Tag: january

Within a Budding Grove

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Proust, Marcel. Remembrance of Things Past: Within a Budding Grove. Translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff. Chatto & Windus, 1966.

Reason read: to continue the series.

If you remember from Proust’s first volume of Remembrance of Things Past our narrator was looking back on his childhood. Now he is thinking back to when he was a young adult; the coming of age stage of life. This time he has a sweetheart named Gilberte, the daughter of M. Swann, and he still has a singular attachment to his mother. Many of the same characters that were in the first installment are back in volume two, only now they are more refined due to their changing circumstances. Family relations change. Gilberte starts to drift away. The chase of Gilberte seemed endless. Twenty pages later and our narrator is still stalking her; looking for excuses to connect with her. The turning point was when he decides to play hard to get himself. The head game of renouncing Gilberte and then realizing this could backfire and he could lose her forever had a very modern feel to it.
Most of the drama takes place in the seaside town of Balbec or Normandy, France. There are times when Within a Budding Grove drags. Entire pages are dedicated to the description of ladies gowns. Society’s dedication to cordial formalities and the quest for the value of Beauty were tiresome. Questioning the possibilities of happiness or suffering seems an age-old topic. Only when the narrator was looking for intellectual distraction in a dinner conversation did I find the situation funny. To see what others had done with the carnation wrapped in silver paper was relatable.

Quotes I liked, “My father had always meant me to become a diplomat, and I could not endure the thought of that…” (p 13) and “There is perhaps nothing that gives us so strong an impression of the reality of the external world as the difference in the positions, relative to ourself, of even a quite unimportant person before we have not met him and after” (p 341).

Author fact: Marcel Proust’s books coined the phrase “romans-fleuves” as a way to describe them.

Book trivia: Within a Budding Grove is also called In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower.

Nancy said: Pearl does not say anything specific about Budding Grove.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called Romans-Fleuves (p 208).

Dinner with Persephone

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Storace, Patricia. Dinner with Persephone. Pantheon Books, 1996.

Reason read: January 6th is the Fest of Theofania celebrating the baptism of Christ and a celebration of a return to light.

I have always wanted to visit Greece. The landscapes, the weather, the food. Sigh. All of it has me spellbound. But. But! But, the more I read of Storace’s Dinner with Persephone, I am not sure about the culture. I definitely do not agree with some of the attitudes towards women and marriage. Women are inferior to men. Sexual condescension is a thing. The accepted violence of smacking a wife or daughter around and how it is glamorized in television and movies is concerning. There is an ambivalence towards arson, too which I found odd.
Beyond the confusing side of Greek culture, I enjoyed learning about the icons of the region: a blue eye talisman hanging from an old woman’s neck, the juicy red jewels of pomegranates, the fable of Dionysus and the plant. To be sure, there is a lot of religious talk in Dinner with Persephone. The people Storace talk with mention the Virgin Mary as if she is a next-door neighbor they bumped into while going for coffee. Children bring up events dating back to the Ottoman Empire as if it were yesterday. It is only a perception but it seems religion is worked into nearly every conversation.
There is a subtle, almost secretive sultriness to Storace’s writing. I can’t put my finger on why I think that. The language is tedious at times, but more often sensuous.

P.S. I have not given up on the food of Greece. There is this one dish I am dying to try: zucchini blossoms filled with feta cheese, egg, and fresh mint. Yum.

Quotes I liked, “As I travel here, I am losing the illusion that I know where I am” (p 156),

Author fact: Storace has published a book of poetry and has received an American Academy of Arts and Letters award for her work.

Book trivia: This would have been a fantastic book to include photographs. Sorry to say that there are none.

Playlist: “Kyrie Eleison”, “Battle Hymn of the Republic”, “Let’s Take a Walk on the Moon”, “Denial”, Mozart, Bach, Hayden, Beethoven, Chopin, Mendelssohn’s “Wedding Recessional”, Elton John, “This Land is Your Land”, “The Dream After the Dance”, “Roll Out the Barrel”, “Greece Will Never Die”, Katie Grey, Patsy Cline, and “Carmen Sylvia Waltz”.

