List: The French Connections

I occasionally go through armchair traveler spells when I like to read books about France -- never books in French, as I am a definite monoglot, but books with some connection to France. In anticipation of such spells, I keep a TBR list of Frenchy books and at least a couple on my TBR shelf.

What I liked best about Debra Ollivier's Entre Nous: A Woman's Guide to Finding Her Inner French Girl, besides its perfect cover, were the book recommendations salted throughout. In addition to specific recommendations in sidebars labeled "Le Livre," Ollivier included book suggestions in her mini-biographies of "French Girls We Love."

My list of French-themed books follows. These are books that I have read or want to read. Those I had read are in rouge. Those on my TBR shelf are in bleu. Those recommended in Entre Nous are marked with an asterisk.

This is a long list, but I would still welcome suggestions!

Abundance, A Novel of Marie Antoinette by Sena Jeter Naslund

Acquired Tastes by Peter Mayle

L’Affaire by Diane Johnson

An Alphabet for Gourmets by M. F. K. Fisher*

Anything Considered by Peter Mayle

Apéritif : Recipes for Simple Pleasures in the French Style by Georgeanne Brennan

Au Revoir to All That by Michael Steinberger (reviewed here)

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein

Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris by A.J. Liebling*

Bistro Cooking by Patricia Wells

Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan*

Break of Day by Collette*

The Castle of Pictures and Other Stories: A Grandmother’s Tales by George Sand*

Catherine de Medici by Honoré de Balzac

Chanel: Her Style and Her Life by Janet Wallach*

Chasing Cezanne by Peter Mayle

The Cheese Plate by Max McCalman*

Cheri by Colette*

Chocolat by Joanne Harris

Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution by Simon Schama

Claude & Camille: A Novel of Monet by Stephanie Cowell

Consider the Oyster by M. F. K. Fisher

Corked by Kathryn Borel (reviewed here)

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

The Courtesans: The Demi-Monde in Nineteenth-Centur by Joanna Richardson

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

Death in the Truffle Wood by Pierre Magnan

The Delta of Venus by Anais Nin*

Le Divorce by Diane Johnson

Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell

Earthly Paradise: Colette’s Autobiography Drawn from Her Lifetime Writings, edited by Robert Phelps*

Elle Décor: The Grand Book of French Style by Francois Baudot and Jean Demachy

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

Encore Provence by Peter Mayle

Entre Nous: A Woman's Guide to Finding Her Inner French Girl by Debra Ollivier (reviewed here)

The Feasting Season by Nancy Coons

The Flaneur by Edmund White* (reviewed here)

The Food Lover’s Guide to Paris by Patricia Wells*

The Food of France by Waverley Root (reviewed here)

The Fragrant Year by Caire Louise Hunt*

French Lessons: Adventures with Knife, Fork, and Corkscrew by Peter Mayle

French Spirits: A House, a Village, and a Love Affair in Burgundy by Jeffry Greene

French Ways and Their Meaning by Edith Wharton*

The Gastronomical Me by M. F. K. Fisher*

Gigi by Colette*

The Glass-Blowers by Daphne Du Maurier

A Good Year by Peter Mayle

At Home in France: Eating and Entertaining with the French by Christopher Petkanas*

At Home in Provence: Recipes Inspired By Her Farmhouse In France by Patricia Wells

Hotel Pastis by Peter Mayle

How to Cook a Wolf by M. F. K. Fisher*

Inspirations from France & Italy by Betty Lou Phillips

Joan of Arc by Mark Twain*

Joan of Arc: Her Story by Regine Pernoud*

The Josephine Bonaparte Collection (a three-volume fictionalized biography) by Sandra Gulland*

Josephine: The Hungry Heart by Jean-Claude Baker*

The Lais of Marie de France*

A Life in Letters: Correspondence 1929-1991 by M. F. K. Fisher

A Literary Passion by Anais Nin and Henry Miller (letters)*

Living in Provence by Dane McDowellf

The Lover by Marguerite Duras*

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert*

Madame de Pompadour by Nancy Mitford*

Madame de Pompadour: Images of a Mistress by Colin Jones*

Mademoiselle Fifi and Other Short Stories by Guy de Maupassant

Marie Antoinette: The Journey by Antonia Fraser*

Le Marriage by Diane Johnson

Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vols. I and II, by Julia Child*

Meet Me in Venice by Elizabeth Adler

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

The Messengers of Death by Pierre Magnan

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

A Moveable Feast by Earnest Hemingway

Murder in Belleville by Cara Black (reviewed here);

Murder in the Marais by Cara Black

Murder in the Sentier by Cara Black

My Life in France by Julia Child (reviewed here)

Nana by Emile Zola

Napoleon & Josephine: An Improbable Marriage by Evangeline Bruce*

Paris: A Love Story by Kati Marton

Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnik

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain

The Physiology of Taste by Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (translated by M.F.K. Fisher)*

