Internet Review of Books

The July issue of the always-rewarding Internet Review of Books is up and as lively as ever. My review of Wall Street is one of 13 non-fiction and five fiction reviews, a "Lasting Impressions" review of The Education of Harriet Hatfield, and the Brief Reviews section. The IRB just keeps getting better and better. They are always looking for new volunteers -- for reviews or essays -- so please contact them if you are interested in participating.

Challenge of the Day: The Spice of Life

Rebecca of Rebecca Reads is hosting a Spice of Life Challenge that hits me at just the right time because the focus is on books about food and I have been in the mood for books about food ever since my sister started culinary school in January. Find the detail of the challenge here. I have opted to participate at the "sampler" level. My choices for each of the four categories (or, should I say, "courses") are: Cookbook: The Silver Palate Cookbook by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins (which overlaps with my "silver" choice for the Colorful Reading Challenge) Nonfiction: Au Revoir to All That by Michael Steinberger Memoirs/Essays: Julie & Julia by Julie Powell Fiction: The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones (because I really, really liked her Lost in Translation book)

Review: Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways

Whether you live in a little house and need more practical space, or a big house and want some psychological space, Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways will inspire your dreams with its “Big Ideas for Small Backyard Destinations.”

Author Debra Prinzing and photographer William Wright spent a year investigating and photographing some of America’s most wonderful sheds, follies, tea houses, pavilions, and other grown up play houses and packaged their work in a book as beautiful as it is informative.  The book is loosely organized by the purpose to which the featured structures are put: backyard escapes, artist havens, garden sheds, entertainment spaces, and playhouses.  Within these chapters, the discussion of each structure follows the same format, with an article on the background, building, and use of the structure, plus informative sidebars and plenty of pictures.

The only question is, when will Stylish Sheds II be published?  This book is enjoyable even for those who never build their own backyard hidey-hole, sequels should follow.  How about an international version?  Or a whole series: Stylish Sheds of Northern Europe, Stylish Sheds of the Mediterranean, Stylish Sheds of Asia, Stylish Sheds of South America -- think of the possibilities!  We can hope.

OTHER REVIEWS

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Mailbox Monday

Only one book came in the mail last week, so Mailbox Monday is pushing it. But many came into my house last week because I stopped at a church rummage sale Friday morning and snagged a couple of books that caught my eye, and I used my Reading Local contest winnings at Title Wave, the Multnomah County Library book store. Most of the Title Wave books are ex-library, with plenty of stickers, stamps, and tape, but they are in very good condition and make good reading copies. I was lucky though, and got a nice edition of 2666 -- the three volume, boxed, paperback set -- from a stash of uncirculated copies Title Wave is selling for $12.50 (the cover price is $30). I have mixed feelings about this book, so getting a good buy on a cool edition makes me more inclined to read it -- as if that makes any sense. The Night Gardener by George Pelecanos (which I won in a give away and now cannot for the life of me find my way back to the hosting blog -- sorry!) London Fields by Martin Amis (From the rummage sale; I am interested to read more of Martin Amis's books because I have only read Money.) Cuisine Novella by Antoine Laurent (The first sentence on the cover caught my attention -- restaurant in Paris -- but now that I read the rest -- fantasy, time travel -- I have buyer's remorse. Good thing it was from the rummage sale!) Nuns and Soldiers by Iris Murdoch (I'll read them all eventually.) 2666 by Roberto Bolano (see above) Shaken and Stirred: Through the Martini Glass and Other Drinking Adventures by William L. Hamilton (Ex-library, but looks like a lot of fun.) The Lobster Coast: Rebels, Rusticators, and the Struggle for a Forgotten Frontier by Colin Woodard (I love lobster and I love Maine -- can't wait.) Iris Murdoch: A Life by Peter J. Conradi (for when I finish the novels) Christmas Comfort & Joy by Better Homes and Gardens Books (All the Christmas books are ex-library, but they make great reference books for when I go Christmas crazy.) Christmas With Southern Living 2004 by Rebecca Brennan Christmas With Victoria 2000 by Kim Waller

Opening Sentence of the Day: Au Revoir to All That

"On an uncomfortably warm September evening in 1999, I swapped my wife for a goose liver." -- Au Revoir to All That: Food, Wine, and the End of France by Michael Steinberger That may be my favorite opening sentence of the year.

