Tag: NonFiction

August ’12 was…

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August was a little of this and a little of that. Some people will notice I have made some changes to the book challenge – some changes more noticeable than others. For starters, how I review. I now add a section of why I’m reading the book. For some reason I think it’s important to include that in the review. Next, how I read. I am now adding audio books into the mix. I am allowing myself to add an audio book in “trapped” situations when holding a book and keeping my eyes on the page might be an inconvenience (like flying) or endanger someone (like driving). I’m also making a effort to avoid wasting time on books I don’t care for (like Honore de Balzac). One last change: I am not as stringent about reading something within the month. If I want to start something a little early because it’s right in front of my face then so be it.
What else was August about? August was also the month I lost my dear Cassidy for a week. I spent many a night either in an insomniac state or sitting on the back porch, reading out loud in hopes the sound of my voice would draw my calico to me. The only thing it yielded was more books finished in the month of August. She finally came home one week later.
Anyway, enough of all that. I’ll cry if I continue. Onto the books:

I started the month by reading and rereading Tattoo Adventures of Robbie Big Balls by Robert Westphal. This was the first time I read and reviewed a book after meeting the author. I wanted to get it right. I also wanted to make sure I was an honest as possible about the situation. Everything about this review was unusual. For the challenge:

  • After You’ve Gone by Alice Adams ~ I read this in three days and learned a valuable lesson about Adams’s work: read it slowly and parse it out. Otherwise it becomes redundant.
  • Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin ~ I read this in ten days, tucking myself in a study carrell and reading for an hour everyday.
  • Fahrenheit 541 by Ray Bradbury ~ an audio book that only took me nine days to listen to.
  • Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum ~ read with Wicked by Gregory Maguire. I took both of these to Maine and had oodles of car-time to finish both.
  • We Took to the Woods by Louise Dickinson Rich ~ this was probably my favorite nonfiction of the challenge. Rich’s Maine humor practically jumped off the page. I read this to Cassidy.
  • The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder ~ I read this in three days, again hiding myself away in a study carrell.
  • Ten Hours Until Dawn by Tougis ~ another audio book. I’m glad I listened to this one as opposed to reading it. Many reviewers called it “tedious” and I think by listening to it I avoided that perspective.
  • The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson ~ I read this in two days (something I think I thought I was going to get to in June).
  • All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque ~ I read this in honor of World War I ending. I also read it in one night while waiting for Cassidy to come home.
  • The Lives of the Saints by Nancy Lemann ~ also read in one night. In honor of New Orleans and the month Hurricane Katrina rolled into town.
  • Kristin Lavransdatter: the Cross by Sigrid Undset ~ finally put down the Norwegian trilogy!

For the Early Review Program with LibraryThing:

  • The Most Memorable Games in New England Patriots History by Bernard Corbett and Jim Baker. This was supposed to be on my list a year ago. Better late than never.
  • Sex So Great She Can’t Get Enough by Barbara Keesling. This took me an inordinate amount of time to read. Guess I didn’t want to be seen in public with it.

Book Lust To Go and Other Lusts

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Pearl, Nancy. Book Lust To Go: Recommended Reading for Travelers, Vagabonds, and Dreamers. Seattle: Sasquatch Books, 2010.

