I Am I Am I Am by Maggie O'Farrell

I Am I Am I Am by Maggie O'Farrell is definitely in my Top 10 2020 reads, so far. Subtitled "Seventeen Brushes With Death," it is a memoir that examines 16 times O'Farrell easily could have lost her life but survived or escaped danger. The final essay is about her daughter's extreme allergies and how the author cherishes every day with her, knowing that she could lose her daughter at any time.

Highly recommended - The writing in I Am I Am I Am is spectacular. Stunning prose, often unsettling but always written in a way that makes you feel the raw emotion of near drowning or the sharp fear of encountering dangerous men, the genuine grief of loss after a pregnancy disaster. Just an amazing work of art, really. I don't know about other readers, but O'Farrell had me thinking about my own frightening experiences for days. Also, the last line of the final essay choked me up.


©2020 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby

Back when I had feelings, my self-esteem was a toilet. It caused me actual physical pain to know that someone didn't like me. I mean, it still does, but I'm better insulated by drugs these days. A handy trick is to think long and hard about what the person who hates you would realistically add to your life if they were actually to be a part of it. Most people really do have absolutely nothing to offer you. Pull out the abacus and make a pros and cons list if you have to—I'll wait. If you require a push to get started, here's an example from a recent entry in my diary about some asshole I don't miss anymore:

pro: once made me laugh at a dad joke
con: EVERYTHING FUCKING ELSE LOL BYE BITCH

~pp. 73-74

OK, so up front you can see that when I use the word "rude" in the following paragraph about Wow, No Thank You, swear words are among the things I'm referring to (um . . . crude fits in there, too, but it's what Samantha Irby is known for, so either you want to read the book or you don't).

First, in case you missed the word "essays", this is a book of essays about author Samantha Irby's life. Anything is game. She writes about her childhood, the friends who helped her survive after her parents died, the places she lived and the people she lived with, her many jobs, the people she dated (Irby is bisexual) and life with a woman who has two children of her own.

I know I've mentioned this before, but I love that cover. I love, love, love that cover. Apple green is my favorite color and it's just a tad darker than my favorite so the color alone grabbed me and then the image of the bunny looking awkward and adorable . . . well, I had to know what it was about. I'd never heard of Samantha Irby, a memoirist and comedian, but I enjoy humorous essays and the one thing everyone said about Wow, No Thank You was: "It's funny."

I love a book that makes me laugh but it's even more important to laugh when you're on lockdown in the middle of a plague, people are rioting, and it seems like nobody's actually doing anything concrete to stop the virus (and some are also against calling a halt to racism), then once they start letting people loose they don't bother to mandate the damn masks to try to stop coughs and sneezes at the source, instead letting people go right ahead and spread the virus at will so more people can die because a small percentage of whiners can't be bothered to put a piece of cloth over their nose and mouth to help stop people from dying. I mean, who doesn't need a laugh, right now?

I, for one, needed this book. It's crude, yes. There's talk of body parts and the author's sex life and her Crohn's disease. So, sometimes it can be a little gross or shocking, but even then it's entertaining. Samantha Irby is genuinely funny. I love her writing style. My absolute favorite essay is "Detachment Parenting" about what it's like to live in a house with two children and have to interact with them while not totally claiming them as your own.

Side note: I had no idea the author was black and/or bisexual when I bought the book. I bought it purely on the basis of the words, "It's funny." But what timing! It wasn't until 3 or 4 days after I finished the book that I realized, "Hey, black author! LGBTQ! Pride month!" What's funny about that is that, of course, I've been reading about this black woman who dated both men and women while people are passing around lists of books by People of Color and stacks of books for Pride month and even while I was reading it, I was looking around at my stacks, thinking I needed to find something to read for Pride month and needed to buy some books by POC. While I was reading something that fit the requirements for both. Sometimes I think my mother dropped me on my head as a baby.

Highly recommended - Whip-smart, hilarious, and quite rude. Just what I needed to read during a year like 2020. I love Samantha Irby's self-deprecating sense of humor. Also, I'm convinced that we could be the best of friends because of our mutual love of black licorice, cats, and books. She's a lot more interesting than I am, though, so maybe not.


©2020 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

On Democracy by E. B. White, ed. by Martha White

Treason is too narrowly interpreted to suit us. Our courts call it treason when a restaurant-keeper helps a German flier to escape, but nobody calls it treason when a congressman helps a touchy issue to escape "until after the elections are over." We hang a man for the first kind of treason; we reelect a man for the second. 

[...] It is not only treacherous to help the enemy by postponing questions which involve the lives of all of us but it is the greatest insult which can be offered to the electorate of a democracy. When you hear it announced that such-and-such an issue cannot be raised now because it is "political dynamite," the implication is that you yourself are mixed up in a cheap trick perpetrated by one section of the people on another section.

~from pp. 39-40 "Treason, Defined"(originally published in 1942) in Advance Reader Copy of On Democracy by E. B. White

One of my all-time favorite pieces of writing in the world is by E. B. White, a tribute to Pullman cars (railroad sleeping cars) in a book of essays published some time in the 1940s. It's a lovely, moving, brilliant piece of writing. So, I figured White probably had some wise and wonderful things to say about democracy and jumped at the chance to read and review On Democracy, a book of his essays and a handful of rhyme-heavy poetry.

