The Morgan Library at 36th and Madison in NYC. Nearly my favorite place in the world.
Thursday, July 29, 2021
The book, the movie…all very grand. Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín (KOL-əm toh-BEEN).
Colm. Reading his books and listening to his interviews are steadying. His interviews with Michael Silverblatt are always the best. But Brooklyn. Wow. What a story. How could he write anything better.
Around the same time as loving Brooklyn for the umpteenth time, reading The Woman Who Stole Vermeer by Anthony Amore while remembering Nory Ryan’s Song by Patricia Reilly Giff provide both a fictional and nonfictional feel for Irish life and the relationships between Ireland and England.
And of course, all this doesn’t begin to explain Northern Ireland, which is a whole different level of understandings.
Finally, adding Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes to the work of Colm, Anthony, and Patricia makes it all very melancholic but also and oddly very satisfying.
Ireland.
Till next time.
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Saturday, July 24, 2021
You gotta love a couple of tv shows where the writers manage to work in a little science and a bit of linguistics:
Orphan Black
F=ma
(force = mass x acceleration)
Ted Lasso
Semantic Satiation
(You use a word so much that its meaning devolves into just a bunch of sounds.)
Till next time.
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Friday, July 23, 2021
It’s magic. Obviously. Reading Robert Gottlieb’s July 4, 2021 review of John Gunther’s Inside America copyright 1946 is nothing short of magic.
And then many clicks later through ILL (interlibrary loan), the book is in my hands.
So, from one avid reader to another, many thanks.
Till next time.
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Sunday, July 18, 2021
Tom Stoppard by Hermione Lee is terrific. Seeing the historical view of Tom’s life from the Czech Republic to Singapore to India to London to NYC shines light not just on Tom’s life but on historical events as well. The other book that stays with me and comes to mind on a regular basis particularly as I’m reading Tom is by the late Uwe Johnson and is titled, Anniversaries: From a Year in the Life of Gesine Cresspahl. What a wonderful novel. Published by the New York Review of Books.
The history of twentieth century conflicts, revolutions, winners, losers, survivors, and innocents is best understood in these kinds of stories.
Plus, today I was watching on BookTV a University of Chicago historian talk about his new book. He referenced Keynes’s mumbo jumbo. Red flag alert...particularly considering that FDR with advice from John Maynard Keynes saved America after the Great Depression. And at the same time, Emma Rothschild of Harvard was his host and represented the best of what an intellectual community should be. Her stance, like all seasoned scholars, was one of always asking the right questions as opposed to believing something strongly and then seeking out facts to support one’s beliefs.
After all that, it’s nice to look at Monet’s water lilies.
Till next time.
Monet at MOMA, March, 2015.
Saturday, July 10, 2021
I know that William Gaddis created a book form that involves writing dialogue with no quotation marks. The writing and action were so well written that you knew exactly who was speaking even without quotation marks. Zero. None. Nada.
Relatedly, I’m s l o w l y getting through The Friend by Sigrid Nunez. It's slow because I’m having to reread almost every paragraph to figure out who is speaking to whom. And that’s in spite of the book’s use of quotation marks. Sometimes it’s apparent who’s speaking but mostly not. Somewhat irritating.
I’m sure it’s my lack of sophistication as a reader that I’m having trouble.
Maybe.
Also, I just watched James Patterson and Bill Clinton talk on BookTV about their new mystery book, The President’s Daughter. It’s up next on my nightstand. And I’m betting I’ll have no trouble following what’s going on. Their interview was splendid, June 8, 2021, and you can quote me.
Till next time.
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Sunday, July 4, 2021
It was a perfect interview.
Annette Gordon-Reed
AND…it was live.
BookTV.
Peter Slen.
Two hours.
Flawless.
Only in America.
And probably France.
Till next time.
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Saturday, July 3, 2021
A totally busy day.
The History of Home Economics: How Trailblazing Women Harnessed the Power of Home and Changed the Way We Live
Danielle Dreilinger
Independent Journalist published by W.W. Norton
After the Fall: Being American in the World We Made
Ben Rhodes
Former deputy national security adviser for the Obama administration, 2009-2017.
Justice Rising: Robert Kennedy’s America in Black and White
Patricia Sullivan
University of South Carolina
Interviewed by Kenneth Mack who appeared to be under-prepared although he did indicate that he had read the book under discussion.
And then of course, it’s a live two-hour BookTV interview tomorrow with Annette Gordon-Reed. It will be great. Totally.
Plus, there’s the fireworks.
Till next time.
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Monday, June 28, 2021
So.
Next up:
The Great Mistake by Jonathan Lee
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
The Art of Eating by M. F. K. Fisher
The Friend by Sigrid Nunez
Oliver Wendell Holmes by Stephen Budiansky
The Woman They Could Not Silence by Kate Moore
Tom Stoppard by Hermione Lee
The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson
Inside U.S.A. by John Gunther (recommended by the incomparable Robert Gottlieb)
Till next time.
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Thursday, June 24, 2021
An excess of book reviews means an excess of books that are waiting to be read.