This was a gift from my sister; a very evil gift. Wait. I have to clarify – it was an unintended evil gift. She didn’t know it would wreak havoc with my life with books. I enjoy this kind of havoc. Really, I do. I am a glutton for punishment, to be sure.
But, back to reviewing Book Lust to Go. At first blush, Book Lust to Go appears to be better organized and with less mistakes in the index than the other Lust books. Just to give you a frame of reference I counted 60 books that were mentioned in the text of Book Lust but not included in the index. Eleven authors were missed in the same fashion.  27 Poems were missed in the index. Lastly, there were over 40 other miscellaneous mistakes (misspelled author names,  incorrect page numbers and so on and so forth) and this is just Book Lust. I haven’t counted the mistakes in More Book Lust. Book Lust To Go doesn’t have those problems…yet. To be fair I haven’t read the index yet. I’ll get to that eventually.
Another difference is there is less meandering. What do I mean by that? Basically, most of the books mentioned in a particular chapter are actually relevant to the chapter. In other Book Lust books there are quite a few “off topic” selections; books that have nothing to do with the chapter but mentioned anyway. I saw those mentions as filler. As with the other Lust books there is a fair amount of redundancy as well. Of the 540 books I have read so far 71 of them were mentioned in more than one Lust book and 69 titles received a double mention in the same book.
Two huge differences between BLTG and the other Lust books is the help Pearl receives with suggestions. Pearl admits she doesn’t travel and has asked other people for recommendations. How do I feel about this? Well, I always assumed Pearl read everything she recommends and knowing that isn’t the case is a little disappointing. The fact that it is blatantly obvious in BLTG is a letdown. The last difference I will mention is the interviews. None of the other Lust books have web interviews. I have yet to actually listen to one (too busy reading the book), but I will. This is something I am really excited about!

The Sea Around Us

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Carson, Rachel L. The Sea Around Us. New York: Oxford University Press, 1951.

Carson is so lyrical in her writing. Beauty on the page. When reading The Sea Around Us I could practically smell the salt air, feel the sea rise and fall under my feet. Her words lulled me like the ocean always does. In addition, Carson writes in such a straight forward manner you are never caught up in textbook language. You are never bored. Entertained as you learn. She is not above calling something she doesn’t understand just plain “weird.” The one drawback? Some of the material is out of date. When Carson describes the diving helmets of the 1950s I wondered what she would think of today’s technology. Another mystery of her time was how whales and fur seals could endure the pressure changes in the depths of the ocean. Science has since uncovered that mystery and then some.

Reason read: August is one of the best months to be on the ocean.

Author Fact: Carson was an environmentalist who won the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She is another author who suffered breast cancer. Linda Lear runs a classy website dedicated to Carson (and others).

Book Trivia: The Sea Around Us won a National Book Award and was a best seller. It was also made into a documentary and won an Oscar in 1953.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Dewey Deconstructed: the 500s” (p 71).

Ten Hours Until Dawn

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Tougias, Michael J., Ten Hours Until Dawn: the True Story of Heroism and Tragedy Aboard the Can Do. Read by Joe Barrett. Blackstone Audio, 2006.

I grew up on the water. As a child I went to sleep with the sound of the surf crashing in my ears. I could see the ocean out my schoolhouse windows. To go anywhere special I had to ride across the waves for over an hour. At an early age I was taught to respect the sea, to love the sea and yes, even to fear it. The very idea of drowning in the ocean fills me with such a horror I cannot fully articulate. I knew picking  up Ten Hours Until Dawn would be  a lesson in breathing through fear. I knew I did not want to face the doomed men of the Can Do. For that reason alone I chose to listen to Tougias’s story instead of read it.

Tougias was obviously influenced by Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger when he wrote Ten Hours Until Dawn. There have been many comparisons made of the two ocean-tragic books. In listening to the audio version of Ten Hours Until Dawn I appreciated the detail with which Tougias recounted the Can Do’s final hours thanks to actual radio transmission transcripts. In addition Tougias included many stories of other rescues and tragedies to illustrate his point of just how dangerous the ocean could be. The arch enemy of a boat is wind and the blizzard of 1978 produced winds topping 100 miles an hour. Seas were well over 40 feet. Tougias paints a touching biography of Frank Quirk, the civilian pilot-boat captain who gathered four other men to brave the blizzard elements to assist in the rescue of two other Coast Guard boats in peril that day. My only “complaint” would be of myself. Because Tougias includes many different rescues to illustrate different points (the bravery of a certain man, an example of fierce weather, the sea worthiness of a boat) if I wasn’t paying attention, I would get confused as to which tragedy Tougias was recounting. He frequently bounced between the “current” action of the Can Do and other incidents that happen before and after 1978.

As an aside, I loved Joe Barrett reading Ten Hours Until Dawn because he did such a good job with the voices. The nasal Boston accents cracked me up!

