Booknote: Youth and Food

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This week I have two books to recommend.  One is serious and to be savored, the other fun and a quick read.

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.  This is a magnificent book, and that’s an adjective I seldom, if ever, use to describe a novel.  Two parallel stories, two lives, one of a blind French girl, the other a foster German boy who is taken up by the Nazis, lives which you know must converge eventually.  And they do.  But getting there is long and detailed and sometimes painful.  Like a deck of cards cut and then re-cut and stacked, the chapters are brief, sometimes only a page, and occasionally out of order in time and then layered and re-layered until the inevitable meeting. For natural history buffs, the depiction of the Paris Jardin des Plantes is an added delight.  The book is long–500 pages–and demands to be read slowly.

Delicious! by Ruth Reichl.  A complete change of pace, this is a foodie’s treat and an ugly-duckling-becomes-swan tale all in one.  I thought this might be just a frothy confection, but Reichl knows how to tell a good story.  From the thinly disguised Gourmet magazine (here known as Delicious!), to Sal’s marvelous shop doling out cheese and cheer, to James Beard as a character, there is mystery, friendship and enough good food to send you to the kitchen.  Just plain fun!

Tidy Tidbits: Sarasota Music Scene

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We’re discovering a wealth of culture here in Southwest Florida!  The Sarasota-Bradenton area has a seemingly infinite array of music and theater opportunities.  In just the past two months we’ve taken advantage of several.  One Sunday November afternoon, we attended a string quartet chamber concert featuring members of the Sarasota Symphony.  It turns out that this symphony, previously with the bland name of  Florida West Coast Symphony,  has been around for more than 65 years and is the oldest in the state!   On the anniversary of Pearl Harbor Day, we heard the full orchestra with a guest conductor and pianist in a symphony of American music including a work by Samuel Barber along with Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.  A patriotic, but not overdone afternoon.  Before the holidays, we were delighted with the Asolo Repertory Theatre’s production of that classic, South Pacific.  With the heightened awareness of black-white tensions in several US cities, this performance was timely for sure.  It is part of the theater’s  5-year American Character project, now in its second season.

This week, we discovered the world of the Sarasota Institute of Lifelong Learning (SILL). As someone whose job on the other coast was all about lifelong learning, it’s fun to be able to take advantage of someone else’s programs.  SILL has been in existence for 44 years and we are signed up for Music Mondays.  Twelve weeks of conversation and performance related to many aspects of music!  Week one featured the composer Theodore Morrison whose latest work, Oscar,  an opera about Oscar Wilde’s trial, will be performed in Philadelphia in February.  He was joined by the countertenor understudy for the role of Oscar who sang several aria excerpts for the audience.  The host of this program, June LeBell, is dynamic, knows her stuff, and kept up a lively pace.

Before the week is over, we’ll be at another SO concert—this one conducted by the new and exciting Anu Tali.  Can’t wait to see this female conductor in action!

Booknote: My Favorite Books of 2014

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Some years ago, I started keeping a list of most of the books I read each year just for myself with some occasional comments.  I received a slew of new books for Christmas and near the end of the year purchased a few so I have an even higher stack than usual awaiting me.  You would think that being retired, I would be doing more reading, but so far, travel and getting settled in have intervened.  One of my 2015 goals is to set aside more time each day to read and to work my way through some of these literary riches.  At this stage of life, I’ve both given myself permission and forgiven myself for not finishing every book I start. There are just too many good books–and more being published– to spend time on one that doesn’t engage me.  I will give most works 50-75 pages before bailing out.

Back to my 2014 list.  Here are my top favorites for the year.  I purposely left off any books I have already blogged about.  In no particular order, they are as follows:

NONFICTION

Being Mortal by Atul Gawande.  Surgeon Gawande is one of my favorite writers and I always read his pieces in the New Yorker where he is a staff writer.  Since we all have or have had parents and aspire to old age ourselves, this book is a must-read.  Using case histories and even his own family as examples, Gawande delineates how we often do not act in an individual’s best interests at the end of life.

Soldier Girls by Helen Thorpe.  Three young women, socio-economically disadvantaged, joined the National Guard partly as a way to increase their income and assuming their tour of duty would all take place stateside.  Instead they were assigned to Afghanistan and one also served in Iraq.  Gripping, painful and informative about the horrors and the boredom of life in a war zone.

House in the Sky by Amanda Lindhouts.  I heard Ms. Lindhouts speak at the Aspen Ideas Festival last summer and then got her book.  It is a chilling story of her kidnapping and imprisonment in Somalia, but even more it speaks to her incredible force of spirit and tenacity to endure and ultimately survive such brutal treatment.

FICTION

Quiet Dell by Jayne Anne Phillips.  Based on an actual murder, this novel includes the crime, but focuses more on the press and the surrounding story.  Beautifully written and more accessible than her earlier, also very good novel, Lark and Termite.

Nora Webster by Colm Toibin.  I’m a big fan of Toibin’s work and loved Brooklyn.  This novel traces a young Irish widow’s trajectory of grief and its impact on her children who seem oddly neglected.

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson.  A tour de force of creativity.  Events occur and then are re-wound to  different endings and then re-wound again in this novel set in the early 20th century.  How might our lives been different or this one life?

The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells by Andrew Sean Greer.  More straightfoward time travel from 1981 to 1918 and 1941 exploring the role of women in times of crisis–or at least the experience of one woman, Greta. She is an engaging character. A fitting successor to Greer’s The Story of a Marriage which has its own twists.

~~~~~

Here’s to happy reading in 2015!

 

 

Booknote: WWII Berlin in fiction and diary

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Although I left Berlin sometime ago, I can’t seem to leave it behind.  While in London, I bought a first novel about a German couple in Berlin during the Second World War.  This soldier and his “mail order” wife are on the German side ; the novel portrays the brutal conditions of the fighting on the Russian front and the grim state of affairs for those trying to cope at home.  And the effort these two young people undertake to stay connected to each other.  I recommend The Undertaking by Audrey Magee.

Now, thanks to a recommendation from my friend Patricia, I’ve been immersing myself in Berlin Diaries, 1940-1945, an unusual first person account of life in Berlin by a transplanted Russian princess.  The author is  Maria Vassiltchikov.  My reading of this is enlightened by having been in that city and having walked some of the streets she references.  She recounts parties socializing with ambassadors and diplomats and other royals, but as the war deepens, her concerns become more mundane and basic—where to safely stay and live, what will be available to eat, and what will be the fate of her friends, colleagues, and scattered family members.   Her brother edited the diaries, sent for publication just before her death in 1976, and his clarifications of people and places and his interjections about the events of the war are most helpful to the modern reader.  Even if you haven’t experienced Berlin, this is a worthwhile and fascinating account of this time period.