Kitty's bookshelf: all en-US Tue, 01 Apr 2025 12:42:42 -0700 60 Kitty's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Blues in Stereo: The Early Works of Langston Hughes]]> 205397630 144 Langston Hughes 1538768917 Kitty 4 Hughes is known for the question "what happens to a dream deferred?" As a young black poet, Danez Smith and his friends learned that a dream could dry, fester, run, stink, crust and sugar over and even explode. They stretched their minds to meet Hughe's imagination. It is hard not to be moved by Hughes, age 18, writing a poem where his "I" is big enough to hold all of us, and "the Negro" is both individual and all Black folks.
"The Negro Speaks of Rivers" became his first published poem in June 1921, in "The Crisis", the NAACP's monthly magazine edited at the time by W.E.B. DuBois. Danez Smith claims this poem changed the canon of poetry, the history and sound of American poetics.]]> 4.30 2024 Blues in Stereo: The Early Works of Langston Hughes
author: Langston Hughes
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/29
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves:
review:
The fact that this is a small book containing early works of Langston Hughes CURATED by Danez Smith indeed, makes for a duet of voices that spans the 20th century. Thoughtfully assembled by Danez Smith who adds commentary on the poems. As Clint Smith reviews, "Langston Hughes transformed the way America understood Black literature and Black life. The suffering. The joy. The violence. The resilience. His poetry revels in the music of our language. His love for his people leaps from the page."
Hughes is known for the question "what happens to a dream deferred?" As a young black poet, Danez Smith and his friends learned that a dream could dry, fester, run, stink, crust and sugar over and even explode. They stretched their minds to meet Hughe's imagination. It is hard not to be moved by Hughes, age 18, writing a poem where his "I" is big enough to hold all of us, and "the Negro" is both individual and all Black folks.
"The Negro Speaks of Rivers" became his first published poem in June 1921, in "The Crisis", the NAACP's monthly magazine edited at the time by W.E.B. DuBois. Danez Smith claims this poem changed the canon of poetry, the history and sound of American poetics.
]]> <![CDATA[Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom]]> 61272711 New York Times Bestseller | New York Times 10 Best Books of 2023

The remarkable true story of Ellen and William Craft, who escaped slavery through daring, determination, and disguise, with Ellen passing as a wealthy, disabled White man and William posing as “his� slave.

In 1848, a year of international democratic revolt, a young, enslaved couple, Ellen and William Craft, achieved one of the boldest feats of self-emancipation in American history. Posing as master and slave, while sustained by their love as husband and wife, they made their escape together across more than 1,000 miles, riding out in the open on steamboats, carriages, and trains that took them from bondage in Georgia to the free states of the North.

Along the way, they dodged slave traders, military officers, and even friends of their enslavers, who might have revealed their true identities. The tale of their adventure soon made them celebrities, and generated headlines around the country. Americans could not get enough of this charismatic young couple, who traveled another 1,000 miles criss-crossing New England, drawing thunderous applause as they spoke alongside some of the greatest abolitionist luminaries of the day—among them Frederick Douglass and William Wells Brown.

But even then, they were not out of danger. With the passage of an infamous new Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, all Americans became accountable for returning refugees like the Crafts to slavery. Then yet another adventure began, as slave hunters came up from Georgia, forcing the Crafts to flee once again—this time from the United States, their lives and thousands more on the line and the stakes never higher.

With three epic journeys compressed into one monumental bid for freedom, Master Slave Husband Wife is an American love story—one that would challenge the nation’s core precepts of life, liberty, and justice for all—one that challenges us even now.]]> 416 Ilyon Woo 1501191055 Kitty 3 Chapters: Macon, Georgia, Savannah, Charleston, Overland, Pennsylvania, New England, The US, Canada, Overseas. From a small town in the south, to the overall state of Georgia, and its larger capital, another city in N. Carolina, the scope of locale keeps growing.

The cover and reviews call it a love story, but I felt the historical rigor was the predominant force, not the drama or suspense of facing the dangers this couple did. It provides an impartial examination of morals and thorough information about the laws, figures involved in antebellum America. ]]> 3.95 2023 Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom
author: Ilyon Woo
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/25
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves:
review:
Carefully researched and laden with the complex history of slavery in the US, the civil war, the underground railroad. Wonderful audacity of Ellen and William Craft. The thread of the story follows the harrowing escape of this couple, but 12 chapters, organized by title from Overture to Coda, and 10 locations fill out an extensive history of the 19th century in the US.
Chapters: Macon, Georgia, Savannah, Charleston, Overland, Pennsylvania, New England, The US, Canada, Overseas. From a small town in the south, to the overall state of Georgia, and its larger capital, another city in N. Carolina, the scope of locale keeps growing.

The cover and reviews call it a love story, but I felt the historical rigor was the predominant force, not the drama or suspense of facing the dangers this couple did. It provides an impartial examination of morals and thorough information about the laws, figures involved in antebellum America.
]]> James 173754979 A brilliant reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—both harrowing and satirical—told from the enslaved Jim's point of view

When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he runs away until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

Brimming with nuanced humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a literary icon, this brilliant and tender novel radically illuminates Jim's agency, intelligence, and compassion as never before. James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first-century American literature.

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780385550369.]]> 303 Percival Everett Kitty 5
I could not put the book down, fascinated by James, who through Everett's powerful writing, reveals all that instinctively should be perceived to be wrong with slavery, racism, misuse of power. Chapter 2 explains the double-life of being a literate slave, and the importance of disguising-- cleverness, insight, wisdom, all that the powerful should value, but don't, and yet, if they see it in their subordinates, will annihilate them to squash it flat. I feel like Huck who observes injustice, says about whites misusing power, "I don't like white folks, and I's one of them". By the time you get to Part III, and witness rape as common practice, it is hard not to hate the world that refuses justice -- and worse, treats anyone who retaliates with injustice. Jim points out to Huck "good" has nothing to do with "law", that "religion" is a controlling tool whites adhere to when convenient, but any "Christian attitude" of white Masters toward another human being not of their tribe is unheard of: a slave is property to dispose of, work to death, flagellate when needing a punching bag to dispense rage with no reason, blame without honest self-examination; torture, hang for any reason. As James points out, we are create with a CAPACITY to become equal, but otherwise, equality has nothing to do with this country. Belief has nothing to do with truth. What teaches you to do whatever job or problem? Necessity.

All that aside, the cleverness of the novel is underscored by the constant existence of the outward façade of slave-language (and behavior) and inner understanding. Given a chance to read, write, study philosophers such as Voltaire, a slave is as capable as any privileged master who as a rule, shuns his own advantage. Chapter two is delightful in showing the reader how this works. Is it "proleptic or dramatic"? I had to look up proleptic... what makes an "end more tidy by resolving plotlines". At one point when James reveals himself without the mask of slave-talk, he asks Huck, if his shock is from "his diction of his content".

This is a FABULOUS novel in all senses of the word, painting not just the Civil War era of America, but the importance of determination, ingenuity for survival. We are given a mirror, asked to join the drama, decide which part we will play. ]]> 4.47 2024 James
author: Percival Everett
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/22
date added: 2025/03/22
shelves:
review:
Hemingway had famously declared that all modern American literature comes from one book by Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. "Make it two books" says Datta in the Hindu Review, "for Everett’s James is the perfect companion to Huck, giving agency to a voice we have been conditioned to not hear".

I could not put the book down, fascinated by James, who through Everett's powerful writing, reveals all that instinctively should be perceived to be wrong with slavery, racism, misuse of power. Chapter 2 explains the double-life of being a literate slave, and the importance of disguising-- cleverness, insight, wisdom, all that the powerful should value, but don't, and yet, if they see it in their subordinates, will annihilate them to squash it flat. I feel like Huck who observes injustice, says about whites misusing power, "I don't like white folks, and I's one of them". By the time you get to Part III, and witness rape as common practice, it is hard not to hate the world that refuses justice -- and worse, treats anyone who retaliates with injustice. Jim points out to Huck "good" has nothing to do with "law", that "religion" is a controlling tool whites adhere to when convenient, but any "Christian attitude" of white Masters toward another human being not of their tribe is unheard of: a slave is property to dispose of, work to death, flagellate when needing a punching bag to dispense rage with no reason, blame without honest self-examination; torture, hang for any reason. As James points out, we are create with a CAPACITY to become equal, but otherwise, equality has nothing to do with this country. Belief has nothing to do with truth. What teaches you to do whatever job or problem? Necessity.

All that aside, the cleverness of the novel is underscored by the constant existence of the outward façade of slave-language (and behavior) and inner understanding. Given a chance to read, write, study philosophers such as Voltaire, a slave is as capable as any privileged master who as a rule, shuns his own advantage. Chapter two is delightful in showing the reader how this works. Is it "proleptic or dramatic"? I had to look up proleptic... what makes an "end more tidy by resolving plotlines". At one point when James reveals himself without the mask of slave-talk, he asks Huck, if his shock is from "his diction of his content".

This is a FABULOUS novel in all senses of the word, painting not just the Civil War era of America, but the importance of determination, ingenuity for survival. We are given a mirror, asked to join the drama, decide which part we will play.
]]> <![CDATA[The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder]]> 61714633 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a page-turning story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. The powerful narrative reveals the deeper meaning of the events on the Wager, showing that it was not only the captain and crew who ended up on trial, but the very idea of empire.

On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty's Ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as "the prize of all the oceans," it had wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The men, after being marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing nearly 3,000 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes.

But then . . . six months later, another, even more decrepit craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways, and they told a very different story. The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes - they were mutineers. The first group responded with countercharges of their own, of a tyrannical and murderous senior officer and his henchmen. It became clear that while stranded on the island the crew had fallen into anarchy, with warring factions fighting for dominion over the barren wilderness. As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court martial to determine who was telling the truth. The stakes were life-and-death--for whomever the court found guilty could hang.

The Wager is a grand tale of human behavior at the extremes told by one of our greatest nonfiction writers. Grann's recreation of the hidden world on a British warship rivals the work of Patrick O'Brian, his portrayal of the castaways' desperate straits stands up to the classics of survival writing such as The Endurance, and his account of the court martial has the savvy of a Scott Turow thriller. As always with Grann's work, the incredible twists of the narrative hold the reader spellbound.]]> 331 David Grann 0385534264 Kitty 3 One reviewer called it, " ressembling Conrad trapped in novel by Garcia Marquez". Hyperconnected, exhaustingly charted story that takes place over 2 years involving shipwreck, battles with pride, struggles for survival. As the author notes, "we have not lived what these men lived" and asks us to respect that this is a work based on washed out log books, moldering correspondence, half-truthful journals with conflicting accounts. Let History be the judge.
Well... I LOVE the opening sentence. "The only impartial witness was the sun."
He quotes Mary McCarthy, "We are the hero of our own story" and William Golding (Lord of the Flies), "Maybe there is a beast. Maybe it is us."

I really struggled with reading it, it was horrifying to me and depressing. I might not have stuck with it, but wanted to finish it for discussion of my book club. A perfectly dreadful (but well told) story of deceit, murder, mutiny in the days of the British Empire, sending out its "wooden cities" i.e. 250 men in Sailing Vessels to navigate the high seas, acquire more land, plunder Spanish Galleons filled with silver, etc. It does not endear me to this species called "human beings". I learned a lot about what it must have been like to live the marine life in 1740-- whether as gunner, captain, or seaman.. David Grann provides a vivid description of what these "Man o' War" ships were like, and gripping descriptions of battles, whether braving the horrors of Cape Horn or firing cannons at close range. ]]> 4.14 2023 The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder
author: David Grann
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/17
date added: 2025/03/17
shelves:
review:

One reviewer called it, " ressembling Conrad trapped in novel by Garcia Marquez". Hyperconnected, exhaustingly charted story that takes place over 2 years involving shipwreck, battles with pride, struggles for survival. As the author notes, "we have not lived what these men lived" and asks us to respect that this is a work based on washed out log books, moldering correspondence, half-truthful journals with conflicting accounts. Let History be the judge.
Well... I LOVE the opening sentence. "The only impartial witness was the sun."
He quotes Mary McCarthy, "We are the hero of our own story" and William Golding (Lord of the Flies), "Maybe there is a beast. Maybe it is us."

I really struggled with reading it, it was horrifying to me and depressing. I might not have stuck with it, but wanted to finish it for discussion of my book club. A perfectly dreadful (but well told) story of deceit, murder, mutiny in the days of the British Empire, sending out its "wooden cities" i.e. 250 men in Sailing Vessels to navigate the high seas, acquire more land, plunder Spanish Galleons filled with silver, etc. It does not endear me to this species called "human beings". I learned a lot about what it must have been like to live the marine life in 1740-- whether as gunner, captain, or seaman.. David Grann provides a vivid description of what these "Man o' War" ships were like, and gripping descriptions of battles, whether braving the horrors of Cape Horn or firing cannons at close range.
]]> <![CDATA[The Complete Richard Hannay: The Thirty-Nine Steps / Greenmantle / Mr Standfast]]> 39084871 831 John Buchan 2377876293 Kitty 0 to-read 4.19 1919 The Complete Richard Hannay: The Thirty-Nine Steps / Greenmantle / Mr Standfast
author: John Buchan
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1919
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Fortune-Teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East]]> 326931
Warned by a Hong Kong fortune-teller not to risk flying for an entire year, Tiziano Terzani—a vastly experienced Asia correspondent—took what he called “the first step into an unknown world. . . . It turned out to be one of the most extraordinary years I have ever spent: I was marked for death, and instead I was reborn.�

Traveling by foot, boat, bus, car, and train, he visited Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Mongolia, Japan, Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia. Geography expanded under his feet. He consulted soothsayers, sorcerers, and shamans and received much advice—some wise, some otherwise—about his future. With time to think, he learned to understand, respect, and fear for older ways of life and beliefs now threatened by the crasser forms of Western modernity. He rediscovered a place he had been reporting on for decades. And reinvigorated himself in the process.]]> 384 Tiziano Terzani 060980958X Kitty 0 currently-reading 4.22 1995 A Fortune-Teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East
author: Tiziano Terzani
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/19
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Remarkably Bright Creatures 58733693 Remarkably Bright Creatures, an exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope, tracing a widow's unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus.

After Tova Sullivan's husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she's been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago.

Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn't dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors--until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.

Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova's son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it's too late.

Shelby Van Pelt's debut novel is a gentle reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.]]> 368 Shelby Van Pelt 0063204150 Kitty 1 The only chapter title that convinced me to continue reading was the quote from Shakespeare, (p. 171) "Conscience Does Make Cowards of Us All". To finally stumble on something that didn't sound like trite lines from a cast of characters doomed to a hard fate with no saving grace in sight, frankly, drove me to search for more reasons to continue reading, including skimming the last 40 pages. (I did re-read them in sequence from p. 171 to finish the book.) So... a shadow of suicide is established.
I know it is fiction, but increasing hints of "just like your father" are embellished like "just like your mother" did not make up for what felt like non-sequiturs such as an odd inclusion of the supportive Aunt in a sudden out-of-character drunken response in a phone call; an unlikely drive of thousands of miles, only to turn around and still be able to show up to work.
I felt the "voice" of Marcellus was rather flat, even if portrayed as "well-meaning" and the relationship with Tova a flimsy foil to only partially disclose a mother's agony over losing her son.
I was glad that Cameron turned out to be a "remarkably bright creature", but to only have this confirmed on p. 347, eight pages before the end of the book did not justify the title of the book. I was not convinced by the quick wrap up at the end where everything falls into place, or the penultimate chapter "Day 1 of My Freedom" where the relationship of "finding a key" and the "bones" of a beloved son settle in the depths where Marcellus will find his final resting place and the story concludes. Yes, "keys" and "bones" are important metaphors in the book, but their mention felt haphazard given what felt like a slog of non-stop dialogue that hid not only "what happened" to Eric, the son (which is revealed in one sentence about a boom at the end) but created a whirlpool of extraneous, pathetic detail that didn't really hang together.

Instead of drawing out in me a sense of compassion for any of the characters as I read, I felt an increasingly sense of irritation. Even the delightful Scotsman provided more conundrum than pleasure. I wish the details about Tova's Swedish background, the Dala Horse, her father's house, had not been saved until the end. Finally, her character felt fleshed out and grounded, after the swirls of surreal fiction. I will listen carefully to two different book groups who will be discussing this book in hopes they counter these impressions.]]> 4.35 2022 Remarkably Bright Creatures
author: Shelby Van Pelt
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2022
rating: 1
read at: 2025/02/06
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves:
review:
Every review seems to rave about this book and the cover says charming, witty and compulsively readable. I did not find it charming or witty in the least, and much as it is a clever conceit to involve a giant pacific octopus in the mystery of the disappearance of a beloved son, I found it quite tedious to trip over the tentacles of the intertwined chapters. Perhaps the one saving grace about the book were the chapter titles, alternating with the count of days "of My Captivity" and teasers taken from what characters said.
The only chapter title that convinced me to continue reading was the quote from Shakespeare, (p. 171) "Conscience Does Make Cowards of Us All". To finally stumble on something that didn't sound like trite lines from a cast of characters doomed to a hard fate with no saving grace in sight, frankly, drove me to search for more reasons to continue reading, including skimming the last 40 pages. (I did re-read them in sequence from p. 171 to finish the book.) So... a shadow of suicide is established.
I know it is fiction, but increasing hints of "just like your father" are embellished like "just like your mother" did not make up for what felt like non-sequiturs such as an odd inclusion of the supportive Aunt in a sudden out-of-character drunken response in a phone call; an unlikely drive of thousands of miles, only to turn around and still be able to show up to work.
I felt the "voice" of Marcellus was rather flat, even if portrayed as "well-meaning" and the relationship with Tova a flimsy foil to only partially disclose a mother's agony over losing her son.
I was glad that Cameron turned out to be a "remarkably bright creature", but to only have this confirmed on p. 347, eight pages before the end of the book did not justify the title of the book. I was not convinced by the quick wrap up at the end where everything falls into place, or the penultimate chapter "Day 1 of My Freedom" where the relationship of "finding a key" and the "bones" of a beloved son settle in the depths where Marcellus will find his final resting place and the story concludes. Yes, "keys" and "bones" are important metaphors in the book, but their mention felt haphazard given what felt like a slog of non-stop dialogue that hid not only "what happened" to Eric, the son (which is revealed in one sentence about a boom at the end) but created a whirlpool of extraneous, pathetic detail that didn't really hang together.

Instead of drawing out in me a sense of compassion for any of the characters as I read, I felt an increasingly sense of irritation. Even the delightful Scotsman provided more conundrum than pleasure. I wish the details about Tova's Swedish background, the Dala Horse, her father's house, had not been saved until the end. Finally, her character felt fleshed out and grounded, after the swirls of surreal fiction. I will listen carefully to two different book groups who will be discussing this book in hopes they counter these impressions.
]]> <![CDATA[The Hobbit: or There and Back Again]]> 6472585
This stirring adventure fantasy begins the tale of the hobbits that was continued by J.R.R. Tolkien in his bestselling epic The Lord of the Rings.]]> 317 J.R.R. Tolkien Kitty 5 4.22 1937 The Hobbit: or There and Back Again
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1937
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves:
review:

]]> The Personal Librarian 55333938 This is a previously-published edition of ISBN 9780593101537.

The remarkable, little-known story of Belle da Costa Greene, J. P. Morgan's personal librarian—who became one of the most powerful women in New York despite the dangerous secret she kept in order to make her dreams come true, from New York Times bestselling author Marie Benedict and acclaimed author Victoria Christopher Murray.

In her twenties, Belle da Costa Greene is hired by J. P. Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artwork for his newly built Pierpont Morgan Library. Belle becomes a fixture on the New York society scene and one of the most powerful people in the art and book world, known for her impeccable taste and shrewd negotiating for critical works as she helps build a world-class collection.

But Belle has a secret, one she must protect at all costs. She was born not Belle da Costa Greene but Belle Marion Greener. She is the daughter of Richard Greener, the first Black graduate of Harvard and a well-known advocate for equality. Belle's complexion isn't dark because of her alleged Portuguese heritage that lets her pass as white—her complexion is dark because she is African American.

The Personal Librarian tells the story of an extraordinary woman, famous for her intellect, style, and wit, and shares the lengths to which she must go—for the protection of her family and her legacy—to preserve her carefully crafted white identity in the racist world in which she lives.]]> 341 Marie Benedict Kitty 4
It is carefully researched, and aside from a luxuriant overdose of name droppings involved in the art world, the upper crust society of New York, the personal story of Belle and slow reveal about her father, the reasons for her mother's insistence of an alleged Portuguese heritage, the story of race and the pressure of playing high stakes is gripping. It is important to note the dual authorship of the book and the excellent touch of Victoria Christopher Murray to add the layer of post-civil war history of racism and how the war did not end it. I fell in love with Belle, became her second Mama, worrying about her as she played her amazing cards in a game she had to teach herself. The love story unfolding in the second part of the book is indeed heart-breaking and adds yet another dimension to this extraordinary woman.

There is a mirror effect of the book to examine yourself, perhaps as well the "luxury of making mistakes" and what they might they be, or the fun of flirtation vs. real emotion . The bottom line of being human is our struggle to know who we really are, and how that matches what we seem to be.
Shakespeare appears towards the end with the well-known lines: "a fool thinks himself to be wise and a wise man knows himself to be a fool." Indeed. ]]> 3.98 2021 The Personal Librarian
author: Marie Benedict
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves:
review:
I love historical fiction, and this book is a prime example to explain why. It is not just details of the Gilded Age, nor the biography of an extraordinary woman, or an introduction to the giant power of JP Morgan and the establishment of his library as one of the most important museums in the world of precious manuscripts and art, nor even the main thread of the story which is that tenuous line we have invented between races and class where black is relegated behind the scenes, never to enjoy the privileges this country pretends are "for all", and white declares the rules for the rich to be successful.

It is carefully researched, and aside from a luxuriant overdose of name droppings involved in the art world, the upper crust society of New York, the personal story of Belle and slow reveal about her father, the reasons for her mother's insistence of an alleged Portuguese heritage, the story of race and the pressure of playing high stakes is gripping. It is important to note the dual authorship of the book and the excellent touch of Victoria Christopher Murray to add the layer of post-civil war history of racism and how the war did not end it. I fell in love with Belle, became her second Mama, worrying about her as she played her amazing cards in a game she had to teach herself. The love story unfolding in the second part of the book is indeed heart-breaking and adds yet another dimension to this extraordinary woman.

There is a mirror effect of the book to examine yourself, perhaps as well the "luxury of making mistakes" and what they might they be, or the fun of flirtation vs. real emotion . The bottom line of being human is our struggle to know who we really are, and how that matches what we seem to be.
Shakespeare appears towards the end with the well-known lines: "a fool thinks himself to be wise and a wise man knows himself to be a fool." Indeed.
]]> <![CDATA[Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle]]> 163921
Full Tilt was only the first in of Murphy's accounts of her travel adventures, and provides an exciting introduction to this remarkable woman..]]> 256 Dervla Murphy 0879512482 Kitty 3 "Received Good Advice from Responsible Persons" (p. 42), both the noun of that received and the noun of the collective givers of it deserve the capitalization, which underlies a wry sense of humor that pervades her style. To think of traveling solo, as a woman, IN JANUARY of all seasons, in 1963 all that distance takes enormous gusto and determination. "I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move, to feel the hitches of our life more nearly� to come down off the feather-bed civilization and find the globe, granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints." --
In her kit, beside the spare pair of scratchy woolen ankle-length underpants, a viyella shirt and a few other things, a copy of William Blake poems. List of expenditures from 14 Jan. to 8 July 1963: 64 pounds 7 pence. The description of travel from Dunkirk to Zagreb took only a few pages, but does include mention of 6 foot icicles crashing down, and status change from "traveler" to demoralized fugitive from the weather. In Afghanistan, she waxes lyrical, with mention of "numble sparkling fountains, with richly scented shrubs about her, the mountains jagged against the royal blue sky, and the air like silk as a little breeze moves among the birch trees. The description of camels and traffic is comical. Insights on the giving of alms; deception by police and sordid attempts of rape are also included in the beginning as well as the passing comment that "gunshots in wee hours are not regarded as signs of emergency". An eye opening book. Grateful to know about it!]]> 4.05 1965 Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle
author: Dervla Murphy
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1965
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/17
date added: 2025/01/25
shelves:
review:
I was swamped with other books to read, so did not read each page. However, I highly recommend the beginnings chapters filled with delightful prose! Reminds me a bit of AA Milne with mention of
"Received Good Advice from Responsible Persons" (p. 42), both the noun of that received and the noun of the collective givers of it deserve the capitalization, which underlies a wry sense of humor that pervades her style. To think of traveling solo, as a woman, IN JANUARY of all seasons, in 1963 all that distance takes enormous gusto and determination. "I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move, to feel the hitches of our life more nearly� to come down off the feather-bed civilization and find the globe, granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints." --
In her kit, beside the spare pair of scratchy woolen ankle-length underpants, a viyella shirt and a few other things, a copy of William Blake poems. List of expenditures from 14 Jan. to 8 July 1963: 64 pounds 7 pence. The description of travel from Dunkirk to Zagreb took only a few pages, but does include mention of 6 foot icicles crashing down, and status change from "traveler" to demoralized fugitive from the weather. In Afghanistan, she waxes lyrical, with mention of "numble sparkling fountains, with richly scented shrubs about her, the mountains jagged against the royal blue sky, and the air like silk as a little breeze moves among the birch trees. The description of camels and traffic is comical. Insights on the giving of alms; deception by police and sordid attempts of rape are also included in the beginning as well as the passing comment that "gunshots in wee hours are not regarded as signs of emergency". An eye opening book. Grateful to know about it!
]]> The Mighty Red 199793431 In this stunning novel, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award–winning author Louise Erdrich tells a story of love, natural forces, spiritual yearnings, and the tragic impact of uncontrollable circumstances on ordinary people’s lives.

History is a flood. The mighty red . . .

In Argus, North Dakota, a collection of people revolve around a fraught wedding.

Gary Geist, a terrified young man set to inherit two farms, is desperate to marry Kismet Poe, an impulsive, lapsed Goth who can't read her future but seems to resolve his.

Hugo, a gentle red-haired, home-schooled giant, is also in love with Kismet. He’s determined to steal her and is eager to be a home wrecker.

Kismet's mother, Crystal, hauls sugar beets for Gary's family, and on her nightly runs, tunes into the darkness of late-night radio, sees visions of guardian angels, and worries for the future, her daughter’s and her own.

Human time, deep time, Red River time, the half-life of herbicides and pesticides, and the elegance of time represented in fracking core samples from unimaginable depths, is set against the speed of climate change, the depletion of natural resources, and the sudden economic meltdown of 2008-2009. How much does a dress cost? A used car? A package of cinnamon rolls? Can you see the shape of your soul in the everchanging clouds? Your personal salvation in the giant expanse of sky? These are the questions the people of the Red River Valley of the North wrestle with every day.

The Mighty Red is a novel of tender humor, disturbance, and hallucinatory mourning. It is about on-the-job pains and immeasurable satisfactions, a turbulent landscape, and eating the native weeds growing in your backyard. It is about ordinary people who dream, grow up, fall in love, struggle, endure tragedy, carry bitter secrets; men and women both complicated and contradictory, flawed and decent, lonely and hopeful. It is about a starkly beautiful prairie community whose members must cope with devastating consequences as powerful forces upend them. As with every book this great modern master writes, The Mighty Red is about our tattered bond with the earth, and about love in all of its absurdity and splendor.

A new novel by Louise Erdrich is a major literary event; gorgeous and heartrending, The Mighty Red is a triumph.]]> 384 Louise Erdrich 0063277050 Kitty 0 to-read 3.79 2024 The Mighty Red
author: Louise Erdrich
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer]]> 7624457
This question obsessed Renaissance writers, none more than Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533-92), perhaps the first truly modern individual. A nobleman, public official, and wine-grower, he wrote free-roaming explorations of his thought and experience, unlike anything written before. He called them 'essays', meaning 'attempts' or 'tries'. Into them he put whatever was in his head: his tastes in wine and food, his childhood memories, the way his dog's ears twitched when dreaming, as well as the appalling events of the religious civil wars raging around him. The Essays was an instant bestseller, and more than four hundred years later, Montaigne's honesty and charm still draw people to him. Readers come to him in search of companionship, wisdom and entertainment--and in search of themselves.

This book, a spirited and singular biography (and the first full life of Montaigne in English for nearly fifty years), relates the story of his life by way of the questions he posed and the answers he explored. It traces his bizarre upbringing (made to speak only Latin), youthful career and sexual adventures, travels, and friendships with the scholar and poet Etienne de La Boétie and with his adopted 'daughter', Marie de Gournay. And as we read, we also meet his readers--who for centuries have found in Montaigne an inexhaustible source of answers to the haunting question, 'how to live?']]> 387 Sarah Bakewell 0701178922 Kitty 4
Published in 2010, I find it a friendly companion to accompany the attempts to understand how to live Montaigne penned 400 years ago.

I enjoyed very much the clever presentation of "20 retorts to one question". I finished the book feeling the satisfaction of having viewed a thoughtfully prepared mosaic of possible perspectives on "how to live" which will linger in my mind like an unforgettable painting.

In one of my favorite chapters (#6: use little tricks) Bakewell talks about Stoicism, Epicureanism and Skepticism; ataraxia (freedom from anxiety). How do you compromise with the world? How do you deal with the fact you are not in control and are continually doomed to fail to pay careful attention despite your best intentions?
Tricks are thought experiments the best of which call on the imagination. The trick of acceptance of things are as they are given that it is futile to change it, does not mean "give up", but allows one to look at time circling around itself; troubles will come and go, swell up and shrink... and so? Catch yourself changing your mind about what might be considered the same thing. Mental rehearsals, distractions, diversions, reliance on nature all fall in the category of "tricks" as you collect stories. / Perhaps you will reach the conclusion of the uselessness of human reason, but at the same time, be reminded how easily we forget the good things and obsess about the bad.

Surprise and delight deliver a new spin on "Prosoche" -- the Greek word for "mindfulness" and the Greek word, "Epeko" (I suspend judgement) engraved on Montaigne's seal.
I like that Bakewell used the French word, "branloire" (see-saw) which comes from "branler": to wobble as metaphor to describe a study of a shifting systems dancing.
We are but patchworks of contradictions, in search of experiences and stories. Montaigne provides a marvelous example of a feast which Bakewell serves us on a well-appointed table!


]]> 3.97 2010 How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer
author: Sarah Bakewell
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/25
date added: 2024/12/25
shelves:
review:
One can't take a philosopher in a "slice a day" and chew, assuming the swallowed result will provide a satisfying meal. Bakewell's book offers a more realistic approach, blending biography and analysis of one of my favorite humanists. It is refreshing to be reminded of the human propensity for contradiction, especially on a romp not just through Renaissance times, but the ancient traditions feeding them, and a healthy drink of perspectives from 4 centuries afterwards.

Published in 2010, I find it a friendly companion to accompany the attempts to understand how to live Montaigne penned 400 years ago.

I enjoyed very much the clever presentation of "20 retorts to one question". I finished the book feeling the satisfaction of having viewed a thoughtfully prepared mosaic of possible perspectives on "how to live" which will linger in my mind like an unforgettable painting.

In one of my favorite chapters (#6: use little tricks) Bakewell talks about Stoicism, Epicureanism and Skepticism; ataraxia (freedom from anxiety). How do you compromise with the world? How do you deal with the fact you are not in control and are continually doomed to fail to pay careful attention despite your best intentions?
Tricks are thought experiments the best of which call on the imagination. The trick of acceptance of things are as they are given that it is futile to change it, does not mean "give up", but allows one to look at time circling around itself; troubles will come and go, swell up and shrink... and so? Catch yourself changing your mind about what might be considered the same thing. Mental rehearsals, distractions, diversions, reliance on nature all fall in the category of "tricks" as you collect stories. / Perhaps you will reach the conclusion of the uselessness of human reason, but at the same time, be reminded how easily we forget the good things and obsess about the bad.

Surprise and delight deliver a new spin on "Prosoche" -- the Greek word for "mindfulness" and the Greek word, "Epeko" (I suspend judgement) engraved on Montaigne's seal.
I like that Bakewell used the French word, "branloire" (see-saw) which comes from "branler": to wobble as metaphor to describe a study of a shifting systems dancing.
We are but patchworks of contradictions, in search of experiences and stories. Montaigne provides a marvelous example of a feast which Bakewell serves us on a well-appointed table!



]]> <![CDATA[AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future]]> 56377201 In a groundbreaking blend of science and imagination, the former president of Google China and a leading writer of speculative fiction join forces to answer an urgent question: How will artificial intelligence change our world over the next twenty years?

AI will be the defining issue of the twenty-first century, but many people know little about it apart from visions of dystopian robots or flying cars. Though the term has been around for half a century, it is only now, Kai-Fu Lee argues, that AI is poised to upend our society, just as the arrival of technologies like electricity and smart phones did before it. In the past five years, AI has shown it can learn games like chess in mere hours--and beat humans every time. AI has surpassed humans in speech and object recognition, even outperforming radiologists in diagnosing lung cancer. AI is at a tipping point. What comes next?

Within two decades, aspects of daily life may be unrecognizable. Humankind needs to wake up to AI, both its pathways and perils. In this provocative work that juxtaposes speculative storytelling and science, Lee, one of the world's leading AI experts, has teamed up with celebrated novelist Chen Qiufan to reveal how AI will trickle down into every aspect of our world by 2041. In ten gripping narratives that crisscross the globe, coupled with incisive analysis, Lee and Chen explore AI's challenges and its potential:

- Ubiquitous AI that knows you better than you know yourself
- Genetic fortune-telling that predicts risk of disease or even IQ
- AI sensors that creates a fully contactless society in a future pandemic
- Immersive personalized entertainment to challenge our notion of celebrity
- Quantum computing and other leaps that both eliminate and increase risk

By gazing toward a not-so-distant horizon, AI 2041 offers powerful insights and compelling storytelling for everyone interested in our collective future.]]> 480 Kai-Fu Lee 059323829X Kitty 3
Indeed, what humans do better than machines is nicely explained, as well as the dangers of what humans do to each other. I enjoyed very much the epigrams before each chapter, calling on a wide range of sources from the Bhagavad Gita, Herman Hesse, to lines from Shakespeare's Tempest. My favorites were for Chpt. 2 "Truth and Morning Become Light with Time" (African Proverb) and the final chapter on Plenitude: "Those who lose dreaming are lost."

I imagine Montaigne being transplanted from his 16th century French world entering into this 21st century conversation. How does one live? Will reading no longer be a past-time? Will we still care about the past, be curious about how the world works, trade in friendship and discussion for convenience and convention? Will that pillar of the Renaissance, "CURIOSITY" be effaced along with MINDFULNESS?

I bring up Montaigne, who seems to me to have puzzled long and hard on the question of human happiness. Kai-Fu Lee's final chapter on "Plenitude" does as well and is worth pondering deeply. If happiness is totally subjective, if human beings are prone to dismiss good things, and focus on the bad, appoint Judge Brindlegeese to be in charge who dismiss reason, continue new wars of religion now currently equipped with "slaughterbots" and continue to wage general wars with drones called "Fire and Forget"... the problem is not AI but rather our human complexity.

