Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

A Tokyo basement café that stays cool and comfy all the time, a ghost who occupies a chair except during bathroom breaks, and 4 people who need at least a few moments to visit with someone important to them. In the small café in Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi you can travel through time if you're willing to follow the rules. And, the rules are strict. 

As each of 4 people travel in time for understanding, reassurance, or a glimpse of someone they love, a change takes place but always in the heart of the person who traveled through time. 

What an incredibly satisfying, heart-warming book, absolutely lovely. 

Highly recommended - One of my favorites of the year, so far, I absolutely loved this Japanese time travel (a translation). I honestly don't want to say too much about it because I loved the experience so much. I closed Before the Coffee Gets Cold with happy tears.

©2021 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.

The Brontë Sisters by Catherine Reef and a reread of The Woman Next Door by Yewande Omotoso

There were two books that helped break my February book slump: Our Native Bees and The Brontë Sisters. It was at my worst moment, when I could absolutely not bear to read another word of anything with a bookmark in it, that I decided to just let something call to me. I'd been glancing at The Brontë Sisters for days, by that point. It's an ARC that I got at my former library, back in the days when I'd occasionally drop by and find that they'd set out a cart full of ARCs for anyone to take, free of charge. I happened across my copy while doing a book purge and set it at the top of a bedside stack, thinking eventually I would get to it.

Then, I let it call out to me. The Brontë Sisters: The Brief Lives of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, is a children's biography of the sisters, but I can't say what age it's geared toward, although I think a middle schooler could easily handle it. The Brontë Sisters is also certainly comprehensive enough for an adult to enjoy -- a read that can be quickly gobbled up in an afternoon but not one that's lacking in any way because it's geared to a younger crowd. The Brontë Sisters includes a nice range of photos of documents, paintings, and other memorabilia.

I am not, in fact, really a Brontë fan. I liked Jane Eyre but detested Wuthering Heights. And, that's the limit of my exposure to the Brontës. But, Catherine Reef describes the lives of the Brontës and the events that were occurring during the writing of each book, including the plots of the books, in a manner that intrigued me enough that I would have immediately picked up a Brontë book to read, had I not already written a list of books that I needed to read in the coming month. It's likely I'll return to the book to read whatever section happens to be about each title, when I eventually do read more Brontë works. Reef definitely gave me an appreciation of the stories that I lacked while I read the two. Recommended for readers who are intrigued with the tragic Brontë family and/or their books.

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The Woman Next Door by Yewande Omotoso is a reread and I've already reviewed it (click on the title, above, to hop to my review) but I think it's worth mentioning the reread because it was quite a different experience. The first time I read The Woman Next Door, I did so because I wanted to read something set in South Africa before going on vacation there. The second time, I read it because I recommended it for discussion with my F2F book group.

What made the second reading different was the fact that this time I'd already been to South Africa. The Woman Next Door is set in a fictional neighborhood called Katterijn in Cape Town. It's about two elderly women who hate each other: one black, one white. But, there are some subtleties of characterization that you miss if you aren't familiar with Cape Town. I found that the book was even more enjoyable when I read it knowing the history of those areas.

Marion, the white woman who is racist but not self-aware, lived in District 6 for a short time, early in her life, for example. I had no idea what the significance of District 6 was, of course, having never been there when I first read it. But, while we were in Cape Town, we went on a tour that included the District 6 museum. District 6 was a part of Cape Town that was known for its diversity. A community that had attracted people from a large variety of races, backgrounds, and religions, the people of District 6 lived in blissful harmony till the Apartheid government kicked everyone out and plowed it down (unity being something that collided with the concept of control by minority, which is facilitated by division).

The area was an island unto itself. It wasn't necessary to go into Cape Town proper to buy groceries, go to school, or join in on activities. So, had Marion stayed in District 6, she undoubtedly would have grown up appreciating diversity. But, her parents were Jewish and escaped the Holocaust (this is more implied than stated), gave up their religion when they fled, and moved out of District 6 as quickly as they could. When Marion finally realizes how racist she is, it appears to startle her to think back on the fact that she was once a resident of the same neighborhood that spawned anti-Apartheid activists such as Nelson Mandela.

