Author: JWF

Maine Moments: Photos & Books

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MAINE DAYS

Although the Chief Penguin and I are retired, the rhythm of our days is different when we’re here. It’s like being on vacation as we take a more leisurely approach to life (if that’s possible, but it is—no medical or other appointments!)  Earlier this week, on the most perfect day thus far, we enjoyed a boat cruise with M & J down to Christmas Cove for a lovely lunch on the deck at Coveside in South Bristol. The other morning we got an early start and were at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens just before they opened.  Ten years old this year, they are Maine’s #1 attraction according to Trip Advisor! Thanks to generous donors, they have big plans for the future. In between outings, we continue to binge on The Americans (have to get through season 5) and even do some reading.

Here are some photos from our doings.

 

 

RECENT READING

I like historical novels. A well written one is a pleasurable way to learn about other times and places. I also assiduously follow the reviews of current fiction. Oprah did a lot to promote reading with her book club and it’s gratifying to see her return highlighting a very accomplished and timely first novel.

If I Could Tell You by Elizabeth Wilhide

Another historical novel set during WWII written by an American who has lived in London for more than 40 years. As a depiction of what it was like to live and work in London during the Blitz, it’s graphic and well conveys the hardships and the stress on one’s spirits. Wilhide also presents a detailed picture of the challenges facing those tasked with making documentary films and the unusual jobs women took on working with artillery. While the main character, Julia, makes a wrongheaded choice in her affair with Dougie, I felt that the novel was more a vehicle for the history Wilhide wanted to share, than a well-shaped story. I call it a mixed success. (~JW Farrington)

Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue

Oprah is back in the business of recommending books and this is her pick for 2017. Not surprising, it is a very engaging and accessible read. It is also timely given that its topic is the immigrant experience. The novel opens in 2007, and Jende Jonga and his wife Neni are immigrants to the U.S. from Cameroon, full of optimism and hope for all that America will provide.

With the help of his successful lawyer cousin, Winston, Jende gets a job as chauffeur to Clark Edwards, a high level executive with Lehman Brothers. For a while, life is good for the Jongas and their small son Liomi. Neni goes to community college and even does some short term work for Cindy Edwards, thus bringing the families closer together.   Everything changes when the financial crisis hits and Jende’s status in the country is challenged. Marriages are threatened and life becomes much harder and more tenuous requiring difficult decisions.

Ms. Mbue, a native of Cameroon and now an American citizen living in New York, knows whereof she writes. Her book is warm and generous and balanced in its portrayal of these two families. Neither family is perfect and each individual has faults, but both families want to provide the best opportunities for their children. Named one of the best books of the year by NPR, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and the San Francisco Chronicle. (~JW Farrington)

Another perspective.  I don’t usually link to anyone else’s blog, but I found this woman’s comments about Hillbilly Elegy very thoughtful. Here’s the link.

Note:  All photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved)

Maine Musings: Books & More

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ON THE MAINE COAST

After the humidity and heat of Florida, the Maine coast is a welcome change—even when you have several days of gray skies, continual fog, and temperatures that don’t climb out of the 60’s.   We’re on an island here and that means it’s more susceptible to foggy, misty conditions. Sometimes just going across the bridge into town brings one into sunshine. The other day town was foggy too, but farther inland in Damariscotta we were plunged into warmth, even heat. There it was bright sun, humid and 85 degrees!

Our days here are punctuated by hours of reading, dinners with friends, bingeing on The Americans, and the occasional special activity such as a craft fair, the library’s annual book and bake sale, or the house and garden tour, an always enjoyable peek at how others live. The Chief Penguin and I each have projects. We’re both spending time weeding our online photo collections and deleting both duplicates as well as lesser photos. I also brought with me one of the many handwritten journals I’ve kept over the years and am transcribing it on my laptop for posterity—or at least for our son and granddaughters. It’s a jaunt down memory lane for sure. This one is from 1990 and although that sometimes seems like recent past, it’s actually more than 25 years ago! 

Finally, I’ve been tracking the box of books I mailed from Florida on July 8th. It’s been to Jacksonville, FL twice, three times to Springfield, MA, and now is on its second stop in Jersey City, New Jersey, all while supposedly on its way to Maine!

