Tag: memoir

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.

All the Rage

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Moran, Martin. All the Rage: a Quest. New York: Beacon Press, 2016

Reason read: Early Review for LibraryThing

Wow. Am I glad I requested this book and actually received it. Wow. I’m glad I read it, too. There are layers and layers to All the Rage. You could call them onion-like because some layers will make you cry but there is more than just sadness: humor, beauty, sarcasm, wit, and yes, rage. Moran finds his mad. I read this from the perspective of not knowing Martin’s story. I didn’t read his 2005 memoir, knew nothing of the play and missed the headlines concerning him entirely.

It is one thing to come to terms with being a victim of any kind of abuse but it’s another to sort out the myriad of feelings connected to and as a result of that abuse during and more so, afterwards. If your abuse is a secret, you live in constant fear of being found out. If you are “out” you are constantly bombarded with doubts that you are dealing with it appropriately. That is exactly what Moran addresses in All the Rage. When people learn of the sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of an adult they all want to know why he isn’t more angry. Where is his outrage? Where is his fury? Moving back and forth from memory to present day Moran is able to piece together his coping mechanisms and to see how every emotion is part of the process.

Beautiful lines, “The vague smell of medical sadness hung in the air, the business of staying alive a little longer” (p 125).

Author fact: Broadway doesn’t comes to Western Massachusetts very often (unless you consider Tanglewood an equivalent), so I was unaware of Moran’s talent as an actor. I think I liked it better that way because I wasn’t distracted by celebrity status and could just concentrate on the writing.

Book trivia: Read the praise for All the Rage on the back cover and you still won’t know what the book is about. The only thing you will know is that you want to read it. Now.

 

May I Read

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I never recapped April nor predicted May. For the first time ever, April books are still being read. To be fair, the Lyndon Johnson series started in February so technically these leftovers are not specific either April nor May.

April was an oddball month in that my reading was all on the fly. I trained for another half marathon and that took a lot of my time. Not nearly as much as the full mara, but still…

Here are the Challenge books finished in April:

  • King Lear – Shakespeare (not scheduled)
  • Guernica – Van Hensbergen (not scheduled)
  • Grand Tour – Tim Moore
  • Green Thoughts – Eleanor Perenyi
  • Alice in Sunderland – Bryan Talbot
  • Considerable Town – M F K Fisher
  • Don’t Eat This Book – Morgan Spurlock

Here are the just for fun books:

  • Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work – John Gottman
  • Spark Joy – Marie Kondo (not scheduled)

Here’s what on tap for May:

For the Early Review program through LibraryThing:

  • All the Rage by Martin Moran

To celebrate May:

  • Brilliant Orange: the Neurotic Genius of Dutch Soccer by David Winner ~ in honor of the tulip festival in Holland
  • Bold Spirit: Helga Estby’s Forgotten Walk Across Victorian America by Linda Lawrence Hunt ~ in honor of Just ‘Cause and their 60-mile walk (although this year it’s in June).
  • Jordan: Past & Present: Petra, Jerash & Amman by E. Borgia ~ in honor of Jordan gaining independence in the month of May
  • One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandre Solzhenitsyn ~ in honor of Russia’s Victory Day (may 9th, 1945)
  • Coroner’s Lunch by Colin Cotterill ~ to celebrate Laos Rocket Day (already read – this took me less than a day)
  • Chosen, the by Chaim Potok ~ in honor of Jewish American Heritage Month (AB – already read)
  • Map of Another Town by MFK Fisher ~ to finished the Two Towns book started in April
  • Master of the Senate by Robert Caro ~ to finished the series started in February in honor of Presidents’ Day.

Liar

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Roberge, Rob. Liar.New York: Crown Publishers, 2016.

Publishing Date: February 2016

Reason read: Early Review book for LibraryThing.

When I first received Liar I did what I always do when receiving an Early Review: I checked the pub date to see how long I had to finish reading it in order to write an “early” review. I was dismayed to see I had approximately three weeks. Three weeks may not seem like a short amount of time, but it is when you are already involved in four other 300+ page books. I shouldn’t have worried. Not with Liar.

