Tag: may

Flash for Freedom

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Fraser, George MacDonald. Flash for Freedom! New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972.

Reason read: to continue the series started in April (George MacDonald Fraser’s birth month).

If you are keeping track, this is the third installment of the Flashman papers “owned” by Mr. Paget Morrison. To recap the first two packets of papers (published in 1969 & 1970): Flashman has been expelled from Rugby School, served in the British army and survived a skirmish with Otto von Bismark. The third packet picks up in the year 1848 and seems to be initially edited by Flashman’s sister-in-law, Grizel de Rothchild as the swearwords are heavily edited and the sex is practically nonexistent (unheard of for our Harry, but don’t worry – it picks up!). This time Harry’s adventure focuses on a trip to America (Washington and New Orleans) where he meets Abraham Lincoln, gets caught up in the slave trade (with the underground railroad and as a salve runner), and par for the course, nearly loses his life several times over. Once again, it’s a woman who saves his bacon.

The more I read the Flashman series, the more I like Flashy’s humor. I can’t help it. When he called his mother-in-law a “Medusa-in-law” I giggled.

Author fact: I’m leaving off the author fact from here on out because I’ve already ready four Fraser books and there is only so much I can say about him. If something interesting pops up I’ll share on the next book.

Book trivia: The cover of Flash for Freedom is really odd.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “George MacDonald Fraser: Too Good To Miss” (p 93).

From Beirut to Jerusalem

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Friedman, Thomas. From Beirut to Jerusalem New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1989.

Reason read: Iran is beautiful in May…or so I’ve heard.

This book follows a chronology of the Middle East that begins in 1882 and ends in 1988. It could be seen as a love story, a biography about a region Friedman knows intimately and loves dearly despite its many contradictions. In spite of the ever-roiling Arab-Israeli conflict Friedman is right in the thick of it and writes as if he is at home. While he has a reporters flair for the detail there is a cavalier nonchalance when it comes to the dangers. He has grown used to the gunfire, the bombings and the kidnappings. His ambivalence in the face of such violence could almost be comical if it was not so conflicted.

Quotes that grabbed me, “Death had no echo in Beirut” (p 29). That spoke volumes to me. Here’s another, “Levin’s kidnapping, and the dozens that would follow, taught me a valuable lesson about journalism that one could learn only in a place like Beirut – to pay attention to toe silence” (p 74).

Book trivia: From Beirut to Jerusalem in the winner of the National Book Award of 1989.

Author fact: According to the dust jacket of From Beirut to Jerusalem Friedman had won five different awards by the time this book was published.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter simply called “The Middle East” (p 154).

Petra

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Auge, Christian and Jean-Marie Dentzer. Petra: Lost City of the Ancient World. New York: Discoveries: Henry N. Abrams, Inc. Publishers, 2000.

Reason read: Speaking of lost cities, the first Indiana Jones movie was released in May.

When you think of the word ‘extinct’ most likely you think of dinosaurs, the woolly mammoth, maybe even the dodo bird. Cities don’t readily come to mind. Petra is one such extinct city hidden deep in the landscape of Jordan. What is so unique about Petra is that all of its structures were carved out of the towering rocks around it, creating a unique fortress. For centuries a civilization lived and breathed within Petra until the Crusaders bullied it into ruin and ultimate desolation. Petra was abandoned and forgotten until 1812 when explorer Johann Burckhardt stumbled across it’s shadowy beauty. Auge and Dentzer bring Petra’s art and architecture into the light in a mere 125+ pages. Before you even delve into the text of Petra you are treated to seven pages of glossy gorgeous photos, giving you a sense of why, since 1985, the city has been on the UNESCO list of world-heritage sites.
The only drawback to the tiny book is that text and absolutely stunning photographs are crammed together on the page. Every photograph has a lengthy description definitely worth reading. Because of the cramped space the flow of reading was at time, choppy. I decided it was better to read the text and then go back to study the photographs and read the descriptions.

Author(s) fact: Auge is a specialist in ancient coins and Dentzer is a professor.

Book trivia: this is my first experience with the Discoveries series and I’d like to think all of their books are like this, but Petra has gorgeous illustrations.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called simply “Jordan” (p 120).