Currently, in the middle of Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri and can’t seem to put it down. The chapters are tiny and short, which gives you the chance to reread these short little morsels of angst and ennui…and enjoy them all over again...perfect for a hot summer day.
Till next time.
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Sunday, June 13, 2021
Finally finished New York, New York, New York by Thomas Dyja. At the same time, on my mind are Vera by Carol Edgarian (about the SF earthquake) and an interview with Lawrence Ferlinghetti (about poetry and his SF bookstore).
Also related to SF were a couple of movie/TV references. That’s a lot of SF in a short period of time.
The New York book made me rethink and possibly downgrade from A+ to A my love for the theater, museums, and street life of NYC. The New York book also made me think maybe I’ve been hoodwinked by flashy advertising, brilliant marketing, and non-stop promotion of this whole I Love New York thing.
Never. The. Less.
September 14
Broadway re-opens.
Phantom
Lion King
Hamilton
Wicked
Plus, of course, with 41 theaters, and a budget of 1.8 billion dollars spent by 14.6 million people in 2019, there’s no shortage of love.
And that's not counting:
The Met
MOMA
The Whitney
The High Line
The Burger Joint at the Parker
Bemelman's at The Carlyle
The Strand
Museum of the City of New York
Studio Museum of Harlem
Schomburg Center
Sarabeth's
Fairway
A Starbucks on every second corner
And Lin on the A train at 181st In the Heights
Still…there’s this bookstore in SF. Beckoning.
Till next time.
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Saturday, June 12, 2021
It’s really something to listen to Michael Silverblatt discuss poetry and life with Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919-2021).
Listening to them via Bookworm on KCRW, it’s easy to envision a bit of eavesdropping on them at a café in SF, LA, or even Brooklyn as they discuss Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Carlos Williams, Walt Whitman, and Ezra Pound while also acknowledging that Ezra wrote global poetry while the rest wrote American. It’s easy to envision eavesdropping on this conversation but not as easy to envision eavesdropping on two people in the same cafe discussing fishing, knitting, bowling, biking, big salads, or even the habitation of Mars. Poetry just feels different somehow.
In conclusion:
To understand America through poetry remains a utopian dream. And yet a poem about spring by ee cummings recited in the moment by Lawrence makes it seem doable.
In the end, it’s probably Mark Twain or Susan Sontag who can best tell America about itself or perhaps Alexis de Tocqueville (or actually and most probably Susan, Linda, Nina, and Cokie (as in Stamberg, Wertheimer, Totenberg, and Roberts, respectively).
In the meantime, Amanda Gorman found us...just in time.
Finally, an aeronautical term that means the time between being functional and being unconscious due to lack of oxygen is called “the time of useful consciousness.” And that is the name of Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s book, The Time of Useful Consciousness.
City Lights Booksellers and Publishers
Bohemians and Beats, Bonsoir.
Till next time.
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Sunday, June 6, 2021
Seventy-seven years ago.
D-Day
June 6, 1944
Sir Max Hastings, a British historian, was live on BookTV today discussing his many books about wars and WWII specifically. He was interviewed by Peter Slen who did a splendid job.
Sir Max discussed Churchill, Roosevelt, Japan, Germans, Russians, WWI, WWII, the Vietnam War, and all related considerations.
His knowledge about the geopolitical conflicts was extraordinary. He explained that the Austrian Hungarian Empire of WWI used the assassination of Franz Ferdinand by a Seriban as an excuse to expand their empire.
And from that goal to amass wide swaths of land, modern war came to be.
One caller wanted to know if Germany, France, and Japan also had scholarly writers who wrote about these wars. Sir Max referenced the Potsdam Report from Germany as being accurate. The French have no official history of WWI and WWII because no one in France can agree on the complexities of their occupation and collaboration problems. Japanese historians distort the war and their part in it.
Two hours of an in-depth look at history and war with an emphasis on how easily people and governments can be both manipulated and heroic.
Sir Max also mentioned that JFK had read Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August, and that book played a part in the decisions he made with regard to the Cuban missile crisis with Russia.
And as Harm de Blij said, “We are all geography.”
Till next time.
European alliances in 1914.
Sunday, May 30, 2021
It’s just not Sunday without the Times, a milky coffee, and a poem by Cynthia Ozick refuting the review of her new book Antiquities, which I read and liked very much. And the editors of the NYT Book Review had the decency/graciousness to print her lettered poem. All is right with the world (for a brief bit in the world of bookishness).
Also, I’ve been listening to Martin Amis talk with Michael Silverblatt on Bookworm. Totally worthwhile. To listen to good conversation about books, life, and ideas in a measured and pleasant atmosphere is steadying. Always.
Finally, I read a really good interview with Bill Nighy in The Guardian. He and the reporter were in a café in Piccadilly. He likes cafes. America doesn’t have them. Bars and diners. Yes. Cafes with outdoor seating? No. I met him once for a nano-second outside a theater in NYC. He was going to speak. I froze. He continued on. As did I. Eventually.