Reason Read: I threw this on my August list because June, July and August are the three months I love to be on the water.

Author Fact: In addition to sea stories I’m guessing Tougias likes to hike. He has coauthored several books about hiking across Massachusetts. I’m thinking about picking up one or two of them.

Book Trivia: As mentioned earlier, too many people like to compare Ten Hours Until Dawn to Sebastian Junger’s Perfect Storm. Like Perfect Storm I think they should make a movie out of Ten Hours Until Dawn!

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “See the Sea” (p 201).

The Most Memorable Games

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Baker, Jim and Bernard M. Corbett. The Most Memorable Games in Patriots History: the Oral History of a Legendary Team. Bloomsbury, USA, 2012.

I think I was rubbed the wrong way by this book immediately. In the introduction there is an assumption about the reader (and ultimately of the New England Patriot fan); that their involvement with football is “from the comfort of your couch” (p vii). How do you know your reader hasn’t shelled out thousands of dollars to be season ticket holders? How do you know your reader isn’t some lowly ball boy or towel warmer who, for the love of the game, is on the sidelines come snow, sleet or hail every Sunday, a random Monday and sometimes Thursday? Maybe the owner of the New England Patriots is reading your words?

The Most Memorable Games in Patriots History starts at the very beginning, September 9th, 1960 with the Boston Patriots. There is an astonishing overabundance of far reaching detail not necessarily related to the New England Patriots; so much information it would take a lifetime to confirm it all if you had to. I found that the appendices in the middle of each chapter were, more often than not, irrelevant to the title of the book. In fact, a bulk of The Most Memorable Games in Patriots History had nothing to do with the most memorable games in Patriots history. A chapter could be called “Pittsburgh Steelers at New England Patriots Divisional Playoffs January 5, 1997” but contain a section called “the 1996 Giants.” Approximately two thirds of the narrative is dedicated to setting the stage with approximately 150 pages dedicated to each game. Throughout the book you will find information on the most years without a home playoff victory (any team), the history of the tiebreaker game (any team), a history of other Boston-area sports inaugurals (Red Sox, Celtics, Bruins, even the Boston Marathon), a bio on Jim Nance, single score games since 1943 (any team)…I could go on. All of this information is interesting. I just wish it had been organized in the book better.
My favorite parts of the book were the detailed play by plays of what happened on the field during each of the most memorable games…when they finally got around to talking about them. It was especially exciting if it happened to be a game I attended. I could relive the game through the players own words. However, Baker and Corbett take a long time to set the stage. This is not for the casual football fan.

Sex So Great

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Keesling, Barbara. Sex So Great She Can’t Get Enough. Lanham: M Evans, 2012.

Before you start scratching your head and thinking I’ve lost my mind let me say but one thing: yes, I am reviewing a sex book for men. Call me a raging feminist but as a woman I had something to prove by requesting this book from the Early Review program. LibraryThing called my bluff and here I am. I want to believe I can review any book and that I’m not restricted by my gender or narrow mind. When asking for books to review I don’t want to be limited by genre or preference. I think I am capable of taking any subject matter and giving it a fair shake – MY fair shake. I also requested Sex So Great to play devil’s advocate. What if a man is too shy to buy such a book? What if a guy is just the opposite, too egotistical to believe he needs such a book? Either spectrum of a man’s ego could deter him from furthering a sexual education with Dr. Keesling. What if I dated a man and knew he needed the good doctor’s help? Could I buy the book, translate her knowledge into my own words and garner a better sex life for myself in the process? Not exactly. This is a book primarily written TO men with one curious section for women discussing vaginal shaving. (As a side note, what’s a man supposed to do? Hand the book over and say, “here honey, this part is for you”? So, having said all that let’s turn to Sex So Great She Can’t Get Enough.

