Tag: september

Brass Dolphin

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Trollope, Joanna. Brass Dolphin. Viking, 1997.

Reason read: In September Malta celebrates their independence.

As a young woman, Lila Cunningham dreamed of running away. She had been saving for her escape from her widower father for years. Freedom seemed just around the corner until one day her father admits they are in debt so deep they are going to lose their house. How can Lila leave her father now? Financially ruined, he only has his art…and he is not that talented of a painter. Even Lila does not believe in his paintings. [As an aside, I found Lila’s father to be a very selfish man. He bartered Lila’s mother’s pearls for paints. But Lila has her immaturities as well.] Neighbors Mr. & Mrs. Perriam come up with a plan to send Lila and her father to the island of Malta where their second home needs looking after. The plan is perfect except for the timing. Hitler has appointed himself war minister of Germany. Lila is naïve to this and she goes to work as a secretary for Count Julius. The theme of naivety runs strong with Lila. She doesn’t realize the importance of Malta to Hitler’s war. She is naïve about Malta’s society. She doesn’t understand the proper decorum of the wealthy. She has never been in a relationship. Readers watch Lila mature as she is faced with difficult and life-altering situations.
As an aside, the first time readers meet a brass dolphin it is in the shape of a knocker, placed high up on an enormously tall door of the Tabia Palace, home of Count Julius. It becomes a symbol of hope for the future later in the book.

As an aside, Joanna Trollope introduced me to the plumbago plant. It is beautiful!

Author fact: Joanna Trollope also wrote under the name Caroline Harvey, probably to scape her famous novelist ancestor, Anthony Trollope.

Music: “Flat Foot Floogie,” and “Jeepers, Creepers.”

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Messing Around on Malta” (p 144).

Too Many Women

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Stout, Rex. Too Many Women. Viking Press, 1947.

The backstory: a businessman falls victim to a hit-and-run driver. Accident or murder? The firm, Naylor-Kerr, Inc, where the businessman worked, is convinced it was foul play. The board of directors hire Nero Wolfe to prove it. The only problem is Wolfe thinks the clues to solving the case are hidden in the executive offices of Naylor-Kerr. It is up to wise-cracking and devilishly handsome Archie Goodwin to find the evidence by going undercover in Naylor-Kerr. He starts in the Structural Metals section but gets distracted by the Correspondence Checker, namely the victim’s fiancé. In fact, there are too many beautiful women for Archie to handle. He starts dating a few of them to get to the gossip. The best part of his job is entertaining the women in the company. Dancing, dining, and drinking to interview them all.
Once his cover is blown, true to form, Archie is still the sarcastic and sharp-tongued sidekick to Nero that we all know and love. When a second man from the same company is found dead in the exact same manner on the exact same street the pressure mounts to solve the mystery. Even though this was a case that was harder than most for Wolfe to solve as Wolfe mysteries, they wrap up Too Many Women like an episode of Scooby Doo with a long narrative about how it all went down.

A favorite quote, “It wasn’t a conception that hit him, it was a sedan” (p 96).

Author fact: Rex Stout held a job as a bookkeeper.

Book trivia: There was a significant absence of Nero Wolfe in this installment.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe: Too Good To Miss” (p 226).

Crossing California

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Langer, Adam. Crossing California. Riverhead Books, 2004.

Reason read: You probably have never heard of Matt Vongsykeo, but when he was a teenager, he saved a baby from a burning car.

Meet the members of a Jewish community in Chicago, Illinois. Jill Wasserstrom is a liar. She told Lana she gave Muley Scott a hickey. Lana, the lied-to party, comes from a wealthy family (father is a radiologist, mother is a psychologist, and brother Larry was accepted into Brandeis). Lana wants to be an actor. Fake hickey recipient Muley wants to be a film maker and has a mother who works in the library and cleans houses for a living. Muley is in love with Jill. Jill’s father, Charlie, was fired from a restaurant job (owned by Alan Farbman) because he talked to a reviewer (Gail Schiffer-Bass) who he later marries. Jill’s sister, Michelle, is a tough cookie. Brandeis-accepted Larry wants to be a rock star drummer. The list of characters, some important, some not, goes on and on. It is this group of characters who drive the plot of Crossing California and make the story interesting. California Avenue itself (of Chicago, Illinois), lives and breathes like another character in Crossing California. This is a slice of Jewish life in a early 80s Chicago community at its best and worst.

