Mixing it Up: Late June Mini-Reviews

Deciding what to read during a pandemic is not easy. Heavy issue novels just weren't working for me, but neither was anything too fluffy. I seem to have found a nice groove by mixing things up... an audio memoir, a short story collection, a classic, and a beach read.

Let's get right to my late June mini-reviews...

Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls

by T Kira Madden, narrated by the author

This beautifully written coming-of-age memoir, told through a series of short vignettes, is brutally honest, raw, gritty, and sad... yet somehow achingly tender, too. It's a memoir of trauma, loneliness, confusion, families, and forgiveness.

Madden grew up in a loving household in Boca Raton, FL, yet her parents continually battled alcohol and drug addiction. She was often left alone to deal with the constant barrage of pressures inflicted upon preteens/teens in our society.

Hearing the author narrate her own story was especially impactful. I'm glad I decided to listen!

You Think It, I'll Say It by Curtis Sittenfeld

I don't read many short story collections, but it may be time to start! This was one of the many books I grabbed off the library shelf just prior to the pandemic shutdown. It took several months to finally read it - wish I'd picked it up in April.

The stories, mostly about relationships, all managed to draw me in immediately. They show average people as they really are... which isn't always flattering. The writing is excellent - sharp and without an unnecessary word. I would be hard pressed to choose a favorite. Now it's time to try one of Sittenfeld's novels. Do you have a favorite to recommend?

Passing by Nella Larsen

This classic novella of the Harlem Renaissance was originally published in 1929.  It's a story of two childhood friends who reunite after many years. Irene is shocked to discover her friend, Clare, has been "passing" as white. Clare misses her old community and is eager to reestablish a connection, but must do so behind her husband's back. Irene, afraid of the consequences of such actions, is reluctant to rekindle their friendship. The conclusion of the book is startling, to say the least.

Larsen's writing seemed ponderous at times, but still completely readable. The reader is allowed into Irene's head enough to make it reminiscent of The Awakening, at least for me. Larsen's autobiographical first novel, Quicksand, is now on my reading list.

28 Summers by Elin Hilderbrand

Elin Hilderbrand is the queen of the beach read and, now that summer is here, what better way to round out the month? Her latest novel is a Same Time, Next Year story spanning 27 years, 1993 to 2020. There isn't much more to say other than I loved it.... set aside a sunny weekend and give it a try.

Bring on July!

This Week's Read: Devotion by Dani Shapiro

A woman named Sandra was cradling my head in her hands. We were in a small room - just the two of us - and it was so quiet I could hear the ticking of her watch. The air smelled faintly of eucalyptus. A high window overlooked a parking lot, and beyond the parking lot, mountains. I tried to relax - that was the point, wasn't it? - but I wasn't relaxed at all. I had signed up for something called Master Level Energy Work, thinking it would be like a massage. But this was no massage. For one thing, she was sighing a lot.

Devotion: A Memoir
by Dani Shapiro, narrated by the author

Here I am reading my third Dani Shapiro memoir in as many weeks... I'm officially a fan! It seems like I'm making my way through her life backwards, reading her books in reverse order, but that's fine. Yesterday I had a couple of hours alone in the car and began listening to Shapiro narrate her memoir about faith. So far it's another winner.

According to goodreads, Devotion is:

... a searching and timeless new memoir that examines the fundamental questions that wake women in the middle of the night, and grapples with the ways faith, prayer, and devotion affect everyday life. Devotion is sure to appeal to all those dealing with the trials and tribulations of what Carl Jung called “the afternoon of life.” 

What do you think? Would you continue reading?

First Chapter/First Paragraph/Tuesday Intro is hosted by Vicki at I'd Rather Be At The Beach.

The Sunday Salon: June 16, 2019

It's Sunday, it's Father's Day, and it's raining...again! In fact, it's been dreary all week. I don't even have a lake photo to share today. Nevertheless, we've had several happy days thanks to a visit from my sister-in-law and Twin B coming home for the weekend. Later today we'll have a Father's Day dinner with my parents and siblings.


Finished reading//

Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love

by Dani Shapiro, narrated by the author

This book! It's my favorite nonfiction so far this year... I absolutely loved it! Dani Shapiro, a 50-something writer brought up in an Orthodox Jewish community in NYC, takes a DNA test on a whim and discovers that her father was not her biological father. Her entire history and identity seemingly crumbles beneath her. However, it's not what you might think. There is no infidelity involved... it's actually far more complicated and raises many complex questions.

The audio version read by the author is outstanding. I think listening to Shapiro tell her own story is the best way to experience this book, but I got a print copy for my mother (who tore through it in a day) and her reaction was much the same as mine. Read or listen, but do not miss Inheritance!

Current reading//

Ordinary Grace

by William Kent Krueger

This is our next book club selection, but I only managed to read 20% last week. The writing is very good and I'm interested in the story, but it's not unputdownable yet. The goodreads ratings are very high and the blogging community has also embraced it. The beginning may be a little slower than expected, but my hopes are still high.



