Tag: memoir

A Full Net

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Daignault, Susan. A Full Net: Fishing Stories from Maine and Beyond. Islandport Press, 2023

Reason read: as a member of the Early Review program for LibraryThing, I occasionally review cool books.

Disclaimer: I have to say this upfront for the sake of being completely honest. I am not a fishing person. The last time I “fished” for anything, it was off the side of a 7′ skiff with my dad. We were dropping lines (complete with lead sinkers) for mackerel that were running in the harbor of Monhegan. I do not remember eating anything we caught, but I do remember winding up the line and the excitement I felt bringing up those beautiful speckled silver and blue fish. [As an aside, the general store used to smoke mackerel in a converted old fridge. They were delicious.]
Having admitted that I am not an avid fishing fan, it makes sense that I could not fully relate to Daignault’s acute passion/obsession for reeling in the biggest big one or the agony of the one(s) that got away. With the latter, I can only equate it to the pain of a DNF in the world of running road races. [There is nothing more embarrassing for a serious runner than a “did not finish” result attached to your bib number. But again, I digress.]
More importantly, because I am not passionate about fish when Daignault went deep into the fishing terminology I felt like she was speaking a foreign language. Luckily, she translates often.
Aside from fishing, as a person, I found Daignault to be an inspiration. She enthusiastically forged her way through what was considered a man’s world with fishing and her chosen career in the Coast Guard. She was the first woman assigned to the 180-foot buoy tender named Firebush in Kodiak, Alaska. Two years at sea in Alaska is no small feat!
Confessional: Beyond the fishing terminology I found A Full Net hard to read at times only because the stories are all over the place and have a chaotic timeline. One minute she is describing something from her childhood and then the story will jump to the 2020s. There is a bit of repetition I needed to battle as well (How many times could she say her family summered on Cape Cod where she had sand in her toes and salt in her hair?). It was if the chapters were written as stand-alone essays.
One last comment. The subtitle of A Full Net is Fishing Stories from Maine and Beyond. Because Daignault is so secretive about her favorite fishing spots, particularly in Maine, she could have titled her book Fishing Stories from the Southern Side of Pluto. I felt she mentioned other locals such as Costa Rica, Louisiana, Florida, the British Virgin Islands, Alaska, and Cape Cod just as often as Maine.

Book trivia: there is an abundance of photographs which add to the charm of Daignault’s story.

Finding Freedom

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French, Erin. Finding Freedom: Celadon, 2021.

Reason read: this was a gift from my sister. I read everything that comes from her, especially if it takes place in Maine.

To say Erin French is a fighter is an understatement. Let’s start with childhood with an mentally abusive father. I think about what kind of person I would be if, unless I was doing something for him, I never received honest love from my father. To watch him drown kittens would be enough to traumatize me for life. [That is the stuff of nightmares, especially if you are too young to understand the necessity of the act.]
Finding Freedom is not only a story of redemption, but one of tenacity. Coming from a small town is almost always seen as a curse. There is a stigma around being from Nowhere, America. You are considered a nobody if you can’t get out. Breaking free and escaping from your small provincial hometown to make it in the “real world” is always the unspoken goal. Erin almost made it out, but when she had a child out of wedlock and had to come crawling home to Freedom, Maine, it should have been a source of shame, but instead the act saved Erin’s life. Even though there were more adversities to come, her son Jaim gave her a reason to live, to fight, and to succeed. Because of him she was able to navigate a horrific (some would say diabolical) divorce, survive a bizarre custody battle for Jaim, conquer an all-consuming alcohol and prescription pill addiction, and find financial stability. She was able to break down every roadblock her ex-husband and her own demons put in front of her.
You may think I have given you spoilers for Finding Freedom. Believe me when I say I haven’t. There is so much more to Erin’s story. Read it for yourself to find out.

Book trivia: Each section of Finding Freedom is separated by a place in Maine: Hope, Unity, Prospect, Liberty, and Freedom. If people are not familiar with rural Maine they might think she is talking about something entirely different.

Quote to quote, “I didn’t want to live a life where dollar amounts dictated dreams” (p 52). Amen to that. My father always told me, do what you love and love what you do. If you live within the means of your passion you will never want for anything.

Playlist: Cesaria Evora, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, Bette Midler’s “Baby of mine”, Stevie Nicks, the Sound of Music soundtrack, and Whitney Houston.

A House in Corfu

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Tennant, Emma. A House in Corfu: a Family’s Sojourn in Greece. Henry Holt and Company, 2002.

Reason read: in January 1981 Greece joined the European community.

