Behold: Our Bêtes Noires

bête noire. Noun. Something that is particularly disliked. A person or thing that one particularly dislikes or dreads.  

Collins English Dictionary

Admit it: somewhere out there, there’s a book you tried to read and just…couldn’t. Even people who force themselves to finish every book they pick up meet their Waterloo somewhere. Thankfully, you’re not alone. One of our regular readers, Valerie, had this to say about her experience of reading Proust:

It started out as a noble effort. I was trying to be cultured and well-read: I was going to read In Search of Lost Time and I was going to read the whole thing. I was so confident that I didn’t even consider aiming just to read Swann’s Way. I ordered the entire set–seven volumes of Proust, in all his glory, 4,211 pages of beautiful, enchanting, intellect-affirming prose. Boy, was I going to feel good about myself when I was done. After all, Edmund White called In Search of Lost Time “the most respected novel of the twentieth century.” Harold Bloom agreed with him. For heaven’s sake, Michael Chabon said it was his favorite book, and he’s a cool dude.

As it turns out, Edmund, Harold, and Michael are all crazy. The main character starts off a sniveling, whiny little brat who won’t stop bugging his mother about coming to kiss him goodnight. Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s about the experience of love and memory and anxiety, but still, I wanted to kick that kid. And he really doesn’t get less annoying from there. Then there’s that thing where he goes on and on about the cookie, and again, yes, I know: this is a beautiful, iconic scene. But the fact of the matter is that it’s a little sponge cake. It isn’t even warm and gooey and full of chocolate chips, so really, who cares?

Proust may not be your bugbear, but many of us on the Eleventh Stack team have felt Valerie’s pain via one book or another. We’re guessing you have, too. In today’s post, our team members reveal the books they simply couldn’t bring themselves to finish (though some are still open to trying again).

Behold: our bêtes noires.

*****

Aisha- It’s Not Me, It’s You

Best book ever? I will never know.

I didn’t start reading Janet Evanovich‘s Stephanie Plum novels until 2006 so I was late to the party. And it was a party. I loved them. They were amusing and a quick read. I read them rapidly until I was caught up, then waited for the new ones to come out. And then something happened: I stopped enjoying them. I still read them, but it felt like an obligation. I had read 14 of them, 15 of them, 16 of them; I had to keep going, right? When Notorious Nineteen came out, I started to read it and then realized I didn’t want or have to finish it. What was the point? It seemed to be the same story over and over. Stephanie accidentally shoots her gun. Grandma Mazur goes to the funeral home. Lula wears brightly colored spandex and eats a lot. Stephanie thinks about Morelli. Stephanie thinks about Ranger. A car blows up. And? It felt like breaking up with someone I’d been with a long time. Maybe Notorious Nineteen was the best of the series, but I’ll never know. When it’s over, it’s over. And it’s over, Janet.

Don

There was a time, when I was younger, that I finished every book I picked up. Part of the reason was, I remembered reading To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. Up to about page 100, I thought it was one of the worst things I ever read. At page 100 it took off, and, amazingly, it is, to this day, one of my favorite novels. So, there’s the cautionary tale of giving up too soon.

I wish I could say the same thing about Salman Rushdie‘s Midnight’s Children, a book that, three quarters of the way through, I literally threw across the room with a resounding thump on the bungalow wall. Why? Well, the man’s ego was so large that he, in my estimation, had literally crowded the remaining 200 or so pages of the book, so I was done anyway.

Amy

Middlemarch, by George Eliot – Middlemarch. Oh, how I hate you, Middlemarch. This weighty and terrible tome was forced upon me when I was a freshman in college. That very same year, one week into my first semester of college, I was in a rather nasty car accident. I was GRATEFUL for that car accident because it gave me an excuse to drop that particular English class and cast aside the epic preachy tediousness of this book.

Alas, I was forced back into its pages as a junior, but even then I still never managed to get more than two-thirds of the way through the damn thing. I just could not feel any sympathy for that chick (Dorothea something?) when she married the old preacher dude (cause she thought she was being all noble and shit) and then fell for his hot cousin (the only interesting person in the book). HEY LADY, YOU MADE YOUR CHOICE. YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO MARRY THE OLD DUDE. DEAL WITH IT.

P.S. I also hate Charles Dickens. Sorry, Don.

