Twofer

I’ve just finished two books.

The first is called The Airmen and the Headhunters by Judith Heimann. She’s a career diplomat who picked up on the true story of how several downed WWII airmen (navy and air force)survived when their planes went down over the inner island jungles of Borneo. The good news was that the interior wasn't as thick with Japanese troops as the edges of Borneo. The bad news was that the interior was known to be inhabited by fearsome indigenous peoples. The jacket cover says, “Would the tribesmen turn the starving airmen over to the hostile Japanese occupiers? Or would the Dayaks risk vicious reprisals to get the airmen safely home? The tribal leaders’ unprecedented decision led to a desperate game of hide-and-seek and, ultimately, to the return of a long-renounced ritual: the triumphant and bloody taking of heads.”

I found it a fascinating examination and fastidiously researched by a woman who spent many years in that part of Asia. By the time she picked up on the story many of the involved had died…but it’s a wonderfully detailed description of the many months the Americans spent there, the grace and bravery of their hosts, and a bygone era in terms of American and Bornean (?) cultures.

The second story is Mary Tillman’s “tribute” to her son Pat in Boots on the Ground by Dusk. This was on the hurry-up-and-read shelf at the library, so I imagine it’s just come out. She is incredibly angry, and there is a lot to be angry about. I was aware of the basics: Pat Tillman football star (and ASU alum) leaves the NFL to enlist (ay yi yi!) in the Army, was shot and killed in a fratricide incident in Afghanistan. The book switches gracefully from the story of how she investigates her son’s death and flashbacks to his childhood. The beginning is full of wonderful memories of his baby days and growing up. I didn’t remember that he and his brother enlisted together, and I don’t think I was aware that they served in the same unit, even the same platoon! Anyway, Pat certainly was a remarkable young man and his death is shameful.

The family wasn’t told for many weeks that his death was due to fratricide, and then as they learned more details they had more questions. At this point I guess the family has forced two congressional hearings in addition to two formal “big” Army investigations (CID & another) (which were in addition to the local unit’s own investigations) and Mary is still furious that she hasn’t gotten answers/the truth/justice/I’m not sure what? She includes a great deal of detail and studies of documents—she certainly has become an expert on the event as much as anybody could. There are glaring errors in judgment and operation –things like his platoon getting separated causing a disruption in communications that meant one element didn’t realize the rest of the platoon was just beyond and so they were shooting at their brothers, and his body and uniform weren’t processed properly for autopsy or investigation. The idea that the Army was trying to formally investigate and discover details before letting the news go to the family seems reasonable to me, especially given that Pat’s brother was actually present at the scene. Still I would opt for much more transparency in this age of immediate information transfer. I sure hope the Army has at least learned that lesson. Apparently the family didn’t like President Bush or this war well before Pat enlisted, and she rails against this administration and thinks there is responsibility for covering up details about Pat’s death all the way up to General Abizaid and the White House. One of the documents describes an involved officer objecting to the general performing the fourth or fifth investigation saying, “look, it’s awful. How many times are we gonna have to drag our troops through this process?” and I have to sympathize. I don’t think soldiers “get over” having killed their own buddy—and it’s hard for a mother to recognize the intensity of the love in a brotherhood like that. I also don’t think it’s surprising that over three years and several repeated investigations there were many discrepancies and changes in details. The congressional hearings turned into a partisan debacle---ugh. She also left an omission in the tale—Bush has personally written every single family of the 4000 plus lost Americans and called and met many of them. She does talk about her conversations with some people--Schwarzenegger and McCain attended and spoke at Pat’s memorial service-- yet she never mentions contact from the White House.

In the end I feel for her, and think what she’s done to push for truth is amazing, but I also think she’s mired in the anger phase of grief. Pat should not have died in that manner, but what else besides more transparency can a mother or the American public demand?

So this book has hit a nerve with me, and been quite thought-provoking. Do I have the right to say somebody’s stuck in the grief stage? How would this compare to a sentinel event at the hospital? Why do I think that her stance on politics has made it harder for her? (never mind religion, that comes up in a painful manner) The contrast between the two stories also resonates with me---why do I think Americans are more likely to demand answers and make a scene in today’s generation than in WWII, and where do I rank that phenomenon on a good-to-bad scale? Why am I having such a hard time separating the political stereotypes from what I’m reading? It disturbs me that the stereotypical conservative supposedly doesn’t value an indigenous culture like the Dayaks, for example, and Mary Tillman’s Bush-hating stance colors my perspective of her perspective—at some point I felt my heart hardening toward her bitterness and I think it’s because I don’t have the moral objection to the war that she does.