What stories do we tell ourselves? Can AI help us invent a useful story that can liberate us from our presumptive assumptions? How do we address the human condition of longing for something more, that "elusive something else" we think we desire?

The ancient sages have always help the truth that one need start with one's self, examine as best one can with as much honesty as possible our qualities and possibilities. This book provides a small mirror in which to start such an examination.]]> 3.79 2021 AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future
author: Kai-Fu Lee
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/23
date added: 2024/12/23
shelves:
review:
Fascinating introduction to Artificial Intelligence using a collaboration between a "pioneering technologist" and visionary writer of science fiction. We know AI has been around and gathering steam so, reading 10 short stories set in the future 20 years from now that paints a world where health, education, entertainment, relationships, jobs, war, transportation are run by AI with pros and cons does not feel far-fetched. That I found that Kai-Fu Lee's introductory remarks and analysis were far more interesting than the stories perhaps speaks to my subjective preferences for old-fashioned humanism. It's akin perhaps to preferring classical vs. experimental music.

Indeed, what humans do better than machines is nicely explained, as well as the dangers of what humans do to each other. I enjoyed very much the epigrams before each chapter, calling on a wide range of sources from the Bhagavad Gita, Herman Hesse, to lines from Shakespeare's Tempest. My favorites were for Chpt. 2 "Truth and Morning Become Light with Time" (African Proverb) and the final chapter on Plenitude: "Those who lose dreaming are lost."

I imagine Montaigne being transplanted from his 16th century French world entering into this 21st century conversation. How does one live? Will reading no longer be a past-time? Will we still care about the past, be curious about how the world works, trade in friendship and discussion for convenience and convention? Will that pillar of the Renaissance, "CURIOSITY" be effaced along with MINDFULNESS?

I bring up Montaigne, who seems to me to have puzzled long and hard on the question of human happiness. Kai-Fu Lee's final chapter on "Plenitude" does as well and is worth pondering deeply. If happiness is totally subjective, if human beings are prone to dismiss good things, and focus on the bad, appoint Judge Brindlegeese to be in charge who dismiss reason, continue new wars of religion now currently equipped with "slaughterbots" and continue to wage general wars with drones called "Fire and Forget"... the problem is not AI but rather our human complexity.

What stories do we tell ourselves? Can AI help us invent a useful story that can liberate us from our presumptive assumptions? How do we address the human condition of longing for something more, that "elusive something else" we think we desire?

The ancient sages have always help the truth that one need start with one's self, examine as best one can with as much honesty as possible our qualities and possibilities. This book provides a small mirror in which to start such an examination.
]]> <![CDATA[Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life]]> 14572
World-renowned Zen master, spiritual leader, and author Thich Nhat Hanh shows us how to make positive use of the very situations that usually pressure and antagonize us. For him a ringing telephone can be a signal to call us back to our true selves. Dirty dishes, red lights, and traffic jams are spiritual friends on the path to “mindfulness”—the process of keeping our consciousness alive to our present experience and reality. The most profound satisfactions, the deepest feelings of joy and completeness lie as close at hand as our next aware breath and the smile we can form right now.

Lucidly and beautifully written, Peace Is Every Step contains commentaries and meditations, personal anecdotes and stories from Nhat Hanh’s experiences as a peace activist, teacher, and community leader. It begins where the reader already is—in the kitchen, office, driving a car, walking a part—and shows how deep meditative presence is available now. Nhat Hanh provides exercises to increase our awareness of our own body and mind through conscious breathing, which can bring immediate joy and peace. Nhat Hanh also shows how to be aware of relationships with others and of the world around us, its beauty and also its pollution and injustices. The deceptively simple practices of Peace Is Every Step encourage the reader to work for peace in the world as he or she continues to work on sustaining inner peace by turning the “mindless� into the mindFUL.]]> 134 Thich Nhat Hanh 0553351397 Kitty 3
Part II is delightful, filled with Thay's gentle humor! Favorite chapters for me, "Cooking our Potatoes", where, nothing is wrong with a raw potato -- it's just not ready to be served .. . or
"look into your hand" -- and you can see others who are missing... or asking "what's not wrong"-- planting seeds that can nourish. The Buddha only points the way... we ARE capable of doing good...

I am reminded of Maria Popova reminding us that we are "a breathing accident of chance, ample with reverberations of the impossible-- a buoyant moment in the dark... made to blaze with love and readiness for life."

I used his idea of "mouth yoga" in our Christmas card-- you cannot use your facial muscles to smile if you are preoccupied with worry or anger. Breathe in... calm... breathe out the same and smile. It really does work.]]> 4.32 1992 Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life
author: Thich Nhat Hanh
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1992
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/18
date added: 2024/12/21
shelves:
review:
Lovely meditative book to savor slowly. Part I is somewhat repetitive and preachy, and the editor's introduction includes a poem which reflects the sort of innocence that might turn a sceptic away. "Each flower smiles with me... Peace is every step. It turns the endless path to joy". If you DO the work of meditation, living mindfully, this can be true for you. This is not something external.

Part II is delightful, filled with Thay's gentle humor! Favorite chapters for me, "Cooking our Potatoes", where, nothing is wrong with a raw potato -- it's just not ready to be served .. . or
"look into your hand" -- and you can see others who are missing... or asking "what's not wrong"-- planting seeds that can nourish. The Buddha only points the way... we ARE capable of doing good...

I am reminded of Maria Popova reminding us that we are "a breathing accident of chance, ample with reverberations of the impossible-- a buoyant moment in the dark... made to blaze with love and readiness for life."

I used his idea of "mouth yoga" in our Christmas card-- you cannot use your facial muscles to smile if you are preoccupied with worry or anger. Breathe in... calm... breathe out the same and smile. It really does work.
]]> The God of the Woods 199698485 When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide

Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.]]> 490 Liz Moore Kitty 5 - [ ]
]]> 4.16 2024 The God of the Woods
author: Liz Moore
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/12
date added: 2024/12/17
shelves:
review:
What a page turner that continues to haunt after the last page. It is refreshing to follow a mystery that has such strong character development! The plot thickens, skillfully threaded with multiple subplots in different time frames, in 7 divisions of chapters. This is no straight forward tale . If you do not know the history of monied privilege and private camps in the Adirondacks, this is a fine introduction. This book will rile any inner feminist from the slow but quite precise etching of two of the characters, where lines charcoal into greasy smears of unmistakable darkness. The story provides mirrors for several versions of impossible situations which develop from a hint of trouble to full-flown predicament.
- [ ]

]]> News of the World 25817493 Enemy Women that explores the boundaries of family, responsibility, honor, and trust.

In the wake of the Civil War, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels through northern Texas, giving live readings from newspapers to paying audiences hungry for news of the world. An elderly widower who has lived through three wars and fought in two of them, the captain enjoys his rootless, solitary existence.

In Wichita Falls, he is offered a $50 gold piece to deliver a young orphan to her relatives in San Antonio. Four years earlier, a band of Kiowa raiders killed Johanna’s parents and sister; sparing the little girl, they raised her as one of their own. Recently rescued by the U.S. army, the ten-year-old has once again been torn away from the only home she knows.

Their 400-mile journey south through unsettled territory and unforgiving terrain proves difficult and at times dangerous. Johanna has forgotten the English language, tries to escape at every opportunity, throws away her shoes, and refuses to act “civilized.� Yet as the miles pass, the two lonely survivors tentatively begin to trust each other, forming a bond that marks the difference between life and death in this treacherous land.

Arriving in San Antonio, the reunion is neither happy nor welcome. The captain must hand Johanna over to an aunt and uncle she does not remember—strangers who regard her as an unwanted burden. A respectable man, Captain Kidd is faced with a terrible choice: abandon the girl to her fate or become—in the eyes of the law—a kidnapper himself.

]]> 209 Paulette Jiles 0062409204 Kitty 3 book-club-oct-2024 refuge of all the arts against the ravages of time
Armoury of fearless truth against whispering rumor, incessant trumpet of trade.
From this place words may fly abroad, not to perish on waves of sound; not to vary with the writer's hand but fixed in time having been verified in proof.
Friend you stand on sacred ground, THIS IS A PRINTING OFFICE.

Indeed, let us not forget how important the role of the press... and may it continue to be a sacred place.

What is the world? is another question raised. In the 19th century, as the US Army fights against native tribes, when the history of massacres, captives is perhaps more common place, the clash of cultures presents opposed ideas of how to live in the world. To have a white child wrenched from the European roots settling in the West, to learn and cherish the ways of the Kiowa, only to be wrenched from this world in which she was nurtured is the focus of the story. However, Jiles weaves the theme with an Irish variation of one of the characters, Doris Dillon who understood the similar predicament of children surviving the Irish famine. "To go through our first creation is a turning of the soul we hope toward the light, out of the animal world. To go through another tears all the making of the first creation and sometimes it falls to bits." She understood from the Irish famine, when children sent to "people on the other side"... are unfinished, forever falling.

It is touching to follow the growing affinity between the Captain and Johanna (mostly referred to as "the girl" and first introduced by the translation of her name, Cicada, given to her by the Kiowa).

The book sketches as well different kinds of battles, and difficulties the duo face, the surprising ingenuity of Johanna. The vocabulary is quite precise regarding guns and not being someone familiar with firearms, I enjoyed learning about their unpredictability-- but also the versatility of what shot could be used.

I found the end quite sad -- the hardness of the supposed "family" who even the community rejects.
I found the fairytale ending unrealistic, but glad for the happy ending.

]]> 4.02 2016 News of the World
author: Paulette Jiles
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/28
date added: 2024/11/28
shelves: book-club-oct-2024
review:
I enjoyed learning so much! This is a multifaceted book of historical fiction. I love the title, and the link to Captain Kidd whose job it is to travel about to share the news -- and the various implications of what news is, how it is received. For example, the Horrell Brothers of Lampasas County, who want only to hear accounts of themselves. What to read where, fresh after the Civil War, where Davis is not be mentioned in certain Texas towns. I loved the sign reproduced on the wall in Thurber's News and Printing Establishment above the hand-fed Chandler and Price paten press: THIS IS A PRINTING OFFICE. This is a printing office. crossroads of civilization
refuge of all the arts against the ravages of time
Armoury of fearless truth against whispering rumor, incessant trumpet of trade.
From this place words may fly abroad, not to perish on waves of sound; not to vary with the writer's hand but fixed in time having been verified in proof.
Friend you stand on sacred ground, THIS IS A PRINTING OFFICE.

Indeed, let us not forget how important the role of the press... and may it continue to be a sacred place.

What is the world? is another question raised. In the 19th century, as the US Army fights against native tribes, when the history of massacres, captives is perhaps more common place, the clash of cultures presents opposed ideas of how to live in the world. To have a white child wrenched from the European roots settling in the West, to learn and cherish the ways of the Kiowa, only to be wrenched from this world in which she was nurtured is the focus of the story. However, Jiles weaves the theme with an Irish variation of one of the characters, Doris Dillon who understood the similar predicament of children surviving the Irish famine. "To go through our first creation is a turning of the soul we hope toward the light, out of the animal world. To go through another tears all the making of the first creation and sometimes it falls to bits." She understood from the Irish famine, when children sent to "people on the other side"... are unfinished, forever falling.

It is touching to follow the growing affinity between the Captain and Johanna (mostly referred to as "the girl" and first introduced by the translation of her name, Cicada, given to her by the Kiowa).

The book sketches as well different kinds of battles, and difficulties the duo face, the surprising ingenuity of Johanna. The vocabulary is quite precise regarding guns and not being someone familiar with firearms, I enjoyed learning about their unpredictability-- but also the versatility of what shot could be used.

I found the end quite sad -- the hardness of the supposed "family" who even the community rejects.
I found the fairytale ending unrealistic, but glad for the happy ending.


]]> Pachinko 34051011
Richly told and profoundly moving, Pachinko is a story of love, sacrifice, ambition, and loyalty. From bustling street markets to the halls of Japan's finest universities to the pachinko parlors of the criminal underworld, Lee's complex and passionate characters—strong, stubborn women, devoted sisters and sons, fathers shaken by moral crisis—survive and thrive against the indifferent arc of history.]]> 496 Min Jin Lee Kitty 0 to-read, book-club-oct-2024 4.35 2017 Pachinko
author: Min Jin Lee
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/21
shelves: to-read, book-club-oct-2024
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent]]> 127280282 Discover the work of the greatest writer in the English language as you've never encountered it before by ordering internationally renowned actor Dame Judi Dench's SHAKESPEARE: The Man Who Pays The Rent—a witty, insightful journey through the plays and tales of our beloved Shakespeare.

Taking a curtain call with a live snake in her wig...

Cavorting naked through the Warwickshire countryside painted green...

Acting opposite a child with a pumpkin on his head...

These are just a few of the things Dame Judi Dench has done in the name of Shakespeare.

For the very first time, Judi opens up about every Shakespearean role she has played throughout her seven-decade career, from Lady Macbeth and Titania to Ophelia and Cleopatra. In a series of intimate conversations with actor & director Brendan O'Hea, she guides us through Shakespeare's plays with incisive clarity, revealing the secrets of her rehearsal process and inviting us to share in her triumphs, disasters, and backstage shenanigans.

Interspersed with vignettes on audiences, critics, company spirit and rehearsal room etiquette, she serves up priceless revelations on everything from the craft of speaking in verse to her personal interpretations of some of Shakespeare's most famous scenes, all brightened by her mischievous sense of humour, striking level of honesty and a peppering of hilarious anecdotes, many of which have remained under lock and key until now.

Instructive and witty, provocative and inspiring, this is ultimately Judi's love letter to Shakespeare, or rather, The Man Who Pays The Rent.]]> 400 Judi Dench 1250325773 Kitty 5 4.51 2023 Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent
author: Judi Dench
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/04
date added: 2024/09/04
shelves:
review:
Dame Judi Dench is inimitable and this book provides a delightful autobiography! Although it is based on interviews about her acting career Dench's twinkly-eyed humor, her love of these plays and an amazing scene-by-scene analysis of many of them (which provides a "roll-on-the-ground with laughter summary), delivers her personality through and through. I admit... I didn't read every word especially when entire scenes/sonnets were quoted -- I just wanted to absorb the pith of her. She includes childhood anecdotes in a seamless manner! And boy... I learned a lot about Mr. Shakespeare. What a genius... he knew how to deal with the politics of his times and the universalities of being human!!! The blurbs do not lie: "Swirls and dances with brilliance and mischief... the wisdom here is breathtaking... " You'll also appreciate her insights on why Shakespeare's writing is so successful with non-pendantic mentions of examples of his craft.
]]> Loving Frank 898885 I have been standing on the side of life, watching it float by. I want to swim in the river. I want to feel the current.

So writes Mamah Borthwick Cheney in her diary as she struggles to justify her clandestine love affair with Frank Lloyd Wright. Four years earlier, in 1903, Mamah and her husband, Edwin, had commissioned the renowned architect to design a new home for them. During the construction of the house, a powerful attraction developed between Mamah and Frank, and in time the lovers, each married with children, embarked on a course that would shock Chicago society and forever change their lives.

In this ambitious debut novel, fact and fiction blend together brilliantly. While scholars have largely relegated Mamah to a footnote in the life of America’s greatest architect, author Nancy Horan gives full weight to their dramatic love story and illuminates Cheney’s profound influence on Wright.

Drawing on years of research, Horan weaves little-known facts into a compelling narrative, vividly portraying the conflicts and struggles of a woman forced to choose between the roles of mother, wife, lover, and intellectual. Horan’s Mamah is a woman seeking to find her own place, her own creative calling in the world. Mamah’s is an unforgettable journey marked by choices that reshape her notions of love and responsibility, leading inexorably ultimately lead to this novel’s stunning conclusion.

Elegantly written and remarkably rich in detail, Loving Frank is a fitting tribute to a courageous woman, a national icon, and their timeless love story.]]> 384 Nancy Horan 0345494997 Kitty 4
The choice of the title deepens as the reader progresses through this gripping story of Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Borthwick Cheney. What does it take to love an eccentric genius? I had no knowledge about Mamah and found this novel thrilling both in the details of the biography of this unique, ground-breaking feminist, and understanding a personal side to this revolutionary architect. The book speeds along revealing the conflicts, struggles and obstacles they each face, and one senses a vivid presence of both in their devotion to each other and understanding of the importance of their individual "authenticity" in pursuing what brings passionate meaning to their lives.

I had no idea of the tragedy at Taliesin. So much of the third part centers about this place whose name means "Truth Against the World." I cannot see the word without thinking of how integral Mamah's role played a part in its creation. ]]> 3.76 2007 Loving Frank
author: Nancy Horan
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/18
date added: 2024/08/18
shelves:
review:
The jacket and blurbs pay just homage to the author for her research and compelling narrative, of this love story of "epic proportions" in the fast-changing turn of the century. I learned so much about the the iconic architect, with plenty of detail to support both his gifts, his "inscrutable, discordant elements" but even more about this amazing woman who chose to go beyond convention in so many ways.

The choice of the title deepens as the reader progresses through this gripping story of Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Borthwick Cheney. What does it take to love an eccentric genius? I had no knowledge about Mamah and found this novel thrilling both in the details of the biography of this unique, ground-breaking feminist, and understanding a personal side to this revolutionary architect. The book speeds along revealing the conflicts, struggles and obstacles they each face, and one senses a vivid presence of both in their devotion to each other and understanding of the importance of their individual "authenticity" in pursuing what brings passionate meaning to their lives.

I had no idea of the tragedy at Taliesin. So much of the third part centers about this place whose name means "Truth Against the World." I cannot see the word without thinking of how integral Mamah's role played a part in its creation.
]]> The Hebrew Teacher 131967980 320 Maya Arad 1954404239 Kitty 4 The power of the fancy (pretty incomprehensible) young hot shot professor, painted as someone who has "no time" for ridiculous, old fashioned practises and where the adjective "begruding" is used several times for his manner, only increases. A very successful portrait of arrogance... and disheartening portrayal of the slow take over where an older once-successful teacher is thanked for her services, dismissed as she interferes with the new wave of teaching literature which dismisses reading Jewish literature, dismisses the importance of speaking Hebrew, dismisses the Jewish traditions and focusses on abstractions and politically correct positions.

That wasn't too much of a spoiler was it? The theme of feeling dismissed is a hard one... and the story shows also the extent to which the Hebrew teacher has spent her life arranging situations so everyone feels they belong. I could picture all the situations, they felt so real.

The other two novellas are well told, addressing familiar problems which I read with a sinking heart, looking at unfixable (and one wants to think, unnecessary) problems. Heart-breaking as they are, I admit... I did speed-read, picking up on the clash between the "old Jewish traditions" and modern life.

Story 2: a grandmother comes from Israel to visit her grandson -- the façade of her son, trying to make his fortune in Silicon valley... his "beautiful young wife from afar, far from beautiful close up" and the convenient blaming of their frictions on this unwanted visitor is painful. The cracks widen as the novella go on.


Story 3: painful exposure of what it's like to be a teen-ager in today's world... and fine portrayal of the generation gap and agony of mother, unable to understand the pain her daughter undergoes as a middle schooler. I admit I had to look up ROTFLMAOPMP (rolling on the floor laughing my ass off peeing my pants) and I'm guessing "Make New Friends" is the one of 14 definitions MNF can mean...
What kind of world do teens have to navigate, when the standard response is IDC?

Maya Arad writes in Hebrew, translated by Jessica Cohen.
I am not Jewish, but enjoyed learning the Hebrew words sprinkled in-- and in the first novella, was introduced to Ma'Aleh Adumim, near Jerusalem, which I looked up � finding out more about the complexity of the West Bank. I really enjoyed the first novella (even the nauseating character Yoad with his "calcified smile", his insults of the ladies of the Hebrew Club as a "gaggle of old ladies looking to stay busy in retirement, and his disgust at the "shitty Hebrew poetry contest"). I love that the Hebrew Teacher wants to write her memoir to help people remember what was so important to her.

All good mirrors for taking a good look at myself!]]> 3.95 The Hebrew Teacher
author: Maya Arad
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.95
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/02
date added: 2024/08/02
shelves:
review:
Each novella is about 120 pages. I finished the first one two nights ago... I think she does a splendid job bringing in the problem of the 6-day war in Israel, the shift in attitudes in the university where the protagonist teaches Hebrew...into the story. The older Hebrew teacher is painted with a patient, understanding attitude at first... but then as she starts to realize what she feels is an insult to her, to her 40 years of dedicated and starts to complain... this changes in color and texture.
The power of the fancy (pretty incomprehensible) young hot shot professor, painted as someone who has "no time" for ridiculous, old fashioned practises and where the adjective "begruding" is used several times for his manner, only increases. A very successful portrait of arrogance... and disheartening portrayal of the slow take over where an older once-successful teacher is thanked for her services, dismissed as she interferes with the new wave of teaching literature which dismisses reading Jewish literature, dismisses the importance of speaking Hebrew, dismisses the Jewish traditions and focusses on abstractions and politically correct positions.

That wasn't too much of a spoiler was it? The theme of feeling dismissed is a hard one... and the story shows also the extent to which the Hebrew teacher has spent her life arranging situations so everyone feels they belong. I could picture all the situations, they felt so real.

The other two novellas are well told, addressing familiar problems which I read with a sinking heart, looking at unfixable (and one wants to think, unnecessary) problems. Heart-breaking as they are, I admit... I did speed-read, picking up on the clash between the "old Jewish traditions" and modern life.

Story 2: a grandmother comes from Israel to visit her grandson -- the façade of her son, trying to make his fortune in Silicon valley... his "beautiful young wife from afar, far from beautiful close up" and the convenient blaming of their frictions on this unwanted visitor is painful. The cracks widen as the novella go on.


Story 3: painful exposure of what it's like to be a teen-ager in today's world... and fine portrayal of the generation gap and agony of mother, unable to understand the pain her daughter undergoes as a middle schooler. I admit I had to look up ROTFLMAOPMP (rolling on the floor laughing my ass off peeing my pants) and I'm guessing "Make New Friends" is the one of 14 definitions MNF can mean...
What kind of world do teens have to navigate, when the standard response is IDC?

Maya Arad writes in Hebrew, translated by Jessica Cohen.
I am not Jewish, but enjoyed learning the Hebrew words sprinkled in-- and in the first novella, was introduced to Ma'Aleh Adumim, near Jerusalem, which I looked up � finding out more about the complexity of the West Bank. I really enjoyed the first novella (even the nauseating character Yoad with his "calcified smile", his insults of the ladies of the Hebrew Club as a "gaggle of old ladies looking to stay busy in retirement, and his disgust at the "shitty Hebrew poetry contest"). I love that the Hebrew Teacher wants to write her memoir to help people remember what was so important to her.

All good mirrors for taking a good look at myself!
]]> Fractured Soul 60147176 Awarded the Prix des libraires by France’s booksellers, a universal story about music and restoring one’s faith in others amid the aftermath of tremendous loss.

Tokyo, 1938. An amateur quartet, led by the compassionate Yu, gathers to practice. Suddenly, their rehearsal is brutally interrupted by military police. In the ensuing skirmish, Yu’s violin is smashed while his son, Rei, witnesses his father’s arrest. He will never see him again. Salvaging his father’s instrument, Rei escapes thanks to a mysterious lieutenant.

Paris, 2003. Raised in France, Rei–now Jacques–has dedicated his life to the broken violin’s repair: studying music, becoming an apprentice, and, eventually, a luthier. However, despite his effort to rehabilitate the damage of years ago, he struggles to reconcile his past with the present.

Yet, when a world-class violinist, connected to the lieutenant that helped him as a boy, appears, Jacques� past is rekindled and he perseveres in a final bid to heal. Fractured Soul is a parable of what once was lost and what there stands to be gained–a story of immense beauty and ferocious courage.]]> 224 Akira Mizubayashi 0063093669 Kitty 5 "We weep without knowing why; because we have not yet reached the state promised by the music, and in our unspoken joy, all we need is for it to assure us that one day we will."

It doesn't seem possible that military police would do such damage to a precious instrument that is allied with one of the highest of the arts human beings have produced. As soon as I read that the quartet was working with Schubert's Rosamund in a minor, I continued reading the book, listening to this music. The book, is organized in 4 sections, like this quartet. Like the music, I could not put it down, hungry to hear the entire piece.

It is not an accident that Mizubayashi has chosen this opening detail in a frightening description of the entry of the police : the son of the violinist is reading. The opening page describes its cover , next to the boy's "petrified feet": "its white cover edged with a thin orange stripe. The title in thick black characters shamelessly offers itself to the bright light: "How Do You Live?" Below, in small characters, the author's name is printed, and at the bottom, medium-size, the name of the book's collection: The Little Citizen's Library. An eerie, fear-fused dark surrounds the boy hiding in a wardrobe, and a window of light, where he is handed the broken violin "almost flat, its four strings formed a warped contour; in the dark it looks like a little dying animal". We only learn in a much later chapter the true translation of Kurokami, the name of the man who hands it to him. We learn that the sound like "faint stubborn trill of dying cicadas" is tinnitus, the "sound of silence."

I will not give more spoilers, but hope this beginning will have you rush to the library to pick up a copy. This is masterful description. As reader, how can you not now speed through these opening pages entitled "Pause for Contemplation"?

I enjoy books that travel through time. From the initial "dark stairway of time" in Tokyo, 1938, we arrive in Paris in 2003, and find out the boy, Rei, has been raised by a French friend of his father and is now called Jacques, and has chosen the career of luthier. His path to mend the instrument parallels his effort to reconcile the past with the present.]]> 3.96 2019 Fractured Soul
author: Akira Mizubayashi
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/24
date added: 2024/07/24
shelves:
review:
As a bilingual reader, I am eager to read the original version "Âme Brisée" in French, as Mizubayashi wrote it. However, this translation by Alison Anderson thankfully is widely available. It has a wonderful footnote in the back, explaining the initial epigraph in French: the word for the "sound board" of an instrument in French is "soul", which double entendre is essential for a full appreciation of this story about "restoring one's faith in others amid the aftermath of tremendous loss". The first note of the book cites this dictionary definition of the "soul post" synonym of "sound post" of a stringed instrument and a translation of Theodor Adorno, "Moments musicaux" on Schubert.
"We weep without knowing why; because we have not yet reached the state promised by the music, and in our unspoken joy, all we need is for it to assure us that one day we will."

It doesn't seem possible that military police would do such damage to a precious instrument that is allied with one of the highest of the arts human beings have produced. As soon as I read that the quartet was working with Schubert's Rosamund in a minor, I continued reading the book, listening to this music. The book, is organized in 4 sections, like this quartet. Like the music, I could not put it down, hungry to hear the entire piece.

It is not an accident that Mizubayashi has chosen this opening detail in a frightening description of the entry of the police : the son of the violinist is reading. The opening page describes its cover , next to the boy's "petrified feet": "its white cover edged with a thin orange stripe. The title in thick black characters shamelessly offers itself to the bright light: "How Do You Live?" Below, in small characters, the author's name is printed, and at the bottom, medium-size, the name of the book's collection: The Little Citizen's Library. An eerie, fear-fused dark surrounds the boy hiding in a wardrobe, and a window of light, where he is handed the broken violin "almost flat, its four strings formed a warped contour; in the dark it looks like a little dying animal". We only learn in a much later chapter the true translation of Kurokami, the name of the man who hands it to him. We learn that the sound like "faint stubborn trill of dying cicadas" is tinnitus, the "sound of silence."

I will not give more spoilers, but hope this beginning will have you rush to the library to pick up a copy. This is masterful description. As reader, how can you not now speed through these opening pages entitled "Pause for Contemplation"?

I enjoy books that travel through time. From the initial "dark stairway of time" in Tokyo, 1938, we arrive in Paris in 2003, and find out the boy, Rei, has been raised by a French friend of his father and is now called Jacques, and has chosen the career of luthier. His path to mend the instrument parallels his effort to reconcile the past with the present.
]]> <![CDATA[The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store]]> 65678550
Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, which served the neighborhood's quirky collection of blacks and European immigrants, helped by her husband, Moshe, a Romanian-born theater owner who integrated the town's first dance hall. When the state came looking for a deaf black child, claiming that the boy needed to be institutionalized, Chicken Hill's residents—roused by Chona's kindess and the courage of a local black worker named Nate Timblin—banded together to keep the boy safe.

As the novel unfolds, it becomes clear how much the people of Chicken Hill have to struggle to survive at the margins of white Christian America and how damaging bigotry, hypocrisy, and deceit can be to a community. When the truth is revealed about the skeleton, the boy, and the part the town’s establishment played in both, McBride shows that it is love and community—heaven and earth—that ultimately sustain us.]]> 385 James McBride 0593422945 Kitty 0 For sure, humor, mistranslations of Yiddish, down-to-earth language, multiple snapshots of White Christian America, bigotry, hypocrisy and deceit.

McBride shows love and community, heaven and earth that ultimately sustain us. The acknowledgements at the end confirm my suspicion that there was a real hero who inspired this historical fiction. A man who was loved because of the love he gave and his belief that the word "equality" needs to be put into practice, not just given lip service.


]]> 3.84 2023 The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
author: James McBride
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2024/06/19
date added: 2024/06/19
shelves:
review:
Chosen by my book club. I LOVE the title... of the book, but which is the name of a grocery store and framework to introduce the reader to the characters on "Chicken Hill",Moshe (the Romanian-born theatre owner) and Chona who runs the store and shelters Dodo, the deaf black child (to keep him from being institutionalized). Reviews call the book a mix of urban farce, mystery, crime novel, sociological portrait of late 1960's Brooklyn.
For sure, humor, mistranslations of Yiddish, down-to-earth language, multiple snapshots of White Christian America, bigotry, hypocrisy and deceit.

McBride shows love and community, heaven and earth that ultimately sustain us. The acknowledgements at the end confirm my suspicion that there was a real hero who inspired this historical fiction. A man who was loved because of the love he gave and his belief that the word "equality" needs to be put into practice, not just given lip service.



]]> Broken Field: A Novel 52757092 * * FINALIST FOR THE WWA 2019 Award for BEST WESTERN CONTEMPORARY NOVEL * *

Told from the perspective of a high school girl and a football coach, Broken Field reveals the tensions that tear at the fabric of a small town when a high school hazing incident escalates and threatens a championship season.

Set on the high prairies of Montana, in small towns scattered across vast landscapes, the distances in Broken Field are both insurmountable and deeply internalized. Life is dusty and hard, and men are judged by their labor. Women have to be tougher yet. That’s what sixteen-year-old Josie Frehse learns as she struggles to meet the expectations of her community while fumbling with her own desires. Tom Warner coaches the Dumont Wolfpack, an eight-man football team, typical for such small towns. Warner is stumbling through life, numbed by the death of his own young son and the dissolution of his marriage. But he’s jolted into taking sides when his star players are accused of a hazing incident that happened right under his nose.

The scandal divides and ignites the town and in Broken Field, Jeff Hull brilliantly gives breadth and depth to both sides of this fractured community, where the roots of bullying reach deep, secrets are buried, and, in a school obsessed with winning, everyone loses.]]> 360 Jeff Hull 1950691500 Kitty 2


One of the bookclub members knows the author. I'm curious what others will think. ]]> 3.25 2018 Broken Field: A Novel
author: Jeff Hull
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.25
book published: 2018
rating: 2
read at: 2020/01/29
date added: 2024/05/27
shelves:
review:
Small town life on the Northern plains... high school, bullies, posturing and a peak into a life I would never want to have to live. Did not so much read, as fly through the pages, hoping things would turn out differently, only to see what started out as a "coming of age of a young girl" story turn into a nightmare of "maybe" taking wrong turns. The power of a bully is frightening... I have never understood the desire to lord over others, from tease to cruelty to harm, nor does the behavior of Josie seem possible. I'm not convinced that the strong-headed young lady in the opening pages would have chosen a Matt. Tom's idealism seems out of place. Until this story, "maybe" always felt like a sign of hope. This is not a story to read to restore any confidence in human nature.



One of the bookclub members knows the author. I'm curious what others will think.
]]> So Big 257443 So Big as being about a "material man, son of his earth-grubbing, idealistic mother". Left an orphan at 19 years old in the late 1880s, Selina Peake needs to support herself. She leaves the city life she has known to become a teacher in the farming community of High Prairie, IL. Her father had told her that life is an adventure, and one should make the most of it.

Selina sees beauty everywhere, including in the fields of cabbages. She has a natural curiosity about farming and oversteps the woman's traditional role by having the audacity to ask the men questions. She soon marries Pervus DeJong, a farmer. Selina eagerly offers suggestions for operational improvements, but Pervus ignores her, preferring to use the unprofitable farming methods employed by his father.

Though she suffers many hardships, Selina always remembers the importance of beauty, and she admires those who exercise their creative talents. She tries to instill these views in her son Dirk and fights with her husband over the need for their child to get a full education. Once Dirk finishes college and starts work, will he retain Selina's values?

So Big was the first book to have the rare distinction of being the best-selling book of the year and win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.]]> 376 Edna Ferber 1417906774 Kitty 5
There were so many great lines... one of my favorites (p. 27) -- "Life has no weapons against a woman like that" --(referring to Selena) ! Indeed, one could say the book is a portrait of her-- but also a time period-- and nothing is spared, whether references to WWI, and all the changes as the 19th century both rural and in cities modernized to the 20th. You can tell she's got a journalist background!

I so enjoyed her mastery, for instance, the subtle switch mid-way through where Selena falls silent on Dirk's description of Paula... the silence... "it was not a happy silence"--
the premonition before bringing up Paula's hands...(p. 245: they're brown, awfully thin and sort of... grabby-- p. 299 they are described as "dark" -- manoeuvering, wire pulling...) Such a contrast to Selena's hands-- strong, cool, reliable... and tender.
How when he says, "I love your hands, Mother" she takes up her sewing again, her face "young, eager, fresh, like the face of the girl who had found cabbages so beautiful that night when she bounced along the rutty Halstead road with Klaas Pool."

Another touching passage p. 298 was when Dirk holds up his thumb and forefinger, that tiny little space between thumb and forefinger... Selena's sense of failure, her impassioned plea not to desert Beauty... self-expression. Seeing her son's response to her question whether he would return to architecture p. 298 was so well-written. 5 words. "A clean amputation. No Mother". It drives home the hard truth she understood that you cannot "correct the failures" of others...
Perhaps that's was Ferber was referring to... or maybe as well traditional "failures" such as Pervus' bad luck... and perhaps how the high society might view Selena.

The revolting abuse of money in the scenes of High Society life Paula urges on Dirk could be accurate for today. I loved that Debby, you brought up the good fortune -- without August, without the Paula's, without Julie, indeed, Selena would not have "succeeded" --

I love also that Ferber teases us with the reference to Maartje who confesses to Selena she once thought of running away. "You can't run away from life except you stop living."
What might Selena's life have been like had she? How is it Roelff did and became who he wanted to be?