Holly

My history of unfinished books is long and sordid.  It is an occupational hazard.  A book that seems so promising when it arrives at the library is left behind, mid-page,  for a new, shiny book, and soon forgotten. A recent title that has been returned to the library, swearing that I would one day pick back up, is New Jersey Noir.  This series covers all kinds of cities and places, from Pittsburgh to Kingston.  I love the idea of this noir series!  And how perfectly campy is a New Jersey collection?!?!  Sadly, I had to stop reading it after the story of a murder in Hoboken gave me nightmares.  Horror stories tend to do that to me. I promised myself one day I’ll go back and finish the other stories, but that was books and books ago…

Leigh Anne

Dear David Foster Wallace, wherever you are:

I wish you were still with us here, and still writing. From what I’ve read about you thus far, you were a genius, the kind of person who makes some people uncomfortable and gives others hope. But I hope that, wherever you are, you can forgive me for just not being smart enough to understand what you were trying to do in Infinite Jest. The joke is clearly on me, because I just don’t get it. At all. There’s a movie that cracks people up, quite literally, and tennis, and addiction, and satire, and and and. It’s just all too much. Mind you, I’ve read Finnegans Wake cover to cover, on purpose, so it’s not like I can’t handle a good mental workout. Still. Everybody’s brain has a limit.

You’ll have to forgive me. I really appreciate your genius, from a distance. But nobody likes to feel stupid. So I’m just going to acknowledge that you were smarter than I will ever be, and walk away slowly…

Jess

Like Leigh Anne, I put the tiniest of dents in Infinite Jest before wanting to hurl the book across the room. But that book is heavy (1079 pages!), so I just set it down gently and gave it the stink-eye… I’m really here to talk about World War Z, though. I get why this book works for some folks, but the things that didn’t work for me – non-linear plot told through vignettes, no true central character to provide an emotional core – were enough that I couldn’t finish it. The lack of connection and jumping around so much you feel worn out very much serve a purpose, however I almost wish Brooks had focused on just a few locations and spent longer chapters exploring how they were affected.

Joelle

I am so ashamed to admit that I cannot bring myself to read The Great Gatsby. I have picked it up three or four times in the past 30 years, the latest being right before the Leonardo DiCaprio movie came out. I read just a little beyond the first chapter every time. It is on quite a few lists of books that people read more than once. I already know the whole plot, and I grew up on Long Island so I know the area that the story is set. Maybe knowing too much about it is the very reason I just can’t bring myself to stick with it. My expectation is too high and I’m not enthralled at the outset. I will watch the movie anyway.

Maria:

When I was in my twenties, I tried to read all the widely reviewed books that appeared on the New York Times Best Seller list. But now, twenty years later, I’m somewhat ruthless when it comes to giving books a chance. I usually aim for one chapter but I can usually tell if a book is for me just from reading a few paragraphs. The one book that comes to mind that I just could not finish is an older book that was a huge bestseller (and was also made into a movie): The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje. I tried so hard to get into this book but it  didn’t work for me as the author’s voice just didn’t speak to me. And, while I understand that there are different books for different times for different people, I still have no desire to try this one again.

Melissa

(who fancies herself to be the little red-haired girl, when she’s actually probably more of a Marcie!)

Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography, David Michaelis. I love biographies. I love Peanuts. This book’s cover looked like Charlie Brown’s shirt, which I also love. What I didn’t love was this book. 566 pages of biography + 6 pages of acknowledgements + 58 pages of source notes + a 22 page index = a comprehensive tome about this iconic cartoonist. But as we all know, quantity does not always equal quality.

But maybe it is a high-quality work. Anyone looking for background information on Charles Schulz, minutiae even, will find this a fabulous read, I’m sure. If you’ve ever wanted to know why Charlie Brown could never seem to get ahead in the game of life, knowing Schulz’s history will help you figure out exactly where he was coming from. But when I got to page 200 and and the Peanuts gang had not yet made an appearance, I got fed up with Schulz’s self-centered, self-deprecating (and not in the endearing way), dopey personality and gave up!

As I skim through the book now, I think that if I had made it just a little bit further–closer to page 260–I would have seen the Peanuts characters come to life and even found out who the inspirations were for each one. I did appreciate the family photographs and comic strips scattered throughout. They were a welcome break from all that text!

Richard

Damascus Countdown / Joel C. Rosenberg

Synopsis: Israel has launched a first strike on Iran, taking out all of their nuclear sites and six of their nuclear warheads. The Twelfth Imam has ordered a full-scale retaliation. CIA operative David Shirazi has infiltrated the Iranian regime and intercepted information indicating that two Iranian nuclear warheads survived and have been moved to a secure and undisclosed location. David and his team are in a race against time to find the remaining nuclear warheads before disaster strikes.

Rosenberg does a credible job with the raw material he has – it’s today, it’s the headlines and it’s ripe for a Tom Clancy like techno-thriller follow through, which is what I thought this was.  It is to a good degree, but like the TV huckster says “but wait, there’s more.”  I had no inkling that this Rosenberg writes Christian fiction, which I didn’t discover until I started reading.  Not my cup-o-tea to begin with, but this isn’t just inspirational, this is in-your-face Messianic Fiction.  Where Rosenberg lost me, to the point I stopped reading, are the overt Messianic references and placement.  As good as the rest of the story components are, the messianic references are so unsubtle and out of place / out of character, they failed to hold the story together for me; especially the wishfully thought-out Iranian Shiite converts who seamlessly can include the Gospels in their principal conversations about reactors and radiation levels.

