A Lucas Davenport novel, written in 1994. Setting is Minneapolis. Serial killer who is slicing up women. Is it interesting to get inside the mind of a psychopath? or fascinating? Does a book like this make the inexplicable easier to understand? I continue to maintain that Sandford does characters and dialogue better than most.
The other case in this story, in which Lucas is minimally involved, was less believable...but was only a small and essentially irrelevant part of the book, and I can imagine the author thinking up unique ways in which people are murdered, just trying out an idea....
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Book: Spoon Fed by Kim Severson
or How Eight Cooks Saved My Life
If you're a foodie, you will probably like this book. It's Kim story of moving to Alaska and writing about restaurants and food, falling in love, becoming an alcoholic and then finding a way out. She leaves Alaska and moves to the Bay area, newly sober, after landing a job with the San Francisco Chronicle. She eventually became a food writer for the New York Times.
Along the way, she meets Marion Cunningham, Alice Waters, Ruth Reichl, Rachel Ray and other influential cooks and writes about them and her interviews with them.
"Each meal contains a thousand little divine mysteries...What blessed entity invented sugar and cacao pods and vanilla beans or figured out that salt can preserve and brighten anything?....and what of the miracle that is cheese? Things get more mysteriously divine if you start to think about baking. Or how olive oil and garlic and egg yolk can make a glimmering, thick aioli. Mixing hot stock into a cold roux so it won't make lumps...."
There is a wonderful story of Leah Chase and her New Orleans restaurant, Dooky Chase: "And there was always a table for musicians and African American artists like Jacob Lawrence and Elizabeth Catlett, who would hang their work on her walls. Traveling musicians knew a visit to New Orleans would not be complete without a stop at Dooky's. 'We fed all of them,' she said, 'King Cole, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, everybody. Everybody came. Cab Calloway, Lena Horne, Sarah Vaughn...'"
There is Edna Lewis, now old and demented and frail, and lovingly cared for by"a young chef named Scott Peacock."
She includes her mother's recipe for Spaghetti and Meatballs (the meatballs pretty much like the ones I have always made, although the sauce is different in that it has pepperoncini, chuck roast and pork spareribs in it so is probably tastier).
She goes to see Marcella Hazan who wrote The Classic Italian Book Book, a book her mother had sent when she was 23 and just out of college. When Kim visited her, Marcella lived on Longboat Key in Florida with her attentive husband Victor and, with high expectations, she visits them, but with somewhat disconcerting sequelae as can happen when reality and dreams collide.
All these stories about inspired cooks and cookbooks and food and recipes...
Now I have to find and taste Meyer lemons...
If you're a foodie, you will probably like this book. It's Kim story of moving to Alaska and writing about restaurants and food, falling in love, becoming an alcoholic and then finding a way out. She leaves Alaska and moves to the Bay area, newly sober, after landing a job with the San Francisco Chronicle. She eventually became a food writer for the New York Times.
Along the way, she meets Marion Cunningham, Alice Waters, Ruth Reichl, Rachel Ray and other influential cooks and writes about them and her interviews with them.
"Each meal contains a thousand little divine mysteries...What blessed entity invented sugar and cacao pods and vanilla beans or figured out that salt can preserve and brighten anything?....and what of the miracle that is cheese? Things get more mysteriously divine if you start to think about baking. Or how olive oil and garlic and egg yolk can make a glimmering, thick aioli. Mixing hot stock into a cold roux so it won't make lumps...."
There is a wonderful story of Leah Chase and her New Orleans restaurant, Dooky Chase: "And there was always a table for musicians and African American artists like Jacob Lawrence and Elizabeth Catlett, who would hang their work on her walls. Traveling musicians knew a visit to New Orleans would not be complete without a stop at Dooky's. 'We fed all of them,' she said, 'King Cole, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, everybody. Everybody came. Cab Calloway, Lena Horne, Sarah Vaughn...'"
There is Edna Lewis, now old and demented and frail, and lovingly cared for by"a young chef named Scott Peacock."
She includes her mother's recipe for Spaghetti and Meatballs (the meatballs pretty much like the ones I have always made, although the sauce is different in that it has pepperoncini, chuck roast and pork spareribs in it so is probably tastier).
She goes to see Marcella Hazan who wrote The Classic Italian Book Book, a book her mother had sent when she was 23 and just out of college. When Kim visited her, Marcella lived on Longboat Key in Florida with her attentive husband Victor and, with high expectations, she visits them, but with somewhat disconcerting sequelae as can happen when reality and dreams collide.
All these stories about inspired cooks and cookbooks and food and recipes...
Now I have to find and taste Meyer lemons...
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Book: The Bartender's Tale by Ivan Doig
As are many of Doig's previous books, this one is also set in northwestern Montana, between Browning and Choteau, with the incredibly gorgeous front range of the Rockies on the western horizon.
It's the story of Tom Harry and his 12-year-old son Rusty and their lives in the small town of Gros Ventre in the early 1960s. Rusty has no idea who his mother is, always wondering and trying to figure this out, but settles in with his somewhat mysterious father who owns and runs the Medicine Lodge Bar. (He had lived with an aunt in Arizona until he was 6 years old when his father suddenly appears one day and brings him home to Montana to live with him.)
