Mailbox Monday

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday this holiday weekend! MM was created by Marcia, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring event (details here).

Tasha at Book Obsessed is hosting in July. Please stop by Tasha's busy blog, where she focuses on romance novels, with some mystery and suspense thrown in.

I was in Idaho last week, filing a new case, and stopped by a couple of local libraries to check out their sale shelves.  The Boise library has a particularly good Friends of the Library store inside the main branch where, along with the usual fiction, mysteries, romance books, and nonfiction selections they have a very nice collection of books by local authors and the local university press.

I ended up hauling home a stack of books:



Remembrance of Things Paris: Sixty Years of Writing from Gourmet, edited by Ruth Reichl (this looks great and is perfect for the Foodies Reading Challenge)



Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot, illustrated by Edward Gorey (these are the poems that inspired the musical Cats)



Adam and Eve and Pinch Me by Ruth Rendell (a stand alone mystery from an author I just started reading)



American Places by Wallace Stegner with photographs by Elliot Porter (a gorgeous coffee table book with text by one of my favorites)



The Ponder Heart by Eudora Welty (Southern and perfect for summer)



The Cocktail Party by T. S. Eliot (something more serious than cats)



Death in Ecstasy by Ngaio Marsh (she is another new favorite of mine)



Three Novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable by Samuel Beckett (I hated Waiting for Godot, so don't know why I think I can read his novels, but it is on the Observer's Top 100 list)



Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney (I already listened to this, which I highly recommend, but wanted the book because Heany's Introduction is worth re-reading)

Kitchen Remodel, Week Eighteen: Tile Bravo

Finally! The white tile got here. Now the final kitchen dominoes can fall.  This week is was install tile, grout tile, caulk bottom of tile, and wax the soapstone counter tops.  This coming week will be seal the tile, finish the wood floors, and build the toe kicks.

There are other patches of white tile above other counter tops, but this is the largest patch.

There are still plenty of little things to finish inside, and some big things outside like stucco, bricks, patio stones, and plantings.  But getting the white tile in was a big deal to me because we couldn't wax the soapstone and make it black until the tile was in, so we couldn't see what the counters were really going to look like until today.

To make up for the lack  of food literature in my recent book diet, I've been reading about cookbooks. I have my heart set on getting a copy of the Toro Bravo cookbook by Liz Crain.  It doesn't come out until October, but it is generating a lot of foodie buzz already. The more I read about it, the more I want it!

The Toro Bravo restaurant is already a Portland legend.  I can't wait to try some of Chef John Gorham's recipes at home -- while reading his terrific stories as told by Liz Crain, one of the best up and coming food writers around. All good.

WEEKEND COOKING

Hosted by Beth Fish Reads

Book Beginnings: Care of the Soul by Thomas Moore

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name.

TWITTER, ETC: If you are on Twitter, Google+, or other social media, please post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings. I am trying to follow all Book Beginning participants on whatever interweb sites you are on, so please let me know if I have missed any and I will catch up.

MR. LINKY: Please leave a link to your post below. If you don't have a blog, but want to participate, please leave a comment with your Book Beginning.

UPDATE: SORRY FOR THE MISSING LINKY. OPERATOR ERROR. I WILL GET IT FIXED BY NEXT WEEK. THANKS FOR LEAVING YOUR LINK IN THE COMMENTS.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

The great malady of the twentieth century, implicated in all of our troubles and affecting us individually and socially, is "loss of soul."

-- Care of the Soul:: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life by Thomas Moore.

I've read a couple of his other  books, but never this first one in his "Soul" series.  This one is certainly making me think.

Review: The Tin Drum by Günter Grass

Most books you can read, analyze, and review, but some you just have to accept. The Tin Drum by Günter Grass is a book I had to take on its own terms.

The hero of this postwar German classic is Oscar Matzerath, who thought like an adult from the moment he was born.  At his birth, he heard his mother exclaim that he would get a tin drum on his third birthday, while his father announced that the baby would someday take over the family grocery store.  Having no interest in running a grocery store, baby Oscar determined that he would stop growing on his third birthday and remain forever a toddler with a tin drum.  Which he did.

