It's Monday. What are you reading?

 

Here's what I'm reading this week:

In the car on audiobook:
11/22/63 by Stephen King


For review (coming soon): 

Ruth's Journey: The Authorized Novel of Mammy from Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind by Daniel McCaig (in time for its publication date October 14)

Reading for work:



The Leadership Challenge, 4th Edition by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner
"Young Goodman Brown" and "Rappaccini's Daughter," both short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne

And reading for fun:

A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar: A Novel by Suzanne Joinson

What are you reading?

This event is hosted by Sheila from Book Journey. 

Book Review: The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street by Susan Jane Gilman

The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street: A Novel by Susan Jane Gilman

Published by: Grand Central Publishing

Published on: June 10, 2014

Page Count: 512

Genre: Fiction

My Reading Format: Advanced reading e-book provided by NetGalley

Available Formats: Hardcover and Kindle e-book

My Review:

Don't be fooled by the cover of The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street. It's brightly colored and shows a woman's feet in a fabulous pair of heels next to an upside down, melted ice cream cone. The cover reminds me of a Mary Kay Andrews book cover (not knocking Mary Kay Andrews - personally, I'm looking forward to her latest, Save the Date). Ice Cream Queen is not a girly, cutesy, pretty story. It's a story about a little girl who grows into a woman in a life filled with abandonment and setback. This main character, first named Malka and later Lillian, just gets tougher. As life gets harder, so does she.


Malka is a young Jewish Russian immigrant with her family in Germany with plans to immigrate to South Africa to be near family. Instead, Malka's father, who seemed suspicious to me from the start, exchanges their tickets for passage on a ship to New York City instead without telling Malka's mother. Malka's father forces her to keep it a secret from her mother and her other three sisters. This is just the beginning for Malka of a life of getting let down by those around her who are supposed to love and care for her.

The story, which opens early in the 20th century, shows the dismal life of poor immigrants living in crowded tenement houses in the city, and those who rise above those conditions to move themselves out of them, and those who don't. Very early on, Malka is told by her mother that to be able to eat she must bring home money. Malka and her sister put together a singing and dancing act, earning them a few pennies per day, and which helps them stay in their mother's good graces. Malka has to draw upon that experience of putting herself out there to survive day after day for the rest of her life, even after she has made it as a successful businesswoman. In Chapter 2, Malka learns to "Be shameless. Be different. And appeal to the emotions -- never the head."

After an accident Malka is abandoned by her family and taken in by an Italian Catholic family, the Dinellos. Malka's name is changed to Lillian. The Dinellos are trying to make it in the ice cream business, and Lillian learns all she can from them before she marries and is ousted from the Dinello family. Abandoned but determined to take what she learned and create a successful business herself, Lillian and new husband Bert Dunkle slowly but surely build an ice cream empire together that lasts through the book's ending in the last quarter of the 20th century.


Besides just being a good story, Gilman's writing style is fun to read. Ice Cream Queen is filled with fantastic description: "Fumes of queasy-sweet gasoline billowed from new cars rattling noisily up the avenues. And since none of the tenements had bathtubs, these odors, in turn, mixed with the gamy smell of thousands of strains of human perspiration. Yeasty, fungal skin. Rose water. Decaying teeth. Dirty diapers. Sharp, vinegary hair tonic" (Chapter 2).

As I read, I anticipated the moment that this girl with gumption would become the business-savvy woman. But there wasn't one moment, just a progression. That ability to be this kind of a go-getter was part of Malka's personality all along.

I think what I liked most about this book though is the way that Gilman doesn't just give us a rags-to-riches feel-good story. Lillian is flawed. She does the best she can but she makes plenty of mistakes. Lillian knows how to learn from those mistakes and she's thick-skinned enough to keep moving forward and ignore what people around her are saying about her. Her career ebbs and flows, as do her marriage and her relationship with her son, who come second to that career. She faces addiction. Gilman has painted her as human rather than perfect. We all have our faults. Life isn't as sweet as the cover of The Ice Cream Queen indicates.

Four out of five stars

If you liked The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street, you'll like Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt, Kisses on a Postcard by Terence Frisby, Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell and Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser.

Author Appearance: Jill McCorkle

Tuesday night I visited the Margaret Mitchell House in Atlanta to hear Jill McCorkle, who is on a book tour to promote her most recent novel, Life After Life. In case you missed my review, I absolutely loved the book. I'm always fascinated when an author can skillfully create so many voices in one book. I don't think I could ever keep all that straight.