I want to commend Barbara Keesling for her calm, gentle, and understanding (and sometimes humorous) manner with which she writes. You can tell immediately by the language she uses and the tone she conveys that she is has expertise when talking to people about sensitive subjects, not just men about sex. She is super careful not to offend. Let’s face it, men are sensitive about their private parts. As a woman, you can never call him “little” or “wimpy.” Leave that up to him. Self degradation is completely acceptable. Based on Keesling’s writing style I would say she is a good therapist and her other books (at the least the ones related to sex) are equally approachable. Sex So Great is mostly common sense advice that would sound just silly coming from my mouth. Keesling exaggerates the vulnerability and timidness of a woman to prove a point. Every moment a man makes must be slow and thoughtful. He could easily frighten his woman away. That’s not entirely true, but I get it.
Don’t get me know. Sex So Great had it’s educational moments for me, too. For instance, I never knew men should exercise their pubococcygeus muscle or practice a series of breathing routines for improved sex.
So. In the end, could I read the book and pass along the information to my lover? Some of it, sure. But like trying to give myself a foot massage it won’t be as effective and it certainly won’t feel as good.

We Took to The Woods

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Rich, Louise Dickinson. We Took to the Woods. Kingsport: Kingsport Press, 1942.

I love it when a book is so fun to read you don’t notice the time. You simply start reading and suddenly it’s three hours later and you are practically finished with the entire thing. Such is the case with We Took to the Woods. Rich is a fantastic storyteller. What makes her story even more appealing is the fact it’s a true story (complete with photographs) and Rich has a great sense of humor. Maine humor, if you will. It’s a great combination.
Probably the most fascinating element to We Took to the Woods is how current it is 70 years after being published. You can read about living in a cabin deep in the woods of Maine today and find it eerily similar to how Rich described it back then. A simple way of life is a simple way of life. I guess you could say simplicity barely changes. Rich divides her chapters into the most frequently asked questions she has had to answer over the years: “But how do you make a living?” “Aren’t you ever frightened?” and “Do you get out very often?” to name a few. It’s as if she wrote the book to shut people up about her unique lifestyle, living in the far Northern section of Maine in the middle of nowhere.

Favorite lines (and there were a few of them): “I see no point in being modest about the things you know you do well” (p 47), “You can neither remodel nor ignore a thing as big as winter” (p 62), and “It’s unreasonable, I know; but some fears lie beyond reason” (p 76). Here are two that illustrate her sense of humor: ” I can also run my household as badly as I please, and our house guests can sun-bathe in the altogether without hindrance” (p 307) and “I find her very tiresome at close range, but at a distance I rather admire her spirit” (p 307-308).

AS an aside – Rich writes about the hurricane of 1938 and how it felled enough trees to make a giant log jam. I find it interesting I am also reading about another natural disaster, the blizzard of 1978 – forty years later.

Reason read: We Took to the Woods takes place in Maine. Maine has an annual lobster festival in Rockland every August. A coastal celebration is enough reason to read about the Rangeley woods.

Author Fact: Louise Dickinson Rich didn’t start off as a writer. She was a teacher first, but always wanted to write a book. I’m glad she did.

Book Trivia: We Took to the Woods was Rich’s first book. She went on to write another one that has been on my bookshelf for years.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “The Maine Chance” (p 135).

postscript~ I doubt I will forget We Took to the Woods anytime soon. Coincidentally, it is the book I chose to read aloud to Cassidy when she went missing her first night in the woods.

Tattoo Adventures of Robbie Big Balls

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Westphal, Robert. Tattoo Adventures of Robbie Big Balls (Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs, and Cigarettes). 48HrBooks, 2012.

DISCLAIMER: This book review is not for the Book Lust Challenge nor is it an Early Review for LibraryThing. I picked up Tattoo Adventures of Robbie Big Balls by Robert Westphal from a tattoo shop on Maui. Even though Kisa did get a tattoo from Westphal himself I did not receive compensation or a discount on my ink as a result of this review. A DVD comes with the book so I will include that in the review. Example of Westphal’s talent:
RobTreephoto 3_3