Oscar can also shatter glass with his voice, which he does in dozens of creative and destructive ways.  (The scream singing and a glass shattering are reason enough to skip the movie adaptation.)

Oscar narrates his life story from an insane asylum where he is confined awaiting the outcome of an appeal of a criminal trial.  The story begins with his grandmother rescuing and marrying an escaping arsonist, continues through childhood with his two "presumptive fathers" (his mother's husband and her lover), follows Oscar as he tours with a troupe of performing dwarfs during World War II, to his later role as the leader of a youth gang, and finally his career as a jazz drummer in an avant-garde club where the customers eat raw onions.

So, yes, The Tin Drum is a crazy book, with so much imagery and so much going on and so many ideas swirling around that it is impossible to make sense out of it.  It's a book only a Ph.D. candidate could love.  I had to just let it roll on, laughing at the funny bits – and there are many – mulling over the ideas that grabbed me, and letting go of the rest of it.

OTHER REVIEWS

If you would like your review of The Tin Drum listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it.

NOTES

I've had a copy of The Tin Drum on my TBR shelf forever, but it daunted me.  The whole notion of German literature daunts me.

But I saw that my library had an unabridged audio version of the new translation of this Nobel Laureate's classic, and decided to go that route.  I never would have gotten through the paper version.  I highly recommend the new audiobook from Blackstone Audio.  The reader, Paul Michael Garcia, was over-the-top good. 

Teaser Tuesday: Groves of Academe by Mary McCarthy

Whenever, during the summer, he took a party of students abroad under his genial wing, catastrophic event attended him.  As he sat sipping his vermouth and introducing himself to tourists at the Flore or the Deux Magots, the boys and girls under his guidance were being robbed, eloping to Italy, losing their passports, slipping off to Monte Carlo, seeking out an abortionist, deciding to turn queer, cabling the decision to their parents, while he took out his watch and wondered why they were late in meeting him for the expedition to Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

-- Groves of Academe by Mary McCarthy, which is on the Anthony Burgess list of Top 99 novels. Every sentence in this book is a gem. It is a short book, but I keep rereading sentences over and over because they are so wonderful.

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event. 

Kitchen Remodel, Week Seventeen: Starved for Foodie Books

The tile phase of the kitchen is finally underway.  We are still waiting on the subway tile for the kitchen backsplash, but the tile guy came this week to put the tile floor in the powder room.

The subway tile is supposed to get here this week.  Also, we are crossing our fingers that they can start putting up the stucco on the outside walls.  To mangle Churchill, I think we are well passed the end of the beginning and on to the beginning of the end.  Knock wood.

My weekly reading was again food-free.  I took a break from The Autobiography of Mark Twain to listen to the audio edition of Prince of Fire, a Gabriel Allon thriller by Daniel Silva.  My family loves the series, but I hadn't read any until this one.  It was really good. Now I want to go back and read the others.

If I can power through the rest of Mark Twain this week, I'm going to treat myself to a foodie book for the Foodie Reading Challenge.  Either Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain or The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry by Kathleen Flinn.

WEEKEND COOKING

Hosted by Beth Fish Reads

Mailbox Monday

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday this holiday weekend! MM was created by Marcia, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring event (details here).

Dolce Bellezza is hosting in June, where she also just launched the seventh Japanese Literature Challenge.  Be sure to visit her elegant and inspiring blog.

I'm leaving for Idaho for work this afternoon, so am posting my Mailbox Monday post early. 

I got one book last week, from the author who is a doctor in Eugene, Oregon. The cover is funny, but a little shocking:



Pet Goats & Pap Smears: 101 Medical Adventures to Open Your Heart & Mind by Pamela Wible, MD. "[T]his book reveals the secrets to solving your waiting-room frustrations, slashing your medical bills, and securing first-rate health care now."

Dr. Wible has a pioneering vision of community healthcare, which you can learn more about on her Ideal Medical Care website. She has essays in two award-winning anthologies: Goddess Shift: Women Leading for a Change, along with Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey, and Optimism: Cultivating the Magic Quality that Can Extend Your Lifespan, Boost Your Energy, and Make You Happy Now, along with Jimmy Carter and Steve Jobs.