Nancy said: Pearl called Dinner with Persephone an excellent choice.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Just So Much Greek To Me” (p 120).

Flying Carpet

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Halliburton, Richard. The Flying Carpet. City Garden Publishing Company, Inc., 1932.

Reason read: Richard Halliburton celebrated a birthday in January. Read in his honor.

Richard Halliburton was a self-described vagabond of the clouds. In Flying Carpet he brings Moye Stephens Jr. along as pilot/captain and mechanic. Their journey takes them through the far reaches of North Africa and East Asia. They followed Alexander the Great’s path into Egypt, over Alexandria and through Babylon. They stop for a month or two in ever location and submerge themselves in the culture. Like on the island of Borneo, trying to impress the tribal chief with a plane ride. My favorite section was when they visited the Taj Mahal, calling it “the one perfect thing on earth.”
A tough portion of Halliburton’s memoir is his treatment of “Negros” and the buying of young slaves. He explained it away by saying his grandfathers were slave owners in Tennessee. He bought two ten year old children to wash dishes and fight the overpopulation of bats in Timbuctoo.
Halliburton seemed like a fun guy to hang out with. He brought a portable record player and liked to dance. He was bold enough to compete for the love of a woman with whom he could not communicate. He opted to live as a prisoner in Teheran “just to see” what it was like.
As an aside, Flying Carpet was the name of the plane Richard Halliburton flew.
As an another aside, I wonder what Halliburton would think of the traffic jams of Mount Everest today. In Halliburton’s time it was forbidden (“irresistible, unattained, and inviolate”). In 1920 Nepal and Tibet had staunchly refused foreigners. Only the Dalai Lama was able to allow English climbers to enter from the Tibetan side. That might have been the beginning of commercial tourism. Halliburton and Stephens were finally allowed to gain access to the airspace around Everest (at 18,000 feet) only because they impressed the Mararajah of Nepal.

Quotes to quote, “To my great annoyance and disappointment, he did not drown” (p 114), “Because it is monstrous, merciless, demanding the utmost of one’s energy and effort” (in answer to why climb Mount Everest), and “A head is a head, and its sex is of no consequence when it has been dried and smoked, and hangs from a ceiling at home” (p 327).

Author fact: I am reading five of Halliburton’s books. I cannot wait to learn more about this fascinating adventurer!

Book trivia: The Flying Carpet includes a few photographs of Stephens and Halliburton’s journey. While there are very many, they are cool.

Playlist: “Happy Days were Here Again”, Ravel’s “Bolero”, “St. Louis Blues,” Schubert’s Serenade “Song of India”, Hymn to the Sun – Coq d’Or, “Barnacle Bill the Sailor”, “Falling in Love Again”, “St. Louis Blues”, and “What Good Am I Without You?”

Nancy said: Pearl called Halliburton’s style of writing “you-are-there” prose. I agree completely.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Where in the World Do These Books Belong?” (p 260).

Digging Up Mother

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Stanhope, Doug. Digging Up Mother: a Love Story. Da Capo Press, 2016.

Reason read: Do you ever feel like your life is too uptight or that you don’t laugh enough at stupid stuff? I was definitely feeling too severe and too closed minded. So when a friend practically threw Digging Up Mother on my desk, I thought to myself “Self! What the hell? Read the damn book.” Definitely not on the Lust Challenge List. Definitely not. This is my 2023 proverbial show-the-panties, thumb-the-nose, and stick-out-the-tongue moment. Deal with it.

