapido has written other books, Brother of the More Famous Jack is the only one I am reading.

Book trivia: In case you were wondering, William Butler Yeats is the borhter of the most famous Jack.

Playlist: Abba, George Formby, Haydn, “The Harmonious Chime”, John Dowland, Monteverdi, Mozart, “O Worship the King”, Schubert, Scarlatti, Suite Italienne, “Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son”, and “Yellow Submarine”.

Nancy said: Here is the interesting thing about what Pearl said, not specifically about Brother of the More Famous Jack, but about the chapter called “Friend Makers.” If you like any of the books in this chapter Pearl sees you as a friend.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Friend Makers” (p 95).

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).

Sister of My Heart

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Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee. Sister of My Heart. Anchor Books, 2000.

Reason read: I needed a book for the Portland Public Library Reading Challenge in the category of something cozy. I chose Sister of My Heart because people chose words like beguiling, magical, moving, and emotional to describe it.

From the very beginning of Sister of My Heart, Divakaruni dangles mysteries and secrets in front of the reader. Anju and Sudha are non-blood cousins, but as close as conjoined sisters. Both girls lost their fathers when they were newborns, but how? There is mystery surrounding their simultaneous demise. Each chapter of Sister of My Heart is told from the alternating viewpoints of Anju and Sudha. Each cousin’s voice is too similar to discern but maybe, just maybe that is the point. Their love for one another, their bond makes them as close a singular entity. When one “sister” learns a deep family secret she is torn between keeping it and uncovering it. She needs to weigh the cost of each choice carefully.
This is the story of how one event can leave you scarred. Like a clogged artery, love cannot flow as easily. Secrets snag the once open heart. Is there a chance for forgiveness?

Lines I loved, “This is how love makes cowards of us” (p 166) and “Don’t regret what you can’t change” (p 230). Chitra, are you talking to me?

Author fact: Divakaruni has her own website here.

Book trivia: Even though Divakaruni wrote a few other “of” books (Mistress of…Vine of…Errors of…), Sister of My Heart is the only book I am reading for the Challenge.

Nancy said: Pearl did not say anything specific about Sister of My Heart.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “India: a Reader’s Itinerary” (p 125).

Gathering

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Enright, Elizabeth. The Gathering. Read by Fiona Shaw. Black Cat Publishing, 2007.

Reason read: there is a jazz festival in Cork that happens every year. The Gathering has nothing to do with music, but it takes place in Ireland. Good enough.

Gathering. It is what friends and family and colleagues and sometimes even strangers do when someone dies. As an aside, I just attended my very first virtual funeral (a Doom Zoom, we are calling it).
In Elizabeth Enright’s Gathering, what is left of a very large family gather to say goodbye to Liam: a son, a brother, an uncle, a beloved who has committed suicide by drowning off the coast of England. Separated in age by a little over a year, sister Veronica Hegerty is Liam’s nearest and dearest sibling and more his twin in every sense. It is her responsibility to collect the body and hold the gathering. She tells Liam’s story through a series of childhood flashbacks and present-day adult manic musings. Growing up with Liam was a mixture of deep seated secrets and innocence lost. Veronica spends her time trying to puzzle the clues and remembering the memories. Here’s what we all do when someone close to us commits suicide: we sift through the ashes of a life burnt out, searching for clues to why they left us; trying to answer the questions of Is it our fault? Did we set the fire? What could we have done differently to save them? (To quote Natalie Merchant, “It was such a nightmare raving how can we save him from himself?” Are you surprised I went there? How could I not?) As for her adult issues, thirty-nine year old Veronica wrestles with problems with her marriage, confused by subliminal hang-ups about sex. She has inner demons that have haunted her since childhood. I honestly can’t say how well I enjoyed The Gathering. It did leave me thinking of the characters for a long time afterwards, so there’s that.

As an aside, no one can decide just how many siblings are in the Hegerty family. In some reviews I read nine, ten, or even twelve. Not counting the seven miscarriages.