Shame of the Village

LibraryThing outed me as the slacker I am. Long a member of LibraryThing's terrific Early Reviewer program, I have been lucky enough to nab several review copies of interesting books. For a while there, I was the model Early Reviewer. I would have earned an Early Reviewer gold star if they handed them out. Whenever I got a book, I read it immediately and I always wrote a review. But last fall, I started slacking off. Books would come, and I put them in their own priority TBR stack, and then ignored them. At first, I blamed my new job and house moving, but then, like a kid playing hooky, I just enjoyed seeing how long I could get away with not reading the books. More came in (although not as many as when I was the model participant), and I did not even bother reading the back covers -- I just bunged them into the no-longer-a-priority stack. Not any more. I got caught! LibraryThing has a new system where Early Reviewers can access a page listing their personal Early Reviewer books and information on the status of the book -- as in, whether you received the book yet and when you posted your review, with a gentle reminder to review the book if you have not done so. It is not an overtly threatening system, but the Power of the List is enough to shame me into fulfilling my duties. So, coming soon will be a new Rose City Reader List of the Day -- all my Early Reviewer books. And maybe a personal challenge is in the works. Anything to get back that gold star.

Opening Sentence of the Day: After Dinner Speaking

"Some of the sweetest sounds that a speaker can hear are the surprised ripple of laughter from the audience, the murmurs of approval at praise well deserved, and the firm hand of applause at the end of a speech, a sound of clapping that goes beyond the polite." -- After Dinner Speaking by Fawcett Boom This little book was published in 1991. I think I picked it up some time in the 1990s, when I was putting in my time with various Bar organizations and had to do my share of speaker introductions and opening remarks. Too bad I never read the book back then. I usually ended up winging it and my attempts at public speaking were always too glib, too rushed, and generally botched. Never too late to learn, though, so I am finally going to read this book. For one thing, that will get it off my nightstand where it has lived for the last 15 years.

Review of the Day: Changing Places

In Changing Places, David Lodge’s 1975 novel, American and British college professors exchange teaching positions for part if the 1969 academic year. Mousy Philip Swallow finds himself basking in California sunshine in Berkeley, but embroiled in campus shenanigans, student protests, and an exciting new world of counterculture experimentation. On the other side of the Atlantic, Morris Zapp, a flamboyant and famous Austen scholar takes his new “red brick” college by storm, wowing the English Department as well as the wife of his colleague.

Lodge guides the reader along the crisscrossed paths of the two scholars, from one comical escapade to the next, but never shies away from the difficulties that arise. This is the type of story at which Lodge excels – examining how people react when outside events force them to reexamine what they believe in and hold dear.

He makes it funny, but the underlying dilemmas are as serious as they come. For example, the scene where Zapp realizes that his flight to England was so cheap because it was a charter flight of pregnant women taking advantage of Britain’s newly relaxed abortion laws, includes this passage:

For Morris Zapp is a twentieth-century counterpart of Swift’s Nominal Christian – the Nominal Atheist. Underneath that tough exterior of the free-thinking Jew. . . there is a core of old-fashioned Judaeo-Christian fear-of-the-Lord. If the Apollo astronauts had reported finding a message carved in gigantic letters on the backside of the moon, “Reports of My death are greatly exaggerated,” it would not have surprised Morris Zapp unduly, merely confirmed his deepest misgivings.

Religion? References to Jonathon Swift and Mark Twain (and, in the omitted section, T.S. Elliot)? Not typical fodder for a lighthearted novel, scenes like this makes readers laugh, but leave them with plenty to think about.