I was correct. There's plenty of wisdom in On Democracy. But, it is also an excellent showcase for White's wit and humor and a reminder that America has survived similar attempts to attack truth and the rule of law to what we're currently experiencing, although I confess that I didn't find the fact that such attacks eventually failed all that soothing because we now have so many huge issues to address. Among them: potential human extinction being ignored and/or suppressed by an entire administration, massive voter suppression, newly-created poll taxes, refusal to address a foreign attack on our voting system (machines that can be easily compromised and which contain no paper backup are being bought by states at an alarming rate), and a political party that talks big about transparency whilst going out of its way to hide absolutely everything that may or may not say something untoward has been done by them while declaring investigations (which they themselves recently drove into the ground with at least 7 investigations that proved absolutely nothing bad about the same exact issue) pointless and partisan. These are huge challenges.

With the fate of humanity on the line the stakes, it can be said, are much higher. Still, it's heartening to know that there have been times in the past when newspapers were being heavily bought out by a single purchaser who pushed his political slant on the reportage, corruption has run rampant, and executives in government have attempted to hide documents important to the public.

A few quotes from the book:

Fascism is openly against people-in-general, in favor of people-in-particular. Nationalism, although in theory not dedicated to such an idea, actually works against people-in-general because of its preoccupation with people-in-particular. 

~p. 45, "Definition of Fascism," published 1943


When you think with longing of the place where you were born, remember that the sun leaves it daily to go somewhere else. When you think with love of America, think of the impurity of its bloodlines and of how no American ever won a prize in a dog show. 

[...] 

Save the world by respecting thy neighbor's rights under law and insisting that he respect yours (under the same law).

~pp. 60-61, "Instructions to the Delegate," published 1946


There's not much news to report. Roger and Evelyn had a baby girl a couple of weeks ago, and Roger is supporting it by working for a magazine called Holiday, a travel publication based on the perfectly sound idea that everybody in the United States would like to be somewhere else. 

~p. 80, Herald Tribune ("Hollywood Ten" letters), published 1948


Misinformation, even when it is not deliberate, is at the bottom of much human misery. 

~p. 95, "The Thud of Ideas," published 1950


Some of the published news was distorted, but distortion is inherent in partisan journalism, the same as it is in political rallies. I have yet to see a piece of writing, political or nonpolitical, that doesn't have a slant. All writing slants the way a writer leans, and no man is born perpendicular, although many men are born upright. The beauty of the American free press is that the slants and the twists and the distortions come from so many directions, and the special interests are so numerous, the reader must sift and sort and check and countercheck in order to find out what the score is.

~p. 121, "Bedfellows," published 1956

[Editorial insert: In our modern world of brief sound bites, I'd be willing to hazard a guess that less than a quarter of the American population takes the time to "sift and sort and check and countercheck" as readers of the 1950s may have done, hence the creation of the term "echo chamber."]


The Herald Tribune headed the story, "PRESIDENT SAYS PRAYER IS PART OF DEMOCRACY." The implication in such a pronouncement, emanating from the seat of government, is that religious faith is a condition, or even a precondition, of the democratic life. This is just wrong. A President should pray whenever and wherever he feels like it (most Presidents have prayed hard and long, and some of them in desperation and in agony), but I don't think a President should advertise prayer. That is a different thing. Democracy, if I understand it at all, is a society in which the unbeliever feels undisturbed and at home. If there were only a half a dozen unbelievers in America, their well-being would be a test of our democracy, their tranquility would be its proof.

~p. 124, "Bedfellows," published 1956


Highly recommended - While not exactly what I expected (heavier on the wit and humor than I anticipated), E. B. White was a brilliant writer whose thoughts on democracy were at once light-hearted and serious, penetrating and cogent. I was fascinated by the fact that White was hell-bent against the formation of what was then known as the "United Nations Organization" because he feared a world government would trample on the rights of individual nations to create and execute their own laws.

The essays/poetry span a significant time period, from 1928-1976, so there's a lot of ebb and flow from war to peace and back, through presidencies left and right, in and out of corruption, through arrests for speech we would now consider protected and threats to the press and university professors, and spanning other challenges to democracy. I recommend it to anyone interested in solid writing, politics, essays, history, and/or the topic of democracy in tumultuous times. Apparently, there have not been very many stretches without some form of upheaval. It does give one hope but also serves as a reminder that in order to maintain genuine hope, the requirement for action on the part of the populace is axiomatic.

My thanks to HarperCollins for the review copy.

©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Far Flung by Cassandra Kircher

The full title of Far Flung by Cassandra Kircher is Far Flung: Improvisations on National Parks, Driving to Russia, Not Marrying a Ranger, The Language of Heartbreak, and Other National Disasters. Boy, that's a mouthful, isn't it?

So, I'll just drop the subtitle for the rest of this review. Far Flung is an exceptional series of essays set in a variety of locations, most of which deal with how nature had an impact on the author's life and her acceptance and understanding of herself and her family (particularly her difficult, emotional father). Settings include Wisconsin, Rocky Mountain National Park, Alaska, and Oxford, England.

I think anyone who loves camping, climbing, or otherwise challenging his or herself outdoors will especially love Far Flung, although I'm someone who desires to be outdoors more than I'm able (thanks to allergies and heat-induced migraines). I was particularly enamored with the settings. Rocky Mountain National Park is where I spent roughly half of my childhood vacations and, in fact, my great uncle was one of the people who died in the Big Thompson Canyon Flood, which Kircher mentions, so her essays set in RMNP really took me back and were particular favorites. And, I've been to most of the other settings, so there was a little bit of a cool factor there, as well. But, it would not have mattered one bit where she the writings were set because Kircher's writing is so incredibly strong that I would have been blown away, regardless. It just happens that I could relate to some of the locations.

