From the Corner of the Oval by Beck Dorey-Stein

From the Corner of the Oval by Beck Dorey-Stein is the memoir of a woman who worked as a stenographer in the White House from 2012 to 2017. Originally a teacher, the author was balancing 5 jobs when she saw a job listing on Craigslist and applied. It was not clear that the job was in the White House until she went for the interview.

As a stenographer, Dorey-Stein's job was to make sure there was audio recording of almost everything Obama said, then transcribe what she'd recorded. She was one of five stenographers in the White House. Obama was big on transparency and accuracy. It was important to him that everything be recorded so that if he was misquoted he could simply refer to the transcript or recording of anything he said. Dorey-Stein also briefly worked in the Trump Administration, but only for a couple months. Trump's team had the opposite approach, everything public on video, little else recorded at all.

Beginning with her search for the job and the interview that she at first blew off because she was running late at one of the jobs she already held, Dorey-Stein describes her time working in the White House and her life both in and out of the job -- the long hours, hurry-up-and-wait activity, the travel on Air Force One and a second plane carrying reporters and staff, her rare interactions with the President. But, much of the focus is on her private life, her partying and love life, the friendships she developed at work, and how her writing developed as she took notes on everything that she experienced and shared some of her writing with the people around her.

Recommended but not a favorite - If you're looking for a solid memoir of life in the White House that focuses on Obama, his personality, and what it was like working for him, you might be a little disappointed. From the Corner of the Oval is fascinating but fluffy. There are glimpses of Obama but they're brief. Dorey-Stein's job was "in the bubble" (the people who circled around and traveled with the President) but not within the President's inner circle. What you get is an understanding of the hectic life people within the White House lead, how working there dominates your life, and how the people working for Obama felt about him (they admired and adored him; he was highly respected). Mostly, though, the book is about Beck.

There are some frustrations in reading her story. She spent a great deal of time partying with her co-workers, drinking heavily, gushing about her boyfriend, and sleeping with someone else. Her boyfriends are practically archetypes -- the boyfriend who's perfect except for the fact that he isn't present when she really needs him; the lothario who has a long-term girlfriend but flirts widely and sleeps around then typically ignores women after sleeping with them; the man found at an online dating site when desperation took over. I found myself frequently putting the book down, particularly during scenes in which Dorey-Stein was either drunk or sleeping with the lothario, yet again, and blaming it on her weakness. I was often frustrated with the author, her lack of control over her drinking, her inability to stop sleeping with a man who was clearly never going to choose her over the long-term girlfriend. But, I enjoyed reading about the hectic lifestyle, learning a little about the intensity of life in the White House and the President's schedule. From the Corner of the Oval is definitely fun for that peek into the White House. And now I want to read further, preferably a book or two by people who were in the inner circle during the Obama years.

©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.

Mini reviews - The Queen by Robert Lacey, Mia's Baker's Dozen by Coco Simon, Next to Love by Ellen Feldman

It's mini review time! I will write only mini reviews till I've caught up.

The Queen: A Life in Brief by Robert Lacey is a book written by a biographer who has written a large number of books about royalty. At a mere 166 pages, the author gives readers a comfortably brief overview of Queen Elizabeth II's life and 60-year reign. The Queen contains excerpts from some of Lacey's other books, as well as some updated material, and was written especially for Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee.

I think I can pretty safely say I knew next to nothing about Queen Elizabeth and her family and I'm happy not to have read a book that went into greater depth of detail. While I found the queen herself admirable in many ways and particularly enjoyed reading that her marriage was a true love story, Prince Charles pretty much made me want to heave. I had no idea he was such a naughty boy. During the actual Princess Diana years (when they were occurring, that is), I must admit I was more captivated by her wardrobe than the drama of the royal family and the many affairs. There is a single line in the book that I consider offensive and unnecessary, but otherwise The Queen is very nicely written.

Recommended to those who want to learn about the last 80 years or so of the British Monarchy in brief but are not interested in tremendous detail. If you're looking for a more comprehensive biography, check the page lengths of Lacey's books. He's written quite a few and The Queen: A Life in Brief is the shortest. The Queen was the perfect blend for me and also contains a surprisingly nice variety of photographs for such a small book.

Mia's Baker's Dozen by Coco Simon is one of the books in the Cupcake Diaries series, for ages 8 and up, about a group of young girls who have a small business selling cupcakes. I won my copy in a Twitter drawing, which I entered because I like to regress, now and then.

Mia's parents speak Spanish and so does Mia, but she has never learned to read or write Spanish. When she's enrolled in an advanced Spanish class and has difficulty, Mia's embarrassed to admit that she needs help. She is also thrown out of kilter by the changes in her life, now that her parents have divorced and her mother is remarried.

Mia's Baker's Dozen is very simplistically written. It was fun reading about Mia's challenges and friendships and how she solves her problems. I'm pretty sure I would have gobbled a series like this happily, as a young girl, and definitely recommend this title to youngsters in the right age range. It's nice, clean fun. Reading the book made me want to go play in the kitchen.

Next to Love by Ellen Feldman tells the stories of three women, friends from a young age who are all left behind when their men go off to fight in WWII. The story is based on one small town's loss of a large number of its young men in a single battle. Two of the women are widowed; one is not, but the surviving husband returns with a permanent injury and post-traumatic stress.

Next to Love follows the three women from before WWII to the Sixties and is packed with the love, loss, temptation, danger, violence, prejudice and other challenges of life for women during the time period.

I really enjoyed Next to Love because the relationships and challenges seemed very realistic to me, but there were a couple things I disliked about the book. Chiefly, I disliked the first-person narrative and jumpiness. I liked the fact that the author chose to portray each of the women from her own viewpoint, but instead of going from one character to another and showing how each reacted at a particular time, for example, there would be three scenes from Babe's perspective that take place from September of 1944 to July of 1946 and then you jump back to September of 1944 to view Grace's perspective. And, then the same thing is done all over again with Millie. Jarring.

On the plus side, Next to Love has the ring of a book that has been exceptionally well researched. The sense of time and place throughout the book is both believable and occasionally even reminded me of things my parents mentioned. Definitely recommended for those who enjoy WWII novels and women's fiction.

More minis forthcoming.

©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.