A Place in the World Called Paris, edited by Steven Barclay

Postmark Paris by Leslie Jonath

The Power of Style by Annette Tapert and Diana Edkins*

Practicalities by Marguerite Duras*

Provence A - Z by Peter Mayle

Ravelstein by Saul Bellow

Remembrance of Things Paris: Sixty Years of Writing from Gourmet, edited by Ruth Reichl

The Road from the Past: Traveling through History in France by Ina Caro

Rosa Bonheur: The Artist’s (Auto) Biography by Anna Klumpke*

Saint Joan of Arc by Vita Sackville-West*

In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust

The Sea Wall by Marguerite Duras*

The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir*

Serve it Forth by M. F. K. Fisher*

She Came to Stay [L’Invitee] by Simone de Beauvoir*

Silk Roads: The Asian Adventures of Clara and Andre Malraux by Axel Madsen

Simple Passion by Annie Ernaux*

Son of Holmes by John Lescroat

Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

A Taste of Provence by Francie Jouanin

Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fizgerald

Therese Raquin by Émile Zola (reviewed here)

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

Toujours Provence by Peter Mayle

Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

Two Towns in Provence by M. F. K. Fisher*

The Vagabond by Colette

Vie De France: Sharing Food, Friendship and a Kitchen in the Lorie Valle by James Haller (reviewed here)

The Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier

Walks in Hemingway's Paris: A Guide To Paris For The Literary Traveler by Noel R. Fitch

A Well Kept Home: Household Traditions and Simple Secrets from a French Grandmother by Laura Fronly and Yves Duronson*

The Wine Bible by Karen MacNiel*

A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle


NOTES
List updated November 1, 2018.

OTHER LISTS/OTHER READERS
Boston Bibliophile's list of French favorites

If you have a similar list or are reading the books on this list, please leave a comment with links to any progress reports or reviews and I will add them here.

Review of the Day: Eats, Shoots & Leaves

Artscatter – a terrific arts and culture blog that just celebrated its first blogoversary – stirred up some punctuation passion the other day. This reminded me to post my mini-review of Lynne Truss's quirky punctuation guide, Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. It is easy to understand the popularity of this book, because it is far from a typical grammar primer. Truss leans more to anecdote than rote – her guide is sort of a Bridget Jones version of Elements of Style. She uses lots of good examples ("cute" may be more accurate) and is good about pointing out the differences between British and American usage. Although aimed at punctuation sticklers, Eats, Shoot & Leaves would be an entertaining introduction for the punctuation-challenged. It covers all the basic punctuation marks and rules, but not the trickier stuff.

List of the Day: 20 Greatest Oregon Books

Living in Oregon, it seems like a worthwhile goal to read books by Oregonians or about life in Oregon. According to Portland Monthly magazine, these are the "20 Greatest Oregon Books Ever."

Those I have red are in red; those on my TBR shelf are in blue.

Here is the list, from the October 2006 issue of Portland Monthly, compiled by Brian Doyle.

1. Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey

2. The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin

3. Winter Count by Barry Lopez

4. The River Why by David Duncan

5. Wildmen, Wobblies & Whistle Punks: Stewart Holbrook’s Lowbrow Northwest by Stewart Hall Holbrook

6. The Country Boy by Homer Davenport

7. Ricochet River by Robin Cody

8. Stepping Westward: The Long Search for Home in the Pacific Northwest by Sallie Tisdale

9. Hole in the Sky by William Kittredge

10. True Believer by Virginia Euwer Wolff

11. The Nez Perce Indians and the Opening of the Northwest by Alvin M. Josephy

12. The Journals of Lewis and Clark by Meriwether Lewis

13. Oregon Geographic Names by Lewis A. McArthur 

14. Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary

15. Fire at Eden’s Gate: Tom McCall & the Oregon Story by Brent Walth

16. The Jump-Off Creek by Molly Gloss

17. Every War Has Two Losers by William Stafford

18. Nehalem Tillamook Tales

19. To Build a Ship by Don Berry

20. In Search of Ancient Oregon: A Geological and Natural History by Ellen Morris Bishop


NOTE

Updated January 6, 2019

Opening Sentence of the Day: The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire

"Once upon a time there was a little girl name Alice Green who lived on what people who don’t know any better would call a farm, but which her family called their country estate." The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire by C. M. Mayo Kind of interesting -- going with the old tried-and-true "once upon a time" line. You really do not see that in adult books. Either this is going to be a great yarn, or too cute by half. I look forward to finding out.

