Les Bibliophiles, Autumn Day in Paris

Christopher Nevinson (1889-1946)

Was it fun in Paris? Who did you see there and was the Madeleine pink at five o'clock and did the fountain fall with hollow delicacy into the framing of space in the Place de la Concorde and did the blue creep out from behind the colonnades of the rue Rivoli through the grill of the Tuileries and was the Louvre gray and metallic in the sun and did the trees hang brooding over the cafés and were there lights at night and the click of saucers and the auto horns that play DeBussy. 
I love Paris. How was it?

~Zelda Fitzgerald in a letter to Scott
Summer 1930

New Orleans on My Mind

A lovely little book shop in the French Quarter

The sculpture gardens at City Park

Hubs and I are just back from a fun little junket to New Orleans; we like to travel light. Public transportation, especially the old street cars, is a great way to see the city like a local. 

Where to next?

The Bookseller of Paris

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.

But now it seemed to him that present circumstances demanded his full attention and that it was inappropriate to shrug them off. Being lifted like this into regions whose air he had never breathed before and whose sparse and meager conditions were, as well he knew, both unfamiliar and peculiar - it all began to excite him, to fill him with a certain anxiety. Home and a settled life not only lay far behind, but also, and more importantly, they lay fathoms below him, and he was still climbing. Hovering between home and the unknown ahead, he asked himself how he would do up there. 
Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain pg 4

[The protagonist Hans Castorp's musings as he sits on the train heading up to the mountain retreat in the Swiss Alps where he will visit his cousin and ultimately spend the next seven years. I loved this book not only for the philosophy but also for the superb writing]

And he . . . he was in Paris, now. Far away! What was it like, in Paris? What an immense name! She said it softly to herself again, for the pleasure of the sound; it rang in her ears like a great cathedral bell, it flamed before her eyes, even on the labels of her pots of ointment.

~Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

Dreaming of France

Oh golly.

THIS is where I'm dreaming about being right now. Shakespeare and Co. in Paris is such an old, creaky, hip and storied place that I can't imagine anyone with a bookish bent not wanting to spend some serious time here. My trip to Paris three years ago only planted an obsession itch that I am trying to relieve with books and cooking and, very possibly, another trip.

For more Dreaming of France links, visit Paulita at An Accidental Blog.

Find Momo by Andrew Knapp

 A picture book for all ages, Find Momo by Andrew Knapp is one of the sweetest I've seen in a long time. The photos are a remarkable collection of everyday urban and rural environments with Momo's little face eagerly looking out from some tiny corner, window, rock. Can you find him? I can't always find him right away, but if I relax my gaze and just take in the picture on the page...


(inside flap)
Thousands of Internet fans play hide-and-seek with Momo the border collie every day, and you can, too. Momo and his best buddy Andrew Knapp have traveled all over - through field, down country roads, across cities, and into yards, neighborhoods, and surreal spaces of all sorts. The result is a book of spectacular photography that's also a game you can play anytime. Lose yourself in page after page of Andrew's beautiful, serene, dreamlike images, and sooner or later you'll find Momo's sweet, eager face looking back at you. (Can't find him? Don't worry...the answers are in the back.)

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. 

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

I love discovering 'new' authors! Although I've seen Ann Patchett around on bookshelves for a while, I'd never gotten around to actually picking her up until now. I have the print book of State of Wonder but I ended up mostly listening to this on the audio version from the library; the narrator's voice is perfect for the part. I have to say, too, that I appreciate the controversy of the subject matter (isn't there always controversy surrounding the pharmaceutical industry?) and how the author portrays the complexity of adult personal and professional relationships. I'm amazed at how often the books I read purporting to be Women's Fiction only turn out to be more a coming-of-age stories for what I would consider a Young Adult audience. That's okay up to a point; I enjoy the occasional YA story myself. I would just like a little more clarity and distinction between these two genres. The synopses on the back covers aren't always that revealing. So, yes, this book is what I would consider Women's Fiction as the protagonist, Marina, is in her forties dealing with many of the same emotions and life stations we forty-somethings encounter. I enjoyed the book more than I expected, except for perhaps one or two developments at the end that felt forced and slightly unbelievable. But then, I guess, I've never been in a situation like these characters find themselves in so I'm willing to go with it. Walk a mile in their shoes, and all that. If I had to rate it I would give it 4 out of 5 stars.

Ann Patchett has dazzled readers with her award winning books, including The Magician's Assistant and the New York Times bestselling Bel Canto. Now she raises the bar with State of Wonder, a provocative and ambitious novel set deep in the Amazon jungle. 
Dr. Marina Singh, a research scientist with a Minnesota pharmaceutical company, is sent to Brazil to find her former mentor, Dr. Annick Swenson, who seems to have disappeared in the Amazon while working on an extremely valuable new drug. Nothing about Marina's assignment is easy: not only does no one know where Dr. Swenson is, but the last person sent to find her, Marina's research partner Anders Eckman, died before he could complete his mission. Plagued by trepidation, Marina embarks on an odyssey into the insect-infested jungle in hopes of finding answers.
Dr. Swenson, now in her seventies, is as ruthless and uncompromising as ever. With a combination of science and subterfuge, she dominates her research team and the natives with the force of an imperial ruler. But while she is as threatening as anything the jungle has to offer, the greatest sacrifices are the ones Dr. Swenson asks of herself, and will ultimately ask of Marina, who finds she may still be unable to live up to her teacher's expectations.
In a narrative replete with poison arrows, devouring snakes, and a neighboring tribe of cannibals, State of Wonder is a world unto itself, where unlikely beauty stands beside unimaginable loss. It is a tale that leads the reader into the very heart of darkness, and then shows us what lies on the other side. (back cover)

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

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain

Another splendid audiobook! I so much enjoy my early morning walks listening to books that I'm now loading my iPod with multiple titles so that I never run out. It's really such a lovely way to work some 'reading' into my exercise routine.