The dangling sense of unfinished at the end allows us at least to play with imagining how Dirk will choose to live.]]> 4.04 1924 So Big
author: Edna Ferber
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1924
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/22
date added: 2024/05/22
shelves:
review:
Edna Ferber is a new name to me. The Wiki site will explain the book, Ferber's background. That she refers to it as "a story of the triumph of failure" will open a long discussion about expectations and just what failure is. I'm glad Doubleday, went ahead to publish it. It is a skillful portrayal of the complexity of relationship between mother-son, compounded by the circumstances each one experiences... the portrayal of Chicago and it's upper "gilded classes", the naive innocence of Selena, and hard-to-believe embrace of farming as her independent expression of what matters to her -- where, "emerald" for her became part and parcel of the "wheat" as that metaphor about the "beautiful cabbages" prepared us to see.

There were so many great lines... one of my favorites (p. 27) -- "Life has no weapons against a woman like that" --(referring to Selena) ! Indeed, one could say the book is a portrait of her-- but also a time period-- and nothing is spared, whether references to WWI, and all the changes as the 19th century both rural and in cities modernized to the 20th. You can tell she's got a journalist background!

I so enjoyed her mastery, for instance, the subtle switch mid-way through where Selena falls silent on Dirk's description of Paula... the silence... "it was not a happy silence"--
the premonition before bringing up Paula's hands...(p. 245: they're brown, awfully thin and sort of... grabby-- p. 299 they are described as "dark" -- manoeuvering, wire pulling...) Such a contrast to Selena's hands-- strong, cool, reliable... and tender.
How when he says, "I love your hands, Mother" she takes up her sewing again, her face "young, eager, fresh, like the face of the girl who had found cabbages so beautiful that night when she bounced along the rutty Halstead road with Klaas Pool."

Another touching passage p. 298 was when Dirk holds up his thumb and forefinger, that tiny little space between thumb and forefinger... Selena's sense of failure, her impassioned plea not to desert Beauty... self-expression. Seeing her son's response to her question whether he would return to architecture p. 298 was so well-written. 5 words. "A clean amputation. No Mother". It drives home the hard truth she understood that you cannot "correct the failures" of others...
Perhaps that's was Ferber was referring to... or maybe as well traditional "failures" such as Pervus' bad luck... and perhaps how the high society might view Selena.

The revolting abuse of money in the scenes of High Society life Paula urges on Dirk could be accurate for today. I loved that Debby, you brought up the good fortune -- without August, without the Paula's, without Julie, indeed, Selena would not have "succeeded" --

I love also that Ferber teases us with the reference to Maartje who confesses to Selena she once thought of running away. "You can't run away from life except you stop living."
What might Selena's life have been like had she? How is it Roelff did and became who he wanted to be?

The dangling sense of unfinished at the end allows us at least to play with imagining how Dirk will choose to live.
]]> <![CDATA[Ninth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art]]> 28118491
Set amid the most turbulent social and political period of modern times, Ninth Street Women is the impassioned, wild, sometimes tragic, always exhilarating chronicle of five women who dared to enter the male-dominated world of twentieth-century abstract painting -- not as muses but as artists. From their cold-water lofts, where they worked, drank, fought, and loved, these pioneers burst open the door to the art world for themselves and countless others to come.

Gutsy and indomitable, Lee Krasner was a hell-raising leader among artists long before she became part of the modern art world's first celebrity couple by marrying Jackson Pollock. Elaine de Kooning, whose brilliant mind and peerless charm made her the emotional center of the New York School, used her work and words to build a bridge between the avant-garde and a public that scorned abstract art as a hoax. Grace Hartigan fearlessly abandoned life as a New Jersey housewife and mother to achieve stardom as one of the boldest painters of her generation. Joan Mitchell, whose notoriously tough exterior shielded a vulnerable artist within, escaped a privileged but emotionally damaging Chicago childhood to translate her fierce vision into magnificent canvases. And Helen Frankenthaler, the beautiful daughter of a prominent New York family, chose the difficult path of the creative life.

Her gamble paid At twenty-three she created a work so original it launched a new school of painting. These women changed American art and society, tearing up the prevailing social code and replacing it with a doctrine of liberation. In Ninth Street Women , acclaimed author Mary Gabriel tells a remarkable and inspiring story of the power of art and artists in shaping not just postwar America but the future.]]> 944 Mary Gabriel 0316226181 Kitty 3
It may be filled with "juicy story telling" but I found it exhausting and way too long. One arrives at the epilogue on page 701. The notes run 140 pages, the impressive bibliography another almost 30 pages.

The book is divided into five parts, where art as life itself unfolds. "It is true that art, while indebted to tradition, is usually at odds with it; art is about the thrill of mutiny." (Introduction p. xiii) The author Mary Gabriel, explains the idea behind the book came from meeting Grace Hartigan, and discussing why so many of the women painters she mentioned so rarely surfaced. Part of the thrill of the book, is to see how five of these brave and imaginative women dared to follow their passion for art, and to live as painter first. Each of these five women contributed significantly to the development of abstract expressionism.

I galloped through Part I, especially the sections "Art in War", and "The Turning Point" as the world faced 1919 "Over again", peintres maudits, lyrical desperation.
Part II, 1948-51, Part III, 1951-55 packs in poets, playwrights as well as painters.]]> 4.51 2018 Ninth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art
author: Mary Gabriel
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2024/04/19
date added: 2024/04/20
shelves:
review:
Fascinating history not just of five women and the movement that changed Modern Art, but told with the backdrop of the turbulent social and political period of modern world history starting with 1928, ending with 1959. Each chapter starts with a quote, which reflects the intellectual backdrop of the times. Lee Krasner, the "hell-raising" leader of artists long before she became part of the modern art world's first celebrity couple by marrying Jackson Pollock"; Elaine de Kooning, (and Bill), "whose brilliant mind and peerless charm made her the emotional center of the NY school, helped bridge between the avant-garde and a disbelieving public; Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler.

It may be filled with "juicy story telling" but I found it exhausting and way too long. One arrives at the epilogue on page 701. The notes run 140 pages, the impressive bibliography another almost 30 pages.

The book is divided into five parts, where art as life itself unfolds. "It is true that art, while indebted to tradition, is usually at odds with it; art is about the thrill of mutiny." (Introduction p. xiii) The author Mary Gabriel, explains the idea behind the book came from meeting Grace Hartigan, and discussing why so many of the women painters she mentioned so rarely surfaced. Part of the thrill of the book, is to see how five of these brave and imaginative women dared to follow their passion for art, and to live as painter first. Each of these five women contributed significantly to the development of abstract expressionism.

I galloped through Part I, especially the sections "Art in War", and "The Turning Point" as the world faced 1919 "Over again", peintres maudits, lyrical desperation.
Part II, 1948-51, Part III, 1951-55 packs in poets, playwrights as well as painters.
]]> Churchill's Secret Messenger 54883185 A riveting story of World War II and the courage of one young woman as she is drafted into Churchill’s overseas spy network, aiding the French Resistance behind enemy lines and working to liberate Nazi-occupied Paris�

London, 1941: In a cramped bunker in Winston Churchill’s Cabinet War Rooms, underneath Westminster’s Treasury building, civilian women huddle at desks, typing up confidential documents and reports. Since her parents were killed in a bombing raid, Rose Teasdale has spent more hours than usual in Room 60, working double shifts, growing accustomed to the burnt scent of the Prime Minister’s cigars permeating the stale air. Winning the war is the only thing that matters, and she will gladly do her part. And when Rose’s fluency in French comes to the attention of Churchill himself, it brings a rare yet dangerous opportunity.

Rose is recruited for the Special Operations Executive, a secret British organization that conducts espionage in Nazi-occupied Europe. After weeks of grueling training, Rose parachutes into France with a new codename: Dragonfly. Posing as a cosmetics saleswoman in Paris, she ferries messages to and from the Resistance, knowing that the slightest misstep means capture or death.

Soon Rose is assigned to a new mission with Lazare Aron, a French Resistance fighter who has watched his beloved Paris become a shell of itself, with desolate streets and buildings draped in Swastikas. Since his parents were sent to a German work camp, Lazare has dedicated himself to the cause with the same fervor as Rose. Yet Rose’s very loyalty brings risks as she undertakes a high-stakes prison raid, and discovers how much she may have to sacrifice to justify Churchill’s faith in her . . .]]> 406 Alan Hlad 1496728416 Kitty 4
The titles of the 5 sections are in French:
Part 1: Le recrutement to p. 97
Part II. La Mission to p. 253
Part III. L'Emprisonnement : ends p. 294
Part IV: Camp de Concentration: ends p. 337
Part V: Liberté

Hlad took liberties, but I am grateful to have learned about the catacombs, about "Operation Jericho".
He overemphasizes the motivation of retaliation that spurs Rose, Lazare, Muriel, into fighting against the Germans, and their immense heroism and selflessness. What makes us stand up for defense of decency? The author paints the Germans unforgivingly as blackly evil. However, I learned new aspects of the very real fears caused by horrors inflicted by the Germans and how occupation changes everything in Paris.

There is a discussion guide in the back: Most of the questions seem too facile, but the book develops
-- motivation of the characters to join the resistance
-- what goes into creating friendship and trust; (describe Muriel and what causes them to quickly form a friendship)
-- the weakness of Felix (the race car driver turned resistance leader), and complexity of being leader

The themes of selflessness and defense of liberty, the complexity of "secrets" involved with the network of agents, the refusal to flee to safety, in hopes that life would return to "normal" are common to any war. I enjoyed the description of relationships, idealized as they were (i.e. the parents of both Rose and Lazare, as well as the filial devotion they both felt towards them), and the "true love" syndrome vs. awkward brushes between women and the men who use them, or in the case of ZĂ©lie, the women who "service" the invading soldiers.]]> 4.26 2021 Churchill's Secret Messenger
author: Alan Hlad
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/27
date added: 2024/03/28
shelves:
review:
The book becomes a real page turner once "Dragonfly" is sent as SOE agent to France. As historical fiction goes, it provides a wealth of information on the intricate organization between British and French resistance and unbelievable pluck of the heroic Rose. Spoiler alert: I loved every detail about the relationship between Rose and Lazare, and just like the thought each of them had for the other once separated and facing torture, following their story sped me quickly through the book. I loved the use of italics for all they might have thought but didn't say. However, some might find that technique bordering soap opera.

The titles of the 5 sections are in French:
Part 1: Le recrutement to p. 97
Part II. La Mission to p. 253
Part III. L'Emprisonnement : ends p. 294
Part IV: Camp de Concentration: ends p. 337
Part V: Liberté

Hlad took liberties, but I am grateful to have learned about the catacombs, about "Operation Jericho".
He overemphasizes the motivation of retaliation that spurs Rose, Lazare, Muriel, into fighting against the Germans, and their immense heroism and selflessness. What makes us stand up for defense of decency? The author paints the Germans unforgivingly as blackly evil. However, I learned new aspects of the very real fears caused by horrors inflicted by the Germans and how occupation changes everything in Paris.

There is a discussion guide in the back: Most of the questions seem too facile, but the book develops
-- motivation of the characters to join the resistance
-- what goes into creating friendship and trust; (describe Muriel and what causes them to quickly form a friendship)
-- the weakness of Felix (the race car driver turned resistance leader), and complexity of being leader

The themes of selflessness and defense of liberty, the complexity of "secrets" involved with the network of agents, the refusal to flee to safety, in hopes that life would return to "normal" are common to any war. I enjoyed the description of relationships, idealized as they were (i.e. the parents of both Rose and Lazare, as well as the filial devotion they both felt towards them), and the "true love" syndrome vs. awkward brushes between women and the men who use them, or in the case of ZĂ©lie, the women who "service" the invading soldiers.
]]> The Guest Book 41138424 A novel about past mistakes and betrayals that ripple throughout generations, The Guest Book examines not just a privileged American family, but a privileged America. It is a literary triumph.

The Guest Book follows three generations of a powerful American family, a family that “used to run the world.�

And when the novel begins in 1935, they still do. Kitty and Ogden Milton appear to have everything—perfect children, good looks, a love everyone envies. But after a tragedy befalls them, Ogden tries to bring Kitty back to life by purchasing an island in Maine. That island, and its house, come to define and burnish the Milton family, year after year after year. And it is there that Kitty issues a refusal that will haunt her till the day she dies.

In 1959 a young Jewish man, Len Levy, will get a job in Ogden’s bank and earn the admiration of Ogden and one of his daughters, but the scorn of everyone else. Len’s best friend, Reg Pauling, has always been the only black man in the room—at Harvard, at work, and finally at the Miltons� island in Maine.

An island that, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, this last generation doesn’t have the money to keep. When Kitty’s granddaughter hears that she and her cousins might be forced to sell it, and when her husband brings back disturbing evidence about her grandfather’s past, she realizes she is on the verge of finally understanding the silences that seemed to hover just below the surface of her family all her life.

An ambitious novel that weaves the American past with its present, The Guest Book looks at the racism and power that has been systemically embedded in the U.S. for generations.]]> 484 Sarah Blake 1250110262 Kitty 4
The Guest Book by Sarah Blake (given to me by a friend) -- very skillful treatment of the problem of "great divides" of rich/poor, black/white; antisemitism, and "otherization" of different "tribes". More than a family drama, it addresses the "polite silence" of the powerful who possibly could change things but don't. Less "sock-in-your-face" tone than White Fragility, but for me, more powerful because of that.

There's a cool metaphor I learned p. 156. stumble stones.
The point is, not just an irregular piece of pavement pointing to a story (in ww2: where a Jew is killed) but the idea that there would be stumble stones where each slave sold; each innocent person murdered AND all the stones that marked the places where on-lookers did nothing.]]> 3.62 2019 The Guest Book
author: Sarah Blake
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/11
date added: 2024/03/11
shelves:
review:
I could not put this book down. Manners are important, and I recognize the polish and efficacity of them. But here, Sarah Blake deftly builds a poignant family drama where the expected behavior interferes with honest, authentic and healthy outcomes.

The Guest Book by Sarah Blake (given to me by a friend) -- very skillful treatment of the problem of "great divides" of rich/poor, black/white; antisemitism, and "otherization" of different "tribes". More than a family drama, it addresses the "polite silence" of the powerful who possibly could change things but don't. Less "sock-in-your-face" tone than White Fragility, but for me, more powerful because of that.

There's a cool metaphor I learned p. 156. stumble stones.
The point is, not just an irregular piece of pavement pointing to a story (in ww2: where a Jew is killed) but the idea that there would be stumble stones where each slave sold; each innocent person murdered AND all the stones that marked the places where on-lookers did nothing.
]]> <![CDATA[White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism]]> 43708708 7 Robin DiAngelo 0807071161 Kitty 2
As I think about being racist� to quote a friend, “it is much less about me and more about the system that I live in that provides me privilege for the mere fact that I was born white�. I am grateful for my friend. DiAngelo does not write with such a large view, but seems to have composed this idea
of a white identity and how it protects itself. The Foreword by Michael Eric Dyson introduces the idea of whiteness as the unchanging variable -- that "changing same" to pinch his pinch of Amiri Barak's phase... He goes on to say "DiAngelo bravely challenges the collapse of whiteness into national identity"... However... I reach a real stumbling block when he says, "whiteness... given (whites) a big leg up in life while crushing others' dreams... that their whiteness is the clearest example of the identity politics they claim is harmful to the nation...". Whoa! My whiteness crushes dreams of others? How am I complicit in this? How do I stop whites, especially those with whom I do not agree, from doing this?

Claudia Rankine in her blurb, mentions the book is necessary for all people invested in societal change. The key word for me, is invested. Human beings, we are assured by DiAngelo, are by nature judgmental and make assumptions, and she is no exception. Human beings also are
highly resistant to change, reluctant to leave a group where they feel safe, and belong.

White folk do need to examine the “what� of this country, its beginnings, “discovered� in the early 17th century, the “pacts� made with indigenous people; the boats arriving with kidnapped Africans in the hold, set to work as slaves for those eager to exploit the land for profitable crops. We do need to have a more balanced history and understanding about the civil war, and how white people on both sides of the Mason Dixon line would speak to those who did not share their Caucasian skin.
Yes, and white folk need to imagine what it’s like to be in a black skin and feel the full impact
of the psychic weight of it, living in America.

The issues in 21st century America are more complex than simply labeling whites by their “fragility�. I have heard white people proudly say, “I am a racist� after reading this book, as if to prove they are sensitive to the issue. Perhaps it’s like calling yourself “cisgender� as DiAngelo does, to prove you know the jargon, and even though not one of a group discriminated against, are aware of the issue of gender.

I had difficulty with DiAngelo’s tone, style, manner. When DiAngelo says (p. 150) she “strives to be “less-white� , which she then defines as “less racially oppressive�, I feel bogged down in such terms. I’m glad for her that she’s worked things out for herself, but her self-congratulatory manner does not convince me to trust her at all. I’m fine with things like " break white silence� stop privileging, be aware of racist patterns" � but even the term “white fragility� as a noun, is portrayed as an inescapable given with a tone of condemnation for those whites who cannot (like her) embrace the fact that we, as white are, defacto racist. You need her context to understand statements such as “All white people are invested in and collude with racism� (p. 117). She will champion being “less white�, which like the term “white fragility� are in her linguistic universe attached to what she means. She will demonstrate a stilted language of apology, when wrong, display a certain amount of self-righteous arrogance about her work.
Her list on p. 122 is not so much “functions of white fragility� as common responses of
people who are unwilling to change. The “rules of engagement� sound like a bad soap opera,
and I must trust the chapter would not be written did they not exist.
.
You will finish the book with a few clues as to what “racist patterns� look like and to be on the lookout for internalized superiority and “privilege-protecting� comfort. Her list of ways to interrupt racism sound like what we all should be doing:

minimize defensiveness, demonstrate vulnerability, demonstrate curiosity, humility; stretch the worldview; ensure action; practice what you profess to value; build authentic relationships and trust.

This book sharpened my radar and gave me food for thought about how inadvertently and cunningly racism creeps in. It hopefully will inspire vigilance and dialogue and talk beyond “white fragility�. We all need to be open to discussing all the ways our society fails to provide support to raise good human beings. Yes,discussing white privilege is part of that.

After finishing the book, I was glad to see the reading list. However, my question remains: how do we reach people who don’t see anything wrong with the group with whom they hang out, which does not promote empathetic, mindful human behavior?]]> 4.14 2018 White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
author: Robin DiAngelo
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2018
rating: 2
read at: 2020/08/22
date added: 2024/03/11
shelves:
review:
White Fragility, with its title in white letters shattered by black lines, is like a cracked mirror. It is not the "usual" mirror any white person who thinks they are kind, generous, peace-loving, intelligent, empathetic consults. I have been struggling on how to write a book review after writing pages and pages. This is instructive perhaps, to know that the book will work on you, hopefully make you think long and hard about what identity is; what racism is; what being white in 21st century America is; what the history of "white" in America is. For all its well-meaning intentions, it may not convince the white people it scolds to do more than proclaim how they too can be as righteous sounding as author Robin DiAngelo. The subtitle, Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, addresses in part the difficult question of what racism is, and what needs to change in this country.

As I think about being racist� to quote a friend, “it is much less about me and more about the system that I live in that provides me privilege for the mere fact that I was born white�. I am grateful for my friend. DiAngelo does not write with such a large view, but seems to have composed this idea
of a white identity and how it protects itself. The Foreword by Michael Eric Dyson introduces the idea of whiteness as the unchanging variable -- that "changing same" to pinch his pinch of Amiri Barak's phase... He goes on to say "DiAngelo bravely challenges the collapse of whiteness into national identity"... However... I reach a real stumbling block when he says, "whiteness... given (whites) a big leg up in life while crushing others' dreams... that their whiteness is the clearest example of the identity politics they claim is harmful to the nation...". Whoa! My whiteness crushes dreams of others? How am I complicit in this? How do I stop whites, especially those with whom I do not agree, from doing this?

Claudia Rankine in her blurb, mentions the book is necessary for all people invested in societal change. The key word for me, is invested. Human beings, we are assured by DiAngelo, are by nature judgmental and make assumptions, and she is no exception. Human beings also are
highly resistant to change, reluctant to leave a group where they feel safe, and belong.

White folk do need to examine the “what� of this country, its beginnings, “discovered� in the early 17th century, the “pacts� made with indigenous people; the boats arriving with kidnapped Africans in the hold, set to work as slaves for those eager to exploit the land for profitable crops. We do need to have a more balanced history and understanding about the civil war, and how white people on both sides of the Mason Dixon line would speak to those who did not share their Caucasian skin.
Yes, and white folk need to imagine what it’s like to be in a black skin and feel the full impact
of the psychic weight of it, living in America.

The issues in 21st century America are more complex than simply labeling whites by their “fragility�. I have heard white people proudly say, “I am a racist� after reading this book, as if to prove they are sensitive to the issue. Perhaps it’s like calling yourself “cisgender� as DiAngelo does, to prove you know the jargon, and even though not one of a group discriminated against, are aware of the issue of gender.

I had difficulty with DiAngelo’s tone, style, manner. When DiAngelo says (p. 150) she “strives to be “less-white� , which she then defines as “less racially oppressive�, I feel bogged down in such terms. I’m glad for her that she’s worked things out for herself, but her self-congratulatory manner does not convince me to trust her at all. I’m fine with things like " break white silence� stop privileging, be aware of racist patterns" � but even the term “white fragility� as a noun, is portrayed as an inescapable given with a tone of condemnation for those whites who cannot (like her) embrace the fact that we, as white are, defacto racist. You need her context to understand statements such as “All white people are invested in and collude with racism� (p. 117). She will champion being “less white�, which like the term “white fragility� are in her linguistic universe attached to what she means. She will demonstrate a stilted language of apology, when wrong, display a certain amount of self-righteous arrogance about her work.
Her list on p. 122 is not so much “functions of white fragility� as common responses of
people who are unwilling to change. The “rules of engagement� sound like a bad soap opera,
and I must trust the chapter would not be written did they not exist.
.
You will finish the book with a few clues as to what “racist patterns� look like and to be on the lookout for internalized superiority and “privilege-protecting� comfort. Her list of ways to interrupt racism sound like what we all should be doing:

minimize defensiveness, demonstrate vulnerability, demonstrate curiosity, humility; stretch the worldview; ensure action; practice what you profess to value; build authentic relationships and trust.

This book sharpened my radar and gave me food for thought about how inadvertently and cunningly racism creeps in. It hopefully will inspire vigilance and dialogue and talk beyond “white fragility�. We all need to be open to discussing all the ways our society fails to provide support to raise good human beings. Yes,discussing white privilege is part of that.

After finishing the book, I was glad to see the reading list. However, my question remains: how do we reach people who don’t see anything wrong with the group with whom they hang out, which does not promote empathetic, mindful human behavior?
]]> <![CDATA[How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen]]> 112974860 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER � A practical, heartfelt guide to the art of truly knowing another person in order to foster deeper connections at home, at work, and throughout our lives—from the author of The Road to Character and The Second Mountain

As David Brooks observes, “There is one skill that lies at the heart of any healthy person, family, school, community organization, or society: the ability to see someone else deeply and make them feel seen—to accurately know another person, to let them feel valued, heard, and understood.�

And yet we humans don’t do this well. All around us are people who feel invisible, unseen, misunderstood. In How to Know a Person, Brooks sets out to help us do better, posing questions that are essential for all of us: If you want to know a person, what kind of attention should you cast on them? What kind of conversations should you have? What parts of a person’s story should you pay attention to?

Driven by his trademark sense of curiosity and his determination to grow as a person, Brooks draws from the fields of psychology and neuroscience and from the worlds of theater, philosophy, history, and education to present a welcoming, hopeful, integrated approach to human connection. How to Know a Person helps readers become more understanding and considerate toward others, and to find the joy that comes from being seen. Along the way it offers a possible remedy for a society that is riven by fragmentation, hostility, and misperception.

The act of seeing another person, Brooks argues, is profoundly creative: How can we look somebody in the eye and see something large in them, and in turn, see something larger in ourselves? How to Know a Person is for anyone searching for connection, and yearning to be understood.]]> 304 David Brooks 059323006X Kitty 4 I thoroughly enjoyed listening to his quiet, calm and reassuring voice. There are beautiful nuggets of truth we all may have heard, but they are supported by examples so that indeed we better understanding them. Which would prefer-- "knowing" something about someone, or "understanding" what makes that person tick?

He provides helpful questions that can launch deeper conversation, and provides new ways of re-framing our quite subjective idea of "reality". (It might be true for us, but not necessarily for another). It is a skill to learn to understand the complications of different personalities, different copying mechanisms, and many unperceived veils that influence how we "see" another.

We are living in an isolating, mistrustful time. This book shows ways to combat forces that reinforce such a negative way of being. ]]> 4.09 2023 How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen
author: David Brooks
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/26
date added: 2024/02/26
shelves:
review:
I prefer to read books than to listen to them, but this one was available on 6 CDs.
I thoroughly enjoyed listening to his quiet, calm and reassuring voice. There are beautiful nuggets of truth we all may have heard, but they are supported by examples so that indeed we better understanding them. Which would prefer-- "knowing" something about someone, or "understanding" what makes that person tick?

He provides helpful questions that can launch deeper conversation, and provides new ways of re-framing our quite subjective idea of "reality". (It might be true for us, but not necessarily for another). It is a skill to learn to understand the complications of different personalities, different copying mechanisms, and many unperceived veils that influence how we "see" another.

We are living in an isolating, mistrustful time. This book shows ways to combat forces that reinforce such a negative way of being.
]]> The Sentence 56816904
Louise Erdrich's latest novel, The Sentence, asks what we owe to the living, the dead, to the reader and to the book. A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store's most annoying customer. Flora dies on All Souls' Day, but she simply won't leave the store. Tookie, who has landed a job selling books after years of incarceration that she survived by reading with murderous attention, must solve the mystery of this haunting while at the same time trying to understand all that occurs in Minneapolis during a year of grief, astonishment, isolation, and furious reckoning.

The Sentence begins on All Souls' Day 2019 and ends on All Souls' Day 2020. Its mystery and proliferating ghost stories during this one year propel a narrative as rich, emotional, and profound as anything Louise Erdrich has written]]> 387 Louise Erdrich 006267112X Kitty 4 "In a lovely aside in his revolutionary treatise dethroning Earth as the center of the universe, Galileo exulted in the power of books: “What sublimity of mind was his who dreamed of finding means to communicate his deepest thoughts to any other person, though distant by mighty intervals of place and time!� Books, he argued, are our sole means of having superhuman powers while remaining resolutely human � the power of traversing the abysses of space, time, chance, and misunderstanding that gape between our own life, our own self, our own subjective experience, and another’s. Four centuries later, neuroscientists would probe the sublimity of the human mind and locate the central mystery of consciousness in this very thing, known as qualia � the raw feelings that make up the subjective interiority of our experiences. Literature, in this sense, is the supreme language of qualia � something Proust intuited when he contemplated why we read and concluded that a great book is a masterwork of translation, conveying to the reader a world of feelings and experiences that are foreign to his or her own consciousness.

That is what novelist, essayist, philosopher, and Proust-champion Alain de Botton explores in his contribution to A Velocity of Being: Letters to a Young Reader (public library) � a labor of love eight years in the making, comprising 121 illustrated letters to children about why we read and how books transform us from some of the most inspiring humans in our world: artists, writers, scientists, musicians, entrepreneurs, and philosophers whose character has been shaped by a life of reading.]]> 3.92 2021 The Sentence
author: Louise Erdrich
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/23
date added: 2024/02/23
shelves:
review:
Ambitious book with many threads! I listened to it on CD, read by the author, and look forward to reading the actual book. I love that in the interview with Ann Patchett, Erdrich mentions the cover was designed by her daughter! This excerpt from Maria Popova's blog summarizes the life-changing/influencing role of books, and applies to this complex novel of relationship, Indigenous history, and what haunts us:
"In a lovely aside in his revolutionary treatise dethroning Earth as the center of the universe, Galileo exulted in the power of books: “What sublimity of mind was his who dreamed of finding means to communicate his deepest thoughts to any other person, though distant by mighty intervals of place and time!� Books, he argued, are our sole means of having superhuman powers while remaining resolutely human � the power of traversing the abysses of space, time, chance, and misunderstanding that gape between our own life, our own self, our own subjective experience, and another’s. Four centuries later, neuroscientists would probe the sublimity of the human mind and locate the central mystery of consciousness in this very thing, known as qualia � the raw feelings that make up the subjective interiority of our experiences. Literature, in this sense, is the supreme language of qualia � something Proust intuited when he contemplated why we read and concluded that a great book is a masterwork of translation, conveying to the reader a world of feelings and experiences that are foreign to his or her own consciousness.

That is what novelist, essayist, philosopher, and Proust-champion Alain de Botton explores in his contribution to A Velocity of Being: Letters to a Young Reader (public library) � a labor of love eight years in the making, comprising 121 illustrated letters to children about why we read and how books transform us from some of the most inspiring humans in our world: artists, writers, scientists, musicians, entrepreneurs, and philosophers whose character has been shaped by a life of reading.
]]> The Covenant of Water 180357146 From the New York Times-bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala, South India, following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret

Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala's Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time. From this unforgettable new beginning, the young girl—and future matriarch, Big Ammachi—will witness unthinkable changes over the span of her extraordinary life, full of joy and triumph as well as hardship and loss, her faith and love the only constants.

A shimmering evocation of a bygone India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the hardships undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. Imbued with humor, deep emotion, and the essence of life, it is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years.]]> 724 Abraham Verghese 0802162177 Kitty 5
It is long: 721 pages, and yet, there are few slack moments. I did speed up reading about political slants, but not to brush over the horrible social injustice of the caste system. Although the weaving of the stories might seem far-fetched, Verghese paints his characters so well, they seem as real as could be.

I need time before writing a cogent review but wanted right away to sing out praises for this book.
It is an important book --both universal with the beautifully woven themes of love between Parent/Child, husband/wife, fidelity of friendships, our human need to understand ourselves and our quests. Although it's very long... and perhaps some might feel is contrived as the 9 interwoven parts come together at the end-- it is totally worth the sustained effort of immersing oneself into it 100 pages at a time. ]]> 4.34 2023 The Covenant of Water
author: Abraham Verghese
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/02/10
date added: 2024/02/15
shelves:
review:
A page turner of a book which is more than the sum of its stories, which paint a rich ethno-historical-cultural history of India, introduction to medical practice and diseases such as leprosy and the curious quest to find out what lies in family secrets.

It is long: 721 pages, and yet, there are few slack moments. I did speed up reading about political slants, but not to brush over the horrible social injustice of the caste system. Although the weaving of the stories might seem far-fetched, Verghese paints his characters so well, they seem as real as could be.

I need time before writing a cogent review but wanted right away to sing out praises for this book.
It is an important book --both universal with the beautifully woven themes of love between Parent/Child, husband/wife, fidelity of friendships, our human need to understand ourselves and our quests. Although it's very long... and perhaps some might feel is contrived as the 9 interwoven parts come together at the end-- it is totally worth the sustained effort of immersing oneself into it 100 pages at a time.
]]> <![CDATA[An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us]]> 59575939 A grand tour through the hidden realms of animal senses that will transform the way you perceive the world --from the Pulitzer Prize-winning, New York Times bestselling author of I Contain Multitudes.

The Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. But every animal is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving but a tiny sliver of an immense world. This book welcomes us into a previously unfathomable dimension--the world as it is truly perceived by other animals.

We encounter beetles that are drawn to fires, turtles that can track the Earth's magnetic fields, fish that fill rivers with electrical messages, and humans that wield sonar like bats. We discover that a crocodile's scaly face is as sensitive as a lover's fingertips, that the eyes of a giant squid evolved to see sparkling whales, that plants thrum with the inaudible songs of courting bugs, and that even simple scallops have complex vision. We learn what bees see in flowers, what songbirds hear in their tunes, and what dogs smell on the street. We listen to stories of pivotal discoveries in the field, while looking ahead at the many mysteries which lie unsolved.

In An Immense World, author and acclaimed science journalist Ed Yong coaxes us beyond the confines of our own senses, allowing us to perceive the skeins of scent, waves of electromagnetism, and pulses of pressure that surround us. Because in order to understand our world we don't need to travel to other places; we need to see through other eyes.]]> 464 Ed Yong Kitty 5 I was inspired by this quote: "I approach every poem I write as if I’m going to save a life. "—Aaron Abeyta
This is the kind of book that makes me want to write poems that matter!

I am equally in awe of the amazingly creative thinking to construct experiments to find out how animals sense the world and the amazing interconnections revealed! A must read book that will change the way you "see" and "understand" the complexity of life around you! ]]> 4.46 2022 An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us
author: Ed Yong
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/30
date added: 2024/02/10
shelves:
review:
Exceptional!
I was inspired by this quote: "I approach every poem I write as if I’m going to save a life. "—Aaron Abeyta
This is the kind of book that makes me want to write poems that matter!

I am equally in awe of the amazingly creative thinking to construct experiments to find out how animals sense the world and the amazing interconnections revealed! A must read book that will change the way you "see" and "understand" the complexity of life around you!
]]> Write for Your Life 58678517 In this clarion call to pick up a pen and find yourself from "one of our most astute chroniclers of modern life" (The New York Times Book Review), #1 New York Times bestselling author Anna Quindlen shows us how anyone can write, and why everyone should.

What really matters in life? What truly lasts in our hearts and minds? Where can we find community, history, humanity? In this lyrical new book, the answer is clear: through writing. This is a book for what Quindlen calls "civilians," those who want to use the written word to become more human, more themselves.

Write for Your Life argues that there has never been a more important time to stop and record what we are thinking and feeling. Using examples from past, present, and future--from Anne Frank to Toni Morrison, from love letters written after World War II to journal reflections from nurses and doctors today--Write for Your Life vividly illuminates the ways in which writing connects us to ourselves and to those we cherish. Drawing on her personal experiences not just as a writer but as a mother and daughter, Quindlen makes the case that recording our daily lives in writing is essential.

When we write we not only look, we see; we not only react but reflect. Writing gives you something to hold onto in a changing world. "To write the present," Quindlen says, "is to believe in the future."]]> 240 Anna Quindlen 0593229835 Kitty 0 to-read 3.90 2022 Write for Your Life
author: Anna Quindlen
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me]]> 59364113 A fascinating, revelatory portrait of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and its treasures by a former New Yorker staffer who spent a decade as a museum guard.

Millions of people climb the grand marble staircase to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art every year. But only a select few have unrestricted access to every nook and cranny. They’re the guards who roam unobtrusively in dark blue suits, keeping a watchful eye on the two million square foot treasure house. Caught up in his glamorous fledgling career at The New Yorker, Patrick Bringley never thought he’d be one of them. Then his older brother was diagnosed with fatal cancer and he found himself needing to escape the mundane clamor of daily life. So he quit The New Yorker and sought solace in the most beautiful place he knew.

