It's MLB playoffs. What are you reading?

Recommended reading during the World Series playoffs:

Wait Till Next Year, Doris Kearns Goodwin (earned one of my only Goodreads' five stars this year)
This Dark Road to Mercy, Wiley Cash (earned one of my only other Goodreads' five stars this year)
Calico Joe, John Grisham
The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron, Howard Bryant
Beyond Belief: Finding the Strength to Come Back, Josh Hamilton

What other baseball books have you read?

And, Go Cubs!

Book Review: Rebel Souls: Walt Whitman and America's First Bohemians by Justin Martin

Rebel Souls: Walt Whitman and America's First Bohemians by Justin Martin

Published by: Da Capo Press

Published on: September 2, 2014

Page Count: 368

Genre: Biography

My Reading Format: ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley

Available Formats: Hardcover, Kindle, Audible

My Review:

Pfaff's Saloon in Manhattan was for years where an eclectic but now well-known group of artists and writers gathered to share their ideas with each other. At the center of this group was young poet Walt Whitman. Those who drifted in an out of this group over the next years are others who were making names for themselves: actors Edwin Booth and his brother John Wilkes Booth, comedian Artemus Ward, drug experimenter Fitz Hugh Ludlow and a scandalous actress named Adah Menken. The group was widely traveled but kept Pfaff's Saloon as a home base, gathering nearly every evening at the same table in the bar.

I read this book shortly before teaching Whitman's poetry to my American literature* class and found Martin's book to be meticulously researched and absolutely fascinating. This book featuring this quirky cast of characters with Whitman at the center really brings the bohemian group of American romantic artists to life. As the book progresses, Martin reveals, layer by layer, the connections this group formed with other notable people of the time. In particular, Martin tells of the very short degree of separation between Whitman and the assassination of the man he admired perhaps more than anyone else:  President Abraham Lincoln (and, this connection isn't through John Wilkes Booth but someone else).

Martin's book is no stuffy biography but a book that reads more like a novel and painting a picture in my head of the smoky basement bar and all the debauchery that must have ensued night after night.
It's a fascinating look into a world I knew next to nothing about before reading Rebel Souls, and I'm glad I did.

Four out of five stars

If you liked this book, you’ll like Mrs. Poe by Lynn Cullen, Mrs. Lincoln: A Life by Catherine Clinton, John Wilkes Booth: Beyond the Grave by W. C. Jameson, and any of Walt Whitman's poetry.

**Here's what else I included in my syllabus for American literature.

John Wilkes Booth: Beyond the Grave by W. C. Jameson - See more at: http://betsyrm.blogspot.com/2013/07/book-review-john-wilkes-booth-beyond.html#sthash.N9bf4MMV.dpuf

John Wilkes Booth: Beyond the Grave by W. C. Jameson - See more at: http://betsyrm.blogspot.com/2013/07/book-review-john-wilkes-booth-beyond.html#sthash.N9bf4MMV.dpuf

Thoreau's Walking and The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

This is my second year I'm teaching American literature to high school sophomores and juniors at a homeschool co-op in Atlanta. We started with Puritan poetry and moved into Transcendentalism, focused on Emerson and Thoreau. Instead of having them read "Walden," to cover Thoreau I chose another essay to read and discuss in class: "Walking."

On the day of our class discussion we took a walk through the community garden outside the community center where our classes are held and had a pretty good discussion about how to enjoy solitude in nature amidst the urban sprawl of Metro Atlanta. 

At the same time the book I was reading for fun was The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce. I didn't choose to read the two at the same time on purpose but I liked that it happened that way.

In Joyce's book, Harold Fry is a retired man living in a small town in the southwest corner of England. He and his wife are going through a bit of a tough time in their marriage and Harold is searching for new purpose for his life. Then, a postcard arrives from a former coworker from two decades before. Queenie is in her final days of a battle with cancer and writes Harold to tell him goodbye. Harold struggles to write her back an adequate letter, dashes something off and leaves the house to go mail it. Except he doesn't mail it. He decides to hand-deliver the letter 600 miles away and starts walking.