Highly recommended, a new favorite - Deeply meaningful, muscular but subtle. Absolutely fabulous, mesmerizing writing. I hated for this book to end. I particularly recommend Far Flung to anyone who loves travel writing, essays, or memoirs. But, just read it if you love fantastic writing. One of my favorite reads of 2019, so far. I feel like I can't do this one justice.

I was one of the lucky people who won a copy of Far Flung via a Shelf Awareness drawing. My thanks to West Virginia University Press! I'll be looking to see what else you have to offer.


©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Homespun: Amish and Mennonite Women in Their Own Words, ed. by Lorilee Craker

I requested Homespun: Amish and Mennonite Women in their Own Words, edited by Lorilee Craker, primarily because I recently read an Amish romance and I know very little about the customs and beliefs of the Amish. I was hoping it would contain essays that were specifically about Amish and Mennonite traditions -- kind of a "Here's what we believe and here's what we do," type of book that would walk me through what it's like to be a woman living with a particular belief set and whatever goes along with those beliefs, whether that may mean going without electricity and modern conveniences or eating certain foods. What little I know of the Amish (I honestly know nothing at all about Mennonites) has been gleaned from the occasional fiction read set in an Amish community.

Homespun was really not at all what I expected it to be and for a while I was pretty much convinced I was going to abandon the book. And, then one of the essays changed my mind. The essays are divided into sections, each one written about a certain one-word topic:

• Welcome
• Abide
• Testimony
• Wonder
• Kindred
• Beloved

Those first few essays, I confess, came off as preachy to me. They didn't necessarily tell stories of "welcome" but would talk about what each woman believes "welcome" means within the context of her faith. They came off as a bit preachy. But, then I got to page 33, "On Appreciative Overnight Guests" by Linda Byler. Instead of describing her belief about the meaning of the chosen word "welcome," the author told a story about a time when one of her daughters came for a visit. It was funny, charming, and delightful. She playfully poked fun at herself in a way that's infinitely relatable.

We're supposed to be herrberg gerny: a Pennsylvania German term that means "be generous in hospitality." I certainly was. I was pious, devout, and well meaning. True, I did send our guests to bed with bombarding acorns, roaring traffic, mattresses like plywood, and a breakfast casserole that was a bit heavily salted, come to think of it. 

But it is a night that will be repeated many times. Everyone is already enjoying a good laugh about it. Hopefully it'll never be lost among the many humorous stories of our family's history. 

~p. 36

And, that was it for me. I was hooked. Yes, some of the essays are a bit on the preachy side and I'm pretty sure that in most cases I learned less from the essays than I did from reading fiction. It would have been particularly helpful to know what each woman's background was. Whether they were Amish or Mennonite was not always mentioned. It wasn't till I got to the end of the book, where each author has a brief bio, that I realized there was a place I could have flipped ahead to in order to find out which community the author hailed from.

But, some of the essays were quite informative. I particularly loved those that were closer to storytelling, in which the authors basically planted me in their shoes and went about their day. And, the "wonder" section spoke of miracles, which I always love. I was less enamored of the essays in which the essayists listed what they believed one should do to be hospitable, show love, share their testimony, or keep a household that Jesus would approve of. The book is as much inspirational as it is factual. I was looking for more of a factual read. But, in the end -- like any book written by a large number of authors -- I did find some favorites. I was particularly excited to find that there was more than one essay by Linda Byler. I'd love to read an entire book of her essays.

Recommended to a specific audience - I wouldn't particularly recommend Homespun highly to someone who was in search of a learning experience about what it means to be Amish or Mennonite. It's not a fact-based book so much as a peek into what each essayist believes a certain word to mean and how she applies that meaning to her life. But, Christians looking for inspiration and who like to read about Christian living will likely find it enjoyable and it would make a nice addition to a church library. The one thing I really learned about Amish and Mennonite women? They're not so different from the rest of us.

My copy of Homespun was provided by Audra Jennings for an I Read With Audra book tour.

©2018 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Wouldn't Take Nothing For My Journey Now by Maya Angelou

My dears, I draw the picture of the wealthy couple standing in a darkened hallway, peering into a lighted room where black servants were lifting their voices in merriment and comradery, and I realize that living well is an art which can be developed. Of course, you will need the basic talents to build upon: They are a love of life and ability to take great pleasure from small offerings, an assurance that the world owes you nothing and that every gift is exactly that, a gift. That people who may differ from you in political stance, sexual persuasion, and racial inheritance can be founts of fun, and if you are lucky, they can become even convivial comrades. 

~from "Living Well, Living Good", p. 65 of Wouldn't Take Nothing For My Journey Now

I started the year off right by reading a Maya Angelou book. Wouldn't Take Nothing For My Journey Now is a book of short essays. I've only read one other book by Angelou, but when I did I immediately got online and ordered her collected poems. This time, I got online and ordered her collected memoirs. And, I'll plan on reading her poetry in April for National Poetry Month.

