Tag: NonFiction

Code Book

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Singh, Simon. The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography. New York: Anchor Books, 1999.

My first September book and I started it a little late. I think it got to me by September 8th.

Much like how Mark Kurlansky makes a subject like salt interesting, Simon Singh makes all things code fascinating. From the very beginning The Code Book was informative and interesting. Peppered with photographs and diagrams, The Code Bookrecounted the events in history where the ability to break a code (or not) meant life or death. Beginning with Queen Mary of Scot’s attempted plot to murder Queen Elizabeth on through the first and second World Wars. The only time I really got bogged down was, of course, when Singh would get a little too detailed with mathematical explanations of more difficult codes and ciphers.

Love love love this line (from the introduction): “The only people who are in a position to point out my errors are also those who are not at liberty to reveal them” (p xvii). Brilliant!
Another good line: “This was clearly a period of history that tolerated a certain lack of urgency” (p 5). This sentence doesn’t make such sense as is. What I need to explain is that during the period of 480 B.C. secret messages were written on the shaved scalps of messengers. To disguise the message there was a waiting period while the messenger’s hair grew back in. I wish I could have told my nephew this story! He would have loved the idea of being a spy (see below)!

Dancing with Wrench

BookLust Twist: More Book Lust in the chapter, “Codes and Ciphers” (p 50), and in the introduction as an off-hand mention (p xi).

Emily Post

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Claridge, Laura. Emily Post: Daughter of the Gilded Age, Mistress of American Manners. New York: Random House, 2008.

Let me start by saying I love biographies. When I requested Emily Post as a July bonus book from LibraryThing’s Early Review program I really didn’t think I had a chance of getting it. After all, this would be my 18th ER book if chosen. Crazy. But, there is was, on my doorstep, without fanfare on Friday. No notification, no nothing. Just a hit and run from Mr. UPS man.

Because it came so late and unannounced I couldn’t fit it into my August list. The July bonus book became a September review just like that.

Emily Post is a biography laden with details – chock full of history and background. Reading it was like wallowing in words, almost too many words. At times I got bogged down by the excessive descriptive narrative while other times it helped explain Emily’s reactions to the lap of luxury world around her. This biography is not limited to Emily’s life but extends, in detail, to the people around her. What is important to note is Claridge’s exhaustive research into not only the history of Emily’s era, but the political and cultural climate of her time thus drawing a complete and compelling picture of Emily Post beyond etiquette.

Heartbreaking Work

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Eggers, Dave. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. New York: Vintage Books, 2001.

I didn’t even have to touch this book to know it was going to be great. It landed on my desk upside down. the first words I read from the back cover were, “Yes lets and then can we leave and run in shallow warm water.” I was intrigued, to say the least!

It’s the story of Eggers as a young adult faced with having to take care of his younger brother after losing both his parents to cancer. It’s sad and funny. Witty and sarcastic. It took my much longer to read because I had to drink every little word. I read the Rules and Suggestions for Enjoyment of This Book, the Preface to this Edition, the Contents, Achknowledgments, even Mistakes We Knew We Were Making which contains notes, corrections, clarifications, apologies, and addenda. Too funny.

A few of my favorite lines:
“I have visions of my demise: When I know I have only so much time left – for example, if I do in fact have AIDS as I believe I probably do, if anyone does, it’s me, why not – when the time comes, I will just leave, say goodbye and leave, and then throw myself into a volcano” (p xiii)
“Beth and I take turns driving him to and fro, down the hill and up again and otherwise we lose weeks like buttons, like pencils” (p 55).
Then there’s this scene. I don’t know how to describe it other than to say I’ve been there: “I want to put the box somewhere else…The box which is not my mother cannot go in the trunk because she would be livid if I put her in the trunk. She would fucking kill me” (p 383). This is so, so, dare I say it? Heartbreaking.

