50 Books in a Year Book #5: Hemingway Lives! Why Reading Ernest Hemingway Matters Today

I think I may have a little crush on Ernest Hemingway. And, not just because he was so incredibly good-looking, although he was incredibly good-looking (I mean look at the cover of this book!) and, even at 60, he had that rugged man thing going on. I'm sure he would have been fun to talk to while guzzling daiquiris in Cuba. The crush comes more from the life of the man who wrote one of my favorite books of all time.

I wish I would have learned all about Hemingway, the man, earlier in my life. I would have read more of his books/read more about his personal life/mourned his passing appropriately...

Anyway, it would seem that there are only two kinds of people who talk about Hemingway, those who love him (I think it's those people who 'get' that he was more than this animal killing/Castro loving caricature that's been built up over the years) and those who loathe him (I think you can count all his ex-wives in this category and anyone who only sees Hemingway as a thump your chest, club your women man's man).

Clancy Sigal is all about some deep Hemingway love. He's felt this way since the young age of 15 when he stole a copy of A Farewell to Arms and loved it. Read this book...fall in love with Hemingway the writer and the man, and, if you are like me at all you'll become a little bit obsessed and will then try to make up for lost time by reading all the Hemingway you hadn't yet. By the end of Sigal's book I had hopped on the Hemingway love bus as well.

It was easy.

First Sigal tells you that to understand why Hemingway matters today we must first understand the man, Ernest Hemingway. We have to understand his foundation.

So...

Read the right books:

King Solomon's Mines H. Rider Haggard

The Four Feathers AEW Mason

Just So Stories and The Jungle Book Rudyard Kipling

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Mark Twain

Westward Ho and Hereward the Wake by Charles Kingsley

Tom Brown's School Days Thomas Hughes
Ernest Hemingway on Writing Larry Phillips

Watch all the movies:

• Even the Hemingway big screen productions...even though he didn't really like the adaptions and neither does Sigal, concerning A Farewell to Arms he says, "With luck Hollywood won't remake the first two films of this wonderful novel again." He goes on to talk about how Hemingway viewed the whole business, "Hemingway famously said that the best way for a writer to deal with the movie business was to arrange a quick meeting at the California state line: 'You throw them your book, they throw you the money. Then you jump into your car and drive like hell back the way you came'" (138).
• Charlie Chan
• Four Feathers (I think he's talking about the old version, but I'm sure the latest one would do)
• Midnight in Paris
• Hemingway and Gellhorn

Try to...
Be Teddy Roosevelt

Be white

Be upper middle class

Be able to fish and hunt and survive in the wilderness

Be a devout follower of 'muscular Christianity' 
Be courageous and brave
Be unwavering; practice what you preach
Be on the side that fights for the rights of the individual
Be a journalist
Be an alcoholic
Be the best man
Be a good father

and, above all...

Be a contradiction to those who don't bother to understand you, and don't care if they don't try. I think I believe and emulate this trait most of all.

Then we must understand Hemingway the person who became the writer.

When you...

• marry, no matter how many times you marry, marry for love. Don't be afraid to cut ties when you realize that 'maybe' it wasn't love after all.
• write, write simply, "short words, brief paragraphs, few or no adverbs" (62) and honestly about what you know and ignore the critics. Or, should I say try to ignore the critics.
• love, love all living creatures and love life. These are not contradictions to how Hemingway lived and died. Sigal talks about how each of the women in Hemingway's life, in turn, became a muse for his books and stories. Sigal even used Hemingway's characters as role models for his own foray into adulthood and romance.
• play, play hard. Hemingway lived his life well and that could be shown by his large amount of injuries and slashes and gashes and aches and pains.
• speak, speak what you believe is truth and stick by what you say. Hemingway loved his father, hated his mother (more on that in Chapter 6: The Women in His Life) and he made no bones about either.

Finally, we must understand the writer.

So, why does reading Ernest Hemingway matter today?

• He is one of the pillars of Modern America. Against his will, as Sigal notes, "If Hemingway had known as a young man that his fate would be as a classroom Assigned Great Writer he'd probably have shot himself long before he did in real life" (17).
• Just typing and retyping his stories help writers get into the flow of his style. Just ask Joan Didion, Salinger, Vonnegut, Gore Vidal, Garcia Marquez, Ann Beatty, Charles Johnson, Terry Tempest Williams, Gordimer, Mailer, Elmore Leonard, Proulx, Russell Banks, Walter Mosley and I'm sure we could find more.

In each of his books, stories and essays we can find a person to emulate, to adhor, to immortalize. And, in true contradictory fashion, I'm just sad that his fourth wife loved him so much that she allowed him to have and be himself to his own peril. Sigal creatively constructs a book that delves into the man, by showing us the people around him and then showing us how those people created the writings that we still cherish and revere to this day. If you need proof read Chapter 7: It's Not Only Men Who are Victims of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder-The Sun Also Rises and get into this "thinly disguised autobiographical travelogue" (110). 

Sigal has such a love for Hemingway that it shows in the way he writes about every aspect of the man.

65 Books in a Year: Book #8 Unnaturally Green

I hate reviewing books that I only have lukewarm feelings for; I especially hate when those books are memoirs. I mean here is this person who has obviously done something more than I've ever done and, yet, I can't bring myself to anything more than 'like' for their book.