Second disclaimer: I should have titled this blog “Shame on Me.” Shame on me for still not knowing you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. You just can’t. Here’s the deal: I am always leery of self indulgent crap and to look at the cover of Tattoo Adventures you would think that’s what we’re dealing with. The outside of the book yields no proper publisher information whatsoever. Westphal’s name is nowhere to be found. It looks sort of snarky. More often than not all-about-me crap leads to larger piles of shit because the self professed writer/author thinks he’s gotten somewhere literary because the first dump he took was successful. In reality said crapper is an intelligent fuck who can articulate his thoughts on paper and group words together to form coherent sentences. I’ll be honest. My disdain for such excrement exists because I read such a waste of brain space last January and I haven’t recovered. Obviously. I fully expected Westphal’s book to be nothing more than a series of exaggerated sexual conquests only made possible by the sheer luck he is a tattoo artist. I predicted one completely unbelievable fuck story after another without an intelligent sentence in between. I was wrong. Completely and utterly wrong. Never, ever judge a book by its cover and shame on me for trying.

Now that I have that out of my system. I liked, no, loved Tattoo Adventures of Robbie Big Balls. It was the break from boring I was looking for. Westphal begins Tattoo Adventures by describing the five different types of customers he potentially could see while tattooing. If you are a customer of Maui Atomic Tattooing and if you are anything like me you will spend an inordinate amount of time trying to decide which type of customer Westphal has you pegged for. The rest of Tattoo Adventures is a series of seriously funny short stories delivering exactly what Westphal promised on his cover – his adventures in the world of tattooing and beyond. Think of Robert Westphal as that bartender-ish, incredibly patient therapist doling out life philosophies while dispensing pain punctuated with doses of hilarity. For example, the chapter called “The Tattoo and Its Meaning.” What would you do if you thought your new tattoo meant something completely different than the reality? Or, “Fucking Cops and Donuts.” If you were arrested for child molestation who would believe you if you professed your innocence? Trust me. It’s funny.
My advice? Forgive the quirky margins, ignore the less than professional cover, and disregard the lack on continuity. Take a huge bite of Tattoo Adventures of Robbie Big Balls and swallow it down. Gorge on Westphal’s stories with a strong appetite, a sense of humor, and an appetite for all things crazy. Life is too short not to. Chew with your mouth wide open and don’t be offended by the cohesiveness that isn’t there or the small typos that are. Have a bellyache laugh at the outrageous situations he has gotten himself into without even trying. It’s all in the interest of having a good time. As he says (p 7), “Let the weight of expectation go and enjoying the time you’re given.” So, the wording is a little clumsy but don’t tell me you don’t know what he means.

Author Fact: When I asked Westphal for an author fact he said, “I believe this life is all about having fun. Nothing in life is more important. Happy heart happy life.” Case in point, meet the author:
The author

Book Trivia: With the purchase of Tattoo Adventures of Robbie Big Balls comes a DVD, a companion to the book, if you will.

DVD review: I can only describe this DVD as schizophrenic and fucked up funny. Most of the time you will be laughing your ass off at the seriously silly shit people do (off roading in a golf cart was my favorite. As someone who grew up with more golf carts than not for transportation I can relate!), but other times you will cringe with fascination (I never knew you could tattoo that part of the body – ouch!), or be awestruck by the displays of beautiful tattoo artwork (Yvette’s was my favorite). There are some seriously talented mofos in this video. The music is all over the place but it matches the style of the visuals. Warning: adult…very adult. Not for the sissy prissy tightwads of the world.

August ’12 is…

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NEW! Heads up! I have decided to add one audio book per month. I am tired of driving to work hearing the same songs day in and day out. I think I will get further in this whole book challenge if I allow myself at least one audio book. I only spend 3 1/3 hours in the car per week so all audio books would have to be kept to a duration under 12-13 hours long in order to hear it within the month. I can’t listen to an abridged version so I think finding the right book each month will be an additional pita (pain in the azz). I don’t know. I’ll figure it out.