Quotes to quote, “His compassion is a muscle” (p 70), and “What use is the truth to us now?” (256).

Author fact: Enright has written a bunch of stuff but I am only reading The Gathering for the Book Lust Challenge.

Book trivia: The Gathering won the 2007 Booker Prize.

Nancy said: Pearl did not say anything specific about The Gathering.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Ireland: Beyond Joyce, Behan, Beckett, and Synge” (p 111).

Less Than

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Long, A.D. Less Than. Zada Press, 2023.

Reason read: as a member of the Early Review program I occasionally review books for LibraryThing. I have to admit, it was refreshing to receive a work of fiction this time around.

When we first meet Evann, he is in the middle of a drug-induced crisis. Memories and flashbacks help explain how he got to this place of desperation. Most of the book is one flashback after another, mostly surrounding the verbal and sometime physical abuse of his mother, a self-centered woman who never wanted him as her first born. Evann’s present life is all about excessive drug use and maintaining an image of normalcy for his oblivious family. It isn’t hard to do. His parents barely notice his existence and his sister, Nicole, is too caught up in being the golden child. Evann is so lost in the sauce he doesn’t have a present-day personality to speak of. His childhood self is innocent, charming, introverted. As a budding artist he shows all the signs of becoming extremely talented. Of course, no one takes this talent seriously. Certainly not, compared to Nicole’s talent as a ballerina.
Towards the end of Less Than, as a means of explanation maybe, Bruce and Ann, Evann’s parents get chapters to justify their lack of love for Evann. Even Nicole tells her story. Their secrets are a little overdramatic and exaggerated, but they prove a point: all families have ghosts; ghosts that could push a good kid into drug addiction. Because of Evann’s lack of adult personality, I wasn’t as vested in his outcome as I should have been.

Author fact: Long has her own website here.

Book trivia: Less Than is Long’s debut novel.

Playlist: Willie Nelson and “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin.

Sheep Queen

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Savage, Thomas. The Sheep Queen/I Heard My Sister Speak My Name. Little Brown & Company, 2001.

Reason read: Idaho became a state in July.

This is the western saga of the Sweringen family. Emma Russell Sweringen is dubbed the Sheep Queen because in 1909 she had 10,000 head of Idaho sheep. Impressive for that time period, considering her gender. Men were supposed to be the dominant members of the family and yet Emma was so powerful she was not one to be messed with. She ran a tight operation and had high standards. Her daughter did nothing but disappoint yet she doted on her grandson. Time moves forward and backwards in Savage’s story. It is all about family, identity and legacy. Grandson, Tom, is all grown up with a family of his own when he is contacted by a woman claiming to be the granddaughter of the Sheep Queen; professing to be his sister. Amy is adopted and looking for her roots. Tom does not want to accept her but even he understands the power of identity. The theme of loss is also pervasive, sometimes subtle and sometimes profound. There is triumph in discovery. The controversy surrounding giving up children for adoption – should people research their biological families? What is the harm in that? What are the rewards? I found myself asking if one needs to pack up their entire life and physically move to escape ancestral ghosts.
I enjoyed the hints of the passage of time: new Palmer method replaced the Spencer script. Hem lines trend up over the knee.

Lines I liked, “We have not seriously considered divorce, but sometimes after a few martinis we should and pick at old scabs” (p 3) and “They were, then, never more than good friends, and there wasn’t anything wrong with that except that everything was wrong with it, but what exactly?” (p 33). Confessional: this line hurt. Another good line, “That’s what they all came down to the sea to hear” (p 153).

Author fact: Savage got a degree from Colby College.

Book trivia: The Sheep Queen was originally published under the title I Heard My Sister Speak My Name. My copy included a Reading Group Guide.