So you want a house on the Greek island of Corfu? It is going to take a lot of work…as Emma Tennant’s parents soon found out. In A House in Corfu it is the 1960s and Emma’s parents have been entranced by a spot at the mouth of a mythological bay. Supposedly, this is the spot where Odysseus came ashore; where Nausicaa took him in. The Tennants decide to build a house they name Rovina. Emma Tennant’s romantic descriptions make Rovina sound like a fairytale when it was all said and done, but first there was the initial build where troubles naturally abounded. Water was difficult to find. (The search went on for seven weeks while the family relied on rainwater.) Supplies needed to come by boat from a tiny harbor and hauled up the countryside. Then there were the island politics to navigate. The locals used the land as shortcuts to fishing spots. Then there was the one time Tennant couldn’t return to London. Because of a military coup led by Colonel Papadopoulos the planes refused to fly.
Tennant pays tribute to other Corfu writers like Homer, Durrell, and Edward Lear.
While I enjoyed Tennant’s romantic descriptions, her parenthetic comments and run-on sentences were tiring.

As an aside, I love learning new things. I did not realize Greeks have siestas. dhen pirazei means never mind.

As another aside, I am fascinated by the Judas trees Tennant described. I was able to see one that was one hundred years old while I was in Rome. Unfortunately, it was not in bloom.

Lines I loved, “Greece has entered our blood by now, and we can no longer remember the cool summers back home or the precautions taken when embarking on a picnic or a day by the sea: waterproofs, cardigans, rug that may never be unrolled due to sudden, half-expected rain” (p 148) and “The sea is a great cleanser, of body and soul: to feel at first that you are entering the heart of a sapphire or an aquamarine, then to sink deeper into the water that has cold springs as refreshing as a subaqueous shower, is to know that you will come out transformed, like a creature in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and begin the day again as if you had gone nowhere at all” (p 185).

Author fact: I found it interesting that Tennant does not mention a husband, only a son and friends that travel to Greece with her.

Book trivia: There are no photographs of Rovina in A House in Corfu.

Setlist: Melina Mercouri’s “Never On a Sunday”, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, and the Rolling Stones’ “I Can’t Get no Satisfaction”.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the simple chapter called “Corfu” (p 70).

And a Right Good Crew

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Kimbrough, Emily. And a Right Good Crew. Illustrated by Mircea Vasiliu. Harper and Brothers, 1958.

Reason read: A pleasant end of the year read.

Sophie and Arthur Kober, Howard and Dorothy Lindsay, and Emily Kimbrough make up the “right good” crew. This is the story of the five of them are canal cruising aboard first the Venturer and then the Maid Marysue. They travel between Staffordshire and London with plenty of adventure along the way.
Parts about Kimbrough that made me laugh: she was a self proclaimed arguer. She liked a persuasive dialogue challenge. Throughout And a Right Good Crew she was witty and humorous. I loved how she described herself and her companions as heathens who didn’t know how to make a proper pot of tea. She shamelessly uses her daughter’s pregnancy to gain special treatment while traveling and desperately wanted to see how a game of darts was played. I think I would have liked to be friends with Emily Kimbrough.
A few scenes I enjoyed: shopping in 1950s England. They didn’t supply shoppers with containers for their purchases, (What is old is new again. Maine does provide shopping bags, either.) Arthur Kober’s attempt to steer the Maid Marysue, and the ringing of the bells.
Beyond a pleasant memoir, And a Right Good Crew includes some practical late 1950s information about traveling by canal: a glossary of terms, a step by step directive of how to take a boat through a lock, a list of books for suggested reading, and a tally of basic expenses.

As an aside, if you order a Bloody Mary in London, are you swearing at Mary?

Author fact: Kimbrough grew up in Chicago and developed a sense of wanderlust early on.

Book trivia: be forewarned, the details are a little dated. Case in point, the hire fee for a boat was twenty-nine pounds per week. A charge for a lad was six a week.

Head scratching lines, “He had phrased her incompetence delicately” (p 7), “We continued to impose our involuntary shock treatment” (p 180), and “Neither activity came even in the neighborhood of my comprehension” (p 224).

Setlist: Gershwin’s “A Woman is a Sometime Thing”.

Nancy said: Pearl included And a Right Good Crew as a humorous book about cruising. She had more to say about the book but you should check it out for yourself in Book Lust To Go (p 253).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Water, Water Everywhere” (p 253).

Just Up the Road

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Diehl, Chelsea. Just Up the Road: A Year Discovering People, Places, and What Comes Next in the Pine Tree State. Islandport Press, 2023.

Reason read: This is a very special Early Review book from LibraryThing. I am super excited I won it.

