ON THE BEACH

On The Beach, Nevil Shute, William Morrow and Company, 1957, 320 pp

 This was one of the scariest books I have ever read. It was the #8 bestseller in 1957. In the story, there has been a nuclear war in the northern hemisphere which wiped out all the people. The characters in the book live in and around Melbourne, Australia. Due to planetary winds the fallout is gradually and relentlessly blowing south, so they all know they are doomed and will die within the next several months. (I don't know if such an outcome is scientifically correct. Comments welcome from more informed readers.)

  While the fictional war was over in 37 days, these people have some time to get used to the idea that they will soon be gone. Nevil Shute does an admirable job of imagining what that would be like. He brings it all to horrible life through a few characters: Lieutenant Commander Peter Holmes, his young wife Mary and one year old baby; several of their friends; and a US Navy Commander who is stranded in Melbourne with his submarine and crew, the last operational ship on earth.

 In 1957, the prospect of a nuclear World War III loomed as a distinct possibility. I grew up under that potential nuclear cloud. Reading this book now made me realize how numb we have become to the threat of a nuclear end to life as we know it. I also realized that just because it hasn't happened yet in no way signifies that it won't ever happen.

 Impending doom is nearly impossible to deal with mentally and emotionally for human beings. We can deal with what to have for lunch, hoping our children turn out OK, maybe we can even figure out an investment plan in these incomprehensible economic times. However, contemplating the end of the world is a bit beyond the imagination of most. One character in the book becomes a race car driver and tries his best to die in a racing accident before the fall out gets him. Instead, he wins. Truly scary.

 On The Beach was made into a movie in 1959, starring Gregory Peck as the US Navy Commander and Ava Gardner as one of the Australian characters. Though as is usual, much of the story was left out, the movie had almost as much impact as the book. It is worth seeing, if you never have.

(On The Beach is available in paperback by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

AWAIT YOUR REPLY

Await Your Reply, Dan Chaon, Ballantine Books, 2009, 320 pp

 Wow! This novel blew me away. I read it for a reading group and it was my pick, but it turned out to be different and very much more that I thought it would be from the blurbs I had seen. Yes, it includes identity theft as a plot point, but actually it is about identity: how do we get our identity as a person, how do we become confused about it, lose it, change it? While identity is a timely concept and the story is modern, somehow Dan Chaon also makes it universal, timeless and personal to the reader.

 Then about halfway in, I realized I was reading a sort of hybrid thriller and a mystery, so had to search back in my memory for clues I hadn't spotted as clues. Very tricky, Mr Chaon.

 There are three story lines, each with its own main character, but whenever I put the book down, I could only remember one or at most two of the characters. I began to feel a little bit concerned about my short term memory and went through my daily activities with anxiety and other creepy emotions. Turned out there was a very good reason for all that, which I can't mention because it would be spoiler material.

 I don't imagine I will ever forget this book although someday I would like to reread it. The atmosphere of our oddly over-connected but disconnected modern culture which the author has created just out of those common elements of plot, character and description made me look at several aspects of my life in a completely new way. Now that is some righteous fiction!

(Await Your Reply is available in paperback by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

THE SCAPEGOAT

The Scapegoat, Daphne du Maurier, Victor Gollanz Ltd, 1957, 348 pp (Reprint: University of Pennsylvania Press)

 Scapegoat has an intriguing history as a word. Originally, in the Old Testament book of Leviticus, the High Priest confessed the sins of the people on the Day of Atonement over the head of a live goat which was then allowed to escape, taking the sins with it. From this religious tradition developed the meaning of a person, group or thing who takes the blame for the mistakes or crimes of others.

  In Daphne du Maurier's excellent novel, an English history professor on his way home from holiday in France, is reflecting on his unfulfilling and lonely life when he meets a man in a restaurant. The man, Jean de Gue, is his double but of a very different character. By means of alcohol, possibly a drug, and trickery, the main character wakes up the next day with Jean de Gue's luggage and clothes, finds that his doppelganger has vanished, and that he is being picked up by de Gue's faithful servant.

 Feeling that the police will think him mad, feeling in truth somewhat mad, he allows himself to be taken to a rundown chateau in the country, where he is not suspected by anyone in the family. In this post WWII setting, the three generations live in genteel poverty amid bitterness and a failing glass factory.

 The man takes up Jean de Gue's life, penetrating the several mysteries of the family's past and in a bumbling fashion manages to fix everything and restore the family to happiness. All the while, though the reader is hoping this man will succeed, du Maurier in her inimitable fashion leaves you feeling that it cannot possibly end well. Of course it doesn't but the final scenes do support the title and the theme of the scapegoat. 

 What makes this book so good is the way the author handles all the improbabilities of the story. She had me willingly suspending my disbelief most of the time. Even when I could not believe that the family members did not realize it was a different man, I was so engrossed in the story that I did not care. I also love how this writer always makes some point of wisdom about life in her tales and she did not fail me in this one.

 (There was a movie in 1959, starring Alec Guiness and Bette Davis, with Gore Vidal getting credit on the screenplay. Wow! However, it got negative reviews at the time and is not at Netflix.)

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

THE WINDUP GIRL

The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi, Night Shade Books, 2010, 359 pp

 So far, Paolo Bacigalupi has won the Nebula Award for 2010, the Locus Award (a readers poll) and has been nominated for the Hugo Award. So it is a big winning year for this author's first novel which most likely stands as a harbinger for what is to come in sci fi and speculative fiction. Bacigalupi has already been compared to Philip K Dick, William Gibson and Margaret Atwood for his sci fi and environmental chops. I would have to add Graham Greene for the colonial/political/third world savvy displayed. If The Windup Girl were not science fiction, which readers of a certain age often seem to fear with an almost racist mentality, it would be a competitor for the excitement accorded to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. 