Playlist: “Tiger Lily Waltz”, Bach, Mozart, “Autumn”, Delius, Berlioz’s “Harold in Italy”, “Nola”, “Maryland, My Maryland”, “Marcheta”, “Tea for Two”, “The Life of a Rose”, “That Old Gang of Mine”, “Valencia”, “Gimme a Little Kiss”, Carrie Jacobs Bond’s “End of a Perfect Day”, “At Dawning”, Schumann, Chopin’s “Nocturnal”, “Everybody’s Doing It Now”, “Allah’s Holiday”, “Liebestraum”, Aida,

Nancy said: Pearl didn’t say much about Sheep Queen/I Heard My Sister Speak My Name except to say I Heard My sister Speak My Name is a much more evocative title.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in two different chapters. First, in “Idaho: And Nary a Potato to be Seen” (p 121) and again in “Men Channeling Women” (p 166).

Unless

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Shields, Carol. Unless. Read by Joan Allen. Harper Collins, 2002.

Reason read: Shields celebrates a birthday in June. Read in her honor.

How do you carry on with your life when one of your children is mentally ill and choosing to live on the streets for no apparent reason? I read a review where someone called Unless whiney and self-indulgent. I’m sorry but if I had a loved one “lost” like that, I too would be fixated on their wellbeing. Are they getting enough food to eat? Where are they going to go when the temperatures are minus ten degrees (not including wind chill factor) or one hundred and two (in the shade)? Reta Winters is trying to be a mother to her two other teenage daughters while thinking these things about a third, her eldest. She is a wife going through the motions with her trilobite-obsessed husband. She is a translator while trying to write her own second novel. She is an aging woman, trying to stay relevant in the youth-obsessed world around her.
There is a little trickery going on with Unless. Like mirrors angled so images are reflected to infinity, Unless is a story about a woman writing about a woman writer who is writing about a woman writer. The nesting dolls of feminism. Then there is the carefully disguised biography of her mentor, Danielle. Danielle is at once a strong holocaust survivor and a fragile French woman who relies on Reta for writing support. Finally, there is the mystery of why eldest daughter, Nora, insists on sitting out on a street corner with a sign that simply reads “Goodness.”

Author fact: Shields died when she was only 68 years old, shortly after Unless was published. My audio had an interview with Ms. Shields and I was struck by how oddly she spoke. I have to wonder if she was ill at the time of the interview.

Book trivia: Chapters are titled with adverbs and conjunctions. If I read more carefully I probably would have seen how each word tied back into the storyline.
Audio trivia: at the end of the reading of Unless Carol Shields answers some questions. I have to admit I was distracted by her strange manner of halting speech.

Playlist: Mozart, Sinatra, Beethoven, and Bach.

Nancy said: Pearl did not say anything specific about Unless.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Carol Shields: Too Good To Miss” (p 197).

Blue Bowl

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Minot, George. The Blue Bowl. Alfred A. Knopf, 2004.

Reason read: June is National Family Month.

On the surface The Blue Bowl is the story of Simon Curtis, accused of killing his father. It is an open and shut case for the prosecution. Simon blamed his father for his mother’s death because he heard her exclaim she would kill herself if his father didn’t stop drinking; Simon wanted his father’s money; when Simon wasn’t squatting in his father’s Maine house (when his father wasn’t there), he was living as ghost with his father in Massachusetts. Maine or Massachusetts, it didn’t matter. His father didn’t want him in either place. If his father knew Simon was disobeying him and squatting in either house he never let on. Are you supposed to like Simon? He has no social graces, an anarchist attitude, lazy, barely cognizant of the world around him, tags along uninvited, lies, scams and steals. As the trial progresses you want him to be guilty.
I have to admit, The Blue Bowl was a little annoying. Because of Minot’s style of writing I wasn’t sure in which house Simon was squatting, Maine or Massachusetts. It seemed like both at one point. I know the death happened in Manchester, Massachusetts and the trial took place in Boston, but then there are all these other connections to Maine. Everyone in Boston seemed to have something or someone somewhere in Maine.
Then there was the issue with the word “like.” I am not a fan of repetition. Like is everywhere. Like like like.
Run on sentences are not my thing either. Holy marathon run-on sentences. It is if Minot has so many thought running through his head and, afraid of losing them, spits them out in a stream of consciousness.

