A FAREWELL MESSAGE

 

Dear Bloggers and Followers,

Due to some psychic upheaval over the past few weeks, I have taken the decision to discontinue my efforts in the Blogosphere. I have kept Keep The Wisdom going for almost 16 years, a pretty good run. My original purpose was to create a "web presence" as it was called in 2005, to make some connections and build an audience for the book I had started writing. 

I have made many wonderful connections. However the blog itself gradually took over and consumed more and more of my writing time. Thus I made less and less progress on the book. Since I will turn 74 years old this August, I must face some facts about the time I have left to finish the project.

It is a tough decision because I have made so many great friends here. I love and respect all of you and wish you the best in your reading endeavors. 

I will leave the blog online for as long as the technology supports it. I'll be posting the books I read on Goodreads and Twitter, if you wish to follow me there. 

Thank you so much for following me here, for sharing your blogs with me, and especially for all your comments. 

Goodbye for now.

THOSE WHO LOVE & A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Those Who Love, A Biographical Novel of Abigail and John Adams, Irving Stone, Doubleday & Company, 1965, 647 pp

 

 

 

A People's History of the United States, Howard Zinn, Harper & Row, 2015, 688 pp

 

 

 

Today I have two related reviews for you, because the first book led me to the next. I am ranting and I warn you that these are not cheerful reviews.

Those Who Love was the #6 bestseller of 1965 and took me eight days to read. Though it has a slant, Irving Stone did give a picture of the dreams and ideals of this couple as English settlers in Massachusetts. John Adams's dedication to create a balanced government of three branches that would ensure a true democracy was based on deep study of England and the history of other countries. He was trained as a lawyer, he put his wife through much hardship, she was a strong and understanding companion. He became the second President of the new nation, after George Washington, and already the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, on which he worked tirelessly with the Founding Fathers, was cracking at the seams.

The problem was they did not address all the issues. Only men who owned a certain amount of property could vote. The Adamses were not rich, they probably only squeaked by property-wise. They were not in favor of slavery but to get all the colonies to agree on the Constitution, compromise was in order. The rights of Native Americans, slaves, women and the workers of the new country upon whose shoulders the edifice stood, were left out.

I suppose that this is the trouble with a certain kind of idealist. They do not see or understand the 99% of humanity who do most of the work. To understand more about how we got to today, in the middle of a pandemic with a Federal government and a complete idiot of a President who appear to have no idea what they are doing, I decided to read the Howard Zinn book. In fact, I learned that John Adams was up against more than he knew.

I read A People's History of the United States by taking one chapter a day. It took me 25 days and some of it was a slog. He is not the greatest writer.

He does, however, tell the story of the forming and building of the American Empire from a different slant than Irving Stone; also a different slant than kids in school used to get in their American history studies.

In every chapter he contrasts the unrelenting drive of the monied class for expansion, growth, progress and more wealth with the realities of the lower classes. The crimes of our country are really no different than the crimes of any empire building country throughout history.

From reading historical fiction and also the Will Durant history books, I have been aware of what gets done when a nation has that drive towards power and aligns government with finance to achieve those aims. Since I was raised and educated to see America as the best and greatest country in the world, I don't think I ever until now truly confronted what my country has wrought to create that reputation. (I am also aware that not everyone would agree with what I am saying here.)

The other main point of Zinn's book is that the oppressed, be they Native Americans, women, Blacks, workers, immigrants or the people of other countries we have stolen land from or filled with our military bases or plundered for natural resources, will always tend to fight back. It might be inspiring to think that way, well actually it is. I, however, was left with the feeling that capitalism always wins, that our government is still allied with business and the rich, as it has been from its founding.

Perhaps because as I read the book, we were dealing with a pandemic that seemed to be worse here than in other places in the world, that was flattening but not lessening, I could not escape the idea that this is part of our payback, that we are hated by the people we have abused (called terrorism), that we have damaged the world almost to the breaking point (called climate change) and that if my fairly comfortable, deluded and ineffectual middle class goes on this way, we deserve everything that we have coming. I don't feel completely hopeless. I feel mostly enraged.

Sorry to be a downer. I advise reading Zinn's book, if you haven't, if for nothing else than to understand the actual mechanisms of power, money, the military and our politics. Mechanisms that keep us placated and unaware while the military/industrial complex and the bankers continue on their destructive path. He does a good job delineating how that works. I have wondered for a long time how those in power think that money will protect them if the world goes down.

So, I leave you with yet another quote from a Joni Mitchell song: "Who you gonna get to do the dirty work, when all the slaves are free?" The song is "Passion Play" from her 1991 album, Night Ride Home. You can find it on YouTube.

THE GREEN BERETS

The Green Berets, Robin Moore, Crown Publishers, 1965, 430 pp

 

The #5 bestseller in 1965 was a tough read for me. In 1965, I graduated from high school. By 1967, I was a full-blown protester against the Vietnam War. When I started My Big Fat Reading Project, reading books from the 1940s, I found many antiwar sentiments alongside books about, and even glorifying, war.

