Shout Out: Wall Street

How exciting! Bookforum today mentioned and linked my Internet Review of Books review of Wall Street by Steve Fraser.

Opening Sentence of the Day: The Fixer

"From the small crossed window of his room above the stable in the brickyard, Yakov Bok saw people in their long overcoats running somewhere early that morning, everybody in the same direction." -- The Fixer by Bernard Malamud. Based on a true story, The Fixer is the story of a Russian Jew in Tsarist Russia who was unjustly accused of murdering a Christian boy. It won the 1966 Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award and I am trying to read the books on both of these lists. I keep putting off The Fixer because I have been unable to work up enthusiasm for a book this grim. To spur me into reading it, I made it the "double dipper" choice for my Battle of the Prizes Challenge. Now that I have started it, I am sucked in. Even though this will end in tears, Malamud is such a masterful storyteller, I am completely absorbed by Yakov's tragic tale.

Author of the Day: Elinor Lipman

Reading one of Elinor Lipman's novels is pure pleasure that makes you think. They are witty, intelligent stories of modern manners that prove that contemporary fiction by women can be substantive without being dreary.

Her books, starting with the most recent, follow. Those I have read are in red. Those currently on my TBR shelf are in blue.

The Family Man

My Latest Grievance (reviewed here)

The Pursuit of Alice Thrift

The Dearly Departed

The Ladies' Man

The Inn at Lake Devine

Isabel's Bed

The Way Men Act

Then She Found Me

Into Love and Out Again (short stories)


LIPMAN REVIEWS
(If you have reviewed any of Lipman's books and want to share, please leave a comment with a link to your review and I will add it here)

NOTE
Last updated on April 19, 2012.

Mailbox Monday

Mailbox Monday was looking like it was going to be a very short post, since Julie & Julia was the only book that came into my house for most of last week. But, it is garage sale season. While out for a pre-work walk Friday, I was the early bird at a yard sale and found a box of very nice over-sized paperbacks for only 50 cents each. I was a goner.

Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously by Julie Powell (I have been waiting for this one and am very excited to read it. This counts as one of the books for my Spice of Life Challenge)

About a Boy by Nick Hornby (because I am on a Hornby kick and loved the movie)

Blackberry Wine by Joanne Harris

Comfort Me with Apples: More Adventures at the Table by Ruth Reichl (This is the second of her memoirs, after Tender at the Bone -- I may get the first one and read them in order)

The Waves by Virginia Woolf

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi (I have a copy already, so got this one for my mom)

Play it as it Lays by Joan Didion (I have a copy of this too, so got this one for my sister)

Opening Sentence of the Day: Pegasus Descending

"In the early 1980s, when I was still going steady with Jim Beam straight-up and a beer back, I became part of an exchange program between NOPD and a training academy for police cadets in Dade County, Florida." -- Pegasus Descending by James Lee Burke Burke knows how to capture the reader's attention from the get go. This is the 15th book in Burke's Dave Robicheau series. I go on and off the series, but I am on it now. This one is very good so far -- exciting and, as always, marvelously written, but not too creepy and not so full of self-righteous sermonizing as some of them.

Review: After Dinner Speaking

Fawcett Boom's After Dinner Speaking is a short, practical book published in 1991. I picked it up in the mid-90s, 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.

This book could have helped, mostly by its calm assurance that, if well-prepared and audience-appropriate, any speech will be a success. Boom gives general guidelines for preparing to give a speech, specific tips for particular events, samples of great speeches with an explanation of why they worked so well, and then useful quotes to work into a speech.

The book is outdated in some ways. For one thing, Boom’s suggestions for how to research seem quaint – and time consuming – when Google will give us the type of background information he talks about in a matter of minutes. Also, although Boon warns readers away from earlier books about public speaking on the grounds that they are overly formal and old-fashioned, some of his tips sound pretty hoary themselves. For example, the he suggests that rules of etiquette should be flexibly applied at modern weddings to accommodate such radical changes as “where the bride makes a speech on behalf of herself and her husband. It happens!”

This book was published in Australia, so many of the references are unfamiliar to American readers. For instance, he uses the term “hens’ night” instead of bachelorette party. And I take it that a “Parents and Citizens” group is akin to an American PTA. These cultural differences are more interesting than annoying. Nothing in the book is groundbreaking or even eye catching. But it would provide some emotional hand-holding for anyone nervous about public speaking.

Opening Sentence of the Day: The Silver Palate

"The Silver Palate was born of two women's personal desperation." -- The Silver Palate Cookbook by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins Nothing conjures up old cooking memories like this cookbook. I had The Joy of Cooking with me when I got my first apartment, but The Silver Palate Cookbook was my first "grown up" cookbook. I just love the 1980s yummyness of it. My original copy went the way of the original husband. I was very happy when my friend Tracey gave me a new copy several years ago -- as a gift when I got married for the second time (here's to both lasting longer than the first ones). Because this cookbook has so many connections and memories for me, I decided to actually read it like a book. This will count for both the Colorful Reading Challenge and the Spice of Life Challenge.

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

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

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).

OTHER REVIEWS

(leave a link in a comment and I will post it here)

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.

OTHER REVIEWS

Please leave a comment with a link if you would like your review posted here.

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.

OTHER REVIEWS

Internet Review of Books (cross-posting of my review)

If you would like your review to be linked here, please leave a comment with your link and I will add it.

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.