This is heavy stuff, I would love to discuss this sometime…

Olga

Wildfire by Nelson DeMille

Shayne loved it. Me, not so much. Man, am I picky or what?

Very witty and funny, but could've been about 300 pages shorter. Too much cat-and-mouse, to the point of being more implausible than the story itself.

Story line is based on an assumed standing government order for nuclear attack response, and a powerful, rich man taking on himself to launch a nuclear attack inside the United States in order to trigger the United States' automatic response - made without Presidential approval - which spells out large scale bombing of the Muslim World and a reset of world order. Story is told from the perspective of the NYPD detective who cracks the mystery and averts disaster...

The overall possibility is thought provoking and the hilarous banter between the detective and his FBI wife hits close to home...

Walkabout - Still on for January 3rd?

Are we still on for January 3rd? I can do the 4th, too, if eeryone else can & we need to move it. Lemme know! ~ Robinowitz

I Forgot a Good One

Olga, I love your most varied list! I would hate it my friends only read one genre.

The one I forgot-A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby. On New Years Eve four strangers meet at the top of a London building known as a suicide spot. They all have their reasons for being there. The book follows their travels and travails as they look for meaning outside themselves. Hornby is an author who can put a humorous twist on even the darkest subjects and he always makes me think.

I heard the rerun of a show with the author of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle on Diane Rehm yesterday. I also heard the him on Whad'Ya Know a while back and he sounds interesting. Has anyone read the book? We won't hold the fact that it's an Oprah pick against it. Hey, here's an idea. Why not make this our first group read and we can discuss it when Robin picks the day for our WalkTalkCoffee?

ED. to add-great minds think alike-Robin and I simultaneously posting!

~Judy

Walkabout - Reid Park - January 3rd

I'll be parked behind Einstein Bros. on Broadway & Alvernon at 0730 on Saturday, January 3rd. Bring your walking shoes and a couple of unmarked bills for coffee & bagels...the passcode is "Feliz Nuevo Ano."

Shall we begin our "asynchronous group reading exercise culminating in synchronous discussion" (note I didn 't say Book Club, either!) in February or March, but come with ideas for which book to choose on January 3rd?

Oh...bring three copies of a tried-and-true wintertime recipe you would like to share.

~ Robin

In the spirit of

confession in a safe environment, knowing that you all will fall off your chairs laughing, but that's ok; the inhabitants of my bookstand are:

Empire of Lies by Andrew Klavan (also a modern set thriller--somehow recommended by my mother through my husband, making it even weirder)--so far my opinion is "ick. Is it even worth finishing?"

You: Being Beautiful by Drs Roizen & Oz (got it for the section on skin; I do think they cite relatively current evidence and have a fairly balanced traditional med vs alternative ideas in their books)

Have a New Kid by Friday by Dr Lehman (if Robin has a penchant for work-related books, I have one for family/relationship/self-help ones)

Heidi (reading it to the girls at bedtime)

The Language of Love by Smalley & Trent with
The Two Sides of Love by Smalley & Trent

House of Daughters by Sarah-Kate Lynch (haven't read it, but think I saw previews for a movie of it that looked interesting?)

The Sex-Starved Wife by Davis ( no idea, the hubby wanted it)

and Real Change by Newt Gingrich. (haven't started it yet).

I also have been reading voraciously--most recently having finished the Twilight series, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I guess I'm reading lots--but not anything that requires intense concentration.

Olga

On My Nightstand

I've enjoyed the Nelson Demille books I've read-let us know about Wildfire.

I haven't been reading a lot of hardcopy lately. I do have a big, thick magazine thing I found at Bookman's called Artful Blogging which has been very inspiring. My folder marked Art Design Creative Blogs has grown and grown in the time I've been off and I allow that part of me to grow and expand. Some eyecandy for you all: A Fanciful Twist and joyouslybecoming I've started 2 new blogs, Straw Cottage and Tucson Snowbird and have one incubating. which will follow the redecorating of the Airstream. This finding my voice and connecting with others in the same pursuit has been a wonderful adventure.

I am reading the Myth of You & Me by Leah Stewart which grabbed me in the first 90 pages but I'm not very far into it yet. It's the story of a friendship between two women and the end of that friendship.

An idea for the walk, talk, coffee-perhaps we could all read the same book and have a little discussion (notice I'm not calling it a book club-too rulebound).

Hope you all enjoyed Thanksgiving-we do have so much to be thankful for.

~Judy

Time to read is a good time, indeed!

The fact that you are now reading voraciously, Judy, does not escape me! Brava!

What's on my bedside table?

Just finished...Footprints of God, by Greg Iles. Current state thriller with futuristic implications.