The reasons for the disconnect are myriad, but usually fall under the umbrella of I couldn't relate to the author as a person (and, one must for a memoir to work at it most basic level), or the writing needed a little more polish (this one I feel especially guilty about...as, again, the author has accomplished something that I've yet to do).

This book falls under both categories.

I assumed that, since this book was about a girl having trouble figuring out if what she was doing was really the right answer, I would be able to relate to her plight--no such luck. She actually reminded of a handful of girls that I had the unfortunate pleasure of having to be around for a semester in London. She seems to NEVER...and, I mean NEVER suffer. She seems to always have more than enough money, her apartment seems to be messy, only because she has so much stuff, she seems to have free time upon large copious amounts of free time, and, yet, she always has the right dress for the party, the right outfit for the audition and nothing ever goes wrong. And...and, every time something that truly resembles life happens she breezes through it--almost like she doesn't know how to write about real things. We get a large amount of the book devoted to her nervousness as an actress, her banana regime, her lack of bowel movements, but not so much is given to her relationship with her grandmother, a woman who passes away while she is in SF, a woman who she obviously loves and still misses...I would have liked more about her and her parents and family. Heck, I would have liked more about the cohabitation with her man friend. I would have like more about rehearsals, the game nights, the practices...I would have liked more about being 'unnaturally green'. We only get surface.

This brings me, of course, to the writing...I think the wrong parts were beefed up (I've already talked about that), but, without meaning to, I hope, Miss Ricci kind of paints herself as a bit of a brat who wants to be Elphaba, but not really...who graduates from Yale (Yale...people) and can't seem to figure out what to do with her degree or her life, which is fine, but what needed to be portrayed as the wanderlust yearning that everyone in their 20s hopefully has, just sounds like whining most of the time--maybe that's because we get into her head with sidebar comments and conversations a wee much.

I did enjoy the all the bits about San Francisco...as I've never been. I would have liked to have read about it more.

I'm sure that Felicia Ricci is a lovely lady. I think that she has written a book, much like any 20-something writing a book about their first adult adventure. I'm glad that she had the stick-to-it-ness to write about her adventures in CA, there is a bravery there that I can't explain and I am glad that she had the follow-through to turn her blog to a book, but all I can think about is (except I'm 36):

I hope she writes another book about her time in San Francisco after age and time have given her some perspective, and she's not afraid to get a little personal about people and events that matter to her heart and to her story.

65 Books in a Year: Book #5 Londoners

I'm genuinely having a hard time writing a review for this book. If I could go by the introduction alone it would get an A++. It is nostalgic, personal, descriptive, gives a beautiful homage to the A to Zed (the 1998 copy of which I still have--although if you look at it pages just fall out because I used it so much) and it opens with one of my favorite quotes of all time ("When a man is tired of London he is tired of life, for there is in London all that life can afford" ~Samuel Johnson). It's too bad that Londoners, well, at least the majority of the 80+ interviews that make it into the book seem to have forgotten all about Johnson.

OK, so reading most of these interviews made me depressed and yearn for a London I guess doesn't really exist if you live there. While reading I was reminded of an interview Stephen Fry conducted with a former Essex guy who now lives in California. Fry asked the guy why he, one of the two most famous modern British guys, chose to live in America and the guy replied, "I think there's just a conspicuous lack of cynicism and skepticism...". After reading this book I'm only beginning to see what he's talking about.

I love that this book is set up pretty much like Stud Terkel's Working, in the sense that there are tiny little stories categorized by a common theme, but the stories don't have to be read in order to get a sense of the place and time in which they were written. I get, from the few stories that I connected with, that London is as vastly different as any city, and, that it is a city's history that differentiates it from any other. I guess the sense that, whether it is realized or not, one falls in love with a city based on its history.

Stories of note:

• the black dancer who became a plumber, yes, plumber...
• the woman who is from the Middle East who still hasn't told her parents that she's modern and living with her boyfriend
• the manicurist who can tell more about the collective economy than most economists merely by looking at the people who get their nails done and for what reasons
• the guy who's spent his time in London revitalizing Canary Wharf
• the story of the rickshaw driver and his passenger's fetish for feet and socks
• the teacher who, across The Pond, has the same struggles with students and parents and motivation and admistration and frustration that I have as a teacher in little 'ole Missouri
• the dominatrix, the beekeeper, the Wiccan priestess
• the funeral director who targets immigrant families because, well, funerals are a business that last generations
• the city planner who understands that greatness cannot be planned...this man loves himself some London
• Adam Byatt and his flavor for all things traditional, yet modern...I would like to try some John Dory

Oh, and I'm totally curious about the 100+ interviews that didn't make the cut...I wonder if I'll ever be able to read those? I'm also curious if this same feeling of weariness is so prevalent in other cities should you interview 'the man on the street' in say Paris or New York or Los Angeles. I wonder what Taylor thinks of London.

Thank goodness there's that delicious intro talking about rain and umbrellas and, London as 'propulsion, [that] rewards those people who push forward'. There's loads of great stuff in this book, I learned so much (see my list below), however, if I went by these stories alone I'd never take public transportation anywhere, I'd not yearn for London, a city I definitely yearn for, and, *whimper* I'd be tired of life, I'd be tired of London.