 

For decades I embraced pacifism. Now in my 70s, I realize that pacifism is a fine ideal but does not work out in real life. All the way from what would you do if someone was trying to destroy a loved one to what if some country is trying to destroy your own. I have also espoused non-violence but observed that eventually most oppressed humans resort to violence. 

Robin Moore was a journalist who got permission to train as a Green Beret and then imbed himself with these Special Forces units in Vietnam to get first hand information on how and why they practiced guerilla warfare. He turned those experiences into fictional stories about some of the operations. According to him, JFK wholeheartedly backed the endeavor, including CIA involvement in some of the operations. The idea grew out of the realization that for Western nations to fight communism in the far east, it appeared impossible to win by conventional military manuevers. 

 

Having read the book, mainly loathing it the whole way, I understand those pressures better. I also learned how the US Military was at war with itself over these new approaches and how some of the top generals actually sabotaged the Special Forces. I felt fortunate to have read The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen, in which I got the story of the conflicts within the Vietnamese governments. 

Fast forward to the present when the art of war has become even more complex. I don't need to explain. Just read the news.

I still believe that war is not the answer to human problems though it sure seems that to many it is just accepted as the way things are. I don't mean to discount the bravery, patriotism and commitment of soldiers but I do condemn the huge loss of human lives as the price we pay. 

I really do wonder, if any entity could do a correct poll or survey, what the majority of human beings think about the necessity or inevitability of war. What do you think?

Now we are fighting another war against little invisible things called viruses. War news has suddenly become almost absent but it is for sure war and human beings are not united in this war either. Of course there are plenty of courageous and dedicated individuals doing all they can to save lives, to do the right things concerning the spread of the virus; there are officials taking appropriate steps to protect lives. We will get through it somehow but again the result is huge losses.

I am sorry if this post brings you down. I pondered whether or not I should enter this review into the conversation today. Still, this could be a time for us to dedicate ourselves to becoming more educated and responsible for our fellow man, to consider alternatives to the past and what we as individuals, families, groups, can do for each other and our planet. Out of suffering and mistakes and destruction can come new understandings and intelligence and bright ideas.

Keep the wisdom!

BOOKS READ IN DECEMBER

Happy New Year! My holiday break went a bit longer than planned. I spent the last week in December reading enough books to make my yearly goal of 156 books. It was glorious reading that many books in one year but keeping up with the reviews of them became more time consuming than I had predicted and writing on my own book went completely dead by about May.

So I spent the first week of the New Year figuring out what changes I needed to make. I decided that my own writing must take priority and my reading should be focused on the lists of My Big Fat Reading Project because that is the main research for my book. I considered giving up entirely on the blog but I treasure the relationships I have made through it. So for now, here is the plan: Read primarily from My Big Fat Reading Project and for my reading groups. Write reviews for my own edification as relates to my writing. Post here about once a week, mostly lists such as the books I read each month, the Reading Group Update and possibly the occasional review of books that I especially love.

One day a week I will visit the bloggers I follow and leave comments when I truly have something to say. (I hope this is enough to keep in touch.) Write at least five days a week (that also includes research and revision as I go.)  If you want to see what I am currently reading you can follow me on Goodreads or Twitter. Thank you in advance for understanding.

Stats for December: 13 books read. 11 fiction. 8 by women. 3 from My Big Fat Reading Project.
2 historical. 4 thrillers. 1 mystery. 1 memoir. 1 biography. 1 picture book.

Countries I visited: Brazil, Great Britain, Greece, France, Poland, USA.

Authors new to me: Kate Braverman, Ani DiFranco, Lili Anolik, Caitlin Horrocks, Julie Otsuka, Simms Tabak

Favorites: Palm Latitudes, No Walls and the Recurring Dream, The Vexations

How did your reading go in December? Have you read any of these? 

HAPPY ALL HALLOWS EVE AND ALL SAINTS DAY

All Hallow's Eve, the origin of Halloween

The history of Halloween goes all the way back to a pagan festival called Samhain. The word "Halloween" comes from"All Hallows' Eve" and means "hallowed evening." Hundreds of years ago, people dressed up as saints and went door to door, which is the origin of Halloween costumes and trick-or-treating.

 

 

 

All Saints Day, also known as All Hallows' Day, or Hallowmas, is a Christian celebration in honor of all the saints from Christian history. In Western Christianity, it is observed on November 1st by the Roman Catholic Church, the Methodist Church, the Lutheran Church, and other Protestant denominations.

 

 

For some reason life became overly intense for me this past week. Travel plans burned by fires, wind, power outages. (Don't worry I am safe at home.) One of the most challenging novels I have read in a while took me 9 days to get through. Do you ever have times when you feel changes going on in you, mentally, physically, emotionally, but you are not sure where these changes are taking you or if you will just emerge strengthened and with a better idea of what the heck you are doing in life? Yes, like that.

