Reading Notes

Deep winter months are in need of a good book and a hot drink. Ahhh delightful.

Recently I dabbled in some non-fiction:

How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan is an excellent if somewhat controversial read. Just what are we dealing with when we poke around in our subconscious? Just because we can, should we? Although I am intensely curious about it all, I can't help but feel it's better left alone. Regular, everyday, conscious life is confusing enough, no? Still it's fascinating to read about someone else's experience, especially someone as engaging as Michael Pollan.

Books like Pollan's I get from the library as I am trying to keep my own shelves at a reasonable capacity. And unless it is a particularly noteworthy or keepsake kind of book, or a book that I pick up for a few bucks at a sale, I'd really much rather borrow it than buy it. And, besides, isn't a library visit just a lovely experience anyway? I'd say, yes. Yes it is.

 

But now I am all in with some classic, old school authors and their wonderful fiction. For these I had to rummage through my long neglected, used-book-sale-acquired TBR shelf - also an enjoyable endeavour - and came up with The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford (a double bill along with Love in a Cold Climate, which I will get to soon as I so much enjoyed Pursuit ) and Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton, which I am reading right now and enjoying immensely.

Reading Notes

Ooff. Well. I finally finished this gem a few weeks ago. It started out a lovely story, so well written and evocative of a time and place in history that makes reading historical fiction such a pleasure. But the tangents! Oh man. The first one came and went almost unnoticed as I was in such a haze of delight with the characters and story, but by the third and fourth one I was on to Charlotte's methods and started skipping large swaths of text just to get back to the actual timeline. It's too bad, really. I wanted to like this book so much that I broke with my rule of no guilt abandonment when tedium sets in (life is too short etc. ) Is there any truth to the old custom of paying authors by the word back in the day? or by the weight of the book? One can certainly see why tangents were popular for them.

Anywhoo. I'm on the fence with Villette. It's a lovely historic read if you can tolerate disorienting tangents.

So, as an antidote to classic literature, I chose this piece of modern fluff just for the sheer, easy reading fun of it. I like Gillian Flynn. I've read all three of her twisty psychological thrillers, especially Gone Girl the one that made her famous. Her writing is decent and well-paced and covers some pretty interesting aspects of human nature, although I find her use of gruesome imagery a bit much.

And then there's this one. I don't know if I qualify as an insomniac per se, but I do flirt with it on a regular basis. My nights are a series of intense but brief 'naps' interspersed with wakeful periods in which I usually read on my phone or ruminate in the dark over life's trivialities. So it was one night at 3am when I perused the website Brain Pickings on my phone and this book Sleep Demons by Bill Hayes came up as a feature of interest. It sounded like something I needed to read. I found a copy the next day at my library (actually, it was an interlibrary loan so although I 'found' it in the catalogue, it had to be brought in from another branch.) A few days later I had it in my hands and have been reading it ever since. It's wonderfully engaging and oh-so interesting! The author recounts his own experience with sleep, or the lack thereof, and weaves in some history, lore, and scientific studies. Just the kind of non-fiction I like to read.




After these? I don't know. I'd still like to keep going with the classic authors, I just need to hook up with one that clicks. I had my hand on Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad at the library the other day. Anybody read it? It looks like something I'd enjoy.

Reading Notes

Even though I made it over half way through Jonathan Evison's The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving, I just couldn't finish it. Ugh. It was predictable, for starters, and also just too . . . oh I don't know . . . trying too hard to be tender but 'real'? It was a forced kind of authentic. I'm usually wary of books with long convoluted titles (The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, anyone?) so Revised Fundamentals must have snuck in under my reading radar. Isn't there a writing rule somewhere that recommends using fewer words whenever possible? A less-is-more kind of thing? I think that should apply to titles as well. The books themselves might be okay, it's just this one wasn't.

Anyway, moving on.

Before Wild, Cheryl Strayed wrote a novel called Torch, an emotionally heavy book about how cancer can wreak havoc on a family. I loved Wild and knew I would be reading everything else this author writes. So here I am reading Torch and loving it so far.

I've been looking for some literary references to New Orleans for an upcoming trip and found this link which looks like fun except when you take away William Faulkner (too weird and incoherent), Anne Rice (vampires and fantasy are not my bag, although Interview with the Vampire was...ok), and any NOLA based crime writers (since I'm not much of a crime reader), then I'm pretty much left with these two books as a reading list. I might check out some Tennessee Williams and revisit some Hemingway too. But for now I'm pretty stoked. This is a manageable, travel friendly collection to throw in my bag and read on the plane and while noshing on coffee and beignets at Cafe du Monde.

Leaving Before The Rains Come by Alexandra Fuller

 Reading Leaving Before The Rains Come by Alexandra Fuller reminds me why I love memoirs so much. In the hands of a skilled author a memoir can become an extension of what the reader already knows to be true, presenting new experiences alongside familiar ones. I respect and appreciate the deeply personal nature of one's own inner self and feel the act of sharing it with the reader must require much courage and trust. Her writing is lovely. This latest book, as with her others, is a pleasure to read.

(inside flap)
A child of Rhodesian wars and daughter of two deeply complicated parents, Alexandra Fuller is no stranger to pain. But the disintegration of Fuller's own marriage leaves her shattered. Looking to pick up the pieces of her life, she finally confronts the tough questions about her past, about the American man she married, and the family she left behind in Africa. A breathtaking achievement, Leaving Before The Rains Come is a memoir of such grace and intelligence, filled with such wit and courage, that it could only have been written by Alexandra Fuller. 

Leaving Before The Rains Come begins with the dreadful first years of the American financial crisis when Fuller's delicate balance - between American pragmatism and African fatalism, the linchpin of her unorthodox marriage - irrevocably fails. Recalling her unusual courtship in Zambia - elephant attacks on the first date, sick with malaria on the wedding day - Fuller struggles to understand her younger self as she overcomes her current misfortunes.