Just getting started with...Hardwiring Excellence, by Quint Studer. Finally, a book that lays all the accountability for patient, family, staff and physician satisfaction on the (senior) leader's shoulders and provides the tools for a leader to get comfortable accepting that accountability and nurturing it into something truly great. You all are just going to have to forgive me for my penchant for enjoying work-related books!

Soon to begin...Wildfire, by Nelson DeMille. Shayne abosolutely loved this one.

Anyone want to set a calendar for getting together this year...monthly or every other month, maybe? I'm thinking something like meeting on the first Saturday morning of the month or every odd month (whatever) to walk around Reid Park and then have coffee & a bagel at Einstein Bros. across the street afterward? Your thoughts?????

~ Robin

Catching Up

As mentioned in an earlier post, I was reading The Secret Life of Bees. Disappointing and 50-75 pages too long. If you haven't read it, it's the story of a young white girl of 13 or so and her black nanny/housekeeper. The setting is the south just after the passage of the Civil Rights Act as they take off on an odyssey to escape the girl's abusive father. This of course after the girl breaks the nanny out of the hospital where she is being held in lieu of jail after being beaten by white men while trying to vote. Then they miraculously find the nanny of the girl's mother who was shot and killed (the mother, not the nanny) when the girl (I can't even remember her name, that's how forgettable it was) was 4 and she has always been told that it was her fault. There was just way too much going on or I've become a cynic.

I also re-read Siddhartha. Having originally read it at 16, it was a very different book at 51 and I'm glad I re-read it. There is a passage when Siddhartha wants to leave the path chosen for him by his father. His father of course disagrees but Siddhartha stands for days awaiting his father's blessing. Finally the father sees: " Then his father realized that even now Siddhartha no longer dwelt with him in his home, that he had already left him" and Siddhartha leaves on his epic journey to enlightenment. In the midst of raising young men, this scene resonated with me. Letting go is hard.

Next it was Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. Another journey (notice the theme here?) as she and her family move back to her husband's family home in North Carolina to live a more self-sustainable life. For about a week I was ready to move back to Ohio (actually I get those urges about twice a year) and live in a little farmhouse and grow tomatoes. But then I would often be thinking: "I don't believe you just said that!" as someone made a comment about a black or a Mexican or a rape victim or a Catholic. An example of those "pockets of the Real America" big, hairy warts and all. About the book, I admire her writing, as usual, it but it was a bit depressing as it once again reminded me that we do live in the middle of a big, dry desert which is not meant to sustain life for long.

I've also discovered a new (to me) poet, Mary Oliver, and in keeping with my journey theme here's a favorite:

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save. ~Mary Oliver

You can read others here: http://www.allspirit.co.uk/maryoliver.html#journey And of course she has several books.

Much better than policies and such!

What books are on your bedside table?

~Judy

One flash of lightning by Stephanie JT Russell

One flash of lightning: A Samurai path for living in the moment

From page 7: "Integrity, candor and depth are human signatures that bridge the Samurai Way across centuries to a timeliess truth of self-excavation and spiritual awakening. May the visceral poetry of the Samurai Code ignite in you an appetite for the heat of inner change. May one flash of lightning fix your gaze on the hard-won prize of a heaven unchained."

...a heaven unchained... I am veritably transfixed by this idea.

Have been in touch with my "seeking" side (not half as much as the Ohioan among us) and this tiny tome (94 page pocket book) is both a gift and a sign for me.

Namaste!

Foux de Fa Fa

(if you haven't seen Flight of the Conchords do Foux de Fa Fa, do)

Babel Fish didn't do justice to the French but I think I get your drift. I was just lamenting today with Michelle about the fact that I can't make it through a book. I am however about 1/3 through The Secret Life of Bees which is a major accomplishment. There is hope.

But I can make it through blog posts if they're not too long. Here's a great one for all my rule-breaking friends! Toast Rule Busting

Judy

So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Good Night...

J'ai termine'... J'usque' nous lisons plus livres!

A pink poodle named Spike

Thanks to Olga's daughter for proving a couple of weeks ago that it's a powerful thing to have a pink poodle named Spike.

I catch myself thinking of that sweet vignette often as I consider who I am and what I am doing here. Perhaps it's not about being or doing anything else, but owning - expressing and accepting ownership - for what we have and where we are right now, and loving what we are doing. I'm not saying giving up on doing different things, only spending a little more time loving or learning to love what we are doing, being, seeing...whatever that is.

I raise a glass to all things figurative or literal that embody the act of embracing our own personal pink poodle named Spike.