BookLust Twist: Pearl really liked this book. It’s mentioned four different times between her two books Book Lust and More Book Lust. From Book Lust: in the chapter “Memoirs” (p 152), and “The Postmodern Condition” (p 191) and again in the preface on page xi. Then again in More Book Lust in the chapter “And The Award for Best Title Goes To…” ( p 12).

August Was…

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Where did August go? Sweet August raced by me like lightning in a stormy sky. For reading I was all messed up. I read two books out of turn and one completely by mistake! So much for planning! Anyway, August was:

  • All is Vanity by Christina Schwarz (Others will tell you Schwarz has put out better, but I say this one was good, too!)
  • Boy with Loaded Gun by Lewis Nordan (really, really interesting book)
  • A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers (another nonfiction…okay, I admit it. I read this out of turn!)
  • Postcards by E. Annie Proulx (really dark!)
  • Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley (I need to explain this one!)

What I admitted defeat on was Far Field because it just wasn’t light reading for the last month of sumer. I’ll pick it back up again eventually.

For the Early Review Program on LibraryThing:

  • Blackbird, Farewell by Robert Greer ( a really fun whodunit about a basketball star murder before his big NBA contract even began).

For the fun of it:

  • Top Chef: The Cookbook by Brett Martin
  • Islandsby Anne Rivers Siddon

August was also Sean Rowe, the Police, and Swell Season. It was getting a chance to hang out with really good friends, even for a second. It was Monhegan and a restoration of resolve.

Boy With Loaded Gun

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Nordan, Lewis. Boy With Loaded Gun. Chapel Hill: Algonquin, 2000.

Lewis Nordan celebrates a birthday in August. I am pleased to have started off with his nonfiction/fiction memoir, Boy with Loaded Gunas my introduction to Nordan’s writing. I think it will bring insight to everything else I read of his. While this may or may not be a good thing, I am looking forward to it just the same.
Boy with Loaded Gunis heartbreaking and humorous at the same time. Pulling the reader down into sadness, lifting him or her back up with laughter. I found myself comparing the reading experience to that of a fast moving, slightly rickety, out of control rollercoaster. At times I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I didn’t know what was real or an exaggeration. But, I did know one thing, I loved every minute of it; page by page.
Nordan’s memoir begins with the chapter called “Voodoo” and Nordan’s inexplicable love for a voodoo practicing woman. It is at this time Nordan professes, “In these lonely backwaters and days of grief my memory begins” (p 7). We are then taken on a journey through Nordan’s young life while he struggles to love his step-father and escape the confines of small town Itta Bena, Mississippi. Later, it’s coming-of-age encounters with sex and marriage. Babies and buying houses. Alcohol and writing. Down and outs, ups and accomplishements. At times you want to love him. Other times you have to hate him. Just like real life. In other words, human.

Best quotes: “Two men got into an argument about whether a tree was willow or a weed. It was a small knife, and not a deep wound, so neither of the men went home, they just didn’t talk to each other for a while. Then they seemed to forget all about it, and before long they were talking about something else” (p 49).
“Eventually I tried to kill my father, of course” (p 69). Nordan does address the “of course” part of the statement, but it struck me as funny the first time I read it.
“I could scarcely tolerate standing in my own skin, let alone being strong” (p 188).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter “Lewis Nordan: Too Good To Miss” (p 172).

July Was…

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July flew by. I hardly knew where the month actually went. Here’s how it went for reading:

 

  • Bilgewater by Jane Gardam ~ lovely young adult book.
  • Blackwater by Kerstin Ekman ~ a dark story set in the woods of Sweden.
  • Finding Caruso by Kim Barnes ~ brotherly love set against sibling rivalry.
  • Citizen of the Galaxy by Robert Heinlein ~ Sci-fi story about a boy finding his way.
  • Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett ~ a young adult mystery.
  • Friend of My Youth by Alice Munro ~ short stories that center around women and their relationships.
  • Jackson’s Dilemma by Iris Murdoch ~ a muddled tale of twisted relationships with someone named Jackson in the middle…
  • Lie in the Dark by Dan Fesperman ~ whodunnit set in Bosnia.