As to the discussion . . . it was fabulous. It's worth noting that I'm in a group in which the average age is probably about 20 years above mine (and I'm no spring chicken). A story about two elderly women, aged 88 and 82, with richly developed characterization was very much appreciated in that group. Only one of the women present disliked The Woman Next Door and she said her problem was the bitchiness of the characters. Well, there's no denying they're not pleasant people. But, there was purpose to their sharp tongues (they were wounded souls) and a meaning to their slow arrival at the realization that they were more alike than they could have imagined.

It's also notable that one of the group members observed the negative reviews at Goodreads appear to mostly have been written by younger women. Maybe it takes a bit of hard living and long years to truly appreciate the depth of meaning in The Woman Next Door. But, it definitely was a hit in my book group.

©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.

Being Mortal by Atul Gawande and The Statue and the Fury by Jim Dees

I ordered a copy of Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande on a bit of a whim after reading Al Franken's repeated exhortations about what a great guy Gawande is in Al Franken, Giant of the Senate. I'd heard of it but I don't believe I read any reviews of Being Mortal before I ordered it. As it turned out, the book was perfect for the moment in which I read it.

Atul Gawande is a physician who has slowly come to the realization that we make a mess of end-of-life care and decision-making and shares what he has learned and experienced. He talks about the different ways of handling the care of elders in decline, including a variety of approaches from allowing the elderly to make their own decisions and lock their doors -- even if it means they're shortening their own lives by continuing to do such things as eat unhealthy foods -- to the opposite extreme of nursing home care in which the elderly are confined, and various experiments and options in between, such as a nursing home with pets for the seniors to care for.

Gawande also talks about how important it is for those who are aging and/or dying to be able to decide what is most important to them as they approach their dying days. Throughout the book, he gradually tells the story of his own father's years with a slow-growing cancer and both the mistakes and wise decisions that were made.

Highly recommended - Being Mortal is a book I think absolutely everyone should read at some point, whether one is reading from the perspective of a caregiver or that of an older person who wants to be informed about end-of-life decisions like choosing a place to live. We were in the process of losing a family member as I was reading the book and while I was not the caregiver in this particular case, it helped me in surprising ways and even was reassuring about how we handled my mother's death, almost 10 years ago. I'll probably end up rereading Being Mortal at least a couple times. Whether you have aging parents, a family member who is terminally ill, or just want to think about how to eventually handle major life decisions in the future, it's a book about something we'll all face and a valuable resource for helping one gain perspective about what the options are and the most important questions to ask.

The Statue and the Fury: A Year of Art, Race, Music, and Cocktails by Jim Dees is about a year of life in Oxford, Mississippi during a time when a surprisingly controversial decision about whether or not to erect a statue of William Faulkner and where to put it had the residents of Oxford up in arms. Author Jim Dees was working for the local newspaper, during the time in question, and he describes various other happenings in the town, which at the time was still quite small (it's had quite a population explosion, in the past decade or so) and has been the host and a musician for the local radio show, Thacker Mountain Radio, for some time.

I read The Statue and the Fury for book group discussion in February but then missed the discussion because of a heavy thunderstorm (I live 30 miles from where my group meets, now), unfortunately. Both of my sons have degrees from the University of Mississippi in Oxford and one is back there, working on a second degree. So, we're familiar with the city, the statue in question, the bookstore, the radio show, and some of the local personalities. However, there were occasions when the author described various people and I had to dash off to look them up. And, the flow of the book is pretty rocky. It actually took me quite a while to realize the book wasn't a series of columns but a reflection on a specific year. The lack of flow confused me into thinking it was more of a collection of writings than a recollection of a specific time period.

Having said that, anyone who is passionate about William Faulkner's books will probably enjoy a peek into the crazy controversy about whether or not to put up a statue, the huge flap about a tree that was surreptitiously cut down during a time when tree-chopping was a little out of control, and the memories of Faulkner shared by various friends, relatives, and acquaintances of his. I particularly enjoyed finally finding out why there are two spellings of Faulkner (Falkner is the original spelling; Will or Bill, as he was known, added the "u") on the signs in Oxford. I particularly recommend The Statue and the Fury to Faulkner fans, Mississippians, and those who have lived in Oxford or visited the town. It's a bit disjointed -- not the best writing -- but a few of those small-town stories are worth the price of the book.

©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.