Love to each of you,
Robin

The Camel Club by David Baldacci

Conspiracy theorists unite - this is a stupid book about Washington and a rag-tag bunch of conspiracy theorists. Why are all conspiracy theorists portrayed as psychotic, near homeless, idiot savants, and socially inept geeks and they are tossed in with a few former CIA operatives who "disappeared" off the databases and thus have the moxy and know-how to lead the idiot tribe to solving high crimes? It's like the saying that all good men are either married or gay.

Anyhow, another 400 pages that you get so far into that it seems too much to bear to give up and quit at page 380 because you are in the thick of something you know will resolve in the net 20 pages or so and you've already taken this much time to commit and...you don't want to be a quitter...and damn it, if he can save it in these last few pages then you'll think that the book was worth it. However, it sucks at the end as it much as does at page 380.

Well, at least this guy's consistent - this tasted a lot like Absolute Power, but with a dry finish. I am done with David Baldacci, and have given the books to my 15 year old son, who will think they're plausible and cool all at the same time.

~Robin

The Friday Night Knitting Club

Look...I forgot who this is by, and I am not going to take the time to tromp upstairs to find out for you. I thought this would be an interesting read and instead it is one of the most predictable, meandering, makes sense in some parallel universe-type-of-book on the planet. It's her first novel, and was a New York Times bestseller. Proof that we should be writers, ladies, and save the world from this drivel!

Woman on her own, single and with a mulatto daughter, becomes an up & comer through her knitting shop in New York City. Daughter convinces customers to come in on Friday to begin a knitting club and daughter begins to bake for the club each week. Attractive jet setting black father of daughter comes back into her life, and we get little vignettes about everyone in the club's life, too. She and a friend agreed back in college that they wouldn't go anywhere unless they could go together. She turns down a spot at Dartmouth, and lo and behold her friend "got" that spot. Like there was only one person in the world that was wait-listed at Dartmouth that year and it just HAPPENED to be her best friend. Right.

Said best friend comes back into her life and is a NYC socialite who commissions her to make a dress that she will wear to some big party and serve her trust fund husband divorce papers. Poor woman on her own has to pick her up and put her back together, too.

Poor woman on her own displays symptoms that you would equate with pregnancy, and then...here's the big switcheroo...it's ovarian cancer. At this point, everyone in her life gets their shit together, starts taking care of poor woman on her own (PWOHO), and then PWOHO promptly DIES.

Well isn't that tidy?

I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron

Judy, your mantra that usually anything with pink on the cover is to be taken lightly or put back is put to rest with this wee tome.

I have not laughed as openly and with such abandon in a LOOoooonnnng time as I have with this book - it's simply hilarious. - about just growing up & growing older and growing into who we might not have always wanted to be but with who we are pretty darned happy to be. When I grow up, I want to write like Nora Ephron and Heather Armstrong all rolled into one.

Again, I have to lend and would heartily recommend taking me up on this one.

We should bring all our recent reads to a group dinner sometime to trade!

~ Robin

Absolute Power by David Baldacci

Scandalous, murderous, preposterous enough to come true. 542 pages of Washington, DC mayhem involving the rich man's dead wife, the American President, Secret Service agents, a felon you gotta love, his daughter, the rich man, the firm's controlling partner, a lawyer I'd like to see naked, I'm sure; and some other interesting cast members.

Be ready to pick this up and put it down a lot, it's just so darn long. Doesn't really get going till about 2/3 way through, but kept me hanging on, nonetheless. Edifies my irrational anxiety about conspiracy theory! Very thoughtful book, twists and turns well explained when I needed them to be as I am not up on my "murder-ese."

I have it to pass along for free if anyone's interested.

~ Robin

More Books

While online today renewing my library books (no I haven't finished them but I am enjoying The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp and Grace (Eventually) by Anne Lamott) I discovered book lists! You can sign up for either an email newsletter or add lists to your RSS feed. Nancy Pearl's list is there-you know Nancy, she's often on NPR with reading suggestions.

So I signed up for a couple-just what I need more book suggestions!

The library has a new web address: Pima County Public Library
Book Lists

Judy

Must Read After My Death

Once again, this is not a book review but it is somewhat literary. And I have 3 books going right now-I may finish one.

In the past, Robin and I have discussed journaling. Not the "I arose to a beautiful cloudless blue sky, had dates and walnuts with tea for breakfast and went for a walk along the shore. The birds sang as the sharp salt air tickled my nose and sand encrusted the hem of my white linen shift much like a sequin trim" but the "my job sucks, my husband is an idiot and my children must have been switched at birth because there is no way they came from my body" kind of journaling. Our discussion usually revolves around what to do with those pages, keep them, hide them away for years or burn them. After reading Danny Miller's blog today-I'm thinking the purge by fire is the way to go. Danny often writes about his family and wonders who might be offended by the stories much as I do when writing even if it will only be seen by me. I soften the edges because I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, not even in my own head.