But here is a spoiler. I figured out who killed dad pretty early on. The Blue Bowl opens with the first person narrative of Simon’s nameless brother. He relays how Simon came to visit him in New York and then backtracks to tell the story of the murder, “starting with the aftermath.” The reader is given a ppe-show montage of Simon’s family, but here is thing thing – this first-person brother never inserts himself into the story. Who is he? How come he never came to Simon’s trial? He tells Simon’s story in third person narrative but never breaks in to say where he fit in. Because this “nameless” brother has something to hide.

Author fact: Minot lived in New York City at the time The Blue Bowl was published and leonine is a favorite word of his.

Book trivia: I don’t think it is a spoiler alert to say that the title of the book, the blue bowl, doesn’t really come into frame until the very end of the book. The Blue Bowl is the only work of Minot’s in LibraryThing.

As an aside, it was cool to see so many Maine names I knew. I decided to track them: Babbidge, Bangor, Blue Hill, Burnt Island, Camden Hills, Georges Bank, Iron Point, Isle au Haut, Thorofare, Little Thorofare, North Haven, Rockland, Thomaston, Portland, Mullen’s Head, Belfast, Rockport, Camden Hills,
As an another aside confessional, I never thought about the phrase “man-child” until a friend used it to describe someone with whom I was desperately in lust. I couldn’t understand his hot-cold nature and his loose grasp on reality. Simon is that same man-child.

Playlist: “American Pie”, “Allelujah”, Bee Gees’ “Lonely Days”, Billy Joel, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Chopin’s “Nocturnal”, “Coconut”, Counting Crows (as an aside, I thought it ridiculously funny that Minot described the line “I need a raincoat” as whiney), James Taylor, Jimi Hendrix, “Lean On Me”, Mick Jagger, Neil Diamond, Neil Young’s “Helpless”, Pete Townsend, “Rock of Ages”, Three Dog Night’s “Jeremiah”, and the Who.

Nancy said: when talking about the Minot siblings as writers, Pearl said they each offered their own perspective on growing up in a large, dysfunctional family, but nothing specific about each individual author.

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

Bachelor Brothers’ Bed and Breakfast Pillow Book

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Richardson, Bill. Bachelor Brothers’ Bed and Breakfast Pillow Book. St. Martin’s Press, 1995.

Reason read: to continue the series started in April.

Hector and Virgil are back! Their charming bed and breakfast is still a safe haven for bibliophiles, although this time there are not as many “bookish” moments. There is a list of must-read cookbooks, books for a baby’s first five years (I loved seeing Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, and When We Were Very Young by A.A. Milne on the list), and another list of books specific for bathroom reading. The focus of book number two (pun intended) is the discovery of local controversial poet Solomon Solomon’s manuscript in the B&B safe. The town decides to celebrate his works with a festival involving a poetry contest, food, and a ball of foil.
Cutest moment in the book? When asked by their schoolteacher each twin said he wanted to be a bachelor when he grew up. Neither had no idea what that meant. My one complaint? The brothers do not narrate as much of the sequel as they did in Bachelor Brothers’ Bed and Breakfast.
As an aside, Nancy Pearl has a chapter in one of her Lust books about characters you would like to meet. I would like to meet mother. She practiced chemistry, built model planes, played football, studied anatomy, collected road kill, and raised twins all on her own. She sounds like a hell raiser. Natalie Merchant has a song called “Sister Tilly” and I could see mother as a Miss Tilly as someone who would stand at the barricades; a girl in the fray.

Line I liked, “I flashed her a pertinent finger and stooped to conquer” (p 130).

As another aside, I find it strange that Hector celebrates learning how to hula hoop on the same morning I wake from a dream that involved carrying a hula hoop onto a plane. I have no idea from where that came.

Author fact: I did a what the what when I found out Richardson is also a radio broadcaster. That is beyond cool.

Book trivia: As with the first Bachelor Brothers’ Bed and Breakfast there is a very cute illustration of a cat.