The famous question of who you’d invite to a dinner party if you could invite any threefive people made me think I’d invite:
Cynthia
Martin
Michael
Bill
Beatrix
And I’d maneuver them all so that Beatrix could talk about Peter Rabbit, of course, but mostly about shearing sheep and living her life as Mrs. William Heelis. Quite a story. I wish I could hear her voice. I have an idea she sounds a bit like Eleanor Roosevelt but with a countrywoman’s British accent. Surely, she’s on tape someplace. I’ll keep looking.
Till next time.
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Friday, May 28, 2021
NYC…my favorite place in the world. But is it?
New York, New York, New York: Four Decades of Success, Excess, and Transformation by Thomas Dyja is my kind of book. It tells me the truth. It tells me the behind the scenes story of a city I love, but it also informs me that I’ve been duped? Misled? Protected from reality?
NYC is a place that roiled with money problems from the beginning, and with money problems come vice and all manner of shenanigans.
Still. It’s for me.
The book. The city. The history. The future.
Plus, you gotta love a book where the author uses the Oxford comma
in. the. title.
Twice.
ACTUALLY, this book is an in-depth historically accurate presentation of how culture, finance, power, talent, greed, aspirations, and naiveté come together to make a city that by all measures is the cultural and financial capital of the world.
Great book. Every page.
Till next time.
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Sunday, May 23, 2021
Eric Carle 1929-2021
WWII survivor
Korean War veteran
Family man
Serious artist
National treasure
...
Saturday, May 22, 2021
As Stephen Sondheim wondered, “Does anyone still wear a hat?”
I wonder, “Do people still clip newspaper articles anymore?”
I do. A bit in excess. In fact.
But then…how many clippings are there of Stacey Abrams.
Actually, quite a few. Millions.
Plus, she’s a reader, a writer, and all around leader.
For the ages and beyond.
Finally, I made this Please Stand By sign.
Don’t know why really.
But it works.
Till next time.
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Sunday, May 16, 2021
A quiet Sunday with coffee, the NYT, a slight storm in the air, and maybe a cold supper like in all the old movies.
But.
Before I forget what’s up and to be read:
The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
Tom Stoppard by Hermione Lee
The Awkward Black Man by Walter Mosley
The Woman Who Stole Vermeer by Anthony Amore
And currently reading:
New York, New York, New York by Thomas Dyja
The Friend by Sigrid Nunez
...
Finally, there are these bison to consider.
Till next time.
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Saturday, May 15, 2021
Via two scholars, the arguments for and against capitalism are explained in just under 90 minutes.
At last.
BookTV.
Danilo Petranovich, Moderator
Richard Wolff, Socialist
Arthur C. Brooks, Capitalist
Etta James, Singer
Till next time.
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Saturday, May 8, 2021
After reading the NYT's review, I bought Jon Klossen’s new book: The Rock from the Sky, and it was just as good as I knew it would be. He also wrote the engaging and inventive…I Want My Hat Back and the accompanying This is Not My Hat.
All three are brilliant and substantial.
The art, the text, the multi-layeredness, and the fun of the books are rare, unique, and long-lasting.
Go, Jon, Go.
And unrelatedly and sadly, I accidentally deleted in the trash on my mac my entire folder of recent correspondence.
Word to the wise…don’t do that.
Till next time.
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Saturday, May 1, 2021
Finished reading two books this week:
1. Vera: A Novel by Carol Edgarian
Vera is a semi-orphan in San Francisco about the time that Enrico Caruso (yes, that Enrico) sang and exactly at the time when the 1906 earthquake struck and brought SF to its knees.
The story isn’t just about the quake, it’s about parentage, vice, prejudice, hypocrisy, money, graft, grandeur, women, men, and money, money, money.
I wish the book hadn’t ended the way it did.
2. Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
I’m reminded of:
Patricia Reilly Giff’s Nory Ryan’s Song from 2001
John Ogbu and Patrick Finn’s research from the 1980s
Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart from 1958
Colm Tóibín’s Brooklyn: A Novel from 2015
All of these books address the assimilation of groups into a different culture. These books also address voluntary versus involuntary assimilation, enslavement, indentured servitude, colonialism, and as one Brexit supporter put it, “our country, our culture, our community.”
Also related to how people and beliefs develop are the books by Karen Armstrong who presents historical perspectives on the world’s primary religious systems and how those systems came to be.
Religion, inclusion, exclusion, decency, protectionism, fear, fate, generosity, graft, giving…and even on a good day, Plato’s Cave still remains front and center.
And of course, Michael Silverblatt set me on the right course to read both of these books. Bookworm…as far from Plato’s Cave as one can get.
Till next time.
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Saturday, April 24, 2021
You start the day thinking you know enough, and then there’s BookTV and C-SPAN-3…
I.
BookTV
COVID-19
San Antonio Book Festival April 9, 2021
Nicholas Christakis, MD
Yale
Apollo’s Arrow
Albert Camus
The Plague
Homer’s
Iliad
Apollo, Agamemnon
1890…Russian flu, probably coronavirus, 70 days, spread through bats to cattle to people from Moscow to NYC
2024…pretty much back to normal until the next plague arrives.