A few more characters show up, including a young girl and her parents who take over a local restaurant, and I was soon drawn into the story.
I remembered and relived MY first experience in this wild and beautiful landscape. It was 1992 and I was driving the main road along the front range north towards US2 where I would eventually turn west through Glacier National Park. It's a lonely road with stunning scenery. And after leaving Choteau (where I spent the night as sole occupant in a little motel), I was driving one May morning and had to stop because a herd of sheep were moving along and across the road. A cowboy wearing chaps and on his horse apologized for the delay....
This novel has a bit of sheepherding, and fishing reservoirs, small town characters, confusing family intricacies, and an eastern Ivy League-educated young man who arrives and begins recording oral history...
A good old-fashioned tale...with Doig's descriptions of the land the next best thing to actually being there...
"Del and I hung on his every word as he described how twenty thousand people lived any crazy way they could while the wages lasted, in tar paper shacks and drafty government barracks and any other kind of shelter that could be slapped together and called housing. It made the life of Two Medicine sheepherders seem luxurious" (Tom telling of conditions during the building of Fort Peck dam as they gather for a reunion of those who worked on the dam, and whose stories Del is recording.)
"All over town, the cottonwoods were suddenly snowing, the fluffy seed filament they were named for drifting down like the most tardy flakes of the thirty-year winter....and through the heart of this soft storm...a rainbow was glowing....a hypnotic arch stretching from somewhere beyond the Medicine Lodge and the other downtown buildings to the far hay field of the creek valley. I watched, riveted, its full band of colors from red through yellow to violet phenomenally mixed with the snow-white fluff...."
It's the story of Tom Harry and his 12-year-old son Rusty and their lives in the small town of Gros Ventre in the early 1960s. Rusty has no idea who his mother is, always wondering and trying to figure this out, but settles in with his somewhat mysterious father who owns and runs the Medicine Lodge Bar. (He had lived with an aunt in Arizona until he was 6 years old when his father suddenly appears one day and brings him home to Montana to live with him.)
A few more characters show up, including a young girl and her parents who take over a local restaurant, and I was soon drawn into the story.
I remembered and relived MY first experience in this wild and beautiful landscape. It was 1992 and I was driving the main road along the front range north towards US2 where I would eventually turn west through Glacier National Park. It's a lonely road with stunning scenery. And after leaving Choteau (where I spent the night as sole occupant in a little motel), I was driving one May morning and had to stop because a herd of sheep were moving along and across the road. A cowboy wearing chaps and on his horse apologized for the delay....
This novel has a bit of sheepherding, and fishing reservoirs, small town characters, confusing family intricacies, and an eastern Ivy League-educated young man who arrives and begins recording oral history...
A good old-fashioned tale...with Doig's descriptions of the land the next best thing to actually being there...
"Del and I hung on his every word as he described how twenty thousand people lived any crazy way they could while the wages lasted, in tar paper shacks and drafty government barracks and any other kind of shelter that could be slapped together and called housing. It made the life of Two Medicine sheepherders seem luxurious" (Tom telling of conditions during the building of Fort Peck dam as they gather for a reunion of those who worked on the dam, and whose stories Del is recording.)
"All over town, the cottonwoods were suddenly snowing, the fluffy seed filament they were named for drifting down like the most tardy flakes of the thirty-year winter....and through the heart of this soft storm...a rainbow was glowing....a hypnotic arch stretching from somewhere beyond the Medicine Lodge and the other downtown buildings to the far hay field of the creek valley. I watched, riveted, its full band of colors from red through yellow to violet phenomenally mixed with the snow-white fluff...."
Book: Mad River by John Sandford
Yes, another Sandford book....
Venue is southern Minnesota. This is a Bonnie and Clyde Plus One killing spree tale. With a tornado. And love gone wrong...Hero is Virgil Flowers...
"His father was a tall man, also slender, like Virgil, with graying hair and round shell-rimmed spectacles. He'd played basketball at Luther college, down in Iowa, before boing to the seminary. He clutched in one hand the printout of his serum: he'd been a popular man all of his life and a kind of sneaky kingmaker in local politics."
"The old man told Virgil he'd gotten hurt dragging broken lumber off a downed house, where they were looking for another old man who lived alone. They hadn't found him. The old man with the ripped hand said, "That sonofabitch is trying to get out of our golf game," and then he started to cry."
I continue to like the characters and the dialogue, which rings true to my ear...
Venue is southern Minnesota. This is a Bonnie and Clyde Plus One killing spree tale. With a tornado. And love gone wrong...Hero is Virgil Flowers...
"His father was a tall man, also slender, like Virgil, with graying hair and round shell-rimmed spectacles. He'd played basketball at Luther college, down in Iowa, before boing to the seminary. He clutched in one hand the printout of his serum: he'd been a popular man all of his life and a kind of sneaky kingmaker in local politics."
