tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41602235322073470252024-03-07T05:32:05.201-05:00The Curious ReaderShe is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain ~ Louisa May AlcottGradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17526750467742207099noreply@blogger.comBlogger160125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4160223532207347025.post-20390971013343537502020-12-19T13:18:00.001-05:002020-12-19T13:18:59.010-05:00The Simplicity Project<p>It seemed like a good idea at the time. Until...</p><p>It began as a project launched by the selection of my 2021 "Word Of The Year." <i>Simplicity</i>. I got a jump start early in December purging the kitchen of utensils, dishes, cups collected from a multitude of "swag bags" given out at conventions and fairs and advertising campaigns. Gadgets I either haven't used in awhile, can't figure out how to use, or which appeared capable of causing great bodily harm if used. That was pretty easy. It gave me the confidence needed to move on to bigger game. My clothes closet. Which proved even easier. I don't hold any particular sentimentality when it comes to my "wardrobe." I can part with those things with relative ease (except, of course, for my absolute favorite Abercrombie & Fitch jeans, size 4, that are 40 years old. Do I even need to add that they no longer fit? Hope does spring eternal, though. I'm keeping them because you...just... never...know). Buoyed by that success, I was ready to move on.</p><p>But here is where I hit a wall. My books. </p><p>I have no idea how many books I have. I still have the very first book I ever owned: The Tall Book Of Make-Believe, given to me by my Mom when I was 3 or 4. It is by now, of course, a well-worn mess. In other words, it's beautiful. Believing the only way to begin is to begin, I started counting spines beginning with the shelves downstairs and expecting at least several hundred. I stopped when I reached 700, not including cookbooks. The thought of continuing the count upstairs was too exhausting to contemplate, so I did a "guesstimate." I'm questioning the efficacy of my "Word Of The Year," But I've already entered it in my new planner. In ink. (Although, clever me, written on a post-it note, so its fungible). </p><p>Should I decide to take the advice of Marie Kondo, I would pull out all the books I own (even the ones from my car, because one never knows when one might get caught in a traffic jam) and pile them onto the floor. If I understand the method correctly, I am then to hold each book and ask myself - or do I ask the book? I'm fuzzy on that part of the process - whether it gives me joy. Joy goes into one pile; No Joy goes into another. The No Joy pile is carted away and only Joy remains. The only problem with that theory is, it doesn't work. If I picked up each book I own and held it (I can't even imagine how many days of my life this practice would require), the routine would end with me opening each book and paging through it. I'd get carried away reading something, the light would start to fade in the room as the sun made it's journey West, and I would be sitting in the middle of a hard floor piled with over a thousand books...all of which now needed to be put away, and not feeling any joy whatsoever. Feeling stiff. Feeling a difficulty getting up. Just brushing by that picture in thought is making me feel anxious - and pretty damn joyless.</p><p>I did try to purge books last year. I managed to select two books to take to the Little Free Library on the back of the island. I chose Radium Girls by Kate Moore, and The Ghost Road by Pat Barker. I was able to part with Radium Girls for several reasons, not the least of which is I pretty much hated it. Not so much for the writing (although I had issues with it), but because of the way I "felt" when I read it. The subject matter is beyond gruesome, made even more painful to read because it tells a true story. Adding to the grim subject matter was my own physical discomfort when reading it. I was on a flight in a small plane. Although I was sitting in the first row for "added leg room," it was decidedly uncomfortable. The cabin air was heavy and apparently had only two temperature settings: Too Hot and Too Cold...plus, I faced the bathroom...which was only several feet away. I won't elaborate; use your imagination. The rows were so tight behind me I could not in good conscience put my seat back. I could have used a pillow (and not for my head). The book just added to the entire package of misery. Thereafter, every time I got a glimpse of it on the shelf, I relived the experience. And so, to be honest, I was happy to unload it. I had a last minute change of heart regarding The Ghost Road, though. It came back home with me. ONE book. I purged one book. Obviously, "The Simplicity Project" has hit a bit of a blip. But now that the kitchen has more room, I can always store some books in the pantry...or in my closet. So it's not a total fail. </p><p><br /></p>Gradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17526750467742207099noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4160223532207347025.post-66839329950678562222016-05-19T17:48:00.001-04:002016-05-19T17:48:19.099-04:00The Demon-Haunted World<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Chances are when you hear the words “billions and
billions” spoken, you do not hear them in your own voice, but in the voice of the
late Carl Sagan – that is if you’ve ever seen <i>Cosmos</i>, the fascinating 13-part science series he wrote and narrated.
(Although he really never said that in <i>Cosmos. </i>We only think he did because Johnny
Carson would often do a funny bit imitating Sagan and <u>he</u> would say “billions
and billions”). And that is the voice I heard as I settled
into <i>The Demon-Haunted World: Science As A Candle In The Dark</i>, published
in 1996, the year of his death. The book
is so Saganesque that nearly two decades later, that slightly nasal, roundish voice
is what I heard on every page. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Sagan takes on all manner of magical thinking, without
reservation: pseudoscience,
superstition, zealotry, witchcraft and “biblical literalists.” UFO encounters, miraculous healings, beatific
visions, claims of being teleported to alien spaceships all have prosaic
explanations, he believed, once subjected to common sense analysis. “There are wonders enough out there without
our inventing them.” Living in what is considered
the most haunted city in America, I must take umbrage with his scoffing at the
existence of ghosts, however, for they most certainly do exist. Savannah has oodles of them; we’ve built a
burgeoning tourist industry on them. One
stormy night I’ll tell you about my own experiences. But, for now we will only speak about this incredibly
enthralling book.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In short, Carl Sagan was the nonpareil scientist who
believed only that which can stand up to scientific proof. One might come away with the conviction that
Sagan was an atheist; however, he denied this.
Sagan explained faith as belief in the absence of evidence; he would simply
withhold belief until there <u>was</u> evidence. If one could actually prove an infinitely old
universe, he argued, then one might be able to disprove the existence of a God
Creator. An atheist essentially declares
there is no God – a theory which Sagan believed was impossible to prove - at
least in his lifetime with the tools currently at our disposal. He fit more comfortably into the cloak of an
agnostic. I believe if God could be
proven there would be no need for faith; and, science requires that we
skeptically interrogate the universe. But
I find no discordant notes between the two, probably because I’d rather not.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As dismissive as he was regarding the validity of “miracles”
and a life after death, he was nevertheless very careful to acknowledge the
positivity religion can bring to the lives of humans: history, ethics,
compassion, morals, and poetry can, and often do, find their roots in religious
belief. Where he found fault was in what
he termed “biblical literalists” who believed in a God who spoke to an unerring
stenographer, leaving no room for allegory or metaphor or interpretation. Sagan did not suffer those whom he considered
fools easily.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It is no surprise that Sagan was a great champion of
reading and critical thinking, which are delightfully subversive and dangerous
in any unjust society. This was true in
the days of American slavery and is true today in cultures that can only thrive
if certain segments of the population are kept in the darkness illiteracy breeds. As he rightly points out, tyrants have always
understood that literacy and the free expression of ideas through books and
newspapers encourage thought. Thought
begets disobedience and skepticism and, ultimately, power over the tyrant. “The gears of poverty, ignorance,
hopelessness and low self-esteem mesh to create a kind of perpetual failure
machine that grinds down dreams from generation to generation. We all bear the cost of keeping it running.” Sadly, not much has changed since he wrote
those words a generation ago. One only needs to look at reading scores (if
students are even tested anymore in our culture of “everyone wins so no
feelings are hurt.”). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Sagan tells the story of a young slave named Frederick
Bailey who understood literacy was the path to freedom. Armed with that understanding, he taught
himself to read, fled to New England, and changed his name to Frederick
Douglass, after a character in Sir Walter Scott’s <i>The Lady of the Lake</i>.
Douglass went on to become one of the greatest orators in American
history. As Sagan says, “There are many
kinds of slavery and many kinds of freedom.
But reading is still the path.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If it can be said that there is a dichotomy between
science and mysticism, Carl Sagan himself was a sort of fascinating dichotomy. His greatest hero was Thomas Jefferson, which
surprised me. Not that Jefferson doesn’t deserve the accolade
(he is a hero of mine as well), but there is a bit of disconnect when in
extolling Jefferson’s virtues as a scientist, botanist, astronomer, philosopher,
writer, thinker and, of course, chief author of the Declaration of Independence
– he fails to point out he was also a slaveholder. This is what Sagan might call two uneasily
cohabiting modes of thought. It also
makes him more human and approachable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Reading <i>The
Demon-Haunted World</i>, though not tome-like, took longer to finish than I
expected. Not because it wasn’t gripping
and exceedingly well written; it was both.
But I found myself going off on tangents, putting the book down to find more
information on topics he was raising, like Franz Mesmer, or Project Ozma, or Edward
Teller and thermonuclear war (which is far more frightening than the prospect
of being teleported to a space ship or running into a ghost at the top of the
attic stair, let me tell you). But I was
also fascinated by Carl Sagan, the person, and in his private life. I can see why people either loved or despised
him. (Apparently, he could be something
of a pill. His second wife
understandably finds it hard to forgive him after he informed her that he and their
mutual friend, Ann Druyan, discovered they were hopelessly in love and were
going to get married.) Sagan seems to
have had an insatiable need for attention – both personally and in his work. But the man could think, and write, and
inspire. This book is wise, elegant, lucid, unyielding and as far from dull as science can get. We have lost much.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Gradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17526750467742207099noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4160223532207347025.post-61923849957673623802016-01-13T13:18:00.000-05:002016-01-13T13:18:26.133-05:00...And The Cow Jumped Over The Moon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The room was quiet and bathed in mid-morning light. I had been reading for an hour but it was
time to accomplish the work of the day.
I closed my book and looked over to where my mother sat at her usual
place on the couch, wrapped as always in a blanket for she is perpetually cold –
or so she says. Her eyes were closed; she was asleep. I noticed her hands resting on her chest. I began to cry. I
began to cry because something hit me sharp and hard. It hurt.
To those hands, which were always so strong and yet so gentle, I owe so
much. Those were the cool hands I felt
on my hot brow when I was sick; they were the ones that sewed my favorite
childhood dress. She let me pick the
fabric and I chose a soft white cotton with small cartoon-like drawings of
people on it: ladies in stylish hats and
carrying purses over their arms, little children running with hoops, men in
bowlers. I called it “my people dress”
and except for my wedding gown I can’t remember being more enamored with a piece
of clothing than I was with that one. <o:p></o:p></div>
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My mother took me shopping with her quite a bit. She didn’t drive back then and so we always
walked. As we walked, instead of holding
hands we would clap each other’s hand.
Walk, clap, walk, clap, walk, clap.
It was a silly game and so inconsequential that I should probably not be
able to remember it. But the longer I live the more I realize things which seem
of no particular consequence at the time dimple our memories with the deepest impressions. On these
excursions, we would usually pass a little bookshop on Cermak Road. I haven’t been back to the old neighborhood in
many decades, but it has probably been replaced with a fast food joint or 7-11
convenience store and is nothing more than an old ghost now. One day as we passed the shop, I saw a new
Nancy Drew book in the window. It cost
$1.00. I begged; my mother
hesitated. I loved books even then and
she always acted as co-conspirator and egger-on, feeding my habit. But a
dollar carried more heft in the late 1950s when a first class stamp was 4 cents
and a gallon of milk or a trip to the movies cost a quarter each. She
looked at me and at the window and at me.
I carried home my treasure.<o:p></o:p></div>
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At Christmas, weddings and funerals we always had
Potica. It is THE dish of Slovenia and
no occasion of joy or mourning could be complete without it. She would make the yeasty dough and roll it
out as thinly as she could without tearing.
Although there are variations, Mom’s filling would always be the same –
and of course I believe the best. It
consisted of ground walnuts, honey, meringue, and a little cinnamon. I watched as her hands manipulated the dough,
and spread the walnut concoction, and coxed the whole thing into a roll to be
placed in a tube pan. When it came out
of the oven, we could at last declare it to be Christmas. My mother was a wonderful cook, but she wasn’t
a particularly organized one. She was decidedly unappreciative of company in the kitchen during the preparation of a big
meal. If one was able to sneak a gander
at what was going on in there, the sight would alarm all but the stout of heart. Pots, dripping spoons, potato peelings, more pots
with covers belching steam, splashes of tomato or of gravy, cookbooks strewn hither,
scraps of paper that held instructions for the making of some exotic morsel
taped to a cabinet, yet more pots with
covers askew to overflowing, and lots of boiling, bubbling, gurgling chaos. What emerged, however, was nothing short of
fabulous – and with candles for the table.