For LibraryThing’s Early Review Program:

  • What We All Long For by Dionne Brand ~ previously published in 2003

Just for the fun of it:

  • Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill:Explosive Flavors from the Southwestern Kitchen by Bobby Flay with Stephanie Banyas and Sally Jackson. Made several recipes out of this and loved every one.
  • The Food You Crave: Luscious Recipes for a Healthy Life by Ellie Krieger. Meant to make more recipes from this, but every one I tried was amazing.
  • Music of Coal: Mining Songs from the Appalachian Coalfields (Introduction by Jack Wright). This is actually a two cd/book set published in 2007. Because Natalie Merchant contributed to the compilation I just had to check it out.
  • Kim Lyons’ Your Body, Your Life by Kim Lyons & Lara McGlashan

Things They Carried

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O’Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. New York: Broadway Books, 1998.

I admit it. I have picked this book up three different times now. Technically, I should have read it in March to celebrate the day U.S. troops pulled out of Vietnam (March 1975), but as you can tell, there were plenty of other things to reach for in March…
Nope, I cracked this book open for no other reason than sheer boredom. I finished Peter Pan and The Ground Beneath Her Feet and decided I wasn’t up for The Joy Luck Club…at least not right now. The Things They Carried has been hanging around my office for months now. It just seemed to say “read me” and the time was right. I am so very glad.

This was an amazingly moving book. I had a hard time getting into it the first two times I picked it up, but the third time was a charm because after that I couldn’t put it down. Tim O’Brien writes with such ferocious honesty. He calls it a fiction but it easily could have been the truth. The shocking violence, the depths of sadness, the urgency to survive, the humble efforts to maintain sanity and the humor that survives it all…each chapter is a short story of all of these things. Each story stands alone, complete as it is, yet connects beautifully to the story before it as well as the one after it. Peter S. Prescott from Newsweek said the stories “bounce off each other…” and I would agree.
I could quote nearly each story, but here are my favorites:
“They carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terible power of the things they carried” (p 7). The reason why this quote stuck with me is because O’Brien spends the opening chapter listing everything a soldier carried in the Vietnam war. Both the physical and mental, the essential and the sentimental. This quote sums up how they never forgot why they were carrying everything else.
“The problem, though, was that a draft board did not let you choose your war” (p 44). I found this to be one of the most humanitarian statements of the book. O’Brien had just finished explaining that some wars were justified, like stopping Hitler, but in this case he was drafted to fight a war he didn’t understand.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter “Vietnam” (p 239).
ps~ one of the reasons for starting the Book Lust challenge was to find writers I could fall in love with. I wanted one book that would spark an obsession. Much like Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale or Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal Dreams or Katherine Weber’s Objects in the Mirror are Closer than They Appear. All of these books created a rabid need to read anything else written by the authors. I found such an obsession with The Things they Carried. I will go on to get my hands on any and everything Tim O’Brien has written before and since.

Home Girl

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Matloff, Judith. Home Girl: Building a Dream House on a Lawless Block. New York: Random House, 2008.

I could not put this book down. From start to finish it had me looking to answer that What Happened Next? question.
Matloff trades in one adventurous life (as a foreign correspondent) for another (home owner and wife in New York City). The exchange seems benign until the reader (and Matloff herself) realizes the Victorian she is buying is decrepit; in need of repair in every possible way, the new neighborhood is a one of the biggest drug zones in the country, and on a daily basis she must protect her property from the addicts who have called it home. If that wasn’t enough, Matloffmust walk a fine line of graceful respect and distance with the dealers on the street while becoming a mother, a crime fighter and witness to the tragedies of September 11th. Throughout it all, Matloff remains humbled and humorous.

Other observations: The picture on the inside cover indicates the title would have been Home Girl: Building a Dream Home in a Drug Zone. Not sure what I think about that.
I hope they keep the author’s note. Matloff’s sentiment about wishing the events weren’t true really intrigued me…really made me want to read the book.
Of course, there were quotes I absolutely loved, but I’ll keep them to myself until the book is published.