So I have six novels to write about and post. I have a cool post I want to do to connect up more bloggers to more bloggers. And I am working on a post about the 10 Caldecott Medal winning picture books I have read recently. None of these will be ready today nor perhaps tomorrow. But I will get to them soon.

Enjoy these holy days, whatever you believe, because we are all connected by the history, myths, and memories of what it means to be homo sapiens. The world is in our hands but we are also in its hands. Thinking about where we go from here.

OUR TRIP TO LASSEN VOLCANIC NATIONAL PARK

As I mentioned last week, I have wanted to go to Lassen ever since reading Nevada Barr's mystery Firestorm. On Sunday, September 29, we got up at 5 am and were on the road by 6:30. Most of the 8 hour drive from Los Angeles to Lassen is on I5, the interstate that runs from the California/Mexican border at Tijuana to the Canadian border at Vancouver. We like to stop, stretch and change drivers often so we made it to Mineral, CA in about 10 hours.

Our first stop in the area was Highlands Ranch Resort. We did not get rooms there but had heard about their excellent restaurant. So after a leisurely happy hour at the bar with its great bar menu we headed to our more economical cabin. By then it was close to dark and the predicted storm of rain mixed with snow had begun.

I loved that our front porch was tucked behind two huge pine trees. We had a kitchen, small living room, bedroom and bath. Once we got the heater going we were cosy under lots of blankets because it rained and snowed all night.

 

We woke to a wonderland of snow on trees and the ground though the roads in the area were cleared. But when we arrived at the park we learned that the road through the park was closed. We walked up the road as far as we could, adjusting to the altitude of 5000 feet! But we could see Lassen Peak where the last eruption of its volcano was in 1913. It was cold and I was bundled!

 

 

We spent the rest of the day studying the exhibits in the Visitor Center and driving around the Lassen National Forest which surrounds the park, enjoying a picnic by a lake, and another great dinner at Highlands Ranch.

 

On Tuesday morning the 29 mile road through the park was open! Some of the trails we had picked out to hike were still covered with snow, some were too steep for me, but we walked along a creek, then hiked to and around Summit Lake. I lagged along while Greg went ahead and then came back to fetch me. I loved seeing chipmunks, birds, snow cascading down from the trees as the sun warmed the area and spotting animal tracks.

 

 

By the end of the afternoon we had driven the entire road and then drove back to the entrance. Amazing how much different things looked when going in the opposite direction!

 

 

 

 

The rocks in the foreground of this last photo are from the 1913 eruption! That area is called Chaos Crags.

 

After another 10 hours on the road on Wednesday we were home. All that driving was so worth it!! The next day I started another Nevada Barr mystery, Blood Lure, set in Glacier National Park. Thanks to our trip I could just feel the atmosphere, the unique combination of wilderness and human care that keeps our National Parks protected and gives us a chance to experience a bit of what our country was like before we made it into what it is now. 

 

I can't recommend those books enough for giving the feel of the parks, the experience of what park rangers go through to keep us safe while also protecting the parks from human wrongdoing. If you can get to any of the many American National Parks it is the most wonderful adventure, even for weaklings like me, and the most soul reviving, nature appreciating thing I have found. We met a couple guys who had been off-trail for four days and had not even known the road was closed until we connected at Summit Lake! 

I wonder where we will go next year.

 

 

OUR ANNUAL FALL VACATION

We are about to embark on our latest National Park adventure. This year we will visit Lassen Volcanic National Park in northeastern California. We hope to hike as much as the weather and my lung capacity will allow. There are rain, possible snow showers, as well as sun in the forecast!

 

The photo above does not do justice to the entire area but you can get further info and pictures here  and the history of volcanoes in the area here.

 

I was inspired to go to Lassen by a book, of course. Nevada Barr's fourth mystery, Firestorm, was set there. Finally we will see it in real life without the wild fires and blizzards that feature in the book.

I will be back to my blog and yours later next week.

STORY OF THE PEAHEN

My Mother's Day Tale

 

This is the story of how a peahen (female peacock) chose to make a nest in the planter outside my front door. It all began on March 31st when I noticed an egg in the middle of some succulents in the planter. I have seen that size of egg before because my neighborhood has about 75 peacocks roaming wild, left over from someone who had a few but moved away and left them here. I have seen, every spring, the peahens making their way through my property with anywhere from 2 to 7 chicks following behind. So I knew it had to be a peacock egg.

 

This lone egg sat there for several days. Then, day by day, more eggs began to appear.

By the time there were 10 eggs, the peahen began to sit on the nest for many hours a day. She would leave for a short time, I guess to get something to eat. She would have visitors, both male and female. We called the females the aunties. For many weeks, it was like a baby shower out there.

I did some research and learned that it takes 28 days for peacock eggs to hatch. It was confusing since it had already taken over a week for the 10 eggs to be laid. But sure enough, 28 days after the tenth egg appeared, I came out in the morning to check and this is what I found.