This is a quick, quick read. Be prepared. The timeline jumps around a lot. But maybe that’s the point. You can’t keep the chronology straight so it’s harder to keep Roberge’s story straight. Hence, the title of the book. It’s supposed to be a memoir. Is he lying or not? Reading Liar reminded me of those picture viewers: you slide in the disc, look through the viewer to see a particular scene. Advancing the disc allows you to see another scene. When trying to describe this toy (and book) to a friend he said, “oh. You mean like a peep show?” Yeah. Like a peep show. Roberge shows you just hints of a mentally ill/bipolar/suicidal, crazy drug addled, violent/kinky sex fueled life and then quickly closes the curtain. When the curtain reopens it’s a completely different view; a little more is revealed…or not. It could be about the Titanic sinking or some other misconstrued moment in history. You never know what you are going to get. I am resisting the urge to make a timeline and “map” all of Roberge’s life events just to see how his life has played out thus far.

Confessional: there were times when I got “tired” reading this book. My attitude wavered between fascination and boredom. How many times could one read about Roberge waking unremembering in a sticky puddle of his own puke? How many “I Have No Idea What I Did Last Night” scenarios could be described in one book? There was a definite repetition of shock value to Liar and yet, yet I found myself asking what next? I needed to know how did he get through the latest debacle in his life?

 

My Confection

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Kotin, Lisa. My Confection: Odyssey of a Sugar Addict. Boston: Beacon Press, 2016.

Reason read: Read as part of the Early Review program for LibraryThing.

There is one thing you need to know about Kotin’s writing style before delving into My Confection: Her voice – she’s sarcastic and funny and dramatic as all hell. From the very beginning I couldn’t tell if certain parts were exaggerations, outright lies, or just the unbelievable truth. Kotin seems to be in constant crisis mode. But by ten pages in, you know what? I couldn’t care less. I was laughing too hard. I liked her style of writing more than what she had to say, if that makes sense.

I’ve never met a sugar “addict” per se; someone who needed a macrobiotic rehabilitation or saw a therapist about tossing a cake in the driveway. However, I certainly know my fair share of self professed “sweet tooth” victims. They usually blame away their weight or complexion on the amount of sugar they simply cannot help but consume. I think humans in general are hardwired to crave sugar no matter the form. My uncle, suffering from severe Alzheimer’s, would sneak out of the house in the dead of night and trek the seven miles (down a winding mountain road with no street lights, shoulder or breakdown lane) into town for a Snickers bar. The store may or may not have been open when he arrived but he felt compelled, driven by some unknown sugar insanity to make the trip just the same. My aunt would predictably jump in the car and go screaming after him, knowing exactly where he went and why. Ironically enough, he choked to death on a contraband Christmas cookie he was in the process of trying to consume as quickly as possible. I kid you not. But, back to Kotin and her book.
The final thing I will say about My Confection is actually another thing you need to know: Kotin grows up right before your eyes. Her voice changes. She becomes a little more serious, a little less sarcastic. By that small change her addiction becomes more believable and you end up rooting for her all the more.

A Cup of Water Under My Bed

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Hernandez, Daisy. A Cup of Water Under My Bed: a Memoir. Boston: Beacon Press, 2015.

In reading A Cup of Water Under My Bed I pictured Daisy Hernandez’s childhood as a kind of tightrope dance. She learned to walk a straight and narrow line between varying beliefs and experiences concerning religion (Catholic versus Santeria), language (English versus Spanish), society (wealthy versus poverty), culture (American versus Cuban-Columbian), and even relationships  (abuse versus love) and sex (straight, bisexual and lesbian). Navigating her coming of age through these conflicting influences, Hernandez emerges as compassionate and intelligent. She has the ability to articulate the difficulties of childhood (her father’s alcoholism and abuse) as well as the innocence of childhood (stealing candies and eavesdropping on adult conversations). When she has to hide her sexuality from her aunt in order to have a relationship with her it breaks my heart. As it was they stopped speaking for seven years when her tia heard Hernandez has kissed a girl. Of course there is more to the story than this. Just go read it. Again.