AND
II.
C-SPAN-3
Susan Eisenhower
How Ike Led: The Principles Behind Eisenhower’s Biggest Decisions
Edna Friedberg
Historian US Holocaust Memorial Museum
SUCH a totally splendid day of learning, and it’s only mid-afternoon.
Till next time.
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Tuesday, April 20, 2021
I never get tired of marveling at or reading Cynthia Ozick.
Antiquities is a brief book full of history, boys, old men, scholars, and fools.
And she always gets it all just exactly right.
After all the searching and Egyptology and boys to men, she writes, “I learned that though stories can never generate pots, pots will always tell stories. —C.O.”
Till next time.
From NYT.
Monday, April 19, 2021
It was quite something. The Invisible Life of Addie Larue by V. E. Schwab.
It’s one thing to know about Faust, it’s quite another to bring it up to date well into the twenty-first century.
Adeline…doesn’t want to marry Roger in Villon-sur-Sarthe, France on July 29, 1714.
Henry…is a bookseller in New York City on March 12, 2014.
Luc…Lucian…Lucifer…flits here there and yon for millennia.
London, England…February 3, 2016…Addie remembers Henry but will be with Luc not forever but “as long as you want me by your side.”
A deal’s a deal.
Overall, an intricately woven and splendidly crafted novel with the overarching message, “Be careful what you wish for.”
Till next time.
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Saturday, April 17, 2021
There was a splendid documentary on pocket watches.
I watched it.
George Daniels (1926-2011) was a master craftsman. His apprentice was Roger William Smith (1970-).
Dr. Daniels explained that his pocket watches were:
Historic
Intellectual
Technical
Aesthetic
Amusing
Useful
Elegant
And they were…are…all those things and more.
Fifteen hours a day working at his jeweler’s bench for 60 years…his life.
After watching it, I thought, “Hmm. Wouldn’t it be rather nice to own either a GW Daniels watch or an RW Smith watch.”
A few clicks and there they were…starting at around a million and a half.
As compensation for a lack of a million and a half, I’m up next to check out from the library, Antiquities by Cynthia Ozick. Can’t wait. AND it’s free (not counting the computer, the kindle, the iPad, the Wi-Fi, the electricity to power the battery, and the state taxes that are allocated to fund public libraries). Still it’s much less than a million and a half.
Just to know about these historic, intellectual, technical, aesthetic, amusing, useful, and elegant watches is and will have to be…enough.
Till next time.
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Wednesday, April 14, 2021
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. Finished last night.
Nora, the main character (by way of the local librarian, Mrs. Elm,) visits and lives through hundreds of lives. As Nora stumbles through time and space being rich, poor, loved, used, successful, unsuccessful and otherwise, she gets to choose a life that best suits her…IF she wants a life.
Swimmer, rock star, bar owner, wife, mother, scholar, or glacier scientist…what to do, what to do.
And toward the end, just when you think, oh no, not a cliché, thankfully, the author sets the whole journey right. A great ending.
Also along for the heroine’s journey are Voltaire, Thoreau, Schopenhauer, and Emerson (among others) each playing their philosophical parts.
A thoughtful (as in thought-provoking) book wherein you're always rooting for Nora.
Nora Seed...rather than Colm Tóibín's Nora in Nora or Henrik Ibsen's Nora in The Doll's House or even the incomparable Nora Ehphron.
Till next time.
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Saturday, April 10, 2021
Golly.
How does this happen.
Four weeks behind in the NYTBR. Concurrently, a review of the new movie with Melissa McCarthy and Octavia Spencer called the movie lazy.
Hmmm. Interesting.
Never. The. Less.
The weekend is here…time to catch up with the good, the bad, the lazy and plenty of espresso.
Finally: carpe diem etc. etc. etc.
(with nods to Odes written by the Roman poet Horace circa 23 BCE and The King and I starring Yul Brynner 1951 CE).
Till next time.
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Friday, April 9, 2021
Jun 10, 1921 – April 9, 2021
Wednesday, April 7, 2021
Today’s NYT had a piece featuring John Cullum who is 91 and is preparing for a streaming broadcast of his musical repertoire.
Starts tomorrow. April 8, 2021.
Where? 132 W 22nd, NYC, Irish Repertory Theatre.
AND
The article had a reference to John’s appearance on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Tituss Burgess and Jane Krakowski and Carol Kane are great and written of course by Tina Fey).
A few clicks (actually many), and here ‘tis:
Season 1, Episode 10, 25 minutes, 10 seconds.
And it wasn’t just John in the episode. It was also Jefferson Mays and Robert Osborne. Totally great.
And for whatever reason, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell popped into my head.
Fabulous British series from 2015.
Johnathan Strange played by Bertie Carvel
and
Mr. Norrell played by Eddie Marsan who stole the show…as he always does.
Memory lane? Done. For today.
Except to mention Bodyguard with Keeley Hawes (The Durrells in Corfu) and Richard Madden (Films of Scotland). Scary series but great acting.