Review of the Day: Slaughterhouse-Five

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut may be justifiably famous and a classic of all times, but it was not a book for me. I had avoided reading Vonnegut's best-known novel because I thought it would be unbearably dreary. How could a book about the firebombing of Dresden during WWII not be dreary? But it is on the Modern Library's Top 100 list, so I finally got around to it, and I found my answer. If you write a book about the firebombing of Dresden and fill it with time travel, space ships, and extraterrestrials, it is not dreary, it is goofy. But I do not care for goofy books about extraterrestrials, especially when they are really serious books about the morality of firebombing your enemy during war. Personally, I would rather have a dreary, realistic book than a goofy book. I know others disagree and think this book is the be-all/end-all and that Vonnegut walks on water. In fact, I acquired my first literary stalker when I posted my review of Slaughterhouse-Five on LibraryThing. A fellow reader disagreed with my opinion and wanted to argue me into the ground on every idea and nuance in the book. I had to send him a "lose my number" message and block him from my profile -- pretty harsh measures among bibliophiles. So it is with a little trepidation that I add the note that I just finished Cat's Cradle and I was not particularly wowed by that one either. I enjoyed it more than Slaughterhouse-Five, but I am simply not a fan. So it goes.

More on Julia Spencer-Fleming

After my recent post about author Julia Spencer-Fleming and her Clare Fergusson mystery series, I received a nice email from Ms. Spencer-Fleming:

Thank you so much for featuring me on your blog -- and for letting me know! I'm delighted you're enjoying the series. There is another on the way; I'm working on One Was A Soldier right now, and it should be out in fall '09 or winter '10. In it, a group of Iraqi War vets try to pick up their lives and relationships in Millers Kill. When Russ Van Alstyne rules the death of one of the group a suicide, Clare goes against him and the MKPD to prove the soldier was murdered. (I always feel I should add, "Or was he..?" after that breathless description. I'm terrible at boiling down my own work into a single sentence.) I hope you find the later books as satisfying as the first three! Yours, Julia

The new book sounds great. I will get to work reading the next three on my list so I am caught up with the series when the new one comes out.

Opening Sentence of the Day: Top Ten Myths of American Health Care

"Few issues in American politics capture more attention – and passion – than health care." The Top Ten Myths of American Health Care: A Citizen's Guide by Sally C. Pipes True. And timely. Let's see what Ms. Pipes has to say. Her first book on the subject, Miracle Cure, was packed with interesting and intriguing information. I am sure I will learn a great deal from this one as well.

Books for My Birthday

My birthday was this week, and I am happy (but not surprised) that I got books for presents. My sister gave me Kristin Lavransdatter by Nobel Prize winner Sigrid Undset, a book that has been on my TBR list ever since I gave it to Sis for Christmas a few years back and she really liked it. Hubby gave me two books: Warlord: A Life of Winston Churchill at War, 1874-1945 by Carlo D'este and The Reagan I Knew, the book William F. Buckley Jr. was writing when he passed away. I look forward to both, but I suspect that Hubby may get around to the Churchill book before I do. But by far my favorite reading-related gift was from my sister -- a "mudflap girl for the smart set" decal:

Review of the Day: Entre Nous

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There is plenty to love about Debra Ollivier's Entre Nous: A Woman's Guide to Finding Her Inner French Girl, but you have to take it with a grain of sel.

French women are justifiably famous for their poise, style, and general savoir-faire, so there is appeal in a book that sets out to teach American women how to emulate their Gallic sisters. But the sisterhood Ollivier holds up as a model is laughably elite. The "French girl" she describes lives in Paris, works at some chi chi job like "restor[ing] the muted shades of an eighteenth century fresco," and has a family chateau in a medieval village in Dordogne. That would be like saying a typical "American girl" is a San Francisco magazine editor with a family vineyard in Napa, or a handbag designer in Manhattan who escapes to the 25-room family "cottage" Down East for the summer.

But if you can accept Ollivier's idealized vision of the emblematic French female – which spills over to a generally romanticized view of all things French, especially its socialized economy – you can appreciate her suggestions on how to attain the je ne sais quoi French women do seem to enjoy.

For instance, Ollivier discusses how to develop a sense of self-possession French women demonstrate, how to appreciate life more sensually, how to value quality over quantity, and how to cultivate a deep discretion about your personal and family life. Ollivier discusses these qualities as they relate to several areas, including personal satisfaction, friends and entertaining, and careers.

Most enjoyable were the sidebars throughout the book that provide mini-biographies on French women, film and book recommendations, suggestions on how to follow the example of French women, and information about French life and customs.

There is an inherent irony a self-help book purporting to teach American women to be more like French women who, Ollivier tells us, are so bien dans sa peau – comfortable in their own skin – that they would never read a self-help book. C'est la vie.  

NOTES

I enjoyed this book so much it inspired me to create a French Connections book list.

OTHER REVIEWS

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Happy Valentine's Day!

Book Notes: Finnegans Wake

Two years ago, I set out determined to finish the Modern Library’s list of Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century – a list I had been lackadaisically working on since it was published in 1999. At that point, I only had about 30 or so to go of the 121 books on the list. The largest boulder in my path at that point (or at any point on my journey to reaching this goal) was Finnegans Wake by James Joyce.