Peahen gone, six broken egg shells, four whole eggs. It was a cold and rainy morning. I searched around but found no sign of any mother or chicks. Then I heard outside my office window the sound the peahen makes to keep her chicks following her and saw them crossing the driveway. The best shot we could get shows only two of the chicks but there were definitely six. The mother had led them to our green waste receptacle and was hiding them there.

About an hour later I found them under some bushes by the driveway. Sorry no photo. She was really good at hiding them. Later still I found her down near our street behind my rock garden sitting on all the chicks, keeping them warm and dry. Soon they were no longer there and I have not seen them since. I surmised that she had laid more eggs than she could hatch because she never returned to the nest. 

I have had a negative attitude to these creatures because they eat my favorite flowers, they walk all over my low shrugs breaking branches and of course they poop incessantly. This experience changed my attitude. Checking on that mother every morning and several times a day for four weeks, we got to have a relationship of sorts. She did not seem to fear me. I was sorry not to have seen the actual hatching.

Now I am on the lookout for a peahen with 6 somewhat bigger chicks trailing along.

RIFT

RIFT, Kathy Fish + Robert Vaughan, Unknown Press, 2015, 211 pp

 

 

Have you ever signed up for a book subscription? It is like the old Book of the Month Club but in modern form. You enroll and agree to pay for and receive a book each month. There are many of these, some from small presses, some from outlets like the New York Review of Books. You agree to take what you get. It is like Christmas or your birthday once a month.

 

As I have mentioned before, I have been enrolled in the Nervous Breakdown Book Club since 2015. I haven't loved every book I've received but I have been introduced to many gems I might otherwise not have found on my own or might have passed over. Sometimes I get a brand new hardcover by an author I love for only $9.99, the monthly fee.

However, like other books I buy, I don't always get around to reading them. In fact, out of the 43 books I've received over the years, I have 21 sitting on a special shelf waiting to be read. I feel guilty.

RIFT was the December, 2015 selection and the remaining unread 2015 book. In a rather OCD moment, I opened it to read. As you may also remember, I am not a fan of short stories. RIFT is a collection of stories by two different authors. Not only are these stories short, they are super short and fall into a sub-genre of short stories known as 'flash fiction." Some are only a page long, none are more than six pages. 

OK, I thought, I'll read a couple a day. How long can that take? Over the weeks a wondrous phenomenon occurred.

My problem with short stories is they are too short. I like to settle in to a story and stay for a while. I think nothing of reading novels that are 800 to 1000 pages long. As I read these well-crafted though sometimes quirky pieces, I was impressed by how well most of them created in my mind a complete picture of character, place, and even of time having passed.

I have been terribly blocked on my own writing project for a few years. I lost my momentum and have not been able to get it going again. The best I have been able to do is once in a while write a short scene or collection of memories about an incident.

Reading these flashes of writing by Kathy Fish and Robert Vaughan, I realized that I have been doing something similar with my project. I checked on the chapter I'd been struggling over for so long and saw that almost all the pieces are there. I have not been writing flash fiction but I have been writing flash autobiography!

I am now well into putting that chapter together. Some of the bits I wrote are in the wrong place and will go into other chapters, but the writing that I thought was just me being lame, or worse, lazy was in fact the way I dealt with my writer's block.

If you are still reading (I thank you and apologize for going on so long) you may be a writer yourself. You may have had a similar problem. I exhort you now to just keep reading books and keep jotting down something at least now and then. You too can break through.

Most of all, I thank Kathy Fish and Robert Vaughan and Bud Smith (the publisher of Unknown Press) and Brad Listi, who runs the Nervous Breakdown Book Club, and whatever goddess watches over me, for bringing me just what I needed.

(RIFT is available in paperback by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

THOUGHTS ON THE 1964 BESTSELLER LIST

A few of you who follow the blog have expressed interest in a summary of the Bestseller List of 1964. I completed reading the 10 top bestsellers about a week ago, so here are my thoughts.

The List:

The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, John le Carre

Candy, Terry Southern

Herzog, Saul Bellow

Armageddon, Leon Uris

The Rector of Justin, Louis Auchincloss

The Martyred, Richard E Kim

You Only Live Twice, Ian Fleming

This Rough Magic, Mary Stewart

Convention, Fletcher Knebel and Charles W Bailey

When I started My Big Fat Reading Project in 2002 I was on my way out of a cult where we were discouraged from reading the news and watching TV. (Please don’t ask me questions about this. I am writing my story and one day it will be public.) In any case, I was starved for pop culture and had little to no idea of what had been going on in the world for the past 10 years. I had always been someone who learned from books but at the time I wasn’t looking very far into the world except for my own country. I figured that the American fiction bestsellers would be a way to catch up. That is why I began to read these lists.