Cutting for Stone

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Verghese, Abraham. Cutting for Stone. Read by Sunil Malhotra. New York: Random House Audio, 2009.

Reason read: May 28th is National Derg Downfall Day in Ethiopia.

On LibraryThing alone there are nearly 400 reviews for this book (and that’s not counting the people who insisted on publishing the same review five times in a row for whatever reason). It’s almost as if there is nothing more insightful to be said about Cutting for Stone. What new spin can I put on an already fabulous and amazing book? Everything everyone else said is absolutely true. It’s lyrical in its language. It’s descriptively alluring. Vivid landscapes. Intriguing characters. The mix of true historical events (like the attempted coup on Emperor Selassie) is seamless and works well within the fiction.

What I missed (and wished there was more of) was Marion interacting with his brother. There is barely any dialogue between the two brothers while they are growing up. Shiva is always on the periphery of Marion’s telling. By the time of the betrayal I didn’t get the full scope of how devastating it was to Marion because the closeness of the twins was not fully emphasized throughout the story.

Edited to add my favorite line, “No blade can puncture the human heart like the well-chosen words of a spiteful son” (p 821).

Author fact: Verghese is also a physician which is why his medical terminology in Cutting for Stone is more technical and exacting. When I checked out his website (here) I found his views on the patient-physician relationship compelling.

Book trivia: Cutting for Stone is Verghese’s first novel. He’s a doctor AND a best selling author!

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Ethiopia, Or As We Used To Say, Abyssinia!” (p 80). As an aside, Pearl wanted to travel to Addis Ababa after reading Cutting for Stone – Verghese “brought the city alive” (p 80). Someone else said Verghese made her homesick for Addis Ababa and they’ve never been there. Huge compliments.

Run!

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Karnazes, Dean. Run!: 26.2 Stories of Blisters and Bliss. New York: Rodale, 2011.

Reason read: Toronto half marathon.

I think Dean summed it up best when he said in his forward (called ‘Warmup’, “There is magic in misery” (p xi). Every time I came back from a run with chafing in odd places my husband would shake his head. Why would anyone subject themselves to such pain just for the fun of it? I’m really not sure, but Dean is right: there is magic in misery.

Within the pages of Run! there are 26.2 stories all related to running in one way or another, one for every mile of a marathon. Sometimes a chapter was simply to express the joy of running. Sometimes it allowed Karnazes’s wife or friends try to explain what makes him tick. Other times it was just to tell a funny story if only to reiterate Karnazes is human and can fail from time to time. There is a wicked sense of humor threaded through every mile/story.

My favorite element of the book was the idea Karnazes talked into a tape recorder while running; essentially telling the tales while doing what he does best – running for miles and miles and miles. My second favorite element of the Run! was the curiosity it sparked in me. I immediately needed to research the Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei and the art of “vanduzzi” or cupping.

Best quotes, “Running has a way of possessing your soul, infiltrating your psyche, and quietly becoming your central life force” (42). Amen to that. Here’s another good quote, “Adventure happens within” (p 115).

Never Wipe Your…

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Robillard, Jason. Never Wipe Your Ass with a Squirrel: a Trail Running, Ultramarathon, and Wilderness Survival Guide for Weird Folks. Barefoot Running Press, 2013.

This has got to be the strangest guide to running I have ever come across. Okay, to be fair it is chock full of useful information and thensome. Hey, you even learn the names of clouds…as in cirrostratus and stratocumulus. I kid you not. That’s the tame stuff. Azz wiping is even more informative. But. But! But, it’s all organized in a bizzarro way. Here’s an example: you are reading all about wilderness dangers (because nature can kill). Robillard is covering what to do in cases of ticks, snakes, even cougars. Then all of a sudden he jumps to information about foam rollers and stretching. Just when you think he’s moved on from the hazards of nature he returns to tripping on tree roots and the importance of learning to fall correctly. More safety information. The stick/roller information seems really out of place. Having said all that, one look at the table of contents and you know this isn’t your typical runners’ guide. I would say beginner runners shouldn’t attempt to use this book as a serious guide. Serious ultrarunners will know everything he’s talking about and I would say, the more experienced the runner, the funnier Robillard gets.

Can’t quote anything from the book, even for a review…mostly because I’m too lazy to seek permission. Pretend I inserted funny examples of why you should read this book here -> “—-“(p).