Note: the is not an early review. This was originally published a year ago (9/9/2014) and has already been reviewed by Kirkus, Huffington Post, Booklist and the Boston Globe (to name a few).

Line I liked: “Something can happen between a broken hymen and baby showers” (p 77), “Hatred requires intimacy” (p 112).

Reason read: A Cup of Water Under My Bed was republished on 9/8/2015. I’m reading it as part of LibraryThing’s “Early Review” program.

Book trivia: In 2014 A Cup of Water Under My Bed won the Kirkus award for Best Nonfiction Book.

Author fact: Daisy Hernandez has her own dot com as she should in this 21st century.

Comedy & a Tragedy

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Culley, Travis Hugh. A Comedy & a Tragedy: a Memoir of Learning How to Read and Write. New York: Ballantine Books, 2015.

Reason read: LibraryThing’s Early Review Program. These books are like the chocolate chips in my pancakes. Delicious and unexpected!

This is such a curious read. Culley wants this to be a book about the struggle of illiteracy and the power of literacy. I saw it as something much, much deeper. Yes, you can fly through this book in a day or two – it is short and seemingly very straightforward. But, it’s not. Not really. There is much more to it after you have reread it a second, or even a third time. There is lots to chew on and some of it was painful to swallow. Consider the family: father is abusive, mother is fragile and defensive (a terrible combination), and aggressive brother is older and outwardly brilliant. From his earliest memories Culley has trouble articulating his troubles. Without giving it away, I’m thinking of camp. This is a book about survival. Again, thinking about Culley’s experience at camp. Coming to terms with sexual abuse, negotiating mental illness, never trusting authority figures. What do you do when your own mother thinks you are psychotic? The misunderstandings multiply.
My only complaint? The inside flap describes Culley as “running away” from home. You probably cannot be classified as a runaway if your parents are even remotely aware of your departure and you most definitely cannot be classified as a runaway if they tell you to leave and help you pack.

Author fact: A Comedy & A Tragedy is not Culley’s first book. I kind of wished it was but have no idea why.

Book trivia: Culley used a picture from childhood for his bio. It’s really cute. On the flip side, there is a really disturbing page from his journal…

Everything You Ever Wanted

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Lauren, Jillian. Everything You Ever Wanted: a Memoir. New York: Penguin, 2015.

Reason read: As a member of the Early Review program for LibraryThing I occasionally review uncorrected proofs. This is my book for March/April.

It is safe to say I devoured Everything You Ever Wanted. In the midst of reading four other books I made time for Everything every single day. But, here’s the thing – her writing is so clear, so honest, so raw that I didn’t want to rush it. I wanted to savor every page, every sentence, every word (much like I did when I reviewed her earlier work, Pretty).
Lauren wrote Everything You Ever Wanted for her adopted son, Tariku; how she came to be his forever mom, his real mom. But, here’s the beautiful thing about this book – if you know anything about Jillian Lauren you know she has had a colorful past. She is a self proclaimed former addict and slut.  With her tattoos and rocker attitude she doesn’t look like the perfect candidate to adopt a child, much less one with special needs. But Everything You Ever Wanted doesn’t sugarcoat any of her experiences, past or present. It wasn’t enough to say, “hey – I have a rough history but here’s how I got beyond it.” No, she let her past struggles give her strength to deal with new ones. This is a great read for anyone who thinks they “blew it” earlier in life and can’t start over. Even the end of Everything You Ever Wanted has shafts of sunlit hope. Despite her sex & drugs former lifestyle, Lauren and her husband want to adopt for a second time to give Tariku a sibling. By now all the agencies know her story. SPOILER ALERT: she doesn’t tell you if they are successful, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t trying.