Frustrated, I belatedly put in an e-mail query about it and then I talked to an authoritative woman in the local post office. She said the address entered (I’m assuming this was done by the woman at my local substation) was my home address, not Maine! She and another postmistress are trying to get it out of its loop-de-loop travels and delivered here. Fingers crossed! Update—it finally arrived at the local post office after its two week journey and I am delighted to have my lost books.

ON THE SMALL SCREEN

Crime in the Shetlands

I’ve recently been immersed in an excellent crime series set in the rugged Shetland Islands, appropriately titled, Shetland. Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez is a widower with a teenage daughter who works with Tosh (Alison McIntosh) and Sandy, two junior detectives. Also starring in this thoughtfully produced series is the stunning scenery. Cliffs and peat and simple shingle and stone buildings against a backdrop of serious sea and gray skies. Most episodes are two-partners and you get the flavor of the culture and a sense of life in this isolated rural environment with the ferry the lifeline to the mainland. I find the character of Perez in particular to be very well drawn. He’s a detective with a mission to solve the latest murder, but he’s got a compassionate soul.

RECENT READING

Mishap in Saudi

Thanks to the extensive mystery section at Bookstore 1 Sarasota, I picked up this first detective novel by Zoe Ferraris published in 2008. Entitled Finding Nouf, it’s set in Jeddah and the nearby desert. Desert guide Nayir ash-Sharqui is asked by the wealthy Shrawi family to help locate their missing teenage daughter, Nouf. He knows the family quite well and is friends with Othman, one of Nouf’s many brothers. What is most fascinating about this mystery is its depiction of this segregated Muslim society where women’s lives are cloistered and separate from the world of men. This is a challenge for Nayir in his investigation which is somewhat overcome as he becomes acquainted with lab technician, Katya Hijazi, an independent career woman, who can provide entrée and insights. Author Zoe Ferraris was briefly married to a Saudi man and lived in Saudi Arabia for a time. This was a Washington Post Best Book of the Year and is the first of three mysteries set there.  (~JW Farrington)

The Muse by Jessie Burton

This novel was on a display labeled beach reading at Longfellow Books in Portland. I was aware of Burton’s earlier novel, The Miniaturist, so decided to take a chance on it. Like other historical novels, it links characters from two different time periods, in this case London in 1967 and Spain in 1936. Olive Schloss is a young English woman living in Spain who becomes friendly with Isaac Robles, a painter and a political activist and his sister Teresa, who adopts the Schloss family and works as their housekeeper. Like Isaac, Olive also paints, but is extremely reluctant to share her art.

Odelle Bastien is from Trinidad and has been in London for five years. She gets hired by a prestigious art institute and is mentored by a quixotic older woman named Marjorie Quick. Odelle brings to the attention of the institute a painting thought to be by Isaac Robles and finds herself immersed and enmeshed in a net of secrets and deceptions.

Well researched, and intricately plotted with a myriad of relationships and liaisons, The Muse explores questions of creativity and ambition midst tangled love and desire. Why is Olive so determined not to have her name on her work? Is it simply her reluctance as a woman at that time? What price does she pay for her love for Isaac? Can Teresa be seen as evil? I found this an engrossing book even though I sometimes found it hard to accept the characters’ motivations.  (~JW Farrington)

Note:  All photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved)

Portland: Red Brick & Raucous Gulls

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MEANDERING IN PORTLAND

We had a day and a half to ramble up and down Portland’s red brick streets and to explore the shops and restaurants of this New England center of cuisine and culture.  The sidewalks of slightly uneven rectangular red bricks add charm and old world authenticity while echoing the 19th century building architecture, much of it also brick.  It’s a small port city that is enlivened by tourists in June, July, and August, and you are always within earshot of squawking gulls.

In addition to visiting both Sherman’s of Portland (Maine’s oldest bookshop) and Longfellow Books (a serious and well-stocked bookstore that is just books), I loaded up on notecards and stickers (the latter for my granddaughter) at Paper Patch, bought hostess gifts at K & Cotelette (a sophisticated home furnishings shop), and picked up knick-knacks and knives at Le Roux Kitchen.  We also stopped into Browne Trading Market to gaze hungrily (it was a day without lunch) at the fish case and to purchase some appealing-looking cocktail jams, and then into Angela Adams to ponder their colorful contemporary area rugs. For a return visit, I will be sure to check out Print, a new independent bookstore in the east end.