You can learn more about Pamela's enthusiastic and uplifting approach to medicine on her personal blog, facebook, twitter, YouTube, and her Oregonian blog.

Book Beginnings: Groves of Academe by Mary McCarthy

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name.

TWITTER, ETC: If you are on Twitter, Google+, or other social media, please post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings. I am trying to follow all Book Beginning participants on whatever interweb sites you are on, so please let me know if I have missed any and I will catch up.

MR. LINKY: Please leave a link to your post below. If you don't have a blog, but want to participate, please leave a comment with your Book Beginning.



MY BOOK BEGINNING

When Henry Mulcahy, a middle-aged instructor of literature at Jocelyn College, Jocelyn, Pennsylvania, unfolded the President's letter and became aware of its contents, he gave a sudden sharp cry of impatience and irritation, as if such interruptions could positively be brooked no longer.

-- Groves of Academe by Mary McCarthy, which is on the Anthony Burgess list of Top 99 novels. I love complicated opening sentences like this that put me right into the middle of the story.

Reading this pitch perfect campus novel, first published in 1951, makes me want to create a list of academic-themed books, I enjoy them so. Any suggestions?

Review: Lavinia by Ursula Le Guin

In Lavinia, Ursula Le Guin reimagines the story of how Aeneas (of Virgil's Aeneid) fought the locals of Latinum, married the king’s daughter, and founded Rome. By telling this story from Lavinia’s perspective, Le Guin brings a domestic element to an otherwise military tale.

Le Guin relies on Virgil's account for the backbone of her story. Lavinia is an imperfect narrator because she lacks the personal knowledge needed to describe the battle scenes. So Le Guin provides Lavinia with the necessary information through a series of visions brought on by Lavinia's religious rituals. In these visions, Virgil visits Lavinia from the future and tells her the story of his Aeneid, which Lavinia uses to narrate her contemporaneous tale.

As Anita Diamant's The Red Tent did for the Old Testament, Lavinia brings a female and familial viewpoint to the epic myth of Roman civilization. Le Guin concentrates on the quotidian details and traditions of ancient Rome, admitting that she drew on her imagination as much as on known history.

For me, there was not enough home front content to balance out the battles. The most interesting part was the author's Afterword, where Le Guin explains her love of Virgil's Aeneid, particularly when read in Latin. If I had her devotion to the original classic, I would likely have greater appreciation for Le Guin's retelling.

OTHER REVIEWS

If you would like your review of this book listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it.

NOTES

I read Lavinia as one of my books for the TBR challenges I am doing this year:

• MT. TBR CHALLENGE (hosted by Bev on My Reader's Block) 
• OFF THE SHELF CHALLENGE (hosted by Bonnie on Bookish Ardour) 
• TBR PILE CHALLENGE (hosted by Adam on Roof Beam Reader)

Teaser Tuesday: Full-Rip 9.0 by Sandi Doughton

The earthquake that lashed the Pacific Northwest in 1700 ranks among the mightiest the Earth can yield. Scientists today call it a megaquake – a magnitude 9 monster that ripped the full length of the offshore fault where seafloor and continent collide, and unleashed a killer tsunami.

 -- Full-Rip 9.0: The Next Big Earthquake in the Pacific Northwest by Sandi Doughton, published by Sasquatch Books and reviewed in The Oregonian last Sunday.

Doughton is the science writer for the Seattle Times.  She explains -- in a clear and captivating way -- the science of why the Pacific Northwest is due for another megaquake.

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event. 

Kitchen Remodel, Week 16: Mirror in the Bathroom

Other than getting an English Beat song stuck in my head, hanging a mirror in the new powder room didn't pack much of a punch.

But besides the mirror, the only thing going on with our kitchen remodel last week was the installation of a screened panel to hide the old steam radiator. Wow. That is really lame.  It's the tile.  We are still waiting on the tile.

And I didn't read anything about food last week either.  The Autobiography of Mark Twain has no references to food at all.  Nor does Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis.  I may have to take a break from both -- not because they don't talk about food, but because they are both long and . . . I hesitate to say boring.  How about, attention absorbing and important, but not 100% entertaining.