Confessional: it is so frustrating to review an uncorrected proof! There are so many great sentences I wanted to pull out of Everything You Ever Wanted if nothing more than to say, look at how beautiful this writing is!

Fifty-Year Silence

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Mouillot, Miranda Richmond. A Fifty-Year Silence: Love, War and a Ruined House in France. New York: Crown Publishers, 2015.

Reason read: an Early Review book from LibraryThing.

Here’s what I loved about Mouillot’s memoir straight away: she was unapologetic about the inaccuracies in her book. She admits a lot of her documentation is based on conversations and possible faulty memories. From some reason, that admission alone makes it all the more real to me.

How does a relationship go from just that, a relationship, to a subject for a book? When I think about Mouillot’s grandparents and their fifty year silence I find myself asking, what makes this divorce any different from other relationship that crashed and burned? Could we all write a story about a relationship that fell apart? Well, yes and no. Add World War II, being Jewish and escaping the Holocaust and suddenly it’s not just about a couple who haven’t spoken to each other. It’s a mystery of survival on many different levels. While Mouillot’s account is choppy and sometimes hard to follow I found myself rooting for her. I wanted her to discover the mysteries of love and relationships, especially since her own love life was blossoming at the same time.

We aren’t supposed to quote from the book until it has been published but I have to say I hope this sentence stays, “How do you break a silence that is not your own?” (from the preface). I love, love, love this question. It should be on the cover of the book because it grabs you by the heart and throttles your mind into wanting to know more. Maybe that’s just me. Case in point: I was drawn into the show, “The Closer” after hearing Brenda say, “If I wanted to be called bitch to my face I’d still be married” in a promo. One sentence and I was hooked. Sometimes, that is all it takes.

Book trivia: According to the galley I received, A fifty-Year Silence will have maps.

Children of Cambodia’s Killing Fields

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Children of Cambodia’s Killing Fields: Memoirs By Survivors. Compiled by Dith Pran. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997.

There has never been a more deadly genocide of its own people than in Cambodia. When Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime descended into Cambodia in April of 1975 they brought with them a rein of terror like never seen before. Children of Cambodia’s Killing Fields contains eyewitness accounts of the genocide and lends a voice to the children who barely survived. Each chapter is a mini memoir, compiled by Dith Pran, a survivor himself. Some accounts are so graphically disturbing they left me sleepless for days. Imagine being forced to witness the killing of your family and not be able to show a single emotion? Imagine having to kill your own community? These children were worked to death, starved to death, disease-ridden and deprived. And yet, they survived and by all accounts, thrived once they escaped. A moving memoir.

I want to quote something from some of the survivors because their words have had a lasting impact on me. I want to pass that impression on.

  • Sophiline Cheam Shapiro: “I know of almost no family that survived without losses” (p 4)
  • Chath Piersath: “Like other mothers, you tried to wage a battle against it with the intention of saving what was left of your children” (p 7)
  • Teeda Butt Mam: “I was scared that they would hear my thoughts and prayers, that they could see my dreams and feel my anger and disapproval of their regime” (p 14)
  • You Kimny Chan: “We had hoped and prayed to leave for years, and now that we had the chance, we realized that we had nowhere to go” (p 25)
  • Sopheap K Hang: “Mother and I began laughing, but then the memory hit our hearts” (p 33)
  • Savuth Penn: “This time the unforgiving Khmer Rouge did not let my father survive” (p 46)
  • Charles Ok: “But life goes on, and I have to learn to take care of myself” (p 55)
  • Moly Ly: “Hitler is dead, but Pol Pot and his entourage are still alive and craving a return” (p 64)
  • Sarom Prak: “I am not you and you are not me, but we are all human beings (p 71)
  • Khuon Kiv: “Amazingly, human life still beats the odds” (p 103)
  • Sophea Mouth: “Can the effect of violence be so strong that it destroys human compassion?” (p 179)

Reason read: The Cambodian monarchy was restored in the month of September. Note to self, look up the Digital Archive of Cambodian Holocaust Survivors website.

