Walt Whitman in a pair of Levi's

Even in a Levi's commercial Walt Whitman is a genius. Normally I don’t watch commercials. I end up fast forwarding through all that noise. But last night I was in the kitchen when this Levi's commercial came on. I was stunned to hear the insistent words of Walt Whitman calling from the other room.

It sounds stupid, but this Levi's commercial was a transcendent moment for me. I feel Whitman’s poetry deeply. To me it represents the best of what humans can be and what these United States can be. It may be a commercial to sell jeans, but frankly I think the montage in the commercial actually catches the lust and energy, and the youth and promise in Whitman’s poetry. I don’t care if it was created to sell, sell, sell. We could use more Whitman in popular culture.

Hearing “Pioneers! O Pioneers!” performed in this commercial sent me to iTunes to try and find a recording of Whitman’s poetry. In general I have very little interest in audio books, but I do like some spoken word recordings. Unfortunately, most of the Whitman available on iTunes is truly abysmal. I could read his poems better than the people who made these recordings. Then I came across this fabulous 1957 recording. As I sampled the tracks I realized that the “Pioneers! O Pioneers!” on this recording is the same as the Levis commercial. What a happy discovery. Thanks Levi's.





And it turns out there is another one, that, if we are to believe the Interwebs, is actually the voice of Whitman on an old wax cylinder.

Sunday Painting: A Yellow Sun by Jon Schueler

This week: "A Yellow Sun" by American Abstract Expressionist Jon Scheuler who spent much time in Mallaig, Scotland where this was painted.

A Yellow Sun

Jon Schueler

National Galleries of Scotland

Copyright: Jon Schueler Estate

Book Review: Old Books in the Old World

Old Books in the Old World: Reminiscences of Book Buying Abroad
Leona Rostenberg & Madeleine B. Stern

Imagine transatlantic crossings on the Holland America Line, spending a month and half each summer digging through antiquarian books in the capitals and countryside of Europe, buying hundreds of old books to ship back to the United States to resell for a profit. My own interests in books do not run to the antiquarian side of things, but given the chance I would gladly immerse myself in such excursions. Leona Rostenberg and Madeleine Stern were business partners, friends, and companions for 60 years. Beginning in 1942 the pair became partners in their rare book firm in New York and spent a chunk of their summers traveling to Europe to buy stock. Both were Columbia University educated literary scholars, and considered themselves literary sleuths. In addition to writing five books on the antiquarian book trade, their achievements include a major discovery about Louisa May Alcott. The following passage is taken from a wonderful tribute to Stern at louisamayalcott.org:

Miss Stern was enormously proud of the fact that she and her dear friend, business partner, and companion “literary sleuth,” Leona Rostenberg, helped bring to light Louisa May Alcott’s unknown tales of intrigue, murder, adultery, suicide -- and as Miss Stern put it, “thuggism, feminism, hashish, and transvestitism” to boot.

“One of our greatest thrills,” Miss Stern wrote in 1997, “was our discovery of the double literary life of America's best-loved writer of juvenile fiction. The revelation that the author of Little Women was also the author of clandestine sensational shockers was our blood-and-thunder story.”

The reminiscences in Old Books in the Old World are taken from Rostenberg and Stern’s diary entries from their book buying trips to Europe between 1947 to 1957. After most entries the authors include retrospective epilogues that provide perspective on their experiences as well as dishing the details on where some of their book finds ended up and how much they sold them for.

I love books of all kinds. But the world of antiquarian books is one that I doubt I will ever enter so I don’t know much about it. Old Books in the Old World gives a wonderful glimpse of what goes on in that world. These are seriously old books on seriously old topics. Sixteenth and Seventeenth century manuscripts, books, pamphlets and other ephemera on politics, science, history, geography, religion, philosophy and other topics written in English, French, German, Italian, Dutch, and other languages. Rostenberg and Stern knew what they were doing but often bought things on a hunch, not really knowing what they had in their hands until they get it back to the U.S. to study it and figure out where it fit into the antiquarian universe.

Until I read Old Books in the Old World I never really wondered where universities and libraries got their rare book collections. Not the ancient universities of Europe, those probably grew organically over hundreds of years, but some of the more “recent” universities in the New World like Yale, Columbia, and Cornell. And institutions like the Newberry, Folger, and Library of Congress. And in some cases, books that they bought and overseas and shipped back to New York were eventually sent back across the Atlantic where they found homes at places like the British Museum and the University of Basel.

Besides the tales of treasure hunting for good deals and great books (which of us aren’t drawn to that?), Rostenberg and Stern also give a fantastic firsthand account of post-war Europe. Traveling through England, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, and Austria they provide many details of everyday life that are so often missing from World War II histories. I knew about rationing and food shortages in Britain following the war but didn’t realize that a piece of bread could be considered one of the courses in a three course meal at even the nicer restaurants in London. Or another instance where Rostenberg refuses to sit at a table of Germans at an antiquarian conference in Austria. It is hard to imagine what those relationships would have been like so soon after the liberation of the Nazi death camps. Throughout their travels between 1947 and 1957 the duo also heard firsthand accounts of how some of their bookseller friends, Jewish and otherwise managed to survive the war. And with each bookbuying trip they see improvements as England and Europe eventually return to normalcy. They also see the prices of books rise as antiquarian treasures become harder and harder to find.

Old Books in the Old World would be great for anyone with even a passing interest in the antiquarian book trade or for someone interested in a little post-war social history or gossipy European travelogue.

November Novella Challenge

I have been meaning to write this post for several days now. And since I am already halfway through my challenge list, I figure it is now or never.

Bibliofreak is hosting a reading challenge this month based on novellas that looked pretty interesting. Too often I get interested in challenges but then don't want to follow through on them once I have made my list. However, I knew I could complete this challenge just by taking things from my TBR pile. I tried to keep them under 150 pages (some sources say 120 pages is the top end of the novella range) and was only able to come up with four titles. So I guess that means I will only make it to Level II. If I come across others I won't hesitate to shoot for Level III (eight novellas) before the end of the month, but I doubt that I find four more lurking somewhere in my collection.

So here are my four:

The Pilgrim Hawk by Glenway Wescott
Cheerful Weather for the Wedding by Julia Strachey
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald

Book Review: All is Vanity

All is Vanity
Christina Schwarz

Ah, the struggling writer trying to get published. All is Vanity is one of those books. I actually tend to enjoy this kind of storyline, but wonder to myself while I am reading them whether or not the author will ever be able to write about characters who do something other than try to be writers. I think about Ann Patchett or Margaret Atwood or any other writer who really knows how to create fictional worlds that are more than just embellished autobiography.

Perhaps I am so aware of this kind of writing because it is probably all I would ever be capable of. When I attempted to write fiction it was all very autobiographical. I figured if I made the main character something other than a writer I could get away with it without ever having to admit borrowing heavily from my own life. A popular method for lazy or unimaginative writers. Another parallel between All is Vanity and my own feeble attempts at writing a novel is the fact that Schwarz’s main character is a thirtysomething writer who decides to skip over taking classes, or starting with short stories, or any other activity that might actually help her become a writer. Like I did, she also thinks that it is just a matter of applying yourself. Sit down and write. It will come. Margaret’s delusional goals, however, are different from mine in that she thinks she is going to actually write a great novel with all kinds of layered meaning and profound imagery. I never thought I would even try to do that.

But enough about me. I enjoyed All is Vanity but there is much that annoyed me as well. The basic plotline is that Margaret ends up using long emails from her best friend Letty as the basis for the novel she is writing. She takes whole scenes from her Letty’s life and writes them up as fiction without telling her. What’s worse is that she actually encourages Letty’s profligate behavior in real life to make the “fictional” Lexie more interesting. You can see where this one is going from about a mile away. You know at some point, that Letty is going to find out, blah, blah, blah. Kind of writes itself from that point on. All is Vanity also included lots (and lots) of epistolary material (email) that include a fair amount “quoted” dialogue. Regular readers will know that this is one of my pet peeves. People just don’t write emails that way.