Lodge eventually followed Changing Places with a sequel called Small World (1984). He wrapped up his academia trilogy with Nice Work (1988).

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Review: My Latest Grievance

There is a reason Elinor Lipman gets compared to Jane Austen – like Austen, she can dissect a closed community down to its bones, but is so charming and witty about it that the process looks easy and her thoroughness is only admired in later musings.

In My Latest Grievance, Lipman turns her keen eye on academia with the story of Frederica Hatch’s unconventional upbringing at Dewing College in the late 1970s. Born to a duo of bleeding heart professors-turned-dorm-parents and union activists, Frederica is raised in the dorm of their minor all-girls college in Brookline, Massachusetts. When her father’s ex-wife finagles her way into a Dorm Mother job and the bed of the college President, Dewing will never be the same.

With Frederica’s as the beguiling narrator and Lipman’s wit flowing, My Latest Grievance is a novel of contemporary manners not to be missed.

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Review: Wall Street

With the stock market still in the doldrums and the dust from the housing bubble explosion still settling, the timing of Steve Fraser’s Wall Street: America’s Dream Palace seems perfect.  A concise history of this symbol of American market ingenuity looks like just what we need to understand the mess we are in now. Unfortunately, while entertaining, the book falls short of providing much substantive history, let alone any insight into the current situation.

Fraser’s book is the latest installment in the “Icons of America” series published by the Yale University Press.  The series features “short works by leading scholars, critics, and writers on American history, or more properly the image of America in American history, through the lens of a single iconic individual, event, object, or cultural phenomenon.”

Fraser eschewed a chronological approach to his history of Wall Street.  Instead of discussing the origins, development, and major events of the American stock market, he chose to organize his narrative around the idea of four archetypes he believes exemplify the spirit of Wall Street.  He labels these types the Aristocrat, the Confidence Man, the Hero, and the Immoralist.

According to Fraser, the Aristocrat was an early threat to America’s fledgling democracy in the form of an aristocracy based on speculation – a moneyed class bent on creating a debt-funded plutocracy to replace the republican form of government fought for in the Revolution.  The Aristocrat gained wealth and power through “the inequalities and exploitation that trailed in the wake of capitalistic development” and reached his pinnacle of power during the Gilded Age of the late 19th Century.

The Con Man, on the other hand, is not relegated to a particular stage in Wall Street’s development, but is “endemic to market society.”  “[C]harming, glib, seductive, even charismatic, often sexy[,]” the Con Man is a trickster who takes advantage of the cupidity of hopeful investors.

The Hero thrives on risk with “Faustian panache” and can be “likened to Napoleon.”  In Fraser’s view, the Hero of Wall Street is not someone who accomplishes good or noble feats, but a character living in a “formless infinity of pure money, a universe with no fixed values.”  Such a hero achieves fame by being the biggest gambler on Wall Street.

Finally, the Immoralist embodies all the corrupt and corrupting characteristics of Wall Street, including laziness (making money from others’ labor), greed, hedonism, and general depravity.

Fraser’s caricatures are imaginative and appealing because they put faces on what could be a dry treatise with an unbearably heavy emphasis on economic policy.  It is a lot easier to read about a speculator like Jesse Livermore who drove a yellow Rolls Royce, wore a sapphire pinkie ring, and shot himself in a hotel cloakroom, than an essay on the development and use of corporate debentures.  The problem is that Fraser’s archetypes present a one-sided view of Wall Street.  In Fraser’s world, Wall Street has always been populated solely by bad guys – no one wears a white hat.  By concentrating on the catastrophes and scandals of Wall Street – the events that shaped Fraser’s archetypes – Fraser limits the scope of the book to what is wrong with the stock market system.  Missing is any discussion, necessarily less entertaining, of the national economic growth and personal financial gain enjoyed by millions of Americans because of a centralized stock exchange.