Lines I liked, “She briefly considered going back, but she had her pride and besides, the door had locked behind her” (p 14).

Author fact: Crossing California is Langer’s first book.

Book trivia: Langer marks the era with punctuations of songs that were popular at the time. It is obvious he is a huge fan of music. Is Larry his doppelganger? See setlist for the music.

Setlist: Aerosmith, Al Jolson’s “California, Here I Come”, Al Stewart’s “On the Border”, “Angie”, Aretha Franklin’s “Respect”, Bach, “Back Door Man”, Barbra Streisand, the Beatles, Bill Haley and the Comets, Billy Joel’s “The Stranger”, Blood, Sweat and Tears, Bob Dylan’s “Seven Days”, Bobby Vinton, Boston, Bruce Springsteen, “Buttercup’s Song”, Cheap Trick, Chicago’s “If You Leave Me Now”, Chuck Berry, Chuck Mangione, Clancy Brothers, the Clash, “Come Saturday Morning”, Dan Fogelberg, “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?”, David Crosby, Debbie Harry’s “Call Me”, Deep Purple, Dire Straits’ “Sultans of Swing”, “Dream On”, Edith Piaf’s “Non Je Regrette Rien”, Electric Light Orchestra, Elton John and Kiki Dee’s “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart”, Elvis, Eric Clapton, Fleetwood Mac, “Flirting with Disaster”, Foghat, Foreigner’s “Head Games”, Frank Sinatra, “Free Bird”, Gerard Lenorman, the Guess Who’s “American Woman” and “No Sugar”, Harry Belafonte, “Hava Nagilah”, Heart’s “Barracuda”, ” Herb Alpert, “Hey Ho Nobody Home”, “If I Were a Rich Man”, “In the Light”, “Is She Really Going Out with Him?”, Isaac Hayes, Jack Dupree, Jacques Brel, Jefferson Starship’s “Miracles”, Jethro Tull, Jim Croce’s “Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown”, Jimmy Durante’s “Inka Dinka Doo”, John Denver’s “Annie’s Song”, John Entwistle, Johnny Hallyday, John Lennon, Journey’s “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow”, Kenny Jones, Kiss, “Le Freak (C’est Chic)”, “Learn How to Fall”, Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir”, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Mahler’s Symphony #9, “Making Whoopie”, Mick Jagger, Modern Lovers, Molly Hatchet, “Mr. Bojangles”, Muddy Waters, Nazareth, Neil Diamond, “One Tin Soldier”, Paul Simon’s “Some Folks’ Lives Roll Easy”, Paul McCartney, Pete Seeger, Philip Glass, Pink Floyd, “Quando El Ray Nimrod”, “Raisins and Almonds”, Ray Charles’s “Hit the Road, Jack”, and “Georgia On My Mind”, “Refrain, Audacious Tar”, REO Speedwagon, Rod Stewart, Roger Daltry, Rolling Stones, Ron Woods, “Runaround Sue”, Rush’s “Fly By Night”, Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag”. “Shaft”, “Slow Ride”, “Squeezebox”, Styx’s “Come Sail Away with Me” and “Lorelei”, “Sunrise Sunset”, “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”, Tom Paxton, Tommy Dorsey, “Top of the World”, “Tonight”, “Troika (Prokofiev’s Lieutenant)”, “Trouble in Mind”, the Who’s “Baba O’Riley”, “Music Must Change”. “Sister disco”, and “Won’t Get Fooled Again”, the Weavers, Wings, Working Man, Yes, “Y.M.C.A.”, “You’re in My Heart”, Yves Simon, and Zoltan Kodaly’s “Harry Janos Suite”.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in two places: “Maiden Voyages” (p 159) and again in “Teenage Times” (p 215).

London: the Biography

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Ackroyd, Peter. London: the Biography. Anchor, 2003.

Reason read: So when I think of London, I think of Lady Diana. Her funeral was in the month of September. Read in her memory.

