Category: Books

Booknote: Summer Reading

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For some of us, summertime is an excuse to read something light or more frivolous than we usually would.  For others, it’s an opportunity to devote time to delving into a serious tome, perhaps one that’s been languishing on the shelf.  I view it as a chance to do both—indulge in lighter fare and stretch my brain with something more challenging, usually a nonfiction title.  When I was working fulltime, Maine was my time for extended reading.  Now I have more available time, but I still see Maine as a gift for long spans of reading, whole mornings or whole afternoons.

Before leaving home, I load up my Kindle with new books, pack a few paper books in my luggage, and, don’t tell my spouse, even mail myself a box of assorted novels and nonfiction to await my arrival.  On the day we arrive at our rental house, a priority is to assemble all the books I’ve brought or mailed and put them in stacks on the living room end table with another stack in the bedroom.  There’s something very appealing about having all those choices laid out from which I can choose what to read next!

Here are some titles I’m considering.  More to come in a future post.

Flying Shoes by Lisa Howoth.  A first novel about an unsolved murder in Mississippi in 1996.

Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris, 1932 by Francine Prose.  A novel about a lesbian and cross dresser that seems appropriate reading given today’s ongoing conversation about gender and gender roles.  On the “2014 100 Notable Books” list from the New York Times Book Review.

Mrs. Lincoln’s Rival by Jennifer Chiaverini.  Chiaverini has written several historical novels set in the time of the Civil War as well as a series of books about quilters.  Lighter fare and this will be my first of hers..

Muse by Jonathan Galassi.  A new short novel about the world of publishing.

Ashley’s War by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon.  Nonfiction account of women on the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2010.

The Secretary by Kim Ghattas.  Published a couple of years ago, this is a reporter’s account of traveling with Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State.   Timely given her candidacy.

WHAT I’VE READ RECENTLY

What is it like to work in the White House?  The Residence by Kate Andersen Brower is a quick read  based on interviews with butlers, seamstresses, housemaids, valets, and other White House staff from FDR and Truman to the present.  For the most part, the closer you get to the present day, the more restrained the staff are in their comments about the President and First Family, but you still get an intriguing glimpse of that enclosed world.  Each family has its own distinct personality and its own preferences and some families were definitely friendlier to the staff.

 

Tidy Tidbits: Film, Art & Vanessa

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FILM

I recommend Far from the Madding Crowd!  Beautiful countryside, beautifully filmed, and Carey Mulligan is a lovely Bathsheba, intelligent, definite and almost elfin.  And the men—Francis Troy has the required rakish dark hair and eyes, Boldwood (don’t you love Hardy’s choice of names!) is older, but not as sinister seeming as in the novel, and Gabriel Oak, well, he is all that the hero is supposed to be—strong, silent and ever reliable.  I prefer this version to the earlier one starring Julie Christie.  A good romantic film to get lost in!

ART IN SARASOTA

I believe that part of having a successful retirement life is creating something new or at least exploring and experiencing different activities and events.  My spouse and I call this aspect, “the frolic phase,” and we have developed gradations of frolics from micro to mini to mega. Frolics range from dinner at a new restaurant to a museum visit to a full-blown trip like the 5-week one we took to Asia.

This past week, we had what I’d term a mini frolic.  We had been to John and Mable Ringling’s mansion, Ca d’Zan, at Christmas time, but never to the Ringling Museum of Art.  We have now remedied that and were quite impressed.  The Ringlings’ personal art collection, which was bequeathed to the state of Florida upon John Ringling’s death in 1936, is primarily made up of Renaissance and pre-Renaissance religious art, mainly by Italians, but there are representatives of Dutch, French and Spanish artists as well. They are hung in a series of wood-paneled galleries, each of a different wall color, in the original building.  The building itself is modeled on an Italian villa with a bronze copy of Michelangelo’s David looming over the courtyard and is worth seeing.

The addition of the Ulla and Arthur T. Searing Wing provides a contemporary museum space for traveling and temporary exhibits and we got caught up in “Re-Purposed,” sculpture and other art created from trash and cast-off items.  I would also note that we had the pleasure of meeting the late Mrs. Searing several years ago. She was then 92, elegantly dressed and very  proper.  We conversed over tea and Pepperidge Farm cookies on her balcony high up overlooking Sarasota Bay.

NEW BOOK 

Vanessa Bell about 1910 & Virginia Woolf, 1902 [by George C. Beresford/Hutton Archive
Vanessa Bell about 1910 & Virginia Woolf, 1902
[by George C. Beresford/Hutton Archive]
I dashed through Priya Parmar’s new novel, Vanessa and Her Sister, and was simply captivated!  This is Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf, but with the attention on Nessa as she was called.  Parmar has created a chatty diary for Vanessa and her dated entries are interrupted by letters and postcards from other family members and friends (Virginia and Nessa to Violet Dickinson and Dorothy Snow,  Lytton Strachey and Leonard Woolf to each other).  The four Stephen siblings, who had lost both their parents and their half sister Stella, were extremely close and formed a tight little social group which was enlivened by close friends dropping by for their Thursday evenings.  The novel makes clear the steadying influence Vanessa had on Virginia and how much Virginia needed and wanted her attention.  Nonetheless,  death, madness,  Clive’s courtship of Vanessa, and betrayal all conspire to disrupt the balance and seeming harmony of the group..