Fuller soon realizes what is missing from her life is something that was always there: the brash and uncompromising ways of her father, the man who warned his daughter that, "the problem with most people is that they want to be alive for as long as possible without having any idea whatsoever how to live." Fuller's father - "Tim Fuller of No Fixed Address" as he first introduced himself to his future wife - was a man who regretted nothing and wanted less, even after fighting harder and losing more than most could bear.

Leaving Before The Rains Come showcases Fuller at the peak of her abilities, threading panoramic vistas with her deepest revelations as a fully grown woman and mother. Fuller reveals how - after spending a lifetime fearfully waiting for someone to show up and save her - she discovered that, in the end, we all simply have to save ourselves.

An unforgettable book, Leaving Before The Rains Come is a story of sorrow grounded in the tragic grandeur and rueful joy only to be found in Fuller's Africa.

In Alexandra Fuller's first book about her African childhood in Don't Let's Go To The Dogs Tonight  I was so enthralled listening to it as an audiobook a few years ago, that I knew I would be looking out for and collecting anything else with her name on it, memoir or otherwise. Several years and five books later my collection is growing nicely.

How To Be A Woman by Caitlin Moran

I have a weakness for memoirs, especially the sassy, candid kind, so it was a given that this one would cross my path and I would be compelled to pick it up. When reading something so personal, though, I try to leave my judgement at the door and just read for the pleasure of being inside someone else's experience and thoughts for a while. But I did eventually find her frankness grating. As much as I appreciate candid discourse, hers approached TMI territory. The older I get, I guess, the less tolerant I am for such overt transperancy. Some things are just better left to the imagination. Part autobiography, part social commentary, it was for the most part an enjoyable and funny read.


(back cover)
There's never been a better time to be a woman: we have the vote and the Pill, and we haven't been burnt as witches since 1727. However, a few nagging questions do remain...
Why are we supposed to get Brazillians? Should we use Botox? Do men hate us? What should you call your vagina? Why does your bra hurt? And why does everyone ask you when you're going to have a baby? 
Part memoir, part rant, Caitlin Moran answers these questions and more in How To Be A Woman - following her from her 13th birthday (I am 13 stone, have no friends, and boys throw gravel at me when they see me) through adolescence, the workplace, strip-clubs, love, being fat, abortion, TopShop, motherhood and beyond.

My Paris Kitchen by David Lebovitz

I marvel at how far cookbooks have come. Gone are the days of the dense, featureless tomes of my childhood kitchen. Now, instead, we have lively, colorful, engaging albums of recipes, food, stories and photographs with helpful tips and how-tos, with shopping advice and substitutions, food pairings, meal suggestions and wine tips. And because the world has become so accessible, we're able to explore and sample regional and international foods like never before. Cooking is fun again, interesting, and delicious. My current obsession is all things Paris, so of course My Paris Kitchen by David Lebovitz is a must for my foodie bookshelf. May I just say we've been eating very well at my house lately? Hubs and I have been diving into these recipes with gusto.

To wit...

Artichoke Tapenade with Rosemary Oil, pg 53. This is delicious even without the Rosemary oil, and who knew it would be so easy to make? We had it on crackers or as a spread on sandwiches.

Celery Root Salad, pg 105. This is crunchy and tangy and creamy like coleslaw but without being too cabbage-y. We had it with roast chicken and it was delicious.

 Celery Root Soup , pg106. A good springtime soup! This also has leeks and is deliciously light and mild. The crumbled ham chips on top are a yummy contrast. It also calls for a dollop of creamed horseradish to stir in, which I omitted because I really just wanted the taste of the celery, leeks and ham.

Duck Terrine with Figs, pg113. Oh man. This right here? This is unbelievable. It takes some prep work, yes, but the end result is a delicate deliciousness I never thought could possibly come from my humble kitchen. Put a dab on crackers or spread (crumble) on a sandwich like David does, with pickles and mustard.

French Onion Soup, pg 117. A hearty meal in itself, this. Since I don't own oven-proof bowls (I love the set David shows in several of his soup and casserole pictures, but alas) I had to assemble the bread and cheese right into the pot I cooked the soup in and then set the whole thing in the oven to brown before ladling out the portions. It's still delicious and hearty, although my portion here was not quite as cheesy as everyone else's. 

Carrot Salad, pg 123. This makes a nice accompaniment to lamb, along with... 

...Couscous Salad, pg237. This, in fact, was so good we ate it for days with a various assortment of meats and vegetables.

Buckwheat Polenta with Braised Greens, Sausage and Poached Eggs. pg158. We made this for dinner, but with all the lovely textures and flavors going on here, you could make it a substantial brunch as well. 

Chicken Lady Chicken, pg173. The name? You'll have to read the story behind it. The only thing we changed was grilling it instead of frying it on a cast-iron frying pan and it was still the most flavorful, moist and tender chicken ever to emerge from my kitchen.








I'd say we got off to a pretty decent start, here. There are a hundred or so recipes throughout so I have lots more to look forward to. And let's not forget dessert. I understand the French know a thing or two about sweet and buttery confections. But that will have to be a whole other post. Stay tuned.

Check out David's website for all things Paris, cooking, food and life. It's the next best thing to being there.

The Stop by Nick Saul and Andrea Curtis

The Stop by Nick Saul and Andrea Curtis is one of the most inspirational stories I've come across in a long time. Saul has not only succeeded in reconfiguring the traditional food bank supply and distribution format, but also managed to bring around the whole thinking behind food as a community builder. After rolling up his sleeves and getting his vision off the ground, he's now put his ideas and process in print and on the road to bring really what should be a common sense practice to communities around the country.

The book itself is a wonderful read, full of personal stories, insights and hope. But for a more in-depth look at his community food center in full swing, take a look at his website and the short video below. Would that all communities could have such a program in place.