The Woman Next Door by Yewande Omotoso

***Spoiler alert! I mentioned a couple plot points that I personally enjoyed having revealed to me during the reading. I dislike knowing much of anything about what's going to happen in a book before I read it. If you also feel that way, please skip down to the highlighted recommendation line to avoid spoilers.***

The Woman Next Door tells the story of two women in South Africa - one black, one white. They're next-door neighbors and they hate each other.  Marion, the white woman, is casually racist and not self-aware, so she doesn't realize she's racist,, although it shows in even the little things she does. Like buying one-ply toilet tissue for her housekeeper and two-ply for herself (until she finds out the housekeeper is buying her own three-ply and rushes out to get some of her own).

Hortensia, the black woman, has become hardened since her husband's affair, 40 years back. When Marion finds out she's going bankrupt and will have to sell her home, she digs in her attic for a valuable painting purchased specifically as an investment. She wants to hide it from the bank because it's valuable enough to at least keep her in a decent home for the rest of her life.

When Hortensia's husband dies and the will instructs her to call her deceased husband's daughter from his affair, she resists and starts on a project to remodel her house so she won't have to think about it. But, there's an accident on the first day. Hortensia's leg is broken and Marion's home is damaged. The painting disappears. They still hate each other, but through shared tragedies, the two women slowly get to know each other and share their broken pasts.

Highly recommended - I adored the characters. They're both nasty in a curmudgeonly way, having been broken by life, somehow. But, at the same time, you can't help but be utterly charmed by their dialogue. The story really is a delight. I chose to read The Woman Next Door because of the word "delightful" on the cover, having just finished a suspense. It was absolutely the perfect follow-up to a darker read. I think The Woman Next Door would also make a pretty good discussion book. The racism and misogyny experienced by the two women should be excellent fodder for group discussion.

©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.

The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert

The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert
Copyright 2015 (released January 6)
Picador - Nonfiction/History/Science
336 pp., including extensive bibliography

I read Elizabeth Kolbert's Field Notes from a Catastrophe in 2010 and didn't realize she'd published a new book till a former blogger friend mentioned it. I ordered it that day without bothering to read about it, but with a good idea about the gist, since Field Notes from a Catastrophe was about climate change.

The beginning of The Sixth Extinction was, I thought, a bit wobbly. A book about past mass extinctions as well as the one humans are currently creating, I expected the chapters to be tied into each other a little better. Instead, each of the first few chapters felt like entirely separate entities. It turned out there's a reason for that bumpy start. Apparently, those first few chapters (I don't know how many) were originally published as individual articles.

However, eventually Kolbert hit her stride and The Sixth Extinction began to feel like it had a purpose, leading up to but not overly strident about the concept that humans have not only altered the earth by driving the climate change that is likely to lead to a mass extinction in the ocean in about 35 years but also about how we've already been causing extinctions of flora and fauna for almost our entire existence. I found it startling, although I don't suppose I should. In today's world, you blink and another animal goes extinct or is added to the endangered list.

Still, the book was surprising in many ways. I've been reading about climate change for a long time and the science is solid but I've never read anything at all about ocean warming. This, it appears, is the concept that ought to induce panic. It's not the melting icecaps, which are causing rising oceans and killing off animals that require the icy regions' strength in order to survive, nor even the warming that's causing storms to grow stronger. Instead, it's the acidification of the water that is a fearful thing. Once it reaches a certain level . . . massive die-off, gloom, doom. Really, the potential loss of all that seafood alone ought to be enough to frighten us to action.

The only downfall to this book is that it can get a little too scientific, at times, at least for some of us. I'm not well-versed in biology; I don't know a family from a genus from a hole in the head, but the author liked using the Latin names of flora and fauna and occasionally went a little deeper into the science than I'd have liked. I can read between the lines but I felt a little stupid, I suppose.

Highly recommended. Another frankly terrifying but exceptional book by Elizabeth Kolbert, excellent as a follow-up to Field Notes from a Catastrophe, although not as in-your-face blunt and a little more technical. The few lines about the likelihood of life as we know it ending in the near future were uttered by scientists, not the author herself.

Side notes: I have an unfortunate tendency to read the comments below articles about things like climate change and I must admit that I don't understand how anyone can possibly fall for the concept that climate change is a hoax, a misconception that's especially prevalent in the U.S. The science backing up the fact that climate change is human-driven (and that we are actually in a cooling period, yet still managing to warm things up in a damaging way) is extensive and has been around for a lot longer than the political division over it (before the petroleum industry began heavily lobbying and buying off U.S. Congressmen, in other words).