I think books really come alive when they're read by their authors. McCorkle read from several passages, covering three or four voices at various places in the novel, giving those in the audience who haven't yet read the novel some background information and then intimate looks at several characters.

She took questions after she read her selections. That's also something I think is very brave. Opening up the floor to questions from strangers who love your work has to be a little nerve-racking. I remember a couple years ago I went to hear Frances Mayes talk. When she took questions, a woman went off on a tangent and practically invited herself to vacation with Mayes at her Italian home. Mayes graciously deflected by diverting our attention to other related topic. She was poised and handled it very well.

McCorkle didn't have any weird questions like that, but it was still fascinating to hear the questions she was asked and how she answered them. Some of those questions, like what inspired her to write the book and what her writing process is like, she's probably gotten a million times before, but other unusual questions still got an interesting answer.

I chatted it up with the woman sitting next to me who had not yet read the book. For all of you like her who haven't read it yet, do. It's wonderful.

Rereading

The other day on Twitter I came across an article published in the Mail called "Reading a book really is better the second time round - and can even offer mental health benefits." I completely agree! I've reread several things in the past several years for the second time, and found those stories to be much more wonderful the second time around.

Here are a few of my favorite rereads:

Lord of the Flies (blog post coming soon on this one) by William Golding
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
The Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Pride and Prejudice (OK, anything Jane Austen)
The Color Purple (turning 30 this year, by the way) by Alice Walker
A Wrinkle in Time (my most recent reread) by Madeleine L'Engle
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Diary of Anne Frank
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

What are your favorite rereads?

Two Georgia Writers Mentioned in Magazine

Two Georgia authors, Flannery O'Connor and Margaret Mitchell (so, two of my favorites as well) were both mentioned in an article in America Magazine about homes of Catholic authors. Take a look.

Gone With the Wind Turns 75

A few days ago, at long last, I finished reading Gone With the Wind, nearly 20 years after reading it for the first time (and if I remember correctly, I had not yet seen the movie at that point). I bought a new copy for the occasion, the 75th Anniversary Edition, which includes a preface written by Pat Conroy. Much of Conroy's take on this novel was also included in My Reading Life, which I recently read and blogged about.

What I didn't remember from reading it during the summer between the eighth and ninth grades was how detailed Mitchell is in her descriptions of Civil War battles and an Atlanta in her infancy. Most particularly, we get a much clearer picture of Scarlett's inner dialogue than in the movie, so I feel like I now know her better.

I visited the Margaret Mitchell House in Midtown Atlanta again during my reading of this book. I've been before but not since it was renovated, and I'd recommend a visit by anyone who has read this book or enjoyed the movie (or, hopefully, both).

I felt properly prepared to embark on this reading journey thanks to Pat Conroy's assessment of the novel in the preface, a novel, he says, "shaped the South I grew up in more than any other book" and which "still glows and quivers with life."

It's been a couple of years since I watched the movie (probably this viewing), so this seems like a good time to watch it again.  

Pat Conroy's My Reading Life

For my recent four year wedding anniversary, my husband bought me a copy of Pat Conroy's My Reading Life, a book I've been looking forward to reading since I heard it was coming out some months ago. If you've read this blog for any length of time, you know he's one of my favorites. I haven't yet read everything he's written, but I'm working on it. So far all I've read have been novels and I was anxious to read Conroy's memoir, which you probably also know is one of my favorite kinds of books to read. I'm so glad I wasn't disappointed. I savored every word of this beautiful book, and spent much longer reading it than I normally spend on a 300-page book. And, when it ended I was sorry.

Conroy devoted once chapter to each book, experience and person that shaped him first as a reader, and then, as a result, shaped him as a writer. Teachers and professors made the list, a bookshop, Paris, a librarian, a book salesperson, an author (Thomas Wolfe) and a book (Gone With the Wind). Each chapter became a thank you letter to each, as he specifically showed the evidence of how he was shaped by each person, place or thing. It made me think about what has influenced my reading and writing, and that list is long.

What books and experiences have made up your reading life?

PS One of my reading buddies just informed me that Conroy will be headlining the Savannah Book Festival in February. As if I didn't want to go enough already!