Schwarz does do an amazing job showing through Letty how so many Americans have gotten themselves into such deep financial sh*t. The interesting thing is that Schwarz wrote about it about five years before the housing market meltdown made it impossible for folks to ignore their mountains of debt.

But finally, to show you just what a class act Schwarz is (although it might be her publisher’s fault) I am going to quote, in full, the author blurb inside the back cover of the book:

Christina Schwarz is the author of Drowning Ruth, a bestseller in both hardcover and paperback, which was selected for Oprah’s Book Club and optioned by Wes Craven for Miramax.She lives in New Hampshire.

Wow, where to start with that illuminating biographical sketch? Let me try, this could be translated to:

I sell lots of books, no really, I sell a mother lode of books, the numbers would make you blush, and by the way it might be made into a movie so I will eventually sell even more books. Oh, and I live in New Hampsire (big house, lots of land).

All really is vanity.

The Persephone Eleven

At some point in the past eight months or so I became aware of a publishing house called Persephone Books. Although I don’t remember exactly when it happened, and I certainly don’t remember what bookish terms I punched into The Google, but I do believe that Simon T at Stuck in a Book was my gateway into the world of Persephone. From his blog I clicked my way through a whole new world of links to book blogs. It is not like I hadn’t seen book blogs before, but this particular corner of the Interwebs was chock full of people who had reading tastes remarkably similar to my own. And so many of them were raving about Persephone Books.

Right off the bat I recognized the aesthetic allure of this small publishing house and almost as quickly was drawn to their list of mainly neglected works by authors who are (to a large degree, but not entirely) female and British. Although very curious to see the goods for myself, it wasn’t until I requested and received the Persephone catalog that my interest really began to pick up. I found myself pouring over the beautiful catalog in the same way my partner pours over seed and plant catalogs during the winter months.

As I am prone to do, I went into organization mode, got out a black Sharpie and began to mark up the catalog. For those shocked that I would deface my catalog, I knew I could always get another copy if I needed to. And besides, prioritizing my interests in the books was key to figuring out which to order first. After reading a description of each book I put between one and five dots next to the title. I judged each book individually. In this first round I made no attempt to choose one title over another. Once I had gone through and rated all 82 of them (there are now 86 available) I compiled a list of all of the titles that garnered five dots (indicating a high degree of interest). It came out to about ten books. Since we had a fair amount of travel coming up I forced myself to hold off ordering them until we finished so they wouldn’t arrive when we were out of town. This was probably back in July, and it meant I had to wait until about October 13th before I could place my order. By the time I did get around to filling out the online order form my priority list had shifted somewhat, and grown somewhat. Persephone gives a little price break for every three you order so I had to make the total a multiple of three. Which of course forced the number up to 12 rather than down to 9.

Unfortunately one of them is still missing in action (hence the Persephone Eleven) but here are the twelve I ordered (with the descriptions from the Persephone Biannually):
And for those of you who haven’t seen one in person, they are softcover books with matching dust jackets and beautiful endpapers. The bookmarks that come with each book if you order directly through Persephone match the endpapers. You can look at my collection of bookmarks below to get a better idea of what I am talking about.

No.2, Mariana by Monica Dickens
First published in 1940, this funny, romantic first novel describes a young girl’s life in the 1930s.

No.29, The Making of a Marchioness by Frances Hodgson Burnett
A wonderfully entertaining 1901 novel about the melodrama after a governess marries a Marquis.

No.32, The Carlyles at Home by Thea Holme
A 1965 mixture of biography and social history which very entertainingly describes Thomas and Jane Carlyle’s life in Chelsea.

No.35, Greenery Street by Denis Mackail
A delightful, very funny 1925 novel about a young couple’s first year of married life in a (real) street in Chelsea.

No.37, The Runaway by Elizabeth Anna Hart
Victorian novel for children and grown-ups, illustrated by Gwen Raverat.

No.38, Cheerful Weather for the Wedding by Julia Strachey
A funny and quirky 1932 novella by a niece of Lytton Strachey, praised by Virginia Woolf.

No.40, The Priory by Dorothy Whipple
A much-loved 1939 novel about a family, upstairs and downstairs, living in a large country house.

No.49, Bricks and Mortar by Helen Ashton (the missing 12th volume)
An excellent 1932 novel by a very popular pre- and post-war writer, chronicling the life, and marriage, of a hard-working, kindly London architect over thirty-five years.

No.61, A London Child of the 1870s by Molly Hughes
A classic memoir, written in 1934, about an ordinary, suburban Victorian family in Islington, a great favourite with all ages.

No.71, The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett
A 1907 page-turner about Rosalie Vanderpoel, an American heiress who marries an English aristocrat, whose beautiful and enterprising sister Bettina sets out to rescue her.

No.72, House-Bound by Winifred Peck
This 1942 novel describes an Edinburgh woman deciding, radically, to run her house without help and do her own cooking; the war is in the background and foreground.

No.81, Miss Buncle’s Book by DE Stevenson
A middle-aged woman writes a novel, as ‘John Smith’, about the village she lives in. A delightful and funny 1934 book by an author whose work sold in millions.

I haven’t read any of them yet. I am not sure where to start. I think I will probably read No.32 first as part of the November Novella Challenge. But who knows.

I am participating in the Persephone Secret Santa over at Book Psmith.

You might also be interested in checking out the Persephone Post which is a great place for a little visual inspiration.

This Cannot Arrive Soon Enough

I just got an email today from Penguin UK noting that this incredible box of 100 postcards is finally available. Since Penguin UK won't let me order off of their site, I headed right on over to The Book Depository to order mine. And, let me tell you, it can't arrive soon enough. Hmm, I could get on a plane at 5:00 tonight, arrive at Heathrow by 6:00 am tomorrow head into London to buy the "book" and get back to Heathrow in time to get the 4:00 plane home.  Let's see, that fare right now would be $2,046, plus the cost of the Heathrow Express, plus the cost of the book...or maybe I could just pay $19.95 and wait for my delivery from The Book Depository.

Book Review: Iris Murdoch: As I Knew Her

Dame Iris Murdoch, 1919-99

Tom Philips, 1984-6

National Portrait Gallery, London

Iris Murdoch: As I Knew Her
A.N. Wilson

I’ve only read one other book by A.N. Wilson (his history of London) and didn’t really know much about him. What little I know now I picked up by reading his personal reflection of Iris Murdoch. Early on I took a dislike for Wilson. I am not sure what it was, but there was something about his attitude that annoyed me enough that I had bit of an anti-Wilson chip on my shoulder for the rest of the book.

Partly I was a little confused by the blurb on the front flap of the book: “Fifteen years ago, Iris Murdoch asked A.N. Wilson to be her biographer.” Ooh, sounds portentous. “This book is a tribute to the novelist he knew for thirty years.” Hmm, does that mean he turned her down, or is this book supposed to be that biography? After reading the whole book I still can’t answer that question.

The second thing that kind of rubbed me the wrong way is that Wilson seems to be, or has been, miffed at the two books Murdoch’s husband John Bayley wrote about her descent into dementia. It made me feel like a bit of chump for having been moved by Bayley’s account about the real life struggle of Alzheimer’s disease portrayed in both his books and in the film "Iris". Wilson seems annoyed either because the film depicted the filth in which the aging couple lived or because it didn’t explain why they lived that way. But after reading the whole book I still can’t answer that question either.