 In fact, Emiko, the "windup girl" heroine has some similarities to the tattoo girl. Emiko is genetically engineered and has been abandoned by her former master who once seemed to care for her. She is super human yet severely challenged when it comes to freewill, abused, depressed, yet determined to break free. Being the old feminist I am, I was routing for Emiko to overcome her preprogrammed compulsion to obey and serve.  

 The setting is Bangkok, 2300. Environmental disaster is fairly complete with all that we currently fear: no more oil, rampant plague, genetically modified food plants that succumb to "blister rust" and "genehack weevils," and a sort of futuristic steampunk hybrid of energy solutions. Global food corporations, whose origins lie in a defunct Empire of America, still operate by the same principles as Monsanto and the like. They are hot to get a foothold in Thailand, the one country who has managed to survive the rising ocean, the plagues and the crop killers by sealing itself off from the outside world, employing the feared whiteshirts of the Environmental Ministry to stamp out sources of disease while maintaining a top secret seedbank.

 But there are always cracks in the armor, always greedy villains within and without and perhaps most dangerous, certain wildcard characters who inadvertently upset everything. Paolo Bacigalupi has brilliantly combined all the elements of story telling and produced a fascinating, high energy tale which kept me glued to the page in horror and suspense, unable to turn away.

 One more thing: A couple months ago I turned down an assignment to review Dexter Palmer's debut novel, The Dream of Perpetual Motion. I read it and hated it for the writing style and the characters. I hereby eat crow. There is a new kind of writing rising up from a new generation, raised on TV shows I have never watched, music I don't listen to, and the undeniable influence of the Internet. It stands to reason that fiction of all genres is changing as it always does. It has taken me a while, but I think I am catching on. If you care to join me, read The Windup Girl.

(The Windup Girl is available in hardcover or paperback by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

WHAT I HAVE BEEN READING

A RECAP OF MY JULY READING

I missed posting this feature last weekend. As I recall, my reading in July was disappointing and not very prolific. Let's see if that is true. Here is the list:

Papa You're Crazy, William Saroyan. From the 1957 list. In his usual autobiographical way, Saroyan writes about bringing his son to live with him for a few months on the Santa Monica beach and giving the boy some pointers on being a writer. Not bad.

The Furies, Fernanda Eberstadt. I so loved her latest novel, Rat, that I wanted to read more. This one was incredible. Best thing I read all month.

Judy's Journey, Lois Lenski. Missed this one when I read the 1947 list. I read it many times while growing up, it had a significant impact on my life and re-reading was quite fine.

From the Terrace, John O'Hara. Here is where I ran into trouble. This 897 page bestseller from 1958 took me a week to read, was OK but had a terrible, horrible, very bad ending which depressed the hell out of me for days.

The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi. Wow!! The latest Nebula Award winner blew me away. Not a happy story but so powerful. Set in the future in Bangkok, it is as good as The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Actually the writing is better.

Rock Paper Tiger, Lisa Brackmann. Fantastic first novel about a young American woman trying to find herself in modern China while being pursued by three types of security agents. 

The Winthrop Woman, Anya Seton. Another tome from 1958 though this one was great historical fiction about early days in Massachusetts colony.

Await Your Reply, Dan Chaon. One of the better contemporary novels I have read. Mysterious, odd, convoluted story about identity. 

High Five, Janet Evanovich. Well, I couldn't go through a whole summer month without Stephanie Plum. Could I?

Barn Blind, Jane Smiley. Her first novel and a promising debut. Originally I was going to take a "reading vacation" and spend the whole month of July just reading Jane Smiley. Clearly that did not happen.

Around the World With Auntie Mame, Patrick Dennis. One more from 1958. About ten times better than the original Auntie Mame. Funny, sarcastic take on Americans in prewar Europe and the Middle East. 

OK, so I see that it wasn't a bad reading month after all. There are some real gems there. But I only finished 11 books which is low for me. What was worse is that I only read three books from the 1958 list; a personal problem, I know, but still. I blame it all on John O'Hara.

What did you read in July?

ELOISE IN PARIS

Eloise in Paris, Kay Thompson, Simon & Schuster, 1957, 62 pp

 The second Eloise book was the #6 bestseller in 1957. I found it even more charming and funny than the first, perhaps because I know Paris better than Manhattan. 

  It is clear that Nanny had more fun in Paris and though Mother sends cables, we still do not meet her. You find out what it is like to fly in an airplane in 1957 with 37 pieces of luggage! Imagine that in today's world.

 This was my first foray into the 1957 reading list and gave me hope that the year might not be all that boring.

(Eloise in Paris is available on the picture book shelves at Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

THE FURIES

The Furies, Fernanda Eberstadt, Alfred A Knopf, 2003, 451 pp

 Fernanda Eberstadt is an author I discovered when I reviewed Rat for BookBrowse. The Furies almost did me in. It is wise and witty while at the same time serious and sad. The author has said on her website, "Few writers...have tackled the subject of pregnancy and children...the whole experience of bearing and giving birth to a baby has gone strangely unrecorded." Well tackle it she does, with the ferocity of a Greek tragedian: note the title. Her recording of bearing and giving birth to a baby is accomplished with excruciating detail, but so is her recording of the power of motherlove and the all encompassing nature of raising an infant: the obsession, exhaustion and joy.