Playlist: Albinoni Adagio, “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”, Bach, Baker, “Blowin’ in the Wind”, Callas, Corelli, “Do You Know the Way To San Jose?”, “Donkey Serenade”, “E Luceran le Stelle”, Elvis, Flagstad, Gigli, “Holly and the Ivy”, “I Saw Three Ships”, John Coltrane, “Like a Virgin”, “Little Drummer Boy,” “Lullaby of Broadway”, Madame Butterfly, Madonna, “Material Girl”, Mio Babbino Caro, Mitch Miller, Mozart, O Holy Night”, Pachabel Canon, Piaf, Puccini, “Red Rover Valley”, “Silver Bells”, Stratas, Village People, Vivaldi, Wayne Newton, and “You’ll Never Walk Alone”.

Nancy said: Pearl called Bachelor Brothers’ Bed and Breakfast Pillow Book “light-as-air.”

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Gallivanting in the Graveyard” (p 96) and again in the simple chapter called “Parrots” (p 183). There are no ghosts in Bachelor Brothers’ Bed and Breakfast Pillow Book. Although, to be fair, there is a scene when Caedmon is dusting in mother’s room and he has a hint of a spirit with him. Does that count?

Bachelor Brothers’ Bed and Breakfast

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Richardson, Bill. Bachelor Brothers’ Bed and Breakfast. St. Martin’s Press, 1996.

Reason read: April is the month people start planning their holiday get aways to B&Bs.

Confessional: I hate it when I read a book too fast and I don’t start a blog to take notes. I feel like I have a great deal of catching up to do. In a nutshell, Bachelor Brothers’ Bed and Breakfast is exactly that, a slim volume about two aging twin brothers who run a bed and breakfast on an island off the coast of British Columbia. Neither has ever married or had children, although one brother is dating. Their bed and breakfast is popular despite never being advertised. Guests share their experiences in alternating chapters, while the brothers share reading lists (Top 10 Authors, Books When Feeling Low, and Authors for the Bath), recipes, and stories of their mother who has since passed. In a word, Bachelor Brothers’ Bed and Breakfast is charming. Many reviewers have stated they wouldn’t mind staying a night or two with the brothers. With only ten guests at a time, I have to agree.

Author fact: Richardson has written quite a few books. I am only reading Bachelor Brothers’ Bed and Breakfast, Bachelor Brothers’ Bed and Breakfast Pillow Book, and Waiting for Gertrude for the Lust Challenge.

Book trivia: Bachelor Brothers’ Bed and Breakfast won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour.

Nancy said: the only thing Pearl mentioned about Bachelor Brothers’ Bed and Breakfast is that she wished the B&B was a real place. I think we all do.

Connection to my own life: the Morris Dancers used to come to Monhegan every summer. I can remember walking by an open field and watching a group of people bouncing around with bells around their knees, waving hankies to and fro.

Setlist: “Allegra Ma Non Troppo”, “Auld Lang Syne”, “Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms”, “English Countryside”, “Flow Gently Sweet Afternoon”, “Frosty the Snowman”, “Jingle Bells”, “June is Busting Out All Over”, “Just Wild About Harry”, “La Cucaracha”, “La Donna E Mobile”, Liberace, “Love’s Old Sweet Song”, “Moon River”, “Muzetta’s Waltz”, “O Susanna”, “Pachebel Cannon”, “She’s Like the Swallow”, “Shuffle Off To Buffalo”, “Sky Boat song”, “Summertime”, “The Swan”, “Voi Che Supete”, “William Tell Overture”, Edith Pilaf, Debussy, Joan Baez, Saint Saens, Vivaldi,

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Gallivanting in the Graveyard” (p 96). In truth, I am not sure why this book and it’s companion, Bachelor Brothers’ Bed and Breakfast Pillow Book, are included in this chapter. There is not enough ghostly activity for either book to be considered ghost stories. There is a separate chapter in Book Book Lust about parrots. Bachelor Brothers’ Bed and Breakfast is not included, but should be because Mrs. Rochester is a prominent character in both Bachelor Brothers books.