How do you navigate the unchartered waters of assisted suicide when it is your own mother who wants to die? Stanhope compares this “adventure” of killing his mother to planning a wedding: at least you know where to start. First, take mother to your house. Second, find a boatload of alcohol…
But Digging Up Mother isn’t all about Dear Mommy Dearest. Think of it as a fast-paced memoir of how Stanhope got his start in life. But. But! But, also think of it as a love story. His mother was his biggest fan, and for many years, his best friend. She supported him through every moment of his life, whether he wanted that support or not. I think I can safely call Digging Up Mother crude and caring and, dare I say? beautiful.
P.S. I hope Bingo is well.

A line I liked, “Everything horrible in life was money in the bank on stage” (p 151). Here’s one more, “Anyone who says that suicide is never the answer hasn’t heard all of the questions” (p 179).

Author fact: Stanhope is from Worcester, MA. Right down the road from me.

Book trivia: Johnny Depp wrote the foreword. Yes, that Johnny Depp. Are you surprised?

Setlist: The Chamber Brothers’ “Time Has Come Today”, Cheap Trick, “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”, Tom Jones’s “Delilah”, Pink Floyd’s “Mother”, “In the Flesh”, and “Nobody Home”, Suspicious Minds”, Cop Killer by Ice T., P. Diddy, Limp Bizkit, Yakety Sax”, and “You’re Too Good To Be True”. True story. When I was in grade school a friend of mine and I choreographed a dance routine to that last song. I still remember some of the moves.

Fearless Jones

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Mosely, Walter. Fearless Jones. Little, Brown and Company, 2001.

Reason read: Walter Mosely was born in the month of January. Read in his honor.

Paris Minton ingeniously builds his used bookstore from discards and sales from local libraries. For a Negro to own his business in 1950s Watts, California, Minton knows he is an anomaly. What he also is, is unlucky. Soon after a beautiful woman in distress hides in his bookstore he is badly beaten and his store, burned to the ground. Who was the impossibly beautiful woman? Who would want to burn down his store and do that has anything to do with the men who beat him? There is only one thing to do, bail his good friend Fearless Jones out of prison and enlist him to solve the mystery. As Minton tells the story he builds the character of Fearless Jones through their friendship, setting up the character development in future stories.
When you read Walter Mosely expect crackling humor, fast paced action, racial truths, and lots of quick-jab violence.
As an aside, one of the things I like about Walter Mosely’s writing is that his characters use the bathroom. Not many authors include the details of common bodily functions.

Lines I liked, “Being challenged by the law was a rite of passenger for any Negro who wanted to better himself or his situation” (p 4), “The best cop I ever saw was the cop who wasn’t there” (p 87), and “These were men who had lived with Satan before coming to God, and they were still willing to venture over to the wrong side of holiness if the situation demanded it” (p 227).

Author fact: I have twelve Mosely books on my Challenge list, including two nonfiction contributions.

Book trivia: Fearless Jones is the first book in the Fearless Jones series.

Setlist: Louis Armstrong, Billie Holliday, and Pat Boone.

Nancy said: Pearl included Fearless Jones as part of the Fearless Jones series. She didn’t say anything beyond that about the book.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Walter Mosely: Too Good To Miss” (p 168).

Conversations Across America

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Loya, Kari. Conversations Across America: a Father and Son, Alzheimer’s, and 300 Conversations Along the TransAmerican Bike Trail that Capture the Soul of America. XK Productions, 2022.

Reason read: as a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing, I occasionally review books. This was a December pick that I am just getting around to reading now.

Father and son embark on a 73 day, 4,200 mile adventure from Virginia to Oregon,
My favorite part in the entire book was when Kari’s life rolled by as if it were a memory from a movie.
From the moment I opened Conversations on my laptop I regretted not having the coffee table version Kari mentioned. Some of the landscape photography is absolutely gorgeous. However, here is what you need to know two-thirds of the book are photographs of ordinary people with their accompanying “stories.” Some of the stories are interesting or even heartfelt, but a great deal of them are exclamations about Merv’s age or the number of miles they are trying to bike. Wow is a common refrain.
My only detractor? The sheer volume of stories or conversations overshadowed the beauty of the father/son narrative. I tracked how many pages were dedicated to Loya’s personal journey compared to the pages of “conversations” and the ratio was 1:3. Additionally, the same “conversation” is in the narrative so I felt like I was reading the passages twice.
My favorite section of the book was the end where Loya included a partial list of the gear they carried, their itinerary of the different stages, and the half-time report about dogs and meals.