(back cover)
 In 1988, Nick Saul took the reins of a little urban food bank, a last-hope refuge where desperate people could stave off hunger for one more day with canned salt, sugar and fat. To work there was dispiriting; to go there for a handout, humiliating. Over the next fourteen years, The Stop evolved into something unprecedented, a community food center that not only helps people when they're hungry, it uses food to build skills, health, confidence and independence. With its kitchens, gardens, greenhouse, and farmers' market, it has attracted the support of celebrities, benefactors and governments, inspired by its fresh new approach to an old problem. One of the greatest social innovation stories you will ever read, The Stop is a timely book about overcoming obstacles, challenging sacred cows and creating lasting change.

No one wants a handout. pg 1

Food banks also help corporations avoid hefty fees for getting rid of their unsaleable food. Instead of dumping, they can donate. Good Samaritan laws that make it difficult, if not impossible, for people to sue if the donated food causes health problems turn donating food into an especially attractive option. In a few jurisdictions, companies are even offered a tax credit for passing on their unsaleable food items. pg8

Instead of simply 'helping the needy' by handing out food - a one-off transaction - there is incredible potential here at The Stop to engage with the people of this neighborhood to take charge of their own lives. To provide support as they articulate and work toward their own dreams for the future. 

Anyway, it's clear from those members who come back every month and the new people who turn up every week that giving out cans of soup or beans does nothing to make poverty and hunger go away. pg24

People have been growing food in urban areas since the beginning of cities themselves. But greater density and the idea that cities are for industry and production while rural areas are for growing food - as well as the notion that food is grown by specialized people in a specialized process - has conspired to make urban farming unusual. City vegetable plots have never died, though, especially among certain immigrant communities. pg30

....community members talk about the shame and humiliation they feel having to use food banks and receive charity. Gardens don't prevent that feeling, of course, but they help alter the conversation. People might become involved in planting and weeding and have a chance to bring home some of the food. And when they share the work and the produce, their connection to what they eat, to each other and to the organization changes. It's no longer a 'we give, they take' proposition. It's collaborative - and something to build on. pg32

I said that what we're doing with food banks isn't working and we must find alternatives. And I said that at The Stop we don't think simply handing out food and sending people on their way is good enough - not now or ever. The Stop encourages engagement in everything from guiding and shaping the programs and services to setting our course for the future. I said that from this platform it becomes possible for people to move beyond their community to articulate their needs on a larger stage. That's how social change happens - from the ground up...." pg 82

Paris Was Ours, edited by Penelope Rowlands

I already love essays, but essays about Paris? Forget it. Roll up the rugs and lock the door behind you because you won't be getting anything more from me until I come back down from my reading cloud. Paris, in all its breath-taking loveliness and historical glory, is the coolest city I've ever been to. And when I can't be there, the next best thing is reading about it from others who have been and come away with the same indelible affection for the place.

These essays are of varying length and can be read in any order. Some are better than others, as one might imagine coming from such a diverse group of writers, but they are all equally enthusiastic about their Paris experience. This is a lovely piece of escapist non-fiction.

(back cover)
Paris is "the world capitol of memory and desire," concludes one of the writers in this intimate and insightful collection of memoirs of the city. Living in Paris changed these writers forever. In thirty-two personal essays - more than half of which are here published for the first time - the writers describe how they were seduced by Paris and then began to see things differently. They came to write, to cook, to find love, to study, to raise children, to escape, or to live the way it's done in French movies; they came from the United States, Canada, and England; from Iran, Iraq, and Cuba; and - a few - from other parts of France. And they stayed, not as tourists, but for a long time; some are still living there. They were outsiders who became insiders, who here share their observations and revelations. Some are well-known writers: Diane Johnson, David Sedaris, Judith Thurman, Joe Queenan, and Edmund White. Others may be lesser known but are no less passionate on the subject. Together, their reflections add up to an unusually perceptive and multifaceted portrait of a city that is entrancing, at times exasperating, but always fascinating. They remind us that Paris belongs to everyone it has touched, and to each in a different way. 

419 by Will Ferguson

Will Ferguson's 419 is a fascinating look into an email scam coming out of Nigeria. I hadn't realized how wide reaching these correspondences were when I first received one in my inbox a few years ago. A quick read-through informed me that it wasn't anything more than a ham-handed attempt to get a hold of my banking information and part with my money. I deleted it, of course, but not before taking a closer look. The writing sounded so earnest, so sincere, so desperate, that it got me to wondering about its origins and if anyone ever does indeed fall for it. After that I didn't think of it again until this book came out exploring the what-ifs on the victim's side and the complex background of the perpetrator's side. I say 'what-if' because I've never actually heard of anyone falling victim to the scam, but supposing they had . . .

Anyway, it's part fiction and part non-fiction, part murder (suicide?) mystery and part revenge story. And although it brings up some interesting cultural and historical parallels and paradoxes it isn't really much more than a quick weekend read. I found Laura's going solo to Nigeria to exact revenge on a shadowy internet scam cartel exciting but highly improbable. Grief and anger can make people do some pretty foolish things, I suppose, but the ending was a bit of a reach for me.

(back cover)
From internationally bestselling author Will Ferguson comes a novel both epic in its sweep and intimate in its portrayal of human endurance. 
A car tumbles through darkness down a snowy ravine.
A woman without a name walks out of a dust storm in Sub-Saharan Africa.
And the seething heat of Lagos City, a criminal cartel scours the internet looking for victims.
Lives intersect. Worlds collide. And it all began with a single email: "Dear Sir, I am a daughter of a Nigerian diplomat, and I need your help..."
Will Ferguson takes readers deep into the labyrinth of lies that is "419," the world's most insidious internet scam. 
When Laura Curtis, a lonely editor in a cold northern city, discovers that her father has died because of one such swindle, she sets out to track down - and corner - her father's killer. It is a dangerous game she is playing, however, and the stakes are higher than she can ever imagine.
Woven into Laura's journey is a mysterious woman from the African Sahel with scars etched into her skin and a young man who finds himself caught up in a web of violence and deceit. 