And FINALLY speaking of The Durrells…
Josh O’Connor (Hope Gap, The Crown)
Callum Woodhouse (All Creatures Great and Small)
Milo Parker (Mr. Holmes WITH Sir Ian McKellen and Laura Linney no less)
Again, done, after moving through time and space from John to Milo.
Till next time.
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Sunday, April 4, 2021
How normal is it to be so happy about books?
Completely, I hope.
And today, it’s a day for women in medicine.
It was a live, two-hour interview with a medical ethicist and researcher, Harriet Washington on Book TV. Her six books are respected best sellers and are all about medicine.
I learned a lot. She was so clear and focused in her presentation that in addition to learning content, it was easy to also learn the art of answering questions and honoring callers.
As an additional bonus, BookTV listed the books she values and is currently reading.
Also, this morning’s interview comes on the heels of chapter six of The Doctors Blackwell, which is a book about Elizabeth Blackwell who was the first woman MD in America. It’s fabulous. And next is chapter seven.
Medicine. Then. Today. Tomorrow.
Till next time.
Peter Slen and Harriet Washington.
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Up next...chapter 7.
Friday, April 2, 2021
Seriously.
Watched Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7.
Very hard to watch. But very necessary. AND, the incomparable Aaron Sorkin got it all exactly right.
I had in my “Keepers” file the People magazine from May 1, 1989 featuring the life of Abbie Hoffman (November 30, 1936-April 12, 1989).
Political discourse, idealism, equity, justice, voting rights, and the absolute commitment to nonviolence…they’re all still in play.
Still, 2021.
Time to reread Thomas Paine, Alexis de Tocqueville, Adam Smith, John Maynard Keynes, Naomi Klein, and Jane Mayer.
Also, there exists an exhaustive and handy list of economists:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_economists
Finally to the art of the film, seriously, hats off:
Sacha Baron Cohen, Mark Rylance, Frank Langella, and Walter Cronkite.
And as everyone knows/hopes,
"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968).
Till next time.
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Monday, March 29, 2021
I hate to be so Pollyanna about it all, but wow.
Dame Hermione Lee digs deep into her biographies. I just finished her in depth book on Edith Wharton. It’s exhaustive of course, and a bit exhausting to read as well.
From her childhood to her marriage to her war efforts in France to her writings. She was extraordinary. Edith was.
But so is Hermione. Whoa. She’s unstoppable.
And waiting in the wings on the proverbial bedside table are Hermione’s Virginia Woolf and Penelope Fitzgerald (to get to eventually).
Also, I made the mistake of starting Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum. Heaveey. Now what? Persevere? For a bit.
In the meantime, I have John Barrowman singing Cole Porter’s I Happen to Like New York on repeat, repeat, and repeat. It’s too perfect and the perfect reprieve from too much academic-type thinking.
Till next time.
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Wednesday, March 24, 2021
I just finished Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2017.
Klara is an AF (artificial friend) who was purchased in a shop for a sickly human girl named Josie. Several years pass and by the end, humanity seems to have learned very little about how to live.
Kazuo’s book The Remains of the Day from 1989 is his most well-known book. It’s a compelling look at memory, choices, power, and control during the WWII era.
Note to self: After watching his Nobel lecture and several other interviews where he talks about books vs. books on film, reading the book is probably essential over just watching the movie.
His Nobel lecture was perfect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW_5Y6ekUEw
Also, I just discovered Sara Nelson who was editor in chief of Publishers Weekly for several years was let go. She is now head of Amazon’s book review department, which is where I hope she continues her outstanding book review work for decades to come.
Till next time.
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Sunday, March 21, 2021
Welp, it’s Sunday, and all thoughts turn to the NYT and a double espresso as well as Elena Ferrante, Uwe Johnson, and Umberto Eco.
Elena’s Neapolitan Novels and in particular that scene in the square where two young Italian girls are reading aloud to each other from Little Women.
Uwe’s Anniversaries: A Year in the Life of Gessine Cresspahl and a scene where Gessine’s daughter is in the elevator in her UWS apartment vs. a scene where Gessine is with her father in their house in the Eastern bloc while war, as always, wages on.
Umberto’s lecture at BookExpo in the Jacob Javits Center in 2005 alongside Barbara Ehrenreich, John Irving, and Bob Herbert where Umberto talks about three kinds of memory:
automatic memory (to hold a pencil, drive a car), semantic memory (knowing things in the common world of knowledge [Paris is in France]), and autobiographical memory (who am I).
This is one of my all-time favorite BookTV broadcasts.
AND just starting a new book by Hermione Lee titled, Edith Wharton.
Till next time.
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Thursday, March 18, 2021
I was listening to Michael Silverblatt talking about a new novel, and in this conversation he bemoaned the ignorance of the American public on the topics of semiotics and phenomenology as written about by such folks as Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and Julia Kristeva.
I was disappointed to hear this.
These are difficult topics and difficult writers, and one should not feel bad about not understanding their works. PLUS, the best writers are not those who purposefully or smugly or inconsiderately write difficult books so that readers feel stupid/inadequate or feel that they must reread them several times in order to understand them.