Listening to//

Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage

By: Dani Shapiro

After finishing Inheritance, I immediately downloaded one of Shapiro's earlier memoirs. This short (under 4 hours) audio is described as "an inquiry into how marriage is transformed by time - abraded, strengthened, shaped in miraculous and sometimes terrifying ways by accident and experience." It's another winner and I may go right on to Devotion when I'm done.


On the blog//

This Week's Read: Ordinary Grace  by William Kent Krueger


The week ahead//

My husband will be traveling most of the week, so I hope to catch up on all the blog posts I've been meaning to write - reviews, a summer reading list, and maybe even the impossible state of my library hold list. We're hoping to get new carpet installed and, if there is more than one rain-free day, I'll finish planting the flowers. (I won't hold my breath!)

How was your week? What have you been reading?

The Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.

Book Brief - Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover

Educated: A Memoir

by Tara Westover

Random House, 2018

352 pages

audiobook

Random House Audio, 2018

12 hours and 10 minutes

narrated by Julia Whelan

Motivation for reading: A combination of factors... primarily my curiosity about attending college without prior formal education and what childhood in a survivalist Mormon family might be like. Educated  was also an early selection of the PBS Now Read This book club.

Source:
ebook, borrowed from the library
audiobook, downloaded from the library via Overdrive

Publisher's summary:
Tara Westover grew up preparing for the End of Days, watching for the sun to darken, for the moon to drip as if with blood. She spent her summers bottling peaches and her winters rotating emergency supplies, hoping that when the World of Men failed, her family would continue on, unaffected.

She hadn’t been registered for a birth certificate. She had no school records because she’d never set foot in a classroom, and no medical records because her father didn’t believe in doctors or hospitals. According to the state and federal government, she didn’t exist.

As she grew older, her father became more radical, and her brother, more violent. At sixteen Tara decided to educate herself. Her struggle for knowledge would take her far from her Idaho mountains, over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she’d travelled too far. If there was still a way home.

Educated  is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty, and of the grief that comes with the severing of the closest of ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Westover has, from her singular experience, crafted a universal coming-of-age story, one that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers – the perspective to see one’s life through new eyes, and the will to change it.

Opening paragraph:

Chapter 1 

Choose the Good 

My strongest memory is not a memory. It's something I imagined, then came to remember as if it had happened. The memory was formed was I was five, just before I turned six, from a story my father told in such detail that I and my brothers and sister had each conjured our own cinematic version, with gunfire and shouts. Mine had crickets. That's the sound that I hear as my family huddles in the kitchen, lights off, hiding from the Feds who've surrounded the house. A woman reaches for a glass of water and her silhouette is lighted by the moon. A shot echoes like the lash of a whip and she falls. In my memory it's always Mother who falls, and she has a baby in her arms.

My thoughts:

This is quite a memoir!  Westover has a fascinating story to tell and she does it well - BUT it was also a harrowing reading and listening experience.

Ms. Westover's upbringing was shocking, to say the least. Her parents infuriated me with their abuse, medical neglect, and complete abdication of educational responsibility. Her brother was also extremely abusive. At times this book was painful to read and listen to.

Westover is able to look back on her experiences with impressive thoughtfulness and insight but, to me, her main focus is on family dynamics and abuse. The educational angle, to my disappointment, was secondary... and the title somewhat misleading.

While I recognize that this book is very well written, I will not be recommending it to anyone.

Book Brief: Dinner With Edward

Dinner with Edward: A Story of an Unexpected Friendship
by Isabel Vincent
Algonquin Books, 2016
224 pages
source: purchased


I love to visit independent bookstores when I'm traveling and was thrilled to stumbled upon Off the Beaten Path in Steamboat Springs, CO this summer. Of course I didn't need  another book, but still wanted to do my part to support a local indie!

I selected Dinner with Edward, a delightful memoir of a friendship between a middle-aged woman in a failing marriage and a ninety-something widower trying to find meaning in life after the death of his beloved wife. Edward also happens to be a gourmet cook. Each chapter begins with a dinner menu and, naturally, includes Edward's tips and secrets for preparing that dish.... though no recipes are included.

I read the book on our flight home. It turned out to be just as much about life, love, and sharing as it is about food.  It also made me want to visit Roosevelt Island the next time I'm in New York City.

"It's just cooking, darling," he said, when I asked why he didn't use cookbooks. "I  don't ever think of what I'm doing in terms of recipes. I just don't want to bother looking at recipes. To me, that's not cooking - being tied to a piece of paper."

Bottom line: A sweet, enjoyable read, but ultimately not that memorable.

My rating:

Weekend Cooking, hosted at Beth Fish Reads, is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page.