Kolbert even talks about how long ago the first person discovered that we were causing climate change. 100 years, people. At one point, a Russian scientist recommended burning fossil fuels to deliberately change the climate, making more of Russia livable and screwing up life for North Americans. All Russia had to do was wait, though, as the dependence upon fossil fuels grew and we made the change without malice.

©2015 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.

A few mini reviews - Behind the Scenes at the Museum by K. Atkinson, Well Wished by F. Billingsley and French Leave by Anna Gavalda

All three of the following books are from my personal library.

Kate Atkinson's Behind the Scenes at the Museum tells the story of Ruby Lennox's life from the moment of conception to a time well into her adulthood. But, it's not just about Ruby. Behind the Scenes at the Museum is a family saga that leaps back and forth in time, dashing back to examine how Ruby's family has been fractured by wandering souls and forward to show how the wounds caused by loss and unexplained disappearances, misplaced blame and emotional pain reverberated through several generations.

Behind the Scenes at the Museum is yet another book that does the leapfrogging in time thing, although it's quite different from the historical/contemporary blend with two main characters that's become so common.  Instead, Atkinson leaps from one decade or even century to another and none of the stories are told in a strict timeline sense.  Near the end of the book you find out even the narrator, Ruby, has blocked a critical incident from her memory because it was so painful.

It's tedious wading through detail about one generation of the Lennox family, only to be thrown to another time period and have to reorient yourself to another -- so many characters!  There were several times that I considered closing the book for good because the jumps between time periods were exhausting. And, yet the characterization in Behind the Scenes at the Museum is stunning. When you get to the point that the dots connect, the family members who drifted away are finally explained, the psychic wounds that caused some to be unhappy described you can't help but walk away from the ending thinking Kate Atkinson is one hell of a writer.  

I did, however, get the sense that Atkinson was trying a bit too hard to say, "Look, look how brilliant I am!"  She probably wasn't, but you know how some books come across that way.

Well Wished by Franny Billingsley is a children's fantasy (middle reader).  Nuria lives with her grandfather, whom she calls "the Avy". They live near a beautiful little village with a magical well.  But, wishes made at the village well have to be carefully worded or they can go terribly wrong.  One wish has already caused all but two of the children in the village to disappear.  The Avy has tried to wish the children back and he has forbidden Nuria to ever make a wish.  

Nuria quickly becomes friends with Catty Winter, a child who has been called back by the well.  But, Catty is stuck in a wheelchair after a lengthy illness left her without the use of her legs.  When Catty convinces Nuria to join in on a wish to return her to full health, the wish goes terribly wrong -- and the rules of the well are strict.  A wish can be recanted within a month.  But, if two parties make a wish together, both must agree to undo the wish; and Catty seems unlikely to change her mind.  

The description of Well Wished is a lot more simplistic than the plot. The well itself is a trickster and a series of wishes to undo wishes has created a tangled mess but Nuria is a clever child.  In fact, she's such a witty, inventive child that just reading the dialogue in Well Wished is a delight.  The way everything works out in the end is so brilliant but twisty that at least one adult reviewer at Goodreads said she was confused and couldn't fathom how a child could possibly understand the story.  I can see how someone would have difficulty following the concept.  You have to let go a little and think like a child.  If anything, I think children are more likely to understand the concept in Well Wished than adults.  Well Wished is the third book I've read by Franny Billingsley and it is a wonder.  I've also read and loved Chime and The Folk Keeper.  

French Leave by Anna Gavalda is a short book by the author of one of my long-time favorite short story collections, I Wish Someone Were Waiting for Me Somewhere.  

From Google Books:

Siblings Simon, Garance and Lola flee a dull family wedding to visit brother Vincent, who is working as a guide at a chateau in the heart of the charming Tours countryside.  

Sounds great, but unfortunately the bulk of French Leave describes the drive to the wedding and the escape portion of the book is deeply disappointing.  After some jumpy but very entertaining set-up with great interaction and Garance's reflection on a wild and crazy youth, not much actually happens when the siblings finally gather.  When Simon, Garance and Lola first encounter Vincent, though, it's pretty funny and I think the fact that not much happens is probably the point of French Leave.  Garance has happy memories but she and her siblings are simply not the same people they used to be; adulthood has changed them too much and even happy-go-lucky Garance, the narrator, realizes it's time for her to move on.

