Tag: memoir

Ma Speaks Up

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Leone, Marianne. Ma Speaks Up: and a First Generation Daughter Talks Back. Boston: Beacon Press, 2017.

First and foremost, I had a question about the title. Or, actually, the subtitle. If Marianne Leone’s mother was born in the United States how could Ms. Leone be first generation? Then as I read further, I got it. Ma tells tales. Ma exaggerates. Ma sounds a little crazy. The light bulb went on and I prepared myself for a more than amusing story about a daughter’s off kilter relationship with her mother.

Leone’s writing is fast paced and witty. I loved the sarcasm and pop culture references. The photographs were a nice addition.
I only had one complaint about Ma Speaks Up. Normally, I enjoy biographies and memoirs. I find it fun to look through the window of someone else’s life; a life way more interesting than my own. However, I found Ma Speaks Up to be chronologically all over the place. In one sentence Leone could be talking about her baby brother and in another her own child, jumping from being a child herself to a full adult.

Book trivia: due to be on sale by April 25th, 2017.

Another Life

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Korda, Michael. Another Life: a Memoir of Other People. New York: Random House, 1999.

Reason read: January is a selfish month so I’m reading a memoir…even though this is one about other people. Supposedly.

Michael Korda, through his position at Simon and Schuster, was able to come in contact with loads of notable and eventually, famous people. The cover of Another Life boasts of those notables: Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, Larry McMurtry…the list goes on and on. But, fear not. Korda does the sensible thing and starts from the beginning, explaining his own rise in the world of publishing to editor in chief. The backbone of Another Life is the publishing industry itself; delving into the strange and often fickle elements that determine a bestselling author.

As an aside, before the age of the internet and Google the private lives of writers were not as well known. Their deep dark secrets could be kept as closeted as they wanted, as long as they behaved themselves. The over-the-top personality of Jacqueline Susann was not in the forefront of my mind when her bestseller, Valley of the Dolls was all the rage. Now I want to reread Susann knowing what I know now. In fact, it would be interesting to go back and read the books of everyone Korda has dished about in Another Life.

On a personal note, Korda mentions Dark Harbor, Maine. For those of you wondering, it is actually on Islesboro and closer to West Penobscot Bay…and nowhere near Monhegan.

Quotes I liked, “He seemed to be under the mistaken impression, thanks to Morris Helprin I felt sure, that I was a person of scholarly nature, prodigious learning, and refined taste” (p 31) and”It takes a lot of time and shared experiences to make a friendship permanent, to harden it…” (p 167). Very true.

Author fact: At the time of publication, Michael Korda was still editor in chief at Simon & Schuster.

Book trivia: the only thing missing from this dishy drama are photographs of all the celebs!

Nancy said: Nancy calls Korda’s style, “wonderfully affectionate” (p 152).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the very straightforward chapter simply called “Memoirs” (p 152).

Birthday Books of February

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Happy birthday to me & moi. This month we celebrate…everything. Here are the anticipated books:

Fiction:

  • The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J Gaines ~ in honor of February being Black History Month (AB).

Nonfiction:

  • An Island to Oneself by Tom Neale ~ Nancy Pearl said to read this after Puka-Puka. So I am.
  • Travels with Tangerine by Tim Macintosh ~ in honor of Feb being exploration month
  • Song of the Dodo: Island Biography in an Age of Extinction by David Quammen ~ in honor of Quammen’s birth month
  • Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology by Eric Brende ~ in honor of February being national science month.
  • Antarctic Destinies b y Stephanie Barcweski (also in honor of exploration month…it’s a long story).

Series (continuations):

  • Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons ~ in honor of January being Sci-Fi month
  • White Nights by Ann Cleeves ~ in honor of January being the month of Up Helly Aa fest in Shetland

For fun:

  • Wonder by RJ Palacio ~ ever since Natalie explained the premise of this book as being based on her song, “Wonder” I have wanted to read it.

Early Review:

  • Supposedly, the January book is Ma Speaks Up by Marianne Leone (LT spells it ‘Leonne’). Since half a dozen ER books have gone missing or  never mailed I’ll wait until it is in my hands before I announce I’m officially reading it.

 

January’s New Reads

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A little something about the new year. I have absolutely no expectations of the year to come. No list of things I must pretend to accomplish. No run numbers, real or imagined. There has been an end to so many things. As a result I’m in day-by-day mode. Or, in the case of this entry, book-by-book. Here’s what I finished:

Fiction:

  • Captain of the Sleepers by Mayra Montero
  • Any Human Heart: a novel by William Boyd (AB + print)

Nonfiction:

  • Italy and the Grand Tour by Jeremy Black
  • Another Life by Michael Korda
  • Book of Puka-Puka by Robert Dean Frisbie. (I am now reading An Island to Oneself by Tom Neale as a continuation to Puka.)