"The old man told Virgil he'd gotten hurt dragging broken lumber off a downed house, where they were looking for another old man who lived alone. They hadn't found him. The old man with the ripped hand said, "That sonofabitch is trying to get out of our golf game," and then he started to cry."
I continue to like the characters and the dialogue, which rings true to my ear...
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Book: The Newlyweds by Nell Freudenberger
I keep describing novels as "fun to read" books, those I like in the same way as a good cup of coffee or something better than average to eat or meeting someone interesting. I love going into the library and finding new, just published books by authors I haven't read before. Often, after reading the reviews on the back cover, I put them aside, but I am pretty good at choosing and discarding before checking out and I do finish most of those I take home. And I can read them in a day and often do...(sort of a half-hearted apology for reading a lot of fiction lately, I guess.....)
Anyway......
The Newlyweds is about a Bangladeshi woman, Amina, who meets her future husband through an online dating service. She moves to Rochester, NY, marries him, and becomes a US citizen. George, her husband, is a good enough man. They settle in but Amina has always had plans to also bring her parents to the States and that is a big part of this story.
What I like about a novel like this is what I learn about a situation that was never a part of my life. It goes beyond the dynamics of the relationship between George and Amina and her assimilation into American culture, her loneliness and the surprises that catch her up. While it is about specific characters and life in a contemporary mid-sized American city, it also incorporates universal, more global issues. There is a the disparity of life in America and life in Bangladesh, the cultural differences between children and their parents, the distorted opinions of what America is, and the tension created as Amina is torn by Islamic and traditional strictures and her new American consciousness.
Ann Patchett: "A big complicated portrait of marriage, culture, family, and love. Freudenberger never settles for an easy answer and what she delivers is a story that feels absolutely true. Every minute I was away from this book I was longing to be back in the world she created."
Anyway......
The Newlyweds is about a Bangladeshi woman, Amina, who meets her future husband through an online dating service. She moves to Rochester, NY, marries him, and becomes a US citizen. George, her husband, is a good enough man. They settle in but Amina has always had plans to also bring her parents to the States and that is a big part of this story.
What I like about a novel like this is what I learn about a situation that was never a part of my life. It goes beyond the dynamics of the relationship between George and Amina and her assimilation into American culture, her loneliness and the surprises that catch her up. While it is about specific characters and life in a contemporary mid-sized American city, it also incorporates universal, more global issues. There is a the disparity of life in America and life in Bangladesh, the cultural differences between children and their parents, the distorted opinions of what America is, and the tension created as Amina is torn by Islamic and traditional strictures and her new American consciousness.
Ann Patchett: "A big complicated portrait of marriage, culture, family, and love. Freudenberger never settles for an easy answer and what she delivers is a story that feels absolutely true. Every minute I was away from this book I was longing to be back in the world she created."
Book: The Red Book by Deborah Copaken Kogan
A novel which Adam Gopnik said is "The Big Chill" for the Facebook generation and he is right.
The 1989 classes of Harvard and Radcliffe gather for their 20th reunion. Wry, funny, predictable, full of restless, intelligent, self-absorbed characters and borrowing heavily from The Big Chill themes, it is fun to read, well-written...alternately romantic and somewhat real. The children (inexplicably) accompany their parents and some of the best parts concern their antics and interactions.
At random:
"Kant (with whom Jane felt an instantaneous and long-lasting affinity) believe in complete moral virtue as a prerequisite to happiness....Wittgenstein was more concerned with the impossibility of defining the word happiness in a subjective world while experiencing it in a temporal one....'I loved that class,' says Jane, catching another glimpse of ecstatically bouncing Sophie, wondering whether, outside the boundaries of moon bounces and sex, people are ever capable of living solely in the moment."
"Mia's son Eli is still focused on his numbers. 'Okay, so that's five of us, Jane and Sophie, three Griswolds, one Clover, and maybe an extra, right? That makes twelve.' Eli steals a glance at the bowl full of unadorned batter sitting next to the empty griddle.' Wait, What about the bananas and chocolate chips?'
'Got 'em!' says Jonathan, bursting through the door, a charismatic blur of sweat and spent energy hovering above a pair of brand-new Nike Roadsters. Under one arm he clutches a perfect bunch of bananas, stickered over with the word ORGANIC; with the other he holds aloft what looks like a dark brown brick. 'Can you believe it? They had Scharffen Berger at your little local deli! I can't even get our local deli to stock Nestle's.'"
So, not Anna Karenina but not Danielle Steele either....
The 1989 classes of Harvard and Radcliffe gather for their 20th reunion. Wry, funny, predictable, full of restless, intelligent, self-absorbed characters and borrowing heavily from The Big Chill themes, it is fun to read, well-written...alternately romantic and somewhat real. The children (inexplicably) accompany their parents and some of the best parts concern their antics and interactions.
At random:
"Kant (with whom Jane felt an instantaneous and long-lasting affinity) believe in complete moral virtue as a prerequisite to happiness....Wittgenstein was more concerned with the impossibility of defining the word happiness in a subjective world while experiencing it in a temporal one....'I loved that class,' says Jane, catching another glimpse of ecstatically bouncing Sophie, wondering whether, outside the boundaries of moon bounces and sex, people are ever capable of living solely in the moment."