 Eberstadt has written a most modern story. Gwen is a 30-something career woman in the midst of the 90s boom. She works in New York City, lives in a high end apartment, regularly travels the world and loves Russia with a passionate idealism. Gideon lives in a rent controlled dump, creating anarchist puppet theater and harbors a mix of Jewish mysticism and 70s socialist views. Their explosive sexual coupling is straight out of a Joni Mitchell song. At first I thought I was reading about a great love story, with two lost and lonely souls overcoming all barriers to create one of the world's great passions.

 Trouble is, so did they think but parenthood turns out to be their mutual Achilles heel because both are from badly broken homes, from parental abandonment and all they are really seeking is unconditional love though neither is up to the challenge of providing it. This to me was so real, possibly because I have lived it. The first child of such a romance changes everything in a variety of ways. The sex goes bad, the sharing of responsibility for each other and the child is beyond their basically immature capabilities. A child interferes with each parent's conception of personal freedom and tests every one of their idealistic tenants.

 This is not a Jodi Picoult or Anita Shreve novel. It is way more truthful while also being whip smart sassy and based on a frightening array of knowledge about everything from puppetry to post-communist Russia to world economics to New York City politics and more. Fernanda Eberstadt writes like a Fury herself and while her book is not for the faint of heart, it is about how we live now because of how our forebears lived before. It is about the human condition, how we muddle through and the true cost of love. Just be warned that if you read it to the end, it will take you a while to recover.

(I was shocked to learn that this excellent novel is out of print. It is available at libraries and used booksellers.)

BLUE CAMELLIA

Blue Camellia, Frances Parkinson Keyes, Julian Messner Inc, 1957, 430 pp

 Frances Parkinson Keyes had six top 10 bestsellers between 1945 and 1957. I have read them all. Blue Camellia was #5 in 1957. Most of her novels are historical fiction written in the style of women writing for women readers, though almost every book has at least one strong female character who defies convention. She produced over 40 novels in her career and I am happy that I did not have to read all of them.

  The River Road was my favorite with Blue Camllia as a second favorite. It is based on the history of rice cultivation in Louisiana. The story begins when Brent Winslow decides to buy land in Louisiana. He and his wife Mary are the children of Illinois settlers, they are farming people in the late 1800s and have just survived a brutal winter which left Brent bedridden for weeks with pneumonia.

 The story of their move with a nine-year-old daughter, the possibly shady land auction in Louisiana (which turned out fine) and their assimilation into what was essentially a rural Creole population, is good reading. Lavinia, the daughter, becomes a tomboy and runs wild with the Creole children but grows up to be an extremely self-willed and competent woman. Brent Winslow plants, works hard, studies and develops the best variety of rice in the area.

 Most everyone prospers, there are joys and sorrows, Lavinia suffers great loss and heartbreak, but it all comes out well. I've concluded that Keyes' work covers numerous lesser known aspects of American life in the early 20th century. Her research was thorough including her habit to spend extensive periods of time in the locales about which she wrote. She indulges in that wordy style of her times but it reads smoothly while she makes you care deeply about her characters.

(Blue Camellia is out of print but can be found in libraries and through used book sellers.)

AN EXPERIMENT IN LOVE

An Experiment in Love, Hilary Mantel, Henry Holt and Company, 1996, 250 pp

 I was so enchanted by Wolf Hall that I resolved to read Hilary Mantel's other novels. I had not heard of her before Wolf Hall won the Booker Prize and I don't think she was very well-known in the United States previously, but is highly respected in England. She has published ten novels, An Experiment in Love being her seventh.

  It is a sad, sad tale, very English and it reminded me of Anne Enright's The Gathering. Somehow, Mantel's writing just drags you into the hearts of her characters and keeps you there feeling all their sufferings, fleeting joys, hopes and confusions, as they move through their lives. It is actually excruciating but that is often just what I want in a novel.

 Carmel McBain comes from working class Irish-Catholic parents who settled in one of those mill towns in the Liverpool area (where the Beatles came from.) By the time their only child was born, the town was dying. Both parents worked and scrimped but Carmel's mother, in her own emtionally stunted way, pushed her daughter to aspire for more.

 This is a coming-of-age story of Carmel as she leaves her Catholic girlhood, goes to college in the 60s, learns about and lives through sex, love and birth control while she studies and starves on her scholarship grant. It is a familiar plot, this trajectory of a sheltered young woman moving into fuller life in the big wide treacherous world of late 20th century life. 

 The telling of the tale is what got me. From Shirley Jackson's Hangsaman to Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld, we get these stories that are almost the female side of the Holden Caufield thing. And the female experience is more fraught with emotional danger just because we are the second sex.

(An Experiment in Love is available in paperback by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

RALLY ROUND THE FLAG BOYS

Rally Round the Flag Boys!, Max Shulman, Doubleday & Company Inc, 1957, 278 pp

The #4 bestseller of 1957 is a piece of fluff about life in the suburbs circa the mid 50s. This is a common theme in books from that decade and is usually handled with wit when it is not a psychological study of dysfunction. Shulman's is heavy on the humor.

  

 Harry Bannerman works in New York City but lives in a small Connecticut community with his wife, three children, two mortgages and his feeling that romance and excitement are behind him. He loves his wife passionately but she is community-minded and thinks he should grow up.

  In a totally 50s moment, the U S Army installs a Nike missile base on the edge of town. Then the disgruntled wife of a TV exec makes a play for Harry. In addition, there is the young public school teacher who brings psychological analysis to her students.

 Shulman is a fairly good writer and keeps the pace moving. The "slice of life" genre has been around since those early French novelists and I am sure will go on. Humor is the icing.

(Those 1950 bestsellers were apparently not keepers. This one also is out of print and can be obtained only in libraries or from used book sellers.)