The word thorough does not do London: the Biography justice. Think of it as a chronology of London’s biggest events from 54 BC to 2000 AD. It is an explanation and examination of culture, architecture, religion, invention, society, education, slang, literature, food, immigration, sanitation, crime, entertainment, commerce, economics, weather… I could go on. There are a lot of opinions about this book floating around. Someone said it took them six months to read it. Someone else said you have to read it before visiting London, while someone else suggested using London: the Biography as a walking guide. Good luck carrying the thing around. It’s heavy!
London is the book to read if you want to know what Charles Dickens thought about London cats or the pervasive fog; what Daniel Defoe thought about the poor, the prison system, or London’s suburbs; or Samuel Johnson’s thoughts on public intoxication or witnessing a well-attended execution in a courtyard. Ackroyd’s meticulous research has uncovered those opinions and more. You will learn about the Great Fire of 1666 and how no one knew how it started; yet it burned for five days straight. You will hear stories about the infamous London fog and how a man could get lost in the ominous mist. Speaking of ominous, penal and criminal behaviors are discussed at great length. I particularly liked the man who couldn’t stay imprisoned. Time and time again he found ways to escape.

Quote to quote, “The beard was long but the rebellion was short” (p 54).

Natalie connection: Ackroyd quotes the same poem Natalie Merchant used to name her album for and about children, Leave Your Sleep.

Author fact: I have already read two Ackroyd books. Next up are stories about the Thames River, Albion, and Troy.

Book trivia: I liked the map of London from 1800 compared to the map of London from “modern times.”

Playlist: “My Shadow is My Only Friend”, “I Wonder What it Fells Like to be Poor”, Handel’s water music, Beethoven, and Chopin.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Entering England” (p 73).

Perfect Daughter

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Linscott, Gillian. The Perfect Daughter. Macmillan, 2001.

Reason read: Linscott celebrates her birthday in the month of September. Read in her honor.

It is difficult to be the prim and proper daughter of a military father and a snobbish mother in 1914 England. [It’s probably difficult to be a child of such parents in any given era.] Giving in to the pressure of perpetual perfection, did Verona finally commit suicide? Or was something more sinister at play? Found with a clever noose around her neck, it looks like the former. When details are revealed, readers must consider the era. Left-wing politics are raging, women are fighting for the vote, and Verona went from being a well-mannered daughter to a runaway, albeit talented, artist living in squalor with a group of Bohemian anarchists. Her life while she lived and breathed was fraught with contradictions, but it is her death which confounds us more. Her autopsy reveals she had been pregnant and had a great deal of morphine in her system. Her friends and family report her behavior was so strange they hardly knew her anymore. Maybe she led a promiscuous life. Maybe she was an addict. Was Verona’s cousin to blame? Suffragette and political agitator, Nell Bray had little contact with Verona; she barely knew the girl, and yet she finds herself trying to solve the mystery. Curious by nature, Nell wonders how a young girl from a well-to-do family could end up deceased on her parents’ property. Is her strange death a message to her society-slaved parents? Or was someone else to blame for her demise?

Author fact: Linscott worked for the BBC before she became a novelist.

Book trivia: This could be a movie.

Setlist: Chaliapin, “O Dem Golden Slippers”, and Schubert.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Ms. Mystery” (p 169).

Jungle

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Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. Robert Bentley Inc., 1946.

Reason read: Sinclair celebrated a birthday in September. Read in his honor. I also needed a book set in the Midwest for the Portland Public Library’s 2024 Reading Challenge.

In my version of The Jungle (Robert Bentley, Inc., 1946), Sinclair provides an introduction and in that introduction he describes how he came to Chicago at twenty-six years old and started visiting the meat packing district. The living and working conditions of the mostly immigrant workers prompted him to interview them at home, where conversations inevitably turn confessional. Sinclair even crashed a Lithuanian wedding and used the experience in the opening scene of The Jungle.
I will not lie. Reading The Jungle by Upton Sinclair was painful. Jurgis, with his haunting mantra, “I will work hard. I will work faster. I will work longer” was heartbreaking. The desperation for employment – children lying about their ages to get work, women giving out their bodies to find work and bringing bribes of their bodies to stay employed. Look up misery in the dictionary and you should find Sinclair’s The Jungle.
As an aside, pay attention to the words used in the socialist sermon. Monster. Exhaustion. Beaten. Starvation. Horror. Darkness. Obstacles. Threatening. Hostile. Destroy. Fury. Prison. Oppression. Grim. Toiling. Agony. Suffering. Difficulties. Trapped. Hideous. Pain. Wretched. Curse. Misery.
In the end, Jurgis fades into the background as the sermon on socialism, morality, the word of God, and the future of Chicago takes over.