These are 20 and 30-something writers and artists who, without Facebook or texting, are aiming to be successful in their endeavors and falling in and out of love with potential life partners, be they male or female.  Parmar brings their unconventional social milieu to life—so much so that I felt as if I were there and well acquainted with Vanessa.  It is probably helpful to know something about these noteworthy and ultimately famous individuals (I did, being a fan of the Bloomsbury Group), but even if you don’t, their story and their issues of artistic creation and love of all kinds will engage you.  I didn’t want the book to end.

Booknote: Shanghai Jazz & Montana Misery

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WHAT I’VE READ RECENTLY

Nicole Mones is an engaging writer.  Her background includes running a textile business importing wool from China, something she did for 18 years which means she writes knowledgeably and convincingly about that society and its culture.  Several years ago I read her novel, The Last Chinese Chef.  I absolutely loved this book, recommended it to friends and gave it as a gift.  It combined complex characters, food, and an exotic setting in an intriguing mélange of history and romance.  Like a good meal, it was very satisfying.

Recently, I immersed myself in the music scene of 1930’s Shanghai.  In Night in Shanghai, her newest novel, Mones portrays the African American musicians who were lured from the U.S. to be a part of the jazz craze in that more racially tolerant environment.  The central character, Thomas Greene, has his own black jazz orchestra and a big house, but falls in love with an indentured Chinese woman who is also a member of the Communist Party.  Events unfold as Hitler’s tyranny is devastating Europe and Shanghai becomes a safe place for Jews.

There are more minor characters in this novel and more political strands (parties and officials) to keep straight so I had to pay closer attention to the details while reading.  In the process, I learned a great deal about some of the lesser known aspects of this time period (including a grand plan to harbor Jewish refugees) and am now poised to read another of Mones’ earlier works.  You can see and hear her talk about how this book came about at a recent appearance at the Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Scottsdale, AZ.

Song, (note her name) the love interest in Night in Shanghai is trapped and bound to her master with no ability to come and go as she pleases.  In Smith Henderson’s novel, you might say that all the characters are trapped by something, be it poverty, addiction, or a dysfunctional home scene.  And yet, within these constraints, they exercise what they perceive to be their rights, be it flaunting authority, distrusting the government, abusing someone, or just plain drinking to excess, again and again.  Fourth of July Creek is a long and challenging novel set in 1980 in the small towns and woods of rural Montana.

Pete Snow, a social worker, grapples with families and children whose lives are messed up and messy.  His own life is in pieces too —his wife took up with another man, his 13 year old daughter who lives with her has run away, his brother is out on parole, and he finds solace in drink.  Two of Pete’s cases take center stage as he monitors brother and sister Cecil and Katie’s foster home placement and struggles to get proper help for Benjamin, the untamed son of fundamentalist Jeremiah Pearl.  Father Pearl distrusts everyone, is half crazy, and seemingly has been acting out on the wrong side of the law.  Running in parallel and underneath these situations are Pete’s multi-state search for Rachael, his missing daughter, and a series of interviews with her.  One can debate if these interspersed interviews add to or detract from the novel as a whole.

Henderson is sympathetic to all his characters.  I found I liked Pete despite his shortcomings and eventually saw another facet of the angry, violent Jeremiah that provided some explanation for his behavior.  This is Henderson’s first novel.  While I think it is longer than it needs to be, in language that is painstakingly crafted and honed, it paints a grim and graphic picture of rural poverty and desperation.  The book is on the New York Times Book Review’s “100 Notable Books 2014” as well as being named the best book of the year by several critics.  I wouldn’t go as far as they did, but I cared enough about Pete and the fate of Cecil and Benjamin to plough through.

Tidy Tidbits: Reading & Red

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READING

There was a column about reading in the  recent Wall Street Journal Report: The Future.  I was pleased to see this, but think that Walter Mosley could have made a stronger case overall for the value of reading.  Nonetheless, he did write the following:  “There’s nothing like reading.  That interpretation through the nonconcrete medium of words fosters creativity in almost every bookworm.  Basic imaginative talent is cultivated by reading, and that process cannot be replaced or lost because, we, as long as we are human, will always have words and thoughts, pains and ecstasies, that must be expressed.”   So cheers for the bookworms, may they flourish!

In an innovative approach to encouraging reading and making books readily available, the San Francisco Public Library this month is launching a book bike. Called Spoke & Word, it will show up at Giants’ baseball games, farmers’ markets, parades, and other community gathering places.  Just another example of the vision and creativity of my west coast friends.  Congratulations!  [The photo is from the library.]

MEMENTOS OF RED

My mother loved the color red.  In her younger days, she wore a lot of red.  Over the years, she amassed a collection of red glass.  Her picture window ledges were lined with small red objects—goblets, birds, vases, pitchers, and even a red apple—most of them gifts from family and friends.  At Christmas, she reveled in decorating her house and her tree with as much red as possible, everything from red ornaments to red poinsettias to wreaths and swags, always with a red bow.

Now my mother is gone, but she lingers on in the scattering of red in my house.  A necklace of tubular red wooden beads interlaced with silver discs from Finland; a lovely pinkish-red silk scarf with ribbons of black; a delicate clear glass hummingbird ornament with red wings and tail; a carved wooden cardinal ornament; a small glass pitcher with a wide mouth and a yellow handle; a round Chinese lacquer box.  These items are imbued with memories:  of good times, of travels, of holidays spent together, of family.  Red has become my color too.

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