There are other limitations to Fraser’s approach and flaws in his execution.  First, for a short book, it jumps around a lot.  In each section devoted to a separate archetype, Fraser sets out the information chronologically.  This means each chapter starts by going back in time from where the previous chapter left off.  Because the Aristocrat dominated an earlier era and the Immoralist developed only later, the time periods discussed in each section do not overlap entirely; there is a general chronological progression through the book.  But, there is still a lot of going back and forth in time that gets confusing and impedes the flow of the story.

Second, in addition to overlapping in time, Fraser has trouble sorting the characters into his four pre-assigned cubbyholes.  Many of the people he writes about play multiple parts, appearing in one chapter as an example one archetype and in another as a different type.  For example, Cornelius Vanderbilt, shows up as an example of all four types – the Aristocrat, the Con Man, the Hero, and the Immoralist.  There is something about the same people popping up in different roles like amateur actors in a community playhouse production that diminishes the lofty concepts of archetypes and icons.

The biggest problem with Fraser’s book is a lack of substance.  True, it is not meant to be a comprehensive, definitive history of the American stock market, but a short, introductory overview.  Fraser is a gifted writer and the words rush by in a sparkling torrent.  But it would be nice it there were a little more shoe under all that shine.  He includes major historical events almost in passing, without adequately explaining their significance.

Overall, the book reads like an outline for a longer book, stretched out and fluffed up with a lot of exuberant filler words.  As for the timing of the book, it is not as perfect as it seems.  Fraser finished it when the market was still going strong.  From his perspective, the market had recovered from the bursting of the dot.com bubble and 9-11 and things looked good.  Now, sitting in the trough of “the worst recession since the Great Depression,” things look so much different.  In the current light, his closing has an ominous irony:

Whether Americans will continue nonetheless to find in Wall Street a welcoming place to indulge their romance with risk and dreams of universal abundance remains to be seen.

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Mailbox Monday

Last week was a busy book week, making for a long Mailbox Monday post.

Two came in the mail: 

The Ice Chorus by Sarah Stonich (a novel set in Ireland that sounds really, really good -- I am excited about this one).

A Century of November by W. D. Wetherell (they are making this into a movie and I want to read it before I see it).

  

Also, I celebrated the spirit of Independence Day (and Friday off work) with a shopping spree at a couple of Portland's independent book stores, Second Glance Books (also on facebook, here) and Broadway Books. I went in to use the gift certificates I won by participating in Reading Local's monthly contest, but ended up spending more than my contest winnings -- that's the whole point, right? From Broadway Books, I got: Through the Children's Gate: A Home in New York by Adam Gopnik (I loved his Paris to the Moon book)

   

Alice Waters and Chez Panisse: The Romantic, Impractical, Often Eccentric, Ultimately Brilliant Making of a Food Revolution by Thomas McNamee

   

The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby (which I have wanted to read since enjoying High Fidelity so much)

   

60 Hikes within 60 Miles: Including the Coast, Mount Hood, St. Helens, and the Santiam River by Paul Gerald

 

and my favorite: Super Sunday in Newport: Notes From My First Year in Town by Matt Love. 

At Second Glance Books, I found many books on my Must Read lists and became instant best book buddies with Rachelle, the friendliest book seller in town: 

The Horse's Mouth by Joyce Cary (on Anthony Burgess's list of favorites)

   

Small Island by Andrea Levy (winner of the Orange Prize and the Costa Book of the Year award)  

Thinks . . . by David Lodge

 

Home Truths by David Lodge

   

A Cup of Light by Nicole Mones (because I really liked Lost in Translation)

 

The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald 

   

Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (Booker Prize winner and on Erica Jong's list)

 

Jump-Off Creek by Molly Gloss (on my Oregon Books list) 

Boss Dog: A Story of Provence by M.F.K. Fisher

 

At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien (on Burgess's list and the All-TIME Top 100 list)