Since I also planned to write a story about how I ended up where I did, I decided to go back to my beginnings. Then I went back even further to the year when my parents met: 1940. It wasn’t a bad plan because World War II was a turning point in modern life. One way or another, we are all children of that conflict. Along the way I added other books to my reading lists. I read 22 books from 1940. For 1963 I read about 50. Like an atomic explosion my lists have mushroomed and I have branched out to reading books from other countries as well as history.

The idea though has not changed. I don’t know if it is still valid at this point in the 21^st century but I have found it possible to get a sense of the 20th century from reading books.

The big topic in the 1964 list is the Cold War. It underlies or influences the stories in seven of the books: The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, Armageddon, The Man, You Only Live Twice, The Martyred, Convention, and even This Rough Magic. This topic came up in just three novels from the 1962 list, two in 1963.

The next most common topic, though it overlaps with some of those mentioned in the above paragraph, are three books focused on American politics: Armageddon, The Man and Convention.

In earlier years books about the two World Wars often dominated the lists. In 1964 only Armageddon, about the end of WWII and the beginning of the Cold War, and The Martyred, about the Korean War, made the list. I consider the Korean War a direct outcome of WWII. Now instead of looking back at war, we are looking ahead to a possible final war.

Also in earlier years, religion and particularly Christian stories sold well. 1964 saw only two: The Rector of Justin and The Martyred.

Spycraft is probably an up and coming bestselling subject in the ensuing decades. The few spy books in earlier lists were some of Graham Greene’s novels. This list has two: The Spy Who Came in From the Cold and You Only Live Twice.

The opening events of the sexual revolution can be found in the lists going back several years but 1964 wasn’t that sexy. Of course it is hard to have fiction without sex but as far as changing mores go all we got was Candy and Herzog.

Another popular subject in the 1950s and early 1960s was class conflict. I see that falling away and in fact only The Rector of Justin took it on in 1964.

Personal growth began being an American concern in the postwar years. It showed up in this list in Herzog and The Rector of Justin. Racism had a slow year with The Man standing alone in spotlighting it. Romance, another former big seller, has taken a back seat, found only in Mary Stewart’s This Rough Magic where it combines with the one mystery book. Historical fiction is nowhere to be found on the list.

I have found it true in both in the 1940s and 1950s that a shift takes place about mid-decade and the phenomenon has occurred again demonstrating how the Cold War was so thoroughly on the minds of Americans that it sold books!

Now you have read my thoughts. Do you have anything to add or even challenge? I would be happy to hear from you.

SONGWRITERS AND THE TRUTH

I don't usually write much about music here, though it is music that has run through my life in so many ways and saved me in so many ways.
Last night I learned that an old friend of mine whom I have not seen in years has died.
Today I learned that Dolores O'Riordan, lead singer and songwriter for The Cranberries, has died at 46. Too young.
On this day, 89 years ago, Martin Luther King, Jr was born. Today we observe the only American holiday that honors an African American. A holiday that took over 15 years to be approved by our government. I find it fitting that it is celebrated on or near the day of his birth rather than his death. What is important is that he was born, he lived, he fought for justice and freedom.
 On Twitter last night I found a tweet from Margaret Atwood saying she was taking a time out from Twitter due to all the attacks against her for a piece she wrote in The Guardian. You can look it up.
The world is so harsh with people who fight for freedom, justice and rights for all human beings.

As I was writing in my journal this morning I felt stunned, sad, beaten down, and words were hard to find. I found the lyrics of a song running through my mind. So I give you those lyrics, written by Stephen Stills when he was in Buffalo Springfield:

For What It Is Worth

Buffalo Springfield

There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware

I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind

It's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side

It's s time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away

We better stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, now, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

Songwriters: Stephen Stills

For What It Is Worth lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc

 (How appropriate that our much vaunted technology had to garble my copying and pasting. At least the copyright is there.)

KEEP THE WISDOM BLOGIVERSARY!

Today I was eating lunch and into my head popped a thought: I wonder how long I have kept my blog going? It seemed like I started it one summer. Well, I was close. I started this blog on July 1, 2005. So I missed the actual day by 1 month and 9 days. Welcome to my 12th Blogiversary!!

Some people would tell you that I am persistent. Others would tell you that I am really good at getting out of things I don't want to do. In this case, it appears that persistence has won out. When I was looking for images I was struck by how many there were for a 1 year blogiversay, quite a few for 2 years and then it just goes general. Apparently there is a high drop out rate. The image I picked has 27 candles. I know, optimistic aren't I.

Another thing I noticed was links to articles about what people learned from blogging. I will not bore you with one of those. I am also not doing a give-away because I give all my no longer wanted books to Little Libraries and at reading group book exchanges during our holiday parties. Instead I will give you my innocent, somewhat funny and for me hugely nostalgic first post:

Maiden Voyage to Blogdom  Friday, July 1, 2005

Whew! I made it. I have arrived in the universe of blogs. A little bleary eyed, a little shy. Will I be cool enough to be a blogger? Made it through blogging for dummies thanks to blogger.com. Everything is new and subject to change, but I have a mini profile and a blog name. Still have to learn how to get anyone to come and read the thing and how to do links and all that stuff.