Wouldn't Take Nothing For My Journey Now begins with a nice, feminist bang as her first essay, "In All Ways a Woman" describes a practice that has, I believe, now fallen mostly into the past. She talks about how demeaning it is to add the "ess" that used to define whether a working person was male or female. Postmaster, postmistress; actor, actress. It jarred me a little when I realized that female actors were simply being called actors, years back. I don't know exactly when that occurred but I agree with Maya. It makes a lot more sense to use a single term, rather than demeaning women by making it obvious when there's a female in a certain position. Having said that, I believe we still do call females in Congress "congresswomen". That needs to change.

From the essay "Complaining":

"Sister, there are people who went to sleep all over the world last night, poor and rich and white and black, but they will never wake again. Sister, those who expected to rise did not, their beds became their cooling boards and their blankets became their winding sheets. And those dead folks would give anything, anything at all for just five minutes of this weather or ten minutes of that plowing that person was grumbling about. So you watch yourself about complaining sister. What you're supposed to do when you don't like a thing is change it. If you can't change it, change the way you think about it. Don't complain. 

~fr. pp. 86-87

From the essay "Our Boys":

We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter their color; equal in importance no matter their texture.

~p. 124,

Highly recommended - A short gulp of a book at just 139 pages (with lots of white space between essays) but deeply meaningful. So glad I started the year by reading the advice of a wise, strong, amazing woman.

©2017 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Minis! Lucy by Ellen Feldman, How to Live with a Neurotic Cat by S. Baker and Letter from New York by Helene Hanff

One of my goals for 2013 (which I haven't bothered to write about -- just don't feel like writing down my goals, this year) is to attempt to keep my reviews short so I won't spend so much time online. Boy, did I fail on that count with House of Earth!  But, I feel a little more comfortable with brevity when I read off my own shelves, for some reason, so the following are mini reviews of books from my own shelves.

Lucy by Ellen Feldman is a fictionalized account of the love affair between Lucy Mercer and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  I must have had my head in the mud because I'd never heard of Lucy Mercer till recently but I love reading about Roosevelt and my interest was piqued when my friend Paula read Lucy.  She very kindly sent me her copy (so it wasn't on my shelf for long).  

I was terribly impressed with Lucy.  It's told from Lucy's point of view and is quite believable for historical fiction about real-life characters in my opinion, possibly at least in part because the author took her time describing how the relationship developed.  But, the writing also was very well done.  I've read two books by Ellen Feldman, now, and I found Lucy much more sharply drawn, the characters very well-rounded.  There were only a couple moments when I thought she drove home a point a little too fiercely and pulled me out of the story.

The author's note describes her use of letters and other documents and all indications lead to the thought that she did a rocking fine job of research.  Highly recommended.  Lucy was published in 2003 by W. W. Norton & Co. 

How to Live with a Neurotic Cat by Stephen Baker is supposed to be humorous, but it didn't play on my own cats' idiosyncracies. I think we can all agree that they're pretty unusual animals.  They're extremely active, even though they're now 4 and 3 years old, and they come running when I call them by name (unless they're deep in the midst of a nap).  They have been trained to use cardboard and carpet-covered cat scratching surfaces, so they don't rip into the furniture.  And, in the book there was absolutely nothing about cats knocking things off dressers.  Isabel is big into "Knock It Off the Dresser," (usually around 4:00 AM) "Knock it Into the Bathtub" and other similar games.  

I read How to Live with a Neurotic Cat because it's been on my shelves for eons and it's short.  I figured it would be a good book to read quickly and donate.  A friend of mine who has more cats than I do loved How to Live with a Neurotic Cat.  I gave it 2 stars and had to quickly gobble down another short book to cleanse my palette, I disliked it so much.  But, like I said, I think that's got something to do with the fact that my cats are so unique. They're really both more dog than cat, in many ways.  

I love this review of How to Live with a Neurotic Cat at Cinamaetcetera. I think it's a little more fair than what I have to say about the book, a 1985 publication of Gramercy Books (a Random House imprint).  Heh, told you it's been around a while, although I think mine was a reprint and didn't linger that long.

I got my copy of Letter from New York by Helene Hanff after reading 84, Charing Cross Road.  It took a while to acquire this book and another title of hers, since I opted to get them via Paperback Swap, and then probably at least 2-3 years for me to get around to reading Letter from New York.

As you can see from the subtitle at the bottom, "Letter from New York" was a radio spot on the BBC Woman's Hour Broadcasts during which Helene spoke about life in New York.  I think it was broadcast monthly, although I neglected to take notes.  Letter from New York is a collection of all of the writings she could find from her days in radio.  A few went missing.

I absolutely loved this book.  Her writings were just stories from everyday life and, as such, painted an intriguing capsule portrait of life in New York City in the 1970s.  Over the 6 years of her writings, things changed.  A garden that was abandoned for lack of funds was brought back to life by volunteer effort, Christmas concerts that had been free for decades began to cost money, dogs died and new ones were adopted.  Helene Hanff was dog crazy and I absolutely love her stories about the dogs in her building.  Letter from New York is, like her better-known 84, Charing Cross Road, the kind of book that you close thinking, "I'll want to return to this world, some time in the future." 

Highly recommended.  A pleasant afternoon or evening read, quick enough to zip through but enjoyable enough to savor.

And, since I've admitted I'm old because I very well could have bought that neurotic cat book in 1985, although I'm almost positive I didn't, a peek into ancient history . . . 

That's a photo I found tucked into my baby book, during the holiday break.  I am on the right, kissing big sis goodbye on her first day of "big girl school".  I don't have to confess the year, but you can probably figure it out or at least come close.  I was 4 years old; she was 6.  It always irritated her that I was never that far behind her in height.  And, of course, I had great hair.  Haha.  