 

  Middleman and Other Stories by Bharati Mukherjee (National Book Critics Circle award winner)

 

The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem (because I loved his National Book Critics Circle award winner, Motherless Brooklyn)

Opening Sentence of the Day: Super Sunday in Newport

"I drove my truck into the gravel driveway of her house and parked next to her red SUV." -- Super Sunday in Newport: Notes From My First Year in Town by Matt Love. Matt Love, editor of Citadel of the Spirit, spent 10 years as the caretaker of the Nestucca Bay National Wildlife Refuge in Tillamook County, Oregon. While living alone on 600 acres, he tended his writing skills as much as the land. Moving to the beach town of Newport in 2008 was Love's reemergence into the social order. Super Sunday is a collection of 46 essays Love wrote -- originally to read aloud -- to memorialize his transitional year. These are views of Love's new life from Newport vantage points like the south jetty, the Yaquina Bay Bridge, and a bar stool at Hoover's. I used the Broadway Books gift certificate I won from Reading Local to buy Love's book and a couple of others. This one so intrigued me so much that I started it over lunch at Chin's Kitchen before I even got home. Chin's is the kind of place that would inspire me to write my own book of musings.

Happy Independence Day!

Opening Sentence of the Day: I Capture the Castle

"I write this sitting in the kitchen sink." -- I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. This was the book I chose for my book club selection. It has been on my radar screen -- as well as my TBR shelf -- for a while and I am very excited to finally read it. It was first published in 1948. I watched the movie several years ago and remember liking it, but not much about it.

Review of the Day: The Beggar

Published in 1965, The Beggar is, on the surface at least, the story of Omar’s midlife crisis. While less overtly political than Naguib Mahfouz’s other works, this novella takes on the biggest “political” issue of all – the meaning of life. Omar’s tale is a metaphor for the “midlife crisis” of modern Egypt, 17 years after its 1952 revolution, as both Omar and the country search for meaning after achieving worldly success.

The story reunites three childhood friends all engaged in the same struggle to find the deeper purpose of their adult lives: Othman was a bomb-throwing rebel back in their earlier days. Now, out of prison after 20 years, he is trying to adjust to an Egypt that has adopted the socialist ideals he fought for in his youth. He fights to channel his revolutionary zeal in a post-revolutionary bureaucracy.

Mustafa was an idealistic playwright who sold out and is now the host of a popular radio program sponsored by a snack food company. He embodies the discord between artistic endeavors and modern commerce.

Omar had been an aspiring poet with stars in his eyes, before he became a lawyer and real estate developer. Now, in his 40s, he is bored with his matronly wife and completely indifferent to his law practice. He cannot even get worked up over the news that the government is going to nationalize the apartment buildings he owns. In an effort to recover from this enervating “illness, ” Omar seeks stimulation in the usual combination or wine, women, and song. His reprehensible behavior – abandoning his pregnant wife for a series of trysts with showgirls – demonstrates how the pursuit of mindless, easy entertainment can lead to ruin.

The title comes from a passage in which Mustafa questions whether Omar’s crisis is caused by “suppressed art.” Omar supposes that art may be the solution, but not the cause. Then both wonder whether they would be better off, metaphysically, if they were scientifically inclined, rather than artistically, because science would offer answers that art cannot. Mustafa concludes that they cannot find the solution to Omar’s crisis, stating, “Since there is no revelation in our age, people like you can only go begging.”

The biggest problem is not the content, but the presentation. Mahfouz’s writing style is difficult to follow. He changes verb tenses at random, he uses dialog without identifying the speakers, and he changes the point of view over and over. Often Omar is referred to as “he” and “you” and “I” all in the same passage or even paragraph. It is hard to tell if these are intentional techniques or translation problems, but they are distracting.

These technical problems aside, The Beggar is full to the rim with metaphors and moral issues. It would be a good choice for a high school English class as there is plenty to chew on for such a short book.  