Danny always includes great pictures in his posts and those of us born in the 50's-60's have similar pictures stuffed into shoeboxes in the top of some closet somewhere. Even though he was a Jewish boy growing up in Chicago and I was an excommunicated Catholic+Baptist=Methodist girl in a tiny town on the edge of Appalachia, I find his photos could be my pictures or a neighbors' and that's the fascinating thing for me-the picture only tells a part of the story. I grew up with 2 brothers, eight and 10 years older and one a few years younger. We were close-both parents in the home, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins within walking distance. Sunday dinner at MawMaw's every week, everyone together for holidays. A Mayberry kind of existence. We were happy-i have pictures to prove it.

We all left home as soon as we could, settled in geographically diverse areas, never visit and communicate only intermittently; the younger one speaks to none of us. We all look so happy in those shiny, B&W scalloped edge Christmas morning photos. The picture only tells a part of the story.

Must Read After My Death tells the other part of a story, not just the static version of old photos. I watched Capturing the Friedmans earlier this year and was so taken by the story I had to then watch the extended version with all the commentary and interviews. It is a fascinating film given the subject matter because it shows a "normal" family going through a shattering experience, much of it" captured" on film. I was fascinated by the fact that despite the lies, pain, anger, imprisonment, they were still able to find some love for each other.

I don't know the part of my family story that is missing but I may reconsider that purge by fire. Maybe what we can't say aloud should be left behind.

Judy

The Last Boleyn by Karen Harper

Six hundred pages in two-and-one quarter days. Oh, so this is what *not* being in school feels like! On one hand, this is quite a long tome, but we seem to be a gang that likes that in a book. On the other hand, it is written in such a manner that allows one to think (perchance to dream) that maybe one day they could write a book, too.

While you may be thinking, "My, aren't the Boleyns quite popular this year!" Ms. Harper released this book under a different title in 1983. This story of the Bullen (later Boleyn under Anne's direction) family is full of twists and turns one would not even dream of in modernity, but are amazingly believeable in medieval times. The attention to detail provides a wonderful literary screenplay, and the characters and plot are very well developed. The book does come screaming to the end, but the end really needn't be any more embellished to be striking.

I have been inspired to write a book of my own...perhaps...of the same time period, and perhaps with many of the same characters. Since this is an open blog, I won't post the concept here as I would intend to copyright it. I have been researching the topic & timeperiod and have not found a book of the same subject matter. I think it would fly, and will share with those that are interested via email.

I would recommend this read, a decadent page-turner of the Tudor period. Perfect with multiple cups of coffee or Turkish tea over a restful weekend!

~ Robin

"A Pigeon And A Boy" by Meir Shalev

At last I've fulfilled a post-graduate-worth-read. I choose most of my books by their covers, wandering about the library--and finally I got a good one! This is not one of my cheap entertaining stories, and took a little (though willing) effort on my part to get into. I did not know, until after I'd finished, that this book is translated from the original in Hebrew. That makes it all the more striking, because the way this guy writes is poetry in a way I like to read.

The book goes back and forth between two stories---a romance set in wartime Israel (when wasn't it that) and the narrator's own life story. It has an astonishing climax and an even more shocking event toward the very last pages. I rather wish we could do this in a book club because it's got SO much to talk about and so many wonderful phrases to chew over. I think I'll try to find his "Four Meals" to work on while you-all catch up on this one!

Olga

IN DEFENSE OF FOOD by Michael Pollan

I'm back!  Long story...laptop died, switched to a Mac, forgot to transfer all my bookmarks & passwords...but computers are making our lives easier, right?

I love food.  I love to eat it, I love to read about it, I love to look at pictures of it.  Some people have porn.  I have food.  So I tried to read Michael Pollan's earlier two books, THE OMNIVORE'S DILEMMA and THE BOTANY OF DESIRE but just couldn't ever work my way into them, despite the provocative title of the latter work.  IN DEFENSE OF FOOD is his latest so I gave it one more shot.

He almost lost me on the first page.  His premise is this: "Eat food.  Not too much.  Mostly plants."  Who doesn't know this already?  It's going to be another slog, I thought.  I'm happy to report, however, that I was wrong.  (Okay, I'm never happy about being wrong, but no one actually knew about it until now, so I didn't feel diminished by the experience.)