So. August. Before books August is about a few trips. I’m all over the place, aren’t I? Maine sometime at the beginning of the month and Denver near the end. I *should* have plenty of time to read/listen to books along the way, though. So here is the list (some of them I’ve actually started reading, as I have admitted earlier AND since I’ve cheated I can add a few more than normal):

  • After You’ve Gone by Alice Adams ~ a collection of short stories in honor of Adam’s birth month. I feel really good about adding this one because I didn’t tackle any short stories in June (and June is Short Story month),
  • Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin ~ a short(er) story in honor of Baldwin’s birth month,
  • Kristin Lavransdatter: the cross by Sigrid Undset ~ finally, finally finishing the series started in June! This has been good but really long and detailed!
  • Wizard of Oz by Frank Baum and Wicked by Gregory Maguire to be read together in honor of August being fairytale month.
  • The Bridge of San Luis Rey

    • by Thornton Wilder in honor of the month Peru was recognized as independent from Spain (and because it’s super short!).

For Audio:

  • Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury ~ in honor of Bradbury’s birth month. I think I will have to think of something else to add to the audio list since I have a flight to Denver to deal with. I’m choosing Ten Hours Until Dawn: the True Story of Heroism and Tragedy by Michael Tougis ~ in honor of being on the water.

For LibraryThing:

Finishing Sex So Great She Can’t Get Enough by Barbara Keesling AND (I have to laugh at this) The Most Memorable Games in Patriots History by Bernard Corbett. Yup. The very book I was expecting exactly one year ago. I’ll still read it! I just got word of a third Early Review book but since I haven’t received it I won’t mention it here…

For Fun:

Finishing up Tattoo Adventures of Robbie Big Balls by the hilarious Robert Westphal…and mysterious someone dropped Cats Miscellany by Lesley O’Mara in my mailbox. Maybe I’ll get to that. Maybe I won’t.

July ’12 was…

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I am a dumbass to think I would be reading while on vacation. That may be true of a Maine vacation but certainly not of this last vacation…in Hawaii no less. We were so busy and always on the go that I barely picked up a book. Ever. The only time a book was raised before my eyes while on the island (either Oahu or Maui) was when I was searching a tour book to learn something. So, reading this month was severely limited due to my time away. But, I did manage a little:

  • Kristin Lavransdatter: The Wife by Sigrid Undset ~ a continuation of a book honoring Norway in June
  • Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes ~ in honor of July being kids month (a book read on a break at work)
  • The Headless Cupid by Nora Zeale ~ in honor of July being kids month (a book read while waiting for a waxing)

For audio:

  • The Forest Lover by Susan Vreeland.

For LibraryThing:

  • Waterlogged by Tim Noakes, MD (confessional – this was started in June & finished in July)
  • Sex So Great She Can’t Get Enough by Barbara Keeling (confessional – this was started in July but I will finish it in August.

For the fun of it:

  • Tattoo Adventures of Robbie Big Balls by Robert Westphal.

There you have it. Nothing too impressive. Okay, I’ll be honest. I started a lot of August books in the last week of July. Sue me.

Forest Lover

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Vreeland, Susan. The Forest Lover.New York: Penguin Audio, 2004.

Disclaimer: This was another audio book I was fully prepared to listen to on the plane to (or from) Hawaii. I had no idea that The Calligrapher’s Daughter by Eugenia Kim would take up some considerable time. So, this is a June book…in July. I’m not going to cry about it.

Right off the bat I have to say this is one of my favorite books for July. Susan Vreeland takes the real life character of Canadian artist Emily Carr and, while fictionalizing dialogue and relationships, does an amazing job portraying the factual history and Native American culture surrounding Carr’s life.  Art, culture and society are the three elements of importance in The Forest Lover.