Before I started FW, I knew nothing about how it was written and had no idea that it was so crazy. I knew that it is Joyce’s magnum opus, that it took him 17 years or so to write, and that he had staff helping him research. I also knew from reading about FW that it all takes place in one night, but is a history of all time, and that the main dream character feels guilt about something he did in a park with two "temptresses" and for vaguely incestuous feelings he has towards his daughter.

I "knew" these ideas only in the sense that I read about their existence. But by 100 pages or so into the book itself, I still had no actual comprehension of them. Or anything, for that matter. The closest I could get would be a vague suggestion of some of these themes from sentences like this:

And so they went on, the fourbottle men, the analists, unguam and nunguam and lunguam again, their anschluss about her whosebefore and his whereafters and how she was lost away away in the fern and how he was founded deap on deep in anear, and the rustlings and the twitterings and the raspings and the snappings and the sighings and the paintings and the ukukuings and the (hist!) the springapartings and the (hast!) the bybyscuttlings and all the scandalmunkers and the pure craigs that used to be (up) that time living and lying and rating and riding round Nunsbelly Square.

Yep. That's what the entire book is like. All 620 pages. Made up words, foreign words, amalgamated words – crazy stuff.

I never understood an entire paragraph; only occasionally comprehended an entire sentence, and definitely only short ones; and was delighted at every word I caught. I read it for the experience of reading it, but gave up trying to understand it after the first page. Yes, I tried reading it out loud, and that helped – but only to a point. I decided to just let it flow over me and enjoy the sounds like poetry or music.

And I was so pleased with myself for finishing it. I was free to "shun the Punman" after months of effort. I was also a little concerned, because I seemed to understand it better after about page 500. I hoped this meant it just hits an easier patch as it gets to the end. I hoped it did not mean that I had learned enough FW language to comprehend more, because then I would have been tempted to start over at the beginning!

Of course, that is what Joyce intended. He wanted to publish FW in a spiral binding without covers, so there would be no official beginning or end and people would read it non-stop. As it is, it starts in the middle of a sentence. The final sentence in the book is the beginning of the sentence that starts the book.

Finnegans Wake was definitely the most difficult book I have ever read. It is not that I hated it. It was incredibly frustrating, but it has poetic beauty. I do not think anyone should read it unless they are compulsive about finishing their book lists (like me), or are really into James Joyce. But I like the idea that there is a structure to it (even if I couldn't follow the structure).

For me, it was like that famous Hieronymus Bosch triptych, The Garden of Earthly Delights. I do not like it. I think it is weird. It takes too long to look at and there are so many things in it that I do not understand. But, I admire the mind and talent that created it.

That said, I was thrilled to be done with FW! When I finished it, I keep thinking of that joke about the 85-year-old, widowed rabbi who goes into the confessional at St. Mary's and says to the priest, "Father, I just had sexual relations with a 24-year-old aerobics instructor." The priest says, "But Rabbi, why are you confessing? You aren't Catholic." The rabbi says, "Confessing? Are you kidding? I'm telling EVERYBODY." That was me – I told EVERYBODY.

And now you can "suck it yourself, Sugarstick"!

OTHER REVIEWS OR ESSAYS ON FW

The Clerk Manifesto: Seven Pleasures of Finnigans Wake

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Review of the Day: Gilead

Gilead, Marilynne Robinson's Pulitzer-winning novel, is surprisingly entertaining for an epistolary novel consisting of only one, long letter from a 77-year-old minister to his seven-year-old son. Certainly letters from dead, Midwestern pastors are not the typical stuff of contemporary novels. But Robinson makes it work.

In his letter, the father writes about his own youth and his relationship with his father, his scallywag of a grandfather, his best friend and that man's ne'er-do-well son, the history of his Iowa town as a stop on the Underground Railroad during the Civil War, and his two marriages. Throughout, he ties in the themes of grace, forgiveness, and man's fallibility.

Particularly striking were the narrator's discussions on how much he enjoyed his life. He writes the letter to his young son knowing that he will not be around when his son is an adult. But, although he is approaching death and anticipating his heavenly afterlife, he makes it clear that he appreciated the temporal pleasures of his life -- the beauty of the prairie, his books and education, falling in love, baseball, and his town. His reminiscences and the lessons he imparts to his son are elegant and timeless. Gilead is a beautiful story.


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Musings

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Book Tour: Citadel of the Spirit

Oregon's 150th birthday is this Saturday, February 14th -- Valentine's Day. And what better way is there to say "I love you" to your Oregonian sweetheart than with a copy of Citadel of the Spirit: Oregon’s Sesquicentennial Anthology? The book is a collection of essays by Oregon writers about Oregon, as well as excerpts from primary documents related to Oregon history. Perfect for lovers in Oregon and lovers of Oregon, wherever they may be. The full list of the book's contents is here. Editor Matt Love has kicked off an ambitious six week book tour to promote his monumental literary tribute to Oregon. The full schedule is here on the Nestucca Spit Press website. Matt will be at Powell's Books on Burnside this Friday, February 13, at 7:30, along with authors Gina Ochsner, Brian Doyle, Bart King, Kaia Sand, David Horowitz, Katrine Barber, and others. Like the other tour events, this "Oregon birthday party" will feature readings, a slide show, a trivia contest, and more.