RAT

Rat, Fernanda Eberstadt, Alfred A Knopf, 2010, 293 pp

 One of the best things about being a reviewer for BookBrowse Magazine is that I am exposed to books I might not have encountered on my own. Rat is an example. I loved it so much that I am now reading the amazing Fernanda Eberstadt's other novels. She is a unique and fearless novelist. 

  Rat is the nickname of Celia, daughter of a single mother, sister to an adopted brother and intrepid teen living in the Pyrenees Orientale region of France. This is the story of how she defied her loving but slightly crazy mom and went off to find her father. My review begins:

      "Once in a while a book comes along that I simply love. I sink into the story and am carried away for hours into another world and another life. I reach the end feeling that I have been on vacation. Rat  did that for me." Read the rest here.

(Rat is available in hardcover by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

JUDY'S JOURNEY

Judy's Journey, Lois Lenski, J B Lippincott Company, 1947, 212 pp

 I missed this one back when I was reading the list for 1947. It is the fourth volume in Lois Lenski's American Regional Series and I read it many times as a child. Being published in the year of my birth and having my name in the title made it special to me.

  But this book also had a large effect on my life. Judy is the oldest child of a migrant worker family. They follow the crops, live in a tent and are often hungry. Judy longs to go to school and live in a real house. Near the end of the book, the family picks crops in New Jersey, the state where I grew up.

 During high school, I had a summer job two years in a row as a teacher's assistant at a facility for migrant worker's children. Our goal was to help them catch up on missed schooling. It was a defining experience for me in terms of life choices and beliefs, but I hadn't realized until I re-read the book this time how it had steered me to take that job. Reading is so amazing!

 I learned at the job how things really were for these kids. Of course, it was 15 years later and most of the children were Black, while Judy's family was white; sharecroppers trying to better themselves. In Judy's Journey, her wishes come true but I am quite certain the kids I met were not so lucky.

(Judy's Journey is out of print, as are all of Lenski's American Regional Series books. Your local library children's section or used bookseller are your options.)

AUGUST READING GROUPS

Highlights from July:

 The discussion of Olive Kitteridge at Once Upon A Time gave me another viewpoint compared to the one I got from the discussion in June at Portrait of a Bookstore. I think there is just never too much when it comes to talking about books.

 It was a banner month for the number of readers who enjoyed the books read. If you haven't read The Angel's Game (or The Shadow of the Wind for that matter), just know that the readers of One Book at a Time Reading Group are in love with both. Zafon is the Dickens of the 20th century.

 The Help, over a year on many major bestseller lists in hardcover, turned out to be either loved or hated amongst the Portrait readers. I am always fascinated by the variety of responses to the same book.

 Bookie Babes is the group I have belonged to for the most years. We had a wonderful discussion about identity, anti-heroes and plotting in Await Your Reply.  I could see how much we have grown as readers in terms of the breadth of our choices and our willingness to look at different types of books. Well, our motto is: Take a chance on a book, and we do!

Now onto August:

Once Upon A Time Bookstore

Adult Discussion Group

Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee, Charles Shields

Tuesday, August 10; 7:30 pm 

Sunland/Tujunga One Book at a Time

Meets at Mi Casita, Sundland, CA

Contact for Reservation: Lisa

Catch-22, Joseph Heller

Thursday, August 19; 7:30 pm

Portrait of a Bookstore

The Man in the Wooden Hat, Jane Gardam

Monday, August 23; 7:00 pm

Once Upon A Time Bookstore

Mystery Group w/ tea and scones

Finding Nouf, Zoe Ferraris

Wednesday, August 25; 8:30 am

Bookie Babes

Barnes & Noble, Burbank, CA

In the Woods, Tana French

Wednesday, August 25; 7:30 pm

What did your reading groups read last month? Any exciting tales?

HOW TO READ NOVELS LIKE A PROFESSOR

How to Read Novels Like A Professor, Thomas C Foster, HarperCollins Publishers, 2008, 307 pp

 Thomas Foster is a professor of English at the University of Michigan, but he writes about literature in a lively conversational style. I learned much about literary terms, styles and trends. The information was explained clearly and truly has made me a smarter reader.

 He begins with his own version of the history of the novel. Then by using plenty of examples, he makes sense of the dense and mysterious terminology of literary writing; words like unreliable narrator, meta-fiction, post-nmodern, stream of consciousness became concepts which I then began to see being employed in the novels I was reading. It was eye-opening and mind-expanding.

 Anyone who is learning to write fiction or who attends reading group discussions will find short, helpful chapters that can inform the construction of stories or make you look impressively smart at book club. Most of all, I feel the time I spent with this book has enhanced my already vast enjoyment of reading as many novels as I can.

(How to Read Novels Like A Professor is available on the non-fiction shelves at Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

COMPULSION

Compulsion, Meyer Levin, Simon and Schuster, 1956, 495 pp

 Compulsion, the #3 bestseller in 1957, is a fictionalized account of a crime and trial which actually happened in Chicago in the 1920s, known as the Leopold and Loeb case. Two teen aged boys from wealthy families kidnapped and killed a young boy and were eventually sentenced to life imprisonment. It was sensationalized in the media of the time as "the crime of the century" and "the trial of the century." 

  Meyer Levin was a cub reporter for a Chicago newspaper at that time and got to know the boys, the story and even the defense lawyer, Clarence Darrow. Thirty years later he wrote Compulsion, both as a novel and a play. It was also released as a film in 1959.

 The book is well written and though long, held my interest. I believe it is the first in the True Crime genre which was followed by books like In Cold Blood by Truman Capote and The Execution's Song by Norman Mailer. The tale is told from a psychological viewpoint. Psychology and psychiatry were new subjects in America in the 1920s and I have seen the penetration of these ideas into both American and European literature as I have been reading through the fiction of the 1940s and 1950s.