To his surprise and the reader’s delight, this temporary refuge becomes Bringley’s home away from home for a decade. We follow him as he guards delicate treasures from Egypt to Rome, strolls the labyrinths beneath the galleries, wears out nine pairs of company shoes, and marvels at the beautiful works in his care. Bringley enters the museum as a ghost, silent and almost invisible, but soon finds his voice and his tribe: the artworks and their creators and the lively subculture of museum guards—a gorgeous mosaic of artists, musicians, blue-collar stalwarts, immigrants, cutups, and dreamers. As his bonds with his colleagues and the art grow, he comes to understand how fortunate he is to be walled off in this little world, and how much it resembles the best aspects of the larger world to which he gradually, gratefully returns.

In the tradition of classic workplace memoirs like Lab Girl and Working Stiff, All The Beauty in the World is a surprising, inspiring portrait of a great museum, its hidden treasures, and the people who make it tick, by one of its most intimate observers.]]> 240 Patrick Bringley 1982163321 Kitty 4 of losing his older brother to cancer, his short career at The New Yorker, unfolds as he finds refuge for a decade, finding solace in what he calls "the most beautiful place he knew".
In the silence of the museum, he finds his voice, as he learns from the works of art and their creators but also the delightful subculture of the museum guards, a "gorgeous mosaic of artists, musicians, dreamers, blue-collar stalwarts, immigrants". We experience what he overhears whether it be students asked to answer the question "Did the Greeks believe in Gods" with examples of two works as evidence. He shares with them the word "epiphany"-- a visitation from a God.
We experience the Sufi wisdom of Ibn Arabi and the quotation from the dervish: why am I then obliged to heaven that it has given me a soul? For it has created within me a source of sorrows from which that soul suffers."
In the book, that passage is followed by the author's discovery of Sufism and that we are asked to understand more than we know... and this is where the two ways of seeing come in.
Understanding with the heart often has no words, no way to be translated into our usual words.

With a gentle humor and humility, Patrick shares his "secret self" harbored under his uniform, observing the works in the met with his "invisible eye".
We come to a Greek Kouros, a youth, one foot in front of another, a simple grave marker that says here lies a mortal man, and placed on top of someone's remains. But his description carries it further: It seems alive to the audacity of shaping a mortal from cold hard stone. Its sheer verticality, is compared to a bowling pin, its pluck, "shoulders-back-arrogance, striding over the graveyard of the past. Naked, tender, defenseless-- a young man, yet kin to all of us.

I return back to the beginning of the book, where he describes his father, who loved Bach and Duke Ellington, and taught him that an artist is unafraid-- that the diligence behind the practice is born of enjoyment.
He refers to Breughel's painting: The harvesters (1565) : "I experienced the great beauty of the picture even as I had no idea what to do with that beauty. I couldn't discharge the feeling by talking about it -- there was nothing much to say. What was beautiful in the painting was not like words-- it was like paint: silent, direct, resisting translation even into thought. My response to the picture was trapped inside me, a bird fluttering in my chest."

He quotes from Milton's Paradise Lost , and the return to the Met-- to explain how great books and great art had this effect: "Abashed the devil stood, //and felt how awful goodness is."

He discovers the magic of painting -- how it "lives up to life" -- and vice-versa.
p. 102: Grief is among other things, a loss of rhythm. You lose someone, and it puts a hole in your life and for a time, you huddle down in that hole. By going to the Met, he saw an opportunity to conflat his hole with a grand Cathedral to linger in a place that seemed untouched by the rhythms of the everyday. He learns in the daily interactions the kind of grown-up he will be. Trying to be patient, kind, enjoy others' peculiarities and make good use of his own. Trying to be generous or at least humane even when the situation is rote.

The entire book is told in an uplifting manner and filled with sensitive and helpful observations of being human.]]> 4.01 2023 All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me
author: Patrick Bringley
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/22
date added: 2024/01/22
shelves:
review:
From the privileged position and perspective of a museum guard at the Met, Bringley shares the adjective "hilarious" with the noun "abundance" at the end of this short volume to describe his days inside his uniform as guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. His story,
of losing his older brother to cancer, his short career at The New Yorker, unfolds as he finds refuge for a decade, finding solace in what he calls "the most beautiful place he knew".
In the silence of the museum, he finds his voice, as he learns from the works of art and their creators but also the delightful subculture of the museum guards, a "gorgeous mosaic of artists, musicians, dreamers, blue-collar stalwarts, immigrants". We experience what he overhears whether it be students asked to answer the question "Did the Greeks believe in Gods" with examples of two works as evidence. He shares with them the word "epiphany"-- a visitation from a God.
We experience the Sufi wisdom of Ibn Arabi and the quotation from the dervish: why am I then obliged to heaven that it has given me a soul? For it has created within me a source of sorrows from which that soul suffers."
In the book, that passage is followed by the author's discovery of Sufism and that we are asked to understand more than we know... and this is where the two ways of seeing come in.
Understanding with the heart often has no words, no way to be translated into our usual words.

With a gentle humor and humility, Patrick shares his "secret self" harbored under his uniform, observing the works in the met with his "invisible eye".
We come to a Greek Kouros, a youth, one foot in front of another, a simple grave marker that says here lies a mortal man, and placed on top of someone's remains. But his description carries it further: It seems alive to the audacity of shaping a mortal from cold hard stone. Its sheer verticality, is compared to a bowling pin, its pluck, "shoulders-back-arrogance, striding over the graveyard of the past. Naked, tender, defenseless-- a young man, yet kin to all of us.

I return back to the beginning of the book, where he describes his father, who loved Bach and Duke Ellington, and taught him that an artist is unafraid-- that the diligence behind the practice is born of enjoyment.
He refers to Breughel's painting: The harvesters (1565) : "I experienced the great beauty of the picture even as I had no idea what to do with that beauty. I couldn't discharge the feeling by talking about it -- there was nothing much to say. What was beautiful in the painting was not like words-- it was like paint: silent, direct, resisting translation even into thought. My response to the picture was trapped inside me, a bird fluttering in my chest."

He quotes from Milton's Paradise Lost , and the return to the Met-- to explain how great books and great art had this effect: "Abashed the devil stood, //and felt how awful goodness is."

He discovers the magic of painting -- how it "lives up to life" -- and vice-versa.
p. 102: Grief is among other things, a loss of rhythm. You lose someone, and it puts a hole in your life and for a time, you huddle down in that hole. By going to the Met, he saw an opportunity to conflat his hole with a grand Cathedral to linger in a place that seemed untouched by the rhythms of the everyday. He learns in the daily interactions the kind of grown-up he will be. Trying to be patient, kind, enjoy others' peculiarities and make good use of his own. Trying to be generous or at least humane even when the situation is rote.

The entire book is told in an uplifting manner and filled with sensitive and helpful observations of being human.
]]> <![CDATA[Can We Talk About Israel?: A Guide for the Curious, Confused, and Conflicted]]> 44453032 National Jewish Book Award finalist

An essential and accessible introduction to one of the most complex, controversial topics in the world, from a leading expert on Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

When it comes to Israel and Palestine, it can be hard to know what to say. Daniel Sokatch gets it. He heads the New Israel Fund, an organization dedicated to equality and democracy for all Israelis--Arab, Jewish, and otherwise. The question he gets asked, on an almost daily basis, is, "Can't you just explain the Israel situation to me? In, like, 10 minutes or less?" This book is his timely and much-needed answer.

Can We Talk About Israel? tells the story of that country and explores why so many people feel so strongly about it without actually understanding it very well at all. Sokatch grapples with a century-long struggle between two peoples that both perceive themselves as (and indeed are) victims. And he explains why Israel (and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) inspires such extreme feelings--why it seems like Israel is the answer to “what is wrong with the world� for half the people in it, and “what is right with the world� for the other half. As Sokatch asks, is there any other topic about which so many intelligent, educated, and sophisticated people express such strongly and passionately held convictions, and about which they actually know so little?

Complete with engaging illustrations by Christopher Noxon, Can We Talk About Israel? is an easy-to-read yet penetrating and original look at a subject we could all afford to better understand.]]> 384 Daniel Sokatch 1635573874 Kitty 5 I enjoyed the illustrations by Christopher Noxon. Below, not a review, but rather for my own overwhelmed brain, a listing of the well-organized pieces the book presents the reader.

Part 1: Where to start...
The Zionist idea... the people who lived in Palestine before the establishment of Israel, the British Mandate and Balfour Declaration.
Chapter 5: Israel and the Nakba: Independence and Catastrophe (1947-9)
The dispossessed; 50's State Building and Suez; 1967 war... Roller coaster: from Yom Kippur War to first Intifada (1968-87); Rabin, End of Oslo... failure of Bush's "Road Map for Peace" in 2003, suicide bombers, occupation, the second Lebanon war, the Bibi era (Netanyahu)

Part 2: Why it's so hard to talk about Israel
9 short chapters:
The map is not the territory; Arab citizens: shared or segregated society; Israel and American Jewish community; the settlements; BDS (Boycott Divestment Sanctions-- an attempt to compel local/international governments and people around the world to treat Israel like apartheid-era South Africa to pressure it to change. The non-violent appeal sounds so reasonable: to end occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall ; recognizing fundamental rights of Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality ; It's the third part of respecting, protecting and promoting rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194 that raises fears about 6 million Palestinians returning. ); two A words: Apartheid and Antisemitism.

OK, so different kinds of Israelis: Arab, Jewish, Ashkenazi, Mizrachi, Ethiopian, Russian, Druze...
and a fragile, "seriously flawed democratic society" is a work in progress, imperfect and stumbling along the way with inequalities everywhere. Do not confuse Israel with the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Green Line, with a mix of Palestinians, Jewish settlers, IDF soldiers where there are two systems of justice...

The next to last chapter explains the Christian Zionists and why so many evangelical Christians were so devoted to Trump despite his less than Christian behavior...

The book ends with a few stories of ordinary people living in Israel who are doing "extraordinary things to build bridges, heal wounds, create a better future for everyone in this tortured land between river and sea." Three individuals : one Standing up for women's rights, another advocating for fellow asylum seekers, and a third founding the Tag Meir (light tag) coalition as response to "tag machir" (Price Tag for being Arab and living in Israel) to fight against hate crimes, and express solidarity with victims.

Complex? Yes, and "people disagree about what to call places, people involved; disagree about the history of what happened; disagree about hos to understand the issues roiling the region: no wonder Israel makes so many people come unhinged."

I especially enjoyed the "grey pages" . The one titled, "Is Zionism Justifiable" is a useful summary of the problem. "So... explains a kid named Brandon, "generations pay rent and farm and suddenly a new family comes and lives in half of the tenant's house and says, "my family and I got driven out of our town far away from here. People came and killed our neighbors, burned down our house. We have nowhere else to go. So we came here, the place where out great-great-great-great grandparents live." Peace activist Amos Oz writes "Zionism has the justness of the drowning man who clings to the only plank he can. And the drowning man, clinging to this plank, is allowed, by all the rules of the natural, objective, universal justice, to make room for himself on the plank, even if doing so he must push others aside a little. But he has no natural right to push others on the plank into the sea."

In the chapter on Israel and The Nakba: "Does there really need to be a Jewish State". Sokatch cites the question of his 11 yr old daughter when visiting the Anne Frank house. "Why didn't Anne and her family just go to America, Canada, Australia or any of the good countries?" At the time, no country in the world was willing. Why couldn't there be just one country where Jews could go to be safe?
Sokatch explains trying to help the situation work more important than defending the existence of an imperfect and complicated answer to a question of life and death.

In the chapter on The Dispossessed is a page about "Refugees of the Holy City " (Shuafat, the 70 year old refugee camp which Israel won't deal with p. 73-4).
The grey pages address the picture of an Israeli soldier waist deep in the Suez Canal with a big smile on his face, holding a sizable machine gun above which are the words "Wrap up of the astounding war" and the take off by Adi Nes reimagining this iconic image of Israeli military masculinity. Sokatch argues that without the first image, Israel would not be the country where the second image, of gay men in solidarity, with the same machine gun could be shown and "representative of pride in a culture that cultivates self-reflection, self-criticism and satire, and multiple ways to be an Israeli."

In the chapter, The Roller Coaster, is an insert, "Operation Moses" which explains the influx in the mid-80's of Ethiopians fleeing their famine-ravaged country.

In the chapter about the first Infitada, an excellent 4 page insert called "Mental Maps". The actual map of Israeli and Palestinian areas and the "green line" around Israel does not correspond with the ideal of "an eternal and undivided capital" and the experience of divide within West/East Jerusalem.
A few pages later, another insert, "A Jew walks into a Bar in Belfast". The Jew is walking down the road at midnight and feels a gun in his back: A voice says, "Be you Protestant or be you Catholic." The man sighs in relief. "Neither" he replies," I'm a Jew." And the voice answers, "Ah right, then I'm the luckiest Palestinian in all of Ireland." It take such a joke to face the absurd interchangeability of territorial conflicts and the absurdity of how Jews are treated, even in the midst of someone else's conflict.

In the chapter "Israel is Waiting for Rabin" there are 3 grey sections. The first recounts the influx of 623,000 Jews from the former Soviet Union who immigrated to Israel in 1995. It ends with a story of right wing hypocrisy. The third, entitled "Eulogy", the assassination of Rabin as the author's "JFK moment".

In the chapter, "As the Clever Hopes Expire" are the grey pages, "How do you murder a peace process?" "As the rhetoric of demonization and rounds of violence continue, hearts harden further. Can the political WILL to end the conflict resurface? And if so, will it be too late?

In the chapter, "The Democracy Recession" are the pages, "Gaza, (2008-9) The Goldstone Report and the attach on Human Rights Defenders . I learn the term, GONGO: government-organized nongovernmental organizations.







]]> 4.30 2021 Can We Talk About Israel?: A Guide for the Curious, Confused, and Conflicted
author: Daniel Sokatch
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/06
date added: 2024/01/06
shelves:
review:
Excellent overview about Israel, starting way before 1948. Sokatch presents a fair-minded and compassionate overview of the tinderbox situation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It would be so convenient to have an simple answer to "what is wrong" with the world for half the people in it and what is right with the world for the other half.
I enjoyed the illustrations by Christopher Noxon. Below, not a review, but rather for my own overwhelmed brain, a listing of the well-organized pieces the book presents the reader.

Part 1: Where to start...
The Zionist idea... the people who lived in Palestine before the establishment of Israel, the British Mandate and Balfour Declaration.
Chapter 5: Israel and the Nakba: Independence and Catastrophe (1947-9)
The dispossessed; 50's State Building and Suez; 1967 war... Roller coaster: from Yom Kippur War to first Intifada (1968-87); Rabin, End of Oslo... failure of Bush's "Road Map for Peace" in 2003, suicide bombers, occupation, the second Lebanon war, the Bibi era (Netanyahu)

Part 2: Why it's so hard to talk about Israel
9 short chapters:
The map is not the territory; Arab citizens: shared or segregated society; Israel and American Jewish community; the settlements; BDS (Boycott Divestment Sanctions-- an attempt to compel local/international governments and people around the world to treat Israel like apartheid-era South Africa to pressure it to change. The non-violent appeal sounds so reasonable: to end occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall ; recognizing fundamental rights of Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality ; It's the third part of respecting, protecting and promoting rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194 that raises fears about 6 million Palestinians returning. ); two A words: Apartheid and Antisemitism.

OK, so different kinds of Israelis: Arab, Jewish, Ashkenazi, Mizrachi, Ethiopian, Russian, Druze...
and a fragile, "seriously flawed democratic society" is a work in progress, imperfect and stumbling along the way with inequalities everywhere. Do not confuse Israel with the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Green Line, with a mix of Palestinians, Jewish settlers, IDF soldiers where there are two systems of justice...

The next to last chapter explains the Christian Zionists and why so many evangelical Christians were so devoted to Trump despite his less than Christian behavior...

The book ends with a few stories of ordinary people living in Israel who are doing "extraordinary things to build bridges, heal wounds, create a better future for everyone in this tortured land between river and sea." Three individuals : one Standing up for women's rights, another advocating for fellow asylum seekers, and a third founding the Tag Meir (light tag) coalition as response to "tag machir" (Price Tag for being Arab and living in Israel) to fight against hate crimes, and express solidarity with victims.

Complex? Yes, and "people disagree about what to call places, people involved; disagree about the history of what happened; disagree about hos to understand the issues roiling the region: no wonder Israel makes so many people come unhinged."

I especially enjoyed the "grey pages" . The one titled, "Is Zionism Justifiable" is a useful summary of the problem. "So... explains a kid named Brandon, "generations pay rent and farm and suddenly a new family comes and lives in half of the tenant's house and says, "my family and I got driven out of our town far away from here. People came and killed our neighbors, burned down our house. We have nowhere else to go. So we came here, the place where out great-great-great-great grandparents live." Peace activist Amos Oz writes "Zionism has the justness of the drowning man who clings to the only plank he can. And the drowning man, clinging to this plank, is allowed, by all the rules of the natural, objective, universal justice, to make room for himself on the plank, even if doing so he must push others aside a little. But he has no natural right to push others on the plank into the sea."

In the chapter on Israel and The Nakba: "Does there really need to be a Jewish State". Sokatch cites the question of his 11 yr old daughter when visiting the Anne Frank house. "Why didn't Anne and her family just go to America, Canada, Australia or any of the good countries?" At the time, no country in the world was willing. Why couldn't there be just one country where Jews could go to be safe?
Sokatch explains trying to help the situation work more important than defending the existence of an imperfect and complicated answer to a question of life and death.

In the chapter on The Dispossessed is a page about "Refugees of the Holy City " (Shuafat, the 70 year old refugee camp which Israel won't deal with p. 73-4).
The grey pages address the picture of an Israeli soldier waist deep in the Suez Canal with a big smile on his face, holding a sizable machine gun above which are the words "Wrap up of the astounding war" and the take off by Adi Nes reimagining this iconic image of Israeli military masculinity. Sokatch argues that without the first image, Israel would not be the country where the second image, of gay men in solidarity, with the same machine gun could be shown and "representative of pride in a culture that cultivates self-reflection, self-criticism and satire, and multiple ways to be an Israeli."

In the chapter, The Roller Coaster, is an insert, "Operation Moses" which explains the influx in the mid-80's of Ethiopians fleeing their famine-ravaged country.

In the chapter about the first Infitada, an excellent 4 page insert called "Mental Maps". The actual map of Israeli and Palestinian areas and the "green line" around Israel does not correspond with the ideal of "an eternal and undivided capital" and the experience of divide within West/East Jerusalem.
A few pages later, another insert, "A Jew walks into a Bar in Belfast". The Jew is walking down the road at midnight and feels a gun in his back: A voice says, "Be you Protestant or be you Catholic." The man sighs in relief. "Neither" he replies," I'm a Jew." And the voice answers, "Ah right, then I'm the luckiest Palestinian in all of Ireland." It take such a joke to face the absurd interchangeability of territorial conflicts and the absurdity of how Jews are treated, even in the midst of someone else's conflict.

In the chapter "Israel is Waiting for Rabin" there are 3 grey sections. The first recounts the influx of 623,000 Jews from the former Soviet Union who immigrated to Israel in 1995. It ends with a story of right wing hypocrisy. The third, entitled "Eulogy", the assassination of Rabin as the author's "JFK moment".

In the chapter, "As the Clever Hopes Expire" are the grey pages, "How do you murder a peace process?" "As the rhetoric of demonization and rounds of violence continue, hearts harden further. Can the political WILL to end the conflict resurface? And if so, will it be too late?

In the chapter, "The Democracy Recession" are the pages, "Gaza, (2008-9) The Goldstone Report and the attach on Human Rights Defenders . I learn the term, GONGO: government-organized nongovernmental organizations.








]]> Demon Copperhead 60194162 "Anyone will tell you the born of this world are marked from the get-out, win or lose."

Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.]]> 560 Barbara Kingsolver 0063251922 Kitty 3
According to the person who listened to the Audible version, masterfully read by Charlie Thurston who gave so much life to Demon, the book was hopeful above all else. "As a character, he goes through so many ups and downs, and when he’s down, he’s really down. But Demon’s voice and perspective always carry a wry humor and very little self pity. He takes things as they come, has a rock solid moral core, and even when he’s making some bad choices, he loves and tries to take care of the people around him. "

]]> 4.46 2022 Demon Copperhead
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/01/01
date added: 2024/01/01
shelves:
review:
I think if I had LISTENED to this book I might have been less overwhelmed by despair. Life may well begin on the other side of it, according to Sartre, but the cruelty in the first 100 pages was hard to bear. The idea of reading 446 more pages of abuse, not just teen-age mothers, but kids who never get a fair chance, feel invisible or wish they were, felt like a tall order. I agree this is an important book, and Kingsolver has a knack for making us empathize with lives that may bear little ressemblance to our own.

According to the person who listened to the Audible version, masterfully read by Charlie Thurston who gave so much life to Demon, the book was hopeful above all else. "As a character, he goes through so many ups and downs, and when he’s down, he’s really down. But Demon’s voice and perspective always carry a wry humor and very little self pity. He takes things as they come, has a rock solid moral core, and even when he’s making some bad choices, he loves and tries to take care of the people around him. "


]]> The Chaperone 13056159 The Chaperone is Ěýa captivating novel about the woman who chaperoned an irreverent Louise Brooks to New York City in 1922 and the summer that would change them both.
Ěý
Only a few years before becoming a famous silent-film star and an icon of her generation, a fifteen-year-old Louise Brooks leaves Wichita, Kansas, to study with the prestigious Denishawn School of Dancing in New York. Much to her annoyance, she is accompanied by a thirty-six-year-old chaperone, who is neither mother nor friend. Cora Carlisle, a complicated but traditional woman with her own reasons for making the trip, has no idea what she’s in for. Young Louise, already stunningly beautiful and sporting her famous black bob with blunt bangs, is known for her arrogance and her lack of respect for convention. Ultimately, the five weeks they spend together will transform their lives forever.
Ěý
For Cora, the city holds the promise of discovery that might answer the question at the core of her being, and even as she does her best to watch over Louise in this strange and bustling place she embarks on a mission of her own. And while what she finds isn’t what she anticipated, she is liberated in a way she could not have imagined. Over the course of Cora’s relationship with Louise, her eyes are opened to the promise of the twentieth century and a new understanding of the possibilities for being fully alive.
Ěý
Drawing on the rich history of the 1920s,â€�30s, and beyond—from the orphan trains to Prohibition, flappers, Ěýand the onset of the Great Depression to the burgeoning movement for equal rights and new opportunities for women—Laura Moriarty’s The Chaperone illustrates how rapidly everything, from fashion and hemlines to values and attitudes, was changing at this time and what a vast difference it all made for Louise Brooks, Cora Carlisle, and others like them.]]> 367 Laura Moriarty 1594487014 Kitty 2 through the eyes of Cora, one of the orphan children put on a train by Catholic Nuns to be put on display for adoption as the train headed West.

Add to this thread, truthful as it might be, a gay husband and his partner, his wife's illicit affair with a German who by happenstance, happens to work at the orphanage where she was placed and who helps her find her birth records. Both relationships paint an idyllic love which must be kept secret and a quite unlikely way to hide it from a conservative community in Kansas. I find all this adds a layer of complication that is hard to believe. Equally irritating is the self-commentary Cora makes about her feelings as she slowly discovers how breaking the rules is actually to her benefit, accompanied by her more compassionate acceptance of rule-breakers like Louise she had once criticized.

I galloped through the book, following the story of Cora, innocent orphan to bride, mother reciting Emily Post etiquette as her guidelines, to Chaperone. This too feels invented as a convenient way to develop a way of telling Louise's story and painting the revolutionary liberation of women.

I was eager to see how the story unfolds of Cora, with her mission to discover her birth mother, and
the young flapper Louise, with her dreams of being a chorus-line dancer. It felt a bit flimsy to have Emily-Post-perfect Cora reading "Age of Innocence" (foreshadowing her later affair) and Louise reading Schopenhauer (and 3 quotes arrive at the end, as if the mention of his name every time.
the two women pick up a book justifies them).

Details include the mention of corsets, using details of a meal at a luncheonette, the drama of a drunk Louise returning on the arm of Floyd, the young college man working there after visiting a speak easy; Cora's insistence on "protecting" Louise's reputation only to find out the irony that her Sunday school teacher raped her. All well and good and spices up the reading, but somehow the writing felt stilted and the whole story far-fetched. ]]> 3.85 2012 The Chaperone
author: Laura Moriarty
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2012
rating: 2
read at: 2023/12/21
date added: 2023/12/21
shelves:
review:
Historical fiction can be riveting when the complications of an era such as the roaring twenties are revealed. This ambitious book goes further as the story of Louise Brooks is revealed
through the eyes of Cora, one of the orphan children put on a train by Catholic Nuns to be put on display for adoption as the train headed West.

Add to this thread, truthful as it might be, a gay husband and his partner, his wife's illicit affair with a German who by happenstance, happens to work at the orphanage where she was placed and who helps her find her birth records. Both relationships paint an idyllic love which must be kept secret and a quite unlikely way to hide it from a conservative community in Kansas. I find all this adds a layer of complication that is hard to believe. Equally irritating is the self-commentary Cora makes about her feelings as she slowly discovers how breaking the rules is actually to her benefit, accompanied by her more compassionate acceptance of rule-breakers like Louise she had once criticized.

I galloped through the book, following the story of Cora, innocent orphan to bride, mother reciting Emily Post etiquette as her guidelines, to Chaperone. This too feels invented as a convenient way to develop a way of telling Louise's story and painting the revolutionary liberation of women.

I was eager to see how the story unfolds of Cora, with her mission to discover her birth mother, and
the young flapper Louise, with her dreams of being a chorus-line dancer. It felt a bit flimsy to have Emily-Post-perfect Cora reading "Age of Innocence" (foreshadowing her later affair) and Louise reading Schopenhauer (and 3 quotes arrive at the end, as if the mention of his name every time.
the two women pick up a book justifies them).

Details include the mention of corsets, using details of a meal at a luncheonette, the drama of a drunk Louise returning on the arm of Floyd, the young college man working there after visiting a speak easy; Cora's insistence on "protecting" Louise's reputation only to find out the irony that her Sunday school teacher raped her. All well and good and spices up the reading, but somehow the writing felt stilted and the whole story far-fetched.
]]> <![CDATA[Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words]]> 24108839
Beginning with ALONE and closing with WORK, each chapter is a meditation on meaning and context, an invitation to shift and broaden our perspectives on the inevitable vicissitudes of life: pain and joy, honesty and anger, confession and vulnerability, the experience of feeling besieged and the desire to run away from it all. Through this lens, procrastination may be a necessary ripening; hiding an act of freedom; and shyness the appropriate confusion and helplessness that accompanies the first stage of revelation.

CONSOLATIONS invites readers into a poetic and thoughtful consideration of words whose meaning and interpretation influence the paths we choose and the way we traverse them throughout our lives.]]> 245 David Whyte 1932887342 Kitty 3
Hmmmm. I found it pompous, smugly self-absorbed and irritating as I often disagreed with some of his thoughts and wondered at his choices of "everyday words". Part of the problem of my feelings about this book, like feelings about sounds of words, is the unpredictability of circumstances. For Whyte's book, I felt under pressure to return it to the library and a sense of "must finish" before the kids come to visit for Christmas. Not a favorable circumstance for enjoying a book.

What would you choose for A? Alone, Ambition and Anger are his. For him, Alone is associated with abandonment, alienation and silence is not viewed as a friend. Ambition is frozen desire. Anger is treated as a form of compassion.
You can bask in the B's with Beauty, Beginning, Besieged (not such an everyday word in my view!); Cavort with Courage and Confession. Why after "Denial, Despair, Destiny, Disappointment" is there no E? Maybe a little Energy might help an Empty feeling and Ease in a Eureka.

His choices feel arbitrary, because this is not a book that follows a theme aside from "underlying meaning." I didn't sense much solace, nourishment. His section of H includes Haunted, Heartbreak, Help, Hiding, Honesty but does not include Happiness, although the solitary entry for J is Joy. Two cities appear: Istanbul and Rome and those associations are interesting, but feel out of place. No O. No sense of Openings. No Q. No Query or Questioning.

Run Away addresses our reluctance to be present and he sprinkles in the wisdom about when there might indeed be need to do so.
The only T: touch. I wish he had graced us with his philosophy about Truth and Trying. Reducing touch as a blessing and violation didn't touch any tenderness.
U avoided universal, but looked instead at Love: both the impossible Unconditional, and the more frequent Unrequited. Unlikely reconciliations between what we want and what is wanted of us.

Want is not included in the W section, where the book ends with considerations on Withdrawal (unsticking ourselves from a mythical tar baby) and Work (as intimacy inside made visible on the outside.) No X, no Y, no Z.




]]> 4.47 2014 Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words
author: David Whyte
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2023/12/19
date added: 2023/12/19
shelves:
review:
The book got rave reviews on the back cover from Maria Popova as a "luminous" book.. and from Elizabeth Gilbert as "beautiful, elegant tiny essays on the consoling power of words... beautiful, soulful, thoughtful.

Hmmmm. I found it pompous, smugly self-absorbed and irritating as I often disagreed with some of his thoughts and wondered at his choices of "everyday words". Part of the problem of my feelings about this book, like feelings about sounds of words, is the unpredictability of circumstances. For Whyte's book, I felt under pressure to return it to the library and a sense of "must finish" before the kids come to visit for Christmas. Not a favorable circumstance for enjoying a book.

What would you choose for A? Alone, Ambition and Anger are his. For him, Alone is associated with abandonment, alienation and silence is not viewed as a friend. Ambition is frozen desire. Anger is treated as a form of compassion.
You can bask in the B's with Beauty, Beginning, Besieged (not such an everyday word in my view!); Cavort with Courage and Confession. Why after "Denial, Despair, Destiny, Disappointment" is there no E? Maybe a little Energy might help an Empty feeling and Ease in a Eureka.

His choices feel arbitrary, because this is not a book that follows a theme aside from "underlying meaning." I didn't sense much solace, nourishment. His section of H includes Haunted, Heartbreak, Help, Hiding, Honesty but does not include Happiness, although the solitary entry for J is Joy. Two cities appear: Istanbul and Rome and those associations are interesting, but feel out of place. No O. No sense of Openings. No Q. No Query or Questioning.

Run Away addresses our reluctance to be present and he sprinkles in the wisdom about when there might indeed be need to do so.
The only T: touch. I wish he had graced us with his philosophy about Truth and Trying. Reducing touch as a blessing and violation didn't touch any tenderness.
U avoided universal, but looked instead at Love: both the impossible Unconditional, and the more frequent Unrequited. Unlikely reconciliations between what we want and what is wanted of us.

Want is not included in the W section, where the book ends with considerations on Withdrawal (unsticking ourselves from a mythical tar baby) and Work (as intimacy inside made visible on the outside.) No X, no Y, no Z.





]]> <![CDATA[Steeling America: A Poetic Memoir of Lachawanna's Bethlehem Steel Plant]]> 33310548 68 George Grace 1304846741 Kitty 4
"With captivating straightforwardness, George Grace takes us deep into the danger, corruption and black clouds of smoldering coke at Bethlehem Steel Plant. These poems are prayers for the factory workers like Grumpy Al and Piece Rate Bobby, who risked their lives to put food on the table. And because of how well Grace brings these workers to life, we feel their heartache, laugh at their pranks, and hold all humans, especially the ones who track in dirt with their boots, a little closer."
-- Sara Ries

This is a spell-binding book that makes the raw world of the steel mill come alive as it paints the portraits of the men who work there and a sense of real comraderie. A story that struck me to the core was that of Big Daddy, who explains about Ol' Barracuda, his wife, and you totally forgive him for those 20 years with Sugar. You'll shiver reading "requiem for Sugar", given that Big Daddy, still married to Barracuda, couldn't go to her wake, but his pal goes in his place. We were introduced to her 20 pages before, understand "she just wanted his loving, no strings. In return, she loved him back, no strings." Simple, direct, and as Big Daddy puts it: "A man needs to have a woman he can talk to. And she doesn't let me give her anything in return, anything but love."

The pages are filled with artwork by George. A rare and real introduction to a world I would never have known otherwise. ]]> 3.50 2014 Steeling America: A Poetic Memoir of Lachawanna's Bethlehem Steel Plant
author: George Grace
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/10
date added: 2023/12/14
shelves:
review:
"In these words, you're going to smell sulfur, burning coke, iron ore, maybe a splash of urine. The dust, smoke and blinding ladle light will assault your eyes..." -- John Nash, Prof. Emeritus of English, Erie Community College

"With captivating straightforwardness, George Grace takes us deep into the danger, corruption and black clouds of smoldering coke at Bethlehem Steel Plant. These poems are prayers for the factory workers like Grumpy Al and Piece Rate Bobby, who risked their lives to put food on the table. And because of how well Grace brings these workers to life, we feel their heartache, laugh at their pranks, and hold all humans, especially the ones who track in dirt with their boots, a little closer."
-- Sara Ries

This is a spell-binding book that makes the raw world of the steel mill come alive as it paints the portraits of the men who work there and a sense of real comraderie. A story that struck me to the core was that of Big Daddy, who explains about Ol' Barracuda, his wife, and you totally forgive him for those 20 years with Sugar. You'll shiver reading "requiem for Sugar", given that Big Daddy, still married to Barracuda, couldn't go to her wake, but his pal goes in his place. We were introduced to her 20 pages before, understand "she just wanted his loving, no strings. In return, she loved him back, no strings." Simple, direct, and as Big Daddy puts it: "A man needs to have a woman he can talk to. And she doesn't let me give her anything in return, anything but love."

The pages are filled with artwork by George. A rare and real introduction to a world I would never have known otherwise.
]]> The Great Passage 34945597 A charmingly warm and hopeful story of love, friendship, and the power of human connection, award-winning Japanese author Shion Miura’s novel is a reminder that a life dedicated to passion is a life well lived.

Inspired as a boy by the multiple meanings to be found for a single word in the dictionary, Kohei Araki is devoted to the notion that a dictionary is a boat to carry us across the sea of words. But after thirty-seven years creating them at Gembu Books, it’s time for him to retire and find his replacement.

He discovers a kindred spirit in Mitsuya Majime—a young, disheveled square peg with a penchant for collecting antiquarian books and a background in linguistics—whom he swipes from his company’s sales department.

Led by his new mentor and joined by an energetic, if reluctant, new recruit and an elder linguistics scholar, Majime is tasked with a career-defining completing The Great Passage, a comprehensive 2,900-page tome of the Japanese language. On his journey, Majime discovers friendship, romance, and an incredible dedication to his work, inspired by the bond that connects us words.

]]> 224 Shion Miura 1477825002 Kitty 4 3.85 2011 The Great Passage
author: Shion Miura
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/12/13
shelves:
review:

]]> Eldorado 2110214 237 Laurent Gaudé 2742769323 Kitty 4 3.84 2006 Eldorado
author: Laurent Gaudé
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2023/11/30
date added: 2023/12/13
shelves:
review:
A hard book to read. Given to me in French on my birthday in September, but I put it down after the first chapter as I was not ready for the emotional challenge. When I picked it up again, I could not put it down until finished. The story of the two brothers, tragic as it was, added a new dimension to the start of the novel with the woman haunted by her son's death who seems to trigger the internal conflict of Captain Piracci. When a novel presents reality presenting portraits of characters that seem so real, it allows the reader to imagine the feelings, examine our own illusions that persist in our own lives, how the role of luck rolls hope in or out. And if you were the Captain, what would you do? I enjoyed how he is slowly revealed to us, allowing us to experience his dilemmas.
]]> <![CDATA[What Can a Body Do?: How We Meet the Built World]]> 49349641
Winner of the 2021 Science in Society Journalism Book Prize

A fascinating and provocative new way of looking at the things we use and the spaces we inhabit, and a call to imagine a better-designed world for us all.