As an aside, were there really 2,000 filing cabinets? The bit about the trampoline was funny. I also felt Loya was a little judgmental about AT hikers. That’s acceptable if he has hiked the Appalachian Trail in its entity himself and can make a comparison based on his experiences.

Author fact: Kari was trying to sell his home in New Jersey while trying to bike across America with his father.

Book trivia: there is a ton of beautiful photography in Conversations.

Playlist: “New York” by Frank Sinatra, Chariots of Fire, Beach Boys, Def Leppard, Bela Fleck, Tony Trischka, Quincy Jones, Blood, Sweat and Tears, Vivaldi, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Jack Johnson (Hawaiian music).

Chair Yoga

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Chapshaw. Chair Yoga: Gently Build Strength, Flexibility, Energy, and Mental Fitness in Just Two Weeks to Improve Your Quality of Life and Grow Old Gracefully. Chapshaw Publications, 2022.

Reason read: as a member of LibraryThing I am a member of the Early Review Program and I occasionally review books (mostly nonfiction). This is one such book.

Before I started reading Chair Yoga my mind was not really open to all of the different possibilities a chair could bring. I could only think of seating poses like neck rolls, ear to shoulder moves, and spinal twists. Starting with examples of elders who have used chairs in their yoga practice helped set the tone of the rest of the book. Further validation came in the form of illustrating more complicated poses like warriors one and two. Advice concerning different areas of ailment like osteoporosis. sciatica, and hypertension took Chair Yoga from a basic starter yoga book to a more solid reference.
Offhand comments: Can I just say this book had me at David Bowie? To open Chair Yoga with a quote from this musical legend was brilliant.
Maybe I am too biased on the subject of yoga, but I am not sure how anyone can think of yoga at any age as “too woo-woo”…whatever that means.
I am enamored with the idea of eight limbs of yoga. I think of an octopus every time.
It is a shame to say you don’t have to read chapter one and you need only to skim chapter two. Are you saying the words therein are pointless and not worth the reader’s time? Like any good syllabus, Chair Yoga maps out learning objectives for each chapter. There is even homework for assessment. While Chapter nine offers the two week plan read everything leading up to it. It is worth your while.

Book trivia: Illustrations to go with the text are helpful.

Vinland the Good

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Shute, Nevil. Vinland the Good. William Morrow & Co, Inc. 1946.

Reason read: Shute’s birth and death month is January. Read in his honor and memory. I also needed a book for the Portland Reading Challenge. The category is a book that is under 150 pages long. Vinland the Good is 126 pages.

This is the historical fiction story of Leif Ericsson and his quest to discover new lands. Cleverly hidden in a history lesson at a boy’s boarding school, teacher Callender describes Leif’s life’s adventures. Callender is back after six years to teach U.S. History and finds a clever way to keep the students engaged despite the headmaster’s disapproval. [Spoiler: there is a section of the story where Leif warns Thorgunna to keep her ladies away from Leif’s men. It is hinted that Leif worries the men could rape the fair maidens. Thorgunna replies that Leif gives sound advice because her ladies have been without variety…]
Vinland the Good comes to us in the form of a treatment for a script as if Shute planned it as a movie or theater production. Stage directions and props describe each scene before narratives begin. Themes in Vinland the Good include forgiveness (when King Olaf lifts Leif’s stigma of being the son of an outlaw and teaches Leif the art of shipbuilding) and the spread of Christianity. You could also call Vinland the Good a tragic love story as Leif and Thorgunna’s relationship blossoms into love and loyalty.