The Decameron / Giovanni Boccaccio

Synopsis: In the early summer of 1348, as a terrible plague ravages the city, ten charming young Florentines take refuge in country villa to tell each other stories—a hundred stories of love, adventure and surprising twists of fortune. Boccaccio has little time for chastity, pokes fun at crafty, hypocritical clerics and celebrates the power of passion to overcome obstacles and social divisions.

Maybe I’m just not enamored of pre-Renaissance literature, but I couldn’t make it past the first chapter. It felt contrived and forced.  The story concept is fascinating and I thoroughly enjoyed the book’s forward.  It think my problem is I don’t feel comfortable around translations; I already know that nuances and intent get lost from the original language so I’m already leery.  As easily as I can visualize Napoleon, Alexander or Hannibal in their milieus, I have as hard a time visualizing and believing the 14th Century setting – puffy sleeves and leggings. I can’t say I read enough of this work it to criticize the writing, but Boccaccio and Nichols (the translator) didn’t make it interesting enough to keep me reading on.  

Scott

Why I failed to love Glen Cook’s Black Company novels, and why I will try to love them again:

Glen Cook’s expertly written fantasy fiction should’ve been right up my alley. He adroitly blends powerful magic and other fantastic elements with gritty military themes to tell the story of the eponymous Black Company a mercenary unit with a 500 year history of war and conquest. While others have compared Cook’s style to the spartan prose of Elmore Leonard, I find that some of his descriptions–or lack thereof–act as barriers to my understanding of the action.

While I like flawed characters as much as the next post-modern reader, I also found it hard to settle on a character to focus on and root for. Cook’s employment of an odd, first-person present tense narrative perspective also presents a challenge to someone more comfortable with third person omniscient perspective. While I don’t mind first person stories, the strange immediacy of Cook’s narrator just feels weird to me. Read this excerpt from his publisher’s website to better see what I am trying to explain here.

All of my misgivings and bad experiences aside, there remains gold in those hills. I fully plan to return to The Black Company saga for a second go-round. It took me two tries to fully love Frank Herbert’s Dune and now I re-read that every two years or so, so I will not hesitate to climb back into the saddle with the grizzled vets of Cook’s Black Company.

Suzy

Classic I can’t and won’t finish: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

I had to read Great Expectations by Charles Dickens for my 9th grade English class. Keep in mind, I have always been an avid reader and I usually read whatever was assigned to me. However, due to my general dislike of overdramatic behavior (even as a teenager), I hated every single character in Great Expectations from the door. I read the first two “Stages of Pip’s Expectations.” I never started the third. In fact, to this day over twenty years later, I have no idea how it ends. Never bothered to find out, don’t care; even for this post I still haven’t looked it up, still don’t care.

I thought Pip was an idealistic dipstick with unrealistic expectations. Then he got money and acted like a jerk. I was completely unsympathetic to his plight because he should have known better. Done with Pip. Then there is the cruel Estella, with her whole “I don’t have a heart” thing. Hyperbole much? Give a rest, lady. But it was Miss Havisham that really rubbed the 14-year-old me the wrong way. Is there anyone in the history of literature more self-indulgent and frankly, hysterical than that old bat? You got jilted at the alter so your entire life stopped and you never took off the wedding dress? That is too ridiculous for words and also totally unhygienic. (Seriously. Gross.) There is no man on earth worth that nonsense. Then, crazypants, you raise an orphan to exact vengeance? No. Just no. And if you see me, don’t tell me the ending. I like a little mystery in my life.

Contemporary Novel I can’t and won’t finish: Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

I think this was book club book, but I can’t remember because of the PTSD the first two hundred pages of this book caused me. Freedom actually made me dislike Jonathan Franzen. (I later saw him speak at the Pittsburgh Arts and Lectures Monday night lecture series and he was fantastic; engaging, funny, and not at all the intellectual snob I was expecting.) As with Great Expectations, I hated all the characters and also found them and the entire story completely unbelievable. (And I completely swallowed whole books like A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving and The Life of Pi by Yann Martel. So I can suspend my disbelief.)

Tedium abounds in Freedom. I found the dialogue artificial and even odd. I can’t imagine anyone in a relationship talking like Walt and Patty. And Patty’s autobiography, ugh. (If you want to see how an autobiography/diary can be worked into a novel well, read I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb.) As to the plot: Really, uber-liberal couple, you’d let your teenage son move in with a bunch of hardcore Republicans? Or a talented athlete snowed by a weird fan? With its shallow and unlikeable characters and tiresome plot; I believe I can live a full and happy life without finishing this novel.