Circling the Sun, West With the Night, and my book club

I was disappointed when my book club selected Circling the Sun by Paula McLain for our May discussion. I listened to McLain's earlier novel, The Paris Wife, in 2011 and thought it was a good book, but not a great one. Still, I resolved to give her latest a try. After a winter in Florida, I missed my book club and wasn't about to go to the meeting without having read the book.

Basically, the novel is a fictionalized biography of Beryl Markham, who is perhaps best known as the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west. She was also an accomplished horse trainer and lived in Africa for most of her life.

I opted for a read/listen combination, borrowing the book from the library and using an audible credit to download the audiobook narrated by Katharine McEwan. McEwan's narration is excellent and easily pulled me into the story. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about Markham's childhood in Africa, career as a horse trainer, friendship with Karen Blixen (Out of Africa author), and her many affairs.

Yet there was a good deal of frustration, too. Beryl Markham was a real person, so which parts were fact and which were products of the author's imagination? This is a problem I have with all fictionalized biographies... and why they usually end up sending me in search of the real thing.

In this case, the real thing is West With the Night by Beryl Markham. Again, I borrowed the book from the library and downloaded the audio version narrated by the late Anna Fields. It was a pleasure to hear Field's voice again, but I had a much harder time getting into this one.

Markham doesn't let the reader get as close as the fictional Beryl in Circling the Sun does. Her feelings seem to be wholly absent from the book. She obviously loves Africa and her work (horses and flying), but there is very little here about relationships. Her emotional self and personal life remain an enigma. When Denys Hatton-Finch dies in a plane crash, there is no hint of anything more than a working relationship between the two them. (Perhaps that was a fictional aspect of Circling the Sun?) Markham's mother and Karen Blixen are not even mentioned.

West With the Night does provide wonderful descriptions of Africa, as well as stories of Markham's work as a horse trainer and her experiences as a pilot. That is more than enough to make this an interesting memoir.

A couple of quotes:

"Africa is mystic; it is wild; it is a sweltering inferno; it is a photographer's paradise, a hunter's Valhalla, an escapist's Utopia. It is what you will, and it withstands all interpretations."  

"You can live a lifetime and, at the end of it, know more about other people than you know about yourself. You learn to watch other people, but you never watch yourself because you strive against loneliness. If you read a book, or shuffle a deck of cards, or care for a dog, you are avoiding yourself. The abhorrence of loneliness is as natural as wanting to live at all. If it were otherwise, men would never have bothered to make an alphabet, nor to have fashioned words out of what were only animal sounds, nor to have crossed continents -- each man to see what the other looked like."

My final thoughts:

I enjoyed the Circling the Sun and rated it 4 stars. West With the Night  was a very good memoir, but not what I was expecting. For that reason, I ended up giving it 3 stars.

I'm certain I would have liked West With the Night  more if I'd read it before the novel. That way, the novel could have filled in the blanks left by the memoir. Instead, the memoir failed to provide the answers I sought. However, since Markham's personal account is so vague, I now understand the motivation for writing a novel.

Book club meeting:

Six of us met for coffee on a Friday morning, and five had read the entire book. I thought this would have been a very popular selection but, surprisingly, I enjoyed it more than most of the others. I was also the only one compelled to seek out the memoir.

We spent some time bemoaning the current popularity of fictionalized biographies, discussing our frustrations with that type of novel, and wondering how much longer the trend will continue. We also shared our experiences with the author's previous book (not a book club selection, but one most of us had read) and compared it to Circling the Sun.

We spent a great deal of time talking about Markham herself and how she was a woman ahead of her time. Her life was certainly remarkable, but not especially shocking by today's standards. We also discussed life in Africa, both during Markham's time and today, and even took a little detour into the world of "Glamping" and safaris.

Next month we will discuss Nobody's Fool  by Richard Russo.

Tuesday Intro: West With the Night

I

Message from Nungwe 

How is it possible to bring order out of memory? I should like to begin at the beginning, patiently, like a weaver at his loom. I should like to say, 'This is the place to start; there can be no other.' 

But there are a hundred places to start for there are a hundred names - Mwanza, Serengetti, Nungwe, Molo, Nakuru. There are easily a hundred names, and I can begin best by choosing one of them - not because it is first nor of any importance in a wildly adventurous sense, but because here it happens to be, turned uppermost in my log book. After all, I am no weaver. Weavers create. This is a remembrance - revisitation; and names are keys that open corridors no longer fresh in the mind, but nonetheless familiar in the heart.

West With the Night 
by Beryl Markham

I finished reading Circling the Sun  by Paula McLain over the weekend and my book club will discuss it in a few days. Fictionalized biographies/autobiographies are popular now, but they are beginning to bother me. Which parts of Beryl Markham's story are true? How can I know which parts are a product of the author's imagination?

Last Friday I picked up a copy of Markham's memoir at the library, and am trying my hardest to finish it before our meeting Friday morning. It's interesting so far, but I haven't read enough to make any comparisons with the novel.