Reason: okay, I admit it. The title caught my attention.

Author fact: Robillard likens himself to Tucker Max. I would say Robillard is just as funny except his writing is more interesting.

Book trivia: Oodles of typos. Not sure what to make of that.

Mastering the Marathon

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Fink, Don. Mastering the Marathon: Time-Efficient Training Secrets for the 40-plus Athlete. Guilford, CT: Lyons Press: 2010.

Reason read: the Toronto half marathon.

I picked up Mastering the Marathon because even though I am only running a half I thought the information couldn’t hurt. The unfortunate thing was I didn’t have time to use the “secrets”. The book is begins with the outline of “three magic bullets” and exactly how effective each “bullet” is to your training. The bullets are actually three different workouts designed to maximize your potential as a runner. They are as follows: marathon pacing sessions, long runs and higher-intensity repeats. I know what you are thinking – they sound like a variation of the three specific training runs you should already be doing to train for any distance. In other words, tempo, long and fartleks. The difference is Fink outlines training plans based on how fast you want to finish. The typical 16-week plans are broken down into finishing time and how much running you want to do throughout your training. Let’s say you want to finish 26.2 miles in 3-3.5 hours and you want your training to consist of only running. There’s a training plan for that. You want to finish in 3.5 – 4.5 hours and you want your training to consist of only running. There’s a plan for that. You want to finish in the same times outlined above but you want to do less running and add cross training – there’s a plan. Finally, you want to finish in the same times outlined above but you want to do the minumum bare-bones running. You guessed it, there’s a plan. A great deal is made about these training plans throughout the first part of the book. In chapters 1-4 Fink refers to them (in chapter 5) no less than a dozen times. By the time I got to chapter 5 I felt like I had reached Mecca.

But, Mastering the Marathon is not just about different training plans and the three magic bullets. Fink also includes success stories of runners who have improved their times with the help of his coaching. While they were a little repetitive (he predicts everyone will continue to get faster), I was more disappointed in the fact most of the stories were about seasoned runners than individuals who ran their first marathons after the age of 40. For every four stories about a seasoned runner there was only one about an over-40 new-to-marathons runner.

Art Student’s War

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg

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

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

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

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

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

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

French Revolutions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sex and Suits

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

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

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

Reason: The Mercedes Benz Fashion Week takes place in May

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

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

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

Oedipus the King

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Sophocles. Oedipus the King. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1954.

Okay. Raise your hands. Who had to read Oedipus in high school? Who had the name come up in at least one college psychology course? Better yet, who acted out the play at any time in their life? I’m guessing most people are not strangers to the story: Mythological king is destined to kill his father and marry his mother. End. Of. Story. That’s the gist of it anyway. There are many different versions out there, depending on which translation you read. MY take-away is this, if it was meant to happen, it will happen. There is no getting out of it. You can twist fate by taking someone else’s fortune cookie, but the right words are destined to find you. So, even though everyone knew the prophesy and tried to avoid the disaster, Oedipus still managed to come across his father, have an altercation, kill him and end up marrying the widow…his own mother. Like I said, you can’t sidestep what will be.

Confessional: Freud ruined this for me. Whenever I hear the name Oedipus I think “complex” and not “ancient Greek trilogy.”

Reason read: May is the best time to visit Greece.

Author fact: Sophocles was one of three Greek tragedians.

Book Play trivia: There’s a lot of music in Oedipus.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “The Alpha, Beta, Gammas of Greece” (p 11).

The Transcriptionist

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Rowland, Amy. The Transcriptionist. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 2014.