 Psychiatric evaluations of the two youth by alienists, as they were called then, are submitted in the trial by both the prosecution and the defense. Along with psychoanalytical thinking one always has sex, thanks to Freud, and Compulsion is full of it. The boys were homosexually involved as well as fixated on sexual encounters with women. They each had strained relations with both of their parents. The explicit language is a wonder, since Lady Chatterly's Lover and The Tropic of Cancer were still banned books until 1959.

 In fact, the top three bestsellers of 1957 are all about sex: By Love Possessed, James Gould Cozzens at #1 and Peyton Place, Grace Metalious at #2. The "sexual revolution" may not have become mainstream for another decade but its seeds were sprouting in that ostensibly bland 1950s decade, especially during the latter years.

(Compusion is another bestseller that has gone out of print. Check your local library or used book seller.)

LOGICOMIX

Logicomix, An Epic Search For Truth, Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H Papadimitriou, Bloomsbury USA, 2009, 344 pp

 I was attracted to this graphic biography of Bertrand Russell and his quest for the true foundations of mathematics for two reasons. As part of My Big Fat Reading Project, I have been keeping track of the Nobel Prize for Literature recipients and, unless they were poets, trying to read at least one novel by each winner. Bertrand Russell was honored in 1950, but he wrote books about math, logic and philosophy. His most famous book was Principia Mathematica, co-written with Alfred North Whitehead,  which looks way too difficult for me.

 The second reason I wanted to read Logicomix was because I have a secret fascination with math. I loved algebra and geometry in high school and have even been a math tutor. This book goes into the relationships between math, logic and philosophy, making it all fairly accessible. It combines the ideas with stories about the main 20th century players and has pictures! At the end is a thorough glossary of terms and facts about the people involved.

 So I read the graphic storybook in just a few hours. The glossary took almost as long to read as the whole book. In a most intriguing manner, I got the history and development of math and logic all the way from Pythagoras to Alan Turing. If it wasn't for the ubernerds who spend their lives working on this stuff, we would still be living in caves. An occupational hazard is that many of them eventually go insane. I should remember that and take a day off from reading and the computer once in a while.

 I suppose Logicomix is not for everyone, but I am here to tell you that it is not just for guys, though I think any math geek or computer nerd from 15 to 50 would enjoy it.

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

JOAN BAEZ: HOW SWEET THE SOUND

MOVIE REVIEW: Joan Baez: How Sweet the Sound, DVD, 2009

 I watched this last night and it was so special. I was in high school when Joan's first two albums were released.  By the time I started junior year I had been to music camp where I met a real live teenage folksinger from Philadelphia who showed me how to play three guitar chords, after which I went home, got a guitar of my own and started learning Joan Baez songs. I still have The Joan Baez Songbook published in 1964 by Ryerson Music Publishers, which amazingly is still in print.

  The DVD is a documentary covering her life with guests like Bob Dylan, David Crosby, Jesse Jackson and David Harris (who I once met at an anti-draft rally in Ann Arbor; got to shake both Joan and David's hands.) It is beautifully done with Joan in her gorgeous 60s telling stories, looking back on her life and lots of incredibly good footage of her back in the day.

 Those were the days when women like us were being great women and bad mothers. I never got famous but I could never leave the music alone for long. Folksinger in high school and college; Top 40 band lead singer in the 70s; indie singer/songwriter in the 90s. My life is more together now and like Joan, I am good with my kids but all the music days were and will always be the best part.

 Joan is still so beautiful and still maintains her commitment to non-violence and ending war. But I have to say that my favorite song, which I used to perform for years, is her grand dis to Bob Dylan, "Diamonds and Rust." 

 I don't believe in any such thing as the "good old days," but it does seem like we were at least trying back then. Oh well, as the other Joan said, "It was just a dream some of us had."

36 ARGUMENTS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

36 Arguments For the Existence of God, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, Pantheon Books, 2010, 399 pp

Goldstein's latest novel will be on my list of top favorites for 2010. I reviewed it for BookBrowse and the link is now available for anyone to read. My review begins:

  "For a book whose title sounds like an affirmation of faith but whose story is about an atheist refuting the existence of God, reading it is a spiritual experience. What if mankind, with our huge brains and highly developed abilities to reason, could evolve a moral philosophy that makes life both comprehensible and livable without falling back on the outside influence of God?"

 Read the rest of the review here.

(36 Arguments For the Existence of God is available in hardcover by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore. The paperback will be out in February 2011.)

BY LOVE POSSESSED

By Love Possessed, James Gould Cozzens, Harcourt Brace and Company, 1957, 570 pp

 The number one bestseller in 1957 is a somewhat awkward combination of philosophical rumination and sex in a small town. You could also call it Peyton Place from a male viewpoint.

  Arthur Winner is a second generation lawyer with a second wife and two living children. Raised by his father to be upstanding, well-reasoned and unfailingly helpful, he must confront signs of the crumbling morality and shifting social boundaries of the mid 1950s. A few skeletons in his own upscale closet, which threaten to be exposed, create whatever tension exists in the story.

 As in Cozzen's 1948 Pulitzer Prize winner Guard of Honor, the story covers just two days and one hour in the life of Arthur Winner and the town of Brocton, with plenty of backstory to help fill the 560 pages. In long, oddly constructed sentences, the reader is placed into Arthur's mind and heart.

 I found the novel barely readable. The sections where something was actually happening were not bad but the conversations between characters were endless, the lengthy description mostly egregious and by the end, the serious questions raised by the tale had been beaten to death. The only way I can figure out the book's bestseller status is the sex, which is graphically portrayed in some of the worst sex writing I have ever read.