Anyway, welcome to my blog. It will be mostly about books that I am reading, have read or want to read. Today I am reading The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. So far it is wonderful. It is obviously written either by or in the voice of a fairly young man. That is fine because I like young men. It takes place in Barcelona, Spain, which is where my lovely artist niece just spent a semester. Her name is Elizabeth and she designed the cover for my latest CD, but I digress.

I am also in the middle of The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles, a sad and somewhat disturbing book. I will finish it but first I have to finish the above book for a reading group meeting on Tuesday night.

OK, this is just a short post to get the blog rolling. More to come soon. 

****************

1544 posts later, I thank you all for reading, following, or just lurking. I hope you have enjoyed yourselves. I hope you will keep coming. I know that blogs aren't cool anymore but I just don't feel like starting a podcast. As long as we don't blow up the world or run out of electricity due to climate change or some other more horrendous disaster, I might as well keep going.

My purpose is to celebrate reading. Yes, let's celebrate that!! If you still drink, raise a glass to Keep The Wisdom, to book bloggers and to reading books. If you don't, put something else in the glass and raise that. All of us readers are the greatest, smartest people in the world!!!

WHAT NOW?

 

What Now?

I feel bad. I feel abused. I feel like taking to my bed with a bottle of vodka. I feel outraged at my country. I feel like I am suffering from a great loss and cannot think straight. I feel apathetic. I feel afraid. I feel guilty. I feel small. I feel confused.

All through this Presidential election campaign, I felt a growing awareness that the country I am living in is not the country I thought I was living in. Now I know for sure that I have not really been looking at my country as it is. I was lulled into a feeling of hope and security by evidence that change was truly happening: change for women, minorities, and the under-represented people in our society. I thought we were ready for a woman to be our President, a woman who had the experience, the courage, and the will to continue the fight for true freedom of all people in our land but who could navigate the treacherous waters of the world as it is, who could continue to redeem our country in the eyes of the world.

I did not realize the extent of the anguish many of my fellow Americans are going through everyday as they try to make a living. I did not realize how very angry are the white, straight, conservative Christian men and women of this country. How ripe this segment of our society, who are still a slim majority, were for the con game of a demagogue who has played on their fears and insecurities to advance his own hunger for power and recognition.

I could not bring myself to post a blog about a book I read three weeks ago before this rude awakening was forced on me. Even though this morning, when I checked my reading log, I see that the next book I was to post a review about is actually completely apropos: The Big Green Tent by Ludmila Ulitskaya, a novel about Soviet Russia in its latter days.

I watched Hilary Clinton’s address to her campaign team yesterday morning and once again admired her courage, her clear thinking, and all the other qualities she has for leadership. I went to my reading group last night to discuss Last Days of Night by Graham Moore, a wonderful piece of historical fiction about the early years of electric power in America; the intersection of science, finance, and the law. We discussed, we drank wine, we got to giggling about pussy grabbing. The gloom began to lift.

This morning I read a great article on Lit Hub: Literary Voices React to President Donald Trump. Again I went through the whole spectrum of emotions. I started making decisions about my future reading. At one point I decided to read only books by women of all races, creeds, and nationalities. At another point I decided to drop the blog and just work on my Big Fat Reading Project and my memoir. I jotted down a quote from Dan Peipenbring of the Paris Review: “And read as often and as violently as you can.”

As always, I was restored by writers.

Lately, in my life, I have been pondering the concept of rebalancing. It is an ecological, Buddhist, Tao Te Ching, long-view concept. Human beings get out of balance due to all kinds of factors that are part of daily life but some cosmic force works always to bring the dichotomies of life back into balance. All of those emotions I cited in the first paragraph of this essay are brought about by the terror of things getting so out of balance that life or the universe will end.

My conclusion today is that I had not totally been facing how out of balance the world and the human race truly is at this time. It is not that I did not know that. It is that I thought things were improving. And I think they are but not as much as I had thought. A huge factor in the cosmic force towards balance is sentient beings. When the storm is over, when the fire is out, when the smoke clears, it is up to sentient beings to come out of disaster mode and start thinking, planning, setting things to rights.

The best sentient beings I know are people who read and write, clearly and as truthfully as they can. That is us! Bloggers, readers, authors, publishers. We dare not give up, give in, or stay silent. We need to read it all, even the words of white male chauvinist bigots. Everyone in a free society gets to have a say, we need to know the enemy and understand him, and we need to be in conversation with him.

So, I will read, I will write, I will attempt to be in concert with the forces of balance, I will not pander, I will not be silent. I will be back tomorrow with my next review.