Book trivia: Jack London endorsed The Jungle saying it will run away with you. He was right.

Quote to quote, “They trick you and then they eat you alive” (p 69).

Confessional: I would like to think everyone has read this best selling classic. However, until now I was not one of those people. I never had to read it in grade school, high school, college, or graduate school. It was not on any supplemental list supplied by my teachers.

Natalie connection: 10,000 Maniacs performs a song called “My Sister Rose” which depicts a family wedding. Natalie sings about “dollar dances with the bride” much like the dancing described in the early pages of The Jungle. Music can take you back to your homeland.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “One Hundred Good Reads, Decade By Decade: 1900s” (p 175).

Ways of Dying

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Mda, Zakes. Ways of Dying. Picador Press, 1995.

Reason read: Ways of Dying was awarded the M-Net Book Award in September. Read in recognition of that event.

Told in the collective voice of “we,” Ways of Dying unfolds the story of Toloki and Noria. The community owns the story, but keeps an emotionally safe distance. Toloki makes his living as a professional mourner. What an interesting vocation. Toloki will be there if you need someone to help carry a casket; he will wail as if he just lost his own best friend, or he can rescue a body from the morgue before officials dump it into a mass grave. Toloki’s most important task is to attend funerals to comfort the mourners. It is at one such funeral that he reconnects with someone from his childhood. As children, Toloki was always jealous of the beautiful and mysterious Noria. No matter how hard he tried to please his father, Noria was the only one his father had eyes for. Noria acted as Toloki’s father’s artistic muse. Now, years later, Noria is a changed woman after suffering so much heartache and loss. Together, they forge a new friendship.
Confession: there was so much misery in Ways of Dying that I could not trust a happy ending.

Lines I liked, “That Mountain Woman had razor blades in her tongue” (p 30), “If you don’t praise yourself while you are alive, no one else will” (p 147), and “He is willing to find more ways of living” (p 192).

Author fact: Mda was a visiting professor at Yale at the the time of Ways of Dying‘s publication.

Book trivia: Ways of Dying won the M-Net Book Prize.

Setlist: “Silent Night”

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “South Africa” (p 215).

Africa House

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Lamb, Christina: The Africa House: the True Story of an English Gentleman and His African Dream. Harper Collins. 1994.

Reason read: Zambia’s third president Levy Mwanawasa’s birthday was celebrated in September. Gore-Browne was credited with enabling Zambia to seek independence.

Africa House encompasses an African story that unfolds over multiple decades, pulling back the curtain on the complex life of Stewart Gore-Browne. From 1914 to 1927, Gore-Browne embarked on the ambitious endeavor of constructing his fantasy estate, driven by his aspiration to assume the role of a country squire that had captivated his imagination since his teenage years. Despite his noble ambitions, his infatuation with his married aunt added a layer of peculiarity to his character, which, coupled with his British “stiff upper lip” and rigid personality, created an unconventional and enigmatic personality. While he manages to find a wife outside the family, even that coupling was shrouded in controversy. Lorna, a woman from Gore-Browne’s youth, was truly the one who got away. When he meets Lorna’s daughter, also named Lorna, Gore-Browne seizes the chance to have his “original” Lorna back. The two marry, despite differences in ages and life ambitions. Servants call Gore-Browne’s wife “Lorna the Second” behind her back.
When Gore-Browne finally builds his dream estate, the naming of his residence as Shiwa House, in honor of a nearby lake, served as a testament to his deep connection with the Zambian land and its surroundings. Delving into the societal norms of the early 1900s, the prevalent culture among South Africa’s white population involved the employment of servants for various tasks, from carrying luggage to providing physical comfort. This reliance on servants was further highlighted when Gore-Browne took them to London with the purpose of instructing them in the etiquette of setting a formal table, enunciating clearly the stark contrast between the African and European lifestyles. This was uncomfortable to read. The evident racial divide, serving as the basis for the subsequent political turmoil in Gore-Browne’s later years, underscores the societal complexities and disparities that colored his otherwise solitary existence.

Author fact: Christina Lamb also wrote The Sewing Circles of Herat which is also on my Challenge list. These are the only two Lamb books I am reading. As an aside, I would love to know more about why Lamb chose the subject of Gore-Browne.

Book trivia: Lamb used a wide array of sources to write The Africa House. She interviewed family members (mostly grandchildren) and former servants, had access to letters, journals and photographs, and scoured the literature for facts.