Series:

  • Spiderweb for Two by Elizabeth Enright (finished the series)
  • Hyperion by Dan Simmons (started the series). (I’m now reading Fall of Hyperion as a continuation.)

LibraryThing:

  • Dirty Work by Gabriel Weston. NOTE: I was supposed to receive this as an Early Review in 2014. When it didn’t arrive I borrowed it from a library two years later.
  • You Carried Me by Melissa Ohden (December 2016 batch)

For Fun:

  • Island Voices II by Poets of Monhegan Island ~ a gift from my mother.

You Carried Me

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Ohden, Melissa. You Carried Me: a Daughter’s Memoir. New York: Plough Publishing House, 2017.

Reason read: an Early Review for LibraryThing (December 2016 batch).

Ohden knew from an early age she was adopted. For anyone, that alone would conjure up questions surrounding identity. How could it not? Add “survivor of botched abortion” to the resume and a whole new set of mysteries emerge. What happened? Did the birth mother not want me? Did my birth father even know about the pregnancy? How could this happen? What started as a series of mysteries when Ohden was 14 turned into a purpose for life as an adult. You Carried Me is Ohden’s attempt to explain the process.

Ohden tells her story at breakneck speed. Eager to get to the heart of the story she glosses over most of her adolescence and is in college before page 50. It’s no secret I had a love-hate relationship with You Carried Me. Even the title caused me some consternation: I read it as “you should feel guilty for trying to abort me; you carried me.” At times I met Ohden’s words with distracted frustration. Ohden speaks in absolutes. For example, she makes assumptions about the nature of mother/newborn bonding. It’s not always an automatic relationship. It’s pretty typical of some mothers to never emotionally attach to her child; despite it being the child she carried for nine months. Strange as it may seem, there are even hospital classes to help some new mothers connect with their infants. Another example: Ohden describes an accident her father had as a teenager and she blames the altering of so many lives on that accident. How does she know? How could she know? I would have been more comfortable with the assumption that the accident could have altered so many lives. Yes, it might have.
One thing is clear. Ohden writes in an unsophisticated but determined and enthusiastic voice (lots of exclamation points!). Her absolutes and assumptions are all her own. It’s a story impossible to put down once started. At only 166 pages it’s easy to read in one sitting. I read it on a lunch break.

Editing question: is Isaac really someone named Nathan?
Copyright question: did Ohden have permission to reprint Kelly Clarkson’s lyrics to “Stronger”?

Book trivia: black and white pictures were included. What a nice surprise.

Book of Puka-Puka

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Frisbie, Robert Dean. The Book of Puka-Puka. New York: The Century Co., 1928.

Reason read: National Geographic Travel Month

Puka-Puka is a Polynesian atoll off the coast of New Zealand. Robert Dean Frisbie, originally born in Cleveland, Ohio moved to Puka-Puka for his health and to get away from civilization. He became a trader, married a native, had several children and even died in the Cook Islands. His was one of the earliest accounts of Pacific island life. It’s full of adventure, humor and culture. A great read!

Quote I liked, “He gave me a priceless  recipe for raisin wine which I will whisper to the thirsty reader in due time” (p 12).

Author fact: Frisbie died in the Cook Islands, on Avatiu.

Book trivia: The Book of Puka-Puka was illustrated by Mahlon Blaine.

Nancy said: Frisbie’s is a “classic account” of island life.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Islands, Desert and Otherwise” (p 128).

December Did Not

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December did not suck entirely. I was able to run 97 miles out of the 97 promised. The in-law holiday party was a lot of fun and I got to most of the books on my list:
Nonfiction:

  • Conquest of the Incas by John Hemming (DNF)
  • Rainbow’s End by Lauren St. John
  • Paul Revere and the World He Lived in by Esther Forbes
  • On the Ocean by Pytheas (translated by Christina Horst Roseman)
  • Geometry of Love by Margaret Visser
  • Freedom at Midnight by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre .
  • River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey by Candice Millard (AB)

Fiction:

  • Tu by Patricia Grace – I read this in four days because it was due back at a library that didn’t allow renewals.

Series:

  • Spiderweb for Two by Elizabeth Enright. I listened to this on audio on my lunch breaks. It was a good way to escape for a little while each day. Confessional: I didn’t finish the whole thing but since it is a continuation of the series it doesn’t matter.

Early Review:

  • Yoga for Athletes by Ryanne Cunningham – this was an October book that took me a little time to review because I was too busy using it to run!
  • Disaster Falls: a family story by Stephane Gerson

Disaster Falls

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Gerson, Stephane. Disaster Falls: a Family Story. New York: Crown, 2017.

Reason read: a selection for the Early Review Program of LibraryThing.