Skating to Antarctica by Jenny Diski

As much as I love Jenny Diski's writing and insights -her memoir Stranger on a Train was quirky, thoughtful and surprisingly funny- this memoir is a little frustrating as it jumps from what sounds like a very intriguing  trip she takes to Antarctica back to her reminiscences of a rather horrendous childhood. Each story is interesting in its own right and could have, ideally, been written into two separate books.

Perhaps it's just me, but I find it hard tracking down books written by and celebrating introverts. I'd forgotten Diski mentioning this aspect of her personality in Stranger on a Train but now that she goes on at length here about her preference for solitude, it piqued my interest anew and I am resolved to find and read more of her books.

I cannot think why a person sitting with evident contentment in an armchair causes the desire in others for their immediate activity. As a child I would leave the flat when the cries became insistent and find a safe haven on the back stairs, or the furthest end of the corridor next to the bronze, latticed radiator, and resume my non-activity. As an adult, especially when visiting people, I used to make an effort, with considerable distress, put down my book, pull on jumpers, jacket and boots (it's always cold when visiting friends) and go for a walk, every step of which seemed a terrible waste of good sitting time. These days, maturity has enabled me to say a firm no, thank you to the proposition. pg61

Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov

Vladimir Nabokov is an author whose writing I adore so much I really must find and read All The Books.  Speak, Memory, is his autobiography, a collection of essays and reminiscences from a full and very privileged youth spanning some of the most tumultuous decades of the last century. French was spoken around his home as easily and freely as his native Russian, with German and English soon to follow. His evocative detail of places, objects and people along with his dry wit are such a delight to behold there really is no wonder his work is so often referenced. It's also quite remarkable how learned and distinguished he was in his adult life. With a Cambridge education and teaching positions at the most eminent universities, one would be hard-pressed to find a more authoritative, literary master.

So, this book. Most of it is very interesting and readable if one is inclined towards literary biography and early 20th century history; however, he lost me with his in-depth naturalist descriptions of butterflies, and his penchant for studying and analyzing strategic chess moves. Although I have somewhat more of an interest in nature than I do in chess, I don't think there's anything lost in skimming those chapters. The rest, though, is splendidly engaging.

~quotes~

Speak, Memory, first published in 1951 as Conclusive Evidence and assiduously revised in 1966, is an elegant and rich evocation of Nabokov's life and times, even as it offers incisive insights into his major works, including Lolita, Pnin, Despair, The Gift, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, and The Defense.

One of the twentieth century's master prose stylists, Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg in 1899. He studied French and Russian literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, then lived in Berlin and Paris, where he launched a brilliant literary career. In 1940 he moved to the United States, and achieved renown as a novelist, poet, critic, and translator. He taught literature at Wellesley, Stanford, Cornell, and Harvard. In 1961 he moved to Montreaux, Switzerland, where he died in 1977. (back cover)

The old and the new, the liberal touch and the patriarchal one, fatal poverty and fatalistic wealth got fatalistically interwoven in that strange first decade of our century. pg30

My numerous childhood illnesses brought my mother and me still closer together. As a little boy, I showed an abnormal aptitude for mathematics, which I completely lost in my singularly talentless youth. pg36

From Batovo, the old rutty road (which we have followed with Pushkin and now retrace) ran east for a couple of miles to Rozhestveno. Just before the main bridge, one could either turn north in open country toward our Vyra and its two peaks on each side of the road, or else continue east, down a steep hill past an old cemetery choked with raspberry and racemes and cross the bridge toward my uncle's white-pillared house aloof on its hill. pg64

Form Frankfurt we arrived in Berlin in a snowstorm, and next morning caught the North-Express, which thundered in from Paris. Twelve hours later it reached the Russian frontier. Against the background of winter, the ceremonial change of cars and engines acquired a strange new meaning. An exciting sense of rodina, "motherland," was for the first time organically mingled with the comfortably creaking snow, the deep foot-prints across it, the red gloss of the engine stack, the birch logs piled high, under their private layer of transportable snow, on the red tender. pg96

The process of bathing took place on another part of the beach. Professional bathers, burly Basques in black bathing suits, were there to help ladies and children enjoy the terrors of the surf. Such a baigneur would place the client with his back to the incoming wave and hold him by the hand as the rising, rotating mass of foamy, green water violently descended from behind knocking one off one's feet with a mighty wallop. pg148

An American dentist - Lowell or Lowen, I do not remember his name exactly - ripped some of our teeth out and trussed up others with twine before disfiguring us with braces. Even more hellish than the action of the rubber pear pumping hot pain into a cavity were the cotton pads - I could not endure their dry contact and squeak - which used to be thrust between gum and tongue for the operators's convenience. pg204

On March of 1919, the Reds broke through in northern Crimea, and from various ports a tumultuous evacuation of anti-Bolshevik groups began. Over a glassy sea in the bay of Sebastopol, under wild machine-gun fire from the shore (the Bolshevik troops had just taken the port), my family and I set out for Constantinople and Piraeus on a small and shoddy Greek ship Nadezhda (Hope) carrying a cargo of dried fruit. pg251

A Man Without A Country by Kurt Vonnegut

I read this on the fly while traveling recently because I really enjoy KV's essays as opposed to his rather strange fiction. A Man Without a Country is a collection of short non-fiction written towards the end of his life when he, sadly, went beyond curmudgeonly to dispirited resignation regarding the state of the country he once loved. It is, however, filled with some great quotes about finding happiness and hope in some unlikely places - libraries, for starters, and the everyday encounters we have with friends and loved ones.