Author Compiler fact: According to the back flap of Children of Cambodia Dith Pran is a photojournalist and the founder of the Dith Pran Holocaust Awareness Project. I knew the movie “The Killing Fields” was based on his own experiences in Cambodia.

Book trivia: Each story of a survivor is accompanied by a black and white photograph. But, interestingly enough, the cover has been photoshopped to exclude the temple which, during the Khmer Rouge regime, was used as a killing field.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter simply called “Cambodia” (p 48).

Sweet September List

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The days are getting shorter. The nights are cooling down. Summer is practically all but over. It’s time to turn my attention to school and cozying up to a warm fire with a good book, or two, or three:

  1. Baltimore Blues by Laura Lippman
  2. Bluebird Canyon by Dan McCall
  3. History Man by Malcolm Bradbury
  4. Raw Silk by Janet Burroway
  5. A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband by Weaver/LeCron (E-book)
  6. ADDED: The Soul of All Living Creatures by Vint Virga (Early Review for LibraryThing)

Here is how the rest of year eight (only two months) should go:

  1. Andorra by Peter Cameron (November)
  2. Any Four Women Can Rob the Bank of Italy by Ann Cornelisen (November)
  3. Beaufort by Ron Leshem* (November)
  4. Captain Sir Richard Burton by Edward Rice (October)
  5. Cradle of Gold by Christopher Heaney (November)
  6. Culture of Disbelief by Stephen Carter (October)
  7. Eye of the World by Robert Jordan* (October)
  8. Grass Dancer by Susan Power (November)
  9. In a Strange City by Laura Lippman (October)
  10. You Get What You Pay For by Larry Beinhart (November)

*Planned as audio books

FINISHED:

  1. Absolute Zero by Helen Cresswell*
  2. After the Dance by Edwidge Danticat
  3. Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow*
  4. Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin*
  5. Angels Weep by Wilbur Smith
  6. Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler.
  7. Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro
  8. Art Student’s War by Brad Leithauser
  9. Beirut Blues by Hanan al-Shaykh
  10. Benjamin Franklin: an American Life by Walter Isaacson
  11. Bring Me a Unicorn by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  12. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks*
  13. Black Lamb and Gray Falcon by Rebecca West (DNF)
  14. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
  15. Cabin Fever by Elizabeth Jolley
  16. Careless Love by Peter Gurlnink
  17. Caroline’s Daughters by Alice Adams
  18. Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Faulks
  19. Civil Action by Jonathan Harr
  20. Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire*
  21. Dancer and the Thief by Antonio Skarmeta
  22. Dancer with Bruised Knees by Lynne McFall
  23. Dark Sun by Richard Rhodes (DNF)
  24. Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan*
  25. Earthly Possessions by Anne Tyler
  26. Eighth Day by Thornton Wilder
  27. Faith Fox by Jane Gardam
  28. Falcon Flies by Wilbur Smith*
  29. Feast of Love by Charles Baxter
  30. First Man by Albert Camus
  31. Flower and the Nettle by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  32. Fordlandia by Greg Gandin
  33. French Revolutions* by Tim Moore.
  34. Georges’ Wife by Elizabeth Jolley
  35. Gesture Life by Chang-rae Lee
  36. Herzog by Saul Bellow
  37. Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  38. House of Morgan by Ron Chernow – attempted
  39. Illumination Night by Alice Hoffman
  40. In the Graveyard of Empires by Scott Jones*
  41. Inside Passage by Michael Modzelewski
  42. Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg by H.R.F. Keating
  43. It Looked Like Forever by Mark Harris
  44. Last Train to Memphis by Peter Guralink
  45. Leopard Hunts in the Darkness by Wilbur Smith
  46. Life in the Air Ocean by Sylvia Foley
  47. Long Way From Home by Frederick Busch
  48. Lotus Eaters by Tatjani Soli
  49. Lulu in Hollywood by Louise Brooks
  50. Men of Men by Wilbur Smith
  51. Neighborhood Heroes by Morgan Rielly
  52. Now Read This II by Nancy Pearl
  53. Ocean of Words by Ha Jin
  54. Oedipus by Sophocles
  55. Palladian Days by Sally Gable*
  56. Price of Silence by Liza Long
  57. Professor and the Housekeeper by Yoko Ogawa
  58. Racing Weight by Matt Fitzgerald
  59. Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro*
  60. Rose Cafe by John Hanson Mitchell
  61. Rose of Martinique by Andrea Stuart
  62. Run or Die by Kilian Jornet
  63. Running for Mortals by John Bingham
  64. Seeing in the Dark by Timothy Ferris
  65. Sword at Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliff
  66. Thrush Green by Miss Read*
  67. ADDED: Toronto by Charles Way
  68. Transcriptionist by Amy Rowland
  69. War Within and Without by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  70. Wildwater Walking Club by Claire Cook.
  71. Winners and Losers by Martin Quigley
  72. Zero Days by Barbara Egbert