Opening Sentence of the Day: Entre Nous

"How to sum up in one book the particularities and essential qualities of the French girl?" Entre Nous: A Woman's Guide to Finding Her Inner French Girl by Debra Ollivier. Mon Dieu! Show me the way.

Contest of the Day: School Choice

The Cascade Policy Institute is sponsoring a contest to promote school choice in Oregon. Here is the description from the contest web site:

School Choice is simply the ability to choose a school other than the local public school near where you live. It might be a religious school, a private school, a virtual (online) school, a charter school, or even another public school in the same or different district than the one you’re assigned to. It might also mean home schooling. Most Oregon families send their children to the local public school, yet a recent poll found that only 13 percent would make that choice if they had other options. The Oregon School Choice Video Contest lets Oregon students and families tell your stories, and possibly win $10,000 to help make your school choice dreams come true. We picked $10,000 for the top prize because Oregon’s public schools already spend more than that each year, on average, for each student. Yet, when asked in our recent poll, 92 percent of Oregon voters thought the public schools spent less than $10,000 per student. So, now it’s your turn: Tell us your story in a short video. Entries will be judged on authenticity, sincerity, passion and creativity; not on the production value of your video. So don’t worry about making a professional-looking film. Just be yourself, tell us why you need school choice or what school choice has already meant to you if you or your family already have it. Be creative, be sincere, and use your video to make the case for school choice.

The deadline is March 25, 2009.

Details and rules are available on the Oregon School Choice Contest website.

Cookbook Library: The Amish Cook at Home, redux

Apparently my review of The Amish Cook at Home had the book's co-author, Kevin Williams, rolling his eyes. I was amazed at the spike in my blog hits after my review went up, and was astounded to find that almost all of my new visitors were coming from The Amish Cook website. Yes, The Amish Cook has a website. And it is great! Full of information and recipes and all kinds of stuff worth reading. I am returning Kevin's favor by providing a link to the website here. But I am afraid my review offended several people when that was not my intent. Let's be clear, I think The Amish Cook at Home is a beautiful book. My only quibble is that some of the recipes are not quite as elegant as the book itself. That does not make them bad. Rest assured, I did not turn to an Amish cookbook looking for frou frou recipes. I grew up in the Midwest -- I long for casserole down to my genes. And I understand that Amish cooks shop at grocery stores and use pre-made ingredients just like everyone else. I simply meant to point out that the book may appeal to a wider audience if the recipes matched the beauty of the photographs and narrative. Many of them did. But there is a segment of the fancy-cookbook-buying population -- call them foodies; or the health-conscious; or West Coasters; or, more simply, snobs -- who would be put off by the recipes calling for Miracle Whip, or canned cream of mushroom soup, or margarine, or the like. Again, that does not mean that the recipes are not good or that they do not appeal to a broad spectrum of home cooks. But I think that there is a divide between those foodies willing to shell out $29.99 for a glossy cookbook, and home cooks looking for yummy recipes to feed their families. The Amish Cook at Home tries to straddle that line.

Opening Sentence of the Day: Native America, Discovered and Conquered

"The New World was colonized under an international legal principle that is known today as the Doctrine of Discovery." Native America, Discovered and Conquered: Thomas Jefferson, Lewis and Clark, and Manifest Destiny by Robert J. Miller. Well, OK. And I have eight days and about 186 pages (not counting notes and the index) to learn all about this Doctrine of Discovery before I attend a seminar with Professor Miller to discuss his book.

Book Give-a-Way: The Italian Lover

With all the dozens of book give-a-ways hosted by generous book bloggers, I don't usually keep track or get involved. But I want a copy of The Italian Lover by Robert Hellenga and Luanne at A Bookworm's World is giving away five copies of it. I get an extra entry if I post something on my blog. Shameless. Leave a comment here on A Bookworm's World if you want to enter the contest. Not that I want the competition . . . The Italian Lover is Hellenga's sequel to The Sixteen Pleasures, a marvelous book about a young American book restorer who, while in Florence rescuing books after a flood, finds a long lost volume of 16th Century erotica. I can't wait.

Cookbook Library: The Amish Cook at Home

So I admit, my initial reaction to seeing The Amish Cook at Home was the culturally insensitive question, “Where else would they cook?” It’s not like there is an Amish restaurant on every corner. The introduction clarified that this is not a book about the Amish people cooking, it is a book featuring the recipes of one particular Amish cook, Lovina Eicher, who writes a newspaper column called The Amish Cook. Ahhhh . . . now I get it.