What I learned:

• 'Places make the best lovers...'
• 'People's worst qualities come out at night...'
• Cornershop's Handcream for a Generation
• 7/7 Terrorist Attacks
• Stephen Lawrence, a racially motivated attack improperly handled, for years, by the police
• I am part of the easyJet culture
• "Dog Man Star" by Suede
• The Jam
• The Long Good Friday
• John Dory...it's a fish, by the way
• words: vertiginous, cenotaph, Canberra, biro, plinth, Geordie, alluvium, cormorants, courgette, grotty, paracetamol, pissoir, peripatetic

All right, all right! I may love this book, just not the people in it!

And, here the covers I wish I had instead:

65 Books in a Year: Book #3 I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell

I think if I divide my review of this book into parts it will help me better understand why I like it so much and why I would so be Mr. Max's friend had I the chance to meet him.

I Feel Like I Know Him...
OK, not really, but we are the same age and because of that his experiences ring true to me. I've been telling people that if I took the stories from every guy I've met, starting with the first day of college and ending with yesterday, all of their stories (and, I will not tell them because they are not mine to share, but really I know some stories that are just as outrageous and hilarious; probably more so as they are from people I know) would not even begin to amount to the plethora of stories that this one guy has...lots of crazy stories from just one guy. His stories make me laugh as much as I want to throw-up and, frankly, they make me feel a little nostalgic for a time when I had friends who had crazy stories to tell. I like that he communicates with his readers via his email and his blog. I like that he respects his friends enough to not tell their stories without their permission.

I mean we've all met this type of guy, you know the cocky self-aware guy who parties hard to work hard (in Max's case working hard is typing his exploits on his blog, writing books, writing advice columns and articles), who is educated and learned and well-read, and who, no matter how much we hate it, does not lie. Why would he? What would he be getting from the lie? Obviously, he gets more from telling the truth. He's the kind of guy who has just as many girl friends as guy friends as fbs. The kind of guy who really is an open book.

On Being Anti-Female, Anti-Feminist and Unfunny...
I'm not sure why people verbally and, I guess sometimes, physically abuse this guy. He's not any different than a lot of guys out there. Even his way of story telling isn't any different. I can't tell if people don't like him because he took something that loads of males go through and made money off of it or if they don't like him out of some misguided jealousy and or misplaced rage about the injustice of the world.

I like the way he writes. I truly believe he would not respect a girl who wasn't smart--sure he'd sleep with her, but he wouldn't like her. I think that he could like someone and make fun of them at the same time.

Even guys like this grow up. It seems that even now this is happening to Mr. Max, even as I type this.

And, if someone thinks Tucker Max is cool and tries to be him, they aren't even going to get close if they aren't honest and aren't willing to take responsibility for their actions. It seems (now granted I haven't read any of the recent books although I have them ready to read on my Nook) that this guy has rules and standards for every aspect of his life; even if those rules are a little skewed. See page 157:

"...I have since learned how awful it was and now take pains to explain to women what I want and what I expect from them before we do anything, which is not only the right thing to do, it prevents the kind of issues that happen here [saying "I love you" and not really meaning it] from occurring later on."

I just like this (from one of his websites FAQ; a FAQ, I'd like to note, I read after writing the above):

"... most people cannot conceive of a reality outside their own experience. If they can’t see themselves doing it, they can’t believe anyone else can do it. So when some jealous anti-social loser reads my stuff, sometimes he will react in disbelief because he can’t imagine himself interacting with people in a way that doesn’t suck."

And, he's got a pretty Kick A** booklist...as a friend in college said to me on more than one occasion, "You really like brain sex [talking about books, movies, plays, lectures, philosophizing about life]." Yes, yes I do and I'm sure I could talk to Tucker Max about a number of topics. I'm just as sure that I'd never want to meet Mr. Max at a bar or a club or at a function of any kind.

The Ranking...
So, why the 4-stars? After a few drunken, throw-up party stories, they all seem to be the same and it got a little tiring to not be able to comment/talk back and it felt like a train-wreck towards the end; a train-wreck I couldn't stop reading about.

Is it wrong that I refuse to call this "fratire"?

55 Books in a Year: Book #42 The Garner Files

I have a wee bit of a confession (I love this blog for that reason) I love James Garner. I have loved James Garner for as long as I can remember. The Rockford Files used to come on after school, right before Scooby-Doo and I would walk home really fast so I wouldn't miss it. My first memory of him is in Rockford. He's lying on the grass with some chick (I don't really care who) and he's wearing a cream-colored cable-knit sweater. At the tender age of about 7, even I knew that not every man could pull off a cream colored cable-knit sweater.

I received The Garner Files for Christmas. Chris knew I wanted it...at least I hope he did. Every time we went to the bookstore I touched it or held it, I may have even said I wanted it...maybe. Anyway, I received it for Christmas, but I also received my Nook Tablet for Christmas--it was a miracle Christmas.

I read it a little and then, well, I read my Nook...it wasn't James Garner's fault by any means. His book is filled with all the wonderfulness of the stories of a gentleman who has lived a pretty glorious and awesome life. It was me. It was the darned light up screen and ease of travel. It was the fact that I didn't want to buy the book on my Nook.

And, then something marvelous happened, in hind-sight anyway, my Nook's cord broke and while waiting for a replacement I had to go on a trip to Chicago for a conference. On the way there I read a little James, in between sessions I read a little James and the 2nd night in I finished it.