By the end of the book I do understand some of the reasons Wilson is upset that Murdoch became a figurehead for Alzheimer’s awareness. She probably would not want to have been remembered that way. And perhaps it is a little unfeeling toward Murdoch’s legacy that a chair was endowed at Oxford in her name, but not for philosophy or literature but for Alzheimer’s. I am somewhat sympathetic to this point of view. But on the other hand I feel like no one has control over their own legacy and there was perhaps an opportunity for good to come out of her terrible situation. And frankly, I think that a caregiver to someone with Alzheimer’s has as much right to the story as the afflicted. Wilson seemed upset by the frankness with which Bayley tells the story. That it somehow took away Murdoch’s dignity. But I don’t buy that at all. I think Bayley’s books, although at times unflinching in their portrayal of the situation, were never gratuitous or inappropriate in their detail.

In this way Wilson gives the impression early on that Murdoch deserves better. One begins to think that his intent is to buff away all of Bayley’s smudges on Murdoch’s image. Yet there is much in Wilson’s book that does the opposite. He spends a lot of time talking about his mentor Bayley and a fair amount talking about himself. And what he says about Murdoch doesn’t add up to a particularly flattering portrayal. But he seems of two minds. He proclaims her genius now and then and talks about what a wonderful person she was, yet the overwhelming feeling I developed about Murdoch is that I don’t really like her much. And maybe I don’t like her books as much as I thought I did. Maybe the real issue is that Wilson is annoyed with Bayley showing Murdoch in an unflattering light because Bayley essentially beat Wilson, the “official” biographer, to the punch? Or maybe because Bayley sold a lot of books, yet I found Wilson’s for $1 on a “please take these books” cart parked outside the bookstore. You know, the kind of sale cart where the shopkeeper doesn’t even care what impact the weather might be having on the merchandise.

I didn’t hate the book but I also didn’t find it all that interesting. There is some insight into Murdoch’s reading likes and dislikes.

The Lord of the Rings she read and reread, enjoying detailed conversations about it with its author, or with Christopher Tolkien, the author’s son. She loved the Hornblower stories and the Patrick O’Brian sea stories, though she deplored the love interest and felt that Stephen Lefanu’s infatuation with Diana Villiers was soppy stuff which spoilt the excitement of the adventures. At mentions of the works of Olivia Manning, Elizabeth Taylor or Jean Rhys, let alone Penelope Lively or Margaret Drabble, she would merely smile or shake her head. She spoke, always, with love and respect of Elizabeth Bowen, her mentor, and A.S. Byatt, her disciple and interpreter, but she spoke of them as ‘beloved beings’. Bowen herself dissected the novels of contemporaries, read them closely, remembered what she admired about them. IM never spoke in this way about the work of female contemporaries.

I am not sure how enlightening this is about Murdoch’s tastes in fiction. It seems to speak more about what Wilson may not have known despite his 30-year friendship with Murdoch. He also tells us that Bayley loved Barbara Pym and read and re-read her frequently, but he didn’t seem to have much interest in, or praise for, Murdoch’s books.

I finished the book rather bored and unimpressed with Wilson. Unfortunately, I also finished it liking both Murdoch and Bayley less than I did when I started. If that was Wilson’s intent, then job well done. Thankfully it won’t keep me from reading the rest of Murdoch’s novels.

Cool Covers of the Week AND Book Review: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

After the cool covers, my review of We Have Always Lived in the Castle.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Shirley Jackson

Always late to jump on the bandwagon, this one has been reviewed a lot in the blogosphere...

During the past month or so, I kept seeing these great Penguin covers on blogs across the Interwebs. I believe Penguin (in the UK at least) is using this general design for a range of modern editions, but the ones I kept seeing were for Shirley Jackson titles. Unfortunately, the copy of We Have Always Lived in the Castle that I stumbled across at a charity shop was an ugly American edition (as opposed to an ugly-American edition). For some reason Penguin thinks that we Americans can’t handle good graphic design. (Of course they may be right, but that is the subject of another post.) Despite its lame cover art (see below), I bought the book anyway. I figured I needed to discover myself what all the Shirley Jackson hubbub was about.

The only thing I knew about this book before I read it, was that it was a bit macabre, something good for Halloween. So I picked it up this weekend to see if I would get scared. At a slim 214 pages, WHALITC does manage to build quite a bit of suspense. I am glad I didn’t read the plot teaser on the back of the book. It wouldn’t have spoiled the book by any means, but not knowing the premise made the narrative all the more suspenseful in the opening chapters. The book opens with Mary Katherine (aka Merricat) Blackwood running errands in the small village near her family’s estate. But it is soon clear that, for Merricat, running errands is more like running a gauntlet. She goes about her business rather skittishly, hoping no one will notice her, plotting her route to have as little contact as possible with the townsfolk. Frankly, it reminded me a bit of when I was in junior high and would plan my day, in and out of school, so as not to come within shouting distance of anyone just waiting to call me a fag. And like my junior high days, Merricat is only partially successful in avoiding the teasing and vituperations cast her direction.

As the story unfolds we learn that Merricat lives an isolated life with her sister Constance and their invalid Uncle Julian. We also learn that Merricat is highly superstitious, burying objects all over their property and silently incanting “magic” words in the hopes of keeping them all safe. It isn’t long before we find out why the Blackwood’s are so isolated from society. Even though the back of the book would tell you, I am not going to. You will have to read it. Even once their secret is out to the reader there is much that is mysterious and just plain weird. The climax is brought about by the appearance of a long lost cousin whose presence threatens to upset the order of things for Merricat and presumably the others. Some things aren’t as they seem, but you wouldn’t be alone if you guessed ahead of time what secret still remained hidden.

At its essence WHALITC is a family drama with quirky characters, lots of dark secrets and denial, and an angry mob thrown in for good measure.

Ugly cover:

Lucky Me

Frances over at Nonsuch Book had a really fantastic giveaway and I won!  I am getting a four volume collection of Paris Review interviews with notable authors. I will excerpt Frances' description of this great prize:

For over fifty years, the Paris Review has published conversations with the most gifted writers of the day. Not just any conversations either. Conversations that eschew the obligations of publicity or marketing, and embrace the issues of the craft in the most direct and transparent fashion. Once you start reading these detailed interviews, it is difficult to put them aside. They are about both reading and writing, and offer such an exquisite banquet of rich detail, you will find yourself comparing all other author interviews you read with these. As publisher Picador describes them, the Paris Review interviews are "the gold standard of the literary Q&A."

 Thanks Frances!

Worst. Movie. Ever.

Confessions of a Shopaholic is the worst excuse for a movie I have seen in a long, long, time. I even had very, very, low expectations, yet it is way worse than I thought it would be.

Book Review: Manservant and Maidservant by Ivy Compton-Burnet

Manservant and Maidservant
Ivy Compton-Burnett

Until Simon over at Stuck In A Book had the idea to do an Ivy Compton-Burnett read along I didn’t really know anything about ICB. I had a vague notion that her books were a little quirky and her writing style an acquired taste. But those impressions suggest that I knew more about her than I did. There was even a moment before I got myself into all this when I wondered if ICB was a male with one of those once antiquated unisex names like Evelyn or Leslie. Although I have met my share of male Leslies here in the US, I think you would be hard pressed to find a male Evelyn. Then again, it is just as unusual in Britain. Maybe Evelyn Waugh was the only male Evelyn, ever. But suffice it to say, Ivy was a woman.

I think Simon first brought up the idea in late September but I didn’t get onboard until the middle of October. I wasn’t even entirely sure what a read along was. In the end my curiosity about ICB and the worry that I might be left out of something interesting got the best of me and I ordered my copy of M and M.

I am never a fan of having to write a plot summary, in fact in some ways I don’t like plot summaries full stop. I don’t want to know too much ahead of time. So I am going to let the jacket blurb give you the general idea:

[Manservant and Maidservant] focuses on the household of Horace Lamb, sadist, skinflint, and tyrant, a man whose children fear and hate him and whose wife is planning to elope. But it is when Horace undergoes an altogether unforeseeable change of heart that the real difficulties begin. Is the repentant master a victim along with his sometime slaves? What compensation, or consolation, can there be for the wrongs that have been done?