Confessional: I was born in Maine. I have roots in Maine even though I am currently displaced. My family is still in Maine. Needless to say, my heart is still in Maine. And. And! And, mark my words, I will retire to Maine. I predicted I would love Just Up the Road and I did.

I love scavenger hunts. As soon as I read the subtitle of Just Up the Road I had this hope that the book would contain tons people and places I could discover for myself. I was not disappointed. I started a comprehensive list of places to go, activities to try, and restaurants in which to eat. In all, Diehl mentions twenty-three places to hike, thirty-seven activities beyond hiking, and twenty-three restaurants. She also includes a smattering of black and white photographs and fifteen stories of Maine from the perspective of others. Quoting Maine in other people’s words was a touch of humbleness I didn’t expect. While I wanted to call this a guide to Maine, it is most definitely not. There are no maps of the places mentioned. There is no contact information. No hours of operations, emails, or websites. It is a strictly a travelogue/memoir with perfect inserts of Diehl’s opinions, past triumphs, and future dreams with husband, Andrew and daughter, Harper. As an aside, the decision to include Monhegan Island was a no-brainer in my mind, but then again I am uber-biased. Diehl does an excellent job avoiding trope and superfluous flowery language about my hometown. Nowhere in her description does she talk about the magical light or spell-bounding beauty. Blah, blah, blah. She even avoids talking about fairy houses. Bless her heart.
While Diehl is heavy on hiking, she does not seem to be into music. For great places to see music I would add Camden’s Opera House, Rockland’s Strand, Portland’s State Theater, and Brownfield’s Stone Mountain Arts.
Confessional: I wanted to see Home Café in Rockland, the Orono Bog on Bangor, the Rockland Breakwater, or Newscastle Publick House in Newcastle. Just a few of my favorite Maine places beyond music venues.

Playlist: “We’re Off to See the Wizard”, “We Don’t Talk About Bruno”, “the Family Madrigal”, Ella Fitzgerald (spelled wrong), Bessie Smith, “Pretty Woman”, and “Shake Rattle Roll”.

Author fact: I am pretty sure this is Diehl’s first nonfiction.

Book trivia: I know I said Diehl doesn’t include maps or any other business information related to the places she goes, but she does include beautiful black and while photographs.

You or Someone You Love

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Matthews, Hannah. You or Someone You Love: Reflections from an Abortion Doula. Atria, 2023.

Have you ever been around someone so kind, so heart-open and emotionally connected that at turns they embarrass and inspire you? You squirm a little because they are so eager to display all the feels and worse, imparting those raw emotions onto you, but at the same time you admire their ability to be so free with their passions. I know I don’t know what to do when someone is even the slightest bit complimentary or caring and Matthews, within the very first pages of You or Someone You Love, seems overly gentle and loving. I do not need her to call me radiantly gorgeous or perfect. I know I am neither. I need to understand that Matthews wants to set her readers at ease. Her book is a minefield of controversy, pain, anger, shame, and guilt. She doesn’t want to intrude on the fragility of some readers while she unearths the feelings they might have buried deep down. At the same time Matthews wants her initial message to be clear, straightforward and reassuring. Simply: I. Care. For. You. The message is received loud and clear.
I wanted to go beyond healing and actually learn something from reading You or Someone You Love. Here are a few lessons: I had never heard of the Mississippi Appendectomy. I was excited to discover the Native Land map. I never knew one could donate breast milk. But! The ultimate truth: I didn’t expect to learn something about myself in the process. Well played, Matthews.
As an aside, why do we always apologize for our pain? I am bothered when someone apologizes for crying during an interview; when someone says they say sorry for their pain. I get irritated when people are ashamed of their tears and yet, I go to that same place. I apologize for feeling something beyond my control. The section called “Abortion is Pain” resonated. When Matthews was talking about the anticipation of receiving pain, I felt myself tensing, locking, tightening, and clenching in readiness of an imaginary pain yet to be delivered. Just reading the words made me wat to curl into a tight, tight, tight porcupine ball and play dead for all I was worth. But I kept reading and that made all the difference.

Quotes to become bumper stickers: “Hope is the thing I just keep doing” (p 167).

Playlist: “the Mother” by Brandi Carlile.

Wintering

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May, Katherine. Wintering: the Power of Reset and Retreat in Difficult Times. Riverhead Books, 2020.