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Moranthology by Caitlin Moran

Words can be weapons, or love-spells, or just motorcars you can drive across county borders.

--p. 2 of Moranthology, Advanced Reader Copy (some changes may have been made to the final print version)

The barrista had looked at all the evidence, and concluded that I must have just failed to commit suicide by jumping in the Thames -- and that now I was having a coffee, while I waited for the tide to rise a little higher. 

When I went to pay for the coffee, he gave me a free brownie.  I translated this brownie as a message, "Don't jump again."  It was 486 calories of humanity.

--p. 49, Ibid 

When I read about the variety of topics covered in Moranthology, British writer/humorist Caitlin Moran's collection of columns, I decided Moranthology was not a book I wanted to miss.  As it turned out, Caitlin Moran was one of the authors who helped yank me out of my recent reading slump.  I have reason to be grateful.

Besides gathering some of her columns, Moran has added explanatory notes so you get a nicely rounded view of where she came from and how she worked her way to being the caliber of columnist who gets to hang out with people like Keith Richards, Dan Stevens and Benedict Cumberbatch, visit the set of Dr. Who and spend an evening at a sex club with Lady Gaga (don't worry; it's fairly tame).

It would be hard to describe the sheer variety of topics Moran hits in Moranthology. Among them: writing, travel (or the lack of it), drugs, visiting the Dr. Who set, her thoughts on Downton Abbey (she's not a fan) and Dan Stevens (nice guy who is apparently quite the drinker), feminism, respect for the impoverished and gays, love, marriage, Paul McCartney and why Ghostbusters is better than Star Wars.

I really loved this book.  I laughed, I frowned, I nodded my head.  The cover has a quote from Marie Claire referring to Caitlin Moran as, "The U.K.'s answer to Tiny Fey, Chelsea Handler, and Lena Dunham all rolled into one."  Well . . . I don't know about that.  I won't touch anything by Chelsea Handler because the last thing I want to hear about is anyone's "horizontal life", but Caitlin Moran is funny, opinionated, kind of wild but happily married.  She's an interesting person and that's what makes the book fun.

Occasionally Moran can be raunchy and so can her interviewees, so if you prefer squeaky-clean essays Moranthology might not be the book for you. But, thankfully, she doesn't throw open the door to her sex life.  I had some particular favorite essays that I plan to reread, but in general I'm going to call this one highly recommended with a warning about references to drugs, sex and rock & roll.  You have to expect some of that when the interviewer is talking to someone who didn't stop using his drug of choice till he fell out of a tree and ended up with a metal plate in his skull, right?

Your cat fix of the day is "Isabel's Predicament":

It was hilarious watching her wiggle her way out of that position, between the wall and the cubby part of the kitty tree.

Still playing catch-up on reviews, so we may roll right past Malarkey and Twaddle, this week.  We'll see.


©2012 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

501 Minutes to Christ by Poe Ballantine

501 Minutes to Christ by Poe Ballantine is a slender book of essays by a fellow who drifted from job to job across the United States and into Mexico, occasionally sinking into addiction while spending his off-work hours writing up a storm and trying to find his place in the world. The title is a just a tiny bit misleading; it's not a book about seeking Christ, although he has his spiritual moments. "501 Minutes to Christ" is the title of one of the essays and it has to do with a sign the author saw someone holding.

It's been quite a while since I finished 501 Minutes to Christ. I was extremely impressed with Poe Ballantine's writing but I've forgotten enough that I think it would be best to share a few quotations and note why I marked them.

I estimated a mile to Royal Street when the clouds just let go. It was that famous green New Orleans rain, like someone turning a lake upside down on your head. I dashed across the street and took cover in the doorway of a shoe-repair shop. The rain came with a vengeance, dark Gulf rain with shots of silver in it. The gutters swelled. The street shone like a river stippled by sweeping drifts of falling water.

~p. 26, from "World of Trouble" in 501 Minutes to Christ -- My note: I marked this passage because I can relate. I call that kind of rain, "God kicked over the bucket rain" and I haven't experienced it anywhere else but the Deep South. We have the most soaking, drenching, deeply uncomfortable rain, down here. The author had found himself stranded in New Orleans with no money; and, his experience when he reached the upscale restaurant he'd been invited to by a fellow who had a soft spot for the homeless is at once horrifying, sadly entertaining and thought-provoking.

She drove a Chrysler Cordoba the color of a Martian dust storm.

~p. 44 from "My Pink Tombstone" - My note: This sentence stopped me in my tracks. It's such a great description of color! It was in Poe Ballantine's descriptive power that I felt myself dying for more. When I'm off my book-buying ban, I'll look up more by Ballantine.

I walked down the main stretch, which went about sixteen or seventeen blocks. Too spread out. Not a good place to live without a car. The usual fast-food-and-RadioShack facade, plastic armature concealing the real town in a psychological experiment to see how long it takes before people start killing each other. The only thing that set it apart from any other place in America was a ranching supply company called BAR-F, except instead of a hyphen there was a tiny diamond between the R and the F. How much thought had gone into this name I couldn't guess. Also, I finally saw the famous Hale-Bopp comet, streaking across the firmament dragging the souls of the tool worshipers behind it.

~p. 78, from "Conspiracy and Apocalypse at the McDonald's in Goodland, Kansas" - My note: If that doesn't make you want to read more Poe Ballantine, I can't think what will. I want to go back and read the essay to remind myself what it's all about.