Pollan begins by pointing out how we have ceased to look at food in any kind of wholistic way.  Rather, we think about what we eat in terms of nutritional components.  Like, this food has a lot of fat.  That one is good for me because it's low-carb/sugar/sodium.  This focus on the pieces instead of the whole has created a perfect set-up for food manufacturers to generate boatloads of profit by manipulating their products to contain the nutrient du jour.  Wonder Bread leaps to mind.  Kids won't eat fiber?  No problem!  We'll just put some in the Wonder Bread, and now everybody's happy.  Kids still get squishy bread, parents feel like they've made a healthier food choice, and the Wonder Bread people?  They're the happiest of all.

I like it when someone turns a paradigm on its side and asks me to look at it.  Pollan goes on to discuss the diseases of Western civilization and the way our diet has contributed to their proliferation.  Again, this doesn't sound like news, but he presents supporting data that I hadn't read before in a way that was fun and accessible.  In the final section of the book, he outlines some strategies for eating -- NOT a diet, just some thoughtful suggestions, including the possibility that if you're checking the nutrition label, the thing you're eating probably isn't food.  This is my favorite book of the year so far.

~Michelle  

Long Term Relationship!

Do you realize we've been doing this since August? In most books, that makes this a "long term relationship" and I'd say a pretty successful one at that.

Just wanted to take a minute to thank all of you for participating. I've really enjoy what we do here, and I look forward to seeing you all in person again very soon!!! Only 7 weeks until Olga & I are done with school, and the move into the new Pavilion will be over, too!

April 5th from 10AM - 2PM is the public open house of the new Women's Care Pavilion. Hope you all that are non-Carondeletians will consider stopping by!

Fond regards,
Robin

Born Standing Up by Steve Martin

Very interesting memoir of Steve Martin's life just to the end of his early 80's success. I love anything he does (L.A. Story is a favorite) but honestly, for all its acclaim, this book is somewhat FLAT. I hate to say it, because I don't want to believe it, but his is a life frought with lucky breaks...as are many of those who are successful in Hollywood. I mean, his first writing gig at 22 was for the Smothers Brothers Show, along with Rob Reiner and that guy...whats-his-face... that became the dorky comedian Super Dave? Wow!

I enjoyed his acknowledgement that even though he was successful, he always had anxiety, overthought every act, and was in fact, very lonely at the end of the day. I had hoped to hear more about his life after that success, because at the end of the book he just begins to discuss getting to know himself, loosening up, and really enjoying his craft.

~ Robin

But we-all knew this already

Bookworms have "cognitive reserve": http://www.realage.com/ct/tips/5190



Olga

Anyone for a Field Trip?

Dancing at Lughnasa

Live Theatre Workshop
Thru 3/30

from the website: http://www.livetheatreworkshop.org/main.html
Winner of the 1992 Tony Award for Best Play, the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Broadway Play, and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play. Chosen by Time magazine as one of the ten best plays for 1991, saying it is "The most elegant and rueful memory play since The Glass Menagerie." Widely regarded as Brian Friel's masterpiece, this extraordinary play is the story of five unmarried sisters, one with a young son, eking out their lives in a small village in Ireland in 1936. It is the time of the festival of Lughnasa, which celebrates the pagan god of the harvest with drunken revelry and dancing. Their spare existence is interrupted by brief, colorful bursts of music from the radio, their only link to the romance and hope of the world at large. When the sisters finally dance to a wild, pagan Irish tune, they embody the core of the human spirit that cannot be vanquished by time or loss, or fully expressed in language.

I haven't checked on ticket availability, wanted to see if anyone was interested.

Surely someone else wants to dance to a wild, pagan Irish tune!
~Judy

Yaaaay, Amy!

Amy posted a comment! She's left the ranks of those who have nothing to say!

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

~Judy

The Daring Book for Girls

The Daring Book for Girls, by Andrea Buchanan & Miriam Peskowitz

I know this book is truly for little girls, but I didn't have the "lemonade stand, butterfly catching, tea party, tree house," type of childhood I think would be really fun. Not that any of us really did, and not that it really matters now, but anyhow...any book that teaches you how to properly short-sheet a bed is my kind of book. Oh, and I enjoyed learning about female pirate legends...death to Victorian pursuits!

I am not even done with this one yet, but I had to post just how much fun this book really is, and I will definitely be saving this book for the future little girl in my life...granddaughter or sweet little next door neighbor girl if I am blessed with grandsons...

If this book is good enough to make it on the Canadian Girl Scouts' website, you know you're in for some adventure!

Have a super weekend!
Robin

THE ASSAULT ON REASON by Al Gore

I just realized that I format my reviews a lot the same as I used to write book reports in grade school. At least I don't conclude with "The End" anymore. I'll take my progress wherever I find it.