I feel like this book comes from a place of privilege. How many of us can safely leave employment and snuggle into a season of wintering? I learned to manage my expectations in regards to what I am hoping to “get” out of reading Wintering. I found myself asking what is the difference between an entertaining story and one from which you are supposed to greatly benefit? I want to call Wintering a beautifully written memoir with a message and leave it at that. To think there is a self-help promise was almost too much to ask. Otherwise, if I don’t just call it a memoir, Wintering will be nothing more than a book with an identity crisis. Self-help or self-story? More of the latter is my honest opinion. It is a memoir about navigating a difficult season, if you take wintering in the literal sense.

Lines I liked, “But then, that’s what grief is – a yearning for that one last moment of contact that would settle everything” (p 60), “Even at the ripe old age of forty-one, I’m shy about asking if anyone’s free, lest I make myself look unpopular” (p 129), and my favorite, “My blood sparkled in my veins” (p 180).

A few comments about the favorite quotes. Everyone asked, if you had one more moment with a loved one, what would you say? It’s as if the questioner knows the answer to solving the mystery of regret is to have that one last moment of contact. What is wrong with not having anywhere to go (and no one to ask)? And lastly, I was a member of the Polar Bear Club in my high school days. We didn’t swim year round, but we did jump in Songo pond every spring, just after the thaw.

Setlist: ABBA, “Silent Night”, and “Wichita Lineman”.

Orchid Thief

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Orlean, Susan. The Orchid Thief. Ballantine Books, 1998.

Reason read: I swore I got rid of all categories regarding the best time to travel to a region but somehow this one slipped by. December is the best time to visit the Caribbean. I swear, this is the last one for this category. And! And this book doesn’t really fit in the genre, so there you go. Luckily, I also needed a book with a flower on its cover for the Portland Public Library Reading Challenge…

Orchids have been described as evil, mysterious, challenging, captivating, beautiful, the devil, sexual, an obsession…
John Laroche seemed like an interesting character. Susan Orlean found him to be the most “moral amoral person she had ever known” (p 6). Is this why she chose to write his biography? I don’t think it was for the love of orchids. If I am being honest, Orchid Thief isn’t a biography of John Laroche either.
A few facts I picked up about orchids: They can live seemingly forever; they often outlive their owners. They are incredibly durable despite being difficult to grow from seed. (As an aside, I now want to visit the New York Botanical Gardens to see the 150 year old wonders.) Here’s something I can spout at a party the next time I need small talk: Charles Darrow, the inventor of the game Monopoly, retired at the age of forty-six to devote himself to all things orchids. What is it about these flowers? I see them at Home Depot and think they are garishly ugly.
Then there were all the things I learned about Florida: the development of the swamp lands, the way anything can grow there (I have a story about that for later), the mystery of Osceola’s head. In the end, I came to the conclusion that the whole state of Florida was one big cesspool for scams.
All in all, Orchid Thief was entertaining.

I love it when a book makes me explore history, geography, or biography. This time I needed to seen the image of Annie Paxton sitting on a ginormous lily pad.

So. The Grow Anywhere story. A friend of mine moved to Florida to be closer to his granddaughter. One day he and said granddaughter were eating peaches. Once granddaughter was finished eating the fruit she didn’t know what to do with the pit. She asked her grandfather if she could plant it. They now have a peach tree in their backyard. Whether it is bearing fruit, I do not know.

As an aside, I was reminded of an episode of Northern Exposure when Laroche’s boss couldn’t spend more time with Orlean due to the fact he had Japanese investors in town. Golf course?

Author fact: Orlean used to write for Newsweek.

Book trivia: Orchid Thief started as a piece in a Florida newspaper and the Orlean wrote about it in the New Yorker. Suddenly it became worthy of a whole book.

Playlist: “Polly Wolly Doodle”, “My Darling Clementine”, Grateful Dead, Mama Cass, “Yes, We Have No Bananas Today”, “Down in the Boondocks”, “Jailhouse Rock”, and “It’s My Desire to Live for Jesus”.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in two chapters. First, in “Dewey Deconstructed” (p 73) and again in “Line that Linger, Sentences that Stick” (p 143).

So Many Books, So Little Time

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Nelson, Sara. So Many Books, So Little Time: a Year of Passionate Reading. GP Putman’s Sons, 2003.

Reason read: Read in honor for Melvil Dewey’s birth month. I also needed a book with a title of six words or more for the Portland Public Library Reading Challenge.