Horace could be the archetypal villainous parent, the wicked stepmother, if he wasn’t so humorous. The comparison that pops into my head is Basil Fawlty, John Cleese’s brilliant television character, who is a miserable human being, but so funny at the same time. Horace tries his best to make his children’s lives miserable but his interactions with these precocious little ones makes it clear that although he may have control over their daily comfort, he has no control over their hearts and minds.

Lamb’s household staff also play a role in M and M. Much like the fabulous 1970s television series Upstairs Downstairs, there are three parallel storylines in play. The upstairs storyline, the downstairs storyline, and the storyline that comes into being when those two worlds intersect. The relationship between Mrs Selden the cook and her kitchen maid Miriam reminded me a lot of the relationship between Mrs Bridges and Ruby on Upstairs Downstairs. Generally abusive but bordering on affectionate. The butler Bullivant, however, is no Hudson. He seems like he would be more at home in the servant’s hall in Gosford Park than 165 Eaton Place on Upstairs Downstairs.

Manservant and Maidservant is one of those books that I enjoyed, and I understood why I enjoyed it, but would be hard pressed to explain what it all meant. There are some sub-plotlines that seem to have no poinnt and I must admit I don’t fully understand everything that happened in M and M. I think I would need a discussion with others to tease out what it was all about, so I can't wait to see what the others who participated in the read along have to say. Overall, I really enjoyed reading this book. The brilliance of the book, I think, is in the humorous writing. Horace receives a letter from his cousin Mortimer:

You told me not to write to you, but I am never so malicious as to take people at their word. It is almost like telling them that they have made their bed and must lie on it.

It is nice of you to miss me so much, when I wronged you under your own roof. But it was not my fault that I had no roof of my own, and had to do things under yours.

ICB is definitely a writer whose work I want to explore further. I am glad that I ordered her other favorite book A House on its Head when I ordered Manservant and Maidservant.

Liberating Myself From Self-Imposed Goals with 1,358 Pages of Tolstoy

Like many of you, I read a lot of books. I hadn't intended reaching this particular milestone, but having already read 88 books this year, and with two months left to go, it looks like I am on target to complete at least 100 books in 2009.

In 1994, when I first started keeping track of the books I finished reading, my reading habits were quite a bit different than they are now. I was 25 years old, had roommates my age, an active social life, and I was studying for the GRE to get into graduate school. During that entire year I managed to read a whopping five books. Since the list is so short, I will share it with you:

Wilderness Tips – Margaret Atwood 3/19/94
The Culture We Deserve – Jacques Barzun 5/1/94
The Enigma of Arrival – VS Naipaul 7/10/94
The Machine in the Garden – Leo Marx 12/5/94
The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald 12/11/94

Kind of an interesting and odd list, don’t you think? Two of the five are non-fiction, which I don’t read much of these days. The Barzun I have no recollection of whatsoever, the Marx is a classic text in the field of American Studies, which is what I was headed off to study in grad school. Of the remaining three, at least one is a bona fide classic (Fitzgerald), one is often considered an important novel, perhaps even a baby classic (Naipual) and one is by one of the greatest authors alive (Atwood).

From late 1995 to early 1997 the number of books I read went up considerably thanks to grad school. Most were non-fiction but there was also a fair amount of great American literature thrown in as part of my degree. Works by Hawthorne, Melville, Twain, Crane, Howells, Dreiser, and others were read and dissected in class.

Having to do all that reading for grad school did three things: it reminded me that I loved to read, it conditioned my brain to read older, and in many cases more challenging fiction, and the required reading lists left me chomping at the bit, wanting desperately to create my own reading list. When I finished my degree I couldn’t wait to get to the public library. I wandered the shelves four hours and discovered for the first time in my life some of the truly great authors: Willa Cather, Leo Tolstoy, Vladimir Nabokov, Sinclair Lewis, Edith Wharton, and James Baldwin among others.

From then on, and through another Master’s degree, my reading habits kept up pace. In 2004 I heard a radio feature on a woman who had written a book about reading a book a week. I remember thinking that I easily read more than 52 books in a year. So I consulted my books read list (which by then was also in spreadsheet format) and discovered to my surprise that the most books I had read in a year was about 39. So I made it my mission to complete at least 52 books in 2004. Every year since then I have pushed myself to do more than the previous year. Even though it hasn’t always worked out that way, 2008 was kind of slow for me, it has been an encouragement to help me keep striving to read more.

And now this year it looks like I am going to break 100. I must admit that keeping an eye on the number of books that I read has had an impact on whether or not I tackle some bigger books. I still manage to dig into a chunky Trollope now and then. And this year I even managed the Wilkie Collins doorstop also known as The Woman in White. However, I feel like reaching the 100 book mark really frees me up to tackle a really, really big book.

So I am going to embark on War and Peace. All 1,358 pages of War and Peace. I am not sure if I am going to wait until I finish my 100 for the year. I am kind of itching to start now. And I am not sure, with my other reading, if I will finish it in 2009. And frankly, at this point I don’t even care if I actually make it to 100 books this year (big step for an OCD-head like myself to let that go). I just love the fact that nearing that unintended goal, I feel kind of liberated take on the mother of all chunksters.

Besides with a cover like this who could say no?

Do your reading goals, whether they be driven by book or page quotas, online challenges, book clubs, school, or any other sort of real or perceived pressure keep you from reading what you really want to?

I can fit 150 books in my nightstand, now I just need to read them

I have been on a bit of a book buying binge lately and the to-be-read pile has grown ever larger. I keep my TBR pile in my overly large nightstand (which is actually a Florence Knoll credenza), but the recent acquisitions have started to overwhelm the capacious interior of that fine piece of furniture.

Here you see the nightstand in its natural state: uncluttered, sleek, hiding all of its secrets behind its ebonized doors.

Once the doors are open, however, you see a different story. Organized chaos. (Yes, my chaos must be organized or I can't sleep at night.) In some cases I have three rows of books lovingly crammed in.

There are a few advantages to having books double and triple stacked in a cabinet. Yes, many of them are hidden from view. And after a while I forget what is in there. But that is also the beauty. Re-organizing the stacks offers endless hours of entertainment for someone like me who likes to look at, hold, and smell books just for the fun of it. Plus each time I pull them all out I get excited about things I forgot I had and get to reassess what I should read next, even though I almost never follow my own future reading plans. (I have a hard time being told what to do, even when I am the one telling me to do something.) Besides, this way, when I finish a book, I get to open the doors and root around for the next thing read.

This past weekend, in an attempt to fit as many books in as possible I took everything out and stacked it up. This way I could see what I had, what might be read next, and come up with a plan to fit my new additions into the cabinet.  It turned out I had just shy of 150 books that I needed to get inside.

I could stare at the stacks for hours. Go ahead click on the photo, see if you can make out any of the titles.  In the picture below I give you a little better chance to see some of them, including some of the newer stuff, which includes 6 of the 12 Persephones that are on their way to me...

...and all but two of Penguin's English Journeys series. Since taking the photo below I recieved another one from The Book Depository (free shipping anywhere in the world). But alas, the volume with A Shropsire Lad is out of stock. I am blaming Cornflower's book club on depleting the supply.

Open Letter to the Democratic National Committee

Dear Bozo:

Yesterday I got a call from a professional fundraiser asking me to open my wallet and make a donation to the DNC. In the past I have gladly done just that. I have given money to the DNC, the fundraising arms of both the House and Senate Democrats, Democratic candidates for President, and even money to Democratic candidates for Congress in districts where I don’t even live. And I have traveled to Pennsylvania, Ohio and southern Virginia to knock on doors for Democratic Presidential nominees.