Furniture and tools, kitchens and campuses and city streets—nearly everything human beings make and use is assistive technology, meant to bridge the gap between body and world. Yet unless, or until, a misfit between our own body and the world is acute enough to be understood as disability, we may never stop to consider—or reconsider—the hidden assumptions on which our everyday environment is built.

In a series of vivid stories drawn from the lived experience of disability and the ideas and innovations that have emerged from it—from cyborg arms to customizable cardboard chairs to deaf architecture—Sara Hendren invites us to rethink the things and settings we live with. What might assistance based on the body’s stunning capacity for adaptation—rather than a rigid insistence on “normalcy”—look like? Can we foster interdependent, not just independent, living? How do we creativelyĚýengineer public spaces that allow us all to navigate our common terrain? By rendering familiar objects and environments newly strange and wondrous, What Can a Body Do? helps us imagine a future that will better meet the extraordinary range of our collective needs and desires.]]> 240 Sara Hendren 073522000X Kitty 4 Introduction: Who is the Built World For: quote: "But one day the "why" arises, and everything begins in that weariness tinged with amazement." -- Camus

Limb: (Finding the body's infinite adaptablity and replacing the things that matter.):
Quote: "Neither the naked hand nor the understanding left to itself can effect much. It is by instruments and helps that the work is done, which are as much wanted for the understanding as for the hand." Francis Bacon, Novum Organum

Chair: from "do-it-yourself murder" to cardboard furniture: Is a better world designed one-for-all, or all-for one? (No quote)

Room: DeafSpace, a hospital dorm and design that anticipates life's hardest choices. Rethinking "independent living." Quote: "A house that has been experienced is not an inert box... All really inhabited space bears the essence of the notion of home." Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space

Street: Geography and desire lines: atypical minds and bodies navigate the landscape. Making speace truly common. Quote: "The right to the city is like a cry and a demand."

Clock: Life on crip time. When the clock is the keeper of our days, what pace of life is fast enough?
(No Quote. Time references for describing disability: frequency, incidence, speed, how long should it take to... Disabled only a matter of time? The shorthand used in the disability culture to describe a range of uneasy relationships to the pace of contemporary industrialized life: "crip time". It can also be travel time as in skipping from being someone with "health problems" to being a problem, apparently unsolvable.

Epilogue: Making assistance visible. Quote: "At their best, public things gather people together, materially and symbolically, and in relation to them diverse peoples may come to see and experience themselves-- even if just momentarily- as a common in relation to a commons, a "collected" if not a collective. " Bonnie Honig, Public Things: democracy in disrepair.

At the end, the acknowledgements are followed by notes on each chapter. Utility... significance... framing disability vs. "normal", and the idea of "right" (and history of eugenics). What does disability do (vs. what it "is"). I love p. 39: "questions for enthusiasts of the posthuman". See the book "Artificial Parts, Practical Lives: Modern Histories of Prosthetics". Also Atul Gawande, "Being Mortal" : If independence is what we live for, what do we do when it can no longer be sustained? See also "Metaphors we live by" (1980) by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. ]]> 4.35 2020 What Can a Body Do?: How We Meet the Built World
author: Sara Hendren
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2023/11/15
date added: 2023/11/15
shelves:
review:
This really gets you thinking about how we "label" others. I love the personal anecdotes and live stories and each chapter has a special quote.
Introduction: Who is the Built World For: quote: "But one day the "why" arises, and everything begins in that weariness tinged with amazement." -- Camus

Limb: (Finding the body's infinite adaptablity and replacing the things that matter.):
Quote: "Neither the naked hand nor the understanding left to itself can effect much. It is by instruments and helps that the work is done, which are as much wanted for the understanding as for the hand." Francis Bacon, Novum Organum

Chair: from "do-it-yourself murder" to cardboard furniture: Is a better world designed one-for-all, or all-for one? (No quote)

Room: DeafSpace, a hospital dorm and design that anticipates life's hardest choices. Rethinking "independent living." Quote: "A house that has been experienced is not an inert box... All really inhabited space bears the essence of the notion of home." Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space

Street: Geography and desire lines: atypical minds and bodies navigate the landscape. Making speace truly common. Quote: "The right to the city is like a cry and a demand."

Clock: Life on crip time. When the clock is the keeper of our days, what pace of life is fast enough?
(No Quote. Time references for describing disability: frequency, incidence, speed, how long should it take to... Disabled only a matter of time? The shorthand used in the disability culture to describe a range of uneasy relationships to the pace of contemporary industrialized life: "crip time". It can also be travel time as in skipping from being someone with "health problems" to being a problem, apparently unsolvable.

Epilogue: Making assistance visible. Quote: "At their best, public things gather people together, materially and symbolically, and in relation to them diverse peoples may come to see and experience themselves-- even if just momentarily- as a common in relation to a commons, a "collected" if not a collective. " Bonnie Honig, Public Things: democracy in disrepair.

At the end, the acknowledgements are followed by notes on each chapter. Utility... significance... framing disability vs. "normal", and the idea of "right" (and history of eugenics). What does disability do (vs. what it "is"). I love p. 39: "questions for enthusiasts of the posthuman". See the book "Artificial Parts, Practical Lives: Modern Histories of Prosthetics". Also Atul Gawande, "Being Mortal" : If independence is what we live for, what do we do when it can no longer be sustained? See also "Metaphors we live by" (1980) by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson.
]]> Think of England 368574
Two cataclysmic events occur on February 9, 1964. The Beatles appear on The Ed Sullivan Show and later that night, nine-year-old Jane MacLeod's life changes forever. It has been said that children are good observers but poor interpreters and Jane's interpretation of the events of that evening shapes her life in ways she doesn't recognize.

Think of England follows Jane from an intense love affair in the ex-pat scene in punk-era London to working motherhood in New York to a family reunion in the country—and a reckoning with the ghost that has stood between her and her dreams of a happy family.]]> 272 Alice Elliott Dark 0743234979 Kitty 3 3.45 2002 Think of England
author: Alice Elliott Dark
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2002
rating: 3
read at: 2023/11/02
date added: 2023/11/05
shelves:
review:
Interesting slant of story telling. The themes developed are valuable however... At first, a real page turner, and then... whatever happened in the first tragedy is dropped. A second subplot and third are developed and the same "dropped" technique which made resolution at the end feel facile and out of place.
]]> <![CDATA[Le Ton beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language]]> 248193
Le ton beau de Marot� literally means ”The sweet tone of Marot�, but to a French ear it suggests ”Le tombeau de Marot”—that is, ”The tomb of Marot�. That double entendre foreshadows the linguistic exuberance of this book, which was sparked a decade ago when Hofstadter, under the spell of an exquisite French miniature by Marot, got hooked on the challenge of recreating both its sweet message and its tight rhymes in English—jumping through two tough hoops at once. In the next few years, he not only did many of his own translations of Marot's poem, but also enlisted friends, students, colleagues, family, noted poets, and translators—even three state-of-the-art translation programs!—to try their hand at this subtle challenge.

The rich harvest is represented here by 88 wildly diverse variations on Marot's little theme. Yet this barely scratches the surface of Le Ton beau de Marot, for small groups of these poems alternate with chapters that run all over the map of language and thought.

Not merely a set of translations of one poem, Le Ton beau de Marot is an autobiographical essay, a love letter to the French language, a series of musings on life, loss, and death, a sweet bouquet of stirring poetry—but most of all, it celebrates the limitless creativity fired by a passion for the music of words.

Dozens of literary themes and creations are woven into the picture, including Pushkin's Eugene Onegin , Dante's Inferno, Salinger's Catcher in the Rye , Villon's Ballades, ±·˛ą˛ú´Ç°ě´Ç±ąâ€™s essays, Georges Perec's La Disparition, Vikram Seth's The Golden Gate, Horace's odes, and more.

Rife with stunning form-content interplay, crammed with creative linguistic experiments yet always crystal-clear, this book is meant not only for lovers of literature, but also for people who wish to be brought into contact with current ideas about how creativity works, and who wish to see how today’s computational models of language and thought stack up next to the human mind.

Le Ton beau de Marot is a sparkling, personal, and poetic exploration aimed at both the literary and the scientific world, and is sure to provoke great excitement and heated controversy among poets and translators, critics and writers, and those involved in the study of creativity and its elusive wellsprings.]]> 632 Douglas R. Hofstadter 0465086454 Kitty 0 4.25 1995 Le Ton beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language
author: Douglas R. Hofstadter
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at: 1998/01/01
date added: 2023/08/06
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Yes and No Stories: A Book of Georgian Folk Tales]]> 5217110 227 George Papashvily Kitty 4 4.50 1946 Yes and No Stories: A Book of Georgian Folk Tales
author: George Papashvily
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.50
book published: 1946
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/07/22
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The City We Became (Great Cities, #1)]]> 42074525
Every city has a soul. Some are as ancient as myths, and others are as new and destructive as children. New York City? She's got five.

But every city also has a dark side. A roiling, ancient evil stirs beneath the earth, threatening to destroy the city and her five protectors unless they can come together and stop it once and for all.]]> 437 N.K. Jemisin Kitty 2
It dragged for me, because I couldn't follow any plot. At p. 173, I skipped to the last 30 pages. Sure, "belonging" quintessential to Staten Island, "toughness" (Bronx), "starting over" (Queens) "weathering change" (Brooklyn) -- but how does this help anyone understand a multiverse of spindly creatures and a quiet growth of more towers and oddities? What does a reader take away? I find no message to hang on to. How do you live the city you are? How have you become that city and what does that mean about you? ]]> 3.83 2020 The City We Became (Great Cities, #1)
author: N.K. Jemisin
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2020
rating: 2
read at: 2023/07/16
date added: 2023/07/17
shelves:
review:
intriguing idea and certainly captures the flavor of New York, but not my cup of tea. Blurbs say it manages to contain both Borges and Lovecraft in its fabric and Jemisin receives rave reviews, but I am just not a speculative fiction appreciator. At first, having lived in New York City, and seeing the Thomas Wolfe epigram about "belonging to New York instantly" I thought the idea of "becoming" Manhattan, or the Bronx, Brooklyn, Staten Island, Queens, would be a way to introduce an idea about how to save each borough in this age of climate change and necessity to help a city meet the needs of all who live in it. I wonder what a historian would make of it 100 years from now?

It dragged for me, because I couldn't follow any plot. At p. 173, I skipped to the last 30 pages. Sure, "belonging" quintessential to Staten Island, "toughness" (Bronx), "starting over" (Queens) "weathering change" (Brooklyn) -- but how does this help anyone understand a multiverse of spindly creatures and a quiet growth of more towers and oddities? What does a reader take away? I find no message to hang on to. How do you live the city you are? How have you become that city and what does that mean about you?
]]> The Years 145625252 Considered by many to be the iconic French memoirist’s defining work and a breakout bestseller when published in France in 2008.

The Years is a personal narrative of the period 1941 to 2006 told through the lens of memory, impressions past and present—even projections into the future—photos, books, songs, radio, television and decades of advertising, headlines, contrasted with intimate conflicts and writing notes from 6 decades of diaries.

Local dialect, words of the times, slogans, brands and names for the ever-proliferating objects, are given voice here. The voice we recognize as the author’s continually dissolves and re-emerges. Ernaux makes the passage of time palpable. Time itself, inexorable, narrates its own course, consigning all other narrators to anonymity. A new kind of autobiography emerges, at once subjective and impersonal, private and collective.

On its 2008 publication in France, The Years came as a surprise. Though Ernaux had for years been hailed as a beloved, bestselling and award-winning author, The Years was in many ways a departure: both an intimate memoir “written� by entire generations, and a story of generations telling a very personal story. Like the generation before hers, the narrator eschews the “I� for the “we� (or “they�, or “one�) as if collective life were inextricably intertwined with a private life that in her parents� generation ceased to exist. She writes of her parents� generation (and could be writing of her own book): “From a common fund of hunger and fear, everything was told in the “we� and impersonal pronouns.”]]> 240 Annie Ernaux 1609807871 Kitty 3 The reviews praise the depersonalization of style, but I wish there had been something about the author that allowed me to feel I was reading her memoir. That she refers to herself in the 3rd person heightens the sense that whatever is said doesn't matter, to her, or to any reader. The Chekhov quote at the beginning reminds us indeed, we are worthy of forgetting. Perhaps the José Ortega y Gasset quote lends to deeper probing. "All we have is our history, and it does not not belong to us."

more to be said. ]]> 4.22 2008 The Years
author: Annie Ernaux
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at: 2023/06/07
date added: 2023/07/07
shelves:
review:
Difficult and depressing. I wish I had read it in French. If you think anything happy could possibly exist between 1941 and 2006, you will not find it in this book. It feels that the bleak announcements we hear in 2023 about climate change, about the various wars, unrest, murders, politics are just echoes of the droning in these pages.
The reviews praise the depersonalization of style, but I wish there had been something about the author that allowed me to feel I was reading her memoir. That she refers to herself in the 3rd person heightens the sense that whatever is said doesn't matter, to her, or to any reader. The Chekhov quote at the beginning reminds us indeed, we are worthy of forgetting. Perhaps the José Ortega y Gasset quote lends to deeper probing. "All we have is our history, and it does not not belong to us."

more to be said.
]]> <![CDATA[Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden]]> 62919890 A seminal work that expands how we talk about the natural world and the environment as National Book Critics Circle Criticism finalist Camille T. Dungy diversifies her garden to reflect her heritage

In Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden, poet and scholar Camille T. Dungy recounts the seven-year odyssey to diversify her garden in the predominately white community of Fort Collins, Colorado. When she moved there in 2013 with her husband and daughter, the community held strict restrictions about what residents could and could not plant.

In resistance to the homogeneous policies that limited the possibility and wonder that grows from the earth, Dungy employs the various plants, herbs, vegetables, and flowers she grows in her garden as metaphor and treatise for how homogeneity threatens the future of the planet, and why cultivating diverse and intersectional language in our national discourse about the environment is the best means of protecting it.

Definitive and singular, Soil functions at the nexus of nature writing, environmental justice, and prose to encourage readers to recognize the relationship between the peoples of the African diaspora and the land on which they live, and to understand that wherever soil rests beneath their feet is home.]]> 321 Camille T. Dungy 1982195304 Kitty 4 This is an unusual book which is indeed a story of a Black woman and her garden in Colorado, her 10 year old daughter, but also, each chapter starts with lovely pictures of plants, some chapters including a poem and one has the impression of turning the page of a special scrap book, both collage of what went into creating a garden, a compendium of meanings of words and their etymologies, anecdotes which span 200 years of the history of being black in America, and the beautiful sharing of an amazing mother as she includes aspects of her daughter's growing up.

In the back are 16 questions. You can guess the depth of the book from reading the list:
1. How does the book (Soil) connect the act of diversifying nonhuman spaces with that of human spaces? Why is this important?
2. What does the author say about nature writing? ( its incorporation of the quotidien; role of the "commonplace")
3. Comment on the weaving of personal and political; material and spiritual.
4. The title indicates the key concepts: What stories do we tell ourselves -- about gardening, soil, Black American experience, mothering?
5. What did you learn about John Muir, The American West that you didn't know before? Has it changed your view?
6. How does the book "unearth" important American history?
7. How can we all be better stewards of the Earth (understanding no one is "perfect" when it comes to environmentally conscious living.)
8. What inspirations will help you begin and/or revise your approach to gardening?
9. Are you aware of 1579 "Great Chain of Being"? Dungy provides valuable commentary on its worldview (alongside sources such as "The End of Nature" by Bill McKibbens)
10. How is the book an intersectional ecofeminist text?
11. Why is it important to name things in our natural world? Do you agree with Dungy's rationale? If you have a limited knowledge of the native trees, plants, birds, insects, animals in your region, are you inspired to find out more?
12. what cultivation practices of past African Americans and Native Americans influence Dungy?
13. Metaphors and comparisons between humans and plants/animals.
14. How does the book show interconnection between environmental and social justice?
15. How does she define/redefine these words: Nature, environment, wilderness, wild, weed? Has your thinking changed about these terms after reading?

I appreciated learning more about being black in this country. I enjoyed her personal stories as well as the social, collective narratives. I especially value this foray into what makes a healthy relationship � not just to the earth, but to family, community. She provides us ample food for thought! ]]> 4.16 2023 Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden
author: Camille T. Dungy
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/06
date added: 2023/07/06
shelves:
review:
Inspiring book in so many ways. I love Camille Dungy's poetic eye and thoughtful words which combine the metaphor of gardening as a delving, planting, nurturing activity with the metaphor of soil, a word that is paradoxical in meaning as noun and verb. As fellow poet, mother, teacher, lover of nature, I feel close to her, as if I have just met a very special friend I am eager to get to know more deeply.
This is an unusual book which is indeed a story of a Black woman and her garden in Colorado, her 10 year old daughter, but also, each chapter starts with lovely pictures of plants, some chapters including a poem and one has the impression of turning the page of a special scrap book, both collage of what went into creating a garden, a compendium of meanings of words and their etymologies, anecdotes which span 200 years of the history of being black in America, and the beautiful sharing of an amazing mother as she includes aspects of her daughter's growing up.

In the back are 16 questions. You can guess the depth of the book from reading the list:
1. How does the book (Soil) connect the act of diversifying nonhuman spaces with that of human spaces? Why is this important?
2. What does the author say about nature writing? ( its incorporation of the quotidien; role of the "commonplace")
3. Comment on the weaving of personal and political; material and spiritual.
4. The title indicates the key concepts: What stories do we tell ourselves -- about gardening, soil, Black American experience, mothering?
5. What did you learn about John Muir, The American West that you didn't know before? Has it changed your view?
6. How does the book "unearth" important American history?
7. How can we all be better stewards of the Earth (understanding no one is "perfect" when it comes to environmentally conscious living.)
8. What inspirations will help you begin and/or revise your approach to gardening?
9. Are you aware of 1579 "Great Chain of Being"? Dungy provides valuable commentary on its worldview (alongside sources such as "The End of Nature" by Bill McKibbens)
10. How is the book an intersectional ecofeminist text?
11. Why is it important to name things in our natural world? Do you agree with Dungy's rationale? If you have a limited knowledge of the native trees, plants, birds, insects, animals in your region, are you inspired to find out more?
12. what cultivation practices of past African Americans and Native Americans influence Dungy?
13. Metaphors and comparisons between humans and plants/animals.
14. How does the book show interconnection between environmental and social justice?
15. How does she define/redefine these words: Nature, environment, wilderness, wild, weed? Has your thinking changed about these terms after reading?

I appreciated learning more about being black in this country. I enjoyed her personal stories as well as the social, collective narratives. I especially value this foray into what makes a healthy relationship � not just to the earth, but to family, community. She provides us ample food for thought!
]]> <![CDATA[(THE CAVE) BY Saramago, Jose ( AUTHOR )paperback{The Cave} on 15 Oct, 2003]]> 147719471 The Cave, a novel of ideas, shaded with suspense. Spare and pensive, The Cave follows the fortunes of an aging potter, Cipriano Algor, beginning with his weekly delivery of plates to the Center, a high-walled, windowless shopping complex, residential community, and nerve center that dominates the region. What sells at the Center will sell everywhere else, and what the Center rejects can barely be given away in the surrounding towns and villages. The news for Cipriano that morning isn't good. Half of his regular pottery shipment is rejected, and he is told that the consumers now prefer plastic tableware. Over the next week, he and his grown daughter Marta grieve for their lost craft, but they gradually open their eyes to the strange bounty of their new condition: a stray dog adopts them, and a lovely widow enters Cipriano's life. When they are invited to live at the Center, it seems ungracious to refuse, but there are strange developments under the complex and a troubling increase in security, and Cipriano changes all their fates by deciding to investigate. In Saramago's able hands, what might have become a dry social allegory is a delicately elaborated story of individualism and unexpected love. --Regina Marler ]]> 0 José Saramago Kitty 4
It took me the last page of chapter I before I could see what a masterpiece this is. Already, the strangeness of the "Center" and its power are rumbling into gear and in Chapt. 2, the odd circumstances and the description of the "commonplace words... thank you" alert me that there will be attention to language as part of the story.
Who can resist a nugget of wisdom such as "we would know far more about life's complexities if we applied ourselves to the close study of its contradictions..." or think about life itself if it is "full of words not worth saying... or worth saying once but not any more... Each word we utter will take up the space of another more deserving word..."

I started noting page numbers of phrases, the mockery of stock phrases, the view of an old encyclopedia... the strange selection of figurines, (later referred to metaphorically as insistent question marks: the jester, the clown, nurse; definable by what they do; mandarin, bearded Assyrian. hard to know what they do; the eskimo: one assumes he will continue to hunt and fish. )

Their creation is a childlike hope in the thaumaturgic (the working of magic or performance of miracles) replacing the rejected pottery. But they, like the characters in the story, also become weary. Not all are successes.

I loved the unusual personifications of words like "caress", and felt the weave of the relationship of the characters needed my compassionate attention! Or the word "solitude" which enters into a situation, "where someone doesn't yet know what it is. It cannot yet register the weight of its meaning."

If you do not know Plato's Republic, Chpt. VII and the allegory of the cave, the title and epigram to the book will send you at least to wikipedia to read it. "What a strange scene you describe and what strange prisoners. They are just like us."

Although the book was written in 2000, it captures the unwitting acceptance of modern capitalist life, and its consequences of the power it exerts over our thinking, feeling, and choices.

By the last third of the book, one starts to examine what it means to shrug one's shoulders in resignation. "I'll get used to it" is not acceptance... "but there is no other way, to express in a dignified way our sense of resignation. What no one asks is at what cost do we get used to things."

The book is a wake-up call as our world is changing to more and more virtual modes, and we rely less on our 6 senses.
/book/show/2...]]> 4.00 2000 (THE CAVE) BY Saramago, Jose ( AUTHOR )paperback{The Cave} on 15 Oct, 2003
author: José Saramago
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at: 2023/06/20
date added: 2023/06/26
shelves:
review:
I wish I knew Portuguese, and have to trust that the translation by Margaret Jull Costa captures Saramago's intent.

It took me the last page of chapter I before I could see what a masterpiece this is. Already, the strangeness of the "Center" and its power are rumbling into gear and in Chapt. 2, the odd circumstances and the description of the "commonplace words... thank you" alert me that there will be attention to language as part of the story.
Who can resist a nugget of wisdom such as "we would know far more about life's complexities if we applied ourselves to the close study of its contradictions..." or think about life itself if it is "full of words not worth saying... or worth saying once but not any more... Each word we utter will take up the space of another more deserving word..."

I started noting page numbers of phrases, the mockery of stock phrases, the view of an old encyclopedia... the strange selection of figurines, (later referred to metaphorically as insistent question marks: the jester, the clown, nurse; definable by what they do; mandarin, bearded Assyrian. hard to know what they do; the eskimo: one assumes he will continue to hunt and fish. )

Their creation is a childlike hope in the thaumaturgic (the working of magic or performance of miracles) replacing the rejected pottery. But they, like the characters in the story, also become weary. Not all are successes.

I loved the unusual personifications of words like "caress", and felt the weave of the relationship of the characters needed my compassionate attention! Or the word "solitude" which enters into a situation, "where someone doesn't yet know what it is. It cannot yet register the weight of its meaning."

If you do not know Plato's Republic, Chpt. VII and the allegory of the cave, the title and epigram to the book will send you at least to wikipedia to read it. "What a strange scene you describe and what strange prisoners. They are just like us."

Although the book was written in 2000, it captures the unwitting acceptance of modern capitalist life, and its consequences of the power it exerts over our thinking, feeling, and choices.

By the last third of the book, one starts to examine what it means to shrug one's shoulders in resignation. "I'll get used to it" is not acceptance... "but there is no other way, to express in a dignified way our sense of resignation. What no one asks is at what cost do we get used to things."

The book is a wake-up call as our world is changing to more and more virtual modes, and we rely less on our 6 senses.
/book/show/2...
]]> <![CDATA[Endangered Minds: Why Children Don’t Think and What We Can Do About It]]> 733206 In this landmark, bestselling assessment tracing the roots of America's escalating crisis in education, Jane M. Healy, Ph.D., examines how television, video games, and other components of popular culture compromise our children's ability to concentrate and to absorb and analyze information. Drawing on neuropsychological research and an analysis of current educational practices, Healy presents in clear, understandable language:
-- How growing brains are physically shaped by experience
-- Why television programs -- even supposedly educational shows like Sesame Street -- develop "habits of mind" that place children at a disadvantage in school
-- Why increasing numbers of children are diagnosed with attention deficit disorder
-- How parents and teachers can make a critical difference by making children good learners from the day they are born]]> 384 Jane M. Healy 0684856204 Kitty 0 4.01 1990 Endangered Minds: Why Children Don’t Think and What We Can Do About It
author: Jane M. Healy
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1990
rating: 0
read at: 1994/01/01
date added: 2023/06/17
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions]]> 53982
Armstrong traces the development of the Axial Age chronologically, examining the contributions of such figures as the Buddha, Socrates, Confucius, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the mystics of the Upanishads, Mencius, and Euripides. All of the Axial Age faiths began in principled and visceral recoil from the unprecedented violence of their time. Despite some differences of emphasis, there was a remarkable consensus in their call for an abandonment of selfishness and a spirituality of compassion. With regard to dealing with fear, despair, hatred, rage, and violence, the Axial sages gave their people and give us, Armstrong says, two important pieces of advice: first there must be personal responsibility and self-criticism, and it must be followed by practical, effective action.

In her introduction and concluding chapter, Armstrong urges us to consider how these spiritualities challenge the way we are religious today. In our various institutions, we sometimes seem to be attempting to create exactly the kind of religion that Axial sages and prophets had hoped to eliminate. We often equate faith with doctrinal conformity, but the traditions of the Axial Age were not about dogma. All insisted on the primacy of compassion even in the midst of suffering. In each Axial Age case, a disciplined revulsion from violence and hatred proved to be the major catalyst of spiritual change.]]> 592 Karen Armstrong 0385721242 Kitty 5 1. The Axial Peoples (1600-900 BCE)
2. Ritual (900-800 BCE)
3. Kenosis (800-700 BCE)
4. Knowledge (700-600 BCE)
5. Suffering (600-530 BCE)
6. Empathy (530-450 BCE)
7. Concern for Everyone (450-398 BCE)
8. All is One (400-300 BCE)
9. Empire (300-220 BCE)
10.The Way Forward

A timely book (now 17 years since its appearance in 2006) to address today's intolerance, militant piety, violence and warfare. The great thinkers from 2,500 years ago all propose that we must examine ourselves before criticizing others, behave with benevolence and compassion.
Along with "A History of God" this is an important book for everyone, no matter what religion, no matter if agnostic or atheist. We all seek meaning, explanation of beginnings and what happens after death. This exposure to various phases and forms of responses over time is key to a more thorough and deeper understanding.]]> 4.04 2006 The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions
author: Karen Armstrong
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 2023/06/09
date added: 2023/06/09
shelves:
review:
Wonderful overview of the history and rise of religious traditions in 4 regions in the world from the world. Thoroughly researched and quite readable for such an ambitious scope of topic! Chapters:
1. The Axial Peoples (1600-900 BCE)
2. Ritual (900-800 BCE)
3. Kenosis (800-700 BCE)
4. Knowledge (700-600 BCE)
5. Suffering (600-530 BCE)
6. Empathy (530-450 BCE)
7. Concern for Everyone (450-398 BCE)
8. All is One (400-300 BCE)
9. Empire (300-220 BCE)
10.The Way Forward

A timely book (now 17 years since its appearance in 2006) to address today's intolerance, militant piety, violence and warfare. The great thinkers from 2,500 years ago all propose that we must examine ourselves before criticizing others, behave with benevolence and compassion.
Along with "A History of God" this is an important book for everyone, no matter what religion, no matter if agnostic or atheist. We all seek meaning, explanation of beginnings and what happens after death. This exposure to various phases and forms of responses over time is key to a more thorough and deeper understanding.
]]> Cadences 40961150 Poet's Statement

In music, cadences indicate whether the piece is to be continued or concluded. This book is both closure and continuation of cadences in the broad sense of the word. In the last days of my final residency of the MFA program at Pacific University, Ellen Bass shared the analogy of writing a poem as an offering of a pebble, humbly rolled towards the sacred altar of poetry. Although the poems selected for this first book may well clatter down the hill before they arrive half-way there, the act of writing and sharing them has given me a vision of the sacred space poetry embraces. The poems have traveled through seasons, dance steps, experiences and now breathe an Amen - So may it be - and now rest in this book.]]> 64 Kitty Jospé Kitty 5 5.00 2010 Cadences
author: Kitty Jospé
name: Kitty
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/04/20
shelves:
review:

]]> The Stationery Shop 42201995 A poignant, heartfelt new novel by the award-nominated author of Together Tea—extolled by the Wall Street Journal as a “moving tale of lost love� and by Shelf Awareness as “a powerful, heartbreaking story”—explores loss, reconciliation, and the quirks of fate.

Roya, a dreamy, idealistic teenager living amid the political upheaval of 1953 Tehran, finds a literary oasis in kindly Mr. Fakhri’s neighborhood stationery shop, stocked with books and pens and bottles of jewel-colored ink.

Then Mr. Fakhri, with a keen instinct for a budding romance, introduces Roya to his other favorite customer—handsome Bahman, who has a burning passion for justice and a love for Rumi’s poetry—and she loses her heart at once. Their romance blossoms, and the little stationery shop remains their favorite place in all of Tehran.

A few short months later, on the eve of their marriage, Roya agrees to meet Bahman at the town square when violence erupts—a result of the coup d’etat that forever changes their country’s future. In the chaos, Bahman never shows. For weeks, Roya tries desperately to contact him, but her efforts are fruitless. With a sorrowful heart, she moves on—to college in California, to another man, to a life in New England—until, more than sixty years later, an accident of fate leads her back to Bahman and offers her a chance to ask him the questions that have haunted her for more than half a century: Why did you leave? Where did you go? How is it that you were able to forget me?]]> 312 Marjan Kamali 1982107480 Kitty 5
The reviews of this book published in 2019 attest to the skill Marjan Kamali brings to this moving tale/powerful and heartbreaking story of star-crossed lovers in the backdrop of
a layered historical saga of Persian culture up to the 1950's in Iran.

"A tender, beautifully crafted... exemplary novel about families and how our secrets build walls
and can make us ill. It's a passionate book about enduring love, interference of fate, forcing
paths we would never have envisioned." -- The Missourian.

I was in tears, as I finished the last pages of the book, as if my story of the loss
of my mother to a crippling madness I didn't understand at 15,
were a parallel story of Roya at age 77, suddenly understanding what had happened
60 years ago that caused so much pain. I will not say more (spoiler alert). However,
the clue is in the title, this place which could be a metaphor for all that enables
writing, not just beautiful fountain pens and inks, old-fashioned pencil sharpeners
and fancy pencil cases, and all that writing allows: the creation of books by poets
such as Rumi, so important, they are beautifully bound, and great literature. And with a
little imagination, of course these books in perfect for the hiding of secret letters.
between lovers.
Look at love Look at spirit
how it tangles how it fuses with earth
with the one fallen in love giving it new life.

In this magical tale, we enter Iran in the early 1950's, wrapped in the details of Persian culture,
names of foods and their descriptions which infuse the pages with delicate aromas and scents,
the famous Nowruz and custom of the Half-sin table (7 things which start with S that represent the new year, celebrated each Spring. A culture on the verge of allowing women to have the same education as men, but a divided culture, with long traditions of arranged marriages, class privileges.

Some have compared The Stationery Shop with the Notebook by Nicholas Sparks where one set of parents disapproves of and tries to sabotage the main characters' relationship.
The universals of parents repeat: does not every mother want to protect her son, on the one hand, protect him from grief, any emotional damage, and on the other ensure his well-being with the proper marriage (with "proper" defined by the socio-economic structure of the culture)? Does not a mother raising a child solo, want to whisper, "ah my baby, you are my pride and joy, and we will take on the world, won't we"? And yet, these universals change in the unwinding of the particulars of each story.

There are many devastating losses in The Stationery Shop. After you read it, it will be good to discuss their impact, and how great sorrow changes us. Overshadowing much of the story is the mental illness of Bahman's mother and how he and others must struggle with it.
Divided into five parts, there is deft foreshadowing of the end. The greatest surprise was chapter 14. (spoiler alert). I enjoyed the subtitles of the chapters. Chpt. 15 is "Fate on the Forehead", which like "the evil eye" and idea of destiny is quite different from America. In the later chapters, you will see a not very flattering portrayal of how Americans behave towards those from a different culture, see different dating customs.

To sum up: "A wistful look at two idealists and the world they should have inherited... Kamali offers a paean not just to lost love but the poetry, food and culture that fed their memories for sixty years."-- Christian Science Monitor.]]> 4.22 2019 The Stationery Shop
author: Marjan Kamali
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2023/02/27
date added: 2023/04/16
shelves:
review:
The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali

The reviews of this book published in 2019 attest to the skill Marjan Kamali brings to this moving tale/powerful and heartbreaking story of star-crossed lovers in the backdrop of
a layered historical saga of Persian culture up to the 1950's in Iran.

"A tender, beautifully crafted... exemplary novel about families and how our secrets build walls
and can make us ill. It's a passionate book about enduring love, interference of fate, forcing
paths we would never have envisioned." -- The Missourian.

I was in tears, as I finished the last pages of the book, as if my story of the loss
of my mother to a crippling madness I didn't understand at 15,
were a parallel story of Roya at age 77, suddenly understanding what had happened
60 years ago that caused so much pain. I will not say more (spoiler alert). However,
the clue is in the title, this place which could be a metaphor for all that enables
writing, not just beautiful fountain pens and inks, old-fashioned pencil sharpeners
and fancy pencil cases, and all that writing allows: the creation of books by poets
such as Rumi, so important, they are beautifully bound, and great literature. And with a
little imagination, of course these books in perfect for the hiding of secret letters.
between lovers.
Look at love Look at spirit
how it tangles how it fuses with earth
with the one fallen in love giving it new life.

In this magical tale, we enter Iran in the early 1950's, wrapped in the details of Persian culture,
names of foods and their descriptions which infuse the pages with delicate aromas and scents,
the famous Nowruz and custom of the Half-sin table (7 things which start with S that represent the new year, celebrated each Spring. A culture on the verge of allowing women to have the same education as men, but a divided culture, with long traditions of arranged marriages, class privileges.