I can't count the number of times I have officially assembled the equipment to take my life: a knife, a handgun, a plastic bag, a bottle of codeine and a fifth of vodka. My motivations are never quite clear: perception of failure, futility, a sense of irremediable isolation, MTV--nothing everyone else hasn't suffered through. Yet I tend to magnify my gloomy outlook into a drive-in picture of the end of the world. I can't seem to remember that despair is a temporary state, a dark storm along the highway; that if I can just stick it out, keep the wipers going and my foot on the gas, I will make it through to the other side.

~p. 87, from "Advice to William Somebody" - My note: This is followed by a very touching conversation and more chatter about times the author felt suicidal. That little bit of dialogue reminded me how much a tiny bit of kindness can impact an anonymous stranger. The entire book of essays made me feel grateful for my life in too many ways to list.

The television leaks its steady treacle of prurience, gross sentiment, concentrated doom, and pathetic idealism until we are vacant and numb, then promises relief and fulfillment through the consumption of three-day erection tablets. An impossibly high standard of living can only translate into an impossibly high level of stress. Factor in the tremendous triumphs of technology, which have given many of us not only a mistaken assumption that life should be easy and pain-free but also an illusion that we are now the captains of our fate--spiritless primate voyagers spinning through a cooling gaseous accident with nothing better to do than nibble on Pringles potato chips and read Self magazine until the nonsensical end--and it is no wonder that we are the most medicated people on earth.

pp. 90-91, "Advice to William Somebody" - My note: Yep.

I arrived at the discipline late, at the age of twenty-nine, in part because I needed material, but mostly because I boarded a train called the Romantic Debauchery in the mistaken assumption that it would somehow get me to my destination quicker than the ones marked Hard Work and Paying Attention. Hundreds of wrong trains and many lost years later, I have learned that, despite the jovial public legends, inebriation and lucid expression are at odds with each other. If I am to write with spiritual integrity, I cannot be a drunken butterfly.

p. 96 from "501 Minutes to Christ" - My note: I've heard similar from a writer friend who found that alcohol and writing did not mix. I just thought this was beautifully put. However, 29 seems young for getting a serious start on one's purpose, to me. I must be getting old.

Highly recommended, but be aware that the author made some very poor choices that took him to seedy places and in and out of addiction. There are some graphic descriptions of sex and drug use. I appreciated the fact that the author (although it took him quite a while) eventually did manage to clean up his life; it's gratifying to read about his success, toward the end.

Many thanks to Andi for the recommendation!!!

I haven't mentioned arrivals, lately. Here's everything I can find that has recently walked in my door:

A Wedding in Haiti by Julia Alvarez - surprise from Algonquin Books

The Receptionist by Janet Groth (memoir) - surprise from Algonquin Books

The New Republic by Lionel Shriver - from HarperCollins

The Auroras by David St. John - (poetry) from HarperCollins

Losing Clementine by Ashley Ream - from HarperCollins

Cruising Attitude by Heather Poole (memoir) - from HarperCollins

Fairy Tale Interrupted by Rosemarie Terenzio (memoir) - Twitter prize win from Gallery Books

The Last Time I Saw Paris by Lynn Sheene - from Paperback Swap

©2012 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

High Points and Lows by Austin Carty

High Points and Lows: Life, Faith and Figuring It All Out

By Austin Carty

Copyright 2010

Plume - Nonfiction

Essays/Religion/Memoir

200 pages

Austin Carty's website

I started confiding in people close to me, telling them that I was going to forego acting and move back up to North Carolina, where I could live cheaply and focus on writing. Invariably, every one of the people I confided in told me to grow up, to get back in school and focus on getting my degree.

Everyone, that is, except my dad.

I told my old man how everyone I knew was telling me I was foolish, that I was wasting my potential and that I needed to get a degree and get a real job. Very calmly, he said something I'll never forget:

"Austin, everyone wants to tell everyone else how to live their own life."

--p. 48 of High Points and Lows

I'm going to quote the cover blurb because I think it's a good one:

In these funny and moving essays, Austin Carty traces his own stumbling journey toward adulthood and true faith, drawing on lessons from pop culture and Christianity. Whether he is failing miserably at his first real job as a [barback] nightclub gofer, explaining how Saved by the Bell has ruined our youth, or struggling to come to terms with the death of a beloved friend, Carty demonstrates how finding the courage to be ourselves is the best way to forge a genuine connection with friends, family, and God.

My thoughts:

I loved this selection of essays about Carty's personal experiences and how each of them has touched him spiritually and led to new revelations that have gradually helped him become a confident Christian and a man who is paid to speak about his faith.

I don't watch Survivor and never have -- I'm not a fan of "reality" shows -- but I was fascinated by his memories of time spent on the show and how his candid comment that he'd just had an extremely spiritual experience (while on camera) made certain people sit at attention. Suddenly, he wasn't just another contestant on Survivor. He was now known for his Christianity.

There were several times I had to look up pop culture references because Austin Carty and I are not of the same generation and at times I couldn't relate. The book speaks mostly to people of his age (maybe late 20's?) or younger, but he has a lot of interesting things to say. I'm going to let him speak for himself and make the rest of this review a series of quotes. I liked this book a lot because he cuts right through religion and pretense, to the heart of Christianity -- Christ, himself.