But yesterday I refused to heed the clarion call for donations to help save the country from whatever the Republicans have in mind. And you know why? Because no amount of “grassroots” money from citizens will ever be enough to get the duly elected Democrats in Congress to pay attention to something other than their own egos and their allegiance to the corporate money that keeps them in office. How does my $25 or $250 or even $2,500 stack up against the pile of money that big business funnels into the political system? If you get my personal check will Senator Dodd pick up the phone when I call to tell him that he is handing big banks everything they want while passing along all the risk to me? If I take a couple days of salary and send it to the DNC will Senator Baucus let me write health care legislation instead of his seven former staffers who now work for health industry lobbyists?

And don’t even get me started on the ethics-challenged Congressman Rangel keeping his committee chair.

Maybe, just once, Democrats could lend meaningful support to a Democratic President, the leader of their party. But it seems like too many Democrats in Congress want to relive the glory days of 1994 when they assisted the Republicans in neutering another Democratic President.

I am not saying you will never get money from me again, after all I do think that Democratic crooks are a better option than Republican crooks. But for now I’d like to see Democrats begin to pay back the Americans who delivered them majorities in both houses of Congress.

Love,  Thomas

[crossposted at Opensewer]

Cool Cover of the Week (Supersize Edition)

Here is the cool cover of the week. Unlike Susan Hill's Howards End is on the Landing (see review below), Guy Browning's Maps of My Life actually delivers what it says it will. It is an amusing little memoir organized around maps, real and imagined, that tell the story of his life. One of the more amusing things is the fact that Browning refers to his brother as the Fatted Calf. It also has fun maps inside as well as other illustrations. Since I read it some time ago, I won't review it here, but the Independent has.

Claire at Kiss a Cloud figured out my little book cover quiz, that the cover art below is also used on the endpages of Persephone No. 32, The Carlyles at Home by Thea Holme. After months of staring at the image in the Persephone catalog and then finally getting the book, I was so so surprised to see the same image, albeit a little worse for the wear on a book I found while digging through a bin at a charity bookshop. For those of you interested in content the book looks at the marriages of John Ruskin and Effie Gray, Charles Dickens and Catherine Hogarth, John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor, George Eliot and George Henry Lewes, and of course Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle. I am not sure whether to read it before or after the Persephone.

As for the image, Mrs Carlyle is hiding on the sun-damaged spine of the book which is not shown here. The image is by Robert Tait.

Persephone Fans, This one is for you...

First, if you haven't seen this post, you need to apply your Persephone knowledge to solve the mystery.

Second, have any of you noticed, or heard about a big old typo on the spine of Persephone No. 72? The spine on both the book and the dust jacket incorrectly says: "House-Bound of Winifred Peck" instead of "House-Bound by Winifred Peck". Someone had a tipple before signing off on those proofs?

I am delirious at the arrival of my first Persephones but I have only gotten 6 of 12 so far. I am waiting for the others to arrive before I blog about my haul.

Book Review: Smoke and Mirrors are on the Landing

Howards End is on the Landing
Susan Hill

There are many in the book blogosphere who have loved this book. And there are many who thought they would love this book and then were kind of disappointed by it. Although there were moments of unalloyed joy as I read HEIOTL, I think I fall into the disappointed camp of book bloggers. Although, disappointed is probably too strong a word. It is a book about reading and books and cozy chairs and lists. What isn’t to love?

For those that may be reading about this book for the first time, Hill decides to limit her reading for a year to books that she already owns.

Much has been written by bloggers about Hill’s take on bookplates (she is against them) and book blogs (she is sort of against them). While I agree somewhat with Hill’s assessment that bookplates are largely unnecessary I don’t agree that they are for “posers”. Many who love to read, including Hill, not only love the content of books, but also love them as objects. Aesthetically pleasing fetishes that we not only love to read, but we also love to arrange, re-arrange, look at, hold, feel, and smell. Why is it surprising then that lovers of this particular kind of printed beauty might fall in love with an aesthetically pleasing bookplate?

Hill’s thoughts on the Internet (and by extension book bloggers):

The start of the journey also coincided with my decision to curtail my use of the internet, which can have an insidious, corrosive effect. Too much internet usage fragments the brain and dissipates concentration so that after a while, one’s ability to spend long, focused hours immersed in single subject becomes blunted. Information comes pre-digested in small pieces, one grazes on endless ready-meals and snacks of the mind, and the result if malnutrition.

The internet can also have a pernicious influence on reading because it is full of book-related gossip and chatter on which it is fatally easy to waste time that should be spent actually paying close, careful attention to the books themselves…

And since book-related gossip and chatter on the Internet is pernicious and is full of fragmented, small pieces of pre-digested ready-meals, Hill decides to publish 236 pages of fragmented, small pieces of pre-digested book-related gossip and chatter. Give them what they want, make your money, but somehow act like you are above it all. (Reminds me a bit of Jonathan Franzen’s bullshit moment in the Oprah book club. You are decidedly crass, and pedestrian, but I will take your money anyway, if only to teach you all a lesson.)

Some of the more enjoyable aspects of the book for me were all of the tales of encounters with famous authors. Even as a writer herself, I feel like Hill may have had more than her fair share of encounters with great writers of the recent past. Hill comes of literary age in a period and milieu where some of “the greats” were still alive and kicking. Imagine EM Forster dropping a book on your foot!

And then of course there are moments in HEIOTL when Hill writes about some of one’s favorites. Having recently read, and having absolutely loved, On the Black Hill, I was gratified to see Hill give Bruce Chatwin’s amazing work its due. But then there are other sections where she talks about authors unread by me or even unknown to me. Which could be a great thing, opening up new worlds to me, but Hill’s descriptions did little to incite my interest in the authors. There may be one or two I may now feel compelled to hunt down but none jump out at me. (For inspiring introductions to books and authors you never knew you wanted to read, I say check out Nancy Pearl’s Book Lust.)

Perhaps most disappointing to me was that I felt like there was a little bait and switch going on. Hill writes about going on a “year-long voyage through her books”. Yet there was very little to suggest that Hill actually did what she said she was going to do. Or, if she did, she has so distilled her year of reading from home into little snippets of literary musings, that the reader gets no sense of the actual journey. Much of what she writes has the smell of her life of reading and writing, and doesn’t describe a journey, at least not a new journey, at all. HEIOTL gives no sense of time passing, no moments of “it is only January 15th and I am already finding it hard to avoid that new book by X in the shop window” or “as Autumn arrives I am drawn to that copy of X that I stumbled across back in July” or something like that.

It is certainly Hill’s prerogative to favor a more abstracted look at her year-long journey rather than describe the journey itself. But she seems a little scattered and unwilling to commit to one approach over the other. Here and there Hill describes certain books or types of books being in certain rooms of the house. I actually appreciate this part of the narrative, it does suggest a journey and it is detail I find interesting. But as an organizing motif she doesn’t really follow through enough for it to really work. She confuses the issue in the final chapter when she writes about finally making it to the top of the house. “I am taking out far too many books. I need at least another year of reading from home.” Is she suggesting that the climb to the top of the house has been stretched out over a year and now she has reached the last room and won’t have time for all the books she is pulling off the shelves? And are we really to believe that her reading over the year was directed by a systematic and seemingly linear tour through the rooms of her house?

Perhaps Hill, wanting to write a collection of literary musings, decided she needed a clever hook or some kind of framework in order to sell the collection. I have no problem with that, but don’t lure me in with a plot device that I find fascinating only to ignore it once you start waxing rhapsodic about your tastes and experiences. Many of the chapters don’t even attempt to follow any premise other than “I want to talk about this author so I will”. In some parts of the book there is some sense of the chronological aspects of the year-long journey, but the mentions are few and don’t really provide the structure suggested in, or interest created by, the opening chapter. The main body of the book is a sometimes fascinating compilation of book-related thoughts and experiences Hill supposedly had during the year broken down thematically. But where is the journey I was promised?