*****

For more abandoned books, and why they were put down, see The Paris Review and Barnes and Noble blogs.  We’re truly sorry if we’ve carved up one of your sacred cows, but we’re also curious about you: which books have you broken up with, flung across the room in anger, shunned, or simply just couldn’t finish?

Cajun Hillbillies, Texas Hollerers, Diddley Bowers and Other Dispatches from the Old Weird America

Intrigued by a great recent used LP find, a compilation from a  group called the Louisiana Aces (“Cajun Hank Williams?” Yes please!), I took it upon myself to see if I could dig up a little more American folk music with a unique regional flavor. The Aces record was a sort of revelation for me: I’ve listened to a lot of old country, and a little bit of Cajun music, but the music on this record I bought was such a wonderful and surprising blend of the two. I know that Hank sang in French a little on his classic “Jambalaya,” but for the most part I’ve always associated French lyrics with the chic sounds of Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot, so it was a real treat to hear some honky tonk in French. What else was lurking in the isolated rural music that music critic Greil Marcus famously referred to as “The Old, Weird America?”

The Louisiana Aces record turned out to be a great starting point for investigating new sounds because it was put out by Arhoolie records, a small label that puts out all kinds of regional music and that, more importantly to my search, happens to be well represented in a library database called American Song.

American Song gets my vote for “best kept secret” here at CLP. There is a lot to love about this database — with nothing but a library card and a computer connected to the Internet, you can stream over 120,000 tracks that represent virtually every flavor of American music, from Appalachian hymns to Zydeco. There are a bunch of notable labels represented — Arhoolie as I mentioned above, plus Folkways, Rounder, Document, to name a few — and full reproductions of album covers, liner notes, and other explanatory text. If you spend a lot of time in front of a computer, dip in to American Song or any one of several other streaming audio services offered by the Library.

Note: Because American Song requires a library card login, links to music from this post will go to the landing page for the streaming music databases, where you can click on American Song and log in using your library card number to access these songs. I know, Spotify it ain’t, but what it lacks in convenience it makes up for in depth, free-ness, and being a part of a sustainable business model for these small labels.

A quick search for Cajun music turned up some great old country music from Louisiana with French lyrics. Cajun Honky Tonk is absolutely essential, as is Cajun Champs (Arhoolie 327) and one called Harry Choates: The Fiddle King of Cajun Swing (Arhoolie 380), which we happen to have in CD. Another one, Cajun String Bands: The 1930’s: Cajun Breakdown (Arhoolie 7014) got me thinking that perhaps old Hank should be remembered as the non-Cajun D.L. Menard.

I love this stuff, especially because it’s such a product of the convergence of cultures at a particular time and place. By the time rock and roll artists picked and chose which elements of pre-rock music they would include in their new commercial format, a lot of this regional flavor was left behind, likely because it didn’t have the broad appeal for national airplay.

So what other peculiar takes on American folk music are represented in American Song? There are surely too many to list here, but I’ll point you to some of my favorites.

The Diddley Bow

Nothing speaks more about peoples’ inherent need to make music than the widespread practice of creating homemade instruments out of discarded materials, particularly by poor people in the rural South. For a great example, check out Napolean Strickland’s Key to the Bushes Blues, the first track on Bottleneck Blues (Testament 5021). Strickland backs up his vocals using a one-stringed instrument known as a diddley bow, made of broom wire and snuff bottles, and played with glass bottle as a slide. (There’s a CD in the collection of the same title. I’m sure it’s a great CD but it’s not the same record as the one on American Song.)

Yodeling

It may have seemed for a moment around the middle of last century that yodeling would become a fixture in popular music. Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Snow, and Lefty Frizzell all incorporated yodels into songs. But while some enthusiasts have carried the torch into some more recent recordings (Merle Haggard has been known to yodel, albeit on a Jimmie Rodgers cover), I think that element of pre-rock music will sadly never become mainstream, although I wouldn’t put it past Kanye to give it a shot on his next album. Until then, hear ample evidence of the enduring power of the yodel in all sorts of recordings in American Song: Jimmie Rodgers Recordings:1927-1933 (JSP Records), Gene Autry’s Early Sides (JSP), to Wylie and the Wild West’s 1998 release Total Yodel (Rounder 3162). Yo-da-le-heeeee.

Hollers

Calls and Hollers is, in fact, a distinct sub-genre under folk music, and it’s used to describe a few different types of music, mainly a capella gospel and songs sung by African American workers while doing manual labor. Browsing this genre also brought up a really interesting record, Deep River of Song- Black Texicans: Balladeers and Songsters of the Texas Frontier (Rounder Records, Rounder 11661- 1821- 2). This record was compiled by none other than Alan Lomax, who claims in the liner notes that the recordings are the only record of any participation in the cowboy song tradition by black musicians. It’s incredible stuff, cowboy songs sung by African American cowboys in Texas at the beginning of the 20th Century.