(By Love Possessed is understandably out of print. But should you want to read it for the bad sex writing, check your local library or used booksellers.)

THE ROOM AND THE CHAIR

The Room and the Chair, Lorraine Adams, Alfred A Knopf, 2010, 315 pp

 Though she has an intriguing premise for her "literary thriller", I must unfortunately say that Lorraine Adams did not quite pull it off. "The Room" is the newsroom of a Washington DC major newspaper, where all the reporters and editors spend their frantic hours making deadlines. (Adams is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist formerly of The Washington Post.) "The Chair" is the highly dodgy Will, chairman of a secret government security department.

 Our heroine is Mary, female fighter pilot with a passion for Vipers and the obligatory complicated past. Locations range from DC to Afghanistan to Iran. I do understand, from talks I have attended by Denise Hamilton, former LA Times reporter turned crime novelist, that journalists turn to fiction when they have stories that can't be reported as news. I also understand that someone as well-connected as Lorraine Adams would want to tend towards a literary style rather than straight genre fiction.

 She does tell an exciting story. She skewers the Washington Post scene with thinly disguised major players as characters. She digs at the modern ways of warfare and security. She can write literary sentences and passages as well as many contemporary authors. For some reason, it just does not all come together as a satisfying reading experience. Michael Gruber's The Good Son addresses similar themes but is a killer read as well. If you only have time for one, read The Good Son. If you want an interesting comparison, read both.

(The Room and the Chair is available in hardcover by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

BOOKS READ FROM 1956

 I have now posted my reviews of all the books I read from 1956 for My Big Fat Reading Project.

 Some of you like to see the entire list in one place, so I am posting it here. If you would like to find my review of any particular book, just type the title into the "search" box up in the left hand corner and the good old blogger file clerk will find it for you.

BESTSELLERS:
1. Don't Go Near the Water, William Brinkley
2. The Last Hurrah, Edwin O'Connor
3. Peyton Place, Grace Metalious
4. Auntie Mame, Patrick Dennis
5. Eloise, Kay Thompson
6. Andersonville, MacKinlay Kantor
7. A Certain Smile, Francoise Sagan
8. The Tribe That Lost Its Head, Nicholas Monsarrat
9. The Mandarins, Simone de Beauvoir
10. Boon Island, Kenneth Roberts


 OTHERS:
 1. PULITZER: Andersonville, MacKinlay Kantor
 2. NBA: Ten North Frederick, John O'Hara
 3. NEWBERY: Carry On, Mr Bowditch, Jean Lee Latham
 4. CALDECOTT: Frog Went A-Courtin', John Langstaff
 5. EDGAR: Beast in View, Margaret Millar
 6. HUGO: Double Star, Robert A Heinlein
 7. A Retreat to Innocence, Doris Lessing
 8. Palace Walk, Naguib Mahfouz
 9. The Rosemary Tree, Elizabeth Goudge
 10. The Flight From the Enchanter, Iris Murdoch
 11. A Single Pebble, John Hersey
 12. A Wreath for Udomo, Peter Abrahams
 13. Mama, I Love You, William Saroyan
 14. The Color Curtain, Richard Wright
 15. The Quiet American, Graham Greene
 16. Freedom or Death, Nikos Kanzantzakis
 17. Seize the Day, Saul Bellow
 18. The Fall, Albert Camus
 19. Pincher Martin, William Golding
 20. Til We Have Faces, C S Lewis
 21. Time For the Stars, Robert A Heinlein
 22. The City and the Stars, Arthur C Clarke
 23. The Last Battle, C S Lewis
 24. Fifteen, Beverly Cleary
 25. Flood Friday, Lois Lenski
 26. The Fountain Overflows, Rebecca West
 27. The Man Who Japed, Philip K Dick
 28. The World Jones Made, Philip K Dick

DOUBLE STAR

Double Star, Robert Heinlein, Ballantine Books, 1956, 243 pp

 Lorenzo Smythe is a down-and-out actor with zero prospects when he gets recurited by a space pilot to impersonate an important politician. For real! Because the politician has been kidnapped by an intergalactic political group, an action which could lead to interplanetary war.

  Using this wacky plot, Heinlein gets to comment on all sorts of issues: the ways of actors, the ways of politics, the political awakening of a self-centered person, etc. He also addresses the problem of achieving harmony between different species such as human beings and Martians, which gets into galactic racism and how people become racists.

 I found the first few chapters supremely annoying because sometimes Heinlein was just a little too full of himself, but as always he won me over. In the end I decided that deep down, Robert A Heinlein had a good amount of respect for mankind (and Martians) and found potential for greatness in the most unlikely of people.

(Double Star is available in mass market paperback by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

CARRY ON, MR BOWDITCH

Carry On, Mr Bowditch, Jean Lee Latham, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1955, 251 pp

 Here we have the Newbery Award winner for 1956 and it is an example of the best of the Newbery Awards, according to me. Nathaniel Bowditch wrote the famous American Practical Navigator, published in 1799. In this biography of his life, which is certainly appropriate for ages 8-12 but kept me captivated on every page, we learn that Nat was puny for his age as a kid. Due to the financial difficulties of his parents, he had to leave school and go into indentured service as a bookkeeper at a ship chandlery when he was 12 years old. Since the contract was for nine years, he was 21 when he became a free man.