Poetry:

  • “Aftermath” ~ a poem by Siegfried Sassoon
  • “Romance” ~ a poem by W.J. Turner
  • “Kubla Khan” ~ a poem by Samuel T. Coleridge

Short Stories:

  • “The Huckabuck Family” by Carl Sandburg
  • “How to Revitalize the Snake in Your Life” by Hannah Tinti
  • “Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury
  • “Thirty Year Old Women Do Not Always Come Home” by Mark Winegardner
  • “Birdland” by Michael Knight
  • “Killer Inside Me” by Jim Thompson
  • “Down There” by David Goodis
  • “Crossing the Craton” by John McPhee.
  • “Lukudi” by Adrianne Harun
  • “The Eighth Sleeper of Ephesus” also by Adrianne Harun
  • “Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” by Jorge Luis Borges

For another year:

  • Hall of a Thousand Columns by Tim Mackintosh-Smith.

Bang of July List

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July is vacation month for me. Well, just to clarify, I go on vacation starting tomorrow (hence the late list post). Not that I go on vacation for the whole month! Don’t I wish! But, with a week off I should be able to get through a good chunk of reading. Sadly, the only books I am really looking forward to reading are Faulks and Rielly. Sigh. Here’s the list:

  1. Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler.
  2. Black Lamb and Gray Falcon by Rebecca West. This is well over 1,000 pages long!
  3. ADDED: Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Faulks (continues the series)
  4. Dark Sun by Richard Rhodes. This was on the list for last year but I decided it wasn’t “fun.” Remember? I still don’t think it will be fun.
  5. Faith Fox by Jane Gardam*
  6. In the Graveyard of Empires by Scott Jones*
  7. ADDED: Neighborhood Heroes: Life Lessons from the Greatest Generation by Morgan Rielly (LibraryThing Early Review)

*Audio book

Here is how the rest of year eight should go:

  1. Andorra by Peter Cameron (November)
  2. Any Four Women Can Rob the Bank of Italy by Ann Cornelisen (November)
  3. Baltimore Blues by Laura Lippman (September)
  4. Beaufort by Ron Leshem* (November)
  5. Beirut Blues by Hanan al-Shaykh (August)
  6. Bluebird Canyon by Dan McCall (September)
  7. Captain Sir Richard Burton by Edward Rice (October)
  8. Caroline’s Daughters by Alice Adams (August)
  9. Cradle of Gold by Christopher Heaney (November)
  10. Culture of Disbelief by Stephen Carter (October)
  11. Eye of the World by Robert Jordan* (October)
  12. Fordlandia by Greg Gandin (August)
  13. Gesture Life by Chang-rae Lee (August)
  14. Grass Dancer by Susan Power (November)
  15. History Man by Malcolm Bradbury (September)
  16. In a Strange City by Laura Lippman (October)
  17. Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges (August)
  18. Long Way From Home by Frederick Busch (August)
  19. Raw Silk by Janet Burroway (September)
  20. Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro* (August)
  21. Thousand Ways to Please a Husband by Weaver/LeCron (September)
  22. You Get What You Pay For by Larry Beinhart (November)