There’s plenty more to love. Do yourself a favor and dig in to the great depths of Americana with American Song.

-Dan, who is considering constructing a Diddley Bow after seeing Jack White build one in a clip from It Might Get Loud.

Summer of the Longbow

For some reason I always read more fiction in the summer. This summer I am falling back on the master of historical fiction, Bernard Cornwell, and his Grail Quest series, Archer’s Tale, Vagabond, Heretic, and 1356.

The setting is the Hundred Year’s War, a theater boasting armored knights in colorful coats of arms, castles, sieges, and the indomitable English longbow, a battlefield advantage so consistently discussed and lionized that it comes as a shock to look at a modern map of France and notice no English territories are left. Seriously, at least weekly one can turn on cable TV and watch an expert in medieval warfare (how many of these people can society support?) shooting arrows into an armored mannequin and breathlessly proclaiming the evident effectiveness of the bodkin point against a French dummy swathed in steel plate.
The long bowman was a triumph of brutal technology against the aristocratic desire to be seen around town charging other aristocrats with a lance. French knights fell in the thousands under storms of English arrows. And this happened on a few different occasions, proving the resiliency of fashion amidst the upper classes. Charging your enemy on horseback was the thing that knights were supposed to do. And if you died stuck with a half dozen arrows fired by a broad backed chav from across the channel, well, c’est la vie!

Besides the bad news for French knights, the Hundred Years War also witnessed the devastation of the French countryside at the hands of marauding bands of English soldiers looking for whatever wealth they could extract from farms, villages, and towns.  Oh, and throw the Black Death into the mix too. It took a hallucinating French teenage girl and an England exhausted by war to finally bring the whole thing to a close. When the dust had settled France was one big step closer to becoming the modern nation state we all know today. And the long bowman became enshrined in English identity, somehow inspiring people with the knowledge that you could invade a country and kill scads of tactically impaired rich guys, take some stuff, and then go back home? Anyway.

Cornwell’s books dive right into the horror and color of this period.  A likeable protagonist tries to sort out the mystery of his past and commits to a quest that could change the world. To ice this cake the author creates a great villain, the sinister Guy Vexille, a man so driven by religious passion he is capable of any evil. I normally detest Holy Grail conspiracy stuff, it’s all so ludicrous. But in this case, the principals involved are of a different time, and the details are wrapped in believable histories. All in all, this is summer escapism done flawlessly. Because the Hundred Years War was so long, something around a hundred years apparently, Cornwell actually wrote another book with different characters to explore the later part of the war and one of the last great English victories, Agincourt.

“But I don’t like long descriptions of people killing each other with archaic weapons!” you say. I guess there are people who might not like that. Thankfully you can get medieval without having to get medieval. Check out the Cadfael series of mysteries by the linguist-scholar Edith Pargeter who wrote under the name Ellis Peters, or the TV adaptation starring Derek Jacobi. You can feel the darkness and hunger of the period without all the stabbing and cutting and arrows flying around and all that. The books are very popular and anything with Derek Jacobi is good.

Sky

Little Boxes in the Archives – a Photoblog

I am currently working on preserving a set of 22 scrapbooks from the Tuesday Musical Club from 1903 – 1973. The Tuesday Musical Club, founded 1889 and still active, started as a social and educational organization for “amateur” women musicians and music enthusiasts of Pittsburgh. Their members perform concerts, bring national musical acts to Pittsburgh, and provide scholarships for music students. Men were admitted starting in 1976. The scrapbooks themselves are a fascinating look at both the history of music in our region and a social history of women in American society. They are permanently housed in the William R. Oliver Special Collections Room.

 The scrapbooks were meticulously put together by club members, and are in okay shape despite their age. This one is from 1911 – 1915. The club printed programs on beautifully embossed cardstock.

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I clean the pages with a special sponge and insert buffered acid-free interleaving tissue paper between the pages. Newspaper is especially acidic and non-archival. (Look! It’s a picture of Mr. Charles N. Boyd!)

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When the scrapbook is ready, I make a custom fitted, archival, corrugated clamshell box. I learned how to make these as an intern at the Preservation Lab at Pitt. My technique was refined by our own in-house Preservation Department. These are all the tools I use.

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I take measurements on a strip of cardboard. I have to be careful to get the right measurement for the thickness of the book, because it has many high and low spots.

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I transfer the measurements to a piece of archival cardboard, using a jig (that small piece of cardboard that measures one, two, or three board-thicknesses), and a square (it’s called a square, but its a triangle).

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I cut out the template.

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I score the lines, then fold the edges of the box.