Best quote, “LEIF (Heavily) Thorgunna, as one goes through life one has to make the best decisions that one can, and work on them” (p 70). Amen to that.

As an aside, I love any book that uses the word ‘gloaming’ in some manner.

Author fact: I have read five of the twenty four Nevil Shute books on my list. He has written a bunch more.

Book trivia: Even though a map is included on the free and pastedown endpapers, there are no other illustrations. Bummer.

Nancy said: Pearl didn’t say anything specific about Vinland the Good.

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

Confessional: this doesn’t happen to me often. I am proud of the fact that my Book Lust Challenge is very organized. I would like to think I have every book cataloged; so it came as a shock to learn Vinland the Good was NOT cataloged in LibraryThing. It was in all of my spreadsheets (TwistList, MBL list, ToGo list, and Schedule list), but somehow I missed the most important place of all, LibraryThing.

Rum Diary

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Thompson, Hunter S. The Rum Diary. Simon & Schuster, 1999.

Reason read: to celebrate Eugenio Maria de Hostos, philosopher who campaigned for education for women. His life is celebrated on the second Monday in January in Puerto Rico. Additionally, for the 2023 Portland Public Library Reading Challenge, I needed a book with a person on the cover.

Paul Kemp, fresh in from New York, begins writing for the Daily News in San Juan. Throughout the entire Rum Diary he comes off as a bumbling and stumbling alcoholic cad who never really writes very much. He spends a great deal of time eating hamburgers at Al’s, chasing women, playing on the beach, getting into various troubles, and of course, drinking gallons of rum. Paul works off a tangle of conflicting emotions through an alcoholic haze. Rum on the island act as a currency.
Thompson’s portrait of Paul Kemp seems three quarters finished. Underneath the swagger and swaying, there lies a decent soul, but you never really understand Paul.
As as aside, I have never been to San Juan so I don’t know why this is a thing, but there seems to be a peculiar animosity towards stray dogs on the island.

Confessional: Reading Doug Stanhope’s Digging Up Mother at the same time as Hunter S. Thompson’s Rum Diary was like a lesson in debauchery. Even though Stanhope’s memories were thirty years later than Thompson’s, the attitudes were much the same. Here’s another trivial similarity – Johnny Depp starred in Thompson’s movie. He also wrote the foreword for Digging Up Mother.

Best lines, “Arriving half-drunk in a foreign place is hard on the nerves” (p 12).

Author fact: Thompson is better known for his novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Book trivia: Rum Diary was made into a movie starring Johnny Depp.

Playlist: Braham’s Lullaby and “Maybellene”.

Nancy said: Rum Diary is an “exuberant” picture of the drinking life in Puerto Rico. She’s not wrong.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Cavorting Through the Caribbean (Puerto Rico)” (p 57).

Home is the Road

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Glancy, Diane. Home is the Road: Wandering the Land, Shaping the Spirit. Broadleaf Books, 2022.

Reason read: this is an Early Review I couldn’t start until the holidays were over. Once I delved into it, I couldn’t put it down.
Glancy is a road warrior. Traveling by automobile is her thing. She can cover great distances in a single day. She should have been a long haul trucker. To pass the time she dreams while she is awake and aware. Kansas for a film festival. A conference in Arkansas. A book festival in Missouri. She travels to places where they even name the ditches. I believe Home is the Road was born in its entirety on such a journey. Glancy’s writing is akin to lyrical rap, spoken word, essays, poetry, scripture: all of it fragmented and in a storytelling language. Her imagery is astonishingly beautiful. Her reflections are jumbled. Like trying to mediate while the mind scatters thoughts like escaped marbles from a bag. She is discuss motherhood, fracking in West Texas, or Eminem as B-Rabbit, but the backbone to her tales is twofold – her profound religious beliefs and her heritage. Caught between two cultures, she never quite belongs to either.
Her migrant wanderings started when, as a small child, her father would transfer jobs and move the family from place to place. Her restlessness is deep rooted to the point where she is a loner, but never completely alone.
As an aside, when Glancy talked about depression at the end of a long-mile journey. Is it similar to the sadness I feel when ending a particularly difficult road race? After months and months of training and after the finish line has been crossed, I find myself asking now what, what’s next?
Another similarity: Glancy sees large trucks on the highway as herds of animals. I see the road as the ocean floor. Lots of traffic are schools of fish, all traveling in the same direction, darting in and out of lanes. Big double-rig trailers are whales slow on the incline and police cars are sharks, waiting to pounce. Cars waiting to join the flow are eels popping out of hiding places.