"I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is." 

Paris: The Novel by Edward Rutherfurd

I've never read anything by this author before, but given my appetite for historical fiction AND non-fiction it was only a matter of time. Edward Rutherfurd's Paris: The Novel is thoroughly engrossing! It's a huge and sweeping, fantastic book. What a great way to learn about the history of such a storied place as Paris. We follow families through the ages as they go about their lives dealing with all the social issues of the day. I appreciated the 'lessons' incorporated into into the dialogue as one character explains some bit of history or piece of policy to another character. And since there were opposing  loyalties and traditions at various times throughout history, these exchanges were either applauded or condemned depending on which characters we are reading about. It brings the past into the present in such an engaging way I can wholeheartedly recommend Paris: The Novel to anyone looking for an absorbing read. There is one downside, though. Since there is so much story packed into this book, I wish the chapters had been truly chronological rather than alternating between ancient and recent history.

I'm looking forward to reading some of Rutherfurd's past books: London, Sarum, and The Forest sound especially interesting.

The novel opens in La Belle Epoque, a golden age of peace and joie de vivre. Moving back and forth in time across centuries, the story unfolds through intimate and vivd tales of self-discovery, divided loyalty, passion and long-kept secrets of characters bother fictional and real, all set against the back-drop of the glorious city - from the summit of Montmartre to the Gothic towers of Notre Dame to the Grand Boulevards.
The nobel family de Cygne has served king and country through the ages and claims descent from the hero of the celebrated poem The Song of Roland. The Le Sourds come from humble beginnings and embody the ideals of the French Revolution and the Paris Commune. The Gascon brothers are from the dangerous slums behind Montmartre, but while one goes to work building the world's most recognizable icon - The Eiffel Tower - the other makes a living in the sinful underworld of Pigalle, near the famed Moulin Rouge. The Blanchards lost everything during the reign of Louis XV but rose again in the age of Napoléon and wind their place among the middle class of urban sophisticates who helped establish Paris as the great centre of art , literature, and style that it is today.
We follow these families through good times and bad, as they come of age, seek their fortunes, and fall in and out of love - from the building of Notre Dame and the waning days of Cardinal Richelieu and the bloody religious conflict between Catholics and Huguenots; from the glittering court of Versailles to the violence of the French Revolution and the turmoil of the Paris Commune; from the hedonism of the Belle-Epoque and the heyday of impressionists to the tragedy of the First World War and the 1920s, when the writers of the Lost Generation could be found drinking at Les Deux Magots; from the heroic efforts of the French resistance to the student revolt of 1968. 
With his unrivaled blend of impeccable research and narrative verve, Rutherfurd weaves an extraordinary tapestry that captures the medieval world of saints and scholars, just as it captures the modern French ideals of liberté, égalité, fraternité. More richly detailed, more thrilling, and more romantic than anything Rutherfurd has written before, Paris: The Novel is a tour de force that brings the sights and scents, and tastes of Paris to sumptuous life. The City of Light and Love awaits you . . . (back cover)

The year 1789 was more than a revolution. It was the birth of Freedom itself. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: these are the noblest ideas that men can have. The ancien régime fought against them, so the Revolution cut off their heads. It was absolutely necessary. But more than that. The Revolution released us from the prison that the Church had made. The power of the priests was broken. People were free to deny God, to be free of superstition, and follow reason. It was a great step forward for mankind. pg13

Those who rose in the Church enjoyed the revenues of its vast estates. A bishop was a powerful man, and lived like a prince. Great churchmen could provide money for their families, and help them in every way. The vow of celibacy didn't appeal to Roland. But fortunately, despite their vows, many bishops had left illegitimate children. The Church provided the educated class, and the great administrators of the crown. For a clever fellow, the Church was a way to fortune. pg47

Many nations had known glory in their history, but perhaps none had felt it so keenly as the nation of France: for monarchists, the glory of the Sun King; for republicans, the glory of the Revolution; for soldiers and administrators, the glorious victories of the emperor Napoléon. pg91

And though of course he did not love Father Xavier in the same way that he loved his father, he sometimes preferred the priest's advice. Father Xavier was clever, certainly. Yet even in if he could not follow the many turnings of the priest's subtle mind, he always sensed that behind everything Father Xavier said and thought there lay absolute certainty. The rules by which the priest lived were fixed and eternal. pg95

It seemed to him that the tower must be falling behind schedule. Eiffel's assistant engineers would sometimes be fretful. Thomas would see them shaking their heads. He knew from the drawings he'd seen that the massive span between the ground and the platform was to be finished with an elegant semicircular arch across the outside edge. Yet as April wore on and the pylons climbed into the sky about the platform, the whole of the tower looked a mess. But whatever was passing in his mind, Eiffel himself was always calm, polite, serene. pg179

The Moulin Rouge was a work of genius. It had been going for only a few years, but it was already a legend.
It was to be found at the foot of the hill of Montmartre, on the broad and leafy boulevard de Clichy that effectively marked the frontier where the serried order of Baron Hausmann's Paris met the steep chaos of Montmartre. It occupied a former garden plot sandwiched between two respectable, six-story blocks, its large street-level front forming one edge of a platform. And upon this platform rose an almost full-scale model windmill, painted bright red. pg257

"Yet in the last thirty years," Roland remarked, "the radical parties have achieved so many of their aims." He ticked some of them off. "There is little chance of either a monarchy or a Bonapartist military government. Every man has the vote. There is free public education for every boy and girl - I may not see the necessity, but it is so. And education is in the hands of the state, not of the Church. Even the traditional independence of the ancient regions of France, it seems to me, is being eroded by your bureaucrats in Paris. As one who loves France, this also saddens me. But all these changes are not enough for you?"
"They are a beginning. That is all." pg439

"Paris has always prided itself on being home to revolutionary thought. Ever since the French Revolution, we believe that all radical ideas belong to us. And people with radical ideas have always come to Paris to discuss them." pg 547

The Painted Girls by Cathy Marie Buchanan

I just finished listening to this on audio and was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it. Unfortunately this won't be much of a review because audiobooks are so difficult to go back and reference; they leave me with a *feeling* for the story and so that's all I've got to go on.