Lena is a transcriptionist for New York’s newspaper, the Record. She sits in a lonely room transcribing stories for reporters who call in with all kinds of different stories. Lena’s personal story centers on the mystery of an unknown woman mauled to death in a lion’s den at the Bronx zoo. Three things capture Lena to the point of obsession: the woman is blind, this was an apparent suicide, and Lena thinks she met this woman before. While Lena is fascinated with the story, no one else is. She is shocked by her employer’s complacency. No one cares why this unknown woman did what she did, so Lena sets out to discover the truth. In the process Lena rattles life as she knows it. The proverbial bars of the cage have been flung open.
My one fault with the book – there were a few unbelievable scenes. I am assuming the lion didn’t maul the woman’s face and her autopsy photo is the one the newspaper used for the article. Here’s why: because if no one knew her identity they couldn’t have used a picture from an earlier time. Another bothersome moment – Once Lena learns the identity of the suicide victim, she knows where she lived and that she had a sister. Lena takes it upon herself to visit the woman’s apartment (walks right in!). There, in the decease’s apartment, is a recording of the truth. Wouldn’t the sister have found that first? Wouldn’t there have been a more thorough investigation? It’s not every day that a blind woman swims across a moat to reach a lion’s sanctuary and then lets one (a lion named Robert) devour her.
The best part of the book is the message it sends. Everyday news stories swirl around us and roll off our consciousness like beads of oil on water. Nothing sinks in or settles on our souls. That goes for the consumers of the news as well as the people who create it. We all need to rattle cages and break free from complacency.

Reason read: I am a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing

Author fact: This is Rowland’s debut novel.

Book trivia: Publish date: May 13th, 2014.

Path Between the Seas

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McCullough, David. The Path Between the Seas: the Creation of the Panama Canal 1870-1914. Read by Edward Herrmann. New York: Simon & Schuster Audio, 2003.

One might think that the historical retelling of the construction of the Panama Canal would be as dry and boring as five day old stale bread but David McCullough makes the process from start to finish fascinating. Being one of the seven man-made wonders of the world, the Panama Canal is an example of ingenuity, technology and sheer grit at its best. What is not as well known is all the controversy that surrounded the who, what, where, when of the project (everyone knew the why – sailing around Cape Horn was not only time consuming but it was also extremely dangerous. McCullough maps out every step of the process from the vision birthed in 1870 to the triumph of the first successful trial lockage of September 1913. From the French preliminarily attempts to the eventual success of the United States, every trial and tribulation is accounted for. The book version has wonderful photography while the audio version is entertaining for long car rides.

Reason read: Even though the French started construction much earlier I chose to focus on America’s involvement with the Panama Canal. U.S. construction on the Panama Canal started in May. On my dad’s birthday, as a matter of fact. Full disclosure – I hadn’t planned on it, it I listened to the abridged version of Path Between the Seas. Bummer.

Book trivia: Path Between the Seas won a National Book Award.

Author fact: David McCullough is better known for his biography of John Adams (it won a Pulitzer).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Presidential Biographies” (p 192). I know you are scratching your head because this book doesn’t really have anything to do with a biography of a president. This is, in fact, one of the those, “I don’t really need to read this book” books because it’s mentioned as an aside. Pearl is talking about David McCullough’s biography of John Adams but adds he is the author of Path Between the Seas. I should have started a category called “unrelated to the chapter” and kept track of how many books Pearl throws into the mix; books that have nothing to do with the topic she is covering. I have a feeling all three Lust books would be a lot shorter.

This is Paradise

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Kahakauwila, Kristiana. This is Paradise: Stories. London: Hogarth, 2013.

There are only six stories in This is Paradise. The good news is that I wanted more. Kahakauwila does a great job pulling the Hawaiian culture to the surface of her character’s everyday life. We all have family issues, we all have dramas in our lives but on the islands of Hawaii all this commonality gets a twist. Life moves a little differently in paradise and the lesson to be learned, if I can be didactic for a minute, is that paradise can be painful.

Kahakuawila’s first story starts out disjointed and a little confusing. A lot happens in the title story. Told from the first person perspective it is all over the place. First we are surfers, then chambermaids, next successful career women, and then back to surfers at a bar and on the ocean. The first story This is Paradise reveals an attitude, a prejudice and demolishes a stereotype. It is the only story without a tightly wound plot other than to point out the perceptions of tourism. There is a real sense of “us against them” attitude. Having said all that, as a result the first person stories feel more connected to the Hawaiian culture.

However, “Wanle” is my favorite. In it Wanle is bound by blood to honor her cockfighting father. The need for revenge is as strong as her sense of family and even her sense of self. The conflict is her boyfriend, the “Indian.” He doesn’t like her fighting roosters. He doesn’t like the violence, doesn’t understand the need for revenge. Wanle must go behind his back to continue her obsession and the consequences are devastating.