"Mia's son Eli is still focused on his numbers. 'Okay, so that's five of us, Jane and Sophie, three Griswolds, one Clover, and maybe an extra, right? That makes twelve.' Eli steals a glance at the bowl full of unadorned batter sitting next to the empty griddle.' Wait, What about the bananas and chocolate chips?'
'Got 'em!' says Jonathan, bursting through the door, a charismatic blur of sweat and spent energy hovering above a pair of brand-new Nike Roadsters. Under one arm he clutches a perfect bunch of bananas, stickered over with the word ORGANIC; with the other he holds aloft what looks like a dark brown brick. 'Can you believe it? They had Scharffen Berger at your little local deli! I can't even get our local deli to stock Nestle's.'"
So, not Anna Karenina but not Danielle Steele either....
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Book: Turn Right at Machu Picchu by Mark Adams
Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at at Time
Turn Right is partly a modern travel adventure and partly the historical narrative surrounding Machu Picchu, specifically, the exploits of Hiram Bingham III in 1911. The author also reviews Incan history along the way. Of course, Hiram didn't DISCOVER Machu Picchu, but he did bring it to the notice of much of the rest of the world, including Gilbert Grosvenor, then head of the National Geographic Society.
Hiram III's grandfather was Hiram Bingham I who sailed from Boston to Hawaii in 1820 in order to "put Hawaii on the road to salvation." He was the prototype of Michener's missionary Abner Hale in his book Hawaii if one needs a more clear idea of his personality and attitude towards those with "sunburnt, swarthy skins....their destitution, degradation and barbarism."
Mark hooks up with John Leivers who guides him over the mountains and valleys and across and through the rivers and jungles of Peru near Machu Picchu. Mark is not exactly a real-time adventurer but rather a travel editor for adventure magazines. His life was New York City so he needed to train a bit before beginning these treks. John tells him that they would "go north, cut through the mountains, bear left toward the jungle, then double back toward Cusco. For the big finish, all we had to do was follow the river and turn right at Machu Picchu. This last part sounded like a pleasant afternoon stroll....." Well....
Mark rises to the considerable challenges which are part of the story...the fun part, the glimpses into a milieu very remote from his native habitat. This is the armchair adventure part of the book.
I read it over the course of several weeks which is not the best way for me to remember and keep coherent the account of several historial periods, but I got the jist. Machu Picchu is certainly a destination for many (800,000 annually). It is obviously a compelling, fascinating, intriguing place, and I learned more about its myserious allure and some of its secrets.
Turn Right is partly a modern travel adventure and partly the historical narrative surrounding Machu Picchu, specifically, the exploits of Hiram Bingham III in 1911. The author also reviews Incan history along the way. Of course, Hiram didn't DISCOVER Machu Picchu, but he did bring it to the notice of much of the rest of the world, including Gilbert Grosvenor, then head of the National Geographic Society.
Hiram III's grandfather was Hiram Bingham I who sailed from Boston to Hawaii in 1820 in order to "put Hawaii on the road to salvation." He was the prototype of Michener's missionary Abner Hale in his book Hawaii if one needs a more clear idea of his personality and attitude towards those with "sunburnt, swarthy skins....their destitution, degradation and barbarism."
Mark hooks up with John Leivers who guides him over the mountains and valleys and across and through the rivers and jungles of Peru near Machu Picchu. Mark is not exactly a real-time adventurer but rather a travel editor for adventure magazines. His life was New York City so he needed to train a bit before beginning these treks. John tells him that they would "go north, cut through the mountains, bear left toward the jungle, then double back toward Cusco. For the big finish, all we had to do was follow the river and turn right at Machu Picchu. This last part sounded like a pleasant afternoon stroll....." Well....
Mark rises to the considerable challenges which are part of the story...the fun part, the glimpses into a milieu very remote from his native habitat. This is the armchair adventure part of the book.
I read it over the course of several weeks which is not the best way for me to remember and keep coherent the account of several historial periods, but I got the jist. Machu Picchu is certainly a destination for many (800,000 annually). It is obviously a compelling, fascinating, intriguing place, and I learned more about its myserious allure and some of its secrets.
Book: Mick Jagger by Philip Norman
This is a 600-page unauthorized biography.
Mick Jagger often says he can't remember what happened although the author doesn't exactly believe this. Therefore, the sources are drawn from what is mostly already known. Still, for anyone who liked or likes The Rolling Stones, it's fun to read, full of vignettes about Mick and sometimes Keith and Charlie, Bill and Ronnie. I don't think there is much new information here, rather a reiteration of what everyone knows: the making and writing of music/lyrics and tales of sex and drugs and money on the Stones' road to superstar status. It is interesting because of their talent and success but also because of their longevity; they are still rocking and performing after 50 years of sex and drug addictions, and not as former stars but as megastars still. Pretty amazing....luckily, the heroin, cocaine, LSD, alcohol and hundreds of one-night stands didn't destroy them. Which doesn't exactly make them heroes...but rather survivors who know how to work hard and at least periodically be somewhat disciplined. In our mostly youth-oriented popular culture, their appeal is enormous.