I've never had much interest in ballet, but Paris! History! Art! all these other things I love are right here within the pages, so how could I not enjoy this? It's a coming-of-age story, which I keep swearing off again and again, but alas, there always seems to be one more book crying out to be read. Aaanyway, The Painted Girls is based on actual people and events, which I realize now, for me, is the catch. I already have an inclination toward historical fiction, but when paired with non-fiction all bets are off and I must at least have a closer look read. The characters are well developed and the story moves along at a decent pace with satisfying conclusion. The audio version was very good but I imagine the print version would be just as good.

4/5 stars

A heartrending, gripping novel about two sisters in Belle Epoque Paris. 1878 Paris. Following their father's sudden death, the van Goethem sisters find their lives upended. Without his wages, and with the small amount their laundress mother earns disappearing into the absinth bottle, eviction from their lodgings seems imminent. With few options for work, Marie is dispatched to the Paris Opéra, where for a scant seventeen francs a week, she will be trained to enter the famous ballet. Her older sister, Antoinette, finds work as an extra in a stage adaptation of Émile Zola's naturalist masterpiece L'Assommoir. Marie throws herself into dance and is soon modelling in the studio of Edgar Degas, where her image will forever be immortalized as Little Dancer Aged Fourteen. There she meets a wealthy male patron of the ballet, but might the assistance he offers come with strings attached? Meanwhile Antoinette, derailed by her love for the dangerous Émile Abadie, must choose between honest labor and the more profitable avenues open to a young woman of the Parisian demimonde. Set at a moment of profound artistic, cultural, and societal change, The Painted Girls is a tale of two remarkable sisters rendered uniquely vulnerable to the darker impulses of 'civilized society.' In the end, each will come to realize that her salvation, if not survival, lies with the other. (back cover)

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

Cheryl Strayed is one gutsy woman. In her wonderfully written memoir Wild she takes the reader with her on an exhausting journey along the Pacific Crest Trail as she tries to come to terms with her unravelling life. Not only does she embark on this odyssey by herself, but she does so with only a rudimentary knowledge of long distance hiking.

Her writing is so clear, her descriptions so palpable, that every time I put the book down, I'd feel as dusty and sore as the author herself, as if I'd been walking right there alongside her. Her unrelenting thirst and hunger had me running to the kitchen for a cold drink and a snack. I did not envy these aspects of her self-imposed ordeal. It's so interesting to see what she does with all that solitude. I fantasize about solitude in such breathtaking surroundings, but always wonder what the reality would actually be like. I never got the impression that it was too much for her, though. She enjoys the sporadic contact she has with other hikers and people in the small towns she passes through, but she also craves her solo return to the trail.

As she walks, she remembers some of her past, and what it was that got her to take on such a punishing trek in the first place. It's difficult to witness some of the disastrous turns her life takes in the preceding years, and then doubly so witnessing some of her  rather self-sabotaging behaviours after that. But really, it sets up an unexpected sense of suspense that had me glued to the page. How can this woman possibly not only survive such an ordeal, but persevere to the very end, alive and intact? It would be interesting to know if she has any long term effects from her boot issues. The descriptions of her raw and blistered feet are truly cringe-worthy. How on earth . . . ?

The physical and mental changes she goes through, and the insights she gains, is indeed nothing short of miraculous.

~quotes~

A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe - and built her back up again.
At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother's death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life: to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State - and do it alone. She had no experience as a long-distance hiker, and the trail was little more than 'an idea, vague and outlandish and full of promise.' But it was a promise of piecing back together a life that had come undone.
Strayed faces down rattlesnakes and black bears, intense heat and record snowfalls, and both the beauty and loneliness of the trail. Told with great suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild vividly captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her. (back cover)

I was thinking only of moving myself forward. My mind was a crystal vase that contained only that one desire. My body was its opposite: a bag of broken glass. Every time I moved, it hurt. I counted my steps to take my mind off the pain, silently ticking the numbers off in my head to one hundred before starting over again. The blocks of numbers made the walk slightly more bearable, as if I only had to go to the end of each one. pg63

My new existence was beyond analogy, I realized on that second day on the trail.
I was in entirely new terrain. pg63

I could go backward in the direction I had come from, or I could go forward in the direction I intended to go. The bull [moose], I acknowledged grimly, could be in either direction, since I hadn't seen where he'd run once I closed my eyes. I could only choose between the bull that would take me back and the bull that would take me forward.
And so I walked on. pg69

That my complicated life could be made so simple was astounding. It had begun to occur to me that perhaps it was okay that I hadn't spent my days on the trail pondering the sorrows of my life, that perhaps by being forced to focus on my physical suffering some of my emotional suffering would fade away. By the end of that second week, I realized that since I'd begun my hike, I hadn't shed a single tear. pg92

Monster [the author's backpack] was my world, my inanimate extra limb. Though its weight and size still confounded me, I'd come to accept that it was my burden to bear. I didn't feel myself in contradiction to it the way I had a month before, It wasn't me against it. We two were one. pg190

Foot speed was a profoundly different way of moving through the world that my normal modes of travel. Miles weren't things that blazed dully past. They were long, intimate straggles of weeds and clumps of dirt, blades of grass and flowers that bent in the wind, trees that lumbered and screeched. They were the sound of my breath and my feet hitting the trail one step at a time and the click of my ski pole. The PCT had taught me what a mile was. I was humbled before each and every one. pg191

Blue Nights by Joan Didion

I am always floored by Joan Didion's fearless, lyrical writing. If anyone knows how to put her thoughts down in words, it's this author who once again takes us on a journey of life, love, grief and loss. Her daughter Quintana Roo fell ill and died not long after Didion's husband, John Gregory Dunne, died of a sudden heart attack, an event she chronicles in The Year of Magical Thinking.