Thank you for visiting and reading my blog. Take heart, carry on, be the change you want to see in this world, keep the faith, and all that good stuff!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

I will be off the blog for the rest of this week. We are taking a road trip to visit with family. I plan to eat and drink and eat and drink and so on. The next generation is doing all the work. There will be lots of talking and laughing and playing of music. 

Happy Thanksgiving to all of my readers and followers. Keep The Wisdom is ten years old this year! It is hard to fathom that I have been at this for a decade. If you get bored, you can read my blog on your device while you digest. This is post #1294 and most of them are about books.

If you go back far enough you will even find some early rough drafts of chapters for my memoir, another parallel project begun a decade ago. It has turned into a version of the Myth of Sisyphus as I read the books described in My Big Fat Reading Project because I keep finding more books to put on the lists as well as more memories and thoughts to incorporate into the memoir. Who knows if I will ever finish it, but the journey so far has been amazing.

 

My prayers go out to all the refugees, the orphans, the homeless, the poor, and the hungry. No single one of us can feed the world or stop the wars. But I do have faith in the power of literature to shine the lights of knowledge and wisdom even into the darkest of places.

TOP 25 BOOKS READ IN 2013

I only read 111 books in 2013, my lowest ever since 2005 when I read 110. I averaged 2 books a week instead of 3 or 4, averaged 110 pages a day instead of 140. Those higher averages are from 2010 when I read 160 books. 

Looking back over this past year I see that I was distracted by personal troubles and turned to the internet and (most shameful of all) playing Solitaire on my iPad, when I could not settle down to reading. On the positive side, I wrote more including progress on my memoir and on my novel. I also wrote 18 professional reviews. Some of that time on the internet was spent on research for my writing but I can't deny that way too many hours went by while I jumped around here and there. 

That is the trap I guess. I think I could maintain my focus better when I used to research in libraries using books. It is so easy for one thing to lead to another on the web but I also think it is a matter of finding the best way to use it as a resource. The internet is an amazing invention and like all new inventions there are benefits as well as drawbacks. 

Enough! I need to get reading!!

I still managed to read many great books last year and as usual had fun winnowing my list of favorites down to 25. Except for We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (only found on BookBrowse) and On Such a Full Sea (releasing next week and not posted yet), my reviews of all the rest of the books can be found here on my blog. Not all of these books were published this year and the order is alphabetical by title, not most favorite to least. I loved all of these books for many different reasons.

THE LIST

The Agony and the Ecstasy, Irving Stone

The Accursed, Joyce Carol Oates

The Bone People, Keri Hulme

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, Anthony Marra

Five Star Billionaire, Tash Aw

Flight Behavior, Barbara Kingsolver

The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt

Hild, Nicola Griffith

The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri

MaddAddam, Margaret Atwood

May We Be Forgiven, A M Homes

My Education, Susan Choi

The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern

On Such a Full Sea, Chang-rae Lee

The Round House, Louise Erdrich

The Russian Debutante's Handbook, Gary Shteyngart

Sisterland, Curtis Sittenfeld

Special Topics in Calamity Physics, Marisha Pessl

South of the Angels, Jessamyn West

Thinner Than Skin, Uzma Aslam Khan

To the End of the Land, David Grossman

Transatlantic, Colum McCann

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Karen Joy Fowler

Woke Up Lonely, Fiona Maazel

The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls, Anto Di Sclafani

THE LIGHT IN THE RUINS

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The Light in the Ruins, Chris Bohjalian, Doubleday, 2013, 309 pp

Sometimes, well actually often, I come across coincidences in my reading. This time it was a back to back occurrence. I finished Daughter of Silence published in 1961, then read The Last Man Standing, followed immediately by The Light in the Ruins. All three novels are set in the Tuscany region of Italy. The first and the third concern murders committed as revenge with a taint of vendetta and roots buried in World War II; the middle one is set in the future. It was like spending a century in Tuscany.

The Last Man Standing was the most impressive of the three. Where Daughter of Silence was overly wordy, The Light in the Ruins featured smooth, easy prose and told a better story but though I was kept guessing about who committed the murders, it was too simply written. Neither one was strong on characterization. Picky, I know. I sound like a judge on American Idol.

Thanks to a comment on my review of Daughter of Silence, I have learned that I have better books by Morris L West to look forward to. The Light in the Ruins was the first book I've read by Chris Bohjalian. At this point I would read him again if I was stuck somewhere without any books but ones written by him. Unless someone can recommend a better book by Bohjalian I am moving on.

THE LOVELY BONES

The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold, Little Brown and Company, 2002, 328 pp

I reread The Lovely Bones for the One Book at a Time Reading Group. I had recently read a chapter in Dorothea Brande's Becoming A Writer where she talks about how to read like a writer. One of the exercises was to read a book twice: once for pleasure and a second time for analysis. 

I began this reading by making notes about things I noticed and that was fine. But soon enough I was just drawn in to the story and reading with great pleasure. In fact, I liked the book much better this time. When I read it in 2003, I was looking at her whole heaven thing through my own spiritual views and hers made me uncomfortable. I found myself scoffing at that aspect of the book. I also felt at that time that the ending was sappy.