Here is the goodreads summary:

Beryl Markham’s life was a true epic, complete with shattered societal expectations, torrid love affairs, and desperate crash landings. A rebel from a young age, the British-born Markham was raised in Kenya’s unforgiving farmlands. She learned to be a bush pilot at a time when most Africans had never seen a plane. In 1936, she accepted the ultimate challenge: to fly solo across the Atlantic. Her successes and her failures—and her deep, lifelong love of the “soul of Africa”—are all chronicled here with wrenching honesty and agile wit. Hailed by National Geographic as one of the greatest adventure books of all time, West with the Night is the sweeping account of a fearless and dedicated woman.

After  the meeting, I'll post about both books and the group's reaction.

What do you think? Would you keep reading?

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the opening paragraph (sometime two) of a book she decided to read based on the opening. Feel free to grab the banner and play along.

Book Brief: Brown Girl Dreaming

Brown Girl Dreaming
by Jacqueline Woodson
Nancy Paulsen Books, 2014
337 pages
source: borrowed from the library

One sentence summary: 
This memoir, written in verse, looks back on Woodson's 1960s childhood in Ohio, Greenville, SC, and New York City.

Why did I read this?
A book written in free verse and aimed at a young adult audience would not normally find its way to my nightstand, but many trusted blogging friends recommended Brown Girl Dreaming. It also won the National Book Award for Young People's Literature in 2014.


My thoughts:

So different, and yet so very much the same...

How interesting it was to view the 60s from another child's perspective! Woodson and I are of approximately the same vintage. We enjoyed similar close relationships with extended family, relished meals our grandmothers prepared,  alternately played and fought with our siblings, and even loved the same board games. But, as you can imagine, race figures prominently in the experiences of a "brown girl" living in Greenville, SC, while it was never a factor for a white girl from rural upstate New York... a point poignantly illustrated by the final four lines in the verse entitled...

at the fabric store 

At the fabric store, we are not Colored
or Negro. We are not thieves or shameful
or something to be hidden away.
At the fabric store, we're just people.

Woodson writes engagingly about everything from her family and school, to race and religion (she was raised a Jehovah’s Witness).  An added bonus to my enjoyment of Brown Girl Dreaming  was the unintentional good timing  of reading it shortly after  Between the World and Me. What a perfect follow-up.

And as it turns out, the free verse was actually very appealing.

Highly recommended.

My rating:

Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen

Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen
by Mary Norris
narrated by the author
Recorded Books, 2015
8 hours and 10 minutes
source: purchased with audible credit

Quick thoughts:

Mary Norris has spent over three decades in The New Yorker's  copy department and in this new memoir, her love of language and usage shines. It's a very good book, even laugh-out-loud funny at times, and I thoroughly enjoyed her narration. But maybe I'm not quite as much of a grammar nerd as I thought... I didn't love the book as my 25 year old daughter did. She has plans to live tweet a reread, and is obviously the true grammar geek in our family.

A quote I liked:

Spelling is the clothing of words, their outward visible sign, and even those who favor sweatpants in everyday life like to make a bella figura,  as the Italians say - a good impression - in their prose. A misspelling undermines your authority. And an eye for a misspelled word  can give you an edge in the workplace.

My rating:

Bottom line:
Grammar geeks, language lovers, and readers of Eats, Shoots & Leaves  and The Secret Life of Pronouns  will want to mark this title as a 'must read'.

Tuesday Intro: Heads in Beds

Introduction

I've worked in hotels for more than a decade. I've checked you in, checked you out, oriented you to the property, served your beverages, separated your white panties from the white bedsheets, parked your car, tasted your room service (before and, sadly, after), cleaned your toilets, denied you a late checkout, given you a wake-up call, eaten M&M's out of your minibar, laughed at your jokes, and taken your money. I have been on the front lines, and by that I mean front desk, of upscale hotels for years, and I've seen it all firsthand.

HEADS IN BEDS:A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles, and So-Called Hospitality
by Jacob Tomsky

Over the weekend, I mentioned a developing reading slump. Yesterday I visited the library and came home with a half dozen potential slump-busters, including this one. It seems to be doing the trick. Heads in Beds is not great literature, or even especially well-written for that matter, but I've already turned half of its pages. Maybe I'll even finish today. Light, nonfiction, entertaining... just what the doctor ordered.

One sentence summary (from goodreads):
In the tradition of Kitchen Confidential  and Waiter Rant, a rollicking, eye-opening, fantastically indiscreet memoir of a life spent (and misspent) in the hotel industry.

What do you think of the opening? Would you keep reading?

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the opening paragraph (sometime two) of a book she decided to read based on the opening. Feel free to grab the banner and play along.