And did anyone else get the feeling that she did a lot more re-reading than she did discovering new things hiding in her enormous collection of books? I have a vague memory of her opening up a few long ignored volumes. But I never really felt like she had any moments of real discovery. I am not the closest reader in the world so I wouldn’t be surprised if I missed something, but where were the “aha” moments? Her journey of discovery reads more like a description of her daily commute down a well-trodden, and entirely familiar, path.

The more I write about HEIOTL the more I want to read the book she promised, not the book she wrote.

Book Review: The Photograph

The Photograph
Penelope Lively

This review might be a little on the short side. As much as I like Lively, I am a little ambivalent about The Photograph. Not to say I didn’t like it. I just expected more. The plot is pretty clever and can be summed up fairly easily. Glyn finds a picture of his deceased wife Kath that suggests that she had an affair with her sister Elaine’s husband Nick. Glyn confronts Elaine, Elaine confronts Nick, etc. Not wanting to give away any of the twists and turns I think I will leave it at that.

The Photograph is an enjoyable, easy read. The characters are believable and have interesting jobs that provide interesting context (landscape designer, publisher, historian), but the twists and turns of the relationships themselves—while understandably fascinating to others—was not all that interesting to me. And if I went into great detail about the book (and included some spoilers) I could detail the ways in which I don't think some of the events and characters portrayed ring true. And there are even a few things that happen that explain why this book carry's the "Today's Book Club" seal. (For those that don't know or remember this was the Today Show's attempt to cash in on the popularity of Oprah's book club. And we aren't talking about Oprah's better choices either...plus it was on morning TV with Katie Couric. In other words this is not a badge of honor.)

If you are only going to give Penelope Lively’s fiction one shot, read Consequences instead. Far more interesting and compelling. If you plan to read everything she as written because she is a wonderful writer (which she is), or you are looking for something to read on a plane, The Photograph is still worth the time.

Welcome Visitors from Blogging Around the States

Booklogged over at A Reader's Journal has embarked upon an effort to blog about bloggers from all 50 states. As soon as I saw this I wrote to her and said "don't forget about the District of Columbia".  And she didn't. This week she highlights Yours Truly. Thanks for the opportunity.

So, to all of you visiting for the first time, I say Welcome. And don't forget to leave me a comment or two. Sometimes I get tired of the sound of my own voice--not often, but it does happen.  You can find lots of stuff on MyPorch, I have lots of travel pictures (Europe, Australia, Africa, the US, Canada), a few political rants, lots of stuff about books, some musical musings, and a whole lot of hyperbole.  Feel free to take me down a notch or two.

By the way, no comment from me on Blogging Around the States would be complete without mentioning that half a million American citizens living here in Washington DC have NO voting representation in Congress. American citizens in the rest of the US have two Senators and one Representative you can write to, call, email, etc., we have NONE. The reason those patriots dumped all that tea into Boston Harbor 200+ years ago was over taxation without representation. Well the Potomac is polluted enough so we won't dump anytning more into it, but you get my point.

Book Bloggers, show me what you're made of...

Yesterday I found myself at Books for America, my favorite charity bookshop, perhaps even my favorite secondhand bookshop. As I was quickly but methodically digging through the recent arrival bins, I came across this book and the cover image leapt out at me. Unfortunately there is some serious fading near (and on) the spine.

Let's see how long it takes for one of you to tell me where else I have seen this image recently.

Some of you might be thinking, "how would I know what Thomas has been looking at lately?" But, this isn't a test of how well you know Thomas, and it isn't a test of how well you know my blog. And there really aren't any clues on MyPorch--well only the slightest, but it would only make sense after you know the answer, so I don't recommend looking for a clue here--of course I do recommend going through the MyPorch archives, but I don't want to mislead anyone.

I think for some of you this won't be a challenge at all. And even if someone has already answered correctly let me know how long it took you to figure it out, or whether it stumped you. If no one has figured it out by Monday, I will add another clue. And eventually I will show you the back cover where the image continues. That might be the next clue anyway.

Book (cover) Review: Persuasion

Persuasion
Jane Austen

With so much written about her over the years, how does one "review" Jane Austen. One doesn't. At least this one doesn't. Although I find reading Jane Austen enjoyable, and I completely understand the literary and sociological merit of her work, I tend to like the Jane Austen films better than the books. (Please, no hate mail.)

So you will get no substance out me on Persuasion. It is actually one of my favorite JA flicks. But the one from 1995. I am not so sure how I feel about the version from 2007, I seem to remember the plot of it was skewed differntly than the '95 version. Now that I have read the text, I want to see both of them side by side and make my determination not only about which one I like, but which one is closer to the text. I have them queued up on Netflix, so I should be able to blog about that in the near future.

What I really want to talk about is the cover of the edition I read. I picked it up at that English bookstore I went to in Den Haag. As far as I know, we don't have these Penguin Popular Classics editions in the US. I was totally drawn to their simple, GREEN covers. But when I tried to photograph it, it came out very bright greeny yellow. I thought it was something to do with my camera skills. So this morning I tried to scan the cover and the same thing happened to the color. So I headed off to the Interwebs to see if I could find a good representation of the color of the cover. And I did, BUT, I also came across many, many, many other pictures that suffer from the same yellowing problem that I had.

It is like vampires not showing up in mirrors. Have the scientists in the Penguin laboratory discovered a way to make their covers not appear correctly in photos? Also, I love the fact that they are using recycled pulp, but it doesn't make the tactile experience very pleasant.  UPDATE: I just noticed that even The Book Depository wasn't able to get images with the proper color covers.

See if you can guess which of these images is mine.

Book Review: The Return of the Soldier

The Return of the Soldier
Rebecca West

At 185 pages, and with a really big font and really big margins, this one definitely falls into the novella category. But what a crackerjack little novella it is. Written in 1918, the essence of the plot is about Captain Chris Baldry, a WWI soldier who returns to England with post-traumatic stress disorder that leaves him with amnesia. He remembers Margaret, a love interest from 15 years previously, but doesn’t remember Kitty, his wife of 10 years. The fact that Margaret is of a lower class than his own, and perhaps more importantly, than his wife's, is an added twist that really seems to drive the Kitty mad.

I think some of the class material is a little heavy handed and even some of the plotting is a little clumsy at times, but I really enjoyed this book. It was one that I found myself reading while walking down the street and riding in elevators because I didn’t want to put it down when I arrived at work. Which is a bit of a shame in some ways. There are moments in the book that compel one to want to read on, but much of the book is also rather atmospheric and would have benefited from more relaxed and sustained reading sessions. The final chapter makes for a pretty fabulous, but not necessarily happy, ending.

Victoria Glendinning’s introduction written in 1980 is rather un-illuminating. John thought it sounded like an uninspired term paper. Are introductions even necessary to most books? In some cases they helpfully explain context that enhances the main event (i.e., the narrative itself). But in many cases they seem rather gratuitous. A way to throw a few dollars, or in this case pounds, to a writer or academic. Not that I am opposed to that, but at least make them good. And more importantly, if an introduction or preface doesn’t help put things in context then make it an afterword instead. Don’t tell me what to think about a book before I read it. Tell me what I thought of it after I have read it (he said, tongue firmly in cheek). What do you think? Are introductions a gratuitous waste of trees?

We didn't take out the camera much in Amsterdam...

The four of us spent the weekend in Amsterdam. And for some reason, despite all of the great things to photograph, we didn't take out the camera much. Go figure.

Den Haag: Den Paarty

The reason we went on a trip to Belgium and The Netherlands so close on the heels of our trip to France and Switzerland, was that my good friend Ron was turning 40. His partner Barry wanted to surprise him. So a few days before his birthday we appeared. And Ron was surprised.

Here are some blurry pictures of the party. The quality of the photos not only protect the guilty, but look a bit like Gerhard Richter paintings if you ask me.