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The “fun” part – removing the inner layer of cardboard for the corners.

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I put a thin layer of glue on the flaps, and place it around the other edge to make a closed corner.

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Here is the completed box. Each one takes me between fifteen and twenty minutes to make.

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Volume 5 completed. Volume 6 up next.

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-Joelle

A Sonnet for the Spellmans

In honor of my favorite book series, Lisa Lutz‘s The Spellmans,(sorry, Dresden Files and Song of Ice and Fire), I have written a sonnet. Yes, me! The 30-mumblemumble-year-old who just learned to somewhat appreciate a few poems has now written one.

Shall I compare thee to any series?

Thou art more beloved by me than most books.

Why this is so I have many theories

And forever in me you have your hooks.

Thou art far more witty and have more heart

Than so many books before you I’ve read.

You are wacky, wonderful, you are smart.

Reaching the end of you I do so dread.

Lisa Lutz, your author, is wise, ’tis true.

Relationships and family struggles,

Love, grief, regret, hilarity make you

Enthralling for some books full of Muggles.

You are dear to me, Spellman family.

Devoted to you, I will always be.

There are six books in the series so far. The most recent, The Last Word, came out earlier this month.The books are about a family of private investigators who live in San Francisco. Izzy, the main character, is not really where she’d like to be, but has no idea where she’d like to be. Rae, her younger sister, is a little too into private investigating. David, her older brother, is a straight-laced lawyer, frequently embarrassed by his family. Since Spellman Investigations is a family business, Izzy works for her mother and father. The supporting characters like Morty, an octogenarian who’s Izzy’s lawyer and friend, and Henry Stone, a cop who both Izzy and Rae get very close to, add to the charm and honesty of the books.

I wrote about Trail of the Spellmans in our Best Books, etc. 2012 post and The Last Word will definitely be one of my favorite books of 2013. The series is usually one of the first things I think of when people ask me for a book recommendation and they’re one of the few books I read over again.

   

   

If you’ve never read the series, do so immediately if for no other reason to see what could inspire me to write a poem.

-Aisha

Book Report

Sometimes I find myself in a reading wasteland, when nothing is appealing and I feel a little blah about everything I pick up to read.  But then there are those great times when the opposite is true, and I have giant stacks of things on my to-read pile.  Lately the latter has been the norm;  I’m having a hard time keeping up with my reading stack, and have been enjoying everything I’ve started.  Here are a few of my recent picks:

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves: It is difficult to describe this novel without giving away the twist, which is revealed fairly early on, but it was still a surprise to me.  (If you would like it to remain a surprise, avoid reading the description of the book on Amazon!)  The story is about Rosemary, her sister Fern, who was sent away for mysterious reasons during their childhood, their brother Lowell, who is on the run from the FBI, and their parents.  The shake up of the family dynamic when Fern leaves has a lifelong effect on the remaining siblings.  Years later Rosemary finds herself thinking more and more of her sister, whom she has largely avoided thinking about, and after a surprise visit from her brother Rosemary begins to come to terms with her past.

The Silent Wife: This story is told in alternating chapters from the point of view of Jodi and Todd, a married couple with some big problems.  We know from the start that Todd will be the victim, but Jodi isn’t such a clear-cut villain, and knowing the outcome doesn’t detract from the ending.  The characters are simply amazing in their ability to avoid conflict.  Although that trait makes them fairly difficult to relate to, their façade is just fascinating.

Ten Things I’ve Learnt About Love: Alice returns home to London for the death of her father after another one of her excursions to a far part of the world.  Daniel is a homeless man who has spent years searching for his daughter, knowing nothing but her name after his lover leaves him to stay in her marriage.  This book also uses alternating chapters to tell Alice and Daniel’s story, and whether they will ultimately connect is the big question of this novel.  Poignant is a word that gets tossed around a lot in literary criticism, but in this case it really is the most appropriate word for this story.

You Are One of Them: Those of us who were children in the 1980s surely share a particular kind of memory about the Cold War.  My memories are more of the later part of the decade, when glasnost and perestroika were in the headlines, but even I remember the Cold War as something that just kind of loomed over everything during the 1980s.  In this novel, two friends write letters to Yuri Andropov asking him to not use nuclear weapons.  One of the girls, Jenny, becomes a world-wide celebrity after her letter is published in a Russian newspaper and then becomes an international sensation, while Sarah’s letter is lost to history.  Jenny and her family are killed in a plane crash in 1985; Sarah grows up and finishes college and decides to go to Russia after learning that the plane crash was a possible hoax and Jenny may still be alive.

Some people go for breezy beach reads in the summer; apparently I go for dark and thought-provoking.  Who else has been reading anything good lately?