Beyond the Pasta by Mark Leslie

Beyond the Pasta; Recipes, Language & Life with an Italian Family
by Mark Donovan Leslie
Gemelli Press LLC, 2010
352 pages
source: borrowed from the library

Summary (from goodreads):

Several years ago, on a break between theatrical gigs in Alabama, Mark traveled to Italy and fell in love with the people, food and culture. Armed with just enough courage, minimal Italian language skills, and a certain proficiency in the kitchen, he enrolled in a full-immersion cooking and language program. He would travel to Viterbo, Italy and live with an Italian family. His teachers were beyond his wildest dreams-he learned to cook from the grandmother, or Nonna, of the family, who prepared every meal in a bustling, busy household, as women in her family have done for generations. Her daughter, Alessandra, taught him the language with patience and precision. Besides culinary secrets and prepositions, they opened their lives to him, and made him a real part of their extensive family. Though the book contains authentic, delicious family recipes Nonna shared with Mark, Beyond the Pasta delves into food memoir subject matter not found in a typical cookbook. It was the day-to-day shopping with Nonna, exploring the countryside and le gelaterie, where he truly developed his language skills, and a new, more joyful and uniquely Italian way of looking at the world.

My thoughts:

There's nothing better than a good foodie memoir, except maybe one combined with travel and recipes. And if it happens to involve Italy, all the better.

In Beyond the Pasta, Mark Leslie was looking for a different kind of Italian vacation experience, and found it with the Stefani family. It took the form of a total immersion language and cooking course. Mark stayed with the family for a month, cooking with Nonna (the grandmother) and learning Italian from her daughter, Allessandra. He participated in nearly every aspect of family life - daily trips to the market and food preparation with Nonna, afternoon language lessons, family dinners, and frequent postprandial strolls... invariably involving gelato. Mark also spent several days in Rome and attended social events with the family.

The book is set up in a journal format, with every day a separate chapter. Of course food (planning, shopping, preparation, and eating) plays the most prominent role. Each day/chapter concludes with a recipe or two. The easy, conversational tone makes this memoir immensely readable.

 I enjoyed reading about Mark's trips to the market and detailed scenes from the kitchen... although less description of proper squid cleaning technique would have been fine with me! I cheered his increasing language proficiency, and especially appreciated discussion of the culture, and general philosophy surrounding food and eating - la dolce vita.

Growing up with my very own Italian grandmother, this book made me nostalgic for childhood days spent in her kitchen. Nearly all the recipes are familiar and I look forward to trying several:

• Pasta e Fagioli alla Veneta (Venetian Pasta and Beans)
• Minestra di Patate, Piselli e Tubettini (Potato, Pea and Pasta Soup)
• Cuppa, Cuppa, Cuppa (Yogurt Cake)

I suppose I must mention a couple of downsides, too.  First, the author does not use the oxford comma. I always do and never imagined its absence would bug me so much, but it really did - starting with the title, in fact. Second, the photography could have been better. Granted, pictures aren't the main attraction, but the black and white photos weren't very clear. I also would have appreciated pictures of the food.

Favorite Passages:

With Italian, you always pronounce all of the letters in the word. The only silent letter is "h"; otherwise, each and every letter gets pronounced. For example, ciao - hello and goodbye - is pronounced "chee-ah-ow." It is starting to feel that the way to succeed in speaking Italian is to chew on the words. Every syllable, every bite!  p.25 

The cutlets - le cotolette - were not prepared until after we had finished eating the pasta... I am learning the importance of this type of preparation. First, the food always come sot the table hot and perfectly prepared. Second, it gives you some time between courses to digest your food, drink some wine and feel as if you have eaten a lot when actually, because the portions are smaller, you have eaten less than you would sitting at an American table.  p. 102 

La dolce vita celebrates the fact that life is not only about a paycheck ... Life is about savoring the sunset, taking a rejuvenating nap in the middle go the day, pausing to appreciate the beauty of a rose on the side of the road, having your children's laughter fill your soul - letting those moments inspire your life. That might be more of a romantic perception than the exact truth of the situation, but it is certainly the truth I have come to witness, embrace and appreciate while living in Viterbo.   p.170 

For me, the "Sweet Life" is going into the kitchen, preparing food and serving it to the people I love and cherish. La Dolce Vita is found in those moments of life around a table where stories are told - old memories are relived and new memories are given life. It is where food ultimately unites us through the juxtaposition of laughter, tears, joy, sorrow, happiness, pain, and ecstasy.  p. 311

Bottom line: A very enjoyable read - probably the next best thing to a trip to Viterbo.

My rating:

Weekend Cooking, hosted at Beth Fish Reads, is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page.

Mister Owita's Guide to Gardening by Carol Wall

Mister Owita's Guide to Gardening: How I Learned the Unexpected Joy of a Green Thumb and an Open Heart 
by Carol Wall
Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam, 2014
304 pages
nonfiction, memoir
source: borrowed from the library

Summary (from goodreads):

Carol Wall, a white woman living in a lily-white neighborhood in Middle America, was at a crossroads in her life. Her children were grown; she had successfully overcome illness; her beloved parents were getting older. One day she notices a dark-skinned African man tending her neighbor’s yard. His name is Giles Owita. He bags groceries at the supermarket. He comes from Kenya. And he’s very good at gardening.
  Before long Giles is transforming not only Carol’s yard, but her life. Though they are seemingly quite different, a caring bond grows between them. But they both hold long-buried secrets that, when revealed, will cement their friendship forever.