Den Haag: Parliament

These are all photos of the Parliament buildings in Den Haag. Or as Barry likes to call it: Hogworts.

Den Haag: The mean streets of The Hague

Our friends Ron and Barry live in Den Haag (The Hague) in the The Netherlands. Ron is a Canadian who I met when I was working in London in 1992. Being an American, I could work in England for 6 months, being a Canadian with British grandparents, Ron stayed forever. Or at least until he and Barry (who hails from South Africa) moved to Den Haag about a year ago.

I had only been to The Netherlands once before. It was a sunny weekend in March of 1995 and I only saw Amsterdam. So it was nice on this trip to see something in addition to Amsterdam. I still  want to go to Delft and Haarlam and a few other places, but Den Haag was a great place to start. I think it is a totally charming city and their neighorhood in the old part of town is just surrounded by musuems, shops and restaurants and is just a cobblestone's throw from the Parliament. And it was nice and quiet. I could live here.

Our pictures are a little lackluster, but here they are.

Den Haag: I love an allee

Bookmark Giveaway: Everyone Wins!

For those of you that put your name in for my bookmark giveaway, instead of just giving away 6 of them, I have enough for everyone who entered. If you haven't already, shoot me an email with your mailing address. Congratulations to:

Lezlie at Books 'N Border Collies
Sarah at what we have here is a failure to communicate
Christine at Booktumbling
Denise at M. Denise C.
Nan at Letters From a Hill Farm
Booklogged at A Reader's Journal
Ti at Book Chatter
Framed at Framed and Booked (and many others)
Esperanza
Deniz

Book Review: A Lively Life

Oleander, Jacaranda
Penelope Lively

Penelope Lively is a novelist of prodigious talent. She won the Booker Prize in 1987 for her novel Moon Tiger (which I haven’t read, but it is in my TBR pile). Oleander, Jacaranda is a short memoir of her childhood in Egypt and eventually England. Born of English parents in Cairo in 1933, Lively lived in Egypt until the final year of World War II when she was sent back to England to live, shuttling between her maternal and paternal grandmothers until she was sent off to boarding school.

Like most children, young Penelope is more open to the experiences of the environment she lives in than are the adults in her life. The narrative contains its share of fond memories typical to a childhood memoir, but the typical childhood bit only goes so far in this particular autobiography. The subtitle of the book “A Childhood Perceived” aptly describes Lively’s approach to her material. Threaded between snippets of insect hunting and comic tales of her nanny’s attempts to home school her, Lively confronts and analyzes the impact her adult intellectual filter has on her memories. Some of it is pretty straightforward like the adult knowledge of sanitation versus her childhood desire to join local children playing in a stream. At other times Lively’s focus is more academic. Some of her observations considering childhood perceptions are offered in the abstract, and others are directly related to her own situation “growing up in accordance with the teachings of one culture but surrounded by the signals of another.” With an emotionally absent mother and an often physically absent father Lively’s Englishness is enforced by her zealously patriotic British nanny.

Lucy’s patriotism was absolute and implacable. There was English, and there was other. To be English was to be among the chosen and saved; to be other was simply to be other. There were gradations of other. American or Australian was other but within shouting distance, as it were. French, Italian, Greek were becoming unreachable; everything else was outer space. Within the unrelenting xenophobia there was a stern creed of tolerance and respect for alien practices, especially religious practice. I knew that it was offensive to stare when Muslims were at prayer, that mosques must be entered with the same reverence as Cairo’s Church of England cathedral. The world of other was different, and hence of no great interest [to adults], but you accorded it a perfect right to carry on as it did.

The blurb on the back of the book describes this as a bittersweet memoir, and there was plenty in Lively’s childhood that could fall into the bitter category. But Oleander, Jacaranda is also an interesting, sometimes sweet and sometimes humorous story. It is a contrast of cultures and attitudes that are foreign not just because of the geographical juxtaposition of an English child in Egypt, but also because it captures a moment time that I find fascinating. A good read for Lively fans, WWII English childhood fans, and Egypt fans.

(P.S.: Lively’s description of a return visit in 1988 has cured me of my interest in finding Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria. According to her, barely a shred of the physical setting of the Alexandria Quartet survives. Not that she has much affection for Durrell’s work, but that is beside the point.)

I do love a list

1. Still sick. Just a cold I think. It doesn't look like I have H1N1, at least according to the CDC website. I have mastered the art of the elbow sneeze and cough.

2. I made butternut squash soup yesterday. Delicious. We are having the leftovers tonight.

3. It rained all day on Saturday. And by all day, I mean all day. But I didn't mind for one second. John and I ran some errands in the morning and then cosied up the rest of the day with TV, books, and of course, the web.

4. I must admit a certain fondness for Beyonce's latest album. Some of the songs get stuck in your head to the point where you want to tear your hair out, but that is the price you pay for a good pop hook.

Cool Cover of the Week

One of my favorite authors, and probably his finest book. How could I pass up this paperback edition? Oddly enough it is undated.

Blogger Finally Has XL Pictures

I am no expert at using Blogger. But I am exceptionally happy that they now offer an "extra large" option for posting pictures. If I had unlimited amounts of time I would go back to older posts and make all the pictues XL. Hopefully you will all enjoy the bigger pics.

Pannekoeken in the Huis

On the drive back from Peit Oudolf's garden we stopped at a Pannekoeken Huis in the little town of Hummelo (actually I think it was in Doesburg or something like that, it was near Hummelo.) Had one with Ham and Cheese and then for dessert I had one with Bananas, Chocolate, Whipped Cream, and Ice Cream. Believe it or not I didn't finish the whole thing.

John's idea of Heaven: Piet Oudolf's Garden

While we were in The Netherlands, John's number one priority was to go see landscape designer Piet Oudolf's garden. Oudolf is the world master of informal landscapes. He uses lots of grasses against a backdrop of shaped hedges to provide structure to garden in any season.  In early October with most plants past their seasonal prime the garden was beautiful with even the dying plants adding beautiful shape and color. Oudolf has also worked miracles at the Lurie Garden in Millenium Park in Chicago as well as the plantings on New York City's High Line.

Oudolf's wife Anja runs a nursery on the property and made John's day by spending time chatting with him. She was beautiful and friendly. John's only disappointment was not being able to buy anything to take back to the US.

Oudolf in Detail

Here are some close-ups from our morning at Piet Oudolf's garden in Hummelo, The Netherlands.

Book Review: Home to Roost at 37,000 Feet

Home to Roost
Deborah Devonshire

Last week while we were enjoying ourselves discovering The Hague, I stumbled across an English language bookshop. But it wasn’t merely an English language bookshop, it was really an English bookshop full stop. I didn’t see any American editions of anything. Everywhere I turned there were editions of books I have only seen on British based book blogs--books that are for the most part unavailable in the United States. When I saw the bright blue Bloomsbury Group edition of Miss Hargreaves I couldn’t say no. The same was true for the lavender Bloomsbury Group edition of The Brontes Went to Woolworths. Although I have heard much about both of these books on various blogs, perhaps most notably on Stuck in a Book, I had made no attempt to order either of them. But seeing them sitting on a table right in front of me I couldn’t resist. And right next to these two little beauties was Deborah Devonshire’s Home to Roost. And it turned out to be perfect reading for the plane ride back to DC. I read it cover to cover somewhere over the Atlantic.