The best writers are those who obviously know Foucault, Derrida, and Kristeva and weave those folks’ ideas into their plots without the reader even knowing they’re there.
“One can’t possibly know everything, now can One,” thought the Queen.*
*(Possibly what the Queen might have thought about the topics of semiotics and phenomenology from Alan Bennett’s The Uncommon Reader [if she had ever had occasion to think about such things].)
Till next time.
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Sunday, March 14, 2021
Where are wisdom and genius found?
From elders, within the structure of a grain of sand, or from listening to a TED talk?
Perhaps.
But mostly from books.
I just listened to Michael Silverblatt interview Tobias Wolff on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of Tobias’s book, This Boy’s Life.
Thirty years have passed and here is Tobias, still writing, just retired from teaching, and now talking to Michael.
Where is that book? Oh yes, found it. On the shelf where it's always been.
I also listened to Michael’s live on-stage (last year before the, you know, virus, shut us all down) interview with Charles Yu whose new book is Interior Chinatown: A Novel.
And I’m well into Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro. It’s all about AFs who can be bought in shops and who then become our very own AFs (Artifical Friends). Neat.
Greatness abounds!
And yet, Broadway won’t reopen till around Labor Day. According to today’s NYT.
At first, that seemed great.
Labor Day.
Around May sometime.
Yes?
Checked the calendar.
Evidently.
Not.
Till next time.
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Sunday, March 7, 2021
Elizabeth Kolbert, a science writer, was live on BookTV today for two hours.
She solemnly explained the current climate-change crisis facing earth. It goes beyond mere global warming.
The earth is getting warmer and can also get colder. For example (and the best example she gave in her two hour talk), involves the Greenland ice sheet and the warm Gulf jet stream that travels from the Gulf of Mexico to the UK and northern Europe. As the Greenland ice sheet melts, it releases fresh cold water into the ocean right about where the ocean delivers the warm Gulf jet stream to the UK and northern Europe. This cold melted water alters the buoyancy and temperature of the ocean’s jet stream. And since the jet stream is like a conveyer belt, the warm air of the jet stream becomes cold, which means that the UK and northern Europe will start experiencing ice and snow rather than their usual warm temperate rain.
In short, global warming melts Greenland which in turn alters the warm Gulf Stream. This alteration allows the UK and northern Europe to see snow and ice instead of the warmth of the Gulf.
Also, she explained that warm water expands and is therefore responsible for the loss of land mass around all coasts.
Her latest book is The Sixth Extinction.
She explained that the best solution to repairing global warming and climate change is a carbon tax on CO2 producers rather than more federal regulatory actions.
And as always Peter Slen did an excellent job.
Till next time.
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Tuesday, March 2, 2021
My Zabar’s catalog came today, and I’m nearly finished with The Cold Millions by Jess Walter.
The book is an historical novel that takes a look at the robber barons of timber, land, railroads, power, money, banks, rivers, and all natural resources.
Gig and Rye and Queenie and the hero Elizabeth Gurley Flynn take on the power structure and face courts, punishments, prisons, and torture in the early 1900s as they fought for what was fair and right.
They used unions and the Industrial Workers of the World in their efforts to have meetings, print newspapers, and stand on soap boxes to raise money for the cause of workers’ rights.
The book is so engaging that you feel as if you're in prison or on a cot or trying on gloves or sitting on a train right along with the characters.
Today in real life, workers' rights remain part of the battle for equity. The rights of workers to have a say in their working conditions is a central tenet of modern economies. Conversely, companies also have a right to expect workers to be able, stable, and compatible. The balance between owners and workers is a tenuous one at best and at worst an easily corruptible one.
My kindle says I’ve got 20% left to go in the book. I don’t know how it will end. And that’s a good thing for a novel.
One of the characters says, “I just don’t see how you fight a class war without the war.”
What if Jess had never researched and written this book? But he did. For the cold millions and the cold billions yet to come.
Till next time.
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Wednesday, February 24, 2021
It’s such a great book. Photos of libraries from all over the world. And the title?
Libraries. It was a gift.
The perfect gift.
I was watching something on TV, and the scene was in a library. I said to myself, “Wait. I know that library.”
And there it was in my Libraries book. Pages 160-163.
The Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm Centre of Humboldt University in Berlin.
Till next time.
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Wednesday, February 17, 2021
It started with A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders.
Saunders chose four Russian writers and their short stories to showcase and explain. In addition to short stories, the four writers left us with novels, plays, poetry, insight, and material for a lifetime.
Ivan Turgenev 1818-1883 (aged 64) A Sportsman’s Sketches; Fathers and Sons
Anton Chekhov 1860-1904 (aged 44) Three Sisters; The Cherry Orchard
Leo Tolstoy 1828-1910 (aged 82) War and Peace; Anna Karenina
Nikolai Gogol 1809-1852 (aged 42) The Overcoat
It seems to me you can’t really understand humanity unless you understand Russia and the sources of all its brilliance, sadness, complexity, strength, and disparities.
And from there, my brain went to two other physican/writers (in addition to Chekhov) William Carlos Williams and Robert Coles.