Quick thoughts:

I hadn't heard about this book before reading BermudaOnion's review, but Kathy made it sound like exactly the kind of memoir I tend to enjoy. My decision was made when I realized it was also an Amy Einhorn book.

From the title, you might think this is a book about gardening, but in reality gardening only serves as a backdrop for the blooming friendship between Carol Wall and Giles Owita. Wall's story is open, honest, and touching. It also provides the opportunity to pause, reflect, and possibly re-evaluate the garden of your own life.

Favorite quotes:

I had come to a gradual acceptance that I was "that lady" - the one who drove slower than all the impatient younger folks on the highway, the one who younger man found invisible, and who reminded younger women of their mothers. But instead of resenting that shift, I decided to embrace it. In our youth- and health-obsessed culture, it was either win or lose, and I decided not to play that game at all. The contest was rigged anyway -- because everyone, sooner or later, was going to age out of the running. So I decided to just get over myself. The world would not end if I had a bad hair day or didn't monitor every bite of food that went into my mouth.  (page 204) 

"Oh, many, many people speak too soon," Giles said. "And those who know a little less speak even sooner..."   (page 242) 

In every moment there exists a lifetime. Every day brings something good!  (page 287)

My rating:

Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman (audio)

Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison
by Piper Kerman
narrated by Cassandra Campbell
Tantor Audio, 2012
11 hours and 14 minutes
source: purchased during audible's last BOGO sale

Publisher's summary:
With a career, a boyfriend, and a loving family, Piper Kerman barely resembles the reckless young woman who delivered a suitcase of drug money 10 years ago. But that past has caught up with her. Convicted and sentenced to 15 months at the infamous federal correctional facility in Danbury, Connecticut, the well-heeled Smith College alumna is now inmate #11187-424 - one of the millions of women who disappear "down the rabbit hole" of the American penal system.

From her first strip search to her final release, Kerman learns to navigate this strange world with its strictly enforced codes of behavior and arbitrary rules, where the uneasy relationship between prisoner and jailer is constantly and unpredictably recalibrated. She meets women from all walks of life, who surprise her with small tokens of generosity, hard words of wisdom, and simple acts of acceptance. Heartbreaking, hilarious, and at times enraging, Orange is the New Black offers a rare look into the lives of women in prison, why it is we lock so many away, and what happens to them when they're there.

My thoughts:
I'm not sure why it took me so long to figure out that the television series Orange is the New Black is based on a book, but once I did it was only a matter of time before the book made its way into to my hands or in this case, ears. When I discovered Cassandra Campbell was the narrator, it made my decision to listen a no-brainer.  I can't remember the last time eleven hours passed so quickly. For several days, I packed my schedule with tasks that could be accomplished while listening. My house hasn't been this clean in ages!

Orange is the New Black is a memoir about life inside the Danbury correctional facility as experienced by a thirty-something upper middle class, white, Smith College alumna while serving mandatory time for a drug conviction nearly ten years after the fact. {She delivered a suitcase containing drug money.} Most of us will never endure an experience like this, but are naturally curious.

Once you get past the circumstances of her crime (talk about bad choices!), it's easy to relate to Piper Kerman.  Out of place among the other inmates, she is able - after a few missteps - to learn the unwritten code of conduct that governs daily life. She discusses everyday challenges  - friendships among inmates, job assignments, prison food, recreation, visiting hours, loss of freedom, and personally humiliating security measures. I was especially impressed with small kindnesses shown by other inmates and their ingenuity in making what they needed out of what was available.

Kerman also shares her experience in dealing with "the system" and relating to guards and councilors.  Most appalling to me was the utterly ineffective discharge planning (can't think of the proper term, so falling back on my healthcare vocabulary here).  The inmates desperately needed help with the basics of finding shelter and employment, but that type of training was not to be found in the programs which were offered.

About the series:
I've watched three episodes so far this week. At just under an hour, they're perfect for a brisk walk on the treadmill. The series seems to follow the book fairly closely, but has been sensationalized for television. I'm enjoying the addition of other inmates' backstories, which were not addressed in the book.

Bottom line: 
This book will more than satisfy any curiosity you have about life behind bars. Give it a try!

My rating:

Those Fabulous Beekman Boys

While Beekman mania seems to be sweeping the county, my own personal Beekman obsession surfaced last Saturday when I had the opportunity to meet Josh and Brent at a local tasting/book signing event.