Grief is hard to explain to another individual. As a listener, unless you have experienced the kind of trauma that changes your whole life it is hard to wrap your brain around it. How does one comprehend an emotion like grief? You may recognize pieces of trauma like how small recognitions in a foreign town you swear you have never visited before give you a sense of deja vu.
Gerson’s story might be redundant in its telling, but that is a part of the grieving process; to tell the story as many times as possible to anyone who will listen. You go over details, searching for truths; for explanations and when you have exhausted your examination you do it again and again, hoping for a different outcome. It’s a never ending cycle of trying to find the Why in tragedy. Especially when the real tragedy of the situation is they (the Gerson family) had real misgivings about the falls before even running the rapids. They had doubt and doubt is the great provoker of the “what if?” game.

I connected with Gerson on one small detail: how chronology becomes “before the accident/after the accident”. For me, everything relating to time became either “before dad died” or “after dad died”. If someone gave me a date I would quickly calculate which side of death my father was on. I say this as a matter of fact, but it is a product of my grief.

Confessional: my aunt lost her son five years ago. In the days, weeks, months and even several years following his death I seriously wondered if she would die of a broken heart and my family would be burying her as well. Her grief was profound and in some ways, complete. It took over her entire existence. I can only imagine Gerson suffered the same hollowing out as my aunt. As my grandmother once said after losing my father, “no parent is supposed to bury a child.”

As an aside: people have been reviewing Disaster Falls since late September so I feel a I am a little late to the party. Not as late as the people who will win an advanced copy in the next month or so, but late just the same.

Author fact: Gerson lost his father in the exact opposite manner of losing his son. Whereas as his son was taken suddenly, Gerson’s father planned his death to the minute.

Book trivia: no photos

Rainbow’s End

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St. John, Lauren. rainbow’s end: A Memoir of Childhood, War and an African Farm. New York: Scribner, 2007.

Reason read: December 4th used to be Shangani Day in Rhodesia.

Rainbow’s End is a 1000 acre farm and game preserve in Rhodesia. In the fall of 1978 eleven year old Lauren St. John moves there with her family. This is during the dying, yet bloody, last stages of the Rhodesian Bush War. Rainbow’s End isn’t just a sprawling farm, it is also the scene of a bloody massacre less than a year earlier. The blood evidence still lingered.
Because Lauren’s coming of age years coincided with her time on the Rainbow’s End farm and the end of Rhodesia her memoir is part teenage angst biography and part commentary on the the war and its politics. Was it about Communism versus democracy or black against white? What makes Rainbow’s End so interesting is Lauren’s perception of being white in newly formed Zimbabwe after Independence and the realization she has been loving a war for all the wrong reasons.
There is no doubt of Rhodesia’s untamed beauty.

A line I liked, “Then I relocated to the sofa where I had my new books fanned around me like lives waiting to be lived” (p 48). As an aside, I can remember doing that same thing when I was a kid. I’d put the books in a row and pick one based on where I wanted to go next.

Author fact: St. John has also written a few sports books. None of them are on my list.

Book trivia: rainbow’s end includes a smattering of non-personal (if you don’t count the cover) photographs and a couple of maps. Interestingly enough, one of the maps includes “hippo pools.” Oh goody.

Nancy said: nada. She just listed it for the chapter.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Zipping Through Zambia/Roaming Rhodesia” (p 269).

Jingle the Books

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December is going to be a crazy month. I need to run 93  miles. I will be hosting my in-law’s Holiday party for the first time. I’m going to the Christmas Eve Patriots Game. What else? Oh. The books!

Nonfiction:

  • Conquest of the Incas by John Hemming ~ in honor of December being the best time to visit Peru
  • Rainbow’s End by Lauren St. John ~ in honor of Shangani Day in Rhodesia.
  • Paul Revere and the World He Lived in by Esther Forbes ~ in honor of Revere’s birth month (I’m guessing since he was baptized on January first.)
  • On the Ocean by Pytheas (translated by Christina Horst Roseman) ~ in honor of finally finding a copy of this book!
  • Geometry of Love by Margaret Visser ~ in honor of Rome’s Saturnalia Solstice.
  • Freedom at Midnight by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre ~ in honor of December being the best time to visit India.

Fiction:

  • Tu by Patricia Grace ~ in honor of New Zealand being discovered in December.

Series:

  • Spiderweb for Two by Elizabeth Enright ~ in honor of finishing the series started in September in honor of Enright’s birth month.

Early Review:

  • Yoga for Athletes by Ryanne Cunningham ~ for LibraryThing

Thanks for the Books

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November was a stressful month. The injury that sidelined me for the last half marathon of the season continued to plague me & myself but I pushed through it – ran 70 miles for the month. I don’t think I have ever mentioned this here but…back on January I was a dumbass and agreed to a 1000k challenge. By November 1st I had 267k left to go. I’m now down to 151k. Almost 100 miles. But enough of that. It stresses me out to even think about it.