It was only at the end of the perfect meal, when we children were assigned
the task of flotsam and jetsam removal, that the madness which preceded genius
was revealed.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Another of my mother’s specialties was something she called “Orange
Blossom Punch” and was made with two types of citrus sherbet, orange juice
concentrate, and 7-Up – with maraschino cherries tossed in “for color.” She always served it after midnight Mass on
Christmas Eve (with potica) and she always put the punch bowl on the
piano. I don’t know if it was out of a superstition
of some sort (both of my parents were blessed with an abundance of them) but
the piano it always was and always had to be.
Growing up, I remember so many holidays that my mother made special with
the work of her hands. One particular
Halloween I came home from school, eager to get dressed up as a bum, and found
the dining room table filled with wondrous things. While we were at school she must have spent
the entire day getting ready for the moment.
She had hollowed out oranges, cut smiling Jack-O-Lantern faces in the
shells, and filled them with jello.
There were also Hoot-Owl cookies she constructed using part chocolate and
part vanilla dough which she shaped into owl heads, a cashew for the beak. They were little works of art. But of, course, my mother was an artist.<o:p></o:p></div>
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If you look around my house or walk into my office you will
see the splendid examples of art wrought by my mother’s hands. She is – or was – very gifted. Although watercolor was her medium of choice,
she did splendid work in pen & ink and chalk. But she also built things, like the riding
toy made from plywood with a base that rocked.
On the sides she painted a crescent moon onto the rounded base, and higher up a cow in full jump in a sky full of
stars – with the words “…and the cow jumped over the moon.” This she made for my son, John. She made it quietly, with no fanfare. I can imagine her plotting it out, standing
back as she painted, judging her work, striving to get it just right. She painted it gently and brightly with an
awesomeness only she could manage.<o:p></o:p></div>
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My mother has entered her 96<sup>th</sup> year. She is often confused about the day – not just
the date, but whether it is morning or night, whether one puts milk or water in
the coffee maker, which of those doors upstairs leads to her bedroom. She
wonders when her son is bringing back her dog, the one he borrowed for the
weekend, the one that in fact has been gone for many years. When
her sister died last year at the age of 98, I decided there was no point in
telling her. I want her to be
happy. The past can be a nice
comfortable place to be. I just
finished a wonderful book entitled <i>The Go-Between</i> by L. P. Hartley, the first
line of which is “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” Yes, they do.
That is where my mother calms a fevered brow, bakes surprises for her
children, works a band saw, paints a bowl of peonies or a crane in the marsh
looking for a fish. That is where she
captures the steeple of a church rising high above the tree tops reaching
toward heaven - reaching into forever. And where, suspended in the dark blue
firmament, a cow jumps over a silvery crescent moon, chasing stars.<o:p></o:p></div>
Gradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17526750467742207099noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4160223532207347025.post-67109321998827897282015-11-10T17:35:00.001-05:002015-11-10T17:35:35.409-05:00My Kitchen Year<div class="MsoNormal">
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The
subtitle to <u>My Kitchen Year</u>, Ruth Reichl’s memoir-cookbook hybrid is “136
Recipes That Saved My Life.” Saved her <b><i>life</i></b>? Wow. What had
happened to have so dramatically affected her life that it needed “saving?”
you might ask. I know I did, and I
purchased it using one of those precious book gift cards that comes along every
now and then when good fortune smiles. I’m
apt to hoard those cards, saving them for something that has staying
power: a cookbook, an art book, historical
non-fiction…a Led Zeppelin CD. I never
make a hasty decision when using a gift card. Even when I’ve zeroed in on a
prospective choice I still mull it over a while. One would think I’d give greater thought to an
item for which I’ve actually spent hard-earned money. But, no that is not the case. For whatever strange reason, no.<o:p></o:p><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> And
so I honed in on <u>My Kitchen Year</u> and waited impatiently for it to be
delivered, ripping open the packaging as soon as it landed on my doorstep, and I began reading it that evening. I wanted to love it; I tried to love it. Sadly, I don’t love it. I just can’t bring myself to love it and here are some of the reasons
why. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> Let’s
begin with the physicality of the book itself as an object. It’s a chunky-ish book, about 9-1/2” x 7 x
1-1/2, the size one might find in the hardback version of a new crime novel. There
is no dust cover, but it does have a nice hardboard cover with a picture of a smiling
Ruth Reichl and a good-looking gray canvas spine. It feels heavy for its size – partly because
the pages are printed on a hefty, matte paper – rather than the glossier paper
that one often finds in cookbooks. One
finds that sort of paper in many cookbooks for a very good reason: photographs of food should look temptingly
glorious. So much so that the reader runs
into the kitchen, throws open the pantry, and begins to pull out ingredients, never feeling the urgency to create <b><i>that particular dish</i></b> until a photograph sparks
an epiphany of the palate. It pains me
to say the photographs in this book are a bit lack luster – not awful. But, oh such a missed opportunity to make
them shine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> The
book itself is difficult to cook from because it does not lie flat, so if you are
inclined to make the Spinach Ricotta Gnocchi you’ll either have to wrestle it
into submission a with a big brick hauled in from the garden, write the recipe out by hand, or hire a butler who will submissively hold it open for you. A shame, really, because although a bit
simplistic, the ones I’ve tried are really quite good (the Shirred Eggs in
Potato Puree is good enough to dream about).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> I
could readily ignore these annoying technical difficulties since they do not
form the true basis of my irritation with having expended a precious gift card on
this book. It is more visceral
than. It’is Ruth Reichl herself who is irritating. Let me explain. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">For ten years Reichl was the Editor in Chief
of <i>Gourmet</i> magazine, a wonderful publication for which I had a subscription
many years running. That is, until publisher
Conde Nast (which also publishes big name magazines such as B<i>on Appetit,
Brides, Glamour, The New Yorker, Vogue</i>) decided to close down the magazine –
literally overnight and after 69 years of publication. Reichl recounts going back to her “huge office
overlooking Times Square,” feeling miserable.
Apart from losing her job, she was also leaving what had become a “family”
comprised of her co-workers. Up to this
point, I was sympathetic – empathetic even.
But then, Ruth Reichl drags the reader through 4 seasons of
self-indulgent whining – with recipes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> Suddenly finding herself unemployed, Reichl worried that she and her (obviously very loving, financially successful and unerringly
supportive) husband would not be able to keep <i><b>both</b></i> their Manhattan apartment AND the
“little country house” in upstate New York unless she was able to find another
job. Photographs of “the little country
house” and the grounds upon which it sits would seem like heaven to most of us. I would gladly have given up the New York pad, content to look out my country window
at the magnificent million-dollar view. But that is me. Ruth, however, “entered the land of grief” (Yes, gentle readers..."land of grief") as
her colleagues were beginning to find jobs and recover. She, on the other hand, “looked into the
future seeing endless empty days, incapable of imaging how my life would ever
change.” She actually insinuated she
feared she would “end up alone and homeless.”
This from a woman known widely in the publishing industry, with a vast
array of influential friends, a loving family, and who was already a best-selling
author. She is interviewed by Anderson
Cooper; she attends Yo-Yo Ma concerts, she travels. Still, life is bleak until one makes Cranberry-Pecan
Crostata which perhaps will make it worth living - for a short period of time. I had gotten to page 61 at this point and was
tempted to throw the book against the wall…instead I read on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> It is
mid-February and <i>Gourmet </i>has been
defunct for several months; she is feeling especially depressed. Out there, in the “real world, people were
doing big things, thinking big thoughts, living big lives.” She felt “marginalized” and couldn’t help “thinking
about the life I might be living.” At this point, I am overcome with the sudden urge to grab this tedious woman by the shoulders, look into her eyes, and ask her, "Do you <u>really</u> want to think about the life you <i><b>might</b></i> be living? Let me enlighten you, Ruthie. You <b><i>might </i></b>be living a life in a wheelchair or one filled with the despair of poverty and ignorance. You <b><i>might</i></b> be living a life where the grief you feel is not from losing your "huge office overlooking Times Square", but rather consists of the grief that comes with burying a child. You <b><i>might </i></b>be living a life where there is no loving supportive husband to be your companion and friend. Nor any dream of being lucky enough to own a "little house in the country" or anyplace else for that matter. Or, you <i style="font-weight: bold;">might </i>be living a life filled with an unsinkable positive attitude and appreciation for how truly fortunate - even blessed - you have been." Maybe I would have borrowed that great Cher line from Moonstruck and yelled, "Snap out of it!" Through all this angst, she is cooking up a storm – for you see, she has
a m</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">emoir-cookbook in the making – the very one for which I would expend a precious
book token - and which I do not love. And when added with all the other readers who aren't doing big things or thinking big thoughts, we will make it a little easier for you to keep that little place in upstate New York and that great Manhattan pad. And allow you to continue to think and do "big."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> I had
finally had enough. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Ms. Reichl is a fine
writer, there is no taking that away from her.
There are some very workable recipes in the book; delicious even. And, to be fair, after a full year of
soul-searching, ingredient shopping, party giving, romantic evenings with her
husband, and long walks in the woods, she comes to the revelation that her life
is pretty damn good after all. Something
that many of us already knew. One wonders why it took her so long.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Gradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17526750467742207099noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4160223532207347025.post-81251207743597720052015-10-01T15:08:00.000-04:002015-10-01T15:08:17.607-04:00The Randomness of Baking Bread<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I can’t remember the last time I bought bread – the sliced,
sandwich type bread. Yes, there is the
occasional loaf of warm boule from the bakery to be savored, thickly spread
with a soft brie. I’ve been known to go
out of my way for an authentic French baguette which I never seem to achieve at
home, the crunchy crust that shatters
into spiky shards, the rough textured and raggedy interior. It is the bread that will never be produced from my
oven, a fossilized remnant of the 1980s.
But for the daily loaf it works just fine. And so I bake. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Baking bread is the essence of a lazy weekend. Bread cannot be rushed and in the early
stages of its development should not be jostled. The very term “resting,” which yeast breads
normally require, quiets the mind, soothes the soul and calms the spirit. On a dark, rainy Sunday morning there are few
places I’d rather be than in the warm kitchen, gently kneading bread
dough. The entire scene makes me
happy: the big ceramic mixing bowl, the
sturdy wooden spoon, a clean linen cloth, big jars of flour, the magic of
watching yeast bubble into life. And then, of course, there is the fragrance.<o:p></o:p></div>
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When bread machines first hit the market over a decade ago,
I had to have one. In a pinch it works
just fine. <i>Baking With Juila</i> – based on the Julia Child TV series - has a
particularly good Buttermilk Bread Machine Bread recipe. Being book crazed, I am often on the trail of
books about bread. And because there is
a randomness to life itself, one thing will invariably lead to another, and
then to something else – down a road you didn’t know you wanted to travel to
find something you didn’t know you desired.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So, back to <i>Baking
With Julia.</i> If you know anything
about Julia Child, you have probably heard of Judith Jones. She was the editor at Albert A. Knopf who
championed the publication of <i>Mastering
The Art of French Cooking</i>. She is
also credited with saving <i>The Diary of
Anne Frank</i> from oblivion when she worked at Doubleday. My own personal library contains cookbooks she
has brought to life, including those by Lidia Bastianich, Joan Nathan, Jacques
Pepin, James Beard, and Marcella Hazan. Obviously,
Judith Jones knows her stuff. I knew she was a fine editor and was not a bit
surprised to learn she was also a fine cook.
In the 1980s she and her husband, Evan Jones, wrote <i>The Book of Bread </i>now sadly out of print. It was put on my mental wish list.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Rummaging around in a used book store is always fun for a
book nerd, but it is especially so when the nerd goes equipped with a mental
wish list. We have a wonderful, dusty,
crammed to the rafters, tight-aisled, rambling, creaky, saggy sofa-ed, dog-sleeping-inside-the-front-door-so-you-have-to-step-over-her,
used book store a short walk from my office.