I listened to Blue Nights as an audiobook and was no less enthralled by her writing as she tells the story of adoption, motherhood, family, and a thoughtful examination of her own frailty and aging. If I had any complaint, though, it would be her use of repetition throughout the book. There were names, places, events, that she referred to in full again and again, almost assuming we might need to remember that the hospital Quintana was born in was the one in Santa Monica. Once we've heard it a couple of times, we don't really need to have it placed again. There was a dream Quintana used to have as a young child, too, that was referred to over and over again, about the 'Broken Man'. I didn't really get why this was brought up as much as it was, but I can hardly fault her as it seems what we are really reading is her private means of remembering, never wanting to let go of the details of a loved one. She is allowing the reader inside what is usually a very private process.

Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala

Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala is a heart-wrenching memoir. We are introduced to the author's young family right away as they go about preparing for departure from their oceanfront hotel in the Yala National Park, Sri Lanka, where they have been vacationing over the 2004 Christmas holidays. Along with her two boys, seven year-old Vikram and five year-old Malli, and her husband Steve, are her parents, Aachchi and Seeya, occupying the room right next door, a fact that torments her for years to come - they were so close, and yet...

As Sonali looks out of her hotel window that morning, she notices the ocean has risen to a height she has never seen before, washing onto the hotel grounds and churning toward their room. After a few moments of disbelief, she and Steve grab the children and head out toward the road, catching a ride on a passing jeep. Her parents, she realizes, are probably still in their room and, in the rush to save her children, she passes their door without knocking. Sonali's sense of guilt over this is as palpable as it is devastating; she never sees her parents again. The wave then quickly engulfs the jeep, turning it on its side, spilling out all the occupants into the roiling mud. And just like that, she is on her own.

I can't even conceive what a loss of this magnitude would be like. Being a mother myself, I look to books like this with a sense of wonder and deep respect. The author has survived the experience of outliving her children in the most cruel way imaginable. How does one even begin to describe the effects of such personal devastation? Are there words? What words? I found a number of passages that helped me to understand her grief. She describes being shattered, dismembered, a howling heap on the floor. Back home, the sight of school backpacks hanging on the door handle as always, each one now a scalpel. She finds three cheques her husband wrote on their last day in London, for the gardener and the milkman and for the boys' school dinners. Those two words, school dinners, were all it took. I shattered.

Shattered. That's the word I had been looking for for clarity, for understanding. Sonali doesn't feel shattered, she is shattered. I stared at that passage for a long time.

What follows is her recovery back into something that resembles life. The years of grief, of remembering and trying to forget. She recounts family events and small everyday things that let us get to know her sons, as young as they were, her husband, and her parents as well. It is a touching and riveting story filled with much love.

In December 2004, Sonali Deraniyagala, her English husband, and their two small boys travelled from London to a seaside resort on Sri Lanka's south coast to spend Christmas with her parents. On the morning of December 26, they were packing to leave for Colombo when they saw an unusually large wave approach far too close to their hotel. They began to run, but very soon water engulfed them and she was separated from her family in the churning water. She never saw them again. Wave is a raw, utterly engrossing, beautifully poised account of the devastating event that all at once changed life as she knew it, of what came before, and of her long journey since in search of understanding and redemption. (back cover)

With or Without You by Domenica Ruta

I haven't read a memoir as good as With or Without You  since The Glass Castle, The Liar's Club and Running With Scissors. In spite of all the harsh and highly questionable parenting that Domenica, 'Nikki', is subjected to at the hands of her needy, unreliable and often drug addicted mother, there is fierce love among the pages of this book. I don't know, perhaps it's the occasional humor peppered throughout, or the sense of family loyalty - the simple fact that we all only have one mother, so what's a child to do? - or the fact that the author grows to recognize her mother's limited maturity and learns to adjust her expectations.

Domenica's writing in With or Without You is clear and straightforward and, as with many memoirs of wrecked childhoods, difficult to read, to witness, without cringing. I marvelled at the author's resilience and, after her own rocky start to adulthood, her ability to rise above a life not many manage to overcome. Once I started reading, it was almost impossible to put down.

Highly recommended reading for those involved with family and loved ones struggling with addictions.


Domenica grew up in a working-class, unforgiving town of north of Boston, in a trash-filled house on a dead-end road surrounded by a river and a salt marsh. Her mother, Kathi, a notorious local figure, was a drug-addict and sometimes dealer whose life swung between welfare and riches, and whose high-brow taste was at odds with her hardscrabble life. And yet she managed, despite the chaos she created, to instill in her daughter a love of stories. Kathi frequently kept Domenica home from school to watch such classics as the Godfather movies and everything by Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen, telling her, "This is more important. I promise. You'll thank me later." And despite the fact that there was not a book to be found in the whole household, Domenica developed a love of reading, which helped her believe that she could transcend this life of undying grudges, self-inflicted misfortune, and the crooked moral code that Kati and her cohorts lived by.