Well Wished is my favorite of these three books and the one I'd most highly recommend.  Fantasy is a genre I seldom read because the elaborate worlds and names in many fantasies overwhelm me but so far I have loved everything I've read by Franny Billingsley, although it takes a while before the pictures she paints become clear.  

Behind the Scenes at the Museum has such depth of character and setting that it can become tiresome but in the end it's quite an amazing read so I also recommend it but I'd save it for a time when you're feeling patient and willing to wade through a lot of detail.  Between the characterization and the bouncing back and forth in time, it's a frustrating book but when the pieces start to fall together it's pretty spectacular to look back and realize just what the author has accomplished.

French Leave is okay; I recommend it, but hesitantly.  Too much build-up that leads to nothing, in my humble opinion, although I don't regret the time spent reading.  I liked the first 2/3 or so.  It's unfortunate that the story petered out once the siblings gathered together.  Even if the point is that they've changed, the last portion is such a huge let-down that it colors the entire reading experience.

Wish me luck.  I'm going to do my level best to finish catching up on reviews, this week.  My goal will be to keep things short and incisive.  I am laughing at myself, already. 

©2013 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.

A few minis: The English by Matt Rudd, The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

This is quite a hodge-podge of titles but all were purchases and I don't feel like dedicating an entire page to any of them, even though I enjoyed them all.  

I purchased The English: A Field Guide by Matt Rudd when I got to Victoria Station in London and realized I didn't have any reading material for the train trip to Dover.  Unacceptable!  Must have reading material!  So, I grabbed The English and, since it was one of the "Buy 1, Get 1 Half Price" books and so was The 5th Wave, I threw in the Yancey book for good measure.

The English is sarcastic fun, a book that observes and pokes fun at English habits and attitudes in the kitchen and garden, on the sofa, in the office, on the commuter train.  It talks about pubs and clubs and shops, sporting events, the motorway, the beach and even the bedroom. 

I love the cover blurb:  

"An opportunity for the English to laugh at themselves and to show everyone else how mad and brilliant we are."

--Jeremy Clarkson

Spot on, Jeremy.  Except the problem with the rest of us is that some of that lingo doesn't translate.  I could have used a British English dictionary.  Y'all do love your slang in the UK.  But, I made sense of most of The English and it made the train trip out to Dover go quickly.  

On the way back, I didn't get to read because I was distracted by the adventurers across the aisle. One fellow kept showing the others photos of the time he had to dig himself out of a snow cave and talked about how difficult it was to pull himself up out of a crevasse.  But, at least his team had practiced for possible falls into crevasses by building a climbing area in the local garage.  You so wish you could have eavesdropped with me, don't you?

The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey was on my wish list because my friend Tammy gushed about it and it's getting very positive reviews.  

An alien invasion has wiped out most of the Earth's population in 4 separate waves.  Cassie has been alone for a while, living in the woods with occasional runs into town for food and water, knowing that even if there are any remaining humans it will be almost impossible for her to know who is human and who is not.  She must stay alone and trust no one.  But, how long can that last?

Private Zombie is being trained with a team of children. Nugget, the smallest, is so little he can't become an officer for another two years after training.  Zombie likes little Nugget and feels protective of him.  When the team is sent out on its first mission, they discover something sinister and realize the 5th Wave they've been waiting for has already begun.  Zombie realizes he must go back for Nugget.

I love dystopian and apocalyptic books (aliens or otherwise), so it's only natural that I expected to enjoy The 5th Wave.  And, I did.  I liked the fact that the author tried to turn the whole alien-invasion concept on its head with references to movies and books in which, says the narrator, everyone got it wrong because there's no scattered group of humans that will band up to save the day.  I guess we'll find out if that's the truth in the next book.  The 5th Wave stands alone and is comfortably wrapped up, but it will still have you bouncing in your seat like popcorn, wishing you could get your mitts on the next book.  Assuming you like that kind of thing.  It's not great literature, but The 5th Wave is very well-written, stunningly plotted, action-packed, scary fun.  I loved it.  

Speaking of great literature, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is right up there.  I've actually attempted to read it twice and couldn't get into it.  There was something about the intro that threw me.  But, the third time I had no problem.  I haven't been able to find my elderly copy of Gatsby, so I wandered into a bookstore in Uxbridge (again, in the Greater London area) after we hiked out to the Battle of Britain Bunker.  My feet needed a break, so I let the guys wander off to Sainsbury's without me and sat happily reading and swinging my feet on a nearby park bench.