Now I have lost both of my parents, even watching one of them die. I've been five years grieving for them. What a difference it makes to have my own reality on losing loved ones.

Another point: I have now read enough to recognize that there are two themes going on here: One is the effect of a loss by death of a family member on the remaining members. Secondly, the book is a mystery because even though Susie knows who killed her, no one else does. She wants them to solve and revenge her death. Like Lisa See's hungry ghost in Peony in Love, Susie does not get everything she wants. None of us here on earth do. In fact, she gets much more of what she wants in her "heaven."

Then there is Ruth who is odd, psychic, and a student of death. She is like a Hindu goddess and actually the strongest character in the book. I noted that she only deals with women who were killed by forms of abuse from men.

In summary: rereading is very worthwhile, although I usually feel I don't have time because of all the books that I still want to read. But I now eagerly anticipate rereading my favorite authors, Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison and Barbara Kingsolver. 

I have not seen the movie made from The Lovely Bones. I was a bit afraid of it but now that I have reread the book, I am ready. Has anyone seen it? I would value your comments.

(The Lovely Bones is available in paperback on the shelf at Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

WINTER JOURNEY

This time last year I was in Michigan, driving through blizzards, ice, snow and slush. My mom was in a rehab facility after her strokes. I would spend about 5 hours a day with her there, helping her get through her physical and occupational therapies (known as PT and OT) by counting her reps for her. It was a hard uphill climb from which she never recovered.

Going through these months this year has not been nearly as hard, but I find myself reliving those days and the memories are not much better than the experience itself. It does no good to think about cliches about mortality. It is true that getting on with life is the only real antidote for loss. It is untrue that time heals all wounds. Then again, I don't particularly want to forget my mother. For that, I am grateful.

This past Monday, my husband and I set out for Sequoia National Park. It is an easy 250 mile drive from Los Angeles and we marveled that we had never gone before. We had a cabin by a river for two nights. Realization: the only way to really have a cabin by a river is probably to own one. We could hear the river from our little patio but could not exactly see it. Then again, if the river in question carries much of the snow melt from the High Sierras in the spring, you wouldn't want your cabin too close.

We spent a few hours in the foothills on Monday afternoon. I forgot that I have some trouble adjusting to high altitudes and thought that I was having heart failure as I walked up a slightly inclining path to view the river. But wow, the size of the rocks was enough to take my breath away. Tuesday we drove up to the high elevations where the sequoia forests are. We saw the famous General Sherman tree which is the biggest in mass but not height. Our favorite thing was the clusters of three or four trees growing together.

So I know that the Earth and other planets of the Solar System are old, that mountains and rocks are old, but there was something about a living tree that is over 2000 years old that made a big impression on me. In the most recent book I read, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God, by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein (an excellent novel which was published in January), there is a character who starts an Immortality Foundation, dedicated to research on how to live as long as 500 years. Actually, it just might be possible to get something done in a 500 year life. Human life is so brief. Just when you start to get a grip, your joints and organs begin their decline, no matter how healthful one has been.

So these trees, which have grown through all manner of weather, events, changing air quality, logging companies; they have seen so much. I got that Lord of the Rings feeling where the trees "talk" and decide things soooo slowly. It was cool. It was also cold with four to six feet of snow around the trees. So even though I did not like having to walk around feeling like an emphysema patient, I want to go back in a few months when all the snow is gone, the flowers are blooming in the meadows and I can just sit around with those trees for as long as I want.

I DON'T USUALLY DO THIS

I don't usually post links to other stuff on my blog, as many lit bloggers do. I like to keep my blog purely about books and authors. But I couldn't resist on this cool article from The New York Times about people reading on the subway. It is such a cross-section of people, who they are, what and why they read. There is also a related slide-show.

Enjoy!

IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT

I spent some hours this week reading about the state of the book business, technology, the Kindle, the threat of Amazon to independent booksellers, etc. It is all unsettling: almost as bad as reading the general news, which I rarely do. The chaos merchants, the doomsayers, the virulent emotional arguments.

Some of it is just good old "progress." Most of what is upsetting to me is the whole attempt to create the idiocracy, an "attempt" that is becoming the way it is. The internet contributes across the boards to most of the changes and who really knows what the world bankers are up to.

But another thing that both history and literature show is that human intelligence, spirit, goodwill, and so on, are not that easily suppressed. Some emperor or feudal lord or industrialist or banker or arms dealer will succeed in oppressing the masses, the ones who are really only fixated on what and how they are going to eat each day, but then a hero/rebel/saint rises up out of some unlikely corner and saves the day.

Funny thing: that is the basic story that most of us like to read, over and over everyday for a lifetime. It is the story of mankind. It is not a story of progress but a cyclical tale that repeats endlessly. We are all characters in this tale, we are not all heroes, but we sure are all in the story together.