Art was the vehicle Emily Carr chose in order to communicate with the world around her. She was fascinated with color and emotion and desperately wanted her art to say something through these characteristics. Whether they are Vreeland’s words or Carr’s the descriptions of the art of the time (1912 – Monet, Van Gogh, Carr herself) fairly dance off the page. Images come to life through the passion used to describe them. Early in The Forest Lover Carr was fixated on the totems of the Vancouver Island natives. She sought desperately to convey their spiritual power on the canvas so much so that she traveled to Paris with her sister to learn more about capturing color in just the right way. Being able to communicate and show passion through art excited her.
Along the way Carr was confronted with cultural differences between herself (being a white woman) and the tribes of natives she needed to befriend in order to paint their totems. Vreeland goes into deep character development for one Squamish friend, basket maker Sophie. This character development allows Vreeland to illustrate not only how crucial it was for Carr to develop a trust with the different tribes but to say something about Carr’s soothing personality and her ability to connect with people. She could put even the native most distrustful of the white man at ease.
The third and probably most important element to The Forest Lover is Emily Carr’s reaction to Victorian society through her fighting spirit. In addition to having a strong passion for art and the ability to befriend any culture Carr had a devil-may-care feminist approach to confines of her day. For example, during the early 1900s it was unbecoming for a woman to travel alone. While she took her sister as a traveling companion to France Carr was not necessarily worried about what the neighbors might think. She remained true to her spunky attitudes and rarely let anything or anyone intimidate her (although she did seem to have a weird hangup concerning intimacy). Vreeland’s writing style in The Forest Lover has made me a fan.

Author Fact: Susan Vreeland also wrote the more popular Girl in Hyacinth Blue.

Book Trivia: I think this should be a movie…if it isn’t already.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Inside the Inside Passage” (p 106).

 

D-Day, June 6, 1944

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Ambrose, Stephen. D-Day, June 6, 1944: the Climactic Battle of World War II. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994.

Where do I begin with a book like this? Imagine watching a scene from high above. Everything is muted and details are fuzzy. Now imagine swooping in to ground level and being able to engage all the senses. You hear, see, smell, taste and feel everything at close range. D-Day is such a book. You know all about June 6th, 1944 from your textbooks and your history classes. With D-Day, June 6th, 1944: the Climactic Battle of World War II Stephen Ambrose swoops in and takes you down the to fighting. Ground level. You get to hear (supposed) first hand accounts from the American, British and Canadian men who survived Operation Overlord: the five separate attacks from sea and air. The opening chapter is a harrowing parachute drop into enemy territory. Soldiers who fought side by side with buddies who later wouldn’t make it recall every emotion. What a strange circumstance, to be fighting for your life and watching men die around you and yet, yet have no fear. They knew they could meet death at any minute but were so moved by the leadership of commanding officers to keep surging forward. The tragic battle at Omaha Beach illustrates this most poignantly.
Probably the most interesting section of the book for me was the comparisons between Commanders Eisenhower and Rommel. They had so many different things in common they could have been friends had it not been for their opposing positions in the war.
Of note: several people have told me that I should be taking the details of D-Day with a grain of salt; that not all interviews are truthful or accurate. Well, if that’s the case, slap a “fiction” label on it and call it a riveting best seller! Regardless of its integrity I loved the book.

Favorite lines: impossible to tell you because I ended up listening to this rather than reading it.

Author Fact: Ambrose was awarded the Department of Defense’s medal for Distinguished Public Service in 2000. This is the highest honor the Department of Defense can give a civilian.

Book Trivia: D-Day, June 6th 1944 is one of many books written by Ambrose that is surrounded in controversy involving inaccuracies and plagiarism.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “World War II Nonfiction” (p 253).

Waterlogged

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Noakes, Tim. Waterlogged: The Serious Problem of Overhydration in Endurance Sports. Campaign: Human Kinetics, 2012.

I have to start off by saying I had an acute interest in the subject of hydration in sports because I have a difficulty drinking enough fluids all the time and not just when I’m exercising. I am not an endurance athlete. I have never even run a marathon, but the question of just how much water should I be drinking has haunted me for years. You always hear the same old sermon, “drink more water.” Whatever your intake, double it. Triple it. That’s what I constantly heard. It was shocking to hear otherwise. Less is more in the world of sports. Who knew? But what Dr. Noakes has to say makes sense.