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Opening Sentence of the Day: The Art of Racing in the Rain

"Gestures are all I have; sometimes they must be grand in nature." -- The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein So begins the story of Enzo, an aging dog with a human soul who looks forward to being reincarnated as a man so he can enjoy talking out loud and using opposable thumbs. Enzo is the first person (first canine?) narrator of this story, which is enough in itself to grab the imagination.

Opening Sentence of the Day: That's Amore!

"Love is perhaps one of the few things in life that cannot be planned." -- That's Amore! The Language of Love for Lovers of Language by Erin McKean This is a cute little book, probably published for Valentine's Day or something. It is a phrasebook of sorts, filled with foreign language expressions related to love, organized by main concepts and interspersed with short essays about romantic topics. The cover appealed to me and the illustrations are darling. A summer bon bon.

Review of the Day: Death by the Glass

Death by the Glass is the second of Nadia Gordon's Sonny McCoskey mysteries. Sonny is the chef owner of a fancy lunch restaurant in Napa Valley, and an avid amateur sleuth with a grab bag of colorful friends.

Sharpshooter, the first book in what hopefully will be a longer series, involves grape growers and wine makers. This one involves Napa Valley restaurateurs. Both are like a cross between Sex and the City and Nancy Drew, with a big dollop of Kitchen Confidential mixed in. They are a little thin on plot, but thoroughly enjoyable, and the offbeat setting makes them definitely worth reading.

Mailbox Monday

Only the first book on the list came in the mail, so "Mailbox Monday" is really a stretch. Dodsworth and Changing Places came from Daedalus Books, a new favorite that I stumbled across when I was out exploring NW Portland last week. The rest came from Second Hand Prose, my favorite library bookstore. I don't get to Oregon City very often, but I was there for a court appearance Friday, so took the opportunity to load up. Hardbacks are almost all $2, and in very good condition, so it was easy to do. The Art of Disappearing by Ivy Pochoda (a first novel about real magic -- I'm keeping an open mind) Dodsworth by Sinclair Lewis (a Modern Library edition with a dust jacket in very good condition -- cool!) Changing Places by David Lodge (I dove right into this one and love it already) Rocky Mountains by David Muench (I'm a sucker for these coffee table photo books. I snag any I find one in really good condition at a library sale, like this one. The picture cuts off the words -- it isn't like that in real life.) New England by Clyde H. Smith (another in the same series) International Country by Judith Miller (I love flipping through decorating books now that I am in my new house) Making Pillows: Over 30 Projects for Making & Decorating Cushions by Linda Barker (if I ever have time, talent, and a sewing machine, this will be just the book I need) The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (my copy has gone missing; this is the replacement) Stuffed: Adventures of a Restaurant Family by Patricia Volk (a food-related memoir I got for my culinary school sister and then realized I already gave her a copy -- mine now) That's Amore!: The Language of Love for Lovers of Language by Erin McKean (cute, British, wordy) The Tuscan Year: Life and Food in an Italian Valley by Elizabeth Romer (sounds wonderful) The Tenth Man by Graham Greene (he is a favorite, just not on the list yet) Venetian Holiday by David Campbell (an impulse purchase that looks perfect for summer) Deception by Philip Roth (another favorite author not yet on the list) In the Beginning by Chaim Potok (a new favorite, ever since I read Davita's Harp for book club) If a Pirate I Must Be...: The True Story of Black Bart, King of the Caribbean Pirates by Richard Sanders (I got if for the cover alone, but it sounds pretty good) Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morley (an old book about a lady who buys a mobile bookstore) Ashenden: Or the British Agent by W. Somerset Maugham (a Maugham mystery? Who knew?) Rocks and Minerals: a Golden Nature Guide (I have a stack of these little books that belonged to my artist father-in-law -- he used them for reference for his illustrations) First Love by Joyce Carol Oates (the odd little size appealed to me as much as the gothic theme)