A last aside: I took the first and last sentences of Home is the Road just to see how they matched up: “My life began in travel – a wayfarer not on foot, but in a car. An act of disobedience (pages 3 and 209 respectively).

Author fact: As soon as Glancy started talking about making a movie I wanted to see what was produced and if it was possible to see it. I immediately went to IMDB and learned Glancy won an award for writer of the year for a screenplay, which is not the film she wrote about. in Home is the Road.

Playlist: “Amazing Grace”.

Great Glorious Goddamned Of It All

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Ritter, Josh. The Great Glorious Goddamned of it All. Toronto: Hanover Square Press, 2021.

Reason read: Josh Ritter is a master of words. It does not matter if he is writing a song or a novel, his imagery and storytelling is bar none.

If you know Josh Ritter’s music, then you know his writing style through and through. His novels are no different. Filled with exquisite detail, they capture the imagination with fantastic characters and plot. Great Glorious tells the tale of a lumberjacking family from the perspective of ninety-plus year old Weldon Applegate on his deathbed. Lumberjacking as a profession, I must admit, is something I don’t really think about that much (despite spending four years at a boarding school in the hardwood-dense White Mountains. Let me digress: I can remember huge timber trucks overloaded with enormous fresh-cut trees barreling down the winding narrow backroads of Maine. Narrowly missing by what seemed like only inches, these behemoths would rock my father’s teeny Dodge Diplomat as they screamed by. My father’s lips would be pressed into a grim line as his hands, white knuckled, gripped ten and two on the wheel. I know I heard a swear or two…). Speaking of swearing, Josh Ritter is such a quiet, soft spoken guy that the profanity was a bit of a surprise.
But, back to the plot of The Great Glorious Goddamn Of It All. Elderly Weldon Applegate looks back on his long life. From his hospital bed he remembers his family’s land called the Lost Lot, a stretch of mountainside nearly impossible to log. Weldon’s family has owned this land deemed too dangerous to describe for generations. It’s where good men go to die for want of timber; timber so profitable, the monstrous Linden Laughlin wants it for himself despite the well known bad omens. Through magic and humor, Weldon recounts his battle (at thirteen years of age!) with Linden. Word of caution: there is unexpected violence.
I am always fascinated by character names and Josh’s are exceptionally strange: Linden Laughlin, Unto Sisson, Oral Avery, Billy Lowground, Shorty Wade, Joe Moufreau (sounds like Joe Motherfukcer), Weldon and Tom Applegate, and Serwalter Scott (sounds like Sir Walter). There are more to enjoy!

Lines I loved, “The lights held the promise of laughter and forgetting” (p 140).

Author fact: This is Ritter’s second novel.

Book trivia: the audio version of The Great Glorious Goddamn Of It All includes new music from Josh.

Playlist: “Beautiful Dreamer,” “My Old Kentucky Home,” “Some Somewhere,” and “Stars for a Crown.”

Monsters

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Croggon, Alison. Monsters: a Reckoning. Melbourne: Scribe, 2021.

Reason read: as a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing I occasionally review books (mostly nonfiction).