Apart from books, we had a fun eating weekend.  We went to a DIY wedding Friday night where the young bride and groom recruited their relatives to bake desserts.  Right after the ceremony, the guests were treated to a vast buffet of sweet treats.  It was nostalgic of church basement receptions, bake sales, and all things delicious.  Congratulations to Scott and best wishes to Emily! #Freywed!

WEEKEND COOKING

Hosted by Beth Fish Reads

Mailbox Monday

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday this holiday weekend! MM was created by Marcia, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring event (details here).

Dolce Bellezza is hosting in June, where she also just launched the seventh Japanese Literature Challenge.  Be sure to visit her elegant and inspiring blog.

I got one book last week, from the LibraryThing Early Reviewer program:



The Road to Burgundy: The Unlikely Story of an American Making Wine and a New Life in France by Ray Walker.

I am a sucker for any American ex-pat in Europe memoir.  This one looks particularly good because it involves starting a winery.  It hits all my armchair fantasies.

Book Beginnings: Full-Rip 9.0: The Next Big Earthquake in the Pacific Northwest by Sandi Doughton

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name.

TWITTER, ETC: If you are on Twitter, Google+, or other social media, please post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings. I am trying to follow all Book Beginning participants on whatever interweb sites you are on, so please let me know if I have missed any and I will catch up.

MR. LINKY: Please leave a link to your post below. If you don't have a blog, but want to participate, please leave a comment with your Book Beginning.



MY BOOK BEGINNING

Stories passed down from that night don't tell us if dogs howled a warning. Huddled together in the cold, the animals might have sensed the first, faint vibrations while the people still slept.

 -- from the author's Introduction to Full-Rip 9.0: The Next Big Earthquake in the Pacific Northwest by Sandi Doughton, published by Sasquatch Books.

On a misty morning in October 2011, the Satsop nuclear plant's cooling towers floated like twin mirages above Washington's Chehalis valley.

-- from Chapter One, "An Odd Duck."

Doughton is the science writer for the Seattle Times.  She writes with a clear and captivating style that make this explanation of why Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver are the urban centers of a "mega-quake" terrifying but impossible to stop reading.

Used Book Love

I can think of dozens of reasons I buy used books, including the availability of out-of-print titles, price, and the happy feeling I get from knowing a book is being "reused" instead of recycled.

What about you? Do you buy used books? Why do you? Or don't you?

For fanciers of used and rare books lucky enough to be in Portland this weekend, try to stop by the Rose City Used Book Fair, where 40+ dealers will offer a treasure trove of cool books and ephemera. 

If you need further encouragement, check out this spify "info-graphic" the folks at Thriftbooks came up with and asked me to post.  

Review: A Prefect's Uncle by P. G. Wodehouse

A Prefect's Uncle is P. G. Wodehouse's second published book. Like his first, The Pothunters, it is set in an English boarding school for boys. Except in the long passages describing cricket matches, it is a charming and funny book that hints at the hilarious style Wodehouse later perfected.

The initial gag about the Prefect's uncle arriving at the school provides the title and is quite funny. But that storyline peters out and the main plot involving a poetry contest is not as clever.

The big weakness of the book is Wodehouse's unrelenting concentration on cricket. He describes cricket matches play by play and devotes pages to cricket strategy and other bits of cricket minutia.

Diehard Wodehouse completists may be willing to skim over the cricket passages to glean the funny bits. But those new to Wodehouse should start with one of his later, more popular books.


OTHER REVIEWS

If you would like your review of this book listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it.

NOTES

A Prefect's Uncle was one of my books for the MT. TBR CHALLENGE (hosted by Bev on My Reader's Block) and the OFF THE SHELF CHALLENGE (hosted by Bonnie on Bookish Ardour). 

Teaser Tuesday: Tales of St. Austin's by P. G. Wodehouse

The qualities which in later years rendered Frederick Wackerbath Bradshaw so conspicuous a figure in connection with the now celebrated affair of the European, African, and Asiatic Pork Pie and Ham Sandwich Supply Company frauds, were sufficiently in evidence during his school career to make his masters prophesy gloomily concerning his future. The boy was in every detail the father of the man.