The premise of So Many Books, So Little Time is simple. Nelson has set out to read a book a week. Fifty-two books in fifty-two weeks. To some people that is a herculean task. To others, it might be child’s play. It all depends on the book…and the reader, for that matter. Only Nelson’s plan falls apart in the very first week. Her first book is a bust. So is the next one. And the next one. So Many Books, So Little Time turns out to be a memoir about books read, books skimmed, and books skipped (a total of 266 titles if you are curious).
Disclaimer: I am about to have so many meltdowns about this book and for various reasons. Please excuse my childish temper tantrums.
Rant #1: even the dust jacket states that Nelson chronicles a year’s worth of reading in So Many Books, So Little Time. Indeed, there is a section at the end of the book called “What I Actually Did Read” and it lists twenty-one books. Even what she planned to read is vague (she lists twenty-three books by name). What happened to the fifty-two? The Heartburn (March 22) and the Bird By Bird (April 6) chapters were how I thought the entire book would read. I was really looking forward to that. Here’s the weird thing. In the appendix of books actually read, Heartburn and Bird By Bird are not mentioned. And if you look a little closer she only read nineteen books, reread another, and skimmed another. Again I ask, what happened to fifty-two?
Rant #2: I didn’t understand her freaking out when someone didn’t share her opinion about a book. What is the big deal if you disagree? That is what makes books and people interesting. Imagine how boring a book club would be if everyone had the same opinion about a book?
Rant #3: Nelson will reread a book if she loved it. With so many books and so little time I move on from a reread unless I don’t remember the plot or it doesn’t take that much time. Why spend so time on something you already know?
Rant #4: What was her deal with Mitch Albom? I honestly feel she was a little jealous of his relationship with a mentor. Tuesdays with Morrie was not just an “All I Really Needed to Know” kindergarten lesson. It was about human (re)connection with a person who was dying; squeezing out as much time as possible with someone. Also, what was her deal with making excuses about reading Mary Higgins Clarke? It was if she was embarrassed to read something non-academic. Everybody needs some fun now and again.
Rant #5: The chapter on Anthony Bourdain was less about Kitchen Confidential and more about Nelson’s personal feelings towards the man. I found myself asking what was the point exactly? Maybe I am a little sensitive because the man committed suicide since the publication of So Many Books…
All is all, I felt So Many Books, So Little Time was an opportunity for Nelson to rattle off all the books she has either read, partially read, read and given up on, or only skimmed. In the end I found myself finishing just to see what books we had in common (202).

Confessional – there is a lot of Nelson’s story that I can relate to:

  1. She talks about double-booking (reading two books at once). However, I often read six at once.
  2. She talks about having a book at all times so that she is never bored. I do the same thing except I explain it as never having to wait for anything whether it be in line at the grocery store or in a doctor’s office.
  3. She talks about the dilemma of having to chose what to read. Imagine trying to figure out when to read over 5,000 books. For that same reason I know what I am reading (and in what order) for the next twenty-five years if I live that long.
  4. She talks about separating owned books from unowned. I do the same on LibraryThing. Only I don’t own a lot of my books. I support local libraries by borrowing, borrowing, borrowing.
  5. She talks about having a rule that you only read a percentage of a book you don’t like. I do the exact same thing. Why waste time with something that doesn’t hold your attention?
  6. She has horrible memories of trying to play organized sports in middle school. Try never seeing an organized sport until high school. Talk about childhood trauma!
  7. She misses conversations with her father. Me too. Every. Single. Day.
  8. She spends a lot of time talking about books she reread (Roth) and books she couldn’t get into. I couldn’t read Infinite Jest either.

Here is how I can’t relate:

  1. Nelson can’t read in the car. Luckily, I do some of my best reading in a moving vehicle. Plane, boat, car, train, treadmill, it doesn’t matter.

Author fact: Nelson went to the same high school as a few friends of mine. She went to the same college as my grandfather.

Book trivia: There are 266 books mentioned by title in So Many Books. I probably missed a title here or there. To be honest, when she mentioned movies or television shows I thought they were books because, as you all know, I am not up on my visual arts.

Playlist: Bessie Smith, Bob Dylan’s “Motorpsycho Nightmare”, a Chorus Line, Frank Sinatra, John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Rolling Stones’s “Sticky Fingers”, Roseann Cash, Bruce Springsteen, Jefferson Airplane, Glace Slick, and “Somebody to Love”.

Nancy said: I think Pearl described So Many Books, So Little Time better than Nelson when she said it was a collection of essays about books Nelson has read.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Dewey Deconstructed” (p 62).

Writing New York

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Lopate, Phillip, ed. Writing New York: a Literary Anthology. Library of America, 1998.

Reason read: First and foremost, the Portland Public Library has an annual reading challenge and this satisfies the category of anthology. Second reason: the New York Gypsy Festival takes place in October and November.