The narrow entrance is reached by going down several brick stairs, which
were obviously laid long before a building code existed. When the door is opened there is the
ubiquitous tinkling bell which probably should <u>seem</u> clichéd - but does
not - and tiny “tea room” the size of an average walk-in closet. In other words, heaven. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And so I stood one afternoon in the alcove of that shop where
the cookbooks are stacked, unsure of the thing for which I was searching, but
certain I would know it when I found it.
And there it was. <i>The Book of Bread</i> by Judith and Evan
Jones. Without a doubt the trip was a
huge success; I made my way to the desk
at the front of the store. As I did I
passed an aisle that contained what appeared to be very old volumes. I made a small detour. I ran my hand along the spines and stopped at
<i>The Two Vanrevels</i> by Booth Tarkington. On the flyleaf was an inscription “To Emma
from Acca and Tommie – Merry Christmas 1902” </div>
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I was immediately smitten and my
imagination raced. How old was Emma in
1902? Was it a happy Christmas? Did she treasure this gift? Where did her journey take her? Where and when did her journey end? Did this book travel with her? Reluctantly, fighting self-indulgence with
great practicality, I put the book back on the shelf. It was not on my mental wish list. There was no room for impulsive acquisitions. It was proof of my will-power. I walked away and out of the shop.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Very soon it set in...Agony.
I thought about that book for days. At first regret whispered and then it shouted. Deep within I knew I had made a mistake.
I went back to the book store several days later, straight to that
aisle and to that shelf. It was gone. Gone! I
failed to follow my instincts and now it was gone. I mentally kicked myself in the fullest part
of my anatomy. I think I may have croaked out a
noise – a cross between groan and a loud shriek - which seemed to upset the dog. I turned to leave.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It was then that I saw it.
On the wrong shelf, yes.
Displaced, without doubt. But it was
really and truly there and I was meant to find it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It was mine. After doing a bit of research I learned that my volume was
not simply a first edition, it was the first printing of the first
edition. A printing error on page 127 slipped
by the editor, apparently (something which Judith Jones would never have
allowed - see if you can find it) and was subsequently corrected in the “second” first edition. I won’t take credit for knowing I was purchasing
a fairly rare book, because I did not. I
bought it because I fell in love with it, with the sentiment attached to
it. I treasure it for that reason.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Do you see how random it is?
All of it? One can make plans and
draw graphs and fill out action lists to the heart’s delight. But in the end, the big and the small things
that comprise a life are largely forged by the unforeseen, the turns in the
road we did not envision, the traffic jam that causes one to miss a plane, the
change leaving 5 minutes later than planned can make in the course of the whole wide, all encompassing experience. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I bake bread…and so it goes.<o:p></o:p></div>
Gradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17526750467742207099noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4160223532207347025.post-71119783629777032662015-08-05T14:14:00.000-04:002015-08-05T14:27:39.517-04:00Station Eleven<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgon7MfkTC61GYu9XRLHBRJ-PnA3nxfWrGD2OervCTipOXbKrZGG-7Fb7aPffbwOo-QD-hu4HNU8Fj4pt0w15Q3B1w_p5T1InrUKi0a0fgFIfO1mNFtnYNEwqwpFE3s1L7kKYqiw1qQAnMZ/s1600/Station+Eleven.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgon7MfkTC61GYu9XRLHBRJ-PnA3nxfWrGD2OervCTipOXbKrZGG-7Fb7aPffbwOo-QD-hu4HNU8Fj4pt0w15Q3B1w_p5T1InrUKi0a0fgFIfO1mNFtnYNEwqwpFE3s1L7kKYqiw1qQAnMZ/s320/Station+Eleven.jpg" width="208" /></a></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Here’s how it works. An alarming new flu virus crops up half way across the planet in the Republic of Georgia with a frighteningly short incubation period. Within hours of exposure you will be sick. Within a day or two you will be dead. It is traveling fast – very fast - and it is headed in your direction. Within weeks the civilization you know will have evaporated and if you have somehow survived, you will question whether you were one of the lucky ones.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I’ve not been drawn to doomsday literature nor dystopian-themed books or movies. Although I know many are considered to be nothing short of masterpieces (<i>1984, Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World</i> to name a few - none of which I have read), my exposure to that genre has been limited, nearly non-existent. <i>Station Eleven</i> by Emily St. John Mandel may be my breakthrough book. Mine eyes are open.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Although the writing is good it is the story itself that kept me reading far too late into the early morning hours and against my better judgment. It was what I thought about as I turned the key in the ignition of my car or casually turned on the lights, never before surprised or awed that they would work. I stood in the produce section of the supermarket and stared at the beautiful colors, the freshness, the amazing array of choices. So many things at our fingertips, just for the asking. Just for the buying, because we know currency will work and credit cards still exist. You pick up a pepper, judge it against all the other peppers and put the best one in your cart. And then you go home and hit the remote for the garage door opener. You put the groceries in the refrigerator. You fire up the grill. You call someone - your mother, your sister, your child, your friend on the telephone. Probably your cell phone. You laugh together and close with “Love you,” or “Talk to you later.” And you open a bottle of wine. You watch a movie. You read a book. When you go to work, there will be people there. Alive. You are never alone if you do not wish to be. It is life as you know it every day and you don’t dwell upon it much, if at all, or upon whether there will be a “later.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">What if it all vanished in a fortnight? It is the “what ifs” that make this book so compelling. Is a deadly pandemic so out of the question even in this age of modern medicine, science and technology? What if one was so fleet and so lethal that there was no time to devise ways to fight it; or those who may have been successful in doing so have perished in its rising wake? Just think about it: “No more porch lights with moths fluttering on summer nights. No more trains running under the surface of cities on the dazzling power of the electric third rail. No more cities…No more flight. No more towns glimpsed from the sky through airplane windows, points of glimmering light…No more pharmaceuticals. No more certainty of surviving a scratch on one’s hand, a cut on a finger while chopping vegetables for dinner, a dog bite…No more fire departments, no more police. No more road maintenance or garbage pickup…No more internet. No more social media, no more scrolling through litanies of dreams and nervous hopes and photographs of lunches, cries for help and expressions of contentment…No more reading and commenting on the lives of others and in so doing, feeling slightly less alone in the room. No more avatars.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Dystopia. Not a good place. It’s the opposite of Utopia, which is where I’d rather live. But, in terms of a gripping book, it’s just not as much fun. After one writes about the sun shining, the birds singing, and people living in peace and harmony on a healthy planet where everyone is well fed and highly educated, there isn’t much more to do than sit around and eat grape clusters listening to poetry recitations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> <i>Station Eleven</i>, for all its bleak foreboding, ends on a sweet ray of hope. If nothing else, it may provoke you to ponder what you might otherwise take for granted…or compel you to pick up the phone and make that call, as you meant to do but never found the time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Gradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17526750467742207099noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4160223532207347025.post-14617464830637605072015-07-16T00:06:00.002-04:002015-07-16T00:08:06.562-04:00Go Set A Watchman<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik2u8XYH9C8kRd_mrkET3ZAs4E_FEV133OG-o0cX9cXc4hPwcM97kjbLqFSpWYlcFWXLbX4xQ5XdiF3urBtrqy0rDKNFQMOzcyteLar0EMd_5jopnumBMQsY5NGZSWCLQ9SgrrEv3603uZ/s1600/Watchman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik2u8XYH9C8kRd_mrkET3ZAs4E_FEV133OG-o0cX9cXc4hPwcM97kjbLqFSpWYlcFWXLbX4xQ5XdiF3urBtrqy0rDKNFQMOzcyteLar0EMd_5jopnumBMQsY5NGZSWCLQ9SgrrEv3603uZ/s1600/Watchman.jpg" /></a><br />
I think Scout was the victim of a cruel hoax without her ever figuring it out. It was not Atticus Finch she found when she returned to Maycomb. It was his evil twin brother, Skippy. Perhaps in the next installment, we will discover her real father is being kept hostage in the cellar...with Bo Radley. Can there be another mystery manuscript hidden away in a strong box that will redeem this mess? There are few things in life that are nearly perfect, and they should not be subject to tampering.<br />
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If you believe in Atticus Finch as much as I do, clap as hard as you can. We can bring him back. (It worked for Tinkerbell). In the meantime, don't even bother with this one...it saddens me to say it. Whatever was she thinking.<br />
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<span style="text-align: center;">Fear not. Atticus Finch lives between the covers of To Kill A Mockingbird. He will live there forever. And nothing can change that. It is a sin to kill a mockingbird, my friends.</span>Gradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17526750467742207099noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4160223532207347025.post-4816318213190591512015-06-26T16:02:00.001-04:002015-06-26T16:02:37.155-04:00Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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About ten years ago I belonged to one of those big "book clubs." You know the ones. They send you a brochure every month. You can<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>choose<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>the selection for that month, or order something else from the catalog by sending in the little card that accompanies the brochure. If you don't send in the little card advising you do NOT want the selection of the month, it is automatically sent to you (and charged to your credit card.) It is a very successful marketing model since it taps into the fact that so many of us are (a) procrastinators, (b) forgetful, or (c) so disorganized we will lose the little card and never find it before the deadline runs out. That is how I originally came to own the hardbound version of <i>Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell</i> by Susanna Clarke. I had never heard of it, wasn’t interested in it, and lifted it up to a bookshelf where its substantial girth took up considerable real estate. I looked upon it as another unnecessary financial outlay and resolved to mend my disorganized, forgetful and procrastinating ways. But then my eldest child came to visit. <o:p></o:p></div>
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He was an early reader, having taught himself (apparently, because I didn’t teach him) at the age of 3. I used to joke I bought him books by the pound rather than by storyline. The bigger and heftier the book, the happier my boy. He saw <i>Jonathan Strange</i> on the shelf, had heard the buzz, and with my blessing took it with him when he left. I never thought of it again. Fast forward 9 years. <o:p></o:p></div>
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There are times when I am absolutely driven to find and read a book. I usually can’t remember what triggers the obsession. In the case of <i>Jonathan Strange</i> I may have heard that BBC America was about to unleash a TV series based upon it. But I’m a little vague on that as well. In any event, I placed myself in the library queue. I was first in line and I could have waited. But when it wasn’t ready by the second day I simply couldn’t stand the suspense any longer. I ordered the paperback version from Barnes & Noble, which promised to have it delivered within 3 business days – free shipping. When a book weighs in at over 1000 pages, free shipping clinches the deal to my way of thinking.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I’ve been dragging this doorstop of a book around with me for 11 days. To the car wash, to the car dealership, to the hair salon, to the bank, to the office. Wherever and whenever I think I’ll have the slightest minute of downtime. I’ve left it (reluctantly) behind when I know it would be inexcusably rude to pull it out to read (like at lunch with a friend), or just plain wrong (like church). But I have to admit, it’s painful. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I’ve been trying to take it slow; that’s not easy. It is so completely absorbing I really have to force myself to put it down and step away from it. I am a little over half-way finished and I’m already feeling a little panicked. At this rate, it will all be over in another week. And then what shall I read? “Will anything ever be this good again?” I ask myself. When I've read the last page and closed the back cover, I expect it will take a long time to find another book that I can live in. Oh yes,yes, I know. I hear you thinking, “Isn’t she being a bit dramatic.” No. I am not. In fact, I will go further. There are words that have been invented to describe a book like this. They include “magnificent,” “inventive,” “unique,” “mesmerizing,” intelligent,” “eloquent,” “enchanting,” “meticulous.” Dear me. I <b><i>am</i></b> slobbering, aren’t I. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I’ve been having a lot less luck with the TV series. It airs on Saturday at 10:00 p.m. I am an early riser who finds it difficult to stay up past 9:00 p.m. A hopeless wimp to whom New Year’s Eve is the day when people call me at midnight, waking me from peaceful slumber wishing me to be happy and creating the opposite effect. I made it through about 15 minutes of Episode 1, was completely zonked out before Episode 2 even started, but am determined to put up a fight when Episode 3 rolls around tomorrow. Hot coffee, sharp objects, an ice bath. Figuring out whether I get “BBC America On Demand” is another option. Although the remote scares me. Or there is always the option of ordering the first season on DVD when made available<o:p></o:p></div>