Plain Speaking

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harry s trumanMiller, Merle. Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman. New York: P.G. Putnam, 1973.

I think I mentioned before that reading this was good timing. For starters, both Truman and Miller share May as their birth month. Secondly, I just finished reading about Roosevelt for the Early Review program. This just seemed appropriate for the next book to read. There was “flow” to the subject material, if you will.

Comprised of interviews in chronological order, Miller talks to Truman (as former President) as well as Mary Jane Truman (Truman’s sister), fellow Battery D veteran Albert Ridge, even a childhood neighbor of Truman’s, Henry Chiles. The interviews (as opposed to Miller’s interpretation) allow for personalities to emerge. Miller spends more time delving into Truman’s political and military careers instead of the more personal subjects such as Truman’s childhood and relationships. There is a definite rapport between Miller and Truman and Miller is careful to avoid disrespect on several occasions.
While the interviews are very candid (I thoroughly enjoyed “hearing” Truman swear) I thought some sections were drawn out and much longer than they needed to be. I also found myself skipping some of the footnotes because they didn’t always relate to the subject. Another small criticism I had is while reading it was sometimes difficult to know the difference between Truman answering a question and Miller telling his reader something. While he used a different font for the questions posed to the respondent he didn’t for generalized comments to the reader.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter “Merle Miller: Too Good To Miss” (p 155).

Language of the Land

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Hopkins, Martha and Michael Buscher. Language of the Land: The Library of Congress Book of Literary Maps. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1998.

This is a weird choice for the final book of April. I wanted to read something that represented tax time and that dreaded 4/15. Nancy didn’t include a whole lot of books on taxes in either Book Lust or More Book Lust so I decided to lump in government documents and publications as representation…It makes some sense, right?

Anyway, this book is really, really cool. I urge you to take a look at it for yourself. If you have ever seen Manguel’s The Dictionary of Imaginary Places you will get the gist of Language of the Land. I have to admit I’m a sucker for these kinds of things. To say that it is a collection of maps with the basis being about literature doesn’t really explain a whole lot. Here are some better examples (and some of my favorite “maps”): there are several Arthur Conan Doyle maps. One map shows the location of all the fictional places mentioned in the Sherlock Holmes mysteries. Another is the “Sherlock Holmes Mystery Map” (p 207) which allows SH fans to follow the famous detective’s footprints through different stories. Of course, the Odyssey has a few maps depicting the travels of Odysseus. Page 60 has a pictorial map of English literature while on page 70 shows the Beat Generation map. Every state has a map of famous authors. Of course I had to scrutinize Maine to see if they included Monhegan as a place and Stephen King as an author (they did). Then, I had to find the fictional places Robin Hood’s Sherwood Forest and Peter Pan’s Neverland. You would have to be a James Bond fan to know the significance of items in Ian Fleming’s “The Ian Fleming Thriller Map” (p 176) like the centipede in Bond’s glass or the Roman Numeral III tattooed on a blond girl’s arm. Most of the maps are in black and white although a handful are also represented in color. The Literary Map of Latin America (p 162) is beyond cool. So is The Call of The Wild by Jack London map (p 177).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter “Your Tax Dollars at Work: Good Reading From the Government (Really!)” (p 239). Pearl is serious. Language of the Land is great!

Franklin And Lucy

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Persico, Joseph E. Franklin and Lucy: President Roosevelt, Mrs. Rutherfurd, and the Other Remarkable Women in His Life. New York: Random House, 2008.