There are stories of Mick's lovers and wives: mainly Chrissie Shrimpton, Marianne Faithfull, Bianca Jagger and Jerry Hall ....and his seven kids who are now grown themselves and who apparently have amicable relationships with him; stories of Brian Jones and Mick Taylor, of Anita Pallenburg and the drug-soaked life she led with Keith, stories of all the musicians whose lives intersected or inspired the Stones...the bluesmen and women, the Beatles, Chicago and Chess records, Altamont, the money deals, the Redlands drug bust, the agents and handlers and the love/hate bitchiness and bickering between Keith and Mick. The book is kind of a long gossipy narrative but one that was written well enough, as it moved along the lifelines of this phenomenal band, to have kept my attention.
I got the impression that Mr. Norman didn't like his subject all that much, although in fairness, he would often describe some of Mick's mostly behind-the-scenes acts of kindness and charity and how those who met Mick for the first time were charmed by his lack of ego. I do think this book is mostly a compilation of bit and pieces of information from previously published material (although a few of the principals apparently did speak at least somewhat with the author).
As for two of Mick's ladies:
Bianca Jagger returned to her native Nicaragua in 1979 "as part of a Red Cross delegation looking at the country's reconstruction since the 1972 earthquake...From that moment Bianca's life--hitherto about little but clothes and finding wealthy men to protect her--changed completely. Studio 54 lost its queen, and the people of her own and neighboring countries, similarly oppressed by poverty and vicious despots found a passionate, selfless advocate...Her international profile was raised still further when Nicaragua's Somoza clan was finally overthrown by the revolutionary FSLN Party, or Sandinistas, and the US government--fearing the spread of communism in Latin American--began lending covert support to a right-wing counterrevolutionary alliance known as the Contras. Bianca took part in lobbying against this policy and was a leading voice in the subsequent furor, when the Reagan administration was discovered to have secretly sold arms to Iran, its supposed archenemy, to fund the Contras. So the world finally did see a Jagger getting involved in politics and speaking out fearlessly."
And Jerry Hall comes through as a wonderfully sweet and wild Texas lady...so that at the end of the book, I liked learning about these women at least as much as the dusted-off Mick stories.
OK...so just after posting this I got in my car and headed into town and All Things Considered was on NRP. They were interviewing each of the Stones on subsequent days this week and each was asked to pick a song. Charlie Watts came on, laughing at HIS disremembrance..."Well, I guess this isn't turning out to be a very good interview...." He had chosen Satisfaction and I realized as this song began and played throughout the few minutes Charlie was "interviewed" that the music is so the thing here....not really the often outlandish lives the Stones have led or what is written about them. Although, a full-blown Stone performance (just once for me) WAS a hell of good time.
And, just for the record, they have done several free and benefit concerts.
Mick Jagger often says he can't remember what happened although the author doesn't exactly believe this. Therefore, the sources are drawn from what is mostly already known. Still, for anyone who liked or likes The Rolling Stones, it's fun to read, full of vignettes about Mick and sometimes Keith and Charlie, Bill and Ronnie. I don't think there is much new information here, rather a reiteration of what everyone knows: the making and writing of music/lyrics and tales of sex and drugs and money on the Stones' road to superstar status. It is interesting because of their talent and success but also because of their longevity; they are still rocking and performing after 50 years of sex and drug addictions, and not as former stars but as megastars still. Pretty amazing....luckily, the heroin, cocaine, LSD, alcohol and hundreds of one-night stands didn't destroy them. Which doesn't exactly make them heroes...but rather survivors who know how to work hard and at least periodically be somewhat disciplined. In our mostly youth-oriented popular culture, their appeal is enormous.
There are stories of Mick's lovers and wives: mainly Chrissie Shrimpton, Marianne Faithfull, Bianca Jagger and Jerry Hall ....and his seven kids who are now grown themselves and who apparently have amicable relationships with him; stories of Brian Jones and Mick Taylor, of Anita Pallenburg and the drug-soaked life she led with Keith, stories of all the musicians whose lives intersected or inspired the Stones...the bluesmen and women, the Beatles, Chicago and Chess records, Altamont, the money deals, the Redlands drug bust, the agents and handlers and the love/hate bitchiness and bickering between Keith and Mick. The book is kind of a long gossipy narrative but one that was written well enough, as it moved along the lifelines of this phenomenal band, to have kept my attention.
I got the impression that Mr. Norman didn't like his subject all that much, although in fairness, he would often describe some of Mick's mostly behind-the-scenes acts of kindness and charity and how those who met Mick for the first time were charmed by his lack of ego. I do think this book is mostly a compilation of bit and pieces of information from previously published material (although a few of the principals apparently did speak at least somewhat with the author).