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How is it that a book of this length seems too short? The fact that the writing style remains consistent and sharp throughout is in itself a marvel, but it is the imaginative building of the story line –episode by episode - that is truly remarkable. The novel is peppered with footnotes – some several pages long – which one would think would be terribly distracting when, in fact, they add immeasurably to the back story. One can say it is a literary alchemy of sorts which, since the book is <u>about</u> magic, is just as it should be. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I must remember to ask my son if he ever read the book. The one I wish I’d have hidden under the sofa rather than leave it exposed on the bookshelf to be purloined by a book usurper. The one I should have grabbed back while growling, “Get your own copy.” After all, there are limits to the sacrifices a mother must or should make for her children. <o:p></o:p></div>
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This, my friends, is the book I wish I could have written and I can’t give it higher praise that that.<o:p></o:p></div>
Gradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17526750467742207099noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4160223532207347025.post-33302034300776065862015-06-03T13:17:00.003-04:002015-06-03T13:17:32.861-04:00Ross Poldark: A Novel of Cornwall, 1783-1787<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjh-OY5owGvQkhDpGZCm6LzKVYp8BN_l09yXdmqiXPWPht9r6pKmqNNyRtRIpLW52YySXJq1S7moxUsVLDl2WTgn6CfFzO9fmcu-LtkFeUdKvrHYrwXn18nOA4OxYD2uM3M1OvtbRLl_6_/s1600/poldark.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjh-OY5owGvQkhDpGZCm6LzKVYp8BN_l09yXdmqiXPWPht9r6pKmqNNyRtRIpLW52YySXJq1S7moxUsVLDl2WTgn6CfFzO9fmcu-LtkFeUdKvrHYrwXn18nOA4OxYD2uM3M1OvtbRLl_6_/s1600/poldark.jpg" /></a></div>
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I will be the first to admit that when it comes to television I tend to live under a rock. But books…now that’s another story altogether. So where have I been since 1945 when Winston Graham penned <i>Ross Poldark: A Novel of Cornwall, 1783-1787</i>? Not yet born for some of those years, granted. But what is my excuse for the decades that followed? And even though I have never been a big fan of TV, the exception has always been the fabulous offerings of PBS, especially via BBC productions. I learned that the books had been produced for television back in the 1970s, like <i>Upstairs Downstairs. </i>It was a big hit. And yet…crickets chirping.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So when I heard, in a very casual way, that there was a new series coming to PBS in a few weeks called <i>Poldark</i> based on a series of books that have been around for quite some time, I did a little internet surfing. What I read did not particularly grab me: Ross Poldark, a British Army officer returns to Cornwall after having fought for the Crown in the Revolutionary War only to find his fiancé betrothed to his cousin and his family estate in ruins. “Oh. A romance novel,” I yawned deflated. Not exactly my cup of gin. Like a cherry on the top, the cover of the newly released book was even less appealing. I would not have been surprised to find Fabio on the cover. But I have great faith in the BBC and PBS. “So, where’s the trust?” I asked myself. The old adage is true: one really can’t judge a book by its cover. Or its blurbs. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I found a site that offered a sampling. I just love samples, don’t you? Yes, I do find them hard to pass up. Be it cheese cubes, tortilla chips, warm pralines, shrimp on a toothpick, it doesn’t seem to matter. Thinking “just a nibble,” I began with the prologue (yum) and read through the first chapter of the first volume (of which there are apparently 12). It was over all too soon. And as is the purpose of all good samples, when the “taste” was over I wanted <b><i>more</i></b>. I was hooked and thrown into the boat.<o:p></o:p></div>
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My plan was to run over to my favorite bookstore at lunch and grab a copy today. (oh joy) But a quick phone call confirmed they did not have it in stock. (oh groan) But since the order for today had not gone out (I called as soon as they opened), I could possibly have it in my mitts by Friday. (oh joy). Having thus assuaged my “bookie” conscience by buying from my independent bookstore first (because if they disappear I'll blame myself), I ordered the second volume<i>, Demelza: A Novel of Cornwall 1788-1790 </i>from Barnes & Noble, which I should receive by Monday at a fairly nice savings and free shipping. <o:p></o:p></div>
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If all goes as planned, when the series starts on Sunday, June 21, I’ll have consumed both volumes and be fully satiated, smugly able to sit back and judge the quality of the production, and fully anticipating the banquet of 10 more volumes to go!! I’ll try not to burp.<o:p></o:p></div>
Gradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17526750467742207099noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4160223532207347025.post-75611255753736485152015-05-13T12:14:00.002-04:002015-05-13T12:20:04.430-04:00The Buried Giant <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_igyejzb5-kcW846ETOjHeLIizS2W9YKQAY5zpjE59Pi7UOvl28OxI3ZYeTPCSlCyEmPFJ2AMMlSp1G6KNGpx6ghyphenhyphenM_CrzX42m_4ToSKOkchK0pAT1ngrnU1Lp3NDYTmUQAZNMylSX3tp/s1600/51tXDWW3TAL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_igyejzb5-kcW846ETOjHeLIizS2W9YKQAY5zpjE59Pi7UOvl28OxI3ZYeTPCSlCyEmPFJ2AMMlSp1G6KNGpx6ghyphenhyphenM_CrzX42m_4ToSKOkchK0pAT1ngrnU1Lp3NDYTmUQAZNMylSX3tp/s320/51tXDWW3TAL.jpg" width="219" /></a>So, you get a gift. The giver is someone who can always surprise you with his unique style. As you turn the object over in your hands you can clearly tell it is something that was finely crafted and is somehow both sturdy and delicately wrought. But…”What is it? What does it do?” you ask. “Well, see, you turn this lever and twist it here and pop that open and hold it like this.” “Oh. Yes. It’s lovely, beautiful even. But…which is it…is it a can opener or is it a flashlight?” There is a small pause before he replies, “Exactly!!”<o:p></o:p></div>
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So how shall I describe <i>The Buried Giant</i> by Kazuo Ishiguro? Notwithstanding that it is populated with ogres, pixies and a dragon, I wouldn’t call it a fantasy like The Hobbit. And although it is set in sixth or seventh century England, a time following the collapse of the Roman Empire when medieval Europe was experiencing economic and cultural decline – and there is talk of lingering hostility between the Britons and the Saxons following the bloody war years - it certainly is not historical fiction. You may think that because Sir Gawain, the nephew of the now-dead but legendary King Arthur, enters the picture as an old and tottering knight on a mission of his own that the novel should be classified as a myth…or perhaps an allegory. The only thing I can say about its genre with any certainty is this: <i>The Buried Giant </i>is odd.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The main characters are Britons Axl and Beatrice, an elderly married couple who live in a warren cut into a hillside. Their neighbors have taken away their only candle for fear they are too old to be trusted not to start a fire by some careless act of neglect. Beatrice resents this and refuses to resign herself to living in the dark. It is a time when the land is covered in a dense and unyielding mist that clouds everything, including memory and all thoughts of the past. In a momentary break in her own fog, Beatrice suddenly remembers that Axl and she have a grown son living in another village which might be reached within a few days walk. She convinces her husband that they should leave the place of darkness and go to find their son. Despite their age and infirmity, and although they realize the journey will be dangerous, they set out to do just that. But danger can come in many shapes and forms; it can come from without as well as from within. Sometimes it comes with remembering the past.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The landscape of this novel is more than figuratively desolate and at times it is overwhelmingly atmospheric and as weighty as a Delta summer. But there are also moments of comic relief, kindness, and devotion. That Axl and Beatrice love each other is reinforced for the reader with astonishingly simple grace: "Are you still there, Axl?" "I'm still here, Princess." </div>
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If, as I did, you loved <i>The Remains Of The Day</i> or <i>Never Let Me Go </i>and you expect this newest novel to be similar in some way to either, you should prepare yourself to be disappointed. To approach this book with any such expectation is to do it an injustice; it is maddeningly unique. To be honest, at times I asked myself, “<i>What </i>am I reading here…and why?” If <i>Don Quixote</i> married <i>The Wizard of Oz</i> and begot <i>Morte d’Arthur</i>, would <i>The Buried Giant </i>be a second cousin once removed? The answer came back, Ishiguro is, after all, Ishiguro. . Masterful writing rests within the hands of the masterful writer. No surprise there. <span style="text-align: center;"> Truthfully, I am currently unable to grab hold of what makes this book so mesmerizing. Perhaps I lack the mental muscle to properly dissect it. Not on the first go-round in any event.</span></div>
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I would be hard-pressed to rate this book with “stars.” It is so multi-layered it demands re-reading to get to the core…the sweet nutmeat…the “aha” kernel. Did I love it? Did I like it? My opinion should not matter. My advice to those of you who are determined to press onward through the labyrinth (and I do recommend as much): relinquish your preconceptions, open your imagination, and stay buckled in. The roads are rough, bumpy and will chill a person. You may get bitten by a memory - which can fester or leave a scar. Or overcome by the past as it rushes towards you and makes you wobbly, dazed and uncertain. You may get lost in the mist that clings to every branch and bog. But if you make it through, you will know what I've been trying to tell you...and further explanation will not be required.<o:p></o:p></div>
Gradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17526750467742207099noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4160223532207347025.post-5692256970950818482015-04-22T15:25:00.001-04:002015-04-22T22:05:05.868-04:00The Shadow Of The Wind<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>Bea says that the art of reading is slowly dying, that it’s an intimate ritual, that a book is a mirror that offers us only what we already carry inside us, that when we read, we do it with all our heart and mind, and great readers are becoming more scarce by the day – The Shadow of The Wind by Carlos Luis Zafon<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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When was the last time you were completely and utterly lost in a book? A time when you came to the end, closed the cover, and emerged glassy-eyed and waiting to regain your bearings, reluctant to return to the real world. I think, perhaps, it happens more often in childhood than adulthood. You remember those summer afternoons being transported to Oz or falling down the rabbit hole or being yanked back to earth from the Land of Mordor only because your mother is calling you to supper, don’t you. You do if you loved to read as a child. Every now and again, however, it can happen when you’re old enough to know that magic isn’t real, that it’s all in the flick of the wrist. But every once in a while you’ll pick up a book, begin to read, and realize – notwithstanding all your years of living - that there are all kinds of magic in which to believe.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It is the summer of 1945. Daniel Sempere’s father, the owner of a shop that specializes in antiquarian books, wakes him just before dawn and tells him to get dressed. “I want to show you something,” he says. Daniel follows his father through the narrow, hazy lanes of Barcelona until they stop in front of a large door of carved wood, blackened by time and humidity – the entrance to what resembles a crumbling palace. “Daniel,” his father cautions, “you mustn’t tell anyone what you’re about to see today.” The door is opened by a man whom his father greets with familiarity. “Good morning, Isaac. This is my son, Daniel.” Inside Daniel is stunned by what he sees: labyrinths of passageways and corridors and halls, crammed from floor to soaring ceiling with bookshelves full of books. “Welcome to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, Daniel,” his father winks.<o:p></o:p></div>
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His father explains that they have entered a place of mystery. That every book within the walls has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read and lived with it and dreamed with it. “Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens.” A book that is forgotten – whether it be from the closing of a bookstore, the disappearance of a library, or simply consigned to oblivion – those who know of and guard this sanctuary make certain it comes here to live, waiting for the day when it will reach a new reader’s hands.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Daniel’s father explains that according to tradition, the first time someone visits the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, he (or she) must choose a book and adopt it, making sure that it will never disappear and that it will always stay alive. “It is a very important promise. For life.” On this day it was to be Daniel’s turn.<o:p></o:p></div>
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As he roamed through the galleries of that seemingly boundless universe, his eyes spotted the book that he knew he would chose – or which, more precisely, had chosen him. The gold letters of the title gleamed from the light peeking in from the glass domed ceiling. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Taking it home with him, Daniel not only gets lost in the book, he becomes curious about its author – whose works, he learns, are being systematically hunted down and destroyed by someone unknown. In his passion to discover who and why, he begins to unravel an amazing story of mystery, murder, and near madness, with shadowy plots and subplots and with enough ghostly gothic film noir essence, nail biting thrills, dangers lurking with every creaking floorboard, and both the nobility of the human spirit and its evil twin to keep the pages turning furiously. I promise you, it’s pure literary seduction to which you will gladly succumb.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Gradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17526750467742207099noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4160223532207347025.post-61326967710050307382015-02-24T11:07:00.001-05:002015-02-24T14:42:16.072-05:00Bel CantoI do a fair amount of work-related driving. This week even more so as I anticipated spending over two hours a day traveling to and from South Carolina. Normally, the idea of getting into the car and driving around town without an audio book does not make me break out in a cold sweat. But long-distance driving is quite another matter, so I figured it would be a very good time to "read" <i>Bel Canto</i> by Ann Patchett, which is something I've been meaning to do ever since I finished <i>State of Wonder</i>. <br />