Some have compared The Stationery Shop with the Notebook by Nicholas Sparks where one set of parents disapproves of and tries to sabotage the main characters' relationship.
The universals of parents repeat: does not every mother want to protect her son, on the one hand, protect him from grief, any emotional damage, and on the other ensure his well-being with the proper marriage (with "proper" defined by the socio-economic structure of the culture)? Does not a mother raising a child solo, want to whisper, "ah my baby, you are my pride and joy, and we will take on the world, won't we"? And yet, these universals change in the unwinding of the particulars of each story.

There are many devastating losses in The Stationery Shop. After you read it, it will be good to discuss their impact, and how great sorrow changes us. Overshadowing much of the story is the mental illness of Bahman's mother and how he and others must struggle with it.
Divided into five parts, there is deft foreshadowing of the end. The greatest surprise was chapter 14. (spoiler alert). I enjoyed the subtitles of the chapters. Chpt. 15 is "Fate on the Forehead", which like "the evil eye" and idea of destiny is quite different from America. In the later chapters, you will see a not very flattering portrayal of how Americans behave towards those from a different culture, see different dating customs.

To sum up: "A wistful look at two idealists and the world they should have inherited... Kamali offers a paean not just to lost love but the poetry, food and culture that fed their memories for sixty years."-- Christian Science Monitor.
]]> <![CDATA[The Housekeeper and the Professor]]> 3181564
She is an astute young Housekeeper, with a ten-year-old son, who is hired to care for him.

And every morning, as the Professor and the Housekeeper are introduced to each other anew, a strange and beautiful relationship blossoms between them. Though he cannot hold memories for long (his brain is like a tape that begins to erase itself every eighty minutes), the Professor’s mind is still alive with elegant equations from the past. And the numbers, in all of their articulate order, reveal a sheltering and poetic world to both the Housekeeper and her young son. The Professor is capable of discovering connections between the simplest of quantities--like the Housekeeper’s shoe size--and the universe at large, drawing their lives ever closer and more profoundly together, even as his memory slips away.

The Housekeeper and the Professor is an enchanting story about what it means to live in the present, and about the curious equations that can create a family.]]> 180 YĹŤko Ogawa 0312427808 Kitty 5 the professor's watch and the housekeeper's birthday -- as if a metaphor for the mechanical rhythm we attach to Math, and the less predicatable arrival of someone into the world or into one's life.
The advice for solving problems of the housekeeper's son's math homework, applies to all of life: “a problem is best solved by reading out loud, grouping and re-grouping the information until the rhythm becomes clear and you see where the traps might be.� The goal is to arrive “at an order which is beautiful precisely because it has no effect on the real world� as the “only goal is to discover truth�. (p. 115)

Deceptively simple and page-turningly delightful.]]> 4.04 2003 The Housekeeper and the Professor
author: YĹŤko Ogawa
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at: 2023/03/29
date added: 2023/03/29
shelves:
review:
Wonderful book! The opening chapter establishes through "amical numbers" the relationship between not only two unlikely people, but two unlikely objects,
the professor's watch and the housekeeper's birthday -- as if a metaphor for the mechanical rhythm we attach to Math, and the less predicatable arrival of someone into the world or into one's life.
The advice for solving problems of the housekeeper's son's math homework, applies to all of life: “a problem is best solved by reading out loud, grouping and re-grouping the information until the rhythm becomes clear and you see where the traps might be.� The goal is to arrive “at an order which is beautiful precisely because it has no effect on the real world� as the “only goal is to discover truth�. (p. 115)

Deceptively simple and page-turningly delightful.
]]> The Midnight Library 52578297
When Nora Seed finds herself in the Midnight Library, she has a chance to make things right. Up until now, her life has been full of misery and regret. She feels she has let everyone down, including herself. But things are about to change.

The books in the Midnight Library enable Nora to live as if she had done things differently. With the help of an old friend, she can now undo every one of her regrets as she tries to work out her perfect life. But things aren't always what she imagined they'd be, and soon her choices place the library and herself in extreme danger.

Before time runs out, she must answer the ultimate question: what is the best way to live?]]> 288 Matt Haig 0525559477 Kitty 4 in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones
and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life.� � Sylvia Plath

Every book, every poem provides a chance to try another life you might have lived�
allows you to see how things could be if you had made other choices� Although we cannot
“undo regrets� we can bolster ourselves with examples of resilient words that will help
our choices and attitudes.

The story telling is magnificent! From the set-up, 19 days before the suicide, up to 0, we have a surface sense of main character Nora, whose post-suicide choices allow her to face regrets, re-consider possible choices that could have happened in life that she didn't take. The reader joins her journey of inner discovery, eager to see how we responds to alternative choices.

The penultimate chapter (A Thing I have Learned[written by a nobody who has been everybody]) defines regret as "what makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people’s worse enemy.�
“While we are alive, we always contain a future of multifarious possibility� �

Indeed � the parallel is with chess... after 6 moves... there are nine million variations... after 8 moves, 288 billion different positions � and those possibilities keep growing! There is no right way to play...

I love that Nora loves philosophy and Thoreau � so you get this quote, “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see�.

It’s along the lines of � you could be as honest as possible in life, but people only see the truth if it is close enough to their reality.� and
“You see, doing one thing differently is very often the same as doing everything differently.�

I’ll stop there so I won’t spoil the book, in case you want to read it.]]> 3.96 2020 The Midnight Library
author: Matt Haig
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2021/08/15
date added: 2023/03/28
shelves:
review:
I was on the edge of my chair reading the epigraphs: “I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself
in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones
and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life.� � Sylvia Plath

Every book, every poem provides a chance to try another life you might have lived�
allows you to see how things could be if you had made other choices� Although we cannot
“undo regrets� we can bolster ourselves with examples of resilient words that will help
our choices and attitudes.

The story telling is magnificent! From the set-up, 19 days before the suicide, up to 0, we have a surface sense of main character Nora, whose post-suicide choices allow her to face regrets, re-consider possible choices that could have happened in life that she didn't take. The reader joins her journey of inner discovery, eager to see how we responds to alternative choices.

The penultimate chapter (A Thing I have Learned[written by a nobody who has been everybody]) defines regret as "what makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people’s worse enemy.�
“While we are alive, we always contain a future of multifarious possibility� �

Indeed � the parallel is with chess... after 6 moves... there are nine million variations... after 8 moves, 288 billion different positions � and those possibilities keep growing! There is no right way to play...

I love that Nora loves philosophy and Thoreau � so you get this quote, “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see�.

It’s along the lines of � you could be as honest as possible in life, but people only see the truth if it is close enough to their reality.� and
“You see, doing one thing differently is very often the same as doing everything differently.�

I’ll stop there so I won’t spoil the book, in case you want to read it.
]]> The Guest List 52656911
The bride � The plus one � The best man � The wedding planner � The bridesmaid � The body

On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It’s a wedding for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the luxe party favors, the boutique whiskey. The cell phone service may be spotty and the waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be expertly executed.

But perfection is for plans, and people are all too human. As the champagne is popped and the festivities begin, resentments and petty jealousies begin to mingle with the reminiscences and well wishes. The groomsmen begin the drinking game from their school days. The bridesmaid not-so-accidentally ruins her dress. The bride’s oldest (male) friend gives an uncomfortably caring toast.

And then someone turns up dead. Who didn’t wish the happy couple well? And perhaps more important, why?]]> 319 Lucy Foley Kitty 3 3.82 2020 The Guest List
author: Lucy Foley
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/03/14
shelves:
review:
The main reason I couldn't wait to finish this book, was to escape the clutches of the characters in it with their constant drinking and coke-snorting, justifying the excess as the only way to deal with the pain they are feeling... The constant sex, took away from the mystery thriller. (Interesting to read the comments of other readers: who cares about Han and Luis?) The disrespectful behavior of the 150 guests is nauseating. However, the title, makes you wonder why you would "kill to be on it". The runner-up reason of page-turning as quickly as possible, was to try to figure out how to make sense of the complexity of intertwined stories and who would kill whom. The hair-raising background of the truly despicable acts of older boys to control and "initiate" the younger ones at their posh boarding school is trickled out, like the storm rising, woven into the present tense of the stag party, up to the re-enactment of the "survival game", on the wedding night, with a reversal of roles: one of the main perpetrators of cruel dares (who happens to be the groom) is now the victim. It is a study of jealousies, of mis-guided actions and of our human capacity to draw conclusions and berate ourselves as failures, before fully understanding all the twists of fate. The TV world where polished character and success cover up several crimes meets a wedding planner whose job is to ensure a perfect success -- and it is only on the final pages, it becomes clear how the perfect planning is more than about the wedding.
]]> <![CDATA[The End of Patience: Cautionary Notes on the Information Revolution]]> 492189
"If the world of constant, instantaenous communication makes you a little nervous from time to time, David Shenk can explain why. This book is a very useful antidote to the endless praise lavished on the new electronic mediums. Read it slowly!" ―BILL McKIBBEN, author, THE AGE OF MISSING INFORMATION

In this provocative collection of essays, David Shenk expands his enlightened skepticism to include thoughts on the dangers of online journalism, the ethical implications of digital photography, and the misguided hopes for computers in the classroom. Shock-jocks, computerized toys, Microsoft-bashing, and genetic testing are all subject to his incisive and discerning criticism.

Is Shenk just another neo-Luddite determined to bash all things digital? Hardly. This self-described technology enthusiast―and avid fan of the Internet―is simply interested in clear-eyed analysis of how machines we use actually affect our lives. As one of the founders of the Technorealism movement, he insists that new technologies must be appraised for their ability to achieve traditional human ends, rather than embraced merely for novelty's sake. The End of Patience includes vignettes from Shenk's conversations with some of the most provocative technology thinkers of our time, including Mitch Kapor, Steven Johnson, Esther Dyson, Douglas Rushkoff and Steve Silberman.]]> 176 David Shenk 0253336341 Kitty 3 See CS Lewis The Abolition of Man.
Especially nowadays with AI taking the lead and chatbot writing term papers. Who needs poets. Just give the parameters and a perfectly humanly reasonable sounding poem will appear.
We know anything taken to excess has a downside, and over-reliance on information, not knowledge will not produce a utopia...

Let's all bump into what annoys us and discuss discomfort and where we disagree... Read Macauley "The New Ways things Work" with 80 pages of updates, that already probably need more updating.

Sight used to be associated with understanding and insight. Books, created by words relying on 26 letters, 8 punctuation marks used to create a world now a video production with actors, sets, subtitled superhighways.

Worse, the advent of cross-fire news... promotion of incivility and slingshot barks citing statistics, rhetorical ammunition...

I just read a lot about Negative Bias. It's not good for us, for creating bonds with family, friends, communities, running a county or country.

Important ideas to discuss. ]]> 3.19 1999 The End of Patience: Cautionary Notes on the Information Revolution
author: David Shenk
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.19
book published: 1999
rating: 3
read at: 2023/02/13
date added: 2023/02/13
shelves:
review:
I confess... I didn't finish it... but I was intrigued by it and grateful for the cautionary notes penned in 1997 that are even more applicable today. Hypertext -- and endlessness of going down rabbit holes without understanding, steals calm... Barrage of emails, "ad creep", not to mention possibility of disinformation and misinformation in the vast country of google...
See CS Lewis The Abolition of Man.
Especially nowadays with AI taking the lead and chatbot writing term papers. Who needs poets. Just give the parameters and a perfectly humanly reasonable sounding poem will appear.
We know anything taken to excess has a downside, and over-reliance on information, not knowledge will not produce a utopia...

Let's all bump into what annoys us and discuss discomfort and where we disagree... Read Macauley "The New Ways things Work" with 80 pages of updates, that already probably need more updating.

Sight used to be associated with understanding and insight. Books, created by words relying on 26 letters, 8 punctuation marks used to create a world now a video production with actors, sets, subtitled superhighways.

Worse, the advent of cross-fire news... promotion of incivility and slingshot barks citing statistics, rhetorical ammunition...

I just read a lot about Negative Bias. It's not good for us, for creating bonds with family, friends, communities, running a county or country.

Important ideas to discuss.
]]> <![CDATA[A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There]]> 210404 A Sand County Almanac combines some of the finest nature writing since Thoreau with an outspoken and highly ethical regard for America's relationship to the land.

Written with an unparalleled understanding of the ways of nature, the book includes a section on the monthly changes of the Wisconsin countryside; another part that gathers informal pieces written by Leopold over a forty-year period as he traveled through the woodlands of Wisconsin, Iowa, Arizona, Sonora, Oregon, Manitoba, and elsewhere; and a final section in which Leopold addresses the philosophical issues involved in wildlife conservation. As the forerunner of such important books as Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire, and Robert Finch's The Primal Place, this classic work remains as relevant today as it was sixty-five years ago.]]> 269 Aldo Leopold 0195007778 Kitty 4 Can you live without wild things? Progress does away with them and is acting as law of diminishing return. The book divided into 3 parts: Shack sketches; (celebratory) Sketches Here and There; (elegiac) and part III, 4 essays.
Educate rather than condemn. Mistakes come from ignorance. Important to keep humanistic along with the scientific...
A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. Wrong when it tends otherwise (from intro by Robert Finch, 1987)

Imagine a January with no snow... no traces to say who has done what and why.
Imagine the oak showing the result of a paucity of rabbits... "laying its ringings"...
reminders in Babbitt about heedlessness and arrogance... the "gay" '90's and "wheating the land to death." 1874... first factory makes barbed wire... 1860 and our civil war instead of examining how all men should relate to the land...
I love the language: "March: skein of geese cleave the murk of March thaw."
April and the appearance of the Draba (tiny spring flower)

Bark.. armor for trees... we copy with insultation...

]]> 4.31 1949 A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There
author: Aldo Leopold
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1949
rating: 4
read at: 2022/06/30
date added: 2023/02/13
shelves:
review:
My notes:
Can you live without wild things? Progress does away with them and is acting as law of diminishing return. The book divided into 3 parts: Shack sketches; (celebratory) Sketches Here and There; (elegiac) and part III, 4 essays.
Educate rather than condemn. Mistakes come from ignorance. Important to keep humanistic along with the scientific...
A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. Wrong when it tends otherwise (from intro by Robert Finch, 1987)

Imagine a January with no snow... no traces to say who has done what and why.
Imagine the oak showing the result of a paucity of rabbits... "laying its ringings"...
reminders in Babbitt about heedlessness and arrogance... the "gay" '90's and "wheating the land to death." 1874... first factory makes barbed wire... 1860 and our civil war instead of examining how all men should relate to the land...
I love the language: "March: skein of geese cleave the murk of March thaw."
April and the appearance of the Draba (tiny spring flower)

Bark.. armor for trees... we copy with insultation...


]]> Deafness: A Personal Account 2641304 215 David Wright 0571141951 Kitty 5 Not only do we learn about the horrors of the history of education of the deaf, or the difficulties of being cast aside or pitied, but we learn of other deaf poets, short cuts the deaf take.

The language is filled with delight: whether describing “corybantic brandishings� of sign language, nicknames for the teachers at a deaf school, the coupling of adjectives like "unthwarted" to energy of life� the description of an old monocled sea captain as “peppery old vexillary”� or painting London in the 1930’s "that would make the most brave-hearted flee the isle."
Highly recommend.
]]> 3.89 1970 Deafness: A Personal Account
author: David Wright
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1970
rating: 5
read at: 2023/01/20
date added: 2023/02/13
shelves:
review:
A wonderful introduction to deafness, by David Wright, a South African poet who became deaf at age 7. For those of us who have never had to navigate this world, it will sensitize you to the difficulties of lip-reading, understand the myriad ways the mind can echo understanding this world, filled with different non-verbal clues. Imagine, eye-music and dancing feeling the other's vibration.
Not only do we learn about the horrors of the history of education of the deaf, or the difficulties of being cast aside or pitied, but we learn of other deaf poets, short cuts the deaf take.

The language is filled with delight: whether describing “corybantic brandishings� of sign language, nicknames for the teachers at a deaf school, the coupling of adjectives like "unthwarted" to energy of life� the description of an old monocled sea captain as “peppery old vexillary”� or painting London in the 1930’s "that would make the most brave-hearted flee the isle."
Highly recommend.

]]> <![CDATA[Clementine: The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill]]> 24611873 A long-overdue tribute to the extraordinary woman behind Winston Churchill

By Winston Churchill’s own admission, victory in the Second World War would have been “impossible without her.� Until now, however, the only existing biography of Churchill’s wife, Clementine, was written by her daughter. Sonia Purnell finally gives Clementine her due with a deeply researched account that tells her life story, revealing how she was instrumental in softening FDR’s initial dislike of her husband and paving the way for Britain’s close relationship with America. It also provides a surprising account of her relationship with Eleanor Roosevelt and their differing approaches to the war effort.

Born into impecunious aristocracy, the young Clementine was the target of cruel snobbery. Many wondered why Winston married her, but their marriage proved to be an exceptional partnership. Beautiful and intelligent, but driven by her own insecurities, she made his career her mission. Any real consideration of Winston Churchill is incomplete without an understanding of their relationship, and Clementine is both the first real biography of this remarkable woman and a fascinating look inside their private world.]]> 436 Sonia Purnell 0525429778 Kitty 3 3.81 2015 Clementine: The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill
author: Sonia Purnell
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2023/01/01
date added: 2023/02/11
shelves:
review:
Fascinating viewpoint that paints Winston Churchill both as an impossible, sybaritic, yet brilliant man as well as disclosing the chosen role of wife supporting him. Worth watching "The Darkest Hour" as complement.
]]> Deaf Republic 40121980

Deaf Republic opens in an occupied country in a time of political unrest. When soldiers breaking up a protest kill a deaf boy, Petya, the gunshot becomes the last thing the citizens hear--they all have gone deaf, and their dissent becomes coordinated by sign language. The story follows the private lives of townspeople encircled by public violence: a newly married couple, Alfonso and Sonya, expecting a child; the brash Momma Galya, instigating the insurgency from her puppet theater; and Galya's girls, heroically teaching signing by day and by night luring soldiers one by one to their deaths behind the curtain. At once a love story, an elegy, and an urgent plea, Ilya Kaminsky's long-awaited Deaf Republic confronts our time's vicious atrocities and our collective silence in the face of them.

Finalist for the T. S. Eliot Prize
Finalist for the Forward Prize for Best Collection]]> 80 Ilya Kaminsky 1555978312 Kitty 5 This is a book that will not allow you to put it down until every page is finished. Fortunately, it is not large or long, but the poems have a large and haunting effect that will stay with you.
What is "deaf" and "Deaf" and the role of silence, and Republic. The title invites you to an unique journey. To hear Ilya read his poem, "We were happy during the war" will make you weep.
hear him say his poem:

]]> 4.41 2019 Deaf Republic
author: Ilya Kaminsky
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2022/11/10
date added: 2023/01/09
shelves:
review:
I am so excited that this book has been selected for RIT "The Big Read" in April 2023.
This is a book that will not allow you to put it down until every page is finished. Fortunately, it is not large or long, but the poems have a large and haunting effect that will stay with you.
What is "deaf" and "Deaf" and the role of silence, and Republic. The title invites you to an unique journey. To hear Ilya read his poem, "We were happy during the war" will make you weep.
hear him say his poem:


]]> How to Communicate: Poems 60165428
A stunning debut from an award-winning DeafBlind poet, â€� How to Communicate is a masterpieceâ€� (Kaveh Akbar). Formally restless and relentlessly instructive, How to Communicate is a dynamic journey through language, community, and the unfolding of an identity. Poet John Lee Clark pivots from inventive forms inspired by the Braille slate to sensuous prose poems to incisive erasures that find new narratives in nineteenth-century poetry. Calling out the limitations of the literary canon, Clark includes pathbreaking translations from American Sign Language and Protactile, a language built on touch. How to Communicate embraces new linguistic possibilities that emanate from Clark’s unique perspective and his connection to an expanding, inclusive activist community. Amid the astonishing task of constructing a new canon, the poet reveals a radically commonplace life. He explores grief and the vagaries of family, celebrates the small delights of knitting and visiting a museum, and, once, encounters a ghost in a gas station. Counteracting the assumptions of the sighted and hearing world with humor and grace, Clark finds beauty in the revelations of communicating through “All things living and dead cry out to me / when I touch them.â€� A rare work of transformation and necessary discovery,Ěý How to Communicate Ěýis a brilliant debut that insists on the power of poetry.]]> 112 John Lee Clark 132403534X Kitty 5 This is a page-turner, eye-opener, read-again and be ready to think kind of book by
John Lee Clark is a second-generation deaf-blind writer. For those like me who know little about braille, why one uses capital D for Deaf poet, and only know how to admire ASL signing, but know little about what the actual language it is, this book will sensitize you to thinking about language and communication when the "usual" we often take for granted, eyes and ears, are not available for the traditional methods of reading and listening. I didn't know there was such a thing as "touch" translation as in Protactile communication.

That aside, the metaphors are stunning... "A limb/that knocks my head because I didn't duck?
That turns my heart into a chainsaw." The metaphor of knitting... and a fabulous ekphrastic poem about the sculpture of the matador by Jacques Lipschitz. All this, without sight, hearing.
The cleverness, depth and ingenuosity are astounding, for instance the section of "erasures" Part III. The Fruit I Eat : In the erasures he addresses ableism and distantism by forcing problematic poems by famous and less-known poets to tell a different story. We discussed in the library groups on Wed. and Thurs "The Rebuttal" and the 1827 poem that was used. The terse selection of just one word per line of the old poem of 8 stanzas produces an 8 line poem where indeed, the compression we seek in poetry, squeezes the heart to open more fully. So much more to say. High recommend.

]]> 4.12 2022 How to Communicate: Poems
author: John Lee Clark
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/01/08
date added: 2023/01/09
shelves:
review:

This is a page-turner, eye-opener, read-again and be ready to think kind of book by
John Lee Clark is a second-generation deaf-blind writer. For those like me who know little about braille, why one uses capital D for Deaf poet, and only know how to admire ASL signing, but know little about what the actual language it is, this book will sensitize you to thinking about language and communication when the "usual" we often take for granted, eyes and ears, are not available for the traditional methods of reading and listening. I didn't know there was such a thing as "touch" translation as in Protactile communication.

That aside, the metaphors are stunning... "A limb/that knocks my head because I didn't duck?
That turns my heart into a chainsaw." The metaphor of knitting... and a fabulous ekphrastic poem about the sculpture of the matador by Jacques Lipschitz. All this, without sight, hearing.
The cleverness, depth and ingenuosity are astounding, for instance the section of "erasures" Part III. The Fruit I Eat : In the erasures he addresses ableism and distantism by forcing problematic poems by famous and less-known poets to tell a different story. We discussed in the library groups on Wed. and Thurs "The Rebuttal" and the 1827 poem that was used. The terse selection of just one word per line of the old poem of 8 stanzas produces an 8 line poem where indeed, the compression we seek in poetry, squeezes the heart to open more fully. So much more to say. High recommend.


]]> The Mind's Eye 7937653 263 Oliver Sacks 033050889X Kitty 0 to-read 3.92 2010 The Mind's Eye
author: Oliver Sacks
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/01/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Anomaly 56920684
In June 2021, a senseless event upends the lives of hundreds of men and women, all passengers on a flight from Paris to New York. Among them: Blake, a respectable family man, though he works as a contract killer; Slimboy, a Nigerian pop star tired of living a lie; Joanna, a formidable lawyer whose flaws have caught up with her; and Victor Miesel, a critically acclaimed yet commercially unsuccessful writer who suddenly becomes a cult hit. All of them believed they had double lives. None imagined just how true that was.

This witty variation on the doppelgänger theme, which takes us on a journey from Lagos and Mumbai to the White House, is Hervé Le Tellier's most ambitious work yet.]]> 391 Hervé Le Tellier 1635421691 Kitty 4 I found this review highly helpful to understand some of the craft. .
The reading pleasure compounds when you realize that the suicidal Victør Miesel not only spells his name with a slashed zero, but also is the double of Queneau as the epigram and titles of the three parts in which the novel is structured correspond to extracts from his poems: As black as the sky, Life is a dream, they say and The song out of nowhere.
The enigmatic calligram of an hour glass, or funnel at the end with letters erased reminded me of Queneau's book, La Disparition, a lipogrammic novel that does not use the letter "e", translated in English as A Void.

Which self are you? Even before the strange event, the ingenious treatment of an anomaly that indeed does not seem possible that sketches out the lives of a contract killer, Nigerian pop star, suicidal novelist (whose work, "The Anomaly" suddenly catapults him into global fame and continually guides the book), Black American Woman lawyer playing the "old boys game to succeed with Big Pharma client", a six-year old girl with a pet frog.

At first, I felt I was reading an erasure essay compiled of articles in the New York Times, with name-dropping, recognizable clichés turned into witty contradictions. Sci-fi Films and novelists are sprinkled in with a generous hand. Sure, we are just programs! And magic and advanced technology are at work! And truth? The epigrams discount it off the bat. Zhuang Zhou, commonly known as Zhuangzi, provides the first one: "And when I say you are dreaming, I am dreaming too." Queneau, who some call the Rabelais of the 20th century, provides the next from one of his poems but signed by his ghost writer, Miesel: "A true pessimist knows that it is already too late to be one."

As writer, it is hard not to laugh and groan throughout the beginning chapter introducing Victor who has "convinced himself nothing less tragic, that disillusion is the opposite of failure." One way to read the book, might be to follow your favorite character through each of the three parts. For sure, Miesel will not disappoint!

I have notes to myself about the chapter E Pur Si Muove when the dozen males, all convinced that they were born into the right religion, converse! They "trot out" more than Maimonides! ) What is fascinating to me is the language play and depths Le Tellier takes us with his "anomaly" as constraint. This is not a book that provides a plot, but rather an exercise in possibility .
I know I could have read more carefully, but it was too exhausting. I admit, for all the cleverness, I am not a sci-fi enthusiast and sadly quite deficient in understanding string theory, Fermi paradox, and a host of other terms.
At the back of the book is a "What did you think? Please share your thoughts". I appreciate the one person who wrote: confusing, frightening, surreal and thought-provoking.
Absolutely!

]]> 3.80 2020 The Anomaly
author: Hervé Le Tellier
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2022/12/28
date added: 2022/12/28
shelves:
review:
I totally galloped through the pages of this "extraordinary mix of existential thriller and speculative fiction". As former French teacher, it was a thrill to recognize the stamp of OuLiPo co-founder, Raymond Queneau, and no surprise that Le Tellier is current president and one of the "papous" of the France Culture radio show.
I found this review highly helpful to understand some of the craft. .
The reading pleasure compounds when you realize that the suicidal Victør Miesel not only spells his name with a slashed zero, but also is the double of Queneau as the epigram and titles of the three parts in which the novel is structured correspond to extracts from his poems: As black as the sky, Life is a dream, they say and The song out of nowhere.
The enigmatic calligram of an hour glass, or funnel at the end with letters erased reminded me of Queneau's book, La Disparition, a lipogrammic novel that does not use the letter "e", translated in English as A Void.

Which self are you? Even before the strange event, the ingenious treatment of an anomaly that indeed does not seem possible that sketches out the lives of a contract killer, Nigerian pop star, suicidal novelist (whose work, "The Anomaly" suddenly catapults him into global fame and continually guides the book), Black American Woman lawyer playing the "old boys game to succeed with Big Pharma client", a six-year old girl with a pet frog.

At first, I felt I was reading an erasure essay compiled of articles in the New York Times, with name-dropping, recognizable clichés turned into witty contradictions. Sci-fi Films and novelists are sprinkled in with a generous hand. Sure, we are just programs! And magic and advanced technology are at work! And truth? The epigrams discount it off the bat. Zhuang Zhou, commonly known as Zhuangzi, provides the first one: "And when I say you are dreaming, I am dreaming too." Queneau, who some call the Rabelais of the 20th century, provides the next from one of his poems but signed by his ghost writer, Miesel: "A true pessimist knows that it is already too late to be one."

As writer, it is hard not to laugh and groan throughout the beginning chapter introducing Victor who has "convinced himself nothing less tragic, that disillusion is the opposite of failure." One way to read the book, might be to follow your favorite character through each of the three parts. For sure, Miesel will not disappoint!

I have notes to myself about the chapter E Pur Si Muove when the dozen males, all convinced that they were born into the right religion, converse! They "trot out" more than Maimonides! ) What is fascinating to me is the language play and depths Le Tellier takes us with his "anomaly" as constraint. This is not a book that provides a plot, but rather an exercise in possibility .
I know I could have read more carefully, but it was too exhausting. I admit, for all the cleverness, I am not a sci-fi enthusiast and sadly quite deficient in understanding string theory, Fermi paradox, and a host of other terms.
At the back of the book is a "What did you think? Please share your thoughts". I appreciate the one person who wrote: confusing, frightening, surreal and thought-provoking.
Absolutely!


]]> Oh William! (Amgash, #3) 56294820
So Lucy is both surprised and not surprised when William asks her to join him on a trip to investigate a recently uncovered family secret—one of those secrets that rearrange everything we think we know about the people closest to us. What happens next is nothing less than another example of what Hilary Mantel has called Elizabeth Strout’s “perfect attunement to the human condition.� There are fears and insecurities, simple joys and acts of tenderness, and revelations about affairs and other spouses, parents and their children. On every page of this exquisite novel we learn more about the quiet forces that hold us together—even after we’ve grown apart.

At the heart of this story is the indomitable voice of Lucy Barton, who offers a profound, lasting reflection on the very nature of existence. “This is the way of life,� Lucy says: “the many things we do not know until it is too late.”]]> 240 Elizabeth Strout 0812989430 Kitty 0
I agree with those who found it annoying when the author would write something like “I have written about that before� or “I really do not care to write more about that�.
I didn't care for the long rambles before the drop of what they were about, or hint at some understanding.

It may be have better to read "My Name is Lucy Barton" first.]]> 3.79 2021 Oh William! (Amgash, #3)
author: Elizabeth Strout
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/12/26
shelves:
review:
I gave it a shot, (abandoned after 3 days...)but not the right time to read this short novel, told in a manner as convoluted as the story.

I agree with those who found it annoying when the author would write something like “I have written about that before� or “I really do not care to write more about that�.
I didn't care for the long rambles before the drop of what they were about, or hint at some understanding.

It may be have better to read "My Name is Lucy Barton" first.
]]> Lady Clementine 45007887 From Marie Benedict, the New York Times bestselling author of The Only Woman in the Room, comes an incredible novel that focuses on one of the people who had the most influence during World War I and World War II: Clementine Churchill.

In 1909, Clementine Churchill steps off a train with her new husband, Winston. An angry woman emerges from the crowd to attack, shoving him in the direction of an oncoming train. Just before he stumbles, Clementine grabs him by his suit jacket. This will not be the last time Clementine Churchill saves her husband.

Lady Clementine is the ferocious story of the brilliant and ambitious woman beside Winston Churchill, the story of a partner who did not flinch through the sweeping darkness of war, and who would not surrender either to expectations or to enemies.]]> 322 Marie Benedict 1492666904 Kitty 3
I feel slightly revolted by the sense of obligation British Ladies were expected to exercise to keep husbands happy. The closing line of the book: “When successors to our times appraise Winston, as they surely must, I know they will see Winston’s hand on the pen that scribes history. But, I wonder, will they see that my hand has also been on the pen all along?�

Indeed, for all she reports doing, particularly in the 2nd WW, "Clemmie" for all her remarkable talents, like other remarkable women "behind a man in power" such as Eleanor Roosevelt, also mentioned, she is right to feel angry at Winston's perhaps unintentional dismissals. I wanted to leap into the book and tell her to stop kowtowing to social pressure of what someone has deemed “the way things are done� and this duty to “pamper a husband and guests� to bend their thinking in favorable ways to ones agenda.

One learns a lot about how to run an important estate, especially when only having nine servants. Although not quite as graphic as the images of Winston Churchill's breakfast tray in the movie, "The Darkest Day" (with 3 different alcohols in crystal glasses) many details about the "pampering" deemed requisite for his functioning are sketched out in detail. How she can honestly say in spite of
his "maelstrom of moods" and his irrascible treatment of others, that she loves him is hard to believe.
Indeed, the nickname "Pug" evokes an overfed, wrinkled ugliness that seems to parallel any brilliance Churchill applied.

I started skimming the book because I couldn’t stand the self-righteous tone of Clementine (say it so it rhymes with Josephine). Her doubts about being a good mother (relegating her children to nannies) her need to take care of her nerves� always “rushing to the judgement of others� all excused from her own lack of a mother who gave no warmth or love, are fatiguing.
But I confess, I was hurrying to finish the book, intrigued all along.

]]> 3.70 2020 Lady Clementine
author: Marie Benedict
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2022/12/26
date added: 2022/12/26
shelves:
review:
I admire the research Marie Benedict has put into this book. Using the first person, the book reads as an intimate diary of Winston Churchill's wife, Clementine which offers the 21st century reader a glimpse into the late 19th and early 20th century mores of British upper class and two world wars.

I feel slightly revolted by the sense of obligation British Ladies were expected to exercise to keep husbands happy. The closing line of the book: “When successors to our times appraise Winston, as they surely must, I know they will see Winston’s hand on the pen that scribes history. But, I wonder, will they see that my hand has also been on the pen all along?�

Indeed, for all she reports doing, particularly in the 2nd WW, "Clemmie" for all her remarkable talents, like other remarkable women "behind a man in power" such as Eleanor Roosevelt, also mentioned, she is right to feel angry at Winston's perhaps unintentional dismissals. I wanted to leap into the book and tell her to stop kowtowing to social pressure of what someone has deemed “the way things are done� and this duty to “pamper a husband and guests� to bend their thinking in favorable ways to ones agenda.

One learns a lot about how to run an important estate, especially when only having nine servants. Although not quite as graphic as the images of Winston Churchill's breakfast tray in the movie, "The Darkest Day" (with 3 different alcohols in crystal glasses) many details about the "pampering" deemed requisite for his functioning are sketched out in detail. How she can honestly say in spite of
his "maelstrom of moods" and his irrascible treatment of others, that she loves him is hard to believe.
Indeed, the nickname "Pug" evokes an overfed, wrinkled ugliness that seems to parallel any brilliance Churchill applied.

I started skimming the book because I couldn’t stand the self-righteous tone of Clementine (say it so it rhymes with Josephine). Her doubts about being a good mother (relegating her children to nannies) her need to take care of her nerves� always “rushing to the judgement of others� all excused from her own lack of a mother who gave no warmth or love, are fatiguing.
But I confess, I was hurrying to finish the book, intrigued all along.


]]> The Weight of a Soul 5263146 176 Laura Gilpin 0982132808 Kitty 0 to-read 4.33 2008 The Weight of a Soul
author: Laura Gilpin
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/12/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Writers On Writing, Volume Ii (Writers on Writing (Times Books Paperback))]]> 199109 The pieces range from taciturn, hilarious advice for aspiring writers to thoughtful, soul-wrenching reflections on writing in the midst of national tragedy. William Kennedy talks about the intersecting lives of real and imagined Albany politics; Susan Isaacs reveals her nostalgia for a long-retired protagonist; and Elmore Leonard offers pithy rules for letting the writing, and not the writer, take charge. With contributions from Diane Ackerman, Margaret Atwood, Frank Conroy, Mary Karr, Patrick McGrath, Arthur Miller, Amy Tan, and Edmund White, Writers on Writing, Volume II offers an uncommon and revealing view of the writer's world.]]> 288 The New York Times 0805075887 Kitty 3 who we want to be, but shadows of the many selves that dance through our lives.