*Planned as audio books

FINISHED:

  1. After the Dance by Edwidge Danticat
  2. Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow*
  3. Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin*
  4. Angels Weep by Wilbur Smith
  5. Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro
  6. Art Student’s War by Brad Leithauser
  7. Benjamin Franklin: an American Life by Walter Isaacson
  8. Bring Me a Unicorn by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  9. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks*
  10. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
  11. Cabin Fever by Elizabeth Jolley
  12. Careless Love by Peter Gurlnink
  13. Civil Action by Jonathan Harr
  14. Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan*
  15. Dancer and the Thief by Antonio Skarmeta
  16. Dancer with Bruised Knees by Lynne McFall
  17. Earthly Possessions by Anne Tyler
  18. Eighth Day by Thornton Wilder
  19. Falcon Flies by Wilbur Smith*
  20. Feast of Love by Charles Baxter
  21. First Man by Albert Camus
  22. Flower and the Nettle by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  23. French Revolutions* by Tim Moore.
  24. Georges’ Wife by Elizabeth Jolley
  25. Herzog by Saul Bellow
  26. Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  27. House of Morgan by Ron Chernow – attempted
  28. Illumination Night by Alice Hoffman
  29. Inside Passage by Michael Modzelewski
  30. Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg by H.R.F. Keating
  31. It Looked Like Forever by Mark Harris
  32. Last Train to Memphis by Peter Guralink
  33. Leopard Hunts in the Darkness by Wilbur Smith
  34. Life in the Air Ocean by Sylvia Foley
  35. Lotus Eaters by Tatjani Soli
  36. ADDED: Lulu in Hollywood by Louise Brooks
  37. Men of Men by Wilbur Smith
  38. Now Read This II by Nancy Pearl
  39. Ocean of Words by Ha Jin
  40. Oedipus by Sophocles
  41. Palladian Days by Sally Gable*
  42. Professor and the Housekeeper by Yoko Ogawa
  43. Racing Weight by Matt Fitzgerald
  44. Rose Cafe by John Hanson Mitchell
  45. Rose of Martinique by Andrea Stuart
  46. Run or Die by Kilian Jornet
  47. Running for Mortals by John Bingham
  48. Seeing in the Dark by Timothy Ferris
  49. Sword at Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliff
  50. Thrush Green by Miss Read*
  51. Transcriptionist by Amy Rowland
  52. War Within and Without by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  53. ADDED: Wildwater Walking Club by Claire Cook. A gift from a fellow Just ‘Cause walker 🙂
  54. Winners and Losers by Martin Quigley
  55. Zero Days by Barbara Egbert

Poetry:

  • “Aftermath” ~ a poem by Siegfried Sassoon
  • “Romance” ~ a poem by W.J. Turner
  • “Kubla Khan” ~ a poem by Samuel T. Coleridge

Short Stories:

  • “The Huckabuck Family” by Carl Sandburg
  • “How to Revitalize the Snake in Your Life” by Hannah Tinti
  • “Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury
  • “Thirty Year Old Women Do Not Always Come Home” by Mark Winegardner
  • “Birdland” by Michael Knight
  • “Killer Inside Me” by Jim Thompson (not really a short story, but I treated it as such)
  • “Down There” by David Goodis (again really, not a short story)
  • “Crossing the Craton” by John McPhee. It’s the fifth and final chapter in Annals of the Former World but since it’s less than 50 pages long, I’m treating it as a short story.
  • Lukudi by Adrianne Harun
  • The Eighth Sleeper of Ephesus also by Adrianne Harun

For another year (because I screwed up):

  • Hall of a Thousand Columns by Tim Mackintosh-Smith.

Lulu in Hollywood

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Brooks, Louise. Lulu in Hollywood. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1982.