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I am currently on disc 5 of 9, which brings me a little more than half-way through, and I like the story line quite a bit. World famous opera soprano, Roxane Coss, is engaged to sing at the palatial home of the vice-president of an unnamed South American country following a dinner party to celebrate the birthday of the chairman of a large Japanese electronics company. The party is attended by rollers and shakers of industry and politically powerful personages. The president of the unidentified country is supposed to be in attendance as well; however, the party falls on the evening his favorite soap opera is scheduled to reach its denouement. He sends his regrets at the last minute. Meanwhile, a terrorist organization has composed a plot to break into the house at the height of the festivities and kidnap the president. The break-in is successful, but for obvious reasons the kidnapping is a bust. The terrorists take everyone who is in attendance hostage instead. <br />
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That is about all of the plot line I'm going to reveal, except to say a lot of the book is character study and is very well written - at least as far as I have come in the book. Let's tally this up so far: Plot line: Very good; Writing: Excellent; Character development: Insightful. So why am I not loving this book? Narration. Narration, dear readers, can kill a good book quite dead.<br />
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Because the aforementioned gala event is attended by multi-national glitterati, there are a lot of foreign accents to be heard among the crowd. That's okay when the reader is reading inside the reader's head. The mind sort of fills in the blanks without much notice. But in narration? Well, let's say in this particular instance it goes something like this:<br />
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Russian guest (predicable low voice): "OH-prra eez wary eemporrtahnt een my cowntry." <br />
Spanish guest: (higher voice) "Eees eet polithicul or-r-r museeecul? Joo cahn nevahrrrr thell." <br />
Japanese guest (halting sotto voce): Well, there's just no way to type it, but it reminds me of Ming the Merciless in the old Flash Gordon television series. <br />
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It's a shame, really, to subject an otherwise very worthwhile book to linguistic torture. And it is only because it is very worthwhile that I will soldier on until the end. My advice to actors who wish to pursue a career in the book-reading biz is to ditch the phony accents. Because unless you're David Suchet or Meryl Streep, it seldom works and you will only accomplish ruining the experience for the poor reader who, like me, is trapped inside their car contending with foul weather, traffic jams and road construction. Is it too much to ask that you simply read the words? <br />
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As the Russian said, shaking his head, "Eees so wary froostrrating." I hear you, pal. I feel the same way.<br />
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<br />Gradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17526750467742207099noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4160223532207347025.post-26960533111206548832015-01-26T13:21:00.000-05:002015-01-27T09:59:06.441-05:00The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In my earliest memory of...well, anything, I am 3-1/2 years old and standing next to my mother in the dining room one early, gray winter morning. We lived in a brownstone two-flat on Lawndale Avenue in Chicago which my parents bought after the war. It was 1951 and the dining room was cozily heated by a wood-burning stove. She was holding a brightly colored book-order form that my sister had carried home from school. My sister made her selections, then my mother turned to me and said I could chose one book as well. I still remember the thrill of excitement, looking at the pictures of the book covers. I chose The Tall Book of Make-Believe illustrated by Garth Williams. Over fifty years later, when I was forced to evacuate my home outside Savannah, a hurricane bearing down on us, the only possession I took with me was that book. That battered, bent, raggedy-paged book. That book which traveled with me to college, and to Europe, and to Hawaii, and eventually to an island along Georgia's coast. In a world of possessions, it was what I could not lose. On that cold winter morning in 1951 I was not yet a reader; but it was the moment I became a book lover. Over the intervening years I have read many fine books, great ones, masterpieces written by gifted authors. And yet, The Tall Book of Make-Believe remains the most important and influential book I have ever held in my hands. For those of you who have seen Citizen Kane, it is my "Rosebud."<br />
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When I was roughly 8 years old, my parents moved us from the city to the suburbs. The library was 7 blocks away, an easy bike ride over what were still very urban streets. It was housed in a corner store front building; the librarian sat at a heavy oak desk to the right of the front door. I would head directly to "my section" which was located in the back, right-hand side of the room - second row from the end. It was from this library that I borrowed my first chapter book, The Wizard of Oz. It was bound in an appropriately green cover, sprinkled with small yellow fleur de lis. I wish I could find one just like it. And then, after carrying my stack of books quietly to the desk, the librarian would hand me a pencil so I could print my name on the little pocket card. She would pound the date stamp on the pad and "plunk" it onto the return slip glued to the inside cover. I would pedal home, books in the basket of my bike.<br />
<br />
As Lewis Buzbee writes in <u>The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop</u>, his very readable book about books, printing them, selling them, lusting over them, "[t]ake someone who likes to read; give her a comfy place to do so and ample time for doing it; add one good book, and then more; stand back." As all book-lusters know to be true, we are "drawn to the bookstore by the books that moved us, and stopping for just a moment, we stayed for a long time."<br />
A book, as Buzbee points out, "is a uniquely durable object, one that can be fully enjoyed without being damaged. A book doesn't require fuel, food, or service; it isn't very messy and rarely makes noise. A book can be read over and over, then passed on to friends, or resold at a garage sale. A book will not crash or freeze and will still work when filled with sand. Even if it falls into the bath, it can be dried out, ironed if necessary and then finished. Should the spine of a book crack so badly the pages fall out, one simply has to gather them before the wind blows them away and wrap with a rubber band." <br />
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It is clear that Lewis Buzbee loves the physical book, the printed version, the real McCoy. When first published in 2006, this little volume expressed his concern that ebooks and Internet booksellers might signal the end of the bookstore and the book-book. However, as proof of the resiliency of the printed book he asks us to take a simple test: "Look around on the streetcar or bus or airplane and count how many e-readers you see. None. We still prefer that quiet rustle of the pages, and besides, how do you press a wildflower into the pages of an e-book?" Fast-forward to 2015, however, and it's easy to see things have changed. Not everyone among the general readership desires the "quiet sensuality" of the printed book. In his 2008 Afterword, he admits there's no doubt about it - it's a bad time to be a bookseller.<br />
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Yes, I loved this little volume. What book-luster would not? Who among us hasn't, on occasion, become a "book snoop," straining to make out what that person sitting across from you on the train is reading? Loving how the unique smell of the bookstore wafts over you as soon as you enter. Being alone among others? Who hasn't stopped in a bookstore for "just a moment" and stayed a long time? I have no idea whether the bookstore or the printed book will survive as technology presses on. Or whether a young reader in the next millennium will find the same satisfaction in flipping electronic pages as I did reading under the covers with a flashlight, or peddling home, basket heavy with Nancy Drew or Heidi or that silly Mrs. Goose And Her Friends. Or printing my name on the flyleaf. This book belongs to ME.<br />
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But one thing will always be true: When one opens the covers of a book, the universe unfurls itself. <br />
<br />Gradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17526750467742207099noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4160223532207347025.post-50634645881010013682015-01-16T12:53:00.003-05:002015-01-16T14:06:27.912-05:00Rhapsody In Blue(s)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
My latest book order came! I had not realized I color coded my choices. Was it a trend? Had I been doing this subconsciously for a while? Impossible! Preposterous! So, I checked. The month before I walked out of the bookstore with <u>The Crystal Cave</u> and <u>The Sun Also Rises</u> tucked under an arm.<br />
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<img alt="The Sun Also Rises" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1331828228l/3876.jpg" /><br />
<img alt="The Crystal Cave (Arthurian Saga, #1)" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1409930528l/82192.jpg" /><br />
<br />
and then there was the book order comprised of:<br />
<br />
<img alt="In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1335902168l/17780.jpg" /><br />
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<img alt="In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1395935993l/20897517.jpg" /><br />
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The proof, as they say, is in the cover art. I have no idea how long this has been going on. Is it a sign of something deeper, more psychological, than the lure of a color wheel? Wouldn't it be fun to take all the books one owns and line them up by hue? Just to see how it looked? Discover your primary palette for prose! Define your literary pigment. Achieve the ultimate crayolafication of your reading life! Are you a tranquil blue, a dignified gray, a tender pink? Or perhaps you are:<br />
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<img alt="The Camerons" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1394390380l/6371685.jpg" /><br />
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Plaid? <br />
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<br />Gradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17526750467742207099noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4160223532207347025.post-62075000908308670632014-12-30T16:47:00.001-05:002014-12-30T16:47:41.253-05:00And The Winner Is...Whoosh. Did you feel that? Another year zooms on down the road leaving some of us wondering what the heck just happened. Am I richer? Thinner? Fitter? Or perhaps a combination of thinner and fitter which I will call "thitter." Do I see a more peaceful world? A cleaner one? Have I been kinder, or have I at least tried? I suppose it's inevitable that at the close of each year one can't resist the urge to take inventory and tally up the balance sheets of life. I don't particularly like the exercise and generally avoid it...with one exception! The books I've read.<br />
<br />
<u>All The Light We Cannot See</u> by Anthony Doerr, is not only the best book of fiction I read in 2014, it is the best <i><b>book</b></i> I've read this year. No, that's too limited. It is the best book I've read in <b><i>many</i></b> years. I would not be surprised if I learn someone plans to make a "major motion picture" based on it. Just, please, whoever you are...please do it justice.<br />
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Last October I had a bunch of coupons for Barnes and Noble for 20% off that were set to expire. Since I also have a membership, I get an additional discount <i>plus</i> free shipping when I order books on-line. The rationale I use is thus: with a coupon <u>and</u> extra discounts, one is not spending money one is saving money. Using this rationale, I had a great time saving tons of money by clicking, and entering coupon codes, and applying discounts. When the books began arriving it was actually better than Christmas surprises. You might know that feeling: "Oh, I forgot I ordered that. How wonderful." <br />
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One of those books turned out to be the best book of non-fiction I read in 2014. <u>In The Heart Of The Sea</u> by Nathaniel Philbrick is based on the 1820 voyage of the whaling ship <i>Essex </i>out of Nantucket, which was rammed by a sperm whale (apparently in a deliberate attack...an event unheard of at the time) and sunk near the Equator in the South Pacific Ocean. Twenty survivors packed into three small boats with little food, water or navigational equipment. Only a handful made it home. I was half-way through the book when I noticed for the first time that it was not only a New York Times Bestseller (something I don't follow) but the cover also announced that it is "soon to be a Major Motion Picture." After a little checking, I see it is due to be released in a few months. As a side-bar, if you didn't already know that the whaling industry had terrible consequences for the survival of the species, that and other acts of environmental malfeasance will probably make you sad and angry. Nevertheless, this is a whopping good story.<br />
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I read several excellent mysteries this year. I especially loved <u>The Tiger In The Smoke</u>, an oldie by Margery Allingham, which had me turning pages like crazy. It was all you hope a murder mystery will be. But, I'll have to give the award to <u>The Dead In Their Vaulted Arches</u> by Alan Bradley. Not gripping, not spine-tingling, but well-written and my sentimental favorite since I find Flavia de Luce to be the most refreshing and precocious chemist/sleuth of all time. Besides, this is the volume in which her long-lost mother, Harriet, comes home. I had heard it was supposedly the last, but I'm delighted that number 7 will be out next week. Have I pre-ordered <u>As Chimney Sweepers Come To Dust</u>? You bet.<br />
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Although it was not published in 2014, I only got around to reading <u>Bring Up The Bodies</u> by Hilary Mantel this year and it gets the award for best historical fiction. My only criticism of it was I wish it had been longer. I wasn't prepared to reach the end. It was that good.<br />
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<u>Things That Matter </u>by Charles Krauthammer is a collection of essays and articles written in his brilliant, witty, and insightful style. Known mainly for his political commentary, Krauthammer is also a psychiatrist which I think gives him a special gravitas in his analysis of people and why they do the things they do. There is some politics, but he writes so well on a number of subjects: baseball, dogs, speed chess. Even if you do not agree with him ideologically, I will bet you will like the guy after reading this book.<br />