Oh, ladies, the first 50 pages of this book had me so psyched, I couldn't wait to tell you about it. Gore asserts, in a way I'd not understood before, how crucial a well-educated and informed citizenry is to to health of a democracy. "Free and open debate" isn't just a handy political catch phrase, but the means by which the Founding Guys meant for this newly-invented system of government to operate. They expected the citizens to read about, discuss and debate the issues of the day. There would be disagreements, naturally, but they assumed that by applying reason, it was always possible to find common ground.

Fast-forward a couple of centuries, and most of us wouldn't know a free and open debate if it fell on us, complete with moderators. Our news comes to us, not in a format that encourages an exchange of ideas, but through the one-way input of TV and radio. The news outlets are owned by corporations and, particularly post 9/11, their content is, um, somewhat constrained by the dictates of those who count the advertising dollars. We sit in our cars or on our couches and glean whatever information we can from what is fed to us without any opportunity to respond or ask questions. This topic is so important, I wish I could tell you that the whole book is about how we can become a more engaged democracy. But then you, like I, would be disappointed.

Instead, the bulk of the book focuses on the ways that the American people have been manipulated and deceived by the future former administration. Gore is thorough in his research, supporting each of his assertions with documentation, but the more I read, the sloggier it became. First of all, how much more infuriated do I need to be about the past 7 years? The sheer volume of evidence that we have been screwed over and over (and not in that fun way) is more than I could take. I got it, I got it already! The other problem is that Gore writes the book the way I learned to write a 5-paragraph essay: topic sentence, followed by several paragraphs supporting the premise, and ending with a conclusion that reiterates what you've just read. It's dense, it's factual, it's a written reminder of Gore's "wooden" affect during the ill-fated presidential run.

That said, it's still worth reading if you go at it in small chunks or have a little something on hand to help you cope with the outrage that is bound to result.

~Michelle

Basic Black - Cathie Black

This book is on my shelf of "How To" books for achieving world domination.

Basically, this is simply a witty manual by one who says what needs to be said, takes accountability for saying what she says, and can hand out advice that she has learned...well-seasoned from the taste of her shoe having been in her mouth, and having been so more than once. It's like getting 20-20 hindsight without the pain. Kept me laughing, too.

As the highest ranking exec at Hearst Publishing, Black doles out advice on risk, life balance, passion, leadership, work ethic, organization skills, etc. She's like senior mentors I've never had for my current position, with advice I can take with me throughout my career. Black & I seem to view work life similarly; not that it validates me or how I do things, but it does make me feel less alien for enjoying my work as much as I do. When my ability is openly doubted based upon my years of age rather than breadth of experiences, I will think of Cathie Black's young ascension as a rare female in corporate publishing and I will think of pretty much the whole young crew who created and run Google before I rise from my chair in the Board Room, yell "Stick it, you sacred cows!" and apply for my next job.

Upon receiving a promotion, a friend asked the boss, "Do you think I'm ready?" "Of course not," he said. "If you fail, I'll just fire you; if you succeed, I'll promote you." Yes, work could be just that easy.

Probably not on most of our group's "Must Reads," it is something I recently read and enjoyed immensely.

~ Robin

This is cheating

because I have not read any of these books, but trust Johann's judgment. Here is his list:

Vikram Seth's "A Suitable Boy" : all right, it's 1,350 pages but that won't scare you: the only regret you'll have is that the book ends at all. It is a family chronicle set in post-Independence India, and deals with matters social, cultural, religious, and political close to ordinary Indian people's hearts. A must-read. Seth is a poet who lives in London, and the novel contains some poetry, very enjoyable. I have another book by him, "An Equal Music", which I didn't enjoy nearly as much.

Gita Mehta's "Raj" : a novel about a woman coming of age at a princely court in pre-Independence India. It's a work of historical fiction, very well written, in a fluent style, describing fictional characters against a factual background. It offers a fascinating view of the many, unexpected dilemmas facing India (which was never fully under the "Raj": throughout the British period, independent kingdoms remained in existence).

Amitav Ghosh's "The Glass Palace" : a three-generation family chronicle novel set in Mandalay, in present-day Burma. From a literary viewpoint less impressive than Seth's "A Suitable Boy", but equally enjoyable.