All of that goes to say, this time around The Great Gatsby really grabbed me and, even though it's tragic and I adore sweetness and light, I loved it.  I'm pretty sure everyone on the planet knows what it's about so I won't bother going into that.  What I will say is that when I closed the book, I wanted to talk about it.  I didn't love it as much as my first Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise, but I was still astounded by Fitzgerald's mastery of the language and the way the narrator, Nick Carraway, made me see a tragic affair and overblown desperation as a story with more heart at its core than I'd have expected.  

At any rate, I'm glad I bought a second copy if only because the print is much larger than my older one.  I like the cover, too, because glancing at the costumes helped me visualize the opulence. The Great Gatsby display in the Harrods' windows might have helped, too, but Husband kept dragging me down Sloane Street to get home, at night, instead of past Harrods. So it wasn't till our last evening that I finally managed to photograph those cool costumes.

This one rotated:

Bottom line:  Thumbs up to The Great Gatsby, loved living through the alien invasion in The 5th Wave, and the English, as described in The English, are indeed mad and brilliant.  I really enjoyed my vacation reading and highly recommend all three!

©2013 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.

Time Was Soft There by Jeremy Mercer

Time Was Soft There: A Paris Sojourn at Shakespeare & Co. by Jeremy Mercer is a memoir I've been hearing about for years. I came across my copy (acquired via Paperback Swap but promptly set aside) whilst deep cleaning and eagerly dived into the reading.

For those who aren't familiar with the store: Shakespeare & Co. is a Paris bookstore, famously known not only for its books but also for housing a rotating community of scruffy, soup-eating hopeful authors. Mercer stayed at the store while attempting to figure out what to do with his life.

After giving up his crime-reporting job due to a death threat, the author traveled to Paris but he ate through his savings rapidly. His memoir tells about fleeing his Canadian hometown in fear, his early days in Paris, time at Shakespeare & Co., and the literary magazine he and another resident eventually began to publish, Kilometer Zero.

Although Time Was Soft There is a memoir, it's not merely about the author's experience. Mercer also describes Shakespeare & Company's history and owner George Whitman's life. Whitman has since passed away (but he apparently lived to 98 -- maybe there's something to just living with the dirt, rather than trying to keep everything squeaky clean). The store lives on.

Although I was too busy to read much, Time Was Soft There went with me to Nashville during our Christmas holiday, along with several other books, and was the only book I bothered to continue reading when I had a spare moment. During those spare moments, I read a bit on the "rabidly" side.

I'm not quite sure what exactly I expected -- certainly not the mention of insect life, but perhaps the grubbiness of the store's residents -- however, in many ways the book was far better than anticipated. I loved the fact that Time Was Soft There is part memoir, part bio of the store's owner, part history. Memoirs run the gamut from humble to self-aggrandizing and Time Was Soft There strikes a nice balance.

Addendum: I'd completely forgotten that I read an excerpt from Time Was Soft There in Paris Was Ours (<---link to my review), which I read early in 2011. Thanks to editor Penelope Rowlands for the reminder. That particular excerpt was one of my favorites; no wonder I went into the reading with a warm, fuzzy feeling.

Recommended to memoir-loving book fiends.

On a related note, we watched Midnight in Paris, two nights ago. The entire time we were watching, I kept hoping Shakespeare & Co. would show up. Sure enough, there was a brief image. Too brief, really, but I made a little noise of excitement when the bookstore finally made an appearance. Husband was baffled. What, pray tell, was so exciting about that extremely minimal view of the bookstore? he asked (my wording). "I just read about it," I said. "Oh." Shrug. There's really no accounting for crazy book people, I suppose.

In case you're interested, Kiddo and I loved the movie (about a writer who is transported to the Twenties, where he hangs out with the expat artistic crowd gathered in Paris), even though there's no escaping the usual feel of a Woody Allen movie. I thought Owen Wilson did a spectacular job of portraying a Woody Allen role without the usual stiffness and odd gestures that make Allen's movies come across looking so staged. I do like a few Woody Allen films, just not many. Midnight in Paris is loads of fun for the literary-adoration crowd. We laughed a lot, Kiddo and I. Husband left the room. He said it was way too "typical Woody Allen" for his taste.

©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.