Literature written for and about New York is organized in chronological order in Writing New York: a Literary Anthology. In the diary of Philip Hone you will read about a child abandoned on his doorstep. Henry David Thoreau goes wandering around Staten Island looking for nature. You will read the day-long observations of Nathaniel Parker Willis. Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener has a place. Fanny Fern, also known as Sara Payson Willis, contributes as the first woman newspaper columnist in the United States. You’ll learn that O. Henry started writing fiction in prison. James Huneker will tell you about the New York public urban parks: Battery, Corlears (which I had never heard of before), Gramercy, Bronx, and Central, to name a few. Charles Reznikoff would walk twenty miles a day and by default find interesting material for his poetry. (All I want to know is what happened to the lost shirt.) E.B. White chimes in. William Carlos Williams was called the “bard of Rutherford, New Jersey”, but he wrote about New York City with such eloquence. You will read a fraction of a biography of LaGuardia by Robert Moses and hear from Henry Miller, William Burroughs, Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion, Ralph Ellison, and so many more. The mini biography of Lady Day was my favorite.

As an aside, you know I can’t write a review about a New York book without mentioning Natalie Merchant, right? When Lopate mentioned the contrasts of New York, I instantly thought of “Carnival” when Natalie sings about wealth and poverty. Later on, Walt Whitman has a poem about New York and that instantly reminded me of “Song of Himself” off Natalie’s new Keep Your Courage album.

Favorite lines. From Philip Hone The Diary: “It is too much for the frailty of human nature and I am off to the Springs tomorrow to get out of the way” (p 32). I can only assume he means Saratoga Springs. Here is another from The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson, “New York City’s the most fatally fascinating thing in America” (p 387). “Thus I take leave of my lost city” from F. Scott Fitzgerald (p 578), and “Laughter is a beautiful obituary” from “Lou Stillman” by Jimmy Cannon (p 933).

Confessional: I skipped Domestic Manners of the Americans by Fanny Trollope and The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos because I had already read them. I also skipped the excerpts from Dawn Powell’s diaries because she is on my list for another time.

Editor fact: If you Google Phillip Lopate, you will find a picture of him with a cat.

Book trivia: the copyright page is cool. Words form the shape of the Empire State Building.

Playlist: Beethoven, “Blue Bell”, Bessie Smith, Benny Goodman, Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata”, Ben Webster, Billie Holiday, Chick Webb, Count Basie, Charlie Parker, “Charlie’s Elected Now”, Coleman Hawkins, “Danny By My Side”, Duke Ellington, E. Power Biggs, Ethel Waters, Fats Waller, George Gershwin, Gladys Bentley, “Hello, Central, Give Me No Man’s Land”, “He May Be Your Man But He Come to See Me Sometime”, John Coltrane, Louis Armstrong, Lester Young, “Orange Blossom Waltz”, Paul Robeson, Prologue to Pagliacci, Puccini, Roy Eldridge, Roland Hayes, “St. James Infirmary”, “Swanee River”, “Take Your Time, Miss Lucy”, Trixie Smith, Thelonious Monk, “Under the Bamboo Tree”, and “You Called Me Baby Doll a Year Ago”.

Nancy said: Pearl called Writing New York “a deliriously diverse mix of writers…too bulky to carry around” (Book Lust To Go p 152).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “New York City: a Taste of the Big Apple” (p 151). To be fair, Writing New York is about more than just New York City. It covers people and cultures as well.

Za’atar Days, Henna Nights

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Masood, Maliha. Za’atar Days, Henna Nights: Adventures, Dreams, and Destinations Across the Middle East. Seal Press, 2006.

Reason read: October is hero month and I would consider Masood a sort of superhero for traveling around by the seat of her pants.

Masood straddles that line between American and Pakistani, Pakistani and American. Born in Pakistan, her family moved to America when Masood was in middle school. Now, eighteen years later, Masood is traveling haphazardly through the Middle East. She bought a one-way ticket with no intention of having a specific itinerary. It was a journey just be to on a journey. One could call it a trek to Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Turkey as some sort of spiritual quest to find herself or get back to her ancestral roots. Did she? I’m not really certain. To be sure, Masood had some crazy adventures (some more dangerous than others), she had a few cultural misunderstandings, and she relied heavily on the natives she befriended (I felt bad for the men who fell in love with her). All in all, she survived her seventeen months of travel relatively unscathed.

As an aside, I had no idea pollution was a thing in Cairo.

Confessional: Tommy Rivs got me interested in the poetry of Mary Oliver. Masood includes one of Tommy’s favorites, “Listen, are you breathing just a little, and call it a life?”
Second confession: Because of Natalie Merchant’s album “Keep Your Courage” I have been paying attention to mentions of Walt Whitman. Masood also reads Walt.