Arundhati Roy's "The God of Small Things" : this book won the 1997 Booker Prize, not that I am guided by such, but it IS extremely well written : a devastating story that deals mercilessly with the absurdities of India's caste system and the injustices of its institutions. The novel is largely told from the viewpoint of two siblings who remember incidents in their youth which pursue them into adulthood, and the characters - some of them as eccentric as they get - are truly masterfully portrayed. I have read the book twice over, with a short time span in between, and envy anyone who will read it for the first time.
While Ms. Roy keeps her convictions largely out of this, her first novel, she is rabidly anti-American, a fact I discovered later when I read a second book of hers, a political tract about the World Bank's funding of large dams in the Third World - a subject more deserving of cool (if negative) analysis than the pamphleteering tract she wrote on it. I threw both the second book and the author (metaphorically speaking) out of the window, but I hold on to The God of Small Things, which deals exclusively with India. Disregard the author's iniquities and read it - you won't regret it.

Indra Sinha's "The Death of Mr. Love" : a novel set in postwar and modern Britain and India, cleverly commenting on both while pursuing a detective/mystery theme. This novel is worth reading, but it left less of an impression on me.

Kiran Desai's "The Inheritance of Loss" : much-acclaimed winner of the 2006 Booker Prize. I read raving reviews of it (not necessarily a guarantee of a good book, in my experience, but there you are) and bought it... at a larrrg storrrr called Barrrderrrrs in Phoenix. I will let you know what it's like (I am now finishing "Manhunt" by James L. Swanson). Kiran Desai is the daughter of the acclaimed author Anita Desai - I have a collection of her short stories under the title "Diamond Dust". Her favorite theme is "Eastern versus Western culture" and she explores it well.

Anita Rau Badami's "The Hero's Walk" is another favorite of mine, a very moving story of a grumpy old couple in a dusty, lonely seaside town who unexpectedly get their granddaughter thrust in their lap, after the death of their estranged daughter who lived in Canada. The novel deals with pain, loss, regret, bitterness but also reconciliation and hope - it is one of the very best novels, Indian or otherwise, I have ever read, and I would never part with it. Its subject is universal, not confined to India, but its setting in an alien (to me and you) culture makes it all the more compelling. If you want to read only one book by an Indian author, let it be this one.

Hari Kunzru's "The Impressionist" is the one we found in Tucson. This book, too, deals with the absurdities of the British Raj, in its tumultuous final years, but this time the theme is explored through a tragicomic lens. Fun and riveting to read.

Jhumpa Lahiri's "The Namesake" : a well-written novel by this Bengali author, about one man's search for his identity, between his roots in India and his life in America. Not a book that leaves a lasting impression (like "The Hero's Walk") but again a universal theme set against a fascinating background. A good read.

The above is my little library of (just 10) Indian authors and (just 11) books, more impressive in quality than in quantity, but then that is my philosophy. I am fully conscious of the limitations of the above mini-reviews, because taste in books is as individual - perhaps more so - than taste in wines. I find it nearly impossible to buy books for other people - my choice on the Battle of the Bulge for John was a stroke of luck really - and other people have difficulty buying books for me. To be honest, I get it wrong myself occasionally...

Johann is a banker-type in Belgium and delightfully funny and chatty. My mother just finished "A Suitable Boy" and liked it tremendously..and she reads for the writing more than I do (I still read for the story mostly).

Olga

Just checking for a pulse...

Much as I love to read my own reviews (WHAT narcissism?), I'm really more interested to know what everyone else is reading. Surely somebody's finished SOMETHING she loved or loathed lately. Please write about it! Don't make me rely on dumb luck at the library.

Looking forward to your reviews!
~Michelle

A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS by Khaled Hosseini

You may have noticed that I read. A lot. Books, blogs, newspapers, email, misspelled billboards, all of it. And most passes through my consciousness and back out again without leaving much of a footprint. But I just turned the last page of A Thousand Splendid Suns and now have the peculiar sensation of having been changed by this story, so I ran to my laptop to tell you about it.

A Thousand Splendid Suns is set in Afghanistan from the mid-1970s to the present and tells the intertwined stories of Mariam and Laila, whose paths intersect as a result of the destruction and upheaval generated by years of war. One sign of Hosseini's talent is that he has skillfully portrayed a woman's interior life and outer experience in two different female characters. Woven into the plot is 30 years of Afghanistan's history, culture, and political strife, explained more clearly than I have ever understood it before but without the didactic tone that usually ruins a historically-based novel. The story is about survival under oppression but even more, it's about the ways these women find sustenance and meaning that transcend their circumstances. It causes me to marvel at the strength of people who live through difficulties that I can't even imagine without a writer like Hosseini to help. It makes me think deeply about my limited understanding of what I do and don't need in order to live a meaningful life.

I'm still so wowed that I can't really do justice to this book in my description, so you'll just have to read it. It's at the library but I've decided (contrary to my policy about not buying fiction because I'll never read it twice) that I must own it. This is one book I can hardly wait to start reading again.

~Michelle