Setlist: “Rule Britannia”, Mozart’s Horn Concerto, Wagner, La Boehme, Chopin, “Sonata Pathetique”, “Nkosi Sikelel Iafrika”, Purcell’s “Trumpet Tune and Air”, Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue”, “God Bless Africa”, “Wedding March”, “The Lord is My Shepherd”, Verdi’s Requiem, Jose Iturbi’s “Poloniase in A Flat”, “Ave Maria”, “Sheep May Safely Graze”, and “Once in Royal David’s City”.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Zambia” (p 266).

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).

For the Sake of All Living Things

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Del Vecchio, John M. For the Sake of All Living Things. Bantam Books, 1990.

Reason read: For the Portland Public Library Reading Challenge of 2023 I needed a book of historical fiction to pair with a nonfiction on the same subject. I am reading For the Sake of All Living Things with When Broken Glass Floats. Both books cover Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge. A second reason is Cambodia had its monarchy restored in the month of September 1993.

I don’t care how many years pass. The plight of Cambodia in the years following the Vietnam War is atrocious. For the Sake of All Living Things is a difficult read. It is powerful. Powerful like a 250 pound man of all muscle punching you in the gut. From scenes when the poorest of poor farmers have to pay tolls or “donations” just to travel a road to the vicious methods of torture and killing (chopsticks driven into the brain via the ears, bodies cleaved in two, children buried alive) I was wincing the entire time I read For the Sake of All Living Things. Through fear and violence the dominance of the Khmer Rouge spreads like a staining black oil throughout Cambodia, indoctrinating and training villagers to become killing machines for the Pol Pot regime. The methods of brainwashing are subtle and sly. As a historical fiction For the Sake of All Living Things reads like a nonfiction because of the appropriate terminology, government reports and various strategic maps. At times I was internally cringing to be American.
I read somewhere that For the Sake of All Living Things is actually the second book in a trilogy about the Vietnam war, Cambodia and the Pol Pot year zero cleansing, and veterans coming home.

Author fact: While Del Vecchio has written a few other works, this is the only one I am reading for the Book Lust Challenge. Confessional: I am kind of relieved.

Book trivia: this should have been a movie or a mini-series. Maybe it is a movie. I don’t know. Everyone has made comparisons to The Killing Fields, the 1984 film directed by Roland Joffe.

Nancy said: Pearl did not say anything specific about For the Sake of All Living Things.

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

Barlowe’s Guide to Fantasy

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Barlowe, Wayne Douglas. Barlowe’s Guide to Fantasy: Great Heroes and Bizarre Beings from Imaginative Literature. Harper Prism, 1996.

Reason read: this was a very short read that satisfied two categories of the Portland Public Library Reading challenge for 2023. I needed a book under 150 pages and a book with a cryptid or mythological being as a character.

I think a more accurate title for this book would have been Barlowe’s Guide to Fifty Fantastic Heroes and Bizarre Beings in Fantasy. Too long? Okay, we can drop the “in fantasy” because it is kind of redundant. Seriously, I did not find this to be a guide to the genre of fantasy, but more of a who’s who of popular characters from authors such as Peter S. Beagle, Robert Jordan, Clive Barker, and Stephen Donaldson. The illustrations of insects, monsters, dragons, beasts, unicorns, and the whatnot are truly beautiful. From fashion to faces, each creature comes alive in Barlowe’s guide. I imagined Barlowe pouring over every descriptive element of each creature in order to get features, costumes, and weapons as accurate as possible. Even though the list of characters is short (there are only fifty), this must-read for fantasy readers of all ages.

Confessional: There is a book from my childhood that I like better. I still have it. It’s called Fantastic People: Magical Races of Myth and Legend by Allan Scott and Michael Scott Rohan. It includes chapters on dragons, trolls, vampires, witches, demons, and more.

Author fact: besides being an illustrator, Barlowe is an author.

Book trivia: Barlowe’s Guide to Fantasy was coauthored by Neil Duskis.

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).

How the Irish Saved Civilization

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Cahill, Thomas. How the Irish Saved Civilization: the Untold Story of Ireland’s Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe. Nan A. Talese Doubleday, 1995.

Reason read: the Lisdoonvarna festival is in September. Supposedly, it is this big match-making festival. Sounds fun!