Overall, I enjoyed this book, which I read cover to cover. I liked the whole idea of the seasonal cooking (sort of like Animal, Vegetable, Miracle but without the lecturing), the stories about the family and their traditions are interesting, and the pictures are absolutely beautiful.

But the recipes themselves were a little disappointing. They may be authentic, but they are pretty pedestrian – the standard Midwest recipes you find in every church auxiliary cookbook. Now, that is not necessarily a bad thing. I also have The Beverly Lewis Amish Heritage Cookbook – as well as a dozen church auxiliary cookbooks – that I turn to often for recipes I remember from my Nebraska childhood. But the Beverly Lewis book does not oversell itself. The Amish Cook, on the other hand, is over-sized and all fancy like a coffee table book, with glossy pages and evocative, soft-filter pictures.

The clash between the slick packaging and everyday recipes like pea and ham salad with Miracle Whip was too jarring for me – like seeing a beautiful bride wearing Nikes with her wedding dress.

Opening Sentence of the Day: Out of the Deep I Cry

"Russ Van Alstyne had just gotten a tug on his line when he saw the old lady get up from between the headstones she had been trimming, lay down her gardening tools, and walk into the reservoir." Out of the Deep I Cry by Julia Spencer-Fleming. This is a terrific first sentence, but for one irritating glitch -- the old lady was not "trimming" headstones. She may have been trimming weeds from around headstones, but she was not trimming the headstones themselves. That kind of verbal slip is unusual in Spencer Fleming's books. This is the third in her Clare Fergusson series, which is notable as much for the seamless flow of the writing as having a female Episcopalian priest as the hero. She writes really well and in the style I prefer, particularly in mysteries -- no verbal gymnastics, no fancy stuff, just a clean, well-balanced narrative that gets in lots of story without distracting the reader.

Review of the Day: Blackbird, Farewell

 

Blackbird, Farewell is the seventh novel in Robert Greer’s mystery series featuring bail bondsman C.J. Floyd. The specs look good – set in Denver instead of a more typical mystery locale; a hero who is neither a cop nor a lawyer (and, in this installment, out of town on his honeymoon, leaving his female, ex-Marine partner and an amateur-sleuth sidekick to solve the case); several entrenched characters, mostly from Denver’s old-school African American community; and the double homicide of a Pulitzer-winning journalist and a freshly-minted NBA star. 

Great set up. The problem is in the execution. This reads like a first novel, not a seventh. The narrative is clunky, making it almost impossible to be absorbed in the story.  Greer tries to pack too much back story into single sentences, leaving them unnavigable on a single read through. This habit is particularly irksome when the clunkers are incorporated into the dialog. Greer does a decent job with casual speaking voices, but no conversation between two long-time friends and business partners includes sentences as long winded as this:

But ever since Pinkie saved Damion’s behind last summer up at the Pawnee grasslands when Damion got himself all tangled up in that Eisenhower Tunnel murder case I was working, they’ve been as tight as Dick’s hatband.

Sentences like that taunt me to brush off the diagramming skills I learned in high school, but they do nothing to pull me into the story. Unfortunately, Greer drags the reader over several boulders just that big. 

Things smoothed out and picked up in the second half. There were a couple of solid plot twists, a reasonably exciting climax, and generally good overall resolution. But these improvements were not enough to salvage what, at best, is a mediocre mystery novel.

Review: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Popular author, Barbara Kingsolver, and her family made the decision to spend one full year “eating locally” – primarily by raising their own food – and to write about their experience in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Kingsolver wrote the main narrative; her husband, Steven Hopp, provided nerdy, information-packed sidebars; and her teenage daughter Camille covered the nutritional angle and recipes.

Kingsolver is a talented writer and she makes a year of gardening and poultry husbandry entertaining and even, at times, fascinating – her descriptions of natural turkey procreation are enough in themselves to make the book worthwhile. She augments the “life on the family farm” memoir with stories of family road trips, holiday and birthday celebrations, her second honeymoon in Italy, and general reminiscences. She makes an excellent culinary case for eating what local food is in season, and only when it is season.

Unfortunately, Kingsolver and crew also lard the book with offputting lectures about “food politics” and “ethical” food choices, disparaging opposing views. I am all for eating locally grown produce, meat, poultry, and fish. I am fortunate enough to live in Oregon, a state with natural bounty enough to keep me fat and happy year round. This local food is fresher and tastes better than the same types of things shipped in from half-way around the world. And I am happy to support Oregon’s always anemic, now suffering economy.

But Kingsolver and Hopp’s holier-than-thou attitude about eating local food rubs me the wrong way. They beat the readers over the head with dire warnings about the imminent catastrophe of global warming, large-scale agriculture, and Big Oil, always following the party line to the letter. Whether they are right or wrong, they are boring. Nobody likes a scold. I found myself arguing with them even when I agreed with them, just because they got my back up with all their bossing.

