Opening Sentence: Witness

Beloved children, I am sitting in the kitchen of the little house at Medfield, our second farm which is cut off by the ridge and a quarter-mile across the fields from our home place, where you are.

-- Witness by Whittaker Chambers.

I have been meaning to read this forever.  But it's hard for me to crack an 800-page doorstop.

I am so glad I finally did!  Witness is Chambers' soul-baring autobiography of his years as a loyal member of the American Communist party (including writing for the Daily Worker), his time as a Soviet spy, his ultimate break with the party and denunciation of communism, and his involvement in breaking up the Soviet spy network in Washington, including his infamous participation in the two Alger Hiss criminal trials. 

It is an amazing story and it reads like the best Cold War spy thriller.  Well, sort of an egg-heady spy thriller, although it is more exciting and flows better than most Le Carre novels. 

Book Beginnings: The Wet Engine

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

Leave a link to your post. If you don't have a blog, but want to participate, please leave a comment with your Book Beginning.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

My son Liam was born nine years ago.

-- The Wet Engine: Exploring Mad Wild Miracle of the Heart by Brian Doyle, published by OSU Press.

Doyle is a prolific author with a magpie's interest in all sorts of subjects.  His book The Grail (reviewed here) recounts his year spent at a winery in Oregon.  His debut novel, Mink River, is a charming story about the quirks and magic of life in a small coastal village. 

The Wet Engine is something different altogether.  It is Doyle's very personal, ruminative account of his son, born with a heart defect, and the surgeon who saved his life.

Review: Glittering Images

 

Glittering Images is the first book in Susan Howatch's Starbridge Series, a fictional account of the Church of England in the 20th Century set in the Salisbury–like diocese of Starbridge. Glittering Images takes place in the 1930s, during the Anglican Church's debate over modernizing English divorce laws.

The Reverend Dr. Charles Ashworth is a polished Cambridge academic who prefers writing about medieval Christian theological disputes to active ministry. His mentor, the Archbishop of Canterbury, sends him to secretly investigate the Archbishop's rival, the charismatic Bishop of Starbridge, to determine if the Bishop's alternative household arrangements are as innocent as they appear or a sleazy ménage à trois sure to bring scandal on the Church.

Ashworth's integration into the Bishop's household culminates in his own traumatic breakdown – a major plot transition Howatch handles masterfully, gradually turning the story inside out. Only when Ashworth (with guiding counsel from an astute Anglican monk) untangles his own psycho-spiritual mess is he able to solve the mystery of Starbridge.

Howatch turned to the religious themes explored in Glittering Images after experiencing her own spiritual epiphany. The book is certainly Christian in outlook and subject matter, but in execution bears all the marks of Howatch's earlier pop-fiction family sagas. The fast-turning pages are full of gothic suspense, moody imagery, sex, scandal, and drama. May the rest of the Starbridge Series be this good.

OTHER REVIEWS

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

NOTES

This counts as one of my two 450 to 500 page books for the Chunkster Challenge, as well as one of my choices for the Mt. TBR and Off the Shelf Challenges.

Teaser Tuesday: Buried in the Sky

They'd fallen at least nine stories when Chhiring skimmed over the perfect patch of ice. The pick of hi axe dug in, and, despite their speed, Chirring held on.

-- Buried in the Sky: The Extraordinary Story of the Sherpa Climbers on K2's Deadliest Day by Peter Zuckerman and Amanda Padoan.

This is the nail-biting account of the 2008 K2 expedition that killed eleven climbers, focusing on the two Sherpa porters who survived. It is an incredible story, well told, based on thorough research into the tragic events and the Sherpa culture. 

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

Review: On the Town in New York

 

On the Town in New York is Michael and Ariane Batterberry’s "Landmark History of Eating, Drinking, and Entertainments from the American Revolution to the Food Revolution." It is the classic culinary history of New York City, from 1776 to when the book was first published in 1973. The 25th anniversary edition adds a chapter on the era from about 1970 to 1998.

As the title suggests, the book is mostly about restaurant and hotel dining, not home cooking and not New York's agriculture or food production. This is about how people ate when they were On the Town, covering the transition from humble taverns to elaborate “pleasure gardens,” the rise of the grand hotels and the extravagant parties thrown in them, the evolution of tea rooms to lunch counters to automats, the influence of immigrant cooking, and development of New York’s modern restaurant scene.

There is a lot of information packed into this entertaining and encyclopedic book. The Batterberrys’ thorough research and love of their subject shows in the details they incorporate and the personalities they showcase. The inclusion of many historical pictures, including reproductions of famous menus, makes it even easier for the reader to appreciate this chronicle of New York’s food culture.