  But Nat was a math whiz and a friendly person. Many people helped him with loans of books and encouragement, so that instead of going to Harvard as he had dreamed, he educated himself, learning Latin and reading Newton's Principia Mathematica in his off hours. Eventually he went to sea despite his size, where he developed a better, safer way to navigate. Those chapters were the most exciting, though the story of his loves, marriage and family were also eye-opening as to the harshness of life in colonial America.

 What I like about reading books written for kids is that they usually explain all the difficult and technical words. I learned quite a bit about ships, sailing and navigation which will help me f I have to read any more bestsellers set on the high seas. Carry On, Mr Bowditch is a highly inspirational story about courage, the importance of knowledge and carrying on in spite of hardships and disappointments, but does not preach and is not at all sappy. It would be a great book for a reluctant reader, boy or girl.

(Carry On, Mr Bowditch is available in paperback on the Newbery shelf at Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

JULIE & JULIA

Julie & Julia, Julie Powell, Little Brown and Company, 2005, 307 pp

(This will be the second and final post in what I earlier said would be a three-part series, because I combined the book and the movie here. I realized that I just need to move on.)

 

 Julie Powell is one of those early examples of someone who got a book deal from a blog. As everyone in the world now knows, she spent a year cooking every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and blogged about it while working as a secretary at a government agency in NYC, the purpose of which was connected to rebuilding Ground Zero.

 Then she got the book deal and could quit her job. Next Nora Ephron combined Julie & Julia with My Life in France and made the movie, which I have now watched. More on the movie at the end of this post.

 Even though 2005 was five long years ago in our rapidly changing world, Julie & Julia has a very current feel. And it is hilarious. I laughed out loud and hard every few pages. Julie builds tension often, usually due to attempting some dish like eggs poached in red wine or making mayonnaise or cooking brains, and having it go wrong, whereupon she begins freaking out requiring her long-suffering husband to talk her off the ledge. Somehow, although after a while you realize that it always comes out OK, she still can make you worry that the whole enterprise will crash and burn. Everything is always OK when they sit down to eat. That is the power of butter, garlic and wine.

 I liked her scrappy, left-wing view of life and her compulsive use of the F-word, her obsessive approach to a project that was at first only vital in her own mind. She proves one of my most dearly cherished notions: that one's passion is one's destiny, whether or not it appears to be paying off on any given day.

 Since I had finished My Life in France just days before, I was already immersed in Julia Child's patterns of hyperactive cooking and in her epic stories, such as how to turn an omelette. As Julie tried to follow Julia's instructions, I was right there with her. The book is big fun and inspired my cooking even further.

 The movie: It was great, especially Meryl Streep as Julia Child. She does the voice, the thing where she is always bending over because she is so tall, and the whole feeling of My Life in France comes across perfectly. Same with Amy Adams as Julie. The only caveat I have is that if you see the movie without reading both books you miss so much of both stories, because it would not be possible to fit it all in a movie. Having read the book I could happily fill in the blanks. Still, the movie stands on its own. My husband watched it with me and was spellbound and impressed because he believes in food and he believes in love. 

 I have asked for Mastering the Art of French Cooking for my birthday. All I can say is that I better get up to walking five miles a day (I am at 3 now) because otherwise I don't stand a chance.

(All of the books mentioned in this review are available on the shelf at Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

MY LIFE IN FRANCE

My Life in France, Julia Child, Alfred A Knopf, 2006, 333 pp

(Today's post is the first in a three part series about Julia Child's memoir, Julie and Julia by Julie Powell and Julie and Julia the movie. Bon Appetit!)

 I did not have high expectations for this book but it turned out to be one of the better memoirs I have read. Of course, it did not hurt that much of it takes place in Paris, in restaurants and kitchens, and that it is about cooking; all passions of mine. Julia was quite a woman and I got inspired about food, which is good, considering the weather is now hot and my husband has been on a diet.

 Julia Child was the Georgia O'Keefe of cooking, in that she would make a dish up to fifty times to get it right and ensure her recipe could be followed. O'Keefe would paint the same picture many times over until she could produce what she saw in her mind's eye.

 I grew to admire Julia for several reasons. She and her husband lived in a number of countries because he was in Foreign Service for the United States government. She always learned the language and shopped in local markets to learn the food and culture. Like my mother, she could make friends with anyone. Best of all, she went from being what she called an "unformed" young woman to finding her passion. Her drive and enthusiasm, her willingness to experience just about anything, were a pleasure to read about.

 It was somehow reassuring to learn that she and her husband gained weight, had digestive difficulties and at intervals had to curtail their appetites for rich food and wine. They successfully balanced their immoderate ways and both lived into their 90s!

 Finally, I thought it was hilarious that she had a TV show before she even owned a TV. There is much more to enjoy in this story, not least of which is the picture of European and American life in the second half of the 20th century. It is not only a book about food. 

(My Life in France is currently available in paperback by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore, though there will be copies on the shelf in a few days.)

BEAST IN VIEW

Beast in View, Margaret Millar, Random House, 1955, 249 pp

 The Edgar winner for 1956 is an intersection of the mystery genre and Freudian ideas. One of the characters has a split personality, called schizophrenia in the 1950s but now called multiple personality disorder. The mystery comes into play because the reader does not know until the end which character is afflicted. According to the author's bio, she made an extensive study of psychiatry as part of her education.

  The writing is mediocre and the story gets off to a slow start. But homosexuality also plays a part as well as wealth; a lot to bite off in 250 pages. This was only the third year that the Edgar was awarded and I suspect that Millar won on the strength of her topics rather than her writing, although the plot twist at the end was pretty effective.

(Beast in View is out of print, available in libraries and from used book sellers.)