With or Without You is the story of Domenica Ruta's unconventional coming of age - a darkly hilarious chronicle of a misfit '90's youth and the necessary and painful act of breaking away, and of overcoming  her own addictions and demons in the process. In a brilliant stylistic feat, Ruta has written a powerful, inspiring, compulsively readable, and finally redemptive story about loving and leaving. (back cover)

Publisher: Spiegel and Grau
Published: February 26, 2013
Length: 224 pages
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 9780812993240

~quotes~

The three of them were locked inside their collective nightmare. I wandered in the dark behind them, invisible and restless as a ghost. It was as though I wasn't there. A blessing, I suppose, to be excluded from the drama. Until one night Carla shouted at my father: 
"Why don't you ever hit her?"
Carla pointed to where I stood clutching the banister, and the feeling of a rusty shiv pierced my ribs. Why was not an interrogative adverb in this sentence; it was a modal of suggestion, as in, Why don't we invite the neighbors over for supper? Why don't we go apple picking this weekend? Why don't we try to be more egalitarian with our violence? pg49

In that big backyard I read about the spider who spun prophetic words into her web, about the lion who gave up his life for the sake of four bereft orphans, about the pioneer family in a covered wagon battling scarlet fever and blizzards. I read about the gods and goddesses of Greek antiquity, who were as real to me as the people in my family. It was amazing to me how much time could disappear while I was reading. pg 52

It was a funny inhibition, considering Kathi was utterly lacking in social restraint. There is a ripple of meat in the frontal lobe responsible for impulse control. When the neurons are firing appropriately, it prevents most of us from, let's say, telling the hostess of a crowded restaurant to go fuck herself because we're hungry and all the tables happen to be full. This part of my mother's brain was a blitzkrieg. Her emotions could erupt anywhere, at any time - at a department store, in a dentist's office, on an airplane. If I tried to intervene, all the radiation she was leaking would concentrate into one furious laser beam aimed right at me. I'd learn the hard way that the only thing I could do in these moments was step back and watch her detonate. pg 98

The movie Pulp Fiction should have been subsumed into the boys-only category, but the girls of Paul Revere got hold of it first. There was a lot of hype about this movie when it was released. The violence was supposedly graphic and disturbing, so much so that movie theaters across the country cracked down on checking IDs before you entered the theater, meaning that only a couple of kids from New York City had actually seen it. The house counsellors at Paul Revere were pretty supportive of any weekend activity that didn't leave us pregnant or dead, so not only did they rent Pulp Fiction for us one Saturday night, they baked us cookies, too. pg100

Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Books about women who break from tradition and defy the odds to achieve success always get my attention. Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali has been on my radar ever since she became an international figure a few years ago. Women like Ayaan are braver than I will ever be. She was a smart young girl growing up surrounded by her very old-world, traditional African Muslim family, first in Somalia then Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, and Kenya, asking questions and confronting her elders and those in authority along the way. She was abused, mutilated and 'married' to a man of her father's choosing. It was this husband she was travelling to join when she took a detour to Holland, claimed refugee status, became a citizen, learned the language, earned a masters degree in political science, joined parliament, and dared to expose the absolutely inhumane conditions imposed on millions of Muslim women in the name of religion and culture. She challenged the Dutch to consider that their wide open tolerance could be, in turn, supporting some very intolerant, closed and archaic practices.

She suffered death threats and spent years in hiding and under protection because of her outspoken ideas including the making of the short film Submission (a film exposing the abuse of women condoned in the Quran) she made with Theo van Gogh who was murdered for his participation. She later resigned from parliament and came close to having her citizenship permanently revoked because she had misrepresented herself on her refugee claim all those years ago, a fact which she readily admits to and explains in detail in her book. One can hardly pass judgement on the actions of a scared young woman in the midst of escape, but is there no consideration of her subsequent pursuit and success in learning the language, achieving an education and becoming a contributing member of society? Perhaps not perfectly initiated, but it results in what sounds like model citizenship to me. It was later resolved that the information on her refugee application was in fact accepted as legal.

On a cursory search of the internet, I see that along with the many supporters of her work towards integration of and equality to immigrant women (she is the founder of AHA Foundation, protecting the rights of women in the West from oppression justified by religion and culture), she has a number of detractors as well, as is expected of any outspoken public figure in a liberal democracy. It is this right to stand up and speak out against injustice that she has risked her life for.

~quotes~

The decision to write this book didn't come to me easily. Why would I expose such private memories to the world? I don't want my arguments to be considered sacrosanct because I have had horrible experiences; I haven't. In reality, my life has been marked by enormous good fortune. How many girls born in Digfeer Hospital in Mogadishu in 1969 are even alive today? And how many have a real voice?
I also don't want my reasoning to be dismissed as the bizarre ranting of someone who has been somehow damaged by her experiences and show is lashing out. People often imply that I am angry because I was excised, or because my father married me off. They never fail to add that such things are rare in the modern Muslim world. The fact is that hundreds of millions of women around the world live in forced marriages, and six thousand small girls are excised every day. My excision in no way damaged my mental capacities; and I would like to be judged on the validity of my arguments, not as a victim. pg348


One of today's most admired and controversial political figures, Ayaan Hirsi Ali bursts into international headlines following the murder of Theo van Gogh by an Islamist who threatened that she would be next. She made headlines again when she was stripped of her citizenship and resigned from the Dutch parliament.
Infidel shows the coming of age of this distinguished political superstar and champion of free speech as well as the development of her beliefs, iron will, and extraordinary determination to fight injustice. Raised in a strict Muslim family, Hirsi Ali survived civil war, female mutilation, brutal beatings, adolescence as a devout believer during the rise of the Muslim brotherhood, and life in four troubled, unstable countries ruled largely by despots. She escaped from a forced marriage and sought asylum in the Netherlands, where she earned a college degree in political science, tried to help her tragically depressed sister adjust to the West, and fought for the rights of Muslim women and the reform of Islam as a member of parliament. Under constant threat, demonized by reactionary Islamists and politicians, disowned by her father, and expelled from family and clan, she refused to be silenced. 
Ultimately a celebration of triumph over adversity, Hirsi Ali's story tells how a bright little girl evolves out of dutiful obedience to become an outspoken, pioneering freedom fighter. As Western governments struggle to balance democratic ideals with religious pressures, no other books could be more timely. (back cover)