Louise Brooks, born in 1907, first wanted to be a dancer. When the bright lights of New York City sirened (my word) her away from Wichita, Kansas, she knew she could be a star. She had the looks, the talent and the brains to make it anywhere. She quickly became a darling of the silent film, jet setting between New York, Hollywood and Europe. Her biggest film, Pandora’s Box, was the rise before the fall. All said, her career was a tumultuous one. As an outspoken, difficult actress, Lulu was sometimes fired from jobs as quickly as she had been hired for them. It was no secret she liked to use her sexuality to get her way. She was progressive in ways women wouldn’t dare to be at that time. In Lulu in Hollywood, she used her ability to write to put together a series of autobiographical essays meant to settle the score. Her writing was brilliant. The photographs included in the book are gorgeous. There is no doubt Louise Brooks had a signature style and opinionated mind to match.

Best quotes, “He dreamed of becoming a United States district judge – an unrealized dream, because his abhorrence of boozing, whoring and profanity made him unacceptable to the rough politicians of his day” (p 4) and “I would watch my mother, pretty and charming, as she laughed and made people feel clever and pleased with themselves, but I could not act that way” (p 6).

Reason read: Natalie Merchant came out with a self-titled album that included a song about Louise Brooks. Out of curiosity I wanted to know more about Ms. Brooks.

Book trivia: As mentioned before, Lulu in Hollywood includes some great photography. Louise was a striking girl.

Author fact: Ms. Brooks was an intelligent writer. I ran across words like “unsyncopated” and “provincialism,” proving once and for all not all Hollywood actresses are just pretty faces.

BookLust Twist: none.

Flower and the Nettle

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Lindbergh, Anne Morrow. The Flower and the Nettle: Diaries and Letters 1936 – 1939. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976.

The Flower and the Nettle is Anne’s return to the living. It covers 1936 to 1939. After the death of her first born son she and Charles take their second son, Jon, to England for an “indefinite” stay. They are literally driven out of their own country by the media’s insatiable need to photograph and question the family. First, it was Charles Lindbergh’s fame, then it was the kidnapping and murder of their first child. It is at a rambling rented cottage in England called Long Barn that Anne and Charles can finally relax and be themselves again. Jon is allowed to play freely on the lawn without massive hyper-vigilant supervision. Anne is able to concentrate on her writing. It is here that humor returns to her diaries and letters. She says things like, “It is so delicious” (p 30), and “living passionately in the present” (p 31). Later, after her third son Land is born, Anne and her family move to Illiec off the coast of France. This is the “flower” part of her life. The “nettle” is the approach of World War II and the ensnaring politics. Following Charles to Russia for business Anne vocalizes her discontent with the country. She uses words like dirty, hideous, mediocrity, drab, shoddy, third-rate and glum to describe such things as the poor middle class. She is quick to comment negatively on their fashions and complexions. This took me by surprise. What I needed to keep in mind is the intense scrutiny Anne and her family felt. The longer they stay away from America, the more “pro-Nazi” they are “villainized” as being.

One drawback of skipping a book in a series is the potential to not understand references made to that book in the next one. Because I didn’t read Locked Doors I didn’t grasp Lindbergh’s reference to a previous trip to Russia in 1933.

Favorite lines, “One gets so cramped in ordinary living” (p 76). A good excuse to get out there and do something extraordinary!

As an aside, looking at pictures of Long Barn I can’t help but think what a wonderful place! Don’t tell my husband, but it looks like my dream home! It would have been nice if Lindbergh had included maps of not only her travel destinations, but of the places she and her family lived in Europe.

Reason read: to continue the series started in January, in honor of Journal Month.

Book trivia: Maybe because The Flower and the Nettle is a longer book, there are more photographs. For the first time, Anne includes detailed pictures of the interiors of their residence. Long Barn looks like a place where I would like to live!

Author fact: At this point in Lindbergh’s life she considers herself a serious writer despite already publishing earlier.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Journals and Letters: We Are All Voyeurs at Heart” (p 131).