It is true that we all have different sacrifices we need to make in order to pursue what we really love. And it's true that some of us have tougher roads than others. But the point is not about the difficulty of the journey; it is about the power of perseverance and the spiritual reward we receive through doing what we have to do in order to keep our dreams alive.

--p. 51

But here's what I am slowly beginning to understand about Christian spirituality: it's not a debate.

There is no argument--no words, no creed, no doctrine, no nothing--that is going to convince someone that the whole Jesus thing is real. Only the Spirit of God can do that. If God is not the instigator of the conversation, then trying to convince someone about faith is like throwing darts at a brick wall.

--85

I imagine a menacing red devil with pointy horns and a swirling, dark chocolate beard standing before his demon minions, pronouncing, "I have figured out how to get them, boys. It's called credit!"

Credit is a deadly seducer promising instant gratification while leaving us with an ever-growing mountain of debt that renders us incapable of enjoying what we've already purchased. Its hook is that it allows us a brief moment of vanity. Thanks to credit, we can buy flashy things we don't need, to impress people we don't care about.

I'm trying my best to be done with materialism, and I owe it to having finally figured out who Jesus is.

For years I understood the God of the Bible as being in the business of financially rewarding those who diligently seek him. One can't totally fault me for this logic: in the last decade there has been a huge push in pop-Christian circles to paint God as some sort of Morgan Stanley portfolio manager who answers people's prayers for cash and success. With the phenomenal success of books like The Prayer of Jabez, and with wealthy pastors from megachurches seemingly representing proof of God's favor, it has become very easy for twenty-first-century Christians to indulge the idea of God as Santa Claus.

--pp. 90-91

It is my experience that if you don't feel like you know Jesus, church is intimidating. It seems like everyone in the building is looking right through you, that they are all judging you and thinking you're full of crap. Feeling like an outsider at church is not really any different from feeling like an outsider among peers or in society. There's no real difference between feeling foolish in a fraternity for being a virgin and feeling foolish in a church for not being able to find Philemon in the Bible. Both situations make you feel left out and insecure. That's why understanding the difference between going to church and knowing Jesus is so important--if Jesus isn't the reason for being there, the church is just another social club, a boring one with strict rules.

--pp. 184-185

The bottom line:

I definitely recommend High Points and Lows. It's fascinating, thought-provoking, at times deeply moving. The essays are kind of a hodge-podge but they all circle around the same theme and I really enjoyed reading Carty's thoughts on Christianity. I'd love to hear him speak.

In other news:

Things are blooming like crazy, down here, so I've decided to return to posting pics of things that are blooming in my sidebar, when I've got anything new worth sharing. My sidebar is so crammed that you have to page down a bit. Sorry about that. I think it means I need to stop reading 6 or 7 books at a time.

©2011 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Paris Was Ours, ed. by Penelope Rowlands

Paris Was Ours: 32 Writers Reflect on the City of Light

Ed. by Penelope Rowlands

Copyright 2011
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill - Nonfiction

279 pages

Even if it wasn't misty or if the sycamores didn't quite line up perfectly, you'd imagine that they did. It's so synesthetic, that part of the world. That wet air carries everything with it. Those places are so humid and damp and all the antiquity lingers in the air.

--from "Montparnasse and Beyond" by Richard Armstrong, p. 180 of Paris Was Ours

I received a finished copy of Paris Was Ours in a surprise package from Algonquin Books and you should have heard the squeal. It just happens to be one of the books that most interested me from their catalogue, but I wasn't going to request anything from Algonquin simply because I've got enough advanced readers to carry me through till at least April. But, Paris! I've only been there briefly but the idea of Paris still entrances me and the memory of how it goes from dull and gray when overcast to sparkling and golden when the sun emerges has remained with me. I carried Paris Was Ours straight to my reading spot and started reading the essays the evening the book showed up.

Michael of Algonquin's marketing describes Paris Was Ours as "a delicious treat for the armchair traveler," and that's an apt description, in my humble opinion. Thirty-two essays cover the same ground from a wide variety of different perspectives but there are vast differences in experience along with some telling crossover. Many of the essayists mention the immaculate gardens upon which even adults are not allowed to set foot. No playing frisbee or lounging in the grass is allowed. Even a foot placed on the delicate turf will result in a fierce, "You should know better," whether one is a toddler or a 40-year-old.

Children do have their play areas, however. In Janine Di Giovanni's essay, she writes a friend's thoughts:

"Children in France are seen but not heard," says one American friend, Katherine, who is a mother of two. "Except on the playground, where the parents don't get involved and then it becomes Lord of the Flies."

--from "Parenting, French-Style" by Janine Di Giovanni, p. 94 of Paris Was Ours

Let me skip ahead to what I liked and disliked about the book before sharing a lengthy quote that I think is amazing but also gives slight evidence of one of the book's troublesome aspects.

What I loved about Paris Was Ours:

I absolutely adored the learning experience of reading about the French culture as written by a large number of people who have lived in Paris or still do. I can honestly say I never really understood the French. I found my own experience was 50-50 on the friendly scale. When I purchased a little silver Eiffel Tower charm from an elderly man in Montmartre, he spoke in careful English and even wrote the number of francs on one palm with the finger of his opposite hand. What a sweetheart!