OTHER REVIEWS

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

NOTES

The Batterberrys were the founders of Food & Wine Magazine. I first read about this book when Anthony Bourdain recommended it in Kitchen Confidential.

This counts as one of my books for the Foodie Reading Challenge, hosted by Margot at Joyfully Retired.

It also counts for the Mt. TBR, Off The Shelf, TBR Pile, and Non-Fiction, Non-Memoirs challenges.

WEEKEND COOKING

Hosted by Beth Fish Reads

Book Beginnings: Buried in the Sky

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

Leave a link to your post. If you don't have a blog, but want to participate, please leave a comment with your Book Beginning.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

A Sherpa named Chhiring Dorje dangled off an axe hacked into a wall of ice.

-- Buried in the Sky: The Extraordinary Story of the Sherpa Climbers on K2's Deadliest Day by Peter Zuckerman and Amanda Padoan.

This is a terrific book! The kind that makes you gasp out loud and stay up late to finish it.  I finally got my turn after Hubby snatched it away from me the minute it came out of the envelope. It is so right up his alley.

Review: Home Truths

"Home truth" is an expression we don't use much in America, but it is a good one, meaning, according to the OED, "a wounding mention of a person's weakness."  David Lodge examines the concept in the context of creativity and success in his novella Home Truths.

The compact story centers on Adrian Ludlow, a former novelist turned anthology editor who lives with his wife in "a little pocket of slightly scruffy agricultural land" in Sussex – closer to Gatwick airport than the South Downs.  Their longtime friend, television screenwriter Sam Sharp, drops in on his way to Los Angeles, fuming over a hatchet-job profile of him in that morning's paper.   Adrian and Sam plot to turn the tables on the journalist, who walks right into their trap.

Lodge based the novella on his play of the same name, with a few tweaks and some added material.  It is easy to see the skeleton of the play in the book because the story is almost all set in the Ludlows' living room, is told mostly in dialog, and is highly choreographed, with characters conveniently moving in and out of the living room to give others opportunity for one on one conversations.  This structure adds to the story by giving it an immediacy not found in longer, more narrated novels.

As the plot unfolds, each of the characters has to face some home truths about their careers and personal lives.  Like with a good play, lines and scenes draw laughs, but the bigger ideas will linger long after this quick read is finished.

Teaser Tuesday: Get Your Pitchfork On

If you have a cat that spends any time outside, the best advice is "don't get attached." . . . Coyotes, mountain lions, and owls will happily scoop up your kitty for a meal.

--  Get Your Pitchfork On!: The Real Dirt on Country Living by Kristy Athens, from the chapter on pets.

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

Mailbox Monday

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

This is the season for sales -- garage, rummage, yard, tag, etc. All are opportunities to add to my ever-expanding library, and I took advantage of several last week, ending up with a mishmash of reading goodies.



The Spies of Warsaw by Alan Furst (French spies in Poland on the eve of WWII)



The Perfect Martini Book by Bob Herzbrun (history and anecdotes of the king of cocktails, with only a few variations but lots of illustrations)



The Black Mountain and Might As Well Be Dead by Rex Stout (I am working my way through all the Nero Wolfe novels)



Kate Vaiden by Reynolds Price (winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award)



The Michael Innes Treasury by Michael Innes (more vintage mysteries in an omnibus edition containing The Case of the Journeying Boy, Hamlet, Revenge!, and Appleby's End)



Variety of Men by C.P. Snow (biographical essays on famous men from the author of the Strangers and Brothers series)

Author Interview: Kristy Athens

 Kristy Athens is the author of the newly released Get Your Pitchfork On! The Real Dirt on Country Living (published by Process Media).  Her nonfiction and short fiction have been published in a number of magazines, newspapers and literary journals, most recently Jackson Hole Review, High Desert Journal, Barely South Review, and the anthology Mamas and Papas. Her text-infused, repurposed collage artwork appears in 1,000 Ideas for Creative Reuse and is available for purchase at her Etsy store.

KRISTY TOOK TIME FROM HER VERY BUSY BOOK TOUR TO ANSWER QUESTIONS FOR ROSE CITY READER:

You've written a practical guide to living in the country, but you are a city transplant yourself. How did you end up in the country?

My husband and I both grew up in a suburban area, and then lived in Minneapolis and Portland as adults. We were interested in the idea of rural life, so we bought seven acres in Washington State in 2003.