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I can't remember how I learned about <u>I Am Pilgrim</u> by Terry Hayes. The cover art is awful, so I know it isn't what grabbed me. I'm happy something did. The story line, the tight writing, the contemporary subject matter all worked together to create a real edge-of-your-seat thriller. I was going to loan it to a friend, but am too afraid it won't come back to me. I don't want to part with it. I can see a movie on the horizon for this one and would bet money someone has already bought the rights.<br />
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The most delightfully fun read was <u>Where'd You Go, Bernadette</u>, by Maria Semple. I wanted fearlessly quirky, highly intelligent, but somewhat blundering Bernadette Fox to be my friend. This was an audio book for me and the narrator's voice was perfect. The wrong voice will ruin it every time.<br />
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I read one YA book this year (something I rarely do) but had heard so much about <u>The Night Gardener</u> by Jonathan Auxier that I figured, "Why not?" Now that I've read it, if I was twelve or thirteen again, I would check under the bed every night and sleep with the light on, and dead leaves blowing about the house would make me run in a panic. <br />
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There were so many good books this year, I hate to pick favorites. But these really did stand out and I can recommend each and every one of them. <br />
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So bring on 2015. I can hardly wait.Gradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17526750467742207099noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4160223532207347025.post-10982044755438705602014-11-24T13:11:00.002-05:002014-11-24T13:11:42.641-05:00Go Ahead: Challenge MeThe end of the year is breathing down my neck and I find myself glancing over my shoulder at the wreckage of broken resolutions, failed goals and challenges that remain unchallenged. But I remain hopeful and ready to begin afresh. Yes, Scarlett O'Hara, you are correct. There's always tomorrow - or next year (at least one hopes). In six weeks I'll start again to think about painting the hallway, scraping the ceilings, planting a vegetable garden, and getting up an hour before dawn to exercise. What I will not do is burden myself with a reading challenge on Goodreads. Or rather, I will not make a blood oath with myself to read a book or two a week. I will admit the Goodreads challenge is fulfilling in the same sort of way my 401k statement is fulfilling. As I finish a book and hang a few stars on it, it gets saved in my little "Books Read" bank account. And as the year wanes, a bibliophile takes pleasure in looking back over the year via the book covers that get lined up. Or realizing <i>that</i> book was read <i>last year</i>, not this year. <i>Last</i> year? I could have <i>sworn</i> I read it this year. Or even more stunning when it happens to me..."I <i>read </i>that book? I wonder what it was about?"<br />
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So, let's say you've set yourself a goal of 52 books in the year. That's a book a week. That's doable - especially if you listen to an audio book while driving or during that pre-dawn jogging you mean to accomplish. Ah...But are we talking about reading <i>The Haunting Of Hill House </i>by Shirley Jackson or <i>Natchez Burning</i> by Greg Iles? One could read the Jackson book four times before finishing the Iles. Or perhaps three Penelope Fitzgerald novels and <i>The Stranger</i> by Albert Camus. Do I really want to pick up George Eliot's <i>Middlemarch</i> when, at 900 pages, Goodreads will gently remind me that I'm "6 books behind schedule," which may therefore compel me to reach for a graphic novel - just to catch up rather than because I want to read it - all because being<b> behind schedule</b> is anathema to me? Being behind? Not making the grade? What - shall I lose the challenge just because I choose to cart around a tome? It isn't that I don't want to read Camus. I love Camus; Camus is brief and he is brilliant. But I also love Victor Hugo and might want to re-read <i>Les Miserables. </i><br />
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Challenges are fine; they can be invigorating and self-affirming. And they have their place. I'm just not sold that a book challenge based solely on numbers is the right place for me to be. I suppose you can argue that such a challenge encourages people to read more. But let's face it. A person who signs up for a reading challenge is probably already someone who reads without any prompting. Goodreads is, after all, a place for readers. <br />
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I will still sign up for the 2015 Challenge when the time comes, but I'll challenge myself to something stress free - 12 books for the year perhaps. I can still look at my "books read" bank and feel a smug satisfaction with myself as the covers start to add up. <br />
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Before the end of the year I would like to finish my little TBR pile which consists of <i>The Sun Also Rises</i>, Ernest Hemingway, <i>Frankenstein</i>, Mary Shelley, and <i>Mr. Midshipman Hornblower</i> by C.S. Forester. I will most certainly finish the very delightful audio book <i>Where'd You Go Bernadette</i>, by Maria Semple but gave up on <i>Among Others</i> by Jo Walton narrated by...I can't remember. The story was just fine but I could not take that <i><b>voice</b> </i>for 8 more hours. Just...could...not.<br />
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And, if I do not finish any of them, that will be okay too. Because there's always tomorrow. And as we all know, tomorrow is another day.Gradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17526750467742207099noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4160223532207347025.post-80171248269286461822014-10-18T11:29:00.000-04:002014-10-18T11:29:12.595-04:00Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-Thon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Well, I am already into my stack which includes audio books so I can also run some errands. This is the third time I have participated in the read-a-thon, which is a very good excuse to let dust settle, drink a great deal of coffee, and not answer the phone. Hundreds of readers from all parts of the world are taking part in this unique event and I look forward to checking in with many of them and also to cheer them on.<br />
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Happy reading!Gradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17526750467742207099noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4160223532207347025.post-17317684454261012752014-09-21T01:25:00.002-04:002014-09-21T01:25:22.567-04:00DearieI was shopping for a dress. A dress for my daughter's wedding. In order to get there I had to pass the book store...honestly I did. Really. I decided I could not buy one...more...book. I made a pact with myself. Not one. But...I mean, what's a person to do? (Oh hush up.) So, there I was...suddenly finding myself in the book store...and there was <i>Dearie</i>, a biography of Julia Child by Bob Spitz. And on sale! Yes, yes, I know. I need to find the right shoes. I need to find the right dress. Sometimes, however, serendipity leads you to just the right book as well. It's all good.<br />
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In the long ago past I was a young bride eager to use her Lenox wedding china. I was married to a military man, and we lived very simply and frugally. We made friends with an older couple. They owned a Lincoln car dealership, had a beautiful home with an in-ground pool and sauna, and ate at very fine restaurants. Intrepid as I was in my youth, I invited them to what was to be my second "important" dinner party. (The first was Thanksgiving. I made a turkey, invited my boss and his wife and the local parish priest. The bird was lovely and golden brown. I carried it sizzling to the table with great pride to the hoped for "ahhhs". My (then) husband proceeded with the ceremonious carving and as he attempted to get through the neck stuffing, he asked, "Did you stuff this with cheese?" I looked on horrified as he attempted to pull out a melted white strand that looked a lot like mozzerella and which eventually shot out of the bird, catapulted across the room and hit the wall with a loud splat. It was, of course, the plastic bag containing the giblets. "Um...gravy anyone?" Never let them see you sweat.)<br />
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And so, for that second dinner party, I turned to Julia Child and my copy of Mastering The Art Of French Cooking, which I received as a wedding gift. I made Homard Thermidor. The two lobsters required for four people took up an entire week's food budget. I mixed and dribbled and sieved. I worried and fretted. It was delicious, although I did overcook the lobster. We ended the meal with Soufffle au Chocolat. I was dead exhausted by the time my guests left the house, but fell into bed that night with the comforting knowledge that Julia was to be my kitchen salvation. If I followed her instructions, I could do it. I did and I have. Today, without even thinking about it, I brought home chicken breasts and made two exactly as she suggested I should...the way I have been doing them for decades without giving it much thought: Supremes de Volaille a Blanc (only made without the blanc). To her, eating was the art as much as the cooking.<br />
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My original copy of Mastering has long ago lost both its front and back covers. Several pages have fallen out and have been lost, a few more are stuck haphazardly into the falling apart book. Pages are splattered with DNA evidence of balsamic vinegar, clarified butter, and wine. A few years ago, at a library big book sale, I found another copy for $1. What a lovely bargain. It belonged at one time to Darris Plumb, so says her bookplate. And in the margins dwell her wonderful notations: "Very good," and at Filets de Poisson Bercy aux Champignons she notes "Betty says this is <u>good</u>." I didn't trust Betty until I made it myself. Betty was spot on.<br />
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In the early morning of Christmas Eve I make Julia's boeuf a la bourguignonne. I make it in my Le Cruset rip-off and put in the oven to warm for Christmas dinner. I make it exactly as she instructs. I read the recipe and listen to her as she guides me step by step. No fudging, no winging it. Elegant enough for that important occasion, and yet easy for the end of a season that has been filled with stress and excitement. Thank you, Julia.<br />
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Naturally, Julia Child is known mostly for her TV shows. She kept me company when my children were small. When I was pregnant with my second child, I put my first child down for his nap at 12:00 noon. It was also the same time The French Chef was aired on PBS. When I was expecting my third child, I put my <u>two</u> children down for their naps at noon, and there was Julia again. Like a "big sprig" companion.<br />
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Russell Morash, the original producer of her show on WGBH-TV, recalled her voice as being "a cross between Tallulah Bankhead and a slide whistle." I think a statue should be erected to Mr. Morash. <br />
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Since I just brought the book home today I can't tell you much about it or whether I will enjoy it, but I can't imagine not doing so. And, as another bit of serendipity the movie "Julie And Julia" is playing on television tonight. My only criticism of which is that they spent time making the "Julie" part of the movie. How cool would that movie have been if it had concentrated on Julia's life only. She's the real story, after all. Well, in reality it will be a love story. As Paul Child wrote to her before their marriage, "I want to see you, touch you, kiss you, talk with you, eat with you...eat you maybe. I have a Julie-need." Whew! Is it just me or does anyone else think it's getting hot in there? When I finish <i>Dearie</i> I will tell you all about it. <br />
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<br />Gradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17526750467742207099noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4160223532207347025.post-85294500018673395742014-09-11T17:30:00.003-04:002014-09-11T17:40:24.353-04:00Summer Wine<div class="MsoNormal">
Sometimes I amaze myself with my inventive genius. It (my inventive genius) first manifested
itself when I was about 8 years old. I
was on my way to ballet class – walking (we were not “driven” places back in
those days since families usually had only one of everything: one car, one television, one telephone) and
kids were expected to either walk or ride a bike to get where they were going. Apparently, my parents did not spend an
inordinate amount of time worrying about my being kidnapped. Considering I never was I guess they were
justified. However, getting back to my
story, I was wearing my pink tights and carrying my black ballet shoes slung
over my shoulder as I passed by the window of <i>Neisner’s Five and Dime</i> on Cermak Road. That is when and where my first inventive
genius hit. I stopped and stared at the
legs on display. If you’re old enough
you remember those legs. They stopped at
mid-thigh, were bent at the knee with the arch of the foot raised and on the
legs were “nylons.” They were in a
chorus line, each encased in a different shade of stocking: the kind of stocking that had to be held up
with a garter belt. The revelation hit
me like a bolt and was so clear that I remember it vividly still. “Why,” I wondered, “can’t they make
stockings like they make my pink ballet tights.” I should have run home and called the first
patent and trademark attorney in the phone book. Instead, I went to class where I learned the
pas de chat, and jete, and grand battement.
And as I blissfully glaced my way across the wooden floor I lost my
fortune, my moment, my idea. Because
here is the sad fact: I invented panty
hose at the age of 8. I was a prodigy; I
could have been a contender. Fast
forward many decades later and I am now living in an era when women hate
wearing panty hose. We wear long
dresses or slacks or get a spray tan. Still, panty hose had a good run (no pun
intended) and I could be drinking Dom...if only.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I eventually got over it, of course. Dwelling on missed opportunities sours summer wine, so I didn't. That is until last month
when, as I was watching a PBS program, I leaped out of my easy chair and was very
nearly apoplectic. Part of my distress
was the programming. I don’t watch much
television, but there are certain programs on PBS on Saturday afternoon that
are “mine.” Jacques Pepin, for instance. I was already grumpy because it was that time
of year (again and again) when the station decided, in its infinite wisdom,
that it was a whiz-bang idea to interrupt their normal scheduling of programs to
bring the viewing public “special” ones, the purpose of which are to make you
feel like a thief for watching PBS absent making a contribution “to keep these
programs on the air”. The logic of these
“special” programs has always escaped me.