Really, it's just that good.

It's hard for me to separate James Garner from Thomas Evans, my grandfather. Garner has a no nonsense approach to living. He sued the movie industry not to make money, but because it was the right thing to do. He punches liars and cheaters. He works just as hard as he plays. He loves cars and racing and golf and the out of doors. He loves his daughters and his wife and women. He values hard-work, honesty and ownership. And, he owns a lot in this book...he isn't perfect, but he is moral.

I love that he mentions Rob Lowe in this book because I couldn't help feeling that they both have a lot in common and, just like when I read Rob's book, I couldn't help but think about how cool it would be to meet James Garner and how awesome it would be just to talk with him about pretty much anything.

In his book we see a man that truly as lived life with no regrets. Many people talk about how this book has been narrated by a gentle curmudgeon. I don't disagree, however, James Garner's no nonsense attitude about his fame, his family, and his lot in life is something to be emulated and revered.

He would hate the praise, but he'd take it.

Sidenote: Several years ago James Garner and entourage came through our town. A student met him and the conversation about it went a little something like this.

Student: "There was some old guy who came in to get a cup of coffee at the store last night, my manager says he's famous."
Me: "Oh, really what has he been in?"
Student: "I dunno some show where he was a cowboy and another where he drove this really cool car. My manager was showing me pictures. He's names like Gardner or something."
Me: "Oh my gosh! You met James Garner and you don't even understand how awesome that is!?"
Student: "What, oh, I have his autograph on a receipt...that's cool, right!?"
Me: "What did he say to you?"
Student: "He just some plain coffee."
Me: "And...?"
Student: "That's it. I don't know. He was talking to my manager."
Me: "Gah, that's so unfair!"

I'm still whining about my not getting to meet James Garner. Sad day.

Link to a pretty cool review...I must say I'm a little jealous of her fan club card.

BAND May Discussion: The Topics You Hate To Admit You Enjoy

Kim over at Sophisticated Dorkiness (my Christmas Card Exchange partner) has another blog that she co-authors titled BAND: Blogger's Alliance of Non-fiction Devotees and if you want to participate, this is what you do...from the About Us section:

How to Participate 

Our main online headquarters is this blog and this is where you can find any updates you need.  

Each month, a different nonfiction blogger will post a topic for discussion, which we’ll post a link to here. To participate, write up a response to their topic — as long or short as you’d like — for your blog at any time during the month. Please also leave a link to your response at the original topic post so the host can write up a wrap-up at the end of the month. 

May's topic

Gah! I like chees-tastic self-help books--there I said it. I like to do the quizzes and then compare my traits with those of my students and peers.

My favorite is Living Your Colors: Practical Wisdom for Life, Love, Work and Play.

I also hate to admit that I enjoy books that mix science and religion, philosophy and/or Pop Culture.

My favorite that encompasses all of those traits is Taking the Red Pill: Science, Philosophy and Religion in The Matrix.

I shamefully like Media Tie-Ins...I like to know the ins and outs of all my favorite television shows and movies.

My favorites of these are The Unofficial X-Files Companion: An X-Phile's Guide to the Mysteries, Conspiracies, and Really Strange Truths Behind the Show and Friends: The Official Companion Book (a book that I received from my dormmates for my 20th birthday in 1996).

55 Books in a Year: Book #15 Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me (And Other Concerns)

Don't let her take on Kelly Kapoor fool you. Word on the street is that Mindy Kaling author of Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me (And, Other Concerns) is a pretty cool gal.

If you read her book, you will find that these claims are not without merit. She talks about:

Serious Things
1. being Indian
2. being chubby
3. doing what you love and loving what you do
4. failure
5. family

Girl Things
1. how to deal with being crushed by the boy you love
2. breaking up with your best friends
3. why you should never have a one-night stand
4. relationships or the lack thereof
5. romantic comedies and how it's OK to love them

Silly Things
1. finding the right stylist for you
2. being too nerdy for words
3. being unathletic
4. yelling at your boss
5. "Matt and Ben"

The whole chapter about not peaking in high school was disarming in it's dead-on take of what high school is and should be for all those involved. Achieve to your greatest extent, so you can achieve more later. Don't be one of those people whose best moment happened their junior year of high school. And, don't listen to those people who believe that high school is their greatest achievement.

     Teenage girls, please don’t worry about being super popular in high school, or being the best actress in high school, or the best athlete. Not only do people not care about any of that the second you graduate, but when you get older, if you reference your successes in high school too much, it actually makes you look kind of pitiful, like some babbling old Tennessee Williams character with nothing going on in their current life. What I’ve noticed is that no one who was a big star in high school is also a big star later in life, except athletes. For us overlooked kids, it’s so wonderfully fair. 

     I was never the lead in the play. I don’t think I went to a single party with alcohol at it. No one shared pot with me. It wasn’t until I was sixteen that I even knew marijuana and pot were the same thing. My parents didn’t let me do social things on weeknights because weeknights were for homework, and maybe an an episode of The X-Files if I was being a good kid (X-Files was on Friday night), and on extremely rare occasions I could watch Seinfeld (Thursday, a school night), if I just aced my PSATs or something. I had a great time in high school, but it wasn’t the high school experience you seen on teen dramas, where people are in serious romantic relationships, and hanging out in parking lots or whatever (isn’t that loitering?). I had fun in my academic clubs, watching movies with my girlfriends, learning Latin, having long, protracted, unrequited crushes on older guys who didn’t know me, and yes, hanging out with my family. I liked hanging out with my family! Later, when you’re grown up, you realize you never get to hang out with your family. You pretty much only have eighteen years to spend with them full-time and that’s it. So yeah, it all added up to a happy, memorable time. Even though I was never a star. 