Your new book, Get Your Pitchfork On: The Real Dirt on Country Living, is charming and funny, but it is also chock-o-block full of practical advice on every aspect of rural life. How did you amass such an encyclopedia of useful information?

A lot of it came from my own experience and from conversations I had with friends. When I started turning my essays and vignettes into a proper book, I conducted research by visiting other rural places, interviewing other rural people, and reading books and Internet articles.

What was your inspiration for compiling what you learned about country living into a book?

While the books I owned (see below) were useful, some were also outdated. They gave advice about things I would never do (melt snow for bathing) and had no advice for things I needed (high-speed Internet). Also, no one had guidance for the social aspects of living in a rural community. Since the book I wanted didn’t exist, I decided to write it myself.

Can you give us an example or two of advice you wished you had before you moved to the country?

1. Buy a tractor. 2. Don’t burn oak firewood in October (save it for cold winter months).

What most surprised you about moving to the country? 

I was most surprised by the intensity of joining a rural community. You’re not just taking possession of a house, you’re being adopted into a large family. You don’t get to choose your new “cousins,” nor control whether they are nice to you or beat you up behind the barn when no one is looking. Everyone cares about you, in both a good way and an oppressive way.

Can you recommend any other books to help people prepare for rural life?

As a novice gardener, my main go-to books were: The Encyclopedia of Country Living by Carla Emery; The Garden Primer by Barbara Damrosch; and Introduction to Permaculture by Bill Mollison. And, to a lesser degree: Back to Basics from Reader’s Digest and Mother Earth News magazine.

When we got chickens, I picked up Storey’s Guide to Raising Poultry. The Storey’s guides are great but, as I remind readers in GYPO, focus on raising animals for profit. Lacking profit as a motive changed some of my decisions. For example, I let live a chicken that stopped laying after about three months; a regulation farmer would never tolerate that waste of resources.

What is your work background? How did it lead you to writing your book?

I started my career as a freelancer writer and editor in 1990, so it’s not surprising that I wrote a book. I have published dozens of articles and short stories. This helped me not only for the obvious craft reasons, but because freelancing forces you to explore unfamiliar topics on a regular basis, often by interviewing people you don’t know and by asking lots of questions.

A big part of good writing is being observant: noticing details and anomalies. So when I moved to the country, every time something struck me as different from what I knew as an urban person, I wrote it down.

What is the most valuable advice you’ve been given as an author?

The most important part of writing is to put your butt in the chair; the book is not going to write itself. A more refined expression (which, I think, comes from former Poet Laureate of Oregon William Stafford): “You can’t edit nothing.”

You have a terrific website, blog, and facebook page. From an author's perspective, how important are social networking sites and other internet resources to promote your book? 

I guess the answer to that question depends on one’s goals. Assuming you want to get your work into other people’s hands, Internet stuff is very important. The caveat with social networking is that you have to work hard to move the excitement beyond your circle of friends and family. Blogging and actively commenting—constructively and not “advertisingly”—on related blogs is one way to do that.

Do you have any events coming up to promote your book?

 

In June I head out to Eastern Oregon! I will read in Bend on Saturday, June 16, at the Nature of Words Center; Burns on Monday, June 18, at the Harney County Library; Baker City on Tuesday, June 19, at the Crossroads Carnegie Art Center; and Enterprise on Thursday, June 21, at the Fishtrap House.

This is a very special trip for me, as I used to bring authors to these towns when I ran the Oregon Book Awards program in the early 2000s, and I love to visit my friends from that time! I also wrote half of GYPO while on a two-month writer’s residency in Harney County.

When I return, I’ll read on June 28 at one of my favorite bookstores ever, Broadway Books in Portland. I will travel throughout 2012; you can find the rest of my schedule on the GYPO website.

You lived in the country for several years, but have since moved back to the city. Why the switch back and would you try it again?

Mike and I got caught up in the recession of 2009 and had to sell our farm. We hope to move out to a rural area again in the next few years.

What’s next? Are you working on your next book?

I have a bunch of ideas in the pot; I’m just letting them bubble around for a while to see what floats to the top. Generally, I’m interested in another book like Get Your Pitchfork On! -- not the country theme, but a guidebook about some kind of life passage or experience that people face but don’t receive adequate instruction for.

THANKS KRISTY!

NOTE

A big part of living in the country involves growing your own food -- both the animal and vegetable kind. Large sections of Kristy's book cover raising livestock, gardening, and preparing and preserving food, so I am including this as my Weekend Cooking post.   