But, we had one of those French waiters . . . the famously snobbish fellows who refuse to listen to garbled English-French, a man who actually slammed our plates onto the table. Their attitude -- both the kinder French and the snobs in restaurants -- are described in depth and their motivations explained from a variety of angles that truly make sense of the culture, the personalities, the differences in the way women look and men treat them, how their children are brought up. The word pictures painted by essayists in Paris Was Ours give readers a surprisingly three-dimensional view of a lifestyle and culture.

What I disliked about Paris Was Ours:

I had two problems with the book and I thought they were minor but worth mentioning. One is that the essays often lack context. For example, "Montparnasse and Beyond" by Richard Armstrong begins:

I had an instantaneous connection to Paris. --p. 78

My first thought when I read each of the essays was always, "Okay, I wonder when this person lived in Paris." Paris of the Sixties may have been very different from Paris of the Nineties, so I thought that was important information. Sometimes the time period is mentioned, sometimes it's not -- often you're well into an essay before the time period is revealed. There are brief bios of each of the authors in the back of the book. I would have liked to see those bios on a separate page preceding each essay, complete with dates to give each essay context.

The other problem I had was that most of the essays were peppered with French expressions but there is no glossary. For those who know French well, that's likely not a problem. But, I had junior high and high school French -- only enough to translate the easy words like "fromage" and "patisserie" that probably everyone knows. A glossary would have been very, very helpful. Eventually, I began marking words to look up, but there were so many of them that I should have just kept a laptop nearby, for translating purposes.

The lack of a glossary, however, was not enough to put off this reader. Note how much you can learn from this simple passage:

The French have such an attractive civilization, dedicated to calm pleasures and general tolerance, and their taste in every domain is so sharp, so sure, that the foreigner (especially someone from chaotic, confused America) is quickly seduced into believing that if he can only become a Parisian he will at last master the art of living. Paris intimidates its visitors when it doesn't infuriate them, but behind both sentiments dwells a sneaking suspicion that maybe the French have got it right, that they have located the just milieu and that their particular blend of artistic modishness and cultural conservatism, of welfare-statism and intense individualism, of clear-eyed realism and sappy romanticism -- that these proportions are wise, time-tested, and as indisputable as they are subtle.

If so, then why is the flâneur so lonely? So sad? Why is there such an elegiac feeling hanging over this city with the gilded cupola gleaming above the Emperor's tomb and the foaming, wild horses prancing out of a sea of verdigris on the roof of the Grand Palais?

--from "A Mild Hell" by Edmund White, p. 205 of Paris Was Ours

I looked up several words from that passage (apologies for the change of text size, which Blogger is not allowing me to fix, for some unknown reason):

just milieu - (definition from Wordnik)

–noun
1. The true mean; a just medium or balance between extremes; specifically, judicious moderation, as between extremes of opinion or conduct: defined as a political term by Montesquieu, but first brought into common use by Louis Philippe in 1831 in characterizing his own system of government.

Flâneur (from Wikipedia)

The term flâneur comes from the French masculine noun flâneur—which has the basic meanings of "stroller", "lounger", "saunterer", "loafer"—which itself comes from the French verb flâner, which means "to stroll". Charles Baudelaire developed a derived meaning of flâneur—that of "a person who walks the city in order to experience it".

elegiac (from my handy dandy American Heritage Dictionary) - (adj.)

1. Of or relating to an elegy (a mournful poem or song, especially one mourning a dead person).

2. Expressing sorrow, mournful.

I should have know that one. *headdesk*

The bottom line:

I loved Paris Was Ours. I felt transported to Paris, where a culture that's always perplexed me (as I have French roots, I really desire to understand the French) was explained with flair and erudition. A glossary of French terms and a little better context in the form of a lengthier bio placed just before each writing would have been helpful for the reading of most of the essays -- some authors did translate French expressions, but most did not.

Highly recommended for all readers but particularly for those who have a fascination with France in general or Paris in particular, or the armchair traveler who loves learning about other cultures. I'm going to loan this book to my son, who spent several weeks in France and will undoubtedly enjoy Paris Was Ours. I intend to reread it, eventually -- next time, with a French dictionary or a computer handy.

Some favorites:

I loved Jeremy Mercer's essay, "My Bookstore High", an excerpt from his book Time Was Soft There, about the time he spent living in Shakespeare and Company. Judith Warner's "Toward a Politics of Quality of Life," is a fascinating comparison of American feminism vs. the kittenish, pouty feminism of the French that I think would be of particular interest to those who are participating in challenges involving feminist issues.

There are several essays in which the acceptance of sexual orientation is mentioned but I didn't mark them. However, I was particularly interested by a comment that if a gay couple is invited to a party in New York, someone will seek them out to reassure them that they're very welcome, while in Paris the same couple will find themselves treated like everyone else, their orientation accepted to the point of being nothing of any interest.

I found Stacy Schiff's essay, "In Franklin's Footsteps" amusing and informative. And, I kept thinking to myself, "Stacy Schiff, Stacy Schiff. Where have I heard that name?" I looked her up and discovered that I have her biography of Antoine Saint-Exupery. It just happened to be sitting in a prominent place in the den because I pulled it off a shelf and set it aside, thinking, "I've got to read this one!" while cleaning some shelves, about two weeks ago.

Gushy thanks to Michael of Algonquin Books for the copy of Paris Was Ours.

Tomorrow I'll review Brownie Groundhog and the February Fox by Susan Blackaby, another surprise book, this time from Sterling Kids. It's a book that I love so much I fear my cats are going to get sick of it, sometime soon. Well, I have to read it to someone!

©2011 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.