     Because I was largely ignored at school, I watched everyone like an observant weirdo, not unlike Eugene Levy’s character Dr. Allan Pearl, from Waiting for Guffman, who famously “sat next to the class clown, and studied him.” But I did that with everyone. It has helped me so much as a writer you have no idea.

     I just want ambitious teenagers to know it is totally fine to be quiet, observant kids. Besides being a light to your parents, you will find you have plenty of time later to catch up. So many people I work with—famous actors, accomplish writers—were overlooked in high school. Be like Allan Pearl. Sit next to the class clown and study him. Then grow up, take everything you learn, and get paid to be a real-life class clown, unlike whatever unexciting thing the actual high school class clown is going now. I think our class clown is doing marketing in Warwick, Connecticut.

She does all of this with such wit and charm that I could not put the book down (thank goodness I read it at the beginning of Spring Break) and found myself laughing in the bathroom (where I do my best reading), in the kitchen (while waiting for things to boil or fry) and on the plane.

Mindy Kaling feels like the kind of lady that can make you laugh, cry, hate/love yourself, hate/love her all at the same time. She feels like a best friend.

I'm so glad I read this book.

55 Books in a Year: Book #11 For Men Only: A Straightforward Map to the Inner Lives of Women

I'd like to premise this book review by first saying this book, For Men Only: A Straightforward Guide to the Inner Lives of Women by Shaunti and Jeff Feldhahn isn't quite as cheesy as I thought it was going to be, although there are parts that are so obnoxiously cheesetastic that my husband and I laughed a little at the absurdity.

I was reading an article the other day and it said that married people don't talk enough about the wonderfulness that is marriage. And, I thought to myself that I totally fall into that category my husband can make me angry as hell (frankly, I'm angry with him right now...and, he's in the other room playing the guitar...probably, um, angry at me too!), but I love him, I also like him and I like him to know all of that. I do think that marriage is work, though, and I think that those who don't make it look like work are working at that, but it doesn't mean the work can't be fun!

The Story
I wanted us to have something for Valentine's Day that we both could benefit from...don't get me wrong I wanted flowers and dinner too, but I wanted our presents to have meaning. I remembered a girl from work reading these books with her fiance and thought they would be a good idea for us.

Some plusses

• If your husband is like mine...you can still read this book all the way and he can use the Quick Start Guide which is included in the book and has 6 key components (Reassurance, Emotions, Security, Listening, Sex and Beauty) and where to find them throughout the book.
• This book talks about the fact that the biggest problem with marriage is communication and then it shares ideas about how to fix this. I like that those ideas aren't incredibly secular, nor are they dirty.
• If you buy the two books together (For Couples Only) they also come with this handy-dandy guide, which includes "12 Tips to Get Great Results from For Couples Only" my favorite being the one where you switch books (which is what we did, if you're wondering why I read this book clearly labeled for men) and answer the questions and mark it up et cetera and then you get to read your book with your partners comments.
• It works for either marrieds or seriously thinking about getting marrieds.

Some not so plusses

• I'm just going to say this and hope that no one gets offended, because it is steeped in good Christian living, it can be a bit old-fashioned...ok, it can be a lot old fashioned. For instance, Chapter 7 is titled The Girl in the Mirror and is sub-titled "What the little girl inside your woman is dying to hear from you--and how to guard your answer well." What does she want to hear? That her spouse finds her 'beautiful' and that her husband 'only has eyes for her'. Barf. And, while the chapter does end with some wonderful advice about the words 'fine' and 'no'...all I could keep thinking was I am not a pet.
• I hear the For Women Only book is hokier...I wouldn't know because, well, my husband hasn't finished it yet!

I really liked reading this book and marking it up. I liked learning what I feel makes a relationship and what I think makes it work and I like that my husband not gets to see what I think...that's so much easier than trying to talk about feelings. I'm not sure I'll feel the same way reading the next book with marks that aren't mine, but I will work at making that work. I wouldn't have it any other way.

55 Books in a Year: Book #9 The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective

Barnes and Noble had Kate Summerscale's book The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective on the Daily Find...I'm not really sure when, I'm not really sure that it matters. Anyway, I'm not sure I would have noticed the book, but one of my Goodreads groups (Reading the Chunksters) was about to start reading The Moonstone and I'd spent some time researching it, and I knew what the name Whicher meant to the making of The Moonstone.

In researching it I found out that Mr. Whicher, a real life detective, was one of the first  in Scotland Yard, the only man to truly solve the horrid murder of a 3-year old boy, and, the prototype for which every subsequent detective has been modeled. I mean everyone from Sherlock Holmes, and beyond...Remington Steele, Maisie Dobbs, Bones, The Mentalist ...every detective has, in some way, been imprinted with his traits. Which is strange to think because Whicher was right when the world told him he was wrong and he went to the grave knowing the murderer had been caught, but not knowing all the answers, as it took the death of everyone involved to know the whole story. 