Gone With the Wind Turns 75

2011 marks the 75th birthday of the award-winning novel, Gone With the Wind (see what USA Today said about the celebration). To celebrate, Atlanta's Margaret Mitchell House has events planned this summer (see the schedule here). My book club has chosen to read it (or for most of us, reread) for our August meeting (we're even taking July off from meeting so we can all get finished with the 1,000 pages in time). In honor of both occasions, I've ordered a new copy of GWTW that I can dig deep into and mark the pages up (I'm afraid to do that with the copy I have from my grandmother's house). The version I now have is the 1996 edition, written with a preface by another one of my favorites, Pat Conroy. I'm hoping to make a visit to the Margaret Mitchell House this summer as it's been renovated since I last visited several years ago. And I'm most excited about rereading this novel. I've only read it once before and that was the summer after eighth grade. Since then I've just seen the movie about a million times. Happy birthday, GWTW!

Margaret Mitchell Exhibit

I've covered all sorts of Margaret Mitchell and Gone With the Wind stuff here on my blog (if you need to review, click here, here, here, here and here). On Friday, I finally got around to seeing the exhibit that's on permanent display at the Central Library branch of Atlanta-Fulton Public Library. Though the current building was constructed in 1980, the previous Central branch was where Mitchell conducted much of her research on Atlanta and the Civil War during the writing of her famous novel. Today, the square on which the library sits is named for her, and an exhibit on the fifth floor honors her. To see more information on the exhibit, click here.

I was unsure if photography was permitted, so I turned the flash off on my camera and snapped a quick picture of the item I thought was most interesting: her typewriter. A gift from Mitchell's husband, it is what she used to write Gone With the Wind.

Love Stories

In honor of Valentine's Day on Sunday, I've compiled a list of my favorite love stories. In no particular order, they are:

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller
A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare
The Senator's Wife by Sue Miller
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

A Gone With the Wind Sequel

I've just finished reading Rhett Butler's People by Donald McCaig (he was chosen by the Margaret Mitchell Estate to write this authorized novel), and it was great! I've had it on my radar since it was published in 2007, and have gotten around to reading it just now because it's on my book club's 2010 reading list. I plowed right through it over the weekend while my husband did some handyman work (more about that project coming soon!). It's 500 pages, half the length of Gone With the Wind. I haven't read that novel in nearly 20 years, but I've seen the movie about a trillion times (for a recap of seeing the movie last year at Atlanta's Fox Theatre, click here). Time for me to reread the novel? Maybe so.

Rhett Butler's People is told, obviously enough, from Rhett's perspective. We learn about his childhood in Charleston, SC, and his read on Scarlett from their first meeting forward. Some characters we met in passing in Gone With the Wind have a major role in this one, like Belle Watling. We get the full story throughout the book of all the ways the Butlers and Watlings are connected from their years together in Charleston. We also get a fuller picture of Melanie Hamilton Wilkes in this book.

It won't surprise you that I highly recommend this book. I'm fairly certain I'm the first in my book club to get to this one; I won't be able to talk with them about it until we've all read it. It will be all I can do to not ruin the surprises for them.

Two Books to Reread

I'm promoting and planning to participate in two reading programs over the next month or two. Join me!

The books selection for Forsyth Reads Together 2010 is my all-time favorite, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. To celebrate, there are several events in February. To learn more, visit the Forsyth County Library home page.

In addition, The National Endowment for the Arts' Big Read selection is Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. The Margaret Mitchell House in Atlanta has several events planned to celebrate. Visit their web page for more.

Book Club Selections for 2010

Last summer I posted what my friends in my book club and I would be reading over the summer. For 2010, we've already chosen our selections because our list is especially ambitious. I'm already on the waiting list at the library for most of these, or I already own them, so I'll be getting started very soon.

Sweet Tea and Jesus Shoes by Deborah Smith, et al
Knit the Season by Kate Jacobs
Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City by Greg Grandin
A Different Drummer: My Thirty Years with Ronald Reagan by Michael K. Deaver
The Harry Potter series (yes, the whole series!)
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong by Terry Teachout
Rhett Butler’s People by Donald McCaig
How the World Makes Love…And What it Taught a Jilted Groom by Franz Wisner
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsen

Have you read any of these already? What did you think?

Asheville

I used Literary Trails of the North Carolina Mountains: A Guide last week while in Asheville with my family. The book is divided into tours that work geographically. I was able to do parts of tours 8 and 9 (Weaverville and North Asheville, and Downtown and South Asheville, respectively), though a bit out of order.