-Irene

Once Upon a Mattress,* a True Story

I hate shopping. But I enjoy having nice things. I simply dislike spending my time shopping when I’d rather be doing other things. I even dislike grocery shopping, which is odd considering how much I love to eat good food!

But does anyone enjoy shopping for a new mattress? It seems like it should be fun, right? Like buying a brand new car or  sheets for your bed. But it’s also a very expensive purchase, like a new car (and some sheets) so, if you’re like me, you worry that you won’t like it after you’ve laid out the dough cash. And, like new cars and sheets, mattresses are not returnable!

So it was with great trepidation–okay, let’s be honest here, dread–that I had to buy a brand new mattress this month. When I moved to Pittsburgh three years ago, it never occurred to me that the movers wouldn’t be able to get a queen-sized mattress upstairs. The stairway was so narrow they had to bend the mattress while my husband sawed apart and then hinged the box spring.

Like a good librarian, I looked up information in Consumer Reports–which the library owns in both print and electronic formats. Once upon a time, CR didn’t review mattresses; only how-to-shop buying guides. They’ve begun to evaluate them again but, personally, I don’t put much faith in brands. What’s most important is how a mattress feels.

And, happily, I discovered that they sell hinged mattresses so that they can be carried upstairs easily.

This story has a happy ending. When we finally went shopping on a sunny Saturday afternoon, we had the entire store to ourselves so we were free to take as long as we wished in order to find the best mattress.

The moral of this story (and any shopping adventure) is do your research, stay calm, and take your time.

~Maria who, while greatly relieved to be happy with her purchase, must now go shopping for a new washing machine.

*With apologies to Mary Rodgers, creator of the musical of the same name.

On Rereading.

A book called Countdown City just came out this week, and it’s the sequel to one of my favorite books from 2012, The Last Policeman. Policeman is/was a clever noir/mystery that takes place in a speculative future where the earth is about to be destroyed by an asteroid in six months. The central mystery is pretty interesting, but even more engaging are the details surrounding it—the small (and large) ways that society begins to crumble, and the moral ambiguity that accompanies the impending apocalype. As the tagline on the book states, “what’s the point in solving murders if we’re all going to die soon, anyway?” and I find that to be a pretty compelling question.

Of course, whenever a sequel in a series comes out, I feel the need to go back and read the books that came before it so I can have the whole story fresh in my mind. A friend once told me that she likes to reread The Unbearable Lightness of Being every few years, because it gives her a sense of where she is in her life. While I like that idea, my rereading goals are much less lofty. Here are three series I hope to revisit sometime soon:

The Golden Compass: His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman

Not just for kids or teens, this is a deeply moving fantasy series about very adult topics, like theology, science, and the nature of existence. Plus, it features a totally great talking bear.

 

 

 

The Magicians & The Magician King by Lev Grossman

This is also a dark, very adult fantasy series—and the third installment is coming out next year! What if instead of Voldermolt, Harry Potter’s biggest enemy was his own disatisfaction and ennui? That pretty much sums up the particular flavor of this series.

 

Love & Rockets: Locas & Locas II by Jaime Hernandez

These collections are probably one of my favorite reads of all time—not only is this series funny, subversive, and deeply strange, but it’s also moving to see two female protagonists change and age so gracefully.

So how about you? What books do you enjoy rereading?

-Tara

Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Fire!

Do you like to cook? Are you good at it? Or is the precise science of baking more your style? They say people are usually good at one or the other, but not both. I am more of a savory cooking type of gal. I like to smell the spices to see what I think might go well with the other ingredients and then sprinkle in as much as I think the dish can take. This, of course, leads to some mistakes, but fortunately mostly successes. However, I don’t mind following a recipe precisely either. Especially, if it’s my first time making something. So, I can bake too. But really prefer not to, due mostly to its effect on my waistline.

The reason I bring all this up is that July is National Culinary Arts month. Whether in the traditional apprenticeship programs of France’s past or the cooking trade schools of today, all chefs had to start somewhere. Chef and foodie memoirs are one of my favorite types of books to read. (And they often have lovely recipes in them!) Here are a few of my recent favorites and some from the more distant past…

Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain – This was one of the original, behind-the-scenes, tell-all books of the chef world. I still recall several of the hilarious and sordid stories from this book, even though I read it many, many years ago.

Confections of a Closet Master Baker: One Woman’s Sweet Journey from Unhappy Hollywood Executive to Contented Country Baker by Gesine Bullock-Prado – Despite having a famous sister, Hollywood was still not much fun. Baking turns out to be better for your soul, if not your body.

Climbing the Mango Trees: A Memoir of a Childhood in India by Madhur Jaffrey – A delicious, exotic offering by the maven of Indian cuisine. I could hear the words on the page being spoken in her accent in my head as I read the food and family memories. This is truly a beautiful book.