I read this book not quite understanding it. I read it knowing it was being modeled after Wilkie Collins books but did not know what that meant. 

I think that was Summerscale's point. Her book reads like a detective novel winding around the truth and the lies and the people until you almost don't know which end is up. If you are a clever person (and, by clever I mean one of those people who reads enough detective novels and watches enough detective shows to get the truth) than you know who committed the crime about 15 pages in, but that isn't the whole of it.

You must read to figure out the why and the what.

And, that's the sad part, I truly wish I'd read Collins' book first for two reasons 1] I wouldn't have thought that whole bit in the middle of the Summerscale book was sooooo boring, I'd have known that it, again, was just modeling itself after The Moonstone and it's many and varied layers. Point for Summerscale, on that one. Of course, reading the Summerscale's book does have one MAJOR drawback. Which leads me to 2]...

Because of Summerscale's book, I know the whole thing in The Moonstone! :

Godfrey did it. He got Franklin to help, not sure if Franklin was willing or not. Rachel is covering for Franklin because she doesn't know that Godfrey is the guilty one. And, if those blasted Victorians would just say what they see and let go of propriety, the stone could be recovered. It won't be though. At least I'm pretty sure that will be the case.

If I would have known all this. I might have held off reading until I was finished with The Moonstone. You can't compare the death of a child to the theft of a diamond (no matter how large) and I can't help but see how the Victorian fascination with the murder of a little boy affected the telling of this tale, and that hurts my heart a little.

I also think that if I'd read Collins first, I might have immediately been fascinated with Summerscale's story telling abilities. Instead, I was just annoyed that she wasn't getting to the obvious point fast enough.

3 Stars
 
I initially gave this book 3 stars because I thought the middle dragged, I still think it drags, but with a purpose...I think I may have to change it to...


4 Stars   

The more I read The Moonstone, the more I think that Summerscale is a brilliant mastermind! From NPR

55 Books in a Year: Book #3 Geek Girls Unite, How Fangirls, Bookworms, Indie Chicks, and Other Misfits are Taking Over the World

I am a geek. I've embraced that fact from the first day I went to visit my grandfather and he told me stories about WWII and his early life in PA. While other kids were reading Amelia Bedelia (and, I read her too!), I was reading about fighter jets and pilots and Tuskegee Airmen...collecting WWII stories was my first foray into geekdom.

Fast forward to a few years later, which you can read all about here, I began an adventure in SF. I've collected books, movies and actors (yes, if you keep stats on actors on paper like IMBD, in 1985, before said website was even thought up and before the interwebs were created for mass use, you are, in fact, collecting actors), I collected dolls...er action figures (I still have my Yoda action figure, no you may not buy it from me) and I still have my Mulder and Scully Barbies (no you may not have those either!), rocks and posters. Starting my adult years I began to collect recipes and glassware. I think that it is being a collector that makes any person a geek. I don't think that Leslie Simon, author of Geek Girls Unite, disagrees at all.

The book is broken up into chapters focusing on various types of 'geeks’ (fangirl, literary, film, music, funny girl, domestic and miscellaneous) and each of those sections follows the same format: a quiz (where the answers are always 'C'...don't know why that is), a character sketch, descriptions of famous geeks of that ‘genre’, ‘frenemies’ (which is an hilarious look at those in that particular community that give the rest a bad name...) and concludes with ‘the perfect match for’ section. It's this last part that cracks me up the most, it's like Geek girls meet Cosmo mag and my friends and I had such a fun time checking off the list and then adding our own.

I like how Simon uses the introduction to make sure that we understand that while she may poke fun at this or that and that while we may do that too, we are all in this together. She says

It's time for us to reclaim the connotations of being a "geek" and hold tight to the term as a source of pride and distinction. In other words, embrace your quirkiness! Celebrate your idiosyncrasies! There is power in your geekiness! Trust.

And...

Here's the most important thing, though: just because our passions aren't the same," that doesn't mean we aren't united in our geeky affection for what ever it is that makes us happy--even if it feels like society sometimes pits us against one another. ...being a geek should unite--not divide--us. If one good thing comes out of this book, it will be that you get to know your geeky sisters (and cousins) so you can recognize these fabulous ladies when you see them, start a conversation, and realize that our differences are actually what bring us closer together.

I remembered the above when she defined, with a little bit of sass, but all truisms, the terms that I have used to refer to myself (geek, nerd, dork, dweeb, weirdo) and when, on more than one occasion, I found myself falling into the 'frenemies' category. We, even those of us who only scratch the surface of someone else's obsession, must love each other and unite in order to conquer the world.

Geek Girls Unite is just informative enough that teenager girls, who feel their inner geek, but can't find an outlet, can learn more and identify with others and those of us who already know what we are can laugh in delight. I mean I have at one time or another been totally in love with David Tennant (my Fangirl Geek Girlness), James Franco (my Literary Geek Girlness), Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Mark Ruffalo (my Film Geek Girlness), Jack White (my Music Geek Girlness), Andy Samberg (my Funny-Girl Geek Girlness)...and, I've crushed on Hungry Girl, Anthony Bourdain, Tina Fey, Stephen Colbert and John Stewart. I liked that Simon talks about Athletic Geek Girl as a person who doesn't necessarily play or want to play sports (it goes back to that collecting thing I mentioned earlier) so I felt comfortable about falling into this category as well. 