It would seem to me that, since people are tuning in to watch PBS with
the expectation that they are going to experience – let’s say, Jacques - it might actually be a good idea to give people
Jacques. Why, if I wanted to see
Jacques, would I be more inclined to contribute to PBS if I am not allowed to
see Jacques but instead am bestowed the unasked for opportunity to see Dr. F? He refers
to himself a “nutritarian.” Cute... very
cute. I have long thought that the FDA’s
food pyramid was wobbly and so built my own.
I am neither a vegan nor a vegetarian; I make a standing rib roast on
Christmas Eve, boeuf bourguignon on Christmas Day, and Turkey on
Thanksgiving. But on an ordinary day I
will use one small pork loin chop to make an entire wok of stir fry – enough for
dinner and leftovers. Or a single
chicken breast in a large pot of soup filled with vegetables and beans and other
good stuff. I should have written a
book about my pyramid – which is essentially the “nutritarian” pyramid. I could have called it something like the "Gradian Pyramid." Veggies on the bottom, making up the bulk of
the diet, and meat used as more of a condiment than as the center of the
plate. It’s just common sense,
people. So once again I am haunted by panty hose; they
chase me in my nightmares – disembodied legs in multiple shades of beige and
smoke. I’m not a nutritionist or a
medical doctor but I have a lot of common sense and have lived like a
nutritarian for ages. I just never gave
it a moniker. Had I only known that
writing about MY pyramid could have landed me a gig on PBS, not to mention book revenues,
I would not have given a fig about pre-empting Jacques Pepin. Although, he is a whole lot cuter than Dr. F...
and he eats butter.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Gradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17526750467742207099noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4160223532207347025.post-53011585847478352162014-07-26T11:38:00.005-04:002014-07-26T11:44:48.526-04:00Five Days In LondonDo you ever run across difficult people? That's a rhetorical question because the answer is, of course you do. Hopefully not too many. I recently took a continuing education course that included exercises in conflict resolution...exercises which, quite frankly, worked in theory but in the real world, forgedaboudit. Rather than making me frustrated, the real world experience made me ponder the "why" of conflict. There is always a why; and, if we don't answer that question resolution never happens, the conflict festers, and people hold onto resentment. The "why" is also the nexus to leadership.<br />
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In the most extreme cases, as we can unhappily see every day in the news, "why" can lead to violence, subjugation, and hatred that can last for decades, generations, eons, forever... last so long that the participants can no longer remember the why. Sometimes the why is a misreading of religious beliefs. Sometimes the why is a grab for land, power and the wealth that power brings. But in a more prosaic setting, the why can simply represent a person who feels powerless and unappreciated, or is unhappy with life and envious of someone else. People are such complicated creatures. Perhaps that is why dogs are universally loved.<br />
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The course also attempted to teach management and leadership skills. It was this part of the course with which I took greatest issue. I do not believe leadership can be easily taught, unless perhaps from a very early age. One may desire the trappings of leadership, including having a loud voice and big presence, and whatever percs come with the job, but still be clueless when it comes to successfully getting people to follow. Others can lead effortlessly. I think they are pretty much born to it, although there are certainly exceptions.<br />
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Along this vein (yes, I am going to segue into a book) I have been reading <i>Five Days In London: May 1940</i> by historian John Lukacs. May 24 to May 28, 1940 were perhaps the darkest and most crucial days of World War II. They were undoubtedly the most decisive days of the war upon which not only the fate and future of Britain, Europe and the world teetered, but the course of the 20th century itself.<br />
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Hitler was winning the war; Churchill was new to the job, having risen to the office of Prime Minister on May 10 following the resignation of Neville Chamberlain. Out of the gate he did not exactly inspire confidence. Many people in his own party thought Churchill to be impetuous and hot-headed; those in the opposing party reviled him. And although a child of the aristocracy, born to wealth and privilege, he could act in a way which made him appear coarse to his peers. <br />
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During those urgent five days in May 1940, Churchill's War Cabinet debated whether to negotiate with Hitler or continue to fight on, despite the gloomy outlook. Hitler was never closer to achieving his goals than during the hours of those days. And his goals were nothing less than mastery over all of Europe and the annihilation of any group he considered unworthy of existence. Luckily, he was up against Churchill who never vacillated in his determination that Britain would never give up, regardless of a defeat at Dunkirk, regardless of the fall of Calais. <br />
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There are always debates over who should be given the distinction of "Most Important Personage" of an age. At the end of the year in 1999, Charles Krauthammer wrote: "I<span style="background-color: white;">t is just a parlor game, but since it only plays once every hundred years, it is hard to resist. Person of the Century? Time magazine offered Albert Einstein, an interesting and solid choice. Unfortunately, it is wrong. The only possible answer is Winston Churchill." Krauthammer makes the argument that without Churchill being in the right place at the right time, Britain would have capitulated. It is hard to argue with his reasoning. And equally hard to dispute that we would be looking at the world through a much different prism today without him.</span><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white;">On June 4, 1940 Churchill spoke to the House of Commons:</span><br />
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Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender....</blockquote>
Yeah. I'd follow that leader. He knew and understood his "why." He was passionate about his why and the why was the source of his strength.<br />
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Difficult people? I would say that Churchill went toe to toe with the worst. Leadership? He didn't need a "how to" manual. And as for conflict resolution, it was a long, hard road but he helped make it happen. I don't know if we grow that type of leader anymore. Perhaps he or she is out there waiting to be tested. Waiting for the right place and right time. Perhaps there is another giant in the wings, ready for the exact moment when the world needs one. Perhaps the time is now. We can only hope.<br />
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<br />Gradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17526750467742207099noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4160223532207347025.post-38739043851891961652014-07-08T14:52:00.001-04:002014-07-08T15:38:48.128-04:00All The Light We Cannot See<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I read a lot of books. It has always been a passion in my life. Many of those books are very good; some are great. But every once in a while a book will come my way and nothing less than the adjective "magnificent" will do it justice.<br />
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How I came to hear about <i>All The Light We Cannot See</i> I really can't remember. I wasn't familiar with its author, Anthony Doerr. I knew nothing of the impressive number of prizes he has won for his writing. Someone must have made a suggestion, given a hint, that settled in my subconscious. I don't know who to thank; but, if it was you I owe you big time. It was somewhere around page 80 when I knew, really <u>knew</u>, I held something very special in my hands.<br />
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I bought the book in May the day after its publication date and from what I had heard from my now forgotten source, I had every expectation that it would be "good." It certainly started out that way:<br />
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Leaflets</div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;">At dusk they pour from the sky. They blow across the ramparts, turn cartwheels over rooftops, flutter into the ravines between houses. Entire streets swirl with them, flashing white against the cobbles. </span><i style="text-align: justify;">Urgent message to the inhabitants of this town</i><span style="text-align: justify;">, they say. </span><i style="text-align: justify;">Depart immediately into open country.</i></blockquote>
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The tide climbs. The moon hangs small and yellow and gibbous. On the rooftops of beachfront hotels to the east, and in the gardens behind them, a half-dozen American artillery units drop incendiary rounds into the mouths of mortars. </blockquote>
And with that beginning Doerr slowly peels back his beautifully conceived story petal by petal. It is written in what an English major would call "non-linear narrative" in that the story unfolds not in chronological order but is deconstructed and then put back together. In the hands of an artist with the heart of a poet and the technical skill of an rocket scientist, it works. It works brilliantly.<br />
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Doerr opens his narrative on August 7, 1944, when the Germans launch their last big offensive in Normandy, but he weaves in and out of the past. At the center of the story is Marie-Laure, who lives with her father in Paris near the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, where he works. She has been blind since the age of six. When the Nazis occupy Paris, they flee to Saint-Malo to live with Marie-Laure's reclusive uncle Etienne:<br />
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Water surrounds the city on four sides. Its link to the rest of France is tenuous: a causeway, a bridge, a spit of sand. We are Malouins first, say the people of Saint-Malo. Bretons next. French if there's anything left over.</blockquote>
Three hundred miles northeast of Paris, Werner Pfenning is growing up in Essen, Germany. He is small for his age and the milky-whiteness of his hair "stops people in their tracks." Werner is also a genius when it comes to radios...magnetism, electricity, circuits, induction, conduction. These are his special gifts and they are very valuable to The Third Reich. Just the sort of boy they can use. Or is he?<br />
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Sergeant Major Reinhold von Rumpel was a gemologist before the war; his particular gift was for diamonds. There are rumors that the fuhrer has begun to prepare a wish list of precious objects to be gathered from all over Europe and Russia. <br />
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The capitulation of France is only weeks past, and already he has seen things he did not dream he would see in six lifetimes. A seventeenth-century globe as big around as a small car, with rubies to mark volcanoes, sapphires clustered around the poles, and diamonds for world capitals....Where the police confiscated these treasures and from whom, he does not ask.</blockquote>
But von Rumpel has only one true obsession: The Sea of Flames.<br />
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The earth shifts, shrugs, stretches. One year, one day, one hour, a great upflow of magma gathers a seam of crystals and drives it toward the surface, mile after burning mile; it cools inside a huge, smoking xenolith of kimberlite, and there it waits. Century after century. Rain, wind, cubic miles of ice. Bedrock becomes boulders, boulders become stones; the ice retreats, a lake forms, and galaxies of freshwater clams flap their million shells at the sun and close and die and the lake seeps away....Until another year, another day, another hour, when a storm claws one particular stone out of a canyon and sends it into a clattering flow of alluvium, where eventually it finds, one evening, the attention of a prince who knows what he is looking for.</blockquote>
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Marie-Laure, Werner, von Rumpel, the Sea of Flames: slowly and steadily Doerr weaves them together in an expertly crafted and stunningly beautiful, seamless cloth. Like a literary version of Ravel's symphony <i>Bolero</i>, it is gently relentless in its tempo.<br />
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I predict this for you: it is a novel that you will find impossible to forget; it will not leave you. As one review said, "[I]t makes you think forever differently about the big things - love, fear, cruelty, kindness, the countless facets of the human heart." <br />
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<br />Gradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17526750467742207099noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4160223532207347025.post-18529379909385353142014-06-04T14:27:00.000-04:002014-06-04T17:27:16.976-04:00Filing Down Rough Edges"The rough edges of society are often in need of filing down." That is often-used dictum in many appellate rulings involving cases of intentional infliction of emotional distress. It is more or less the grown-up version of the dictum heard on the playground, "Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me." So, okay. But even if they don't hurt, at the very least they have the power to make us grumpy.<br />
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Two incidents occurred yesterday that caused me to think about those rough edges. I will begin by stating that I don't see (or rather feel) those scratchy bits too often. I live in a very small city in the American South and, believe it or not, people are generally pretty polite here. There is an abundance of Yes, Sir-ing and Yes, Ma'am-ing and pardon me, please and thank you going on. When my children were very small a friend from "up North" called me on the telephone. One of the kids answered and when asked if I was in said, "Yes, ma'am. I'll get her. Please hold." She asked me, "HOW do you get them to do that." The answer was simple. I didn't. It was just part of the culture and all their friends talked the same way they did. They heard it in school, they heard it at play. I imagine it is different in the big cities of the South, like Atlanta for instance, but where I live we're still pretty quaint. People may caution an errant youngster to "Be still or I'm going to wear you out." And a teacher might "fuss" at you for forgetting your homework yet again. But generally speaking it's all fairly benign.<br />
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And so, you see, blatant acts of rudeness - which may go unnoticed elsewhere - stick out like a boil on Jimmy Durante's nose here.<br />
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It was time for lunch. I generally don't go out at lunch but yesterday was a beautiful day and I wanted to be out in it. I figured I would drive over to the new biggest-ever-in-these-parts-grocery-store and check out their deli. Along a busy stretch of a 4 lane city street I had to stop for traffic. There was a red light and about 5 cars ahead of me and then another intersecting street. Stopping before the intersecting street (so as not to block the traffic coming to the right and left) was not only the polite thing to do, it is also the law. It is a fairly long light but I was listening to an Agatha Christie audio book so the wait didn't bother me. <br />