Before I get to that, let me back up a little. Early last fall Sandy (my ultimate audiobook recommendation source) posted a review of Josh Kilmer-Purcell's memoir The Bucolic Plague. Since Sandy is never wrong, I downloaded the title to my iPod and began listening.  I loved it just as much as Sandy and when I raved about it to my book club, they chose The Bucolic Plague for our December selection. After a lively discussion, we even made tentative plans for a spring road trip to Sharon Springs

However, thanks to a blogger debacle (I hit the "delete" button by mistake and could not recover my post), the review never published. I can't face writing it again, but I will tell you that I actually considered converting the garden shed to a barn and raising a few goats! My husband nixed that idea.

Fast forward to last Saturday. Josh, Brent, and over two hundred of their fans (including six members of my book club) gathered at a local Inn for a tasting event which featured five recipes from The Beekman 1802 Heirloom Cookbook. Stations were scattered throughout the main rooms and displayed the recipe, along with a gorgeous floral arrangement, next to each dish. It was a feast for the eyes as well as the palate.

Both books were available to purchase and, at one point, the signing line extended out of the main dining room and into the lobby. Josh and Brent were wonderful, as expected... very friendly and witty. The Macaroni and Cheese with Mushrooms and Kale was pretty amazing, too.  I also have it on good authority that the recipe for Butternut Squash-filled Lasagna Rolls is excellent. I can't wait to try a few of these recipes for myself.

Weekend Cooking, hosted at Beth Fish Reads, is open to anyone who has a food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up over the weekend. 

Tuesday Intro: Without Reservations

Dear Alice, 

Each morning I am awakened by the sound of a tinkling bell. A cheerful sound, it reminds me of the bells that shopkeepers attach to their doors at Christmastime. In this case, the bell marks the opening of the hotel door. From my room, which is just off the winding staircase, I can hear it clearly. It reminds me of the bell that calls to worship the novice embarking on a new life. In a way I too am a novice, leaving, temporarily, one life for another. 

Love, Alice

Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman
by Alice Steinbach

Pulitzer prize winning journalist Alice Steinbach, trying to discover who she is when removed from work and family roles, takes a sabbatical to travel the world on her own. During the 1993 journey, she writes numerous postcards to herself which will later serve to jog her memory as she documents the journey.

This book was recommended by a book club friend and, after just 60 pages, I am enjoying it immensely. What do you think of the opening?

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the opening paragraph (sometime two) of a book she decided to read based on the opening paragraph(s). Feel free to grab the banner and play along.

Introducing The Monday Mention

 Welcome to The Monday Mention, a new, occasional feature at Lakeside Musing. After four years of blogging, it's finally time to admit that I don't always have a lot to say about every book I read. Most of those books, however, still deserve time in the spotlight. Monday Mentions may include brief thoughts on favorites (they're always harder to write about), mysteries, 'beach' reads, poetry collections, children's books, nonfiction, and more.

Let's get started...

First up on The Monday Mention is Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake by Anna Quindlen. Listening to this book was like spending time with an old friend. I've been an Anna Quindlen fan for years - from her Life in the 30's columns back the 80's through her most recent novel. This memoir is especially relevant to women over fifty and includes reflections on aging, family life, friends, faith, career, and more.  I loved each and every one of them!

Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake also has the distinction of being the first book I have ever knowingly purchased twice on the same day. After downloading the audiobook, I drove off to collect my daughter (with all her belongings) at college and bring her home the summer. Before reaching my destination, I stopped at a Barnes & Noble along the way to purchase a hardcover copy. There were so many passages I wanted to go back and reread, I needed  a print copy, too. This will likely be a favorite book of 2012.

My rating: 5 stars

Audio Archive: The House at Sugar Beach

June is Audiobook Month.  Regular readers of Lakeside Musing know my love of audiobooks has been well-chronicled over the years. In celebration of Audiobook Month, I will post a review from my audio archives each Monday. This week I continue with The House at Sugar Beach by Helene Cooper, originally reviewed 7/9/10. Keep up with all Audiobook Month activities on twitter by following #JIAM2012.

The House at Sugar Beach:
In Search of a Lost African Childhood
by Helene Cooper
read by the author
Simon & Schuster Audio, 2008
9 hours and 30 minutes

Publisher's Description:
In this poignant memoir, New York Times journalist Helene Cooper tells the story of her privileged Liberian childhood cut brutally short by a bloody 1980 coup, her family's escape and survival, and twenty three years later, her return to her native country to find the foster sister her family left behind.

My thoughts:
The cheery yellow cover prominently displayed in area Starbucks first caught my eye, but it would take another year to download the audio version from audible.com.  Although my knowledge of Liberia is limited, Cooper provided just the right amount of historical background to make sense of the political unrest, coups, and years of civil war. What I found even more fascinating, however, was the juxtaposition of political tensions with typical teenage concerns. While Cooper was growing up, the riots and executions occurred alongside the Sadie Hawkins dance, a new crush, and her reading of the latest trashy romance novels.