Relish: My Life in the Kitchen by Lucy Knisley – This is my most recent read in this culinary sub-genre. Lucy Knisley (French Milk) was raised to be a foodie by her mother. This full color graphic novel shows the major culinary experiences in her life that led her to fully accept that birthright. As soon as I put this book down, I told my “significant other” that I need to own it. 

Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen: How One Girl Risked Her Marriage, Her Job, and Her Sanity to Master the Art of Living by Julie Powell – The blog, turned book, turned major motion picture. Yes, I know this one may have been talked about to death already, but I still liked it a lot.

White Jacket Required: A Culinary Coming of Age Story by Jenna Weber – Making the decision to go to culinary school was tough, but graduating proves to be even tougher. Especially, when you don’t really want to be a chef, but a food writer instead.

Happy reading and happy cooking!

-Melissa M.

Bo’oones Be Whorrt Ye’ll Be

For my 30th birthday, my husband surprised me with a pirate-themed party (eye patches!) Incidentally, he proposed to me that same night by asking me to be his “sea wench.”  How can you say no to that, I ask you? I have no less than ten photos of me dressed like a pirate. On my last vacation, I went on a pirate ship cruise.  So it goes without saying that I like pirates, fictional and real.

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Pirates have been around since 3000 B.C., so it could be considered, ahem, one of the oldest professions. Every great civilization has fallen victim to piracy, including ancient Rome and Egypt, Europe and even modern-day Africa. In fact, piracy is still such a major problem that there is a social network site called Oceanus. It’s like Facebook for mariners. Check out the news section. Fascinating stuff.

Pirate facts that will make you an interesting party guest

Buccaneers originally made their living smoking and selling beef jerky. Then they discovered that sacking and plundering ships was way more lucrative than snapping into a Slimjim.

My all-time favorite pirate (What? You don’t have a favorite pirate?)  François l’Olonnais, the Flail of the Spaniards, was quite persuasive when cornered.

Then L’Olonnais, being possessed of a devil’s fury, ripped open one of the prisoners with his cutlass, tore the living heart out of his body, gnawed at it, and they hurled it in the face of one of the others, saying, ‘Show me another way, or I will do the same to you.’

The dude ate a heart. That’s pretty persuasive.

Another pirate favorite, Grania “Grace” O’Malley, the Queen of the West, was a particularly harsh mum. Legend has it that her young son fell overboard and as he began to pull himself back into the boat, O’Malley chopped off his hand, saying, as he drowned:

If you had been a true O’Malley, you’d not have fallen overboard in the first place.

“Walking the plank” is pure Hollywood fiction. What pirates actually did to people was way too violent to get past censors. When a pirate wanted to get rid of someone, they simply threw them overboard. Oh, and ATE HEARTS.

Let’s talk hooks and peg legs. First of all, if you managed to survive the initial blood loss, you would be subjected to the ship’s doctor. Or carpenter. Or cook. Whatever. If you manage to survive that (and kudos to your amazing powers of healing) you have to deal with the inevitable gangrene. Which, without the assistance of modern-day medicine, you are very unlikely to survive. Good times.

Pirate music. It exists. Personally, I’m a fan of Captain Bogg and Salty. Don’t drink the seawater!

Pirate books

The Pirate Primer: Mastering the Language of Swashbucklers and Rogue, George Choundas

Next time you see me, feel free to call a jolly dog. Call me scupperlout, though, and I’ll crack you like a flea. So show a glim and read this dictionary of pirate threats, retorts, commands and more. Or sink me in blood, I’ll send a ball through your brisket! Don’t forget! September 19 is International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates, David Cordingly

Scholarly book by the former curator of England’s National Maritime Museum that reveals the truth behind many legends, like that whole walking the plank thing and buried treasure. He also writes extensively about the actual reality of a pirating life: the constant threat of death by hanging, drowning, shipwrecks and the resulting short life span. The “romance” of piracy is entirely Hollywood-created.

The Everything Pirates Book, Bark Karg and Arjean Spaite

It’s like “Pirates for Dummies.” A little bit of everything.

Pirates! Brigands, Buccaneers, and Privateers in Fact, Fiction, and Legend, Jan Rogozinksi

The first ever comprehensive A to Z encyclopedia of pirates! Includes not only historical figures, but pirates in fiction, movies and other forms. Also has information about language, weapons, ship and other fascinating lore.

Sea Queens, Women Pirates Around the World, Jane Yolen

While technically a children’s book, Sea Queens provides surprisingly in-depth entries on historical female pirates, including the well-known (O’Malley, Bonny) and the not-so-famous, like China’s Madame Ching. At the height of her power in 1809, Madame Ching commanded two thousand boats and seventy thousand men, the most of any pirate in the world. Not too bad for the “weaker sex.” Lol.

Fair winds and following seas.

suzy