WEEKEND COOKING

Hosted by Beth Fish Reads

Book Beginnings: Get Your Pitchfork On

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

Leave a link to your post. If you don't have a blog, but want to participate, please leave a comment with your Book Beginning.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

So, you want to move to the country.

-- from the author's Introduction to Get Your Pitchfork On!: The Real Dirt on Country Living by Kristy Athens. 

After all the expensive massages, lavender footbaths and boxes of herbal tea that I had acquired as an urbanite, I loved that in the country all I had to do to relax was look around me -- the sun setting over the Cascades; the trickle of water flowing through the woods; the juncos shuffling around in the snow looking for fallen thistle seeds and leaving little footprints on the deck.

-- from "Land," the first chapter.

This is terrific! It is a practical, no-nonsense guide for urbanites who want to go live in the country -- and don't we all have those fantasies every now and again?

Thanks go to intrepid publicist, Mary Bisbee-Beek for my copy.  This is right up my Food Freedom alley!

Review: A Time of Hope

A Time of Hope is the third book in C. P. Snow's 11-volume Strangers and Brothers series. In it, narrator Lewis Eliot recounts his formative years, from his father's bankruptcy and his mother's death, through his school days, training to be a barrister, and early career, to his star-crossed marriage to the neurotic Sheila Knight.

Although this was the third novel of the series to be published, it is considered the first of the series chronologically. That is technically correct because it does begin with Eliot's childhood, but most of the story parallels the timeframe of the first-published volume, George Passant (reviewed here).

Eliot does a lot of soul searching and armchair analysis of his friends and professional colleagues – the kind of stuff that can make a novel enduringly interesting, or interminably dull. No doubt the series remains popular because Snow is a great storyteller who can wring a lot of insight out of a character without turning the plot to sludge. The characters are as realistic and absorbing today as when the book was first published in 1949.

OTHER REVIEWS

If you would like your review of this or any other novel in the series listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it. 

NOTE

A Time of Hope dovetails with George Passant, telling Eliot's story instead of Passant's, but involving many of the same events, including Passant's criminal trial for fraud and conspiracy. Because A Time of Hope gives a condensed version of the trial, including its outcome, to read it first would spoil the story of George Passant.

Teaser Tuesday: Wild Delicate Seconds

The fox was fifty feet away, its coat a reddish-brown mixed with gray, white patches on the ears and tail.  It moved with its white belly coasting over the ground, its face like an arrow pulled from a quiver.  

 --  Wild Delicate Seconds: 29 Wildlife Encounters by Charles Finn, published by OSU Press.

This is a wonderful book! It makes me think about animals -- animals living right here in my neck of the woods, in a new, detailed way. 

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

Happy Memorial Day!

Mailbox Memorial Day

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia at A girl and her books (fka The Printed Page), who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring meme (details here).

This month, Mailbox Monday is hosted by Martha's Bookshelf.  Please take the time to visit her wonderfully eclectic blog.

Three very different books recently came into my house.  Other than all being non-fiction, there is not much they have in common.



Evolutionaries: Transformational Leadership: The Missing Link in Your Organizational Chart, by Randy Harrington and Carmen E Voillequé.

Carmen was the keynote speaker at the Portland WIFS dinner I went to last week. She talked about how businesses can plan for the future when we are no longer able to make long-term plans for the future. It was a message I needed to hear and I look forward to reading her book.



50 Audubon Birds of America: From the Original Double Elephant Folio, by John James Audubon, with an Introduction by Roger Tory Peterson. I got a copy of the paperback edition at the Rose City Used Book Fair, organized by Rachel from Second Glance Books.



The Little Book of Foodie Law by Cecil C. Kuhne. I am back on a Food Freedom tear, so this book will help me with some basic underpinnings.

Review: Comfort Me With Apples

Well-known food writer, Ruth Reichl, began her career in California, before returning to her native New York to become the restaurant critic for The New York Times and, in 1999, the last editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine. In her second volume of memoirs, Comfort Me with Apples: More Adventures at the Table, Reichl recounts her early days as a food critic and development as a writer, as well as the unraveling of her first marriage, a couple of formative love affairs, and her struggle to have a child.

Reichl timed it just right. She was living in a commune in Berkeley in the 1970s when Alice Waters opened Chez Panisse and local ingredients were the new big thing, giving her front line access to America's food revolution. In the 1980s, she moved on to become the food critic at The Los Angeles Times just when Wolfgang Puck and other mavericks were changing the culinary rulebook for good.