Reason read: there is such a thing as za’atar days, the celebration of the spice.

Playlist: “Staying Alive”, U2, Phil Collins, Pavarotti, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Duran Duran’s “Union of the Snake”, Umm Kulthum, “Enta Omri” (as an aside, Masood spelled Umm’s name as Om Khoulsoum and the song as “Inta Omri”. I couldn’t find singer or song with those spellings) Amr Diab (as another aside, this guy is very good looking), Fairuz, Saleh, Wadi al Safi, Jose Fernandez, Elvis Presley, and Billy Joel.

Nancy said: Pearl did not say anything specific about Za’atar Days.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “A Mention of the Middle East” (p 148).

When Broken Glass Floats

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Him, Chanrithy. When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge. W.W. Norton and Company, 2000.

Reason read: I needed to pair a nonfiction book on history with a historical fiction on the same subject for the Portland Public Library 2023 Reading Challenge. Both When Broken Glass Floats (nonfiction) and For the Sake of All Living Things (fiction) are about the days of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. I am also reading When Broken Glass Floats in honor of the monarchy of Cambodia being restored in the month of September.

Many times, more times than I could count, I found myself trying to put myself in Him’s shoes. Having her brother waste away and die before her very eyes. The utter grief she experienced when her father left for “orientation” before she could say goodbye (not to mention his subsequent murder). Those are only some of the devastating events Him experienced during the rein of Pol Pot terror. Then came the never-ending slave labor and extreme starvation. One by one, her family withers and dies. How does one survive such constant suffering? Him is courageous and her will to survive is astounding.
Confessional: Despite the horrors Him relates in When Broken Glass Floats, there was a fascinating component of describing cultural superstitions. When Him’s brother is dying it was believed he urinated on someone’s grave and that is why, during the worst of his illness, he could not speak or relieve himself.

Author fact: Chanrithy is a human rights activist as well as an author.

Book trivia: one of the maps in When Broken Glass Floats is curious. Places are pinned as meals: supper, breakfast, dinner, dessert, snack, and lunch.

Playlist: Sinsee Samuth, Ros Sothea, and Leo Sayer’s “I Love You More Than I Can Say”.

Nancy said: Pearl called When Broken Glass Floats heartbreaking and unforgettable.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter simply called “Cambodia” (p 47).

Seasons of Rome

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Hofmann, Paul. The Seasons of Rome. Illustrated by Joanne Morgante. Henry Holt and Company, 1997.

Reason read: Kisa and I are going to Rome in a few months.

Paul Hofmann decided to record daily life in Rome for one year. He wanted to remember how the city and its people lived through 1994 to 1995. Each chapter takes place in a different month, beginning in September. Why start in September? I have no idea. Hofmann writes about Rome with an air of authority that borders on possessiveness. It is obvious he loves his city.
Things I learned about Rome from thirty years ago. Holidays and Sunday closures made it nearly impossible to by medicine or milk, but the good news was that you would be able to find parking. And speaking of cars in 1994, 16,000 people were permitted to take their cars into the center, but only 12,000 were admitted. Sounds like a scam to me. Although, fifty years earlier (1945), Hofmann was allowed to park his Jeep at the Vatican, thanks to being a war correspondent with the New York Times (Rome was just liberated by the Allies six month prior).
I love it when assumptions are turned on their heads. Here is one of mine. When I think of religious figures, I think of monks living in monasteries or ministers in parsonages. I think humble. Very humble. So, it was strange to read about a pope needing a heliport or an Italian air force to warn him of inclement weather before flying. Then it dawned on me…Vatican City. Oh.
Thanks to Hofmann’s book, there are other elements of Rome I cannot wait to check out: is there some kind of memorial to Keats at No. 66 Piazza di Spagna? There was not at the time of Hofmann’s book. Where do I find a mechanical creche? Does the C line from the Colosseum to the Vatican exist yet?
This is a charming book, albeit, a little outdated.

As an aside, I can see Dermot writing a song and using the word sirocco. I have no idea why, but it is a very passionate word in my mind and it fits the way he writes. And speaking of Dermot, he revealed where in Rome she said “I wish we could stay”. You can bet the Kisa and I will be trying to visit that place.

Author fact: at the time of publication, Hofmann was chief of the New York Times bureau in Rome. He passed away in 2008.

Book trivia: The Seasons of Rome was illustrated by Joanne Morgante.

Playlist: Verdi’s “Aida”, “Requiem”, and “Rigoletto”, Maria Callas, Wagner, Herbert von Karajan, Danna Takova, Puccini, and Maria Jeritza.

Nancy said: Pearl called Seasons of Rome immensely interesting.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Roman Holiday” (p 188).