Here’s what went on LibraryThing:
When I finally finished the last page of Franklin and Lucy I had two very different thoughts. The first was this was a well written, very thorough biography of the social side of the Roosevelts. It was written in an easy, conversational style that, at times, was hard to put down. The detail given to who, what, where, when, and why made you feel as though you were experiencing every aspect of the era. My second thought was it was an unfortunate title for a work comprised of so much more than just the relationships of Franklin D. Roosevelt. A more accurate title would have included Eleanor. A possible option could have been Franklin and Eleanor: Mrs Rutherfurd, and the Other Remarkable Women in their lives. Another option would be to remove any section dealing with Eleanor that didn’t include her husband’s involvement and focus solely on Franklin.
The other detraction from the book was Perisco’s almost obsessive need to repeatedly include Lucy Rutherfurd’s physical description in such flowery detail. While Franklin’s oft repeated “barrel chested” description was needed to stress his need to hide his disability (and to emphasize his physical decline before his death), and Eleanor’s lack of beauty was important in context to her character as being tragic and unlovable, they were not mentioned nearly as often as Lucy’s exquisiteness.

As an aside (something that didn’t go on LibraryThing), how awful is this? I kept comparing myself to Eleanor! Before you think I’ve gone crazy, hear me out: Perisco described Eleanor as:

  • when stressed Eleanor’s voice grew shrill
  • was insecure
  • was earnest instead of vivacious
  • “schoolmarm air about her”
  • Eleanor failed to recognize humor
  • oblivious to fashion, often choosing sensible over stylish
  • overwhelmed by children
  • suspicious about kindness
  • fought for the underdog

OKay, so I will never go onto greatness and my marriage is a thousand million trillion times better, but the other stuff fits. Kinda sorta maybe.

Three Roads to the Alamo

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Davis, C. William, Three Roads to the Alamo: The Lives and Fortunes of David Crockett, James Bowie, and William Barret Travis. New York: HarperPerennial, 1999.

When I first picked up Three Roads I thought to myself there is no way I want to carry this thing around with me. It’s nearly 800 pages long, and despite the pages being super thin, it’s a heavy book. However, when I quickly calculated that in order to finish Three Roads by the end of March (the month Texas became a state), I would need to read over 40 pages a day I decided carry it around, I would! 
When I read the reviews for Davis’s book one word always seemed to pop up: exhaustive. Exhaustive research, exhaustive detail, exhaustive portraits, exhaustive this, exhaustive that. It’s true. There is so much detail given to not only the personalities and lives of Crockett, Bowie, and Travis, but to the culture and landscape of both politics and era as well. It’s as if the reader is witness to the pioneering growth of Louisiana, Texas and Virginia by default. History, politics and geography all rolled into one book.
Because not much is known about Crockett, Bowie and Travis each has become a legend beyond compare. Using as much information as he was able to research (exhaustively) Davis does a great job trying to dispel rumor and myth surrounding each man, admitting that these are men of folklorish proportions, but not much of it can be substantiated.
Confession: knowing there was no way I was going to finish this in time I skipped to the last chapter of the book. It is, of course, the end of Crockett, Bowie and Travis. Davis paints a tragic picture of what their last days must have been like in Alamo, Texas. The one image that kept playing in my mind was the uncertainty of their fates. When their families did not hear from them they could only speculate and worry. Word travelled slowly in those days. A telegram dispatched two weeks earlier can give loved ones the impression you are still alive despite the fact you died the next day.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter “Texas: Lone Star State of Mind” (p 233).

HUGE woops. This was supposed to be published last month!

The Road From Coorain

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Road from Coorain
Conway, Jill Kerr. The Road From Coorain. New York: Vintage Books, 1989.