-- Tales of St. Austin's by P. G. Wodehouse, from "Bradshaw's Little Story."

I had to read it through twice, but that is the funniest thing I've read in a long time.  Such a brilliant construction and tone of mock-historic epic.

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event. 

Mailbox Monday

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday this holiday weekend! MM was created by Marcia, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring event (details here).

Dolce Bellezza is hosting in June, where she also just launched the seventh Japanese Literature Challenge.  Be sure to visit her elegant and inspiring blog.

While I was in Davenport, Iowa for work last week, I went to the local library where they had a Friends of the Library sale shelf.  I found several, including and M.F.K. Fisher I've been looking for for a while.

The Oasis by Mary McCarthy (I want to read more of her books)

 

The A. B. C. Murders by Agatha Christie (I'm on a roll)

 

Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman by Elizabeth Buchan (looked like a fun book for summer)

 

All That Work and Still No Boys by Kathryn Ma (winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Award)

 

Sister Age by M. F. K. Fisher (essays on growing old)

Kitchen Remodel, Week 15: Nothing Doing

Progress on our kitchen remodel was infinitesimal this week. We got doorknobs on the powder room and basement doors -- big whoop. We got screens on the windows that are to have screens, but they are all but invisible, so don't show in photographs.

The holdup is still the tile. The white subway tile for the backsplash is 2 x 6 instead of 3 x 6, so had to be special ordered. We finally gave up on the California company that was supposed to send the tile three weeks ago. We've ordered replacement tile from our local Pratt & Larson, which we should have done from the get-go.

So it will still be two weeks before the tile gets here, and another week or two to get it all installed. It's looking like our kitchen will be done mid-July, not mid-June as originally forecast.

At least the weather here in the Rose City is beautiful for Rose Festival. Being able to grill outside and eat dinner on the porch makes us forget we are still operating out of our "camp kitchen" in the dining room.

WEEKEND COOKING

Hosted by Beth Fish Reads

Book Beginning: Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name.

TWITTER, ETC: If you are on Twitter, Google+, or other social media, please post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings. I am trying to follow all Book Beginning participants on whatever interweb sites you are on, so please let me know if I have missed any and I will catch up.

MR. LINKY: Please leave a link to your post below. If you don't have a blog, but want to participate, please leave a comment with your Book Beginning.



MY BOOK BEGINNING

The driver of the wagon swaying through forest and swamp of the Ohio wilderness was a ragged girl of fourteen.

 -- Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis.  This is a misleading beginning because after half a page of wagon trail woe the short section ends with, "That was the great-grandmother of Martin Arrowsmith" and we jump forward 100 years to the story of Martin's medical career.

Arrowsmith won the Pulitzer Prize in 1926.

Review: The Gathering by Anne Enright

It is comforting to think of memory as a recording of past events that can be played back anytime. But the brain does not store memories – especially traumatic memories – in such an orderly and retrievable fashion. In The Gathering, Anne Enright grapples with the chaotic, fragmented, and twisted ways we remember the traumas of childhood.

The memories belong to Veronica, one of the nine surviving Hegarty siblings, gathered for the funeral of their brother Liam. Veronica tries to deal with her grief and make sense of her brother's death by piecing together their family history. She uses her imagination and objective clues to give context to distressing images from the time she and Liam lived with their grandmother.

Veronica's struggle is authentically idiosyncratic. Her grief and the secrets she carries drive some kooky behavior and alienate her from her husband, her mother, and her own daughters. She can be an unattractive, if believable, heroine.

Veronica's off-putting conduct and Enright's sometimes too-obtuse prose makes The Gathering a difficult book. But Enright earned her Booker prize for tackling a harrowing subject and concluding with the important lesson that a problem cannot be solved until it is acknowledged.

OTHER REVIEWS

If you would like your review of this book listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it. 

NOTES

The Gathering is one of the books I read for the MT. TBR CHALLENGE (hosted by Bev on My Reader's Block) and the OFF THE SHELF CHALLENGE (hosted by Bonnie on Bookish Ardour).