On his journey Harold meets memorable characters who want to share in the journey with him, receives the support he desires from his wife who's still waiting for him back at home and sorts out things from his past that have been bothering him.

It tied in nicely with Thoreau's ideas that walking to experience nature is how you sort through the tough things in life and figure out how to live your life as an individual. 

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: Books That Cook: The Making of a Literary Meal Edited by Jennifer Cognard-Black and Melissa A. Goldthwaite

Books That Cook: The Making of a Literary Meal Edited by Jennifer Cognard-Black and Melissa A. Goldthwaite

Published by: New York University Press

Published on: August 1, 2014

Page Count: 384

Genre: Nonfiction, food (what else?)

My Reading Format: ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley

Available Formats: Kindle ebook and hardcover

My Review: 

Books That Cook is set up like a cooking anthology: a collection of writings bound by one theme, food, and specifically, American food. The book is grouped by sections, and each section is titled the way one would work his or her way through a meal: invocation; starters; bread, polenta, and pasta; eggs; main dishes; side dishes; and desserts. Then, within each section a writer has included a personal anecdote that is focused around food and in most cases a recipe follows.    

I like the idea of the book. I am interested in food memories and the stories about family and friends sitting around a table together to enjoy a particular dish. When I think of my maternal grandmother’s delicious cakes, it makes me think of all the family dinners and birthday celebrations we had that ended with a slice of caramel cake or pound cake (made from scratch of course) on our plates. When I think of my paternal grandmother, I think of how she’d put mint springs from her yard in our iced tea glasses and that there was often gelatin or tomato aspic as part of a meal. At those big meals there were always a lot of good conversation and a lot of laughs. 

I liked that even though I’m not a food studies scholar, I recognized many of the names of people who had contributed a chapter. I found, though, that I didn’t care for all of the works, particularly by the people I don’t know. Some stories and poems were jarring and it was difficult sometimes to find the food that I thought I was supposed to be reading about. It didn’t always take center stage in each chapter. There were some writers that I was unsure had the credibility to write about food when I couldn’t quite connect the dots between their prose and a food memory. Some chapters didn’t have a recipe included, which would have given some structure and consistency to the work. 

Some of the chapters I thought were very well done and fun to read. For instance, Chapter 21 “American Liver Mush” by Ravi Shankar was a recipe that wasn’t for food but listed ingredients such as “3 cowboys from PRCA rodeos,” “8 Lynyrd Skynyrd fans, packed into 1 minivan” and “1 demographic pie chart from a meeting of Board of Trustees” with add-ins like “an election year, hurricane season” and a clothesline. It was funny and enjoyable to read but I was still left feeling unsure about how it really related to the rest of the collection. In Chapter 26 “The Poet in the Kitchen and The Poem of Chicken Breast with Fettuccine,” no recipe is included but a poem at the end of the chapter makes it feel wrapped up and finished. 

Overall, I like the concept for this book but the structure of the book fell short for me. While I liked all the different voices and perspectives on food, the book lacked cohesiveness. The string that tied each chapter to the next wasn’t strong enough for me. I wanted consistency for each chapter, something like an introduction to the author of that chapter (a short bio establishing their credentials, however formal or informal, for writing about their specific food topic), the writer’s personal connection to the food about which they are writing and then the recipe that corresponds to their story. At one point as I read this book, I made a note in my Kindle file that the whole book is like a vegetable stew: everything is just thrown in, and I like the taste of some of it but not all. 

Two and a half out of five stars

If you liked this book, you’ll like A History of Food in 100 Recipes by William Sitwell, Being Dead is No Excuse: The Official Southern Ladies' Guide to Hosting the Perfect Funeral by Gayden Metcalfe and Suck Your Stomach In and Put Some Color On!: What Southern Mamas Tell Their Daughters that the Rest of Y'all Should Know Too by Shellie Rushing Tomlinson.