Food-wise, these were certainly exciting times, and Reichl captures the spirit of them with her honest, personable prose. As she once explained to her editor, just writing about food is boring; it is writing about the places, people, and experiences that the food is a part of that make it interesting. She is able to tie together a gastronomic history of the times with her own experiences -- travel to Paris, Thailand, and Barcelona; difficulties with her parents; her heartbreaking attempt to adopt a child – in a way that makes all of it come alive.

OTHER REVIEWS

Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise, reviewed here on Libby's Book Blog.

If you would like your review of this or any other of Ruth Reichl's books listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it.

NOTES 

This is the first of Reichl's books that I have read. It counts as one of my books for the Foodie Reading Challenge, hosted by Margot at Joyfully Retired., and for the Memorable Memoirs Challenge, hosted by Melissa at The Betty and Boo Chronicles.

WEEKEND COOKING

Hosted by Beth Fish Reads

Book Beginnings: Wild Delicate Seconds

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

I am posting early this week -- just because.

Leave a link to your post.  If you don't have a blog, but want to participate, please leave a comment with your Book Beginning.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

What follows are twenty-nine nonfiction micro-essays, each one a description of a chance encounter I had with a member (or members) of the fraternity of wildlife that call the pacific Northwest home.  

 -- from the author's Preface to Wild Delicate Seconds: 29 Wildlife Encounters by Charles Finn, published by OSU Press.

"Micro-essays" is a great term and a great format for presenting the flitting, ephemeral encounters Finn writes about in this charming book.

Review: The Finkler Question

Howard Jacobson won the Booker Prize for The Finkler Question, his hilarious, pitch perfect story of Jewish sensibilities in contemporary London.

In what reads like a Woody Allen adaptation of a Saul Bellow novel, two old school friends, Julian Treslove and Sam Finkler, maintain their rivalrous camaraderie mostly through a shared affection for their former professor, Libor Sevcik. Both Libor and Sam are recent widowers, struggling in different ways through the loss of their wives. Julian is a never-married father of two grown boys who, in a fumbling search for meaning and purpose in his life, becomes fascinated by Jewish culture.

The story loops around through a tangle of family ties, Jewish holidays, Holocaust deniers, Gaza politics, marriage, adultery, fatherhood, hate crimes against Jews, racial crimes by Jews, Finkler's popular philosophy books, Julian's failed career, classical music, and avant-garde theater.

While it gets a little shaggy and the ending is confusingly ambivalent, The Finkler Question is sparklingly witty, heartwarming in important ways, and will leave you pondering.

OTHER REVIEWS

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

NOTES 

The audio version is particularly entertaining because the reader, Steven Crossley, is excellent. It counts as one of my books for the Audio-Book Challenge.

This was one of my Booker choices for the 2012 Battle of the Prizes, British Version. 

Teaser Tuesday: The Secrets of Mary Bowser

We in the house were always decently dressed, while some Richmond slaves didn't even have shoes to wear on the City's unpaved streets. Though Old Master Van Lew's family held slaves, including Mama and Old Sam, when he lived in New York, neither Old Master Van Lew nor his Philadelphia-born bride could quite abide the way human chattel were treated in Virginia.

The Secrets of Mary Bowser by Lois Leveen.

See my interview of Lois, here, with links to event information, reviews, and more.

Mailbox Monday

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia at A girl and her books (fka The Printed Page), who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring meme (details here).

This month, Mailbox Monday is hosted by Martha's Bookshelf.  Please take the time to visit her wonderfully eclectic blog.

Last week, I was down in Salem to give a CLE on Oregon's rules for mandatory child abuse reporters to a group of attorneys. Whenever I am in a different town, I try to swing by the local library to see what it's like and check out the Friends' sale shelf.

I lucked out in Salem.  They have a Friends' store, not just a shelf, and it had an impressive stock of used -- but not ex-library -- books at very good prices. I got a nice little stack of books.




Independent People by Halldor Laxness (Nobel Prize winner and an Iceland choice for the European Reading Challenge)



The Field of Vision by Wright Morris (1957 National Book Award winner and possible choice for the Battle of the Prizes, American Version, Challenge)



Longshot and For Kicks by Dick Francis (always my favorite)



The Vintage Caper by Peter Mayle (I can't resist)



Rumpole and the Reign of Terror and The Summer of a Dormouse (a memoir) by John Mortimer (I keep buying his books because they sound good to me, but I haven't read any of them yet -- hope I like them!)



A Good Hanging by Ian Rankin (a short story collection from the John Rebus series)

Also, not from the library store, I got my copy of Jim Harrison's latest. He is an all-time favorite of mine -- so much that I am willing to buy a new hardback.



The Great Leader by Jim Harrison