9 Highland Road

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Winerip, Michael. 9 Highland Road: sane living for the mentally ill. Pantheon Books, 1994.

Reason read: 9 highland Road is in New York. New York became a state in July so…

Winerip combines triumph of the spirit with the harsh realities of prejudice. The mentally ill have more than just their sickness to battle. People are afraid of what they do not understand. They make assumptions that all mentally ill are violent, crude, childlike, or sexually deviant. Unlike an obvious injury like a broken leg a schizophrenic or multiple personality disorder cannot wave their affliction in your face and tell you when it will be healed. No one wants the likes of them in their neighborhood. In the pages of 9 Highland Road Winerip pulls back the curtain on the political controversies and uncovers the fear-induced prejudices about group homes for the mentally ill. He does not sugarcoat the harsh realities of childhood traumas that are at the core of some patients’ initial break with reality: psychological, verbal and physical abuses in the form of violence, rape, incest and torture. What was particularly stunning were the varying degrees of responsibility families accept regarding the wellbeing of their son or daughter. Winerip also touches lightly on the problem of homelessness and delves more deeply into the miracles of modern medicine.

As an aside, when NIMBY first came about a whole bunch of NIMBY signs popped up around Monhegan Most of them pertain to dog crap and wandering tourists.

As another aside, I just finished watching an episode of “The Fully Monty” and there was a character who was a talented artist but he was also a schizophrenic. At one point he tries to commit suicide because Jesus was telling him he could fly away from the devil.

Author fact: Winerip was nominated for a Pulitzer for his reporting.

Book trivia: a word of warning. When Winerip wrote 9 Highland Road the word retarded wasn’t considered offensive. If he were to rewrite the book today I am hoping he would refrain from using it.

Playlist: “We Got To Get Out Of This Place” by the Animals, “Nights in the Garden of Spain”, “Whiter Shade of Pale”, “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”, Beatles, “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen”, “Amazing Grace”, Georgia On My Mind”, Beethoven, Billy Joel, Mozart, Cat Stevens, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Bob Dylan, “Bye, Bye Miss American Pie”, “If I Had a Hammer”, “Feliz Navidad”, Maria”, “Let It Be”, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, “Without you” by Harry Nilsson, “Yesterday”, “Can’t Live Without You”, and Tom Petty.

Nancy said: Pearl called 9 Highland Road sensitive.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the simple chapter called “Social Studies” (p 204). Just a comment: we have such a widespread problem with the mentally ill that Pearl could have included a whole informative chapter on the subject.

Attic of Dreams

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Neagley, Marilyn Webb. Attic of Dreams: a memoir. Rootstock Publishing, 2022.

Reason read: this is a pick from the Early Review program with LibraryThing.

Do you remember those View Master toys we used to have as kids? The wheel of photographs would display scenes like Old Faithful, the Grand Canyon, or the craters of the moon. You could swap out the disc of landscapes for one of exotic animals: look at these lions, eagles, and snakes instead! Reading Attic of Dreams was like viewing Neagley’s life through a View Master toy. Small but powerful images. Click. Memories condensed into a few images at a time. Click. Her childhood was punctured by the fangs of an abandonment only alcoholic addiction can bring. Click. The sting is painful. When Neagley isn’t remembering her parents drinking, Neagley had an idyllic childhood full of glamorous aunts, penny candy, and cloud-watching with girlfriends. As an adult, Neagley grows more involved in conservation and fights to establish the now famous educational nonprofit for sustainable living. She marries, have children and travels the world, but never losing the memory of childhood traumas.
As an aside, I am jealous Neagley got to meet Maxfield Parish.

Line I hope Neagley keeps: “Our emotional distance is smoldering” (p 79).

Playlist: “Auld Lang Syne”, Bob Dylan, Cole Porter’s “Begin the Beguine”, “Down By the Station”, “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad”, Jean Redpath, Joan Baez, Jo Stafford, Lawrence Welk, “Look For the Silver Lining”, “Let’s Twist”, Loudon Wainright III’s “Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road” and “I Am the Way”, Mozart, Nana Mouskouri, Nat King Cole, “On Top of Old Smoky”, Paul Winter, Phil Ochs, “Scarlett Ribbons”, “Seven Shades of Blue”, “Stardust”, “Stormy Weather” “Twelve Days of Christmas”, “Yellow Bird”, “Rock of Ages”, Tchaikovsky’s Concerto #1 and “Where is Love?”.

Author fact: Marilyn Neagley is the director of the Talk About Wellness initiative.

Book trivia: there are no photographs to grace Attic of Dreams.