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Cookbook Library: Creme de Colorado and Greens

Following the phenomenal success of my "no carb left behind" holiday campaign, I have been combing my cookbook collection for low-carb recipes to undo some of the damage. My favorite Junior League and vintage cookbooks are generally pretty starch-centric. But there are options. So far, I have found a couple of great recipes that are destined to be standards in my kitchen. One is Best Ever Brisket from the Creme de Colorado Junior League cookbook; another is Warm Red Cabbage Salad from The Greens Cookbook. My plan is to post those recipes here. But I will have to wait and do an update late -- both books went into a box this weekend in preparation for moving house.

Book Give-a-Way: Washington Square

Laura Grimes continues her rocky literary relationship with Henry James, here. After being ready to dump him for good, Grimes's interest was piqued when she discovered that others were enamoured of him -- isn't that so typical? Jealous of these rivals -- her neighbors, no less -- Grimes buckled down with Washington Square last weekend, and discovered that she liked it! Grimes is now hosting a contest to give away a nice little Modern Library edition of Washington Square. To enter, leave a comment to her article addressing specific questions she raises about Washington Square. You have to register to leave comments, but you do not have to subscribe to The Oregonian. The deadline is February 3. Good luck!

Author of the Day Redux: John Updike

John Updike passed away today. He was 76. R.I.P. Ever since he captured my fancy (and informed my adult sex life) with Rabbit, Run, Updike has been a favorite of mine. He is on my relatively short list of authors whose works I plan to read in their entirety. Sadly, that task became easier today. Salon has a terrific and lovely retrospective.

Review of the Day: Franny and Zooey

If John Cheever and Paul Coelho had set out to collaborate on The Royal Tenenbaums, the result would have been Franny and Zooey.

J.D. Salinger’s short, two-part novel is the story of sister and brother, Franny and Zooey Glass, the youngest of seven precocious whiz kids who grew up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Ostensibly, Zooey is trying to help Franny, who is in the midst of a breakdown. It soon becomes clear, however, that both have been unmoored by the suicide of their oldest brother Seymour and the related, self-imposed academic exile of their next-oldest brother Buddy.

The problem lies in the supplemental religious education Seymour and Buddy sought fit to bestow on their youngest siblings. Frightened “at the statistics on child pedants and academic weisenheimers who grow up into faculty-recreation-room savants,” Seymour and Buddy decide to set the youngest two on a Zen-like quest for “no-knowledge” – a quest to be with God in a state of pure consciousness, or satori. As Buddy later explains in a letter to Zooey:

We thought it would be wonderfully constructive to at least . . . tell you as much as we knew about the men – the saints, the arhats, the bodhisattvas, the jivanmuktas – who knew something or everything about this state of being. That is, we wanted both of you to know who and what Jesus and Gautama and Lao-tse and Shankaracharya and Hui-neng and Sri Ramakrishna, etc., were before you knew too much or anything about Homer or Shakespeare or even Blake or Whitman, let alone George Washington and his cherry tree or the definition of a peninsula or how to parse a sentence. That, anyway, was the big idea.

All this mystic education, or “religious mystification” as Salinger describes it, estranges Franny and Zooey from their childhood and college compatriots, leaving them lonely and angry. Zooey insists that they are both “freaks” incapable of being around other people as they both cling to their intellectual superiority.

When Seymour’s suicide demonstrates that the supposed wisdom that comes from the quest for pure consciousness is not enough to make life worth living, the metaphysical rug gets yanked from under Franny and Zooey’s feet, precipitating their mutual breakdown.

Salinger’s book is clever, heartfelt, and sad. The value of its final lesson lies, not in understanding the details of Franny and Zooey’s existential arguments, but in appreciating the emotional crisis the siblings face. The idea that we should strive to be our best for God’s sake – and not our own satisfaction in acquiring wealth, knowledge, prestige, or even wisdom – may not be original, but it is an idea worth contemplating.

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NOTES

Franny and Zooey appears on Radcliffe's Top 100 and Boxall's 1001 Books.

List of the Day: The Guardian's 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read

A new list! The Guardian newspaper just published a list of 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read:

Selected by the Guardian's Review team and a panel of expert judges, this list includes only novels – no memoirs, no short stories, no long poems – from any decade and in any language.

The list is organized around seven themes: love, crime, comedy, family and self, science fiction and fantasy, war and travel, and state of the nation. I will never read all of these (too much sci fi for me and it includes American Psycho, which I will not read), and I will likely never post the list on this blog. But a new list is always exciting and I will keep lackadaisical track of my progress here. Hat tip to Michelle at Fluttering Butterflies for bringing this list to my attention.