WOLF HALL

Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel, Henry Holt and Company, 2009, 532 pp

Wolf Hall was one of the best books to come out in 2009. It made my top favorites list and won the Booker Prize as well as a raft of other honors. It is historical fiction but this is not your mom's historical fiction. It is smart and goes deeply into the psychology and motives of its famous historical figures. Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell, Anne Boleyn and Thomas More have been written about ad nauseum, yet Mantel brings much that is new to the table. 

The paperback edition will be released in August. I am currently engaged in reading all the earlier nine novels by this incredible writer.  I reviewed Wolf Hall for BookBrowse Magazine last November. The link is now available for nonsubscribers. 

My review begins thus:

           Religion, power, politics, money and sex-key elements of human life-are all on full display in Hilary Mantel's Booker Prize winning novel. With judicious helpings of period detail, she presents an appealing portrait of Thomas Cromwell, the man who managed to free King Henry VIII from the Catholic Church and his first queen, Katherine of Aragon, allowing Henry to enter into a second marriage with Anne Boleyn... (read the rest of the review here.)

(Wolf Hall is currently available in hardcover by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore and will be available on the shelf in paperback in August.)

WHAT I HAVE BEEN READING

June was an excellent reading month for me. I finished 16 books, old and new, fiction, memoir and non-fiction. Here is the list:

 An Unfinished Score, Elise Blackwell. This wonderful novel was one of the best all month. It was sent to me by the publisher because, you know, I have this wildly popular blog. Now I have another author to love. And it is about music, among other things.

 Time of Wonder, Robert McCloskey. The Caldecott winner from 1958 is set in Maine and made me want to go there, now!

  Telex From Cuba, Rachel Kushner. A novel about what it was like for Americans living in Cuba during the Cuban revolution. Excellent writing.

  Becoming A Writer, Dorothea Brande. This is a classic, first published in 1934. I got some good ideas from it. For all the books I've read on writing, I should have written at least a dozen books by now.

 Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak. I started reading the 1958 books for My Big Fat Reading Project in June. This one was the #1 bestseller and Pasternak also won the Nobel prize for literature that year. I had seen the movie but never read the book. It is great!

  Anatomy of a Murder, Robert Traver. The #2 bestseller from 1958 is a legal/crime novel set in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I learned lots about the temporary insanity plea.

 The Good Son, Michael Gruber. Another new release from the spring. Great literary thriller.

 Eloise at Christmastime, Kay Thompson. The third Eloise book to make the bestseller list, #6 in 1958. It was a dud in my humble opinion, especially compared to the first two which I loved.

 Rifles for Watie, Harold Keith. Very fine middle grade novel about the Civil War which won the Newbery Award in 1958.

 My Life in France, Julia Child. I read this for a reading group and was not expecting much. I got a lot! It is a well written memoir of an amazing person. Plus I got inspired to cook. In June!

 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey. Also read for a reading group but it is of course, on my 1962 list for the reading project. I think I read it in my younger days but I forgot what a heavy book it is. Next I will see the movie.

 The Room and the Chair, Lorraine Adams. Another recently published political thriller, but no where near as good as The Good Son.

 Logicomix, An Epic Search for Truth, Apostolos Doxiades and Christos H Papadimitriou. Only the second graphic novel I have ever finished. It is great. The story of Bertrand Russell and his search for truth in math, logic and philosophy. I know, sounds dull. But it is not, at all.

  Julie and Julia, Julie Powell. Wow. Another awesome memoir. Julie cooked every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, blogged about it, got a book deal and a movie out of it. But honestly, she is a good writer, hilariously funny and left wing and she swears a lot. Can't wait to see the movie now.

 How to Read Novels Like a Professor, Thomas C Foster. Another book that sounds boring but was not. I read it to help me as a book reviewer and learned so much. I would also recommend it for people in reading groups. Not only will you sound smart at the discussions, but you just might get more out of the books.

 An Experiment in Love, Hilary Mantel. One of my top favorite books in 2009 was Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall. Now I am reading her earlier novels. This one is maybe too sad for some readers, but she is such a good writer. It was a great book on which to end the month.


 Please, please, please, I ask this every month. But no one ever comments. What did you read in June that was good or that you loved or even that you hated? I truly want to know.

THE GOOD SON

The Good Son, Michael Gruber, Henry Holt and Company, 2010, 383 pp

 About two years ago, in an effort to keep up with books on the paperback fiction shelves at Once Upon A Time, I read Gruber's The Book of Air and Shadows. It almost made my Top 10 list that year (there was stiff competition from the likes of Michael Chabon, Suzanne Collins, Toni Morrison and more) but I went on to hand sell many copies and my husband became a fan as well.

  The Good Son is his latest and it is a great read. Some of the gratuitous flippancy from the earlier book is happily missing. Gruber boldly takes on Afghanistan from the viewpoint of WTF are we doing there and in my opinion does a credible and righteous job of laying out the true issues. His plotting skills are even more developed and the characters are drawn the way characters should be: by what they do.

 Theo is the eponymous "good son." His father is a Pakistani from a wealthy family who married his mother, a former child circus performer. Theo was raised by his Pakistani grandmother in Lahore and often abandoned by his mother, who is another complex character. In fact, it is complexity which gives this novel its tension and makes its many twists and turns so exciting. Somehow, Gruber makes complexity easy to read about.

 A reading moment: this is the second book I have read recently featuring a son who wants to save his mother. (The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff was the other.) Both sons had been abandoned by their mothers early in life and both found their task a thankless one. Could it be that mothers who abandon/neglect/reject their kids don't want to be saved? Comments welcome.

(The Book of Air and Shadows is usually on the paperback fiction shelves at Once Upon A Time Bookstore. The Good Son is available in hardcover by order. The 19th Wife is available in paperback by order.)