Deborah Devonshire, born one of the six (in)famous Mitford sisters, otherwise known as the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire has intrigued me since the earliest days of my Anglophilia. I remember reading years ago the story of how she and her husband, the 11th Duke, had to get really smart and creative to save their magnificent house Chatsworth from ending up on the auction block to pay off huge death duties. Most things that I have read about her over the years had kind of a behind the scenes quality that I love. When I visit a stately house like Chatsworth I am less interested in the grand history, art, and decoration than I am in the behind the scenes workings of such a large estate. Call it the Upstairs, Downstairs Syndrome. So it was with that in mind that I picked up Home to Roost. I wasn’t expecting gossip mind you, but a peek behind the official curtain was what I hoped for. There was a bit of that but surprisingly the parts of the book that I found most interesting weren’t about the house at all. They were the chapters about Devonshire’s relationship with the Kennedys and her eye witness account of the inauguration of President Kennedy as well as his funeral two years later. I suppose it was behind the scenes after all, but more about where I live (Washington, DC) than about Chatsworth. Similarly her memories of the “Treasure Houses of Britain” exhibition at the National Gallery here in Washington was pretty interesting. I have a vague recollection of this exhibit despite the fact that I was in high school in Minnesota at the time. Reading Devonshire’s account of it I am really disappointed I didn’t get to see it.

Overall I enjoyed reading the book but I found parts of it slightly annoying as well. Some of the chapters seem to be nothing but a list of words that once upon a time meant one thing and now mean something else. There is nothing interesting, enlightening, or even new about this kind of comparison. If I had remembered Simon’s review at Stuck in a Book, I would have known that he had similar feelings. In fact, he does such a good job identifying what doesn’t work about the book that I am going to let him have the final words:

Too often the articles are simply catalogues of complaints, snarking at anti-hunting people, townfolk, American vocabulary, the government - anything any grumpy old lady might moan about. I'm sorry to sound a bit cruel, but there is no fury like a booklover scorned. Some of the essays had the sparks of humour I'd hoped for - when she is writing about tiaras, for example, and book signing. And none of the collection is unreadable - it's just the tone is consistently grumpy and demonstrating an inability to see the world from anyone else's perspective.

Bookmark Giveaway

I picked up some very cool magnetic bookmarks when I was at the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp which I blogged about below. I have all I need for my own use so I have 6 to give away. They are about half the length of a regular book mark, but they fold over the top of the page and adhere through the page with magnets.

Three will be given to first time commenters. Three will be given to repeat commenters. Just let me know in the comments if you are interested and whether or not you are a first time commenter (just in case I don't remember everyone). Comments must be made by Monday, October 19, 2009.

n.b.: My photography skills are lacking. We have a very good camera so I can't blame it, but that Jane Austen edition is actually a bright green--not yellow.

The Art and Business of Making Books

During our short stay in Antwerp we had a few hours to go to a museum before heading off to catch our train for The Hague. I was tempted to go to one of the art museums in town when I noticed in my guidebook a blurb for the Plantin-Moretus Museum.

Christopher Plantin (c. 1520-1589) was a French bookbinder who in 1546 came to Antwerp to set up his own printing workshop. It became one of the most influential publishing houses in Europe during the late Renaissance, producing Bibles, maps, scientific books and much else. The museum consists essentially of the printing workshop and home of Plantin and his heirs. It contains a large collecdtion of rare and precious books, and displays of their illustrations. The processes of hot-metal type setting and letterpress printing are also explained. Plantin gave his name to a typeface still widely used today.

I am so glad I stumbled across this paragraph and John agreed it sounded like a good idea to spend our last few hours there. Everything about it was interesting. The story of a family of book makers who were in business for over 300 years. The story of bookmaking during those same 300 years with a great audio guide explaining the whole process from typesetting to proofreading, to printing, to sales and distribution. It also showed how the hosue and workshop evolved over time. And of course there was an amazing collection of manuscripts and books on display aas well as big beautiful library rooms that would make any book lover a little weak in the knees. John took all the pictures shown here but  a Google image search comes up with some pretty great pictures.

It is not surprising that the house museum is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This one is not to be missed if you are in Antwerp, or even Belgium, it is a reason to put Antwerp on your itinerary.

Antwerp

I really liked the city of Antwerp. It is a great blend of old and new. Lots of cultural stuff, lots of shopping. We even had really good Italian food for dinner. The cathedral there is pretty spectacular. Even on a dark cloudy day the interior was bright. Plus it is filled with Rubens and other amazing paintings that until recently were housed in museums.

On the train to Antwerp

Bruges: Running around town.

Bruges is a lovely little town in Belgium. Lots of pretty things to look at and delicious things to eat. Lots of tourists even in October. Must be crazy in the summer.

Bruges: The view from our room.

I'm going to learn Spanish

Every time John and I travel to Europe I whine about wanting to be fluent in a foreign language. Usually the conversation begins with me fantasizing about spending 3 months, 6 months, a year, in a foreign country where I could be immersed in the language I was hoping to learn. Part of my interest is the romantic notion of spending 3 months, 6 months or a year in another country and pretending to be a local. But perhaps even more important to me is my long standing desire to be able to converse in some language other than my own. (Which is English in case you haven’t figured it out yet.)


This desire hits me even more when I am with someone I know who can speak another language. It is one thing to hear bilingual strangers converse, but there is something about hearing a friend bust out in some foreign language that really gets the old envy/self-pity machine going. And so it was this summer in France. Added to my usual fantasy about immersing myself in a language was my best friend Ron using his French as the four of us ran around the green fields of the Loire Valley. In these situations, admiration of the friend’s skill is always closely linked feelings of gross inadequacy. Later, when John and I were in Switzerland we watched a pretty awful movie made for German language TV. What first caught our eye were beautiful scenes of sunny, southern England. It turned out to be an adaptation of a Rosamund Pilcher romance novel. Not really understanding German, what we heard was “German, German, German, Strawberry Cottage, German, German.” For an hour and a half all we understood of the dialog was the frequent use of “Strawberry Cottage”. The melodrama was obvious enough that we didn’t really need to understand the language to know what was going on. Afterwards I launched into my “if only we could live somewhere and be immersed in another language” whining. After all, even watching Strawberry Cottage movies in German would help me learn the language.

Whenever I have these fantasies about learning another language the discussion usually focuses on French or Italian. Both France and Italy are countries that we would love to live in for a time. We both have survival French already. And my college Italian can be put to pretty good use when I need it to, but I suppose even then it is just a click or two above survival level as well. And since moving to either of those countries, even for 3 months, is an impossibility until we retire in 20 or so years, the whining continues. Of course I could always study French or Italian here in DC, but at my age learning another language well really would require a bit of immersion and lots of practice.

Then, as if a light bulb went off over my head, it occurred to me. Spanish! For various reasons I had never really thought about learning Spanish. But it suddenly seemed too obvious. Immersing oneself in Spanish is quite easy here in DC. First, there are Spanish speakers everywhere in this town. It is hard to walk ten feet without hearing Spanish. Second, we have more than one Spanish language TV channel available 24/7 so I can immerse myself in the Spanish version of Strawberry Cottage anytime I feel like it. Third, whether the xenophobes like it or not, the US is quickly and unofficially becoming a bilingual country. Fourth, we even have free Spanish language weeklies available on every street corner. Fifth, Spain is pretty high up our European travel wish list and my good friend Tanya lives in Mexico City and we hope to see her there again as well as explore other parts of Mexico.

And I don’t want to just learn a bit of traveler’s Spanish. I really want to be fluent. I have no delusions of ever being translator-worthy, but the goal here is to not only to be able to function in Spanish but to actually enjoy reading it and speaking it. And to be able to converse on a wide range of topics, not just ask what about menus and train timetables.

It will be no surprise to regular readers that I like a challenge and a goal. (Remember those 40 goals I wanted to reach by the time I turned 40?) So the new goal is to be fluent—at least to my own satisfaction—by the time I am 45. That gives me five years. I already have the books to get started. Just think, I could do this and actually quit whining about not being able to speak a foreign language. Hmm…what ever will I whine about now on vacation? I am sure I will think of something.

What seemingly impossible life goal could you actually achieve by cutting out the excuses and with a little planning and determination? What languages do you speak? Which would you like to learn?