My notes: don't be the one to write the passages someone else will skip over! For those "chords", what matters are passing notes, leading tones... we want to know how in a key, say key of G, something gets to the end... (my note: whether it will be G or note... whether you leave out the 3rd for the mood of major or minor...). If you write hooptedoodle (as Steinbeck titled two chapters of his "Sweet Thursday" -- as long as it doesn't interfere with the story, the reader will choose to enjoy or skip! Just don't mix it up with the story in a prologue!
As for writing dialogue, stick to the neutral th/s/he - y said. None of this "grumbled, gasped, cautioned" or verbs that send you to the dictionary like "asseverate"... and avoid adverbs at all costs. They attract the overabundance of exclamation marks,, another no-no.

Philip Larkin: "The reader puts a penny of attention into the poem's slot and immediately gets a feeling as a pay-off". (Well, for the successful lyric poem that is. It cannot be an abbreviation, should it work as an entire artwork.)
Geraldine Brooks: empathy -- that passport to another life, another time...
Write the thoughts that keep teasing your mind... don't join those legions of well-validated writers who provide best sellers.

I do wonder why Henry James figured in what seemed high frequency. I'm waiting to hear why one of my poet friends is so adamantly opposed to his pedestal status. ]]> 3.70 2003 Writers On Writing, Volume Ii (Writers on Writing (Times Books Paperback))
author: The New York Times
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2003
rating: 3
read at: 2022/12/08
date added: 2022/12/08
shelves:
review:
Fun and informative to read such a variety of voices. Lots of good advice... from 46 different authors! Writing is perhaps one of most precious mirrors in which we are able to see not just the image of
who we want to be, but shadows of the many selves that dance through our lives.

My notes: don't be the one to write the passages someone else will skip over! For those "chords", what matters are passing notes, leading tones... we want to know how in a key, say key of G, something gets to the end... (my note: whether it will be G or note... whether you leave out the 3rd for the mood of major or minor...). If you write hooptedoodle (as Steinbeck titled two chapters of his "Sweet Thursday" -- as long as it doesn't interfere with the story, the reader will choose to enjoy or skip! Just don't mix it up with the story in a prologue!
As for writing dialogue, stick to the neutral th/s/he - y said. None of this "grumbled, gasped, cautioned" or verbs that send you to the dictionary like "asseverate"... and avoid adverbs at all costs. They attract the overabundance of exclamation marks,, another no-no.

Philip Larkin: "The reader puts a penny of attention into the poem's slot and immediately gets a feeling as a pay-off". (Well, for the successful lyric poem that is. It cannot be an abbreviation, should it work as an entire artwork.)
Geraldine Brooks: empathy -- that passport to another life, another time...
Write the thoughts that keep teasing your mind... don't join those legions of well-validated writers who provide best sellers.

I do wonder why Henry James figured in what seemed high frequency. I'm waiting to hear why one of my poet friends is so adamantly opposed to his pedestal status.
]]> Lessons in Chemistry 58065033 390 Bonnie Garmus Kitty 4 4.23 2022 Lessons in Chemistry
author: Bonnie Garmus
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2022/11/19
date added: 2022/11/19
shelves:
review:
It took a while to fall in love with this book, but by the last third, I loved every irritatingly complex and witty detail. E.Z. ? Nothing is easy about Elizabeth, but don't you dare call her luscious like her creep of a boss who stole her work and fired her. (In case you like to count, E.Z. repeats the adjectives dishonest, lazy multiple times.) I love that the author has a dog called 99, and Zott and Calvin have a dog called 6:30 which paves the way for "Supper at Six" in an unusual way. At first, the rather staid coldness that characterizes Zott and her scientific approach to life is off-putting. The language is indeed vibrant, witty, but to the point of unbelievable until it becomes clear that this is not a usual book with an unusual heroine. Science becomes a source of life-lessons, and Zott a refreshingly honest, unflinchingly authentic human being who is not afraid to call the spades of corrupt game-playing, politics, and all the lies lacing the 60's, self-servingly dark spades. Mad or Madeline is the spitting replica of her mother, providing refreshing statements such as "Faith is not based on religion" while researching her "family tree" for Mrs. Mudford's ill-advised assignment for her young charges with the help of a man of the cloth. A well-conceived mystery, passionate, uncommon and unusual love story, a historically accurate rendition of American society, especially in the 1960's views on women, the unfortunate rise of leaders whose excuses for bad behavior are laced with lies, "Lessons in Chemistry" provides a rollercoaster of a ride, where change does seem possible with the right experiment of ingredients, timing, dished out from EZ's kitchen, i.e. lab.
]]> Small Things Like These 58662236
Already an international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically lauded and iconic writers.]]> 128 Claire Keegan 0802158749 Kitty 3
With very spare writing, one reads slowly, to try to understand what has happened. How could a girl be left for two weeks in the dark in a coal cellar? How hypocritical of the nuns to make a show of caring for her when Bill tells them about her as he makes his delivery.
Only hints of story come through, with overtones of Bill's past, his ironic birth on April Fool's day, and his current kindness and hard work. What is a small thing? And what indeed is covered by the pronoun, "these"? Indeed, for Eileen and Bill, the tragedy is that both are right in their positions: she, to worry about the welfare of their five girls, and he to reach out whether it be to the "little chap"out foraging for sticks (the first example of "a small thing") or to Sarah, the 14-year old mother who ironically shares the same name as his own mother.

Who has not wondered as a couple, if the match is right? And in all honesty, don't we all wonder if we are following the right road? The mysterious appearance of the puckaun and billhook stranger who tells Bill, "the road you're on will take you wherever you want to go", intensifies the ambiguity of such a pronouncement. Where does thinking lead you?

Perhaps we all can profit from examining our subjective responses. Do we cast stones of silence? What power do we give to them? What power do they exert? ]]> 4.14 2021 Small Things Like These
author: Claire Keegan
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2022/11/03
date added: 2022/11/15
shelves:
review:
This book invites the reader to consider not only how to deal with difficult situations, but to imagine the consequences yet to come. It is easy to sympathize with the coalman, Bill with his own difficult history, who responds with kindness to a "leangbh" (child, in this case, a 14 year-old mother who has been shut into a coal cellar by the Catholic nuns). The opening paragraph could be now, two weeks after All Soul's day in 2022, with the universal tendency to speak of the weather, to avoid speaking of difficulty...

With very spare writing, one reads slowly, to try to understand what has happened. How could a girl be left for two weeks in the dark in a coal cellar? How hypocritical of the nuns to make a show of caring for her when Bill tells them about her as he makes his delivery.
Only hints of story come through, with overtones of Bill's past, his ironic birth on April Fool's day, and his current kindness and hard work. What is a small thing? And what indeed is covered by the pronoun, "these"? Indeed, for Eileen and Bill, the tragedy is that both are right in their positions: she, to worry about the welfare of their five girls, and he to reach out whether it be to the "little chap"out foraging for sticks (the first example of "a small thing") or to Sarah, the 14-year old mother who ironically shares the same name as his own mother.

Who has not wondered as a couple, if the match is right? And in all honesty, don't we all wonder if we are following the right road? The mysterious appearance of the puckaun and billhook stranger who tells Bill, "the road you're on will take you wherever you want to go", intensifies the ambiguity of such a pronouncement. Where does thinking lead you?

Perhaps we all can profit from examining our subjective responses. Do we cast stones of silence? What power do we give to them? What power do they exert?
]]> <![CDATA[The Henna Artist (The Jaipur Trilogy, #1)]]> 50607466 Vivid and compelling in its portrait of one woman’s struggle for fulfillment in a society pivoting between the traditional and the modern, The Henna Artist opens a door into a world that is at once lush and fascinating, stark and cruel.

Escaping from an abusive marriage, seventeen-year-old Lakshmi makes her way alone to the vibrant 1950s pink city of Jaipur. There she becomes the most highly requested henna artist—and confidante—to the wealthy women of the upper class. But trusted with the secrets of the wealthy, she can never reveal her own�

Known for her original designs and sage advice, Lakshmi must tread carefully to avoid the jealous gossips who could ruin her reputation and her livelihood. As she pursues her dream of an independent life, she is startled one day when she is confronted by her husband, who has tracked her down these many years later with a high-spirited young girl in tow—a sister Lakshmi never knew she had. Suddenly the caution that she has carefully cultivated as protection is threatened. Still she perseveres, applying her talents and lifting up those that surround her as she does.]]> 384 Alka Joshi 0778310205 Kitty 3 I love the quote from the poem "Journey Home" by Rabindranath Tagore that opens the book:
The traveler has to knock/at every alien door to come to his own,
and one has to wander through all the/outer worlds
to each the innermost shrine at /the end.

As one reviewer said, "Reading The Henna Artist is like travelling in a car that is going at just the right speed. At times, author Alka Joshi stops to point out sights and scenes on the way. At other times, she revs up the story and you find yourself on a thrilling ride to an unknown destination. And that is the best part. Just when you think you know where you are headed, Joshi takes a turn that leaves you completely in the lurch." Indeed.]]> 4.14 2020 The Henna Artist (The Jaipur Trilogy, #1)
author: Alka Joshi
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2022/10/30
date added: 2022/11/02
shelves:
review:
Skimmed through for my book club. Fascinating look at Indian culture and the beginning sketches the art of Henna application, the implications of symbols, the power of independence.
I love the quote from the poem "Journey Home" by Rabindranath Tagore that opens the book:
The traveler has to knock/at every alien door to come to his own,
and one has to wander through all the/outer worlds
to each the innermost shrine at /the end.

As one reviewer said, "Reading The Henna Artist is like travelling in a car that is going at just the right speed. At times, author Alka Joshi stops to point out sights and scenes on the way. At other times, she revs up the story and you find yourself on a thrilling ride to an unknown destination. And that is the best part. Just when you think you know where you are headed, Joshi takes a turn that leaves you completely in the lurch." Indeed.
]]> West With Giraffes 56449476 An emotional, rousing novel inspired by the incredible true story of two giraffes who made headlines and won the hearts of Depression-era America.

“Few true friends have I known and two were giraffes…�

Woodrow Wilson Nickel, age 105, feels his life ebbing away. But when he learns giraffes are going extinct, he finds himself recalling the unforgettable experience he cannot take to his grave.

It’s 1938. The Great Depression lingers. Hitler is threatening Europe, and world-weary Americans long for wonder. They find it in two giraffes who miraculously survive a hurricane while crossing the Atlantic. What follows is a twelve-day road trip in a custom truck to deliver Southern California’s first giraffes to the San Diego Zoo. Behind the wheel is the young Dust Bowl rowdy Woodrow. Inspired by true events, the tale weaves real-life figures with fictional ones, including the world’s first female zoo director, a crusty old man with a past, a young female photographer with a secret, and assorted reprobates as spotty as the giraffes.

Part adventure, part historical saga, and part coming-of-age love story, West with Giraffes explores what it means to be changed by the grace of animals, the kindness of strangers, the passing of time, and a story told before it’s too late.]]> 346 Lynda Rutledge 1542023351 Kitty 3
The book sketches the American depression, hints at the way zoo animals are captured, extinction of giraffes, and what happens to "the dirt-farm rowdy, pure as cow pie, cunning as a wild hog, acquainted with the county sheriff, dust-layering my every breath, leaving little room for the Holy Spirit to breath on me" narrator. We could all use "Giraffe-speak", low, gentle, like sharing secrets.

I had no idea Giraffes ate onions... or the story behind "Hobo cards"or that there were two highways initially, Lincoln and Lee, that crossed America. Sentences like, "Memories stick to things. You got no control over it at all." and "tomorrow had turned into today", and "I swear on a stack of bibles"
add to the charm and underline the whole idea that story telling matters, as does emotion and the ecological force of our imagination.

I'm glad I read the book, and was sorry that I have so much else to read and do I couldn't enjoy it more.
]]> 4.35 2021 West With Giraffes
author: Lynda Rutledge
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2022/10/30
date added: 2022/11/02
shelves:
review:
At first, I was intrigued by the lively language of Woody Nickel, and the somewhat audacious attitude of this young man escaping life in the Texas Panhandle and finding his fortune. "I could say I was lucky, but I hadn't had enough of a relationship with the world to use it." And at first, I admired the set up of a story so urgent to tell, Woody, at age 105 is scribbling it down as fast as he can between naps and dominos, and absolutely loved learning about the language of Giraffes and could not believe an almost 17 year old stumbled into driving a rig with two giraffes cross-country. Yes, the use of telegrams, news clips and Woodie's sketches of his California dreaming, the personalities of "Red", (Augie the reporter and her list of who she wanted to meet [Margaret Bourke-White, Amelia Earhart, Eleanor Roosevelt, Belle Benchley] as she took pictures for Life Magazine) "Old Man", (Mr. Riley Jones)and the famous Belle Benchley of the San Diego Zoo are interesting. But, after a while, I was just plum fatigued by the way his footlocker of notes unfolded the adventure.

The book sketches the American depression, hints at the way zoo animals are captured, extinction of giraffes, and what happens to "the dirt-farm rowdy, pure as cow pie, cunning as a wild hog, acquainted with the county sheriff, dust-layering my every breath, leaving little room for the Holy Spirit to breath on me" narrator. We could all use "Giraffe-speak", low, gentle, like sharing secrets.

I had no idea Giraffes ate onions... or the story behind "Hobo cards"or that there were two highways initially, Lincoln and Lee, that crossed America. Sentences like, "Memories stick to things. You got no control over it at all." and "tomorrow had turned into today", and "I swear on a stack of bibles"
add to the charm and underline the whole idea that story telling matters, as does emotion and the ecological force of our imagination.

I'm glad I read the book, and was sorry that I have so much else to read and do I couldn't enjoy it more.

]]> Oliver Twist 18254
The story of Oliver Twist - orphaned, and set upon by evil and adversity from his first breath - shocked readers when it was published. After running away from the workhouse and pompous beadle Mr Bumble, Oliver finds himself lured into a den of thieves peopled by vivid and memorable characters - the Artful Dodger, vicious burglar Bill Sikes, his dog Bull's Eye, and prostitute Nancy, all watched over by cunning master-thief Fagin. Combining elements of Gothic Romance, the Newgate Novel and popular melodrama, Dickens created an entirely new kind of fiction, scathing in its indictment of a cruel society, and pervaded by an unforgettable sense of threat and mystery.

This Penguin Classics edition of Oliver Twist is the first critical edition to faithfully reproduce the text as its earliest readers would have encountered it from its serialisation in Bentley's Miscellany, and includes an introduction by Philip Horne, a glossary of Victorian thieves' slang, a chronology of Dickens's life, a map of contemporary London and all of George Cruikshank's original illustrations.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.]]> 608 Charles Dickens Kitty 3 Personalities, for which Dickens is famous, are not lacking here. I love the
juxtapositions of an ethereal Oliver against the evils of the world. Worth reading to complement the broadway shows.
]]> 3.88 1838 Oliver Twist
author: Charles Dickens
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1838
rating: 3
read at: 2012/10/10
date added: 2022/08/30
shelves:
review:
Oh what fun to read this book, and then to share it with a retirement community!
Personalities, for which Dickens is famous, are not lacking here. I love the
juxtapositions of an ethereal Oliver against the evils of the world. Worth reading to complement the broadway shows.

]]> The Dictionary of Lost Words 54814839 Oxford English Dictionary. Young Esme's place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day a slip of paper containing the word "bondmaid" flutters to the floor. She rescues the slip, and when she learns that the word means slave-girl, she withholds it from the OED and begins to collect words that show women in a more positive light.

As she grows up, Esme realizes that words and meanings relating to women's and common folks' experiences often go unrecorded. And so she begins in earnest to search out words for her own dictionary: The Dictionary of Lost Words. To do so she must leave the sheltered world of the university and venture out to meet the people whose words will fill those pages.

Set during the height of the women's suffrage movement with the Great War looming, The Dictionary of Lost Words reveals a lost narrative, hidden between the lines of a history written by men. Based on actual events and combed from author Pip Williams's experience delving into the archives of the Oxford English Dictionary, this highly original novel is a delightful, lyrical, and deeply thought-provoking celebration of words and the power of language to shape the world.]]> 376 Pip Williams 0593160193 Kitty 3 into writing a dictionary…how the human mind conceives of things and how this changes. Indeed, the men behind the editing of the OED end up sounding like Socrates who says, the more you know, the more you realize you really know nothing�. I never thought of words as being like stories� that as they are passed on from mouth to mouth, their meanings modulate�
What made the book interesting to me finally, was when Esme goes out on her own, collects “women’s words� � spoken not by the “proper society� but the vulgar words that have to do with feelings, and sex� Here, Esme, the motherless child, is guided by many wise women outside of her class and her “bondmaid�, Lizzie.

Bondmaid becomes a capital concept of the book.
How are women “slave girls� when bonded for life by love, devotion, obligation? � whether as maidservant, as servant to a task like serving the work of words (Esme) or finding out what is involved with falling in love, with becoming a mother ?( There too, the definition can be as technical as being a “female parent�, a “woman in authority� (like Mother Superior), modified as “birth mother� or surrogate� or loaded with life-long “emotional bondage� � a fierce and raw state that escapes definition.)

I had never thought about a “definition� of mother before, and indeed, it is worth thinking about how the meaning changes by how we use it, what experiences we have with our mothers. The book explores the tricks of grief� the decision to give up a child, whether through abortion or to transfer to foster parents� or the grief of going it alone as single parents under the shadow of implications given by society.
The heroine, Esme, does not tell her lover she is bearing his child, because, she does not love HIM, but was enjoying the act of love. She does not want to be his wife. How many women might be brave enough to go through with that?
I won’t give away the final chapters of the book, but finally did enjoy the last 100 pages of so� and actually was moved to tears.
I loved what the author Pip Williams says about rules: “They make me question myself at every turn. Things I thought I knew are suddenly confusing.� This is so true about relationships. As a woman, if I feel criticized, often it is this feeling that I am put down for not "following the unstated rules" about which I have no say.

There is backdrop of the history of women’s suffrage, the horror (word for what has no words, especially associated with war and violence) of WW I.
I am glad I read it. What is in a name? whether a name be destiny, chosen by a family, a nickname, earned from experience like "Doolally", or a story in its etymology (cushy, from "khush"), it is good to review one's own self-definition. A woman is more than only a word when labeled "daughter" or "wife", "sister" and can be "mother" without biological parameters. There are so many unspoken definitions that deserve to be preserved, as in these words in Esme's trunk of "lost words".]]> 3.93 2020 The Dictionary of Lost Words
author: Pip Williams
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2022/08/25
date added: 2022/08/25
shelves:
review:
Very uneven. I like the idea of it� that words can stretch or truncate to fit what needs to be said� the quotations which show the use of the word are important. It gives an idea of what goes
into writing a dictionary…how the human mind conceives of things and how this changes. Indeed, the men behind the editing of the OED end up sounding like Socrates who says, the more you know, the more you realize you really know nothing�. I never thought of words as being like stories� that as they are passed on from mouth to mouth, their meanings modulate�
What made the book interesting to me finally, was when Esme goes out on her own, collects “women’s words� � spoken not by the “proper society� but the vulgar words that have to do with feelings, and sex� Here, Esme, the motherless child, is guided by many wise women outside of her class and her “bondmaid�, Lizzie.

Bondmaid becomes a capital concept of the book.
How are women “slave girls� when bonded for life by love, devotion, obligation? � whether as maidservant, as servant to a task like serving the work of words (Esme) or finding out what is involved with falling in love, with becoming a mother ?( There too, the definition can be as technical as being a “female parent�, a “woman in authority� (like Mother Superior), modified as “birth mother� or surrogate� or loaded with life-long “emotional bondage� � a fierce and raw state that escapes definition.)

I had never thought about a “definition� of mother before, and indeed, it is worth thinking about how the meaning changes by how we use it, what experiences we have with our mothers. The book explores the tricks of grief� the decision to give up a child, whether through abortion or to transfer to foster parents� or the grief of going it alone as single parents under the shadow of implications given by society.
The heroine, Esme, does not tell her lover she is bearing his child, because, she does not love HIM, but was enjoying the act of love. She does not want to be his wife. How many women might be brave enough to go through with that?
I won’t give away the final chapters of the book, but finally did enjoy the last 100 pages of so� and actually was moved to tears.
I loved what the author Pip Williams says about rules: “They make me question myself at every turn. Things I thought I knew are suddenly confusing.� This is so true about relationships. As a woman, if I feel criticized, often it is this feeling that I am put down for not "following the unstated rules" about which I have no say.

There is backdrop of the history of women’s suffrage, the horror (word for what has no words, especially associated with war and violence) of WW I.
I am glad I read it. What is in a name? whether a name be destiny, chosen by a family, a nickname, earned from experience like "Doolally", or a story in its etymology (cushy, from "khush"), it is good to review one's own self-definition. A woman is more than only a word when labeled "daughter" or "wife", "sister" and can be "mother" without biological parameters. There are so many unspoken definitions that deserve to be preserved, as in these words in Esme's trunk of "lost words".
]]> <![CDATA[Philosophy in a New Key: A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art]]> 421727 Modern theories of meaning usually culminate in a critique of science. This book presents a study of human intelligence beginning with a semantic theory and leading into a critique of music.

By implication it sets up a theory of all the arts; the transference of its basic concepts to other arts than music is not developed, but it is sketched, mainly in the chapter on artistic import. Thoughtful readers of the original edition discovered these far-reaching ideas quickly enough as the career of the book shows: it is as applicable to literature, art and music as to the field of philosophy itself.

The topics it deals with are many: language, sacrament, myth, music, abstraction, fact, knowledge--to name only the main ones. But through them all goes the principal theme, symbolic transformation as the essential activity of human minds. This central idea, emphasizing as it does the notion of symbolism, brings Mrs. Langer's book into line with the prevailing interest in semantics. All profound issues of our age seem to center around the basic concepts of symbolism and meaning. The formative, creative, articulating power of symbols is the tonic chord which thinkers of all schools and many diverse fields are unmistakably striking; the surprising, far-reaching implications of this new fundamental conception constitute what Mrs. Langer has called "philosophy in a new key."

Mrs. Langer's book brings the discussion of symbolism into a wider general use than criticism of word meaning. Her volume is vigorous, effective, and well written and will appeal to everyone interested in the contemporary problems of philosophy.

]]> 313 Susanne K. Langer Kitty 0 4.05 1942 Philosophy in a New Key: A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art
author: Susanne K. Langer
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1942
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/05
shelves:
review:
I read this back in the 70's. I will need to re-read it, now 50 years later, so see how I understand it.
]]> Breathing Lessons 31181
What begins as a day trip to a funeral becomes an adventure in the unexpected. As Maggie and Ira navigate the riotous twists and turns, they intersect with an assorted cast of eccentrics–and rediscover the magic of the road called life and the joy of having somebody next to you to share the ride . . . bumps and all.
--back cover]]> 368 Anne Tyler 0345485599 Kitty 2
As well as winning the Pulitzer prize for fiction in 1989, Breathing Lessons was also Time magazine’s book of the year. The 100 best novels: No 96 � Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler (1988) “brilliantly executed digressions and melancholy optimism�.

Note: June 2022: In reading a book, so much depends on the circumstances outside of the book... is it useful for the experience one is living at the time... does it address the universals that pull at one's heartstrings, etc. In this time period, I feel overwhelmed by how much there is to read, and the inability to stay focussed. If a book is too much of a potpourri of possibility, or pulls me into a negative direction, this is not something desirable. I need ideas, well-expressed, that celebrate the best of being human to counteract the negativity of the times in which we live. For the moment, I can only deal with small amounts of confusion and melancholy.]]> 3.68 1988 Breathing Lessons
author: Anne Tyler
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.68
book published: 1988
rating: 2
read at: 2021/11/14
date added: 2022/06/23
shelves:
review:
In many ways, my initial disappointment with Breathing Lessons, was the lack of some sort of way to feel compassion or empathy for Maggie or Serena... Pity, disgust, exhaustion, abounded and I wanted to shake Maggie to her senses or at least match her up with a good counselor who could stop her impetuous desire not only to see life other-that-it-is, and impose her vision, only to produce yet more catastrophe. As the story continued, I was reminded, there but for the grace of God, go I... perhaps I was being given “breathing lessons� and the surface superficiality ceded to a sense of having experienced real lives of real people.

As well as winning the Pulitzer prize for fiction in 1989, Breathing Lessons was also Time magazine’s book of the year. The 100 best novels: No 96 � Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler (1988) “brilliantly executed digressions and melancholy optimism�.

Note: June 2022: In reading a book, so much depends on the circumstances outside of the book... is it useful for the experience one is living at the time... does it address the universals that pull at one's heartstrings, etc. In this time period, I feel overwhelmed by how much there is to read, and the inability to stay focussed. If a book is too much of a potpourri of possibility, or pulls me into a negative direction, this is not something desirable. I need ideas, well-expressed, that celebrate the best of being human to counteract the negativity of the times in which we live. For the moment, I can only deal with small amounts of confusion and melancholy.
]]> The Happiness Project 6398634
In this lively and compelling account, Rubin chronicles her adventures during the twelve months she spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, current scientific research, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier. Among other things, she found that novelty and challenge are powerful sources of happiness; that money can help buy happiness, when spent wisely; that outer order contributes to inner calm; and that the very smallest of changes can make the biggest difference.]]> 301 Gretchen Rubin 0061583251 Kitty 4 I enjoyed spot-checking Gretchen Rubin's journey, starting my own list of commandments, making a little book
to honor moments that bring happiness. Engaging style, unpretentious, like having a conversation with a best friend,
who reminds you to mind your best self, waiting.

Notes from 8/9/2011: "There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy"-- R.L. Stevenson. Indeed, Aristotle equates happiness as the "summer bonus". Why refute happiness? It boosts energy, allows us to enjoy play as a way to seriously change, insists that we remember to make time for friends, remember to love, and pay better attention...

Happiness is not about excess, but rather according to Franklin's checklist involves temperance, moderation, humility and silence... Less Prattling, eating, drinking will provide tranquility.

I am reminded that it is the process... trying hard and failing is not to be feared, but part of the very worthwhile process of a commitment to live a full life. To paraphrase Samuel Butler, happiness and misery consist of a progress towards better or worse. It matters not how high up or low you are,
it depends on the direction in which you are tending.
If you made a list of commandments for yourself, what might they be?
What do you write in your gratitude journal?]]> 3.65 2009 The Happiness Project
author: Gretchen Rubin
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2011/08/09
date added: 2022/06/20
shelves:
review:
I am leary of a book title with "Happiness" in it -- but underneath the word "Project" was a description of a year's worth of activities which spoke of in the same breath of Reading Aristotle and singing in the morning. As ancient civilizations have told us, if we remember to listen, there is no road TO happiness, but rather a road taken moment by moment.
I enjoyed spot-checking Gretchen Rubin's journey, starting my own list of commandments, making a little book
to honor moments that bring happiness. Engaging style, unpretentious, like having a conversation with a best friend,
who reminds you to mind your best self, waiting.

Notes from 8/9/2011: "There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy"-- R.L. Stevenson. Indeed, Aristotle equates happiness as the "summer bonus". Why refute happiness? It boosts energy, allows us to enjoy play as a way to seriously change, insists that we remember to make time for friends, remember to love, and pay better attention...

Happiness is not about excess, but rather according to Franklin's checklist involves temperance, moderation, humility and silence... Less Prattling, eating, drinking will provide tranquility.

I am reminded that it is the process... trying hard and failing is not to be feared, but part of the very worthwhile process of a commitment to live a full life. To paraphrase Samuel Butler, happiness and misery consist of a progress towards better or worse. It matters not how high up or low you are,
it depends on the direction in which you are tending.
If you made a list of commandments for yourself, what might they be?
What do you write in your gratitude journal?
]]> The Round House 13602426 Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

One of the most revered novelists of our time - a brilliant chronicler of Native-American life - Louise Erdrich returns to the territory of her bestselling, Pulitzer Prize finalist The Plague of Doves with The Round House, transporting readers to the Ojibwe reservation in North Dakota. It is an exquisitely told story of a boy on the cusp of manhood who seeks justice and understanding in the wake of a terrible crime that upends and forever transforms his family.

Riveting and suspenseful, arguably the most accessible novel to date from the creator of Love Medicine, The Beet Queen, and The Bingo Palace, Erdrich’s The Round House is a page-turning masterpiece of literary fiction - at once a powerful coming-of-age story, a mystery, and a tender, moving novel of family, history, and culture.]]> 323 Louise Erdrich 0062065246 Kitty 4
The cast of characters allows an inside look into the minds of adolescent boys, (and their voracious appetites for food -- ) the trusting friendship between Cappy, Zack, Angus and Joe who is trying to heal his mother. A complex story of jealousy, and family dynamics is woven as subtext (strange story of a white baby girl twin given up, as deficient, and cared for by an Indian family....) the old sage Mooshum... the sex-appeal games of Sonja, her strange relationship with Whitey, the role of the priest...

This is a book packed with emotion, with comic scenes not at all out of place in the overriding tragedy and all along, a rich embroidery bringing alive the threads of so many lives.
]]> 3.96 2012 The Round House
author: Louise Erdrich
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2022/06/04
date added: 2022/06/07
shelves:
review:
Louise Erdrich is a mesmerizing story teller, but also incredible historian, capturing in great detail what it is like to be Ojibwe, the injustice of white man law, the tragic history of how native indigenous people are treated. The Round House as title, becomes apparent as the reader understands the original structure it represented, as sacred space and place of worship for the Obibwe, in flagrant contrast with being the location of the violation of one crazy white man attacking and raping a native mother.

The cast of characters allows an inside look into the minds of adolescent boys, (and their voracious appetites for food -- ) the trusting friendship between Cappy, Zack, Angus and Joe who is trying to heal his mother. A complex story of jealousy, and family dynamics is woven as subtext (strange story of a white baby girl twin given up, as deficient, and cared for by an Indian family....) the old sage Mooshum... the sex-appeal games of Sonja, her strange relationship with Whitey, the role of the priest...

This is a book packed with emotion, with comic scenes not at all out of place in the overriding tragedy and all along, a rich embroidery bringing alive the threads of so many lives.

]]> The Translator 107830 295 John Crowley 0380815370 Kitty 2
I disagree. The first 100 pages or so make an interesting background of "Kit", with a somewhat hazy idea of this poet, Falin who she meets at University. There is a subplot as well in this first third of the book about Kit's brother Ben.

We are introduced to the concept of Besprizornye, ( literally translated as the “unattended� or “neglected� but generally understood to mean homeless children, refers to a mass phenomenon occasioned by war, revolution and civil war)
I loved the passages when I learn more about Russia, the difficulty of translation-- but would have preferred a love story just about them Falin and Kit with more convincing examples of poetry worthy of a reader!
The Cuban missile crisis seemed unnecessary. I'm not sure that the book addressed this idea put in one review: " mistranslation is the potential cause of apocalypse—the third, atomic, world war—and translation the cause of a peace-promoting sympathy between cultures."
]]> 3.77 2002 The Translator
author: John Crowley
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2002
rating: 2
read at: 2022/05/29
date added: 2022/05/30
shelves:
review:
The cover blurb says, "Grand and serious, involving nothing less than the souls of nations and the transforming power of language."

I disagree. The first 100 pages or so make an interesting background of "Kit", with a somewhat hazy idea of this poet, Falin who she meets at University. There is a subplot as well in this first third of the book about Kit's brother Ben.

We are introduced to the concept of Besprizornye, ( literally translated as the “unattended� or “neglected� but generally understood to mean homeless children, refers to a mass phenomenon occasioned by war, revolution and civil war)
I loved the passages when I learn more about Russia, the difficulty of translation-- but would have preferred a love story just about them Falin and Kit with more convincing examples of poetry worthy of a reader!
The Cuban missile crisis seemed unnecessary. I'm not sure that the book addressed this idea put in one review: " mistranslation is the potential cause of apocalypse—the third, atomic, world war—and translation the cause of a peace-promoting sympathy between cultures."

]]> Hope Against Hope 106459 442 Nadezhda Mandelstam 0375753168 Kitty 0 to-read 4.38 1970 Hope Against Hope
author: Nadezhda Mandelstam
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1970
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/05/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Rosie Project (Don Tillman, #1)]]> 16181775
Don Tillman, professor of genetics, has never been on a second date. He is a man who can count all his friends on the fingers of one hand, whose lifelong difficulty with social rituals has convinced him that he is simply not wired for romance. So when an acquaintance informs him that he would make a “wonderful� husband, his first reaction is shock. Yet he must concede to the statistical probability that there is someone for everyone, and he embarks upon The Wife Project. In the orderly, evidence-based manner with which he approaches all things, Don sets out to find the perfect partner. She will be punctual and logical—most definitely not a barmaid, a smoker, a drinker, or a late-arriver.

Yet Rosie Jarman is all these things. She is also beguiling, fiery, intelligent—and on a quest of her own. She is looking for her biological father, a search that a certain DNA expert might be able to help her with. Don's Wife Project takes a back burner to the Father Project and an unlikely relationship blooms, forcing the scientifically minded geneticist to confront the spontaneous whirlwind that is Rosie—and the realization that love is not always what looks good on paper.

The Rosie Project is a moving and hilarious novel for anyone who has ever tenaciously gone after life or love in the face of overwhelming challenges.]]> 292 Graeme Simsion 1476729085 Kitty 4
I love the blurbs -- totally accurate! Lisa Genova says better than I try to say above, "Written in a superbly pitch-perfect voice, "The Rosie Project" had me cheering for Don on every page."
Chris Cleve says: "Readers will become enchanted by what may well be the world's first rigorously evidence-based romantic comedy." And, indeed, as Adriana Trigiani defies us, you will not want to put this book down.

Aren't we all "socially challenged" in some regard? Have expectations of what defines "perfect" and how to achieve it? I love Rosie's fiery personality, her whirlwind spontaneity, her belief that knowing who is her "real" father is key to her well-being. I love the mirror of the chapter which opens with a hilarious view of Don confessing he is an alcoholic (confessing, if he said these words, they would be true, and he would have no choice but to follow the rational path, which was to stop drinking permanently.). It is comforting to feel I am not alone having wondered at the power of alcohol to interfere with life. Of course, the intoxication Don is experiencing was to "to gain competence" as drinks waiter which was to serve the Mass DNA Collection Subproject of the Father project, and the pages keep turning as you land on a name of a cocktails such as as "double-coddled Kurdistani sailmaker with reverse twist" and ending on quite a list of ingredients for dessert drinks. He was quite on a roll!