As for two of Mick's ladies:
Bianca Jagger returned to her native Nicaragua in 1979 "as part of a Red Cross delegation looking at the country's reconstruction since the 1972 earthquake...From that moment Bianca's life--hitherto about little but clothes and finding wealthy men to protect her--changed completely. Studio 54 lost its queen, and the people of her own and neighboring countries, similarly oppressed by poverty and vicious despots found a passionate, selfless advocate...Her international profile was raised still further when Nicaragua's Somoza clan was finally overthrown by the revolutionary FSLN Party, or Sandinistas, and the US government--fearing the spread of communism in Latin American--began lending covert support to a right-wing counterrevolutionary alliance known as the Contras. Bianca took part in lobbying against this policy and was a leading voice in the subsequent furor, when the Reagan administration was discovered to have secretly sold arms to Iran, its supposed archenemy, to fund the Contras. So the world finally did see a Jagger getting involved in politics and speaking out fearlessly."
And Jerry Hall comes through as a wonderfully sweet and wild Texas lady...so that at the end of the book, I liked learning about these women at least as much as the dusted-off Mick stories.
OK...so just after posting this I got in my car and headed into town and All Things Considered was on NRP. They were interviewing each of the Stones on subsequent days this week and each was asked to pick a song. Charlie Watts came on, laughing at HIS disremembrance..."Well, I guess this isn't turning out to be a very good interview...." He had chosen Satisfaction and I realized as this song began and played throughout the few minutes Charlie was "interviewed" that the music is so the thing here....not really the often outlandish lives the Stones have led or what is written about them. Although, a full-blown Stone performance (just once for me) WAS a hell of good time.
And, just for the record, they have done several free and benefit concerts.
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Book: After Mandela by Douglas Foster
I finally finished this long book. Or sort of finished it as the final 30 pages were duplicated earlier in this library book, and the actual final pages are missing. But after reading 534 pages, I was ready to move on. I think it was very near the end anyway.
The time period is 2004 to 2012. I was immersed in South Africa while reading, at least the political/social aspects. I learned from every page, not especially difficult as I knew so little before I started.
The four traditional classes in SA were the European (White), the Coloured (Mixed), the Asian (Indian) and the Native (Black), and many of the old ways and customs governing society have certainly not been obliterated since liberation in 1994 and this cannot help but cause frustration and protests and anger.
There was the battle between Mbeki (who succeed Mandela as head of the country) and Jacob Zuma who is the current president of SA. There was the dissension in the ANC (African National Congress) and with Julius Malema who was the increasingly radical head of the ANC Youth League and who has recently been ousted. There was author's (sad and heartbreaking at times) dialogue with various street kids, living on the margins of the new order in SA but really not benefiting in legal ways from democracy. There were visits to small villages where those who remain (there is a constant influx from village to big city) still struggle to survive as SA tries to find ways to govern effectively and protect and nourish its citizens wherever they live. There were the conversations with Zuma himself and with his children; there were conversations with Mandela's grandchildren. There were the striking disparities in lifestyle between those in power and those at the bottom. There was the grim accounting of SA's reluctance for too many years to confront and tackle AIDs which afflicts 1 in 6 young South Africans. This was a huge problem, along with the problem of Mbeki's friendship and apparent support for the evil Robert Mugabe in neighboring Zimbabwe.
There was/is the usual corruption and bad choices and outcomes by many who should strive for nobility rather than personal gratifications, not unique to SA. And, at least for a time, there was the absolute jubilation and a sense of unity throughout the country when SA was chosen to host soccer's World Cup.
Other than being a bit too long for me, this book is engaging, easy to read and informative on the status of SA in the two decades after Mandela was released from prison.
The time period is 2004 to 2012. I was immersed in South Africa while reading, at least the political/social aspects. I learned from every page, not especially difficult as I knew so little before I started.
The four traditional classes in SA were the European (White), the Coloured (Mixed), the Asian (Indian) and the Native (Black), and many of the old ways and customs governing society have certainly not been obliterated since liberation in 1994 and this cannot help but cause frustration and protests and anger.
There was the battle between Mbeki (who succeed Mandela as head of the country) and Jacob Zuma who is the current president of SA. There was the dissension in the ANC (African National Congress) and with Julius Malema who was the increasingly radical head of the ANC Youth League and who has recently been ousted. There was author's (sad and heartbreaking at times) dialogue with various street kids, living on the margins of the new order in SA but really not benefiting in legal ways from democracy. There were visits to small villages where those who remain (there is a constant influx from village to big city) still struggle to survive as SA tries to find ways to govern effectively and protect and nourish its citizens wherever they live. There were the conversations with Zuma himself and with his children; there were conversations with Mandela's grandchildren. There were the striking disparities in lifestyle between those in power and those at the bottom. There was the grim accounting of SA's reluctance for too many years to confront and tackle AIDs which afflicts 1 in 6 young South Africans. This was a huge problem, along with the problem of Mbeki's friendship and apparent support for the evil Robert Mugabe in neighboring Zimbabwe.
There was/is the usual corruption and bad choices and outcomes by many who should strive for nobility rather than personal gratifications, not unique to SA. And, at least for a time, there was the absolute jubilation and a sense of unity throughout the country when SA was chosen to host soccer's World Cup.
How could SA not be a dynamic changing nation, given it's recent history?
Other than being a bit too long for me, this book is engaging, easy to read and informative on the status of SA in the two decades after Mandela was released from prison.