To carry around Waterlogged was a mini strength training routine in its own right. This is not a small manual on hydration rules for the ultra-marathoner. This is a extensively thought out, scrupulously researched, carefully documented and well written textbook on why over-hydration is not only a problem it is potentially deadly. Noakes outlines cases of athletes collapsing and dying from hyponatremia or water intoxication. He provides charts and graphs and scientific research to illustrate many different things including how water forces the balance of electrolytes and sodium out of balance and how this is potentially a bad thing; how is can be nearly impossible for the body to recover from. Noakes delves in to the murky world of marketing to illustrate how products like Gatorade are brainwashing our society to believe we cannot be athletes without them. While all the scientific data looks daunting readers shouldn’t be intimidated by it. Noakes uses a language that is straightforward and concise.

postscript: it took me a few weeks (and one very long flight) to read the July issue of Runners World so it wasn’t until after I wrote this review that I discovered a quote from Dr. Noakes and a mention of his book Waterlogged.

July ’12 is….

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July started in Hawaii which is why this is so, so late. I fully intended to blog while on vacation but who has time to be stuck on a computer while in paradise? Besides, it was ME in Hawaii! Who would have thunk it? Me. In Hawaii. I’m an island girl, yet but an Atlantic ocean kind of girl. Strange days indeed. Anyway, July is a myriad of things. First the second half of the vacation. Maui. Helicopters, waterfalls, snuba, hiking, lu’aus, drinks in coconuts, toes in the sand, tattoo!! All those things were in my future and are now in my past because I did them all. Pictures coming soon. But, July is also (still and always) about books. Somehow I plan to read (or have already read):

  • Kristin Lavransdatter: the Wife by Sigrid Undset ~ a continuation of the trilogy I started in June. I’ll pick this back up when I get home.
  • The Calligrapher’s Wife by Eugenia Kim ~ in honor of the Korean War ending in July. Note: this is an audio book that I planned to “read” on the way home from Hawaii (confessional: I started this in June when I had a two hour (one way) commute to a meeting!)
  • Light in August by William Faulkner ~ in remembrance of Faulkner who died in July
  • Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett ~ because I am homesick!
  • Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis ~ in honor of July being job fair month
  • Dicey’s Song by Cynthia Voigt ~ in honor of July being kids month  Scratch that. Just learned that Dicey’s Song should be read after Homecoming. My bad. I’ll be reading The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder instead.

June ’12 was…

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I had high hopes for June. Unreasonably so, I think. I don’t know what I was thinking when I decided the difference of a day would make everything better. What’s May 31 into June 1st other than Thursday into Friday? One day into the next? Silly me. June was a few things – a return to the run, a funeral heard around the world, a trip to an exotic island…

Here is the book list:

  • A River Runs Though It and Other Stories by Norman MacLean ~ in honor of river cleanup month. I can see why they made the first short story into a movie, but why not the other two? They were equally as good as the first. I read this in five days.
  • Death of Ivan Ilich by Leo Tolstoy ~ in honor of June being the best month to travel to Russia…that is, if you even want to travel to Russia. I guess you would need the desire before you decided the best time to go…I read this over three lunch breaks.
  • Kristin Lavransdatter: the Bridal Wreath by Sigrid Undset ~ again, chosen for the best time to travel somewhere. In this case, Norway. Note: this is only part one of a three part story. I will be reading the rest in July and August.
  • The Stranger by Albert Camus ~ in honor of I honestly don’t remember what. Something celebrating Algeria, I’m sure. This was deceptively simple to read. Read over five lunch breaks.
  • The Duke of Deception by Geoffrey Wolff ~ read in honor of June being family month. Some family!
  • Damage by Josephine Hart ~ in honor of Father’s Day…well, sort of.

Two Early Review books came in, courtesy of LibraryThing:

  • Waterlogged: The Serious Problem of Overhydration in Endurance Sports by Tim Noakes, MD. I didn’t finish this in time to consider it an official June read, but at least I started it in June.
  • Who Should I Be? a Novel From Life by Sheila Heti ~ this was slightly delusional but I loved it.

    One audio book on cassette while I worked out:

  • D-Day by Stephen Ambrose ~ in honor of well, D-Day – June 6th 1944. Duh.

I should also note that I had an audio book for the flight to HI. I listened to July’s selection for the entire trip to and from the islands.