Part memoir, part commentary on the world at large, Croggon centers Monsters squarely on one of the most difficult topics of them all: family. We all have had something of a family whether we like it admit it or not. Using an irreparable relationship with her two sisters as the threat through Monsters creates the tease to keep readers engaged. We all want to know what really happened with her family. Who is the real monster? More often than not, Croggon places the blame squarely on herself with statements like I’m the bad one, I am a monster, I am a blasphemy. The woe is me attitude was tiresome. Her research into her genealogy makes one question: how responsible are we for the sins of our fathers? What about our grandfathers? Great grandfather’s grandfather? Are we, in the 21st century, beholding to catastrophes committed in the 13th? While Croggon’s essays are thought provoking, I don’t think they tell a cohesive story relevant to the mystery of her dysfunctional family dynamics.
One other observation: Croggon spends a great deal of Monsters quoting other people:
Herman Melville, Frans de Waal, A.L. Rowse, Peter Ustinov, Rachel Dolezal, Ruby Hamad, Clara Thompson, Helene Cixous, Ursula K. Le Guin, Oyeronke Oyewumi, Carl Linnaeus, Angela Saini, Friedrich Nietsche, Gillian Rose, Olwen Hufton, Alex Wright, August Strindberg, Robin Bernstien, Mircea Eliade, Ijoema Oluo, Elaine Scarry, John Berger, Wallace Stevens, Graham Robb, Edward Said, Guilane Kinouani, Alice Walker, Camile Paglia, Margaret Atwood, Heather Rupp, Kim Wallen, Sylvia Plath, Sandor Ferenezi, Naomi Wolf, Colin Burrow, St. John of Patmos, Bibi Bakare-Yusat, Mircea Eliade, Dr. Spock, A.L. Rowse, among others. Was this to demonstrate how well read Croggon is or a subliminal effort to back her arguments? She does say she wouldn’t know where she would be without books.
Final thought. I this would have been a more enjoyable read, at least for me, if Croggon didn’t beat herself up so much. I grew weary of her self-accusing herself of crimes committed, calling herself a monster repeatedly, of having no hope, often announcing her traitor status, always being in the way, or being too late.

Author fact: Croggon has won awards for her writing.

Book trivia: Monsters is categorized as a memoir.

Playlist: Antony and the Johnsons, “You are My Sister.”

In My Father’s Court

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Singer, Isaac Bashevis. In My Father’s Court. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1966.

Reason read: January is the month most people embark on keeping a journal. Read In My Father’s Court in honor of memoirs.

In his “Author’s Note” Singer explains his thoughts behind In My Father’s Court. He wanted readers to know he thought of it as memoir; “belles-lettres about a life that no longer exists” (p xi). I would say In My Father’s Court is a sentimental collection of essays about memory. It is the first of his many autobiographical writings. Looking back at one’s childhood is sometimes painful, sometimes awe inspiring, but always full of nostalgia. Singer is sweet remembering his family’s history.

Line I liked, “There are in this world some very strange individuals whose thoughts are even stranger than they are” (p 3). Amen to that.

Author fact: Singer is a Nobel prize winner.

Book trivia: In My Father’s Court was first published as a series of connected stories.

Playlist: “The Sons of the Mansion,” and “Welcome, O Bride.”

Nancy said: Pearl did not say anything specific about In My Father’s Court.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Polish Up Your Polish” (p 181).

Origins of a Song

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Grogan, Jake. Origins of a Song: 202 True Inspirations Behind the World’s Greatest Lyrics. Kennebunkport, Maine: Appleseed Press, 2021.

Reason read: this was a gift from a friend who knows me all too well.