What is love? Why do we do the things we do for ourselves and others? As Matthew Quick writes in his blurb, "Don Tillman helps us believe in possibility, makes us proud to be human beings, and the bonus is this: he keeps us laughing like hell". Indeed! ]]> 4.00 2013 The Rosie Project (Don Tillman, #1)
author: Graeme Simsion
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2022/05/25
date added: 2022/05/29
shelves:
review:
Delightful!!! If you had any prejudice about people labeled "on the spectrum" this book may indeed help you reassess negative judgement. We all think as we are born programmed and shaped to think-- and how fun to have 292 pages which share an intimate "aspergerian" way Don sees the world, and feel that you, as reader are integral to him in the cheering on of his wife project... and equally important in solving Rosie's father project, only to realize that what you actually are cheering on is one of the quirkiest and endearing love stories!

I love the blurbs -- totally accurate! Lisa Genova says better than I try to say above, "Written in a superbly pitch-perfect voice, "The Rosie Project" had me cheering for Don on every page."
Chris Cleve says: "Readers will become enchanted by what may well be the world's first rigorously evidence-based romantic comedy." And, indeed, as Adriana Trigiani defies us, you will not want to put this book down.

Aren't we all "socially challenged" in some regard? Have expectations of what defines "perfect" and how to achieve it? I love Rosie's fiery personality, her whirlwind spontaneity, her belief that knowing who is her "real" father is key to her well-being. I love the mirror of the chapter which opens with a hilarious view of Don confessing he is an alcoholic (confessing, if he said these words, they would be true, and he would have no choice but to follow the rational path, which was to stop drinking permanently.). It is comforting to feel I am not alone having wondered at the power of alcohol to interfere with life. Of course, the intoxication Don is experiencing was to "to gain competence" as drinks waiter which was to serve the Mass DNA Collection Subproject of the Father project, and the pages keep turning as you land on a name of a cocktails such as as "double-coddled Kurdistani sailmaker with reverse twist" and ending on quite a list of ingredients for dessert drinks. He was quite on a roll!

What is love? Why do we do the things we do for ourselves and others? As Matthew Quick writes in his blurb, "Don Tillman helps us believe in possibility, makes us proud to be human beings, and the bonus is this: he keeps us laughing like hell". Indeed!
]]> <![CDATA[Looking and Listening: Conversations between Modern Art and Music]]> 14951674

Leach takes readers on a whirlwind tour of the lives of these artists, surveying many of the key movements in the twentieth century by comparing representative works from the modern masters of the visual arts and music. Leach’s refreshing and innovation approach will interest those passionate about twentieth-century art and music and is ideal for any student or instructor, museum docent, or music programmer seeking to draw the lines of connection between these two art forms.]]> 216 Brenda Leach 0810883465 Kitty 0 to-read 3.50 2014 Looking and Listening: Conversations between Modern Art and Music
author: Brenda Leach
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/05/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> A Gentleman in Moscow 34066798 The mega-bestseller with more than 2 million readers—Now a Paramount+ with Showtime series starring Ewan McGregor as Count Alexander Rostov

From the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway and Rules of Civility, a beautifully transporting novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel

In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery.

Brimming with humor, a glittering cast of characters, and one beautifully rendered scene after another, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the count’s endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man of purpose.]]> 462 Amor Towles Kitty 0 4.29 2016 A Gentleman in Moscow
author: Amor Towles
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2022/04/26
date added: 2022/04/26
shelves:
review:

]]> Where the Crawdads Sing 36809135
But Kya is not what they say. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life's lessons from the land, learning the real ways of the world from the dishonest signals of fireflies. But while she has the skills to live in solitude forever, the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world—until the unthinkable happens.

In Where the Crawdads Sing, Owens juxtaposes an exquisite ode to the natural world against a profound coming of age story and haunting mystery. Thought-provoking, wise, and deeply moving, Owens’s debut novel reminds us that we are forever shaped by the child within us, while also subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.

The story asks how isolation influences the behavior of a young woman, who like all of us, has the genetic propensity to belong to a group. The clues to the mystery are brushed into the lush habitat and natural histories of its wild creatures.]]> 384 Delia Owens 0735219117 Kitty 4
I enjoyed the introduction of the poetry by "Amanda Hamilton" towards the last third of the book which mirrors a sentimental softness in Kya. The parallels between mating habits, whether fireflies of humans is cleverly done. The trial provides a brilliant foil for exposing subjectivity and prejudice.

]]> 4.35 2018 Where the Crawdads Sing
author: Delia Owens
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2022/04/18
date added: 2022/04/18
shelves:
review:
Wonderfully written, both story (clearly fiction), and beautiful descriptions of the magic of the Marshland on the North Carolina coast. I'm not sure it is necessary to have the leaping around of years and dates... but at least it does not interfere. I was totally immersed in Kya's survival, her development, the blossoming of her relationship with Tate, the painful sense of abandonment...

I enjoyed the introduction of the poetry by "Amanda Hamilton" towards the last third of the book which mirrors a sentimental softness in Kya. The parallels between mating habits, whether fireflies of humans is cleverly done. The trial provides a brilliant foil for exposing subjectivity and prejudice.


]]> The Invitation 28118525
Rome, 1953: Hal, an itinerant journalist flailing in the post-war darkness, has come to the Eternal City to lose himself and to seek absolution for the thing that haunts him. One evening he finds himself on the steps of a palazzo, walking into a world of privilege and light. Here, on a rooftop above the city, he meets the mysterious Stella. Hal and Stella are from different worlds, but their connection is magnetic. Together, they escape the crowded party and imagine a different life, even if it's just for a night. Yet Stella vanishes all too quickly, and Hal is certain their paths won't cross again.

But a year later they are unexpectedly thrown together, after Hal receives an invitation he cannot resist. An Italian Contessa asks him to assist on a trip of a lifetime -- acting as a reporter on a tremendous yacht, skimming its way along the Italian coast toward Cannes film festival, the most famous artists and movie stars of the day gathered to promote a new film.

Of all the luminaries aboard -- an Italian ingénue, an American star, a reclusive director -- only one holds Hal in Stella. And while each has a past that belies the gilded surface, Stella has the most to hide. As Hal's obsession with Stella grows, he becomes determined to bring back the girl she once was, the girl who's been confined to history. An irresistibly entertaining and atmospheric novel set in some of the world's most glamorous locales, The Invitation is a sultry love story about the ways in which the secrets of the past stay with us -- no matter how much we try to escape them.]]> 432 Lucy Foley 0316273473 Kitty 4 I enjoyed the parts of chapters subtitled, "Her". Who is this younger version of Stella, and who is this husband? We find out more on p. 295-- but even then, only a partial glimpse.

Hal's instructions: collect the details. What do stars eat and drink, wear? What books do they read? How do they relax? "Nienti di troppo difficile". Aubrey, the photographer, and the haunting images he creates which evoke his beautiful sister... Earl Morgan, constantly wasted by alcohol, main actor, Guilietta, actress, who appears "spoiled" but whose story reveals her background as Romani and anything but. The delightful revelation of her story includes mistranslation of "toothpick" as "pickpocket", and "typewritten" as "typecast", and chance selection as the face of Italy on olive oil labels...

We learn the Italian for puppet, "una burratina" and the backstory of the Spanish revolution in 1936.
We learn of Hal's struggle, what he could not tell Suze, the beautiful woman he left, about his friend Morris, his wife Flora.

What do we blame ourselves for as we find out the fate of the lives of others? As a woman, a further layer lies in what drives us to fight with every ounce to be our own self, not some conquest, some display package "owned" by a man.

Although the ending felt a bit facile, this book will carry you intimately on the Italian Riviera, as if given an exclusive privilege to learn about other people's repressed longings and secrets.
]]> 3.46 2016 The Invitation
author: Lucy Foley
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2022/04/17
date added: 2022/04/17
shelves:
review:
The opening chapter after the prologue of this book seduced me, and I could not put the book down. On the last page of the epilogue, all the six parts of this fantastical story confirm that this chance meeting of Hal, the journalist, allowed in to an exclusive party, and Stella, introduced as a pale blond who extends a "slender white arm, with a wink of diamonds about the fine bones of the wrist". This complicated love story parallels one written in a 17th century journal, which is the inspiration for a film. More than that, the outward lives of the characters assembled on a Contessa's yacht, to promote this film, "The Sea Captain", following the coast of Liguria where it takes place, slowly fill with the real story behind each guest, each with a shadow of WW 2.
I enjoyed the parts of chapters subtitled, "Her". Who is this younger version of Stella, and who is this husband? We find out more on p. 295-- but even then, only a partial glimpse.

Hal's instructions: collect the details. What do stars eat and drink, wear? What books do they read? How do they relax? "Nienti di troppo difficile". Aubrey, the photographer, and the haunting images he creates which evoke his beautiful sister... Earl Morgan, constantly wasted by alcohol, main actor, Guilietta, actress, who appears "spoiled" but whose story reveals her background as Romani and anything but. The delightful revelation of her story includes mistranslation of "toothpick" as "pickpocket", and "typewritten" as "typecast", and chance selection as the face of Italy on olive oil labels...

We learn the Italian for puppet, "una burratina" and the backstory of the Spanish revolution in 1936.
We learn of Hal's struggle, what he could not tell Suze, the beautiful woman he left, about his friend Morris, his wife Flora.

What do we blame ourselves for as we find out the fate of the lives of others? As a woman, a further layer lies in what drives us to fight with every ounce to be our own self, not some conquest, some display package "owned" by a man.

Although the ending felt a bit facile, this book will carry you intimately on the Italian Riviera, as if given an exclusive privilege to learn about other people's repressed longings and secrets.

]]> <![CDATA[Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents]]> 51152447 The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions.

“As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not.�

In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings.

Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their out-cast of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.]]> 544 Isabel Wilkerson 0593230256 Kitty 0 4.52 2020 Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
author: Isabel Wilkerson
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/29
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End]]> 20696006 In Being Mortal, author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending

Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming birth, injury, and infectious disease from harrowing to manageable. But in the inevitable condition of aging and death, the goals of medicine seem too frequently to run counter to the interest of the human spirit. Nursing homes, preoccupied with safety, pin patients into railed beds and wheelchairs. Hospitals isolate the dying, checking for vital signs long after the goals of cure have become moot. Doctors, committed to extending life, continue to carry out devastating procedures that in the end extend suffering.

Gawande, a practicing surgeon, addresses his profession's ultimate limitation, arguing that quality of life is the desired goal for patients and families. Gawande offers examples of freer, more socially fulfilling models for assisting the infirm and dependent elderly, and he explores the varieties of hospice care to demonstrate that a person's last weeks or months may be rich and dignified.]]> 282 Atul Gawande 0805095152 Kitty 0 4.47 2014 Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
author: Atul Gawande
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/29
shelves:
review:

]]> Room 31685789
Told in the inventive, funny, and poignant voice of Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience—and a powerful story of a mother and son whose love lets them survive the impossible.

To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it's where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.

Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it's not enough ... not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son's bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work.

Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another.]]> 321 Emma Donoghue Kitty 0 to-read 4.18 2010 Room
author: Emma Donoghue
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Kitchen House 6837103
Eventually, Lavinia is accepted into the world of the big house, where the master is absent and the mistress battles opium addiction. Lavinia finds herself perilously straddling two very different worlds. When she is forced to make a choice, loyalties are brought into question, dangerous truths are laid bare, and lives are put at risk.]]> 369 Kathleen Grissom 1439153663 Kitty 0 to-read 4.21 2010 The Kitchen House
author: Kathleen Grissom
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail]]> 12262741 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here

At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State � and she would do it alone.

Told with suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.]]> 336 Cheryl Strayed 0307592731 Kitty 0 to-read 4.05 2012 Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
author: Cheryl Strayed
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Dreams of My Russian Summers 135158 Dreams of My Russian Summers, tells the poignant story of a boy growing up amid the harsh realities of Soviet life in the 1960s and '70s, and of his extraordinary love for an elegant Frenchwoman, Charlotte Lemonnier, who is his grandmother.

Every summer he visits his grandmother in a dusty village overlooking the vast steppes. Here, during the warm evenings, they sit on Charlotte's narrow, flower-covered bacony and listen to tales from another time, another place: Paris at the turn of the century. She who used to see Proust playing tennis in Neuilly captivates the children with stories of Tsar Nicholas's visit to Paris in 1896, of the great Paris flood of 1910, of the death of French president Felix Faure in the arms of his mistress.

But from Charlotte the boy also learns of a Russia he has never known, of famine and misery, of brutal injustice, of the hopeless chaos of war. He follows her as she travels by foot from Moscow half the way to Siberia; suffers with her as she tells of her husband - his grandfather - a victim of Stalin's purges; shudders as she describes her own capture by bandits, who brutalize her and left her for dead. Could all this pain and suffering really have happened to his gentle, beloved Charlotte? Mesmerized, the boy weaves Charlotte's stories into his own secret universe of memory and dream. Yet, despite all the deprivations and injustices of the Soviet world, he like many Russians still feels a strong affinity with and "an indestructible love" for his homeland.]]> 244 AndreĂŻ Makine 0684852683 Kitty 0 to-read 3.83 1995 Dreams of My Russian Summers
author: AndreĂŻ Makine
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Hummingbird's Daughter 91289
It is 1889, and the civil war is brewing in Mexico. Sixteen year old Teresita, illegitimate but beloved daughter of the wealthy and powerful rancher Don Tomas Urrea, wakes from the strangest dream - a dream that she has died. Only it was not a dream. This passionate and rebellious young woman has arisen from the dead with the power to heal - but it will take all her faith to endure the trials that await her and her family now that she has become the Saint of Cabora.

The Hummingbird's Daughter is a vast, hugely satisfying novel of love and loss, joy and pain. Two decades in the writing, this is the masterpiece that Luis Alberto Urrea has been building up to.]]> 499 Luis Alberto Urrea 0316154520 Kitty 0 to-read 4.20 2005 The Hummingbird's Daughter
author: Luis Alberto Urrea
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> March 13529 Winner of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

From the author of the acclaimed Year of Wonders, a historical novel and love story set during a time of catastrophe, on the front lines of the American Civil War. Acclaimed author Geraldine Brooks gives us the story of the absent father from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women—and conjures a world of brutality, stubborn courage and transcendent love. An idealistic abolitionist, March has gone as chaplain to serve the Union cause. But the war tests his faith not only in the Union—which is also capable of barbarism and racism—but in himself. As he recovers from a near-fatal illness, March must reassemble and reconnect with his family, who have no idea of what he has endured. A love story set in a time of catastrophe, March explores the passions between a man and a woman, the tenderness of parent and child, and the life-changing power of an ardently held belief.]]> 280 Geraldine Brooks Kitty 0 to-read 3.77 2005 March
author: Geraldine Brooks
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> March: Book One (March, #1) 17346698
Book One spans John Lewis' youth in rural Alabama, his life-changing meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr., the birth of the Nashville Student Movement, and their battle to tear down segregation through nonviolent lunch counter sit-ins, building to a stunning climax on the steps of City Hall.

Many years ago, John Lewis and other student activists drew inspiration from the 1950s comic book Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story. Now, his own comics bring those days to life for a new audience, testifying to a movement whose echoes will be heard for generations.

(Back flap)]]> 128 John Lewis 1603093001 Kitty 0 to-read 4.34 2013 March: Book One (March, #1)
author: John Lewis
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Too Close to the Falls: A Memoir]]> 977268
At the tender age of four, Cathy accompanies Roy, the deliveryman at her father's pharmacy, on his routes. She shares some of their memorable deliveries-sleeping pills to Marilyn Monroe (in town filming Niagara), sedatives to Mad Bear, a violent Tuscarora chief, and fungus cream to Warty, the gentle operator of the town dump. As she reaches her teenage years, Cathy's irrepressible spirit spurs her from dangerous sled rides that take her "too close to the Falls" to tipsy dances with the town priest.]]> 400 Catherine Gildiner 014200040X Kitty 0 to-read 3.91 1999 Too Close to the Falls: A Memoir
author: Catherine Gildiner
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> State of Wonder 9118135
As Dr. Marina Singh embarks upon an uncertain odyssey into the insect-infested Amazon, she will be forced to surrender herself to the lush but forbidding world that awaits within the jungle.

Charged with finding her former mentor Dr. Annick Swenson, a researcher who has disappeared while working on a valuable new drug, she will have to confront her own memories of tragedy and sacrifice as she journeys into the unforgiving heart of darkness.

Stirring and luminous, "State of Wonder" is a world unto itself, where unlikely beauty stands beside unimaginable loss beneath the rain forest's jeweled canopy.]]> 353 Ann Patchett 0062049801 Kitty 0 to-read 3.88 2011 State of Wonder
author: Ann Patchett
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Beautiful Ruins 11447921
A #1 New York Times bestseller, this “absolute masterpiece� (Richard Russo) is the story of an almost-love affair that begins on the Italian coast in 1962 and resurfaces fifty years later in Hollywood. From the lavish set of Cleopatra to the shabby revelry of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival to the back lots of contemporary Hollywood, this is a dazzling, yet deeply human roller coaster of a novel.

The acclaimed author of the national bestseller The Financial Lives of the Poets returns with his funniest, most romantic, and most purely enjoyable novel yet. Hailed by critics and loved by readers of literary and historical fiction, Beautiful Ruins is gloriously inventive and constantly surprising—a story of flawed yet fascinating people navigating the rocky shores of their lives while clinging to their improbable dreams.]]> 337 Jess Walter 0061928127 Kitty 3 It would be enough to center the plot only at "Hotel Adequate View", in Porto Vergogna, (Port of Shame) where Pasquale plans his cantilevered tennis court and fights to maintain a small beach to rival other hotels on the Cinque Terre. His tender honesty about the word "adequate" adds a poignant touch to an unchangeably doomed outcome , reinforced by the corrupt Gualfredo; his impossible hopes fanned to greater flames by accidental details of the arrival of movie star and annual visits of an American, Alvis, more a drunk than a novelist who comes every year to scratch at his writing. .

It would have been a wonderful series of short stories to hear the strange story of Amedea, to imagine what really makes Pasquale's mother declare she is dead inside besides the death of her husband. (What is it about the unknowable nature of the people we love?) told with an interspersing of Italian which indeed adds a delightful note. The plot thickens with tidbits about the war, stories that seem plausible turn out to be fiction, and why not, funny details like the artist painting a landscape with a barn upside down, to pay hommage to the way the eye sees the world before the brain automatically reverses it. Carlo Tursi, father of Pasquale, echoes such technique, suggesting to Alvis he try start writing his story with the ending.

But no. This is a novel and Jess Walter is on a roll, skipping through time, place and half a century later, we find the starstruck innkeeper insistant on finding his long-lost love, side by side an army vet turned novelist, suddenly assigned to be his "translator". It's a little exhausting to keep up with the pieces as they start to fit together along with the lavish set of "Cleopatra", and Richard Burton and Liz Taylor.

The romp continues with a more complete portrait of Michael Deane, legendary film producer, more legend than fact and how Dee Moray thinks she is dying of cancer, although the morning sickness should convince her otherwise. For fun, we are treated to Michael Deane's first chapter of his memoire... the play Pat Bender (son of Dee Moray whose actual father is the actual Richard Burton) is cast in at the Fringe festival in Edinburgh and the whole sticky business of selling Pat's "life rights". Claire Silver, the talented but unfortunate development assistant for the wannabe movie script writer Any self-respecting woman would avoid her "boyfriend" -- but who are we to judge... Perhaps it is spoof with a hint of truth that she is continues to work with Michael, both eager for winning story.


]]> 3.67 2012 Beautiful Ruins
author: Jess Walter
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2022/03/08
date added: 2022/03/08
shelves:
review:
Deft social satire with a weaving of movie plots with enough detail that makes it seem, at first, real. Each character casts light on hopes, dreams, desires, flaws... with a light dose of humor.
It would be enough to center the plot only at "Hotel Adequate View", in Porto Vergogna, (Port of Shame) where Pasquale plans his cantilevered tennis court and fights to maintain a small beach to rival other hotels on the Cinque Terre. His tender honesty about the word "adequate" adds a poignant touch to an unchangeably doomed outcome , reinforced by the corrupt Gualfredo; his impossible hopes fanned to greater flames by accidental details of the arrival of movie star and annual visits of an American, Alvis, more a drunk than a novelist who comes every year to scratch at his writing. .

It would have been a wonderful series of short stories to hear the strange story of Amedea, to imagine what really makes Pasquale's mother declare she is dead inside besides the death of her husband. (What is it about the unknowable nature of the people we love?) told with an interspersing of Italian which indeed adds a delightful note. The plot thickens with tidbits about the war, stories that seem plausible turn out to be fiction, and why not, funny details like the artist painting a landscape with a barn upside down, to pay hommage to the way the eye sees the world before the brain automatically reverses it. Carlo Tursi, father of Pasquale, echoes such technique, suggesting to Alvis he try start writing his story with the ending.

But no. This is a novel and Jess Walter is on a roll, skipping through time, place and half a century later, we find the starstruck innkeeper insistant on finding his long-lost love, side by side an army vet turned novelist, suddenly assigned to be his "translator". It's a little exhausting to keep up with the pieces as they start to fit together along with the lavish set of "Cleopatra", and Richard Burton and Liz Taylor.

The romp continues with a more complete portrait of Michael Deane, legendary film producer, more legend than fact and how Dee Moray thinks she is dying of cancer, although the morning sickness should convince her otherwise. For fun, we are treated to Michael Deane's first chapter of his memoire... the play Pat Bender (son of Dee Moray whose actual father is the actual Richard Burton) is cast in at the Fringe festival in Edinburgh and the whole sticky business of selling Pat's "life rights". Claire Silver, the talented but unfortunate development assistant for the wannabe movie script writer Any self-respecting woman would avoid her "boyfriend" -- but who are we to judge... Perhaps it is spoof with a hint of truth that she is continues to work with Michael, both eager for winning story.



]]> <![CDATA[Lighthouse for the Drowning (Lannan Translations Selection Series)]]> 31944706 that did not shine in the shroud of night,
but we took joy in them
when the night was a gloom all around us.
To our children, we
We are not your lighthouse.
Do not follow the path we light,
but be your own secrets.
Jawdat Fakhreddine was born in 1953 in a small village in southern Lebanon. A professor of Arabic literature at the Lebanese University in Beirut, he is one of the major Lebanese names in Modern Arabic Poetry, and is considered one of the second generation poets of the modernist movement in the Arab world. He earned an MA in Physics and taught at the high school level for more than 10 years. During this time he published a number of poetry collections and was encouraged by Adonis to work on a PhD in Arabic literature. Fakhreddine intermittently publishes articles and new poems in al-Hayat newspaper, which is an Arab newspaper published in London and distributed worldwide, and in as-Safir , one of the two major Lebanese Newspapers. He writes a weekly article in al-Khaleej newspaper, a widely distributed gulf daily newspaper. He currently lives in Beirut, Lebanon.]]> 128 Jawdat Fakhreddine 1942683391 Kitty 0 aptly the poems, written by a Lebanese poet forced to leave his Southern town in Lebanon, now living in Beirut, reflect the frightening displacement in 2022 of so many because of war.

Of what use a lighthouse, if drowning? Written in 1996, without the translation, we might not know that each of the poems begins with an allusion to a Classical Arabic poem, sometimes,
the words of which are commonplace in daily Arabic parlance. The introduction compares this
to “cover songs� for the poet’s meditations. In Arabic poetry, abstraction and repetition are highly regarded, and I feel the translators have handled it well, much as English readers might find this annoying. The two translators worked separately, one with a tack of scholarly interpretation, the other working with the feeling, and seeking its tone and texture.
It is certainly the sort of book that invites a “conversation�. I do not know Arabic, but wish I did, to hear the original. His poems led me to reflect on fear... how easily we walk with it.. but perhaps it is not our best friend to choose... I was intrigued by the word “indulgence� which I think is cast differently in the original Arabic� a way for what is experienced to embrace the poet...
I noted the repeated “settle� and “perch� with a context of a pause to wandering, carrying our secrets, our hearts like a wingless bird wrestling beat by beat with unnameable sadness, yearning
for starlight and what beckons lightyears beyond.
I am left with questions: how to meet the past days, and with what attitude do I prepare to sympathize with those to come?

The back cover quotes the poet, “Words... are the lost homeland.”� the rubble and remains of their losses... What feelings and perceptions to trust?



]]> 3.92 Lighthouse for the Drowning (Lannan Translations Selection Series)
author: Jawdat Fakhreddine
name: Kitty
average rating: 3.92
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2022/03/02
date added: 2022/03/02
shelves:
review:
I had written about this book 5 years ago, but 2 days ago, picked it up and was struck by how
aptly the poems, written by a Lebanese poet forced to leave his Southern town in Lebanon, now living in Beirut, reflect the frightening displacement in 2022 of so many because of war.

Of what use a lighthouse, if drowning? Written in 1996, without the translation, we might not know that each of the poems begins with an allusion to a Classical Arabic poem, sometimes,
the words of which are commonplace in daily Arabic parlance. The introduction compares this
to “cover songs� for the poet’s meditations. In Arabic poetry, abstraction and repetition are highly regarded, and I feel the translators have handled it well, much as English readers might find this annoying. The two translators worked separately, one with a tack of scholarly interpretation, the other working with the feeling, and seeking its tone and texture.
It is certainly the sort of book that invites a “conversation�. I do not know Arabic, but wish I did, to hear the original. His poems led me to reflect on fear... how easily we walk with it.. but perhaps it is not our best friend to choose... I was intrigued by the word “indulgence� which I think is cast differently in the original Arabic� a way for what is experienced to embrace the poet...
I noted the repeated “settle� and “perch� with a context of a pause to wandering, carrying our secrets, our hearts like a wingless bird wrestling beat by beat with unnameable sadness, yearning
for starlight and what beckons lightyears beyond.
I am left with questions: how to meet the past days, and with what attitude do I prepare to sympathize with those to come?

The back cover quotes the poet, “Words... are the lost homeland.”� the rubble and remains of their losses... What feelings and perceptions to trust?




]]> <![CDATA[The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History]]> 17910054
In prose that is at once frank, entertaining, and deeply informed, The New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert tells us why and how human beings have altered life on the planet in a way no species has before. Interweaving research in half a dozen disciplines, descriptions of the fascinating species that have already been lost, and the history of extinction as a concept, Kolbert provides a moving and comprehensive account of the disappearances occurring before our very eyes. She shows that the sixth extinction is likely to be mankind's most lasting legacy, compelling us to rethink the fundamental question of what it means to be human.]]> 336 Elizabeth Kolbert 0805092994 Kitty 4 There have been five major mass extinctions when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted... as the inside cover continues, "this time around, the cataclysm is us."

I was fascinated by the gathering of impressive research and agree with David Quammen, Kolbert indeed unfolds the biggest story of this planet to date, told "with imagination, rigor, and a capacious curiosity about all the wondrous creatures and ecosystems that exist, have existed. The result is an important book full of love and loss."

I admit, I read quickly to get a general idea, but no matter how hard I tried to speed through, I was arrested repeatedly by information that triggered poetic speculation. I loved following a story line, especially the hypotheses of the 19th century which were based on conjecture, and how much more we understand now. Imagine, once being large and slow to reproduce was once a viable system (before humans), or that the reason puppies are born blind is that the mother needs a short pregnancy in order to hunt, and the finishing touches for sight could happen after birth, or that the Neanderthal's ability represent the world with signs and symbols heralded the capacity to change it... and how important it is for us, as we continue to destroy it, to think about what will follow us.]]> 4.13 2014 The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History
author: Elizabeth Kolbert
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2022/02/25
date added: 2022/02/25
shelves:
review:
The subtitle, "An Unnatural History" challenges us to rethink what we know, how we know, and what "natural" and "history" mean in the story of this planet and all that has lived on it.
There have been five major mass extinctions when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted... as the inside cover continues, "this time around, the cataclysm is us."

I was fascinated by the gathering of impressive research and agree with David Quammen, Kolbert indeed unfolds the biggest story of this planet to date, told "with imagination, rigor, and a capacious curiosity about all the wondrous creatures and ecosystems that exist, have existed. The result is an important book full of love and loss."

I admit, I read quickly to get a general idea, but no matter how hard I tried to speed through, I was arrested repeatedly by information that triggered poetic speculation. I loved following a story line, especially the hypotheses of the 19th century which were based on conjecture, and how much more we understand now. Imagine, once being large and slow to reproduce was once a viable system (before humans), or that the reason puppies are born blind is that the mother needs a short pregnancy in order to hunt, and the finishing touches for sight could happen after birth, or that the Neanderthal's ability represent the world with signs and symbols heralded the capacity to change it... and how important it is for us, as we continue to destroy it, to think about what will follow us.
]]> <![CDATA[Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants]]> 17465709 Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these lenses of knowledge together to show that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings are we capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learning to give our own gifts in return.]]> 408 Robin Wall Kimmerer 1571313354 Kitty 4
What follows is a lengthy summary of the parts of her book that called out to me to read and re-read. Other parts sometimes I admit, I skimmed more quickly.

Robin Wall Kimmerer reminds us of the importance of being open to the rich generosity of the natural world, develop our kinship with it. It is a positive outlook that provides a counter-culturally nurturing response that also needs to be etched in ways that will be heard for posterity. Yes... the wars, the injustice, the inhumane cruelty, the inconceivable harm... but yes too... human curiosity, desire to bring good to the spirit, to understand the difficult, to find balance in the complexity of the possible. Her gentle humor, the wisdom, wrap the delights of the natural world, and show the possibility of a more humane and reverent attitude to all living beings from plants, to trees, to animals, people, and to all we use to nourish, embellish this world in which we are given the gift of participating. Who could not want to do so with a sense of reciprocity?

In the chapter, "Learning the Grammar of Animacy", she adds the epigram: "to be native to a place we must learn to speak its language". We learn the sound of "Puhpowee", that "force which causes mushrooms to push up from earth overnight." She tells us about Potawatomi language which distinguishes between the living and the lifeless world, and 70% is composed of verbs as opposed to our noun-based English with only 30% of verbs. Curious that the word, "Yawe", the animate "to be" in the New World sounds like Yahweh, of the Old Testament: "both fall from the mouths of the reverent-- is this just what it means: to be, to have the breath of life within, to be the offspring of Creation.". (p. 56)

Even if you have experienced sugaring off with maple sap, or know the properties of witch hazel, these chapters spin a different aspect with her story telling, as well as her confessional chapter about trying to clear a pond for her daughters to swim in and the consolation of water lilies. The importance of the 3 sisters, corn, beans, squash, follow, along with basket weaving with black ash. The crucial idea of the honorable harvest, the 30 pages that outlines the thanksgiving address, "The Words that come Before All Else." (pp. 311-340) and the Pledge of Gratitude (p. 105 and continues in an entire chapter) are a welcome contrast to allegiance to a flag and growth economy! Imagine the United Nations establishing a treaty that respects the dignity of our Earth, endorsed by all. It is discouraging to see the traces of "Windigo-mind" -- insatiable consumption, self-destruction.

This is the book that gives me courage to say, "even though"...
Even though
I live in an age where humans are destroying
each other in more and more effective ways, destroying
the very ecosystem that should sustain; destroying
hope, faith, and belief in intangible mystery; destroying
community, relationship
even though
my heart has been weeping all day, hope
appeared for an hour, I brought the joy of words, hope
to women struggling to recover a sense of worth, hope
returning as they reminded me I too have worth
even though
everything might seem otherwise.
**
Even� plays its counterpoint to though�

Thank you Robin Wall Kimmerer. ]]> 4.52 2013 Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
author: Robin Wall Kimmerer
name: Kitty
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2022/02/21
date added: 2022/02/22
shelves:
review:
As a child, I was fortunate to be somewhat exposed to the practice of reverence for nature, and seeing sunlight, balsam scent, phases of the moon, wild strawberries, songs of the brook as gifts. What a joy then to pick up this book, and read about the Strawberry, Maple, basket-making and chapter after chapter where the author gently weaves her love of nature, her botanical training, indigenous wisdom of the Potawatomi Nation. She threads her loom with stories in which people and land are good medicine for each other. A rigged game is inconceivable in the thinking of a "gift economy" where a "bundle of responsibilities" are attached, as opposed to Western thinking of "private land with a bundle of rights." In the opening chapters, she mentions the shameful treatment of indigenous people. The truth is stated without vindication, and she calmly, patiently explains the indigenous wisdom of treating the natural world with respect and reciprocity. She quotes Lewis Hyde, saying, a gift relationship with nature is a formal give-and-take that acknowledges our participation in, and dependence upon, natural increase... nature as part of ourselves, not a stranger or alien... for it is a commerce that harmonizes with, participates in the process of [nature's] increase.

What follows is a lengthy summary of the parts of her book that called out to me to read and re-read. Other parts sometimes I admit, I skimmed more quickly.

Robin Wall Kimmerer reminds us of the importance of being open to the rich generosity of the natural world, develop our kinship with it. It is a positive outlook that provides a counter-culturally nurturing response that also needs to be etched in ways that will be heard for posterity. Yes... the wars, the injustice, the inhumane cruelty, the inconceivable harm... but yes too... human curiosity, desire to bring good to the spirit, to understand the difficult, to find balance in the complexity of the possible. Her gentle humor, the wisdom, wrap the delights of the natural world, and show the possibility of a more humane and reverent attitude to all living beings from plants, to trees, to animals, people, and to all we use to nourish, embellish this world in which we are given the gift of participating. Who could not want to do so with a sense of reciprocity?

In the chapter, "Learning the Grammar of Animacy", she adds the epigram: "to be native to a place we must learn to speak its language". We learn the sound of "Puhpowee", that "force which causes mushrooms to push up from earth overnight." She tells us about Potawatomi language which distinguishes between the living and the lifeless world, and 70% is composed of verbs as opposed to our noun-based English with only 30% of verbs. Curious that the word, "Yawe", the animate "to be" in the New World sounds like Yahweh, of the Old Testament: "both fall from the mouths of the reverent-- is this just what it means: to be, to have the breath of life within, to be the offspring of Creation.". (p. 56)

Even if you have experienced sugaring off with maple sap, or know the properties of witch hazel, these chapters spin a different aspect with her story telling, as well as her confessional chapter about trying to clear a pond for her daughters to swim in and the consolation of water lilies. The importance of the 3 sisters, corn, beans, squash, follow, along with basket weaving with black ash. The crucial idea of the honorable harvest, the 30 pages that outlines the thanksgiving address, "The Words that come Before All Else." (pp. 311-340) and the Pledge of Gratitude (p. 105 and continues in an entire chapter) are a welcome contrast to allegiance to a flag and growth economy! Imagine the United Nations establishing a treaty that respects the dignity of our Earth, endorsed by all. It is discouraging to see the traces of "Windigo-mind" -- insatiable consumption, self-destruction.

This is the book that gives me courage to say, "even though"...
Even though
I live in an age where humans are destroying
each other in more and more effective ways, destroying
the very ecosystem that should sustain; destroying
hope, faith, and belief in intangible mystery; destroying
community, relationship
even though
my heart has been weeping all day, hope
appeared for an hour, I brought the joy of words, hope
to women struggling to recover a sense of worth, hope
returning as they reminded me I too have worth
even though
everything might seem otherwise.
**
Even� plays its counterpoint to though�

Thank you Robin Wall Kimmerer.
]]>