First and foremost for the record: Jill Kerr Conway was the very first woman president of Smith College. Just had to get that out there since we’re in the area and I thought that was a pretty interesting fact.
According to several different travel websites, April is the start of the best season to visit Australia. Taking that as my cue I decided Road From Coorain would be my very first April book.
My LibraryThing Review:
Jill Conway’s memoir is about her unusual childhood in Australia. Raised until she was 11 on a sheep farm in Coorain, Australia, Conway grows up without other children for companionship. All she knows are her family, (her only playmates being her older brothers), the hard work associated with raising sheep, and the cruelty of mother nature when she doesn’t bring the rains. She doesn’t have social graces, competitive edges or the typical angsts associated with coming-of age girls. Things like sports, fashion and friendships are lost on her when she finally reaches the big city of Sydney. I can certainly relate to all of it coming from an island life that lacked much of the same things.
One of my favorite parts of the book was when Jill goes back to Coorain to help with shearing season. She’s teetering on the edge of adulthood so she sees everything with a different eye and intellect. Comparing her life as it was she notices her mother’s gardens are all dead and gone. The house doesn’t have the luster of cleanliness. It’s decidedly more rundown than she remembered. She allows that the farm is no place for a young person. I see this moment as pivotal in Conway’s life. It helps her reach for loftier goals and makes her examine her own future.
My only disappointment? I wished Conway included pictures. I know, I know. Not all memoirs need mementos like photographs, but she described her personal landscape in such a way that I wanted more. Her house, her sheep, her family. I realize Conway painted adequate pictures of all of it, but it would have been nice to have more.
Favorite quotes:
“Had she known how to tell directions she would have walked her way to human voices” (p 25).
“Being Australian, we exchanged no deep confidences” (p 142).
“I was angry at myself for being so upset by receiving the treatment I ought to have expected anyway” (p 194).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Girls Growing Up” (p 101).

Deep in the Green

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Raver, Anne. Deep in the Green: an Exploration of Country Pleasures. New York: Vintage, 1996. 

For LibraryThing: Anne Raver is a writer and gardener but it’s hard to tell which came first. Her enthuasism for growing things (outside for she doesn’t deal with indoor plants well) shows in every word she writes in every essay. In the beginning I wanted Deep in the Green to be one of those nonfiction journals about a gardener making a life for herself after divorce. Diving into the growing after a relationship dies. Instead, Deep in the Green is best described as a series of essays that barely connect to one another but have a central theme…gardening & growing. As a columnist for the New York Times I guess it’s easy to string a bunch of essays together and call it a book.

Favorite quotes:
“You know how the army is. they send you here , they send you there. Vietnam. Ohio. ‘I learned Thai no trouble, but I never did figure out what language they were speaking in Cleveland'” (p 24).
“Still we are drawn homeward, unable to erase our bloodlines” (p 42).
“I like to learn this way. Like learning to float or ride a bicycle. You can’t imagine doing it before you do it, but you have to imagine it in order to do it. And then you never forget” (p 155).
“I’m not sure what their religion is. Food, maybe” (p 173).

Thanks to this book I learned the latin name for a favorite flower I never bothered to look up (clematis jackmanni) and an interesting fact about poppies being illegal to grow (makes me think about how many times I’ve seen the federal law broken). Probably my favorite part about reading Deep in the Green is that once I got over the disjointed essays I read it with a salivating imagination. Anne Raver writes like I eat – straight from the garden, the bush or tree. I’ve tried to describe that foraging feeling – that satisfaction which comes from eating off Earth’s plate.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter “Gear Up For Gardening” (p 96).

His Excellency

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IMG_0571Ellis, Joseph J. His Excellency: George Washington. New York: Afred A Knopf, 2004.

In honor of Presidents’ Day and Washington’s birthday. The LT review: Ellis writes in an easy, flowing style. Almost conversational in tone, Washington’s life comes alive as the pages turn. While not a great deal of evidence of Washington’s personal life has survived, Ellis does a fantastic job filling in the gaps with Washington’s military career and political rise to power. The text is supplemented by a few pages of photographs – mostly portraits Washington had commissioned of himself.

A few of my favorite quotes that make Washington seem less historical and more human. First, a  description of Washington as a 20-something year old man: “He was the epitome of the man’s man: physically strong, mentally enigmatic, emotionally restrained” (p 12).
A commnet on Washington’s unique military order: “…when a ranger…is killed in action, continue his salary for 28 days to pay for his coffin” (p 26).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter “Founding Fathers” (p 91). Last month I read about Benjamin Franklin from the same chapter. Note to self: Self, don’t read anything from that chapter in March!