The night we arrived we visited the Biltmore House for the Candlelight Tour and saw the house in all its Christmas finery. I had read ahead in my Guide to know that:

• George Vanderbilt’s library housed 24,000 volumes.
• Henry James and Edith Wharton (childhood friend of Edith Vanderbilt) had visited the house in 1905. Wharton had just published The House of Mirth. Each author is the namesake of a suite of rooms at Biltmore.

We found a monument to O. Henry’s story, “Gift of the Magi” set in bronze in a sidewalk on a street in downtown Asheville, and later we visited the Riverside Cemetery and saw O. Henry’s gravesite.


Also at Riverside Cemetery is the grave of Thomas Wolfe, and the gates of the cemetery also honor him.

My dad and I drove by the Richmond Hill Inn one morning while we were out to see the site where Georgia-born Poet Sidney Lanier camped one winter before he died in 1881. The Inn was later built on the site and the Sidney Lanier Garden was planted behind the Inn. Well, supposedly. When we arrived, the Inn was closed, but a gate was open just wide enough for us to get in to look around. I poked all around but couldn’t find the Garden. Instead, we did find this (see picture below). An arsonist set fire to one of the buildings of the Richmond Hill Inn early in 2009 and authorities have yet to solve the case. It caused $7 million in damages. You can read more about it in the Asheville Citizen-Times here.

Near the Inn is the last building that remains of Highland Hospital. Zelda Fitzgerald, wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald, was hospitalized here in the summer of 1936 and several other times before her death. She suffered from schizophrenia. In 1948, hospital’s main building, which housed Zelda and other patients, caught fire and Zelda died of smoke inhalation. Today what remains of the hospital is Homewood, a home on the property for the hospital’s main physician, Robert Carroll. It’s now a special events facility.

In 1936 while Zelda was at Highland Hospital, Scott lived at The Grove Park Inn. He had tried to rent a space at Julia Wolfe’s boarding house, The Old Kentucky Home, but was turned away because Julia didn’t rent to alcoholics. The Grove Park still celebrates Scott’s birthday each year on September 24, though he was reportedly a difficult guest due to heavy drinking, an extramarital affair and a suicide threat during his stay.

A number of other writers have stayed at the Grove Park including Charles Frazier, Margaret Mitchell, Alex Haley and Pat Conroy.

Celebrating Banned Books Week

The American Library Association is celebrating Banned Books Week from September 26 to October 3. Most of my favorite books have either been banned or challenged at some time somewhere in the United States. Some of my banned book favorites include:

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (my all-time favorite)
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor
Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe
O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
My Antonia by Willa Cather

To learn more about Banned Books Week and to see a full list of challenged and banned classics, visit the ALA web site.

Which banned book is your favorite?

Margaret Mitchell's Playhouse and the Antique Funeral Museum

Margaret Mitchell grew up visiting her grandparents in Jonesboro, Georgia. This is her playhouse that was in their yard. Today it is on the property of Pope Dickson & Son Funeral Home in Jonesboro, along with a drive-thru Antique Funeral Museum, complete with a horse-drawn hearse and child-sized casket from the Civil War era. Interesting combination, huh? Here are pictures of both:

Gone With the Wind 70th Anniversary

I read the book and saw the movie for the first time when I was 14, and I’ve seen the movie countless times since. I’ve visited the Margaret Mitchell House and Museum in Midtown Atlanta twice. I also have every one of Hallmark’s Scarlett O’Hara Christmas ornaments since 1997, and quite a few of the Rhetts. At some point I will be able to let my Gone With the Wind ornaments have their own Christmas tree. So I’m sure you can imagine my shock when my then-fiancé, just a few months before our move to Atlanta, told me he’d never seen the film. Well, I fixed that problem.

2009 marks the 70th anniversary of the movie’s debut, the 80th anniversary of Atlanta’s Fox Theatre, and the 15th anniversary of the debut of cable channel Turner Classic Movies (TCM). Gone With the Wind was the first movie to air on TCM.

To put the impact of the movie in perspective, it debuted in 1939 in Technicolor, and was one of the few movies to appear in color. The same year, The Wizard of Oz also premiered, and 1939 is considered by some to be Hollywood’s greatest year. Gone With the Wind won eight Oscars, including Best Actress in a Leading Role (Vivien Leigh – Scarlett) and Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Hattie McDaniel – Mammy). McDaniel was the first African-American to be nominated for and win an Academy Award.

There was a weekend-long celebration in Atlanta (April 17-19) to commemorate the movie’s debut, and my husband went to see it on the big screen with me at the Fox Theatre in Midtown.