This book is part encyclopedia, part humor, part commentary, part major to-do list (as in I must now watch _____ or create a mix-CD of ________, why haven't I done that before?) and definitely a call to arms to all geek girls out there.

It is, after all, "a geek's world; everyone else is just living in it."

5 Stars

This book isn't really 280 pages on the Nook...seriously like 70 pages are footnotes. Each footnote gets its own page so you can click back and forth effortlessly. I'd like to also note that this book is glitchy moving from the last page of a chapter to the first page of the next one...not really sure what that's about, but I'm sure it can be fixed and I will wait to go to B&N before archiving and unarchiving et cetera, I have an irrational fear of deleting things that I shouldn't!

55 Books in a Year: Book #2 Fifth Avenue, 5 AM, Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany's and the Dawn of the Modern Woman

I'd make an excellent Mid-Century woman.  I enjoy making meatloaf and deviled eggs and jell-o molds.  I passionately watch The Dick Van Dyke Show, Ozzie and Harriett and Mad Men, longing for the times when women made cakes from scratch, cigarettes were smoked in front of children, people drank at every occasion (I love a good mixed drink in a perfectly shaped glass poured over perfectly shaped ice) and couples slept in separate beds, sometimes separate rooms. I understand that even Mad Men is a stylized version of this era, but I can't help it, I love the dresses, the food, the struggles and the imperfections of this time in American history.

Fifth Avenue, 5 AM by Sam Wasson encompasses that era with equal parts nostalgia and grit. It is the story of Audrey Hepburn and her reluctance to be the poster girl for Modern American women, her desire to be a mother, her failed relationships and, in the end, her willingness to accept herself in her imperfections. Audrey Hepburn is the reason why women wear little black dresses, but Holly Golightly (the heroine of Breakfast and Tiffany's) is the prototype of the modern female. Holly is the perfect combination of sex and femininity and, Wasson will tell you, she was the perfect bridge between June Cleaver and Marilyn Monroe.

Wasson deftly weaves touch tones of America into this tale. He describes how Hepburn helped revolutionize the fashion industry, making designer clothing appeal to the average working class woman. He talks about class, a smidgelette about race, fashion, the film industry, the music industry (where would the movie be without Mancini's "Moon River"?), gender, sexuality and Truman Capote (yes, Mr. Capote belongs in a class all his very own) and gives us enough information to know that he's in love with all of it and, yet, wants us to love it for ourselves not because he says so. 

Everytime I picked up the book and began reading I was propelled back to a time of dualities; on one hand America's need to look and be picture perfect and, on the other hand, a nation who wanted to show it's true, unglossy, promiscuous self. I gotta tell you I love both sides. I also love that Wasson makes sure that his readers understand that it is Breakfast's at Tiffany's (the film more than the movie) that signifies our break from trying to be the perfect Land of Liberty.

I didn't realize I would identify with Audrey Hepburn so much. Her struggle to balance her personal desires to be a good wife and mother, with those of her husband and those of one of the first modern career women kept me reading just to see how she was going to succeed through /in-spite of it all.

Read this book (doesn't the title just make you want to?). Be prepared to laugh and cry (OK, I didn't cry, but I did gasp a few times at the glorious story). Be prepared to hum "Moon River" in the shower. Be prepared to yearn for cigarettes and martinis and a time when everything was new and America was a blushing debutante. 

4 Stars   

Wasson interrupts my flow of reading a little too much with all of his topic headings. Oh, and I also didn't like that he didn't have nice things to say about George Pippard. Who doesn't like Hannibal?

BAND December Discussion: Truth in Non-fiction

Kim over at Sophisticated Dorkiness (my Christmas Card Exchange partner) has another blog that she co-authors titled BAND: Blogger's Alliance of Non-fiction Devotees and if you want to participate, this is what you do...from the About Us section:

How to Participate 

Our main online headquarters is this blog and this is where you can find any updates you need.  

Each month, a different nonfiction blogger will post a topic for discussion, which we’ll post a link to here. To participate, write up a response to their topic — as long or short as you’d like — for your blog at any time during the month. Please also leave a link to your response at the original topic post so the host can write up a wrap-up at the end of the month. 

Decembers' topic

I'm going to answer this first as a teacher and then as a reader of non-fiction, as my answers for each bisect here and there, but are quite different from one another.

As a teacher, I believe that for research purposes a student must take the time to figure out if and how what he or she is reading is truth. And, I'm talking about 'truth' in how they see or perceive something. I'll give you an example. One of my students wanted to write his research paper on the conspiracy theory behind the attack on Pearl Harbor (the theory is old, but the research is new enough that there are very few 'true' books on the subject). For the record, I have a hard time being convinced of a conspiracy, but told him that I do believe that, just like 9-11, people knew and could stop it and told him so. He found some websites that I would not let him use to back up his point as they were radical, inflammatory and didn't really say anything except for to rile up conspiracy and anti-government theorist. He kept on insisting that he be able to use these websites as proof that a conspiracy existed. We went round and round about how to find a reputable site. Finally, I said find a book that says it and use that book. He, of course, sarcastically commented back, "Oh, if it's in a book, it must be true." I said, "No, not necessarily, if I read a book about the Pearl Harbor Conspiracy, I'd still want to do my own research about it's validity." To me it's easy to check if something is true at the level of research, you find a book, you read it, you research the topics of that book, you find reviews to check the validity of the author, you find reputable websites (and, for the students this means going to an online research search engine like EBSCOhost that filters out the crap) and, finally, you use your heart and mind to test it against what you know to be true.