Cooper's family belongs to the elite group known as "Congo" people. Their ancestry can be traced to the first settlers of freemen that came from New York in 1820 and founded Monrovia. She was raised in a mansion with servants and attended private school. As was often the custom, the family took in a Bassa girl, named Eunice, as a foster child and raised her as their own. Her relatives held high government positions before the coup. Afterwards, some were executed and some fled. Eunice went back to her village when the Cooper family left in 1980.

"When we climbed aboard Pan Am 150, we were privileged, elite Congo People. When we arrived in Knoxville, we were African refugees."

Cooper's high school and college experience, cultural assimilation, and career in journalism (inspired by reading All The President's Men) is the focus of the rest of the book. A job with The Wall Street Journal job allowed her to travel the world, but Cooper would not go to Africa. It was a near-death experience in Iraq ("wrong country, wrong war") that finally convinced her to return to Liberia... and Eunice.

Bottom Line:
This was an excellent audio production. The author has a captivating writing style, but her own voice, especially when it came to Liberian English, added much to the experience. However, I also borrowed a print copy from the library since photos, maps, and a family tree are included.  Highly recommended.

Below Stairs by Margaret Powell

It's all about timing... and marketing. The long wait for season three is beginning to feel interminable and Downton Abbey fans are restless. Could there be a better time to reissue Margaret Powell's 1968 memoir Below Stairs? A description like "The Classics Kitchen Maid's Memoir that inspired Upstairs, Downstairs and Downton Abbey" on the cover instantly targets the audience.

I loved Margaret Powell's plain-spoken, yet feisty voice. She was an intelligent young woman forced to leave school at an early age and enter the work force, eventually ending up 'in service' as a kitchen maid - the worst job in the house. Years of hard work and determination, however, lead her to the best job - cook. It's impossible for Downton Abbey fans not to compare Powell to Daisy and, later on, to Mrs. Patmore.

Below Stairs serves up a fascinating look at real Downton Abbey-esque situations from heirarchy and protocol amongst servants, to kitchen routines and meal preparation, and even relationships with the 'upstairs people'.

Some favorite passages:
"Wealthy children were never allowed to play with low-class children like us. They were never allowed to play with anyone but similarly wealthy children... Mind you, we had a kind of contempt for them. They couldn't do the things that we could do.... They weren't allowed to do anything exciting. It wasn't their fault. So we never mixed, never." p.10

"Later on in life I never ever took a place where there were nannies and children, and where they had to have separate meals in the nursery. The nanny would come down with all the airs and graces of a miniature employer, saying what the children wanted and what she wanted. There were always feuds between the nursery and the kitchen. There always were and there always had been. The parlourmaid, the housemaid, and the cook always thought nanny and nursemaid considered themselves better than they  were, and they did, of course." p 79

" Living in such close contact with other servants, a lot of quarrels went on. You can't coop up a lot of females, perhaps it even applies to men, without words passing, and what words, too. But it didn't matter how much we servants quarreled among ourselves, a united front was always presented to them upstairs... We always called them 'Them'. 'Them' was the enemy, 'Them' always overworked us, and 'Them' underpaid us, and to 'Them' servants were a race apart, a necessary evil. "p. 91

"You see I was determined to get married. I didn't want to be an old maid. In those days people put on a very contemptuous expression when they talked about 'being on the shelf', or being a spinster. It meant you were lacking practically everything. Nowadays women who don't get married have often had all the sex they want and all the security. They just don't want to take a man for life, which I don't blame them for in the least. But I needed one to support me. I couldn't see myself being a cook for the rest of my life. I wanted one to take me on for life." p. 135-6

"...even in those days I always found time for reading, I mean books that were worth reading."  p.136-7

"The employers always claimed that the training they gave you stood you in good stead when you left and married and had a family of your own. When I left domestic service I took with  me the knowledge of how to cook an elaborate seven-course dinner and an enormous inferiority complex. I can't say that I found those an asset to my married life." p.190-1

Bottom line: Below Stairs is a must read for Downton Abbey fans.

My rating:

FTC disclosure: borrowed from the library

Tuesday Intro: Below Stairs

I was born in 1907 in Hove, the second child of a family of seven. My earliest recollection is that other children seemed to be better off than we were. But our parents cared so much for us. One particular thing that I always remember was that every Sunday morning my father used to bring us a comic and a bag of sweets. You used to be able to get a comic for a halfpenny plain and a penny coloured. Sometimes now when I look back at it, I wonder how he managed to do it when he was out of work and there was no money at all coming in.

Below Stairs
by Margaret Powell

My library hold for Below Stairs arrived earlier than expected, and I spent some time last weekend beginning this classic memoir. An enjoyable, quick read with a straightforward tone, it offers an interesting glimpse into the "downstairs" life of great houses in 1920's England.  I have a feeling this may be a must-read for all Downton Abbey fans.

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the opening paragraph (sometime two) of a book she decided to read based on the opening paragraph(s). Feel free to grab the banner and play along.