Book: Jack Holmes and His Friend by Edmund White
When I got this book at the library, I thought it was nonfiction. Not so; it's a novel about Jack Holmes and his friend, Will.
The book begins at the University of Michigan in the 1960s where Jack is a student. After graduation, he moves to New York City and begins working for a magazine. He meets Will and falls in love, the problem being that Will is heterosexual. Jack has started to discover and accept that he is a homosexual and soon is into the scene of bar/random pickups and one-night stands with men. It's a pretty loose scene in NYC on the cusp of the AIDs cataclysm.
Will moves on, marries and has a family. Part of this novel is Will's voice and part is Jack's.
It's good, with a beginning and an end. Not all novels have acceptable satisfying endings, but this one does.
I learned more about the world of homosexuality and how it is the same but also different from that of heterosexuality. Because Mr. White is such a good writer, the characters are complex, conflicted human beings seeking satisfaction and contentment and love in their lives. As do we all....
There is a wonderful black and white photo on the dust jacket which attracted me in the first place.
Edmund White teaches at Princeton and has written both fiction and nonfiction. So many books; not enough time....
"He felt fussed by his drunken, seemingly breezy conversation with Will. He leaned forward and pressed his forehead against the cold windowpane. When he shut his eyes, time and space flowed around him....Will was a bad habit it seemed he'd never get over. Jack felt like one of those courtiers who back up when leaving the king's presence...Will was rich and Jack was comfortable. But if they didn't watch out, they'd become dim and devious in their desires, mediocre in their accomplishments. He laughed at himself and stood up, sheathed in his unfamiliar pajamas. He went to the kitchen for a glass of water."
The book begins at the University of Michigan in the 1960s where Jack is a student. After graduation, he moves to New York City and begins working for a magazine. He meets Will and falls in love, the problem being that Will is heterosexual. Jack has started to discover and accept that he is a homosexual and soon is into the scene of bar/random pickups and one-night stands with men. It's a pretty loose scene in NYC on the cusp of the AIDs cataclysm.
Will moves on, marries and has a family. Part of this novel is Will's voice and part is Jack's.
It's good, with a beginning and an end. Not all novels have acceptable satisfying endings, but this one does.
I learned more about the world of homosexuality and how it is the same but also different from that of heterosexuality. Because Mr. White is such a good writer, the characters are complex, conflicted human beings seeking satisfaction and contentment and love in their lives. As do we all....
There is a wonderful black and white photo on the dust jacket which attracted me in the first place.
Edmund White teaches at Princeton and has written both fiction and nonfiction. So many books; not enough time....
"He felt fussed by his drunken, seemingly breezy conversation with Will. He leaned forward and pressed his forehead against the cold windowpane. When he shut his eyes, time and space flowed around him....Will was a bad habit it seemed he'd never get over. Jack felt like one of those courtiers who back up when leaving the king's presence...Will was rich and Jack was comfortable. But if they didn't watch out, they'd become dim and devious in their desires, mediocre in their accomplishments. He laughed at himself and stood up, sheathed in his unfamiliar pajamas. He went to the kitchen for a glass of water."
Book: Contents May Have Shifted by Pam Houston
Pam Houston does get around. This is book of 130 vignettes from many of the places she has visited. It's a bit like Eat, Love and Pray but more like Drink, Love and Do New-Agey Stuff. This book was fun to read but really just one more book full of self and searching. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but, yeah, so what else is new. Isn't the trick to make a story universal without the self absorption?
Totally random quotes:
"At the store in Tozeur we haggled over the price in four languages, and Rick finally said, in Spanish, "Amigo, from my heart, I have to make a bargain with you or my woman will think I don't have any balls," and that is when the guy almost started to like him."
"At four that morning in Boulder, my cell phone had splashed into the toilet while I was drying my hair, but I didn't really roast it until I tired to turn it on before it was all the way dry.....I sent an email to Fenton the human that said I was pretty sure Rick had broken up with me for good this time, but by the time I got to Oregon I told Nora that I knew Rick was difficult but I was too, and you could talk all day, psychology up one side an pheromones down the other, but there was nobody alive who could help who they loved."
"At first light I brave the blizzard and head for the barn and they they are, all wild-eyed and fuzzed up against the wind, giant icicles hanging from the manes and tales [not a typo] and tiny ones from their eyelashes. I dig out the barn door and double up on the hay, giving them some grain too, the low-carb kind on account of Deseo's diabetic condition make sure Roany hasn't (as he often does) plucked the defroster out of the horse trough with her teeth. "
I almost didn't finish this book after I started but pushed through and it was good enough, what with the travelogue tales and her way with words. She is a tough cowgirl, a river runner, a mountain climber and a professor with an interesting life. Plus, I like reading about people who live on ranches in Colorado.
Totally random quotes:
"At the store in Tozeur we haggled over the price in four languages, and Rick finally said, in Spanish, "Amigo, from my heart, I have to make a bargain with you or my woman will think I don't have any balls," and that is when the guy almost started to like him."