It appears that writers/physicians are a natural combination of art, science, and verisimilitude.
I feel like I’ve been waiting my whole adult life for this book. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders. And Michael Silverblatt’s interview with George was over the moon. I’m so happy to have this book.
Till next time.
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Tuesday, February 9, 2021
Edward (1990) and Cheyenne (2011) share the same hairstyle.
I bet I’m the first one to notice this coincidence. Loved both movies. Diane Wiest and Frances McDormand are world-class thinkers and actors as is Johnny Depp who is also very brave.
Till next time.
Edward Scissorhands....................This Must Be the Place
Monday, February 8, 2021
On a chilly Monday morning, two more thoughts from the NYT Book Review.
The book reviewer of James Comey’s new book stated that we need to determine the standards to be used for deciding what is true (as opposed to merely saying what is true). A few standards for determining what is true include vetted and reliable sources, multiple perspectives, corroborative views, tangible sources, and then consensus for those decided-upon standards.
I rather like this process.
Truth. Chasing it is always a noble endeavor.
Till next time.
Sunday, February 7, 2021
Even when I’m behind (shamefully/pre-pandemic or forgivably/during-pandemic) with the NYT Book Review, it’s still always wonderful to read through and pick out the best parts. I always start with Letters to the Editor.
To read these earnest and serious letters of angst, ennui, correction, accolade, concern, outrage, and gratitude is like being at dinner with friends who bring up little bits of this and that about books and book reviews while thoroughly enjoying their soup, grilled asparagus, filet mignon, and crème brûlée at Ruth’s Chris (although now that I think about it, I’m not sure Ruth’s Chris serves the brûlée).
Even without the meal, the letters and the reviews are delicious. For example: Andrew Sullivan took quite a thrashing with his mis-definition of liberal democracy, and thanks to three astute letter writers, he stands corrected (and hopefully humbled and appreciative).
And then there was Rupert Grint in the A&L section who paid tribute to Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast Revisionist History. Rupert also does a wonderful job in Servant produced by M. Night Shyamalan. Season 2 can’t come soon enough. Oops. I just checked. It’s here. I’m behind. Nothing new.
The book review about John Thompson, basketball coach at Georgetown in D.C., was riveting. We need his caliber of leadership at the CEO, presidential, ambassador, and/or king level. The review was great and so is the book.
A good way to decide on a next book is the By the Book section. And an even better way is to check the Best Sellers list so that if the book is on the list for 17 or 110 weeks, whoa, it’s a go.
Next, is the Editors’ Choice. There’s rarely a misstep there.
Finally in movie news, there was a full-page ad of Mank, which I thought was a misprint of Mark but which of course, it wasn’t. Gary Oldman was fabulous as Mank just as he was fabulous in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead; Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy; Darkest Hour; The Laundromat; and everything else (including and surprisingly as Sirius Black).
And finally, Bill Nye, the Science Guy, in Bliss with Owen Wilson and Salma Hayek. In fact, he stole every scene. Both of them.
One more thing…in the letters section, there was a vigorous discussion of punctuation in poetry. It’s all still up in the air.
A good Sunday read.
Till next time.
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Thursday, February 4, 2021
A milky coffee with lots of sugar surely spells death.
And yet, here I am reading The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson in the morning and 197,196 Words: Essays by Emmanuel Carrère in the evening while waiting for season 2 of Lupin…all powered by a milky coffee with lots of sugar and just the right amount of caffeine.
Footnote: Hats off to Eddie Izzard for giving voice and accolades to the brilliance of a "milky coffee."
End Footnote.
Till next time.
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Wednesday, January 27, 2021
Mrs. Hall in the kitchen at Darrowby-2297.
Mason Cash bowls…they’re everywhere.
And now for something completely different.
First of all, it’s Clementeen. Four kids. The youngest a boy...a gambler, a drinker, and a bit of a puzzle.
The Splendid and the Vile…an extraordinary book.
And delightedly, just getting started.
Till next time.
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Tuesday, January 26, 2021
Finished Mantel Pieces by Hilary Mantel. From Marie Antoinette to Robespierre to her stepfather, it was a roller coaster of a brilliant read. But the best parts were the little phrases she used to describe people, places, and events. And, of course, I didn’t keep track of even one of them, which means I’ll have to reread it at some point. And will do better.
Next up is Erik Larson’s The Splendid and the Vile, which has been on the up-next list for a year. Will do better. And this book is gonna be great from start to finish. AND it’s signed by the author.
Neat.
Till next time.
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Saturday, January 23, 2021
Rockin’ the Bob.
Dessa and Yellen! Here to save the day.
I'm not sure why this is so thrilling, but 'tis.
The rap was released on January 21, 2021, and Kai Ryssdal featured it.
Rap, research, economics, politics, perseverance, style, suavity, sophistication, and finally...a big plan. It's all there.
Thrilling.
Till next time.
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Saturday, January 16, 2021
Watching BookTV is not what it used to be. I depended on these bookish types to speak to other bookish types about their…books.