In the beginning of How the Irish Saved Civilization we examine the philosophies of Augustine, Plato, and Cicero. Augustine’s knowledge is considered the portal into the classical world. The most influential man in Irish history is Patrick, of course. He was the first to advocate for the end to slavery. He had a lifelong commitment to end violence and he was not afraid of his enemies. Irish Catholicism was sympathetic towards sinners, accepting of diversity and women in leadership roles, and considered sexual mores unimportant.
Cahill has a sense of humor. Early on he supposes Alaric was the King of the Fuzzy-Wuzzies. I don’t know what that means, but it made me smile. Cahill also includes a map of the Roman Empire in the 5th century to orientate his readers.
Spoiler alert: the answer to how the Irish saved civilization is that they brought their literacy and love of learning to the rest of the world. Probably one of the most fascinating parts of How the Irish Saved Civilization is how the Irish monks buried their beloved books and valuable metalworks to hide them from the Vikings. Cahill claims that even today farmers are known to unearth lost treasures.

The best line to like, “A world in chaos is not a world in which books are copied and libraries maintained” (p 35). Amen.

Author fact: Thomas Cahill’s author photograph looks like he should be reporting the six o’clock news. How the Irish Saved Civilization is the only book I am reading of his.

Book trivia: How the Irish Saved Civilization includes a very small section of black and white photographs. As an aside, one of my pet peeves is when an author describes a striking or favorite photograph and then does not, for whatever reason, include it in the book. Cahill actually shares the photographs that he describes.

Nancy said: Pearl called How the Irish Saved Civilization readable.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Ireland: Beyond Joyce, Behan, Beckett, and Synge” (p 110).

People Person

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Williams, Sandy R. People Person: How to Talk to Anyone, Improve Social Awkwardness, and Communicate With Ease and Confidence. 2023.
Reason read: an Early Review pick from LibraryThing.

I decided I would not try to digest every piece of advice or tackle every suggestion Williams made in People Person. It was good enough to start small: smiling at everyone you meet, saying hello with enthusiasm and practice positive self-talk. I don’t know what constitutes a power playlist or how to surround myself with confident people (they are who they are). One of the best reasons to read a self help book is to discover other self help books that might fit you better. In reading People Person I discovered Ty Tashiro.
Warning – the consequences of not being a people person sounds like the warning label on a prescription bottle: if you are anxious, side effects include misunderstandings and missed opportunities; loneliness and depression.
Confessional: I am wary of any book that uses the word transformation. Another disappointment was a plug for reviews at the end of chapter four. Williams could have at least waited until the end of the book for such a self-serving plug.
All in all, I enjoyed People Person. This is the first self help book I have read in a long that I consider more helpful than not.

Ancient Shore

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Hazzard, Shirley and Francis Steegmuller. The Ancient Shore: Dispatches from Naples. University of Chicago Press, 2008.

Reason read: We are planning a trip to Italy in at the end of the year. At the time I put this on my list I didn’t know if we would make it to Naples or not. It turns out, we will not be going to Naples this time. Something for the next trip!

Hazzard begins Ancient Shore with an abbreviated autobiography of her childhood and how she discovered Italy. From there, different essays connect Naples to its culture, politics, history, and endless charm. Hazzard remembers Naples of the 1950s so there is a nostalgic air to her writing. Because Ancient Shore is a little dated, I wondered if some of the details are still accurate. I guess I will have to travel there to find out!
Hazzard’s husband, Francis Steegmuller, steps in for a story about a violent mugging he experienced. His tale is terrible. Terrible because he was warned many times over not to carry his bag a certain way. Terrible because the violence caused great ever-lasting injury. Terrible, above all, because he knew better. This was not his first time in Naples.

Lines worth remembering, “There can be the journey to reconciliation, the need to visit the past of to exorcise it” (p 17), “Like luck itself, Italy cannot be explained” (p 125), and my personal favorite, “We are encouraged to stop defining life, and to live it” (p 126).

Author(s) fact(s): I am reading four of Hazzard’s books. Ancient Shore is the second on the list. Steegmuller was a man of many hats. He died in 1994.

Book trivia: Ancient Shore is a very short book, but please take your time reading it. The photographs are wonderful, too.

Playlist: Diana Ross.

Nancy said: Pearl called Ancient Shore a lovely little book.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter simply called “Naples” (p 146).