"At four that morning in Boulder, my cell phone had splashed into the toilet while I was drying my hair, but I didn't really roast it until I tired to turn it on before it was all the way dry.....I sent an email to Fenton the human that said I was pretty sure Rick had broken up with me for good this time, but by the time I got to Oregon I told Nora that I knew Rick was difficult but I was too, and you could talk all day, psychology up one side an pheromones down the other, but there was nobody alive who could help who they loved."
"At first light I brave the blizzard and head for the barn and they they are, all wild-eyed and fuzzed up against the wind, giant icicles hanging from the manes and tales [not a typo] and tiny ones from their eyelashes. I dig out the barn door and double up on the hay, giving them some grain too, the low-carb kind on account of Deseo's diabetic condition make sure Roany hasn't (as he often does) plucked the defroster out of the horse trough with her teeth. "
I almost didn't finish this book after I started but pushed through and it was good enough, what with the travelogue tales and her way with words. She is a tough cowgirl, a river runner, a mountain climber and a professor with an interesting life. Plus, I like reading about people who live on ranches in Colorado.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Book: Shucked by Erin Byers Murray
Non-fiction.
Erin trades her stiletto heels and short skirts for the gear she needs to work with Island Creek Oysters, an oyster farm off the coast of Massachusetts. This is her story. If you like oysters and are curious about how they are grown, from seed to slurping, you will enjoy her story. Predictably, she barely survives the first few weeks of hard work, but perseveres and lives to tell us about oysters and those who farm oysters, the salt water, the sea, the sky, the clouds, the tides....
There are recipes at the end of every chapter (Crispy Oysters with Fried Brussels Sprouts and Russian Dressing or Oyster-Mussel Chowder with Pancetta, Sunchokes and Almonds), and a very memorable visit to Per Se, a high-end restaurant, where Erin spent a day in the kitchen watching and learning how to make their signature dish, Oysters and Pearls before settling into the restaurant proper for dinner:
"We were moved on to more complex dishes, like the butter-poached lobster "mitt," a chunk of flawless lobster meat settled over a bed of tiny tortellini. I practically beamed when I saw the slivers of trumpet mushroom laid tenderly across the dish. The same went for the cod shank which was touched with...Ethan's pulverized pepper agro dulce. Next up we got walloped by actual white truffles...."
There are also oyster offering/shucking events in places like Nantucket and Miami, which are parties full of wine and beer and songs and laughter, rewards for the days and days out in the cold wet weather. Still, most of the book is the subtitle: Life on a New England Oyster Farm.
Erin trades her stiletto heels and short skirts for the gear she needs to work with Island Creek Oysters, an oyster farm off the coast of Massachusetts. This is her story. If you like oysters and are curious about how they are grown, from seed to slurping, you will enjoy her story. Predictably, she barely survives the first few weeks of hard work, but perseveres and lives to tell us about oysters and those who farm oysters, the salt water, the sea, the sky, the clouds, the tides....
There are recipes at the end of every chapter (Crispy Oysters with Fried Brussels Sprouts and Russian Dressing or Oyster-Mussel Chowder with Pancetta, Sunchokes and Almonds), and a very memorable visit to Per Se, a high-end restaurant, where Erin spent a day in the kitchen watching and learning how to make their signature dish, Oysters and Pearls before settling into the restaurant proper for dinner:
"We were moved on to more complex dishes, like the butter-poached lobster "mitt," a chunk of flawless lobster meat settled over a bed of tiny tortellini. I practically beamed when I saw the slivers of trumpet mushroom laid tenderly across the dish. The same went for the cod shank which was touched with...Ethan's pulverized pepper agro dulce. Next up we got walloped by actual white truffles...."
There are also oyster offering/shucking events in places like Nantucket and Miami, which are parties full of wine and beer and songs and laughter, rewards for the days and days out in the cold wet weather. Still, most of the book is the subtitle: Life on a New England Oyster Farm.
Book: Shock Wave by John Sandford
Another Sandford novel.
I love the way this writer does dialogue and characters. I love the Up North milieu (for the most part). The plots are varied and Sandford researches enough so they are credible (sort of and most of the time).
This book is about a Walmart-type chain with a proposed new store in a small Minnesota town. But, deadly bombings begin, targeted against Pye Mart. That's the main story, but I also was drawn to the concomitant threads of how a Pye Mart will affect the established local businesses, of selected details in the lives of those who live in small Midwest towns, of the interactions between law enforcement agencies.
Sandford's books are just plain entertaining.
Hardcover at your local library or the paperback edition at bookstores and airports, etc.
I love the way this writer does dialogue and characters. I love the Up North milieu (for the most part). The plots are varied and Sandford researches enough so they are credible (sort of and most of the time).
This book is about a Walmart-type chain with a proposed new store in a small Minnesota town. But, deadly bombings begin, targeted against Pye Mart. That's the main story, but I also was drawn to the concomitant threads of how a Pye Mart will affect the established local businesses, of selected details in the lives of those who live in small Midwest towns, of the interactions between law enforcement agencies.
Sandford's books are just plain entertaining.
Hardcover at your local library or the paperback edition at bookstores and airports, etc.
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