Issue of the Day: Sam Adams

Rose City Reader is a book blog -- not a political blog. I generally avoid politics here. But the Sam Adams thing has me riled up -- The Oregonian even published a Letter to the Editor that I submitted. And while this is a "political" issue, it is not a partisan issue, so pardon this brief departure from books. Sam Adams is the mayor of Portland. He now admits that, when he was 42 and a city commissioner, he had a romantic relationship with a 17-year-old (who described a couple of dates and make-out sessions), which became a sexual relationship only after the kid turned 18. Adams lied about the whole thing before last fall's election, not only denying the accusations, but accusing anyone who believed them of, essentially, gay bashing. Most people seem pretty outraged by the whole thing, but some take the position that it is no one's business if a 42-year-old public figure has sex with an 18-year old. I fall into the majority camp. Call me a prude, but I don't think 40-somethings should date high school students. And when a particular 40-something is an elected official, I think it is fair to expect them to be on their best behavior. Portland already had one mayor who had sex with a teenager, which is one over our quota. Is there something in the water at City Hall? We are going to get a reputation as a pedophile-friendly zone. True, I may be more sensitive to pedophilia issues because most of my law practice involves representing the victims of childhood sexual abuse in lawsuits against the perpetrators and institutions that turned a blind eye to such abuse. But just because I am overly sensitive, does not mean I'm wrong. Here is the letter that The Oregonian printed:

Adams Seduced Teen Sam Adams used his position and age -- and the glamour that came with them -- to seduce a teenager. Whether or not Adams waited until Beau Breedlove turned 18 to have sex with him, the relationship he nurtured when the young man was 17 is what gave him the opportunity and authority to seal the deal. In my line of work (I represent the victims of childhood sex abuse in lawsuits) we refer to a perpetrator's befriending and "mentoring" of a young victim as "grooming." It's key evidence used to prove a case of child molestation. Does Portland really need a mayor whose pastime is grooming teenagers for sexual adventures?

Opening Sentence of the Day: Franny and Zooey

"Though brilliantly sunny, Saturday morning was overcoat weather again, not just topcoat weather, as it had been all week and as everyone had hoped it would stay for the big weekend -- the weekend of the Yale game." -- Franny and Zooey, J.D. Salinger. I'm in. It hooked me.

Review of the Day: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

It took me years to get around to reading The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Once I did, I understood why it is so popular -- and why I do not like science fiction. Stories about other planets and other kinds of creatures, with lots of whiz-bang gimmicks are just not interesting to me. This one in particular had some appealing sophomoric humor, but overall it was too smart-alecky for my taste.

List: 100 Greatest Books Ever (Easton Press)

"The most renowned works of literature by history’s greatest authors," according to the Editorial Advisory Board of Easton Press.  It is an interesting mix because it goes back to ancient times, covers the globe, and includes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.  Easton Press sells the whole set in very fancy covers, but all of these books are available in about a zillion different editions.

Those I have read are in red.  I've read 63 of them, plus bits and pieces of others in high school or college, but I don't count those as finished.  Those currently on my TBR shelf are in blue.

As always, if anyone else is reading the books on this list, please feel free to leave a comment with a link to your progress report and I will add it to this post.

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea by Jules Verne

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

Gulliver's Travels by Johnathan Swift

Moby Dick by Herman Melville (reviewed here)*

A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane

The Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling*

The Odyssey by Homer

The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce (reviewed here)

Paradise Lost by John Milton

Tales From The Arabian Nights by Richard Burton

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (reviewed here)

Candide by Voltaire

Oedipus the King by Sophocles

The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo

The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper*

The Sea Wolf by Jack London

Cyrano De Bergerac by Edmund Rostand

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

Collected Poems by Robert Browning

Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (reviewed here)

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Collected Poems by John Keats

On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Collected Poems by Robert Frost

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories by Washington Irving

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

The Iliad by Homer

Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas*

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Aesop's Fables by Aesop

Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas*

Politics and Poetics by Aristotle

The Aeneid by Virgil

Madam Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Pygmalion and Candida by George Bernard Shaw

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe*

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

The Cherry Orchard and The Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

The Analects of Confucius by Confucius

A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare

Collected Poems by William Butler Yeats

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio

Beowulf

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

The Necklace and Other Tales by Guy de Maupassant

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

The History of Early Rome by Livy

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

The Talisman by Sir Walter Scott

Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

Alice's Adventure in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Dracula by Bram Stoker (reviewed here)

The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám by Omar Khayyám

The Red and the Black by Stendhal

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

The Republic by Plato

Collected Poems by Emily Dickinson

Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Tom Jones by Henry Fielding*

The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay

Silas Marnerby George Eliot

The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine

Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

Billy Budd by Herman Melville

The Confessions by St. Augustine

Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe

Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott

The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler*

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (reviewed here)*

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Grimm's Fairy Tales by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain*

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

NOTES

* Marks those that I have in the fancy Easton Press edition, thanks to a lovely Christmas gift from Hubby.

Last updated on August 7, 2015.

OTHERS READING THESE BOOKS
(If you would like to be listed here, please leave a comment with your links to any progress reports or reviews and I will add them here.)