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There was one car stopped behind me and as I glanced in the rear-view mirror I could see him shouting - I presumed to himself - which seemed strange enough. But then he suddenly threw his car into reverse in a screech of his wheels and whipped into the left hand lane, swung around me, made a right turn into the intersecting street and then into a gas-food-mart parking lot. When he got out, he turned to my direction and glared hard. He didn't pull up to the gas pumps, but stomped into the mart instead. He was probably a young man badly in need of cigarettes and I stood in his way for an agonizing 2 or 3 minutes...which I guess can SEEM like hours when one needs a smoke. What disappointed me most was that he was a soldier. A part of me - the careless part - the part that doesn't think about consequences before bamboozling my way into something - said, "Go into that market this minute and tell that boy to behave himself. Especially when he is a representation of so many people who give so much." The Mom in me wanted to "wear him out." But when the light turned green my sensible alter ego stepped on the gas pedal and drove on. It was a small encounter - well, near encounter - and I don't know why it made such an impression on me, but it did and I thought about it several times that day. And I'm obviously thinking about it again.<br />
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The second incident occurred - again - at a traffic light. This time I was the third car in a line of about 6. When the light turned green, the first car went through the intersection but the car in front of me was obviously not paying attention. You won't hear people honking their horns very much around here. Folks who are stopped behind you will sit for a few minutes hoping you'll wake up. After they figured you've fallen asleep or died they will give the horn a little "tap" to shake you out of your lethargy. Then everyone waves..."Thanks" or "Sorry" or "Yeah, well, okay"...and goes about their business. However yesterday one of the cars behind me <b><i>laid </i></b>on the horn, which was more irritating than the slacker stopped in front of me, and was so unusual I wondered if the driver might be from someplace like New York or Massachusetts or New Jersey where such things are common practice. Naturally, the fellow ahead figured it was <i style="font-weight: bold;">me </i>and not only flipped me the bird he rolled down his window to do it and flew his finger-flag thusly for a good half-block. "It wasn't me," I mouthed. But he sped off in a fit of pique. <br />
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These incidents reminded me of something that happened in London a few years ago. I took one of those big black cabs to the Chunnel station where one catches the channel train to France. I wanted to tip the cabbie 20% and was trying to make the dollars to pound/Euro conversion quickly in my head. I handed him some bills and asked, "I'm sorry, what would 20% of the total be?" I meant well but I must have offended him because he retorted angrily, "I'm a cab driver not a bleedin' mathematician," and took off...zoom...zoom. I stood in the street watching him go, stunned silent, wondering what I had said that made him so upset. It stuck with me and I can see it as clearly as if it happened last week.<br />
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So, what is my point? We move about in society minding our own business, usually with the best of intentions - or at the very least no intentions whatsoever - and every once in a while we get snagged by one of those sharp edges. Like any sharp edge it feels rough, or scratchy, or it can hurt. It usually takes us by surprise because if we could predict where they lie in wait we could avoid those prickly parts. Perhaps that is why we remember them. They come as a surprise - they shock - they bewilder. We are left without the chance to explain or defend or question or resolve.<br />
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I have no idea what the moral of the story is. Perhaps it's that no matter where you live or where you go, they are out there. Hopefully not in abundance. When confronted with them we must remember the words of the inimitable Teddy Roosevelt: "Speak softly,but carry a big fat file." <br />
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<br />Gradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17526750467742207099noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4160223532207347025.post-5663686964502095112014-05-13T12:04:00.000-04:002014-05-13T12:04:00.533-04:00She's B-a-a-a-c-k<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It’s Spring! The birds are singing, the jasmine is perfuming the air, the days are warm and sunny and I am ignoring the vegetable plants at the garden store. Oh, sure. They sit there shoulder to shoulder on their newly hosed shelves promising a bounty of luscious ripe beefsteak tomatoes, baskets of plump glossy eggplant, and vines heavily laden with beans…long and deeply green. No. Fool me once. After last year’s harvest of two eggplant and a yellow cherry tomato I refuse to be conned by the leafy devils. They can just go ahead and break someone else’s heart this season. I'll rely on the Farmer's Market.<br />
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But flowers! I can do flowers. Flowers have always seemed fairly independent – just a little watering and a little deadheading and voila. I had no intention of trotting over to the garden center this Saturday but the thought came to me as I was doing errands that, on such a beautiful day, it was the place that made the most sense. <br />
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Years and years ago - what seems now like a lifetime ago because it was - I gardened. I grew flowers. I spent every weekend outside planting and pulling and watering and coaxing. On my birthday I would receive gifts like garden gloves, spades, clippers, sun dials, garden figures. One day while I was in the garden tending to a mound of Lantana, my next door neighbor ran over to tell me he had seen a hummingbird! "A humming bird!" he exclaimed. With my pruners I pointed to the feeder I set up between our yards. "Yes, they've been invited." It was a simple encounter, but seeing him so excited made me happy and I've remembered it ever since. Sadly, I think that was the last year I had hummers come to visit. <br />
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Life is fluid and things change. Sometimes (perhaps often) one gets thrown a curve ball and one's focus has to change as well. And in all that changing and figuring out and thinking hard and working even harder, little bits of yourself can get chipped away. It is almost imperceptible because the process is a slow one; but, it is a steady one. The truth is I had larger problems to solve than leaf mold. As a result the beds got buried under seasons of autumn leaves and eventually gardening gifts seemed impractical. Oh, every now and then I'd plant something in a pot or two but I never really returned to what I would call <i>gardening </i>gardening. That full-throttled, hearty digging, compost enriching, all-morning pruning, water soaked dirt fest. I stopped spending winter days looking through seed catalogs.<br />
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The happy news is that caught in time that fragmented and tangential change of course can once again be set right. It's like waking from a long nap and finding that the light has adjusted. It is brighter or darker, more golden or more fiery. Different...yes. But it is still all around and helping things to grow. <br />
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And thus awakened from my nap I spent the morning at the garden center considering the way the violet petunia looked with the chartreuse creeping jenny and debating if the dusty miller could get along with the orange Gerbera. I felt the pieces falling into place and I was once again on vaguely familiar ground. True, I had forgotten all the Latin names for the plants - something at which I was fairly proficient in the long-ago. But I recognized their faces and eventually we will become familiar friends once again. Admittedly it's just a small beginning, but I hope to stick with it. Outside is such a nice place to be and when I look over the terrain I envision all sorts of possibilities. Real gardeners are always looking for places to turn new earth. I just might be signing up for those seed catalogs after all. <br />
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I'm also sending out fauna invitations. I bought a bag of small bird seed (millet and the like) and one bag of Black Oil Sunflower seeds. Although my feeder is supposed to be squirrel-proof, I saw one very clever fellow hanging upside down by his hind legs and scooping out a pawful this morning. I am on the hunt for a baffle that will slip over the stand. I try to discourage squirrels since they are apt to rent out my attic during the winter and are very undesirable tenants. The cardinals honed in right away. Who else might come? In hopeful anticipation I brewed up a batch of nectar. <br />
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Coming back to gardening feels good. Coming back feels right. And, with enough enticement perhaps the hummingbirds will come back as well. Perhaps I should hang out a sign, "All Organic and Home Brewed." It might work.<br />
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<br />Gradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17526750467742207099noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4160223532207347025.post-71135048732280027502014-04-11T11:42:00.000-04:002014-04-11T13:50:22.207-04:00Marcie And LifeI don't hang around Facebook very much...mostly just to spy on my offspring...but I recently read the post of a dear friend, whose name is not Marcie but that's what I'll call her. It said, "I love my life. I hope you love yours..." I was just about to post a glib response, like "Yeah, I'd love your life too" or maybe "Wanna' switch?" But I did not. I did not because I paused and thought about what she said. I thought about it slowly..."I love my life." Marcie did not say, "I love life." We all - well most of us - love life itself, especially considering the alternative. No. Marcie wrote that she loves <i>her</i> life. As I thought about it - and continued to think about it for days - the profoundness of that brief comment settled somewhere very deep. <br />
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It lingered. The thought hovered over my head like one of those dialog balloons and intrigued me so much that I began to ask members of my "team" at work whether he or she loved their life. Not life, but <i>their</i> life. "Why...are you dying?" was the first response of a Mr. Smarty-Pants who is in the midst of a divorce, and who then responded, "No, I hate my life right now because I either have to sleep on a friend's couch or live in my car." Another said he loved his life on the weekends but only if there was beer in the fridge. Obviously, I was not going to get anything close to meaningful responses from this crowd so I dropped the query and they all seemed very much relieved. The subject of the conversation changed to something a little more comfortable - I think it was basketball. Nevertheless, the obvious question - the one I avoided asking was: Do I <i>love</i> mine? It's something to think about, isn't it.<br />
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I'm not trying to sound all Existentialisty, which, of course I couldn't do if I tried since I remember very little about it from my college philosophy class other than that it made my head hurt. I do recall something about first existence and then experience...or was it the other way around? Or was it essence and not experience? Or none of the above? In any event, "I love my life" demonstrates a philosophical attitude that is easy to understand if you know the person who holds it.<br />
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If you asked her, I do not believe Marcie would ever say her life has been perfect but it is different from the lives many of us live in one important respect: Marcie really concentrates on doing good. That is how she lives her life but I'm not sure she goes about it with that intent upper most in her mind. I think "doing good" might just come naturally to her - like some people can play the piano without taking lessons. So does looking at the glass half-full. She reminds me of the phrase, "Getting what you want is not the same as wanting what you have." And looking back over the years I've known her, I can honestly say that even when things in her life were less than sunny, Marcie has been able to maintain an aura of happiness about her - I guess you could say she possesses that rarest of qualities: "a touch of grace." It is fun to be around her and when you part you really do feel better about life - in general and your own.<br />
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So, yes, I can see how she is able to say "I love my life." It's a mighty fine one..mighty fine.<br />
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<br />Gradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17526750467742207099noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4160223532207347025.post-79217587927639044492014-02-17T13:59:00.002-05:002014-02-17T13:59:32.398-05:00To Everything There Is A Season; And A Time For Every Purpose<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A few years ago my sister found a lovely full-color facsimile edition of The Country Diary Of An Edwardian Lady, a nature diary kept in 1906 by illustrator/naturalist Edith Holden who lived in the village of Olton, Warwickshire, England. <br />
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Holden began her journal on January 1, 1906 and continued to capture the change of seasons through the use of her keen eye, careful hand, and beautiful artwork. Not exclusively a diary, as the year progressed she also included a few of her favorite poems (Byron, Burns, Wordsworth, E. B. Browning) and her personal observations of the world around her. Edith Holden worked as an illustrator following art school and her work has been published in several books, but rumor has it that she never allowed anyone to look at this diary. And apparently no one did until nearly 70 years after her death when it was discovered on a bookshelf in a country house. I can imagine what a spectacular find that would have been for any book lover!<br />
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In 1911 Edith married a sculptor, Ernest Smith and moved to Chelsea. They had no children. <br />
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On March 16, 1920, while she was attempting to gather the buds from chestnut trees, she drowned in the Thames. She was only 49 years old.<br />
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After my sister gave me this lovely diary, I learned that it was a popular coffee table book when first published. But it is also an inspiration for would-be diarists, journal keepers, bird watchers, naturalists, and just plain folks who like to get outside and observe nature - perhaps even an encouragement to make a record of one's own. <br />
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Certainly, few of us have the artistic talent of an Edith Holden, but even without the illustrations, it is delightful to know that on December 27, 1906, "in the paper today it reports that all Britain lies under snow from John O'Groats to Land's End for the first time for six years." Or that on the 30th "[t]he blackbirds and thrushes are usually rather shy, and fly away at the approach of any-one but now they only hop away to a little distance and sit watching with their bright eyes from beneath the friendly shelter of a bush, waiting to go back to their feast of crumbs."<br />
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But the promise of Spring is the promise of Spring. It was so back then, and so it is now. In 1906, on what would decades later be my birthday, Edith Holden went to Stratford on Avon and "walked to Shottery across the meadows. On the way I gathered Hawthorn blossom from the hedges and saw fields yellow with Buttercups and banks of blue Speedwell. The Dandelions were a wonderful sight along the railway cutting."<br />
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I would like to have known her and through her diary I almost feel I do. As it is, I'm not much of a painter, but this might be the year I invest in some brushes and a box of watercolors. It's never too late to learn, and if this diary proves anything it proves that to everything there is a season. Edith would approve.<br />
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Gradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17526750467742207099noreply@blogger.com18