So. The Paris Wife. Ever since reading Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, I've been curious about his then wife, Hadley Richardson. He speaks about her so lovingly in that book and then inexplicably takes up  with Hadley's friend Pauline Pfeiffer. It's heartbreaking and infuriating to know that he carried on with Pauline right under Hadley's nose wondering why Hadley couldn't come around to seeing how difficult this was for him, like he didn't have any control or choice in the matter, the cad. There's more to the story than that, of course. The five years they were together were filled with interesting people and excursions to the Alps of Switzerland and the bullfights of Spain. They had one son, John/Bumby, who doesn't make many appearances in the book as he was often in the care of a nanny, which seemed to be the norm for families in their circle at the time. Children were to be only occasionally seen, and certainly never heard.

Having read A Moveable Feast a few years ago, and now more recently Therese Anne Fowler's Z, The Story of Zelda Fitzgerald, I was so pleased to recognize many of the same people and situations. All three books can certainly be read separately, but if one can manage them back to back it makes for a really fascinating reading experience  about one of the most transformative times in modern history and literature.

4 out of 5 stars.

(back Cover)
In 1920 Chicago, Hadley Richardson is a quiet twenty-eight-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness - until she meets the youthful returning war hero Ernest Hemingway, and is captivated by his good looks, intensity, and passionate desire to write. After a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for Paris. Soon they are the golden couple at the heart of lively and volatile group of expatriates that include Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. But hard-drinking, fast-living Jazz Age Paris is at odds with traditional notions of family and monogamy.
The two move to Toronto to have their son, Bumby, and it is there that Ernest galvanizes his creative ambitions. The Hemingways return to Paris on a wave of optimism, but new challenges begin to chip away at their happiness. As Hadley struggles with jealousy and self-doubt and Ernest wrestles with his writing career, the pair must confront a deception that could prove the undoing of one of the great romances in literary history. 
A heart-rending tale of love and torn loyalty, The Paris Wife is all the more poignant for knowing that at the end of his life, Hemingway wrote that he would rather have died than fallen in love with anyone but Hadley. 

Inferno by Dan Brown

I have to say I was torn about what to think of this one. I always enjoy the history lessons in these Robert Langdon stories, and the deciphering of ancient symbols, but I found the plot twists somewhat contrived and didn't really appreciate all the endless action/escape/chase sequences as they just slow the progress of the story. I've read all of his books now and don't remember them being quite as formulaic as this one. It could also just be me. I used to read all the Robin Cook books years ago, until I couldn't any more. I think I've hit the wall with Dan Brown now too.

3 out of 5 stars

Umami Burger in Palo Alto, California has some pretty delicious burgers and decorates their restaurant with bookshelves. How cool is this place?!

Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer

Oh man. Another exhausting, hair-raising, fascinating book by an author who introduced me to the perils of mountain climbing in 1997's Into Thin Air. Actually, it wasn't so much the mountain climbing that was perilous, although that it is, but the large-groups-of-paying-customers-on-an-expensive-outing that gets to be perilous when combined with the tallest mountain on the planet. Into Thin Air is an interesting look into human nature and the business of mountain climbing.

Anyhoo, back to this book.

I listened to Into The Wild as an audiobook after putting it off for some years. I don't know, but having three sons of my own in their late teens and early twenties, a tale like this gives me the heebie-jeebies. Although I love hiking and the idea of going solo and living off the land, it was hard not to judge Chris McCandless as being woefully unprepared with an almost belligerent determination to prove some kind of point.  I don't believe I will ever understand this aspect of youthful risk taking. My lame armchair opinions aside, though, the author does a thoroughly excellent job of retracing Chris's steps and uncovering as much information as could be had about Chris's personality, behaviour, and family history, all interspersed with the author's own adventuring experience and coming-of-age. The book not only explores this particular case but those of others throughout history who ventured out and failed to return. Since we usually only ever hear of the successes, it's interesting to try to understand where things went wrong in such cases. As for Chris, there are many theories as to what prevented him from returning to civilization  after spending the summer camped at an abandoned bus in the Alaskan bush, and the author leaves no stone unturned in looking for the most likely answer. It's a sad but well researched story.

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

Around the World in 80 Days - Michael Palin

I listened to this as an audiobook and liked it well enough except for the recurring musical score, which I found most annoying. Other than that, though, it was a fun and interesting travelogue of the author's successful 1988 circumnavigation of the world using the same route and modes of transportation that Phileas Fogg used in Jules Verne's 1873 adventure classic of the same name.

As much as I like audiobook travelogues, this particular story would be better as a print book or DVD.