What makes a great lyric? Opinions vary. My take? A song will grab me if the artist can drop into my mind, steal my heart, and take the words right out of my mouth. Be about me. Better yet, be me. The lyrics have to say what I mean and say it better than I ever could. I want to feel as if someone has been reading my journal or listening under the bed when I talk in my sleep. Lyrics don’t have to be complicated. They just have to mean something. But Origins of a Song‘s subtitle is misleading. This book is not about the true inspirations behind great lyrics. More accurately, it’s the inspiration behind the great song itself. My current obsession (Dermot Kennedy), my longtime hero (Natalie Merchant), and one of the greatest wordsmiths of all time (Josh Ritter) are not included in this book. Everyone has an opinion and mine is this: I think some songs were included not for their brilliant lyrics, but because some songs were smash hits and very difficult to ignore. “My Girl” by Smokey Robinson, for example. What is so special about the lyrics? The tone of Ruffin’s voice, melody, and instrumentation (piano) made the song a hit, not the words.
Bonus points for Grogan: he gives credit where credit is due. If Elvis didn’t write the song (did he ever?), Grogan makes sure to tell you who did.

Author fact: According to Origins of a Song , Grogan’s favorite song “Dancing Queen” inspired him to write the book.

Book trivia: Confessional: I couldn’t find a rhyme or reason for how Origins of a Song is organized. Songs are not in alphabetical order, nor are the artists. It’s not in chronological order according to the release of the song, either.

As an aside, I was going to catalog all of the songs and musicians Grogan mentions, but since the whole point of the book is just that, I refrained.

Whiskey River

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Estleman, Loren D. Whiskey River: a Novel of Detroit. New York: Open Road Integrated Media, 2015.
Estleman, Loren D. Whiskey River: a Novel of Detroit. New York: Bantam books, 1990.

Reason read: Michigan became a state in January.

The first novel in Estleman’s Detroit series, Whiskey River, takes the reader into Detroit’s dark and dangerous Prohibition era where true events and real people are cooked together with vivid imagination, humor and grit to serve up a tasty story. Torture, murder, prostitution, political scandals, suicides, grand jury trials, corruption, and Detroit’s seedy underground keep the reader enthralled.
Constance “Connie” Minor goes from having bylines in the local newspaper to his own column in the tabloids. The price for this upgrade? Riding shotgun with warring mob bosses, Jack Dance and Joey Machine. He gets a ringside seat to kidnappings, smuggling, and up-close and personal torture and murder. Why is so liked by these mobsters is beyond me.
Hattie was one of my favorite characters. By day her establishment was a funeral home but by night the lights were turned low for more “lively” entertainment. She was a dame who took no gruff from anyone.
As an aside, I found the inequality and racism a little difficult to stomach, especially since nothing has changed since the 1930s: “Is he white?…If he weren’t they wouldn’t have bothered to call it in” (p 57).
I most enjoyed Whiskey River as a period piece. the 1930s comes alive with the vernacular, fashion, and transportation of the day: spats, derbies, top coats, silks, wingtips, stoles, fedoras, stockings, LaSalles, Auburns, Packards, Model As, Vikings, Buicks, and blind pigs.

Quotes I liked, “Remember, it took a fresh kid to tell the emperor his ass was hanging out” (p 30), “Someday maybe I’ll learn not to write the whole story until I’ve met its subject” (p 37), “Something had gone wrong with the natural order when an Oklahoma train robber was shot to death at the wheel of an automobile in downtown Detroit” (p 67), “Courage is the first casualty of experience” (p 92), and lastly, “A dream come true: I had a gangster for a critic” (p 199).

Author fact: Estleman won the Private Eye Writers of America Shamus award three times.

Book trivia: Whiskey River is the first in seven novels about Detroit. I am reading all of them for the Challenge.

Playlist: Bessie Smith, “Potato Head Blues,” Duke Ellington, Paul Whiteman, King Oliver, “Royal Garden Blue,” “What a Friend I Have in Jesus,” Praise God, For Whom All Blessings Flow,” and Glen Gray’s “Casa Loma Stomp.”

Nancy said: Pearl explains there are seven “Detroit” novels and calls them sweeping and gritty (More Book Lust p 26).

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Big Ten Country: The Literary Midwest (Michigan)” (p 25).