A walk to the art museum meant we could enjoy the recently mounted outdoor sculpture display.  The sun had just come out and we were hesitant about going indoors.

Human Structures by Jonathan Barofsky
Hearsay, 2014 by John Bisbee
Raising Cain, 1999-2000, by Celeste Roberge

On our way back, we stopped to inspect the trade posters in the Maine Historical Society’s windows, a fun teaser for one of their exhibits.

     

We also checked out the society’s shop (very nice!) and that netted a couple of postcards to mail to our granddaughters.  One of a Whoopie Pie for the 1-year old and the other of coastal Maine showing both Portland and Boothbay Harbor for the five year old.

While there, we did a brief tour of the Wadsworth-Longfellow House which was staffed by junior docents (think middle school age) and was free admission for that hour.  The house was built in 1786 by poet Longfellow’s grandparents and he and his parents moved here in 1807 shortly after he was born.  The last resident was his sister who bequeathed it to the historical society upon her death in 1901.  The house has been restored to look like it did in 1851.

Note:  All photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved).

 

Thoughts on Summer Reading

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SUMMER READING

Like the proverbial “eyes bigger than her stomach,” I always have ambitious plans for how many and which books I will read over the summer.  Several stacks of them in fact.  They are a mix of novels, mysteries, biography, and general nonfiction.  And I have aspirations of re-reading some classics like Austen’s Persuasion and the last three novels in Galsworthy’s Forsyte Saga.  Then I stock up on books in paper (can’t read everything on my Kindle, what fun is that?) and every year for the past several, I’ve posted a box of said books to our Maine address.

I also confess to getting carried away and purchasing bunches of bargain-priced novels for the Kindle.  It’s far too easy to be seduced by the daily e-mails from BookBub, Bookperk, Harper Collins and Random House of titles one shouldn’t miss.  Finally, I succumb and treat myself to one or two literary works from my ever growing Kindle Wish List.  All in all, sufficient reading for many months, perhaps years!

What are your summer reading plans?  You can comment below.

LATEST READING

 The Wizard of Lies:  Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust by Diana B. Henriques 

While the details of the financial maneuvering and chicanery Madoff indulged in were beyond my understanding, I found this a chilling read.  Made me want to re-check my own financial advisor’s credentials (subsequent conversation with said advisor was most reassuring!) Painstakingly detailed, the book gripped me and I read it quickly, mostly for the timeline and scenario of how his lying and scheming developed and who of his team was complicit.  I would have liked more probing analysis of Madoff’s psyche and his early life.  The book was made into a movie which I’ve not seen.

A House among the Trees by Julia Glass

I have read every one of Julia Glass’s previous five novels and enjoyed them all, some a bit more than others.  And I had the pleasure of seeing and hearing her at a reading in a Bay Area bookstore several years ago.  I found this new novel, A House among the Trees, equally satisfying. Her works are not heavily plot driven, and some readers might find the pacing slow as the characters are revealed through their conversation, their thoughts and their own writing.

Glass has a fondness for the theater and at least one earlier work had elements of the theater and performance in it.  Here we have an award-winning aging children’s book author, Mort Lear, mostly keeping close a secret from his childhood, and a handsome boldface actor, Nicholas Greene, who will play Mort in an upcoming film.  Both of these characters have well developed public faces, facades that protect who they really are.  Linking these two is Tomasina Daulair, a middle-aged woman who has, in essence, given over the entirety of her adult life to serving Mort.  She is coordinator of his daily life, protector of his privacy, negotiator with his publisher and fans and yet neither lover nor wife.  When Mort dies before Nicholas gets to meet him, Tommy becomes the guide to Mort’s life.  In the process, she and Nick learn new things about themselves as they deliberately or inadvertently shape Mort’s legacy along with their own futures.  I like Glass’s writing a lot; to me it’s rich and juicy, full of yummy detail.