Recent Reads: Half the Sky and A Call to Action

I recently listened to Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. It was tough, a very difficult book to listen to. Even though I knew I should stick with it, I almost had to stop it was so upsetting. Somehow, hearing about the dangerous, exploited lives of women around the world was harder to hear for me than if I'd read a physical copy of the book. On into the book there are some success stories that are really powerful, and that's what helped me get through it. I had reached more than my fill of frustratingly sad stories of women so limited by their circumstances and so abused and manipulated by men (both strangers and family members), stories that had no easy solutions. I even had to stop listening about one-third of the way in. I asked a friend I knew had read the book previously if she, knowing me well, thought I should continue the book. She encouraged me to, and I'm glad I finished it. It was perhaps THE most difficult book I've ever read.

I followed that up shortly thereafter with Jimmy Carter's latest book, A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power. In part, the same idea from Half the Sky is here, but with a little bit different spin. For one, Carter covers the injustices to women done both in the United States and  other parts of the world, which made the book feel more personal to me. And, Carter gave more solutions and success stories, which kept me from getting that completely hopeless feeling I got from Half the Sky. 

(Disclaimer: I do realize to affect change people have to be made uncomfortable.)

Have you read either of these books? What did you think? 

**A few years back I traveled to Plains, Georgia, to attend Jimmy Carter's Sunday school class, a great experience.

Recent Read: Monuments Men

I've finally read and finished, at long last, Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History by Robert M. Edsel with Bret Witter, a book I've been looking forward to reading for a long time. It was everything I'd hoped The Forger's Spell would be. Monuments Men is a lengthy book but well written. Short chapters focus on one or two art historians-turned-soldiers at a time, making it easy to keep track of everyone and their whereabouts.

One of my most favorite things about reading on historical places is that if I've been there the place comes alive for me again. If I haven't been there yet, it makes me want to go. Visiting Bavaria's Neuschwanstein Castle was one of the highlights of our family vacation last summer. It was also one of the big hiding places for European works of art during World War II and was part of this book.

The view from the castle is incredible!

It's Monday! What are you reading?

 

Here's what I've got in my stack for this March 3rd week:

In the car on audiobook: Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity Worldwide by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, and one more once I get to the library to pick up my holds.

For fun: One Moment One Morning by Sarah Rayner.

For the classes I'm teaching: Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire and A Separate Peace by John Knowles.

What are you reading?

This event is hosted by Sheila from Book Journey. Go check out her blog.

Book Review: Flyover Lives: A Memoir by Diane Johnson

Flyover Lives: A Memoir by Diane Johnson

Published by: Viking

Published on: January 16, 2014

Page Count: 263

Genre: Memoir

My Reading Format: Hardcover provided by the publisher

Available Formats: Hardcover, Kindle edition, Audible audio edition, audio CD, MP3 CD

My Review:

Diane Johnson, author of Le Divorce (most familiar to me) and more than a dozen other books, pulls together her writing life and a story about those family members who came before her to shape her path. From a family that's been in the Midwest for generations, Johnson writes in Flyover Lives about a solid, no-frills upbringing, the results of family research, her life as a writer, her life as a single mother with young children and her current life with grown children and the freedom to travel with her husband. Johnson's book is divided into three sections: her life growing up in Moline, Illinois, the stories of her Midwestern ancestors and her writing life and more recent years.

I found Johnson's writing style to be in keeping with her upbringing: good stories told adequately but without all the flowery language. She presents her stories factually and honestly, and doesn't delve too deeply into her own inner workings. That's not to say that her stories aren't painting a picture of her life. They are, and in a way I really enjoyed reading. Johnson's early life in Moline is one that is different, simpler and more innocent than what children experience today, and it's nice to read about an upbringing like that. It was interesting to read about the family history she has uncovered and how it has helped her realize the good lot from which she comes, and the characteristics of her ancestors that she's inherited. I like the dichotomy of her life in Moline paired with her lives in other places, the premise for this book I think: Paris, California and London. 

There were times I had trouble finding the string that should hold the memoir together. Beginning and ending the book with a recent house party in France were in the right place as bookends to prop everything up, but there were places I got lost in the middle. But there were things I enjoyed immensely: the anecdotes and the stories of how a writer became a writer.

Three out of five stars

If you liked this book, you’ll like Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott and Lunch in Paris: A Love Story with Recipes by Elizabeth Bard.