Here are the books finished for November:
Fiction:

  • Goodbye, Mr. Chips by James Hilton. I thought of this as a short story because it’s less than 100 pages long.
  • Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
  • The City and the City by China Mieville (AB)
  • Advise and Consent by Allen Drury – confessional: I knew that a fictional political book might bore the crap out of me but what I didn’t expect was outright disgust after the election. I couldn’t stomach the contents of Advise and Consent.

Series:

  • Then There Were Five by Elizabeth Enright. (AB)
  • Love Songs From a Shallow Grave by Colin Cotterill
  • Toast to Tomorrow by Manning Coles

Nonfiction:

  • Living Poor by Moritz Thomsen
  • Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn (audio and print)
  • Baby Doctor by Perri Klass
  • The Fifties by David Halberstam

Postscript: it came in too late for me to mention here, but I DID get that Early Review book that I was pining for. I’ll review it next month.

September Slipped Away

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September was a cool month. On the 10th I ran a half marathon (2:10:16), was able to get to Monhegan (and introduce the island to some new people), and get to a lot of reading:

  1. Curse of the Pogo Stick by Colin Cotterill
  2. Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng
  3. Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
  4. Consul’s Wife by W.T. Tyler
  5. Tears of Autumn by Charles McCarry (AB)
  6. Life and Death of Edwin Mullhouse by Steven Millhauser
  7. Four-Story Mistake by Elizabeth Enright
  8. Best Game Ever by Mark Bowden
  9. The Trial by Franz Kafka
  10. Which Side Are You On? by Elaine Harger (ER)
  11. Which Side Are You On? by George Ella Lyon (for fun)

AB = Audio book
ER = Early review

Life and Death in Shanghai

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Cheng, Nien. Life and Death in Shanghai. New York: Grove Press, 1986

Reason read: Best time to visit China is in September or so I have heard.

At one time Cheng’s husband used to be a diplomatic officer for the Kuomintang government. Due to the entrance of the Communist army, his appointment soon led him to a career with the British Shell International Petroleum Company. Upon his death, his widow, Nien Cheng, became the assistant to the new general manager. Cheng’s bilingual skills were invaluable to the organization and she soon filled in for the general manager. In addition, she had many international friendships and relationships. All these facts were seen as disloyal during the Cultural Revolution. Ultimately, she was accused of being a spy and imprisoned for six and a half years where she was treated to inhumane conditions and sometimes tortured. Despite everything, Cheng was able to use her fast thinking wit to turn Mao teachings against her captures as they tried time and time again to get her to confess to being a spy.

Quotes to quote, “The cacophony told me that the time of waiting was over and that I must face the threat of the Red Guards and the destruction of my home” (p 70). Can you imagine? You are powerless to stop what violence is yet to come.
Another quote, “When one tries to show emotion one does not genuinely feel, one tends to exaggerate” (p 275). True.
Last one, “Back doors in America only lead into people’s kitchens” (p 538).

Author fact: Cheng died of renal failure.

Book trivia: Life and Death in Shanghai does not contain any photographs which is sad, because I think a picture of her daughter would have been a nice tribute.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “China Voices” (p 55).

 

Septembering

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I’m not exactly sure what September will bring. The renovations for the library are finally finished (with a crazy punch list, I might add). The backyard is complete minus the hot tub, fire pit and patio furniture (that’s stage II). I have a half mara in ten days so I’m anticipating a good run month. Here are the planned books:

  • Curse of the Pogo Stick by Colin Cotterill – to continue the series started in May in honor of Laos Rocket Day
  • Edwin Mullhouse: the life and death of an American Writer – to honor kids in September
  • Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng – Mao died of cancer in September.
  • Tears of Autumn by Charles McCarry – Cold War ended in September
  • The Trial by Franz Kafka – September is the best month to visit the Czech Republic.
  • Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner – September is Southern Gospel month
  • Which Side are You On? by Elaine Harger – an Early Review from LibraryThing.

August Behind Me

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August was…the final push to move back into the new library space. People who used to work there won’t recognize it. August was also the finishing of the deck and patio. It looks awesome. Sidelined by injury I only ran 60.86 miles this month. But. But! But, here are the books:

  • Anarchy and Old Dogs by Colin Cotterill
  • Dogs of Riga by Henning Mankell (AB)
  • Lost City of Z by David Grann
  • The High and the Mighty by Ernest Gann
  • If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin
  • Children in the Woods by Frederick Busch
  • Flora’s Suitcase by Dalia Rabinovich
  • ADDED: Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
  • ADDED: Dorothy Gutzeit: Be True and Serve by Dorothy Gutzeit (ER)

My favorite was Dogs of Riga followed by Anarchy and Old Dogs.