As a reader of non-fiction, my answer is a little more simple. I read about things that I'm interested in, I don't have to check out their validity I know them to be true. I've been reading Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton book for years now, I don't research if what he's saying is true or not, I know enough about Mr. Hamilton to know that what I've read so far is accurate and therefore I assume the rest must be. When I go to Wikipedia to research a topic for it's validity (this happens more in historical fiction, than non-fiction) I believe all the cursory information I see there...really, every time. And, if I want some interesting reading I check out the references and buy books from that list...books that I read and believe whole-heartedly.

Booking Through Thursday (Biographies)

From Booking Through Thursday:

There are so many crappy biographies … would you rather read a poorly-written biography of a fascinating life, OR an exquisitely well-written, wonderful read of one of a not-so-interesting life?

           This is from a couple of Thursdays ago, but, I didn't do it and I like it so...

          I'd much rather read an exquisitely well-written, wonderful read of one of a not-so-interesting life (or, in the case of the book I'm about to talk about, topic).
          For several years now, I've been assigning a project where my students have to read a non-fiction book. I do this, I tell them and myself, so they will have several non-fiction topics under their belt and I will too. I introduce the assignment by doing a book talk over a non-fiction book I've read (several students then fight over this book...I usually let them all read it, I don't mind). Before I started assigning this project I really didn't read non-fiction, I'm finding that, now, I do! Anyway...they have the whole semester to read the book and complete this packet and then at the end of the semester we have book talks, where I have the students write down the title, the author and a phrase about each of the books that are being presented that way at the end they (and, let's be honest, I) have a wonderful list of books to read.
           Every year there's a handful of books that I put on my TBR pile. One year there was a book that I wouldn't have even thought to read had my very nerdy Mathy student (who didn't really like to read and took Honors English because he knew that he should not because he liked it) not given an informative and delightfully geeky presentation. It's called Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea and is about the advent of the number zero a number that we take for granted, but would have been considered heretic at one time, after all how can you 'count' nothing?
          Here's what Barnes and Noble says about it:

A concise and appealing look at the strangest number in the universe and its continuing role as one of the great paradoxes of human thought.

The Babylonians invented it, the Greeks banned it, the Hindus worshiped it, and the Church used it to fend off heretics. Now, as Y2K fever rages, it threatens a technological apocalypse. For centuries the power of zero savored of the demonic; once harnessed, it became the most important tool in mathematics. For zero, infinity's twin, is not like other numbers. It is both nothing and everything.

In Zero science journalist Charles Seife follows this innocent-looking number from its birth as an Eastern philosophical concept to its struggle for acceptance in Europe, its rise and transcendence in the West, and its ever-present threat to modern physics. Here are the legendary thinkers--from Pythagoras to Newton to Heisenberg, from the Kabalists to today's astrophysicists--who have tried to understand it and whose clashes shook the foundations of philosophy, science, mathematics, and religion. Zero has pitted East against West and faith against reason, and its intransigence persists in the dark core of a black hole and the brilliant flash of the Big Bang. Today, zero lies at the heart of one of the biggest scientific controversies of all time, the quest for a theory of everything.

Anyway, I read it and LOVE it and recommend it to everyone...heck, I guess, I'm recommending it to you! Mr. Seife, the author, writes in such a way that I can understand numbers and physics and there's History and intrigue. Seriously, this subject in the hands of an author who couldn't articulate what he or she wanted to say would have made this book soooooo dry and boring.

50 Books in a Year: Book #25 The Devil in the White City

          I am sad that the advent in technology brought about the demise of the World's Fair. I love the World's Fair, I mean can you imagine living in the country and once every few years or so paying money to see new and exciting inventions. I think getting to eat a hot dog, or an ice cream cone, try cracker jacks or ride a ferris wheel for the very first time in history would have been soooo cool.
          I love Chicago. It is my favorite city in all of the United States. I love the museums, the diners, the baseball, the bars, the restaurants and their food. I love the smell of Chicago, which is a little bit my grandmother's cooking and truck deisel and all Midwestern. I love the parks and the architecture and the history of a city as corrupt (Al Capone and, that one guy...you know the guy with the weird name who...oh, you know!) as it is beautiful.
          I also have a darker side...
          This dark person that lives in me has always been fascinated with the methodology of serial killers. Did you know that serial killing is stereotypically an American trait (something to do with wide open spaces doctors think), stereotypically male and the serial killer at the Chicago World's Fair was one of the first of his type?
          Imagine how I felt several years ago when the book The Devil in the White City came out...world's fair, serial killer all in one well researched and detailed package set in my favorite city in the United States of America...and, yet I didn't buy it, as I have a hard time buying hardcovers. I also didn't buy it when my high school lit group wanted to read it...and, I put off buying it for a long time, actually. I did so because I am silly and foolish and was trying to deny myself some sort of basic pleasure...frankly, I don't know why I did it.