But now, it’s zoom, zoom, zoom, and it’s harder to stay focused as the audio, the video, the lighting, the odd configurations, the barking dogs in the background all appear, disappear, and reappear at random. ALTHOUGH, it may just me being persnickety.
How. Ev. Er. Today, I watched the former German ambassador to the US, Wolfgang Ischinger talk about the role of diplomacy worldwide. He was exactly what an ambassador should be. It was a wonderful conversation.
I can’t believe I lucked out and clicked on just the right stuff to inaugurate the start of a very pleasant day.
Wolfgang has been in public service all his life. He supports the Paris Climate Agreement, NATO, diplomacy efforts with Russia and China, and stable leadership from the US with regard to world peace, economics, stability, and technology advances.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.” Edmond Burke.
Wolfgang is certainly doing his share of goodness. And more.
Till next time.
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Friday, January 15, 2021
I never tire of Alan Bennett’s observations.
And lately I’ve been rewatching his movie series packaged as 4 DVDs in a collection titled The Alan Bennett Collection featuring An Englishman Abroad and including my all time favorite, A Question of Attribution starring Prunella Scales.
And.
One of those movies is about Marcel Proust.
Alan says that Marcel says that a novel takes you inside yourself rather than outside yourself. I’m not sure Marcel was right about that. I immediately thought of four twelve novels in no particular order that took me all over the world:
The Map and the Territory by Michel Houellebecq
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Anniversaries: From a Year in the Life of Gesine Cresspahl by Uwe Johnson
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
Why I Live at the P.O. by Eudora Welty
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi
Heir to the Glimmering World by Cynthia Ozick
Also, I never get tired of listening to Alan Bennett read his work especially The Uncommon Reader.
And finally, for the weekend (even if the Dowager Countess of Grantham doesn't know what a weekend is), I’m well into Hilary Mantel’s Mantel Pieces and loving it.
Till next time.
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Tuesday, January 12, 2021
There are nearly too many books queued up at the ready. Jay Parini’s book on Borges and Me turned out to be too full of cognitive dissonance for me. The book was mostly a coming of age book from 50 years ago rather than about the poet Jorge Luis Borges. Also, Parini, in the 1960s, was in Scotland studying for his thesis and at the same time avoiding the draft for the Vietnam War. He mentions this draft avoidance many times in the book, and I kept expecting him to say in the end, he became a conscientious objector and served somehow, somewhere. But no…He also mentioned the horrible death of his friend in the war. So…
Martin Amis’s book Inside Story was supposed to be a novel, but really it was an historical anecdote about his relationships with Kingsley (his dad), Saul Bellow, and Christopher Hitchens as well as girlfriends and family. To be a writer for Amis seems to be all that he is when actually we know there are other fascinating rhythms of life:
Groucho Marx
Willie Mays
The Second Movement of the Jupiter Symphony
Louie Armstrong’s recording of Potato Head Blues
Swedish movies
Sentimental Education by Flaubert
Marlon Brando
Frank Sinatra
Apples and Pears by Cezanne
The crabs at Sam Wo’s
George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue
Or so says Woody Allen in Manhattan
Also, in today’s Times was a piece about the new Moynihan Train Hall at Penn Station and VP Kamala Harris’s photo on the cover of Vogue. Such a variety.
I’m moving on to Hilary Mantel’s Mantel Pieces and possibly a piece of German Chocolate Cake.
Till next time.
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Wednesday, January 6, 2021
Finally. Today.
Something to consider:
Clarity isn’t everything.
It’s the only thing.
Also, a new book is queued up. Life isn’t Everything: Mike Nichols, as Remembered by 150 of His Closest Friends.
And then there are three books to reread and to re-enjoy as winter settles in:
The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
Mirrors by Eduardo Galeano
I WAS thinking about collecting all the book reviews written by Michiko Kakutani, who wrote literary criticism for the NYT for 38 years. HOWEVER, after reading about how she was fearless, disinterested, and sometimes mean as well as way too powerful, I’m thinking no.
For me, John Updike’s advice on how to review a book remains the gold standard for reviewers. This advice is from his book Picked-Up Pieces from 1977.
1. Try to understand what the authors wished to do, and do not blame them for not achieving what they did not attempt.
2. Provide enough direct quotation—at least one extended passage—of the book's prose so the review's readers can form their own impressions.
3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book.
4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.
5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's ouevre or elsewhere.
6. Do not accept for review a book you are predisposed to dislike, or committed by friendship to like.
Till next time.
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Friday, January 1, 2021
Speaking of new year’s resolutions…
Oh. My. Goodness.
Yesterday, I bought carrots and low-fat dip.
Today, I had two cookies and a bag of chips for lunch.
ARGH.
On a MUCH brighter note, I got a lovely new fountain pen for Christmas.
Virginia Woolf wrote with a fountain pen. She also recommended George Eliot’s Middlemarch, which I have just started reading.
Hello 2021.
Till next time.
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UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE
Oh my gosh!!!
It’s fixed. Hats off to Network Solutions.
Well done. AND BTW, it's all plenty secure.
Network Solutions seems unable to fix their own site counter.
