Non-fiction – MostlyFiction Book Reviews We Love to Read! Sat, 28 Oct 2017 19:51:27 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.4.18 THIS IS A STORY OF A HAPPY MARRIAGE by Ann Patchett /2014/this-is-a-story-of-a-happy-marriage-by-ann-patchett/ Mon, 24 Feb 2014 13:45:31 +0000 /?p=25810 Book Quote:

“The tricky thing about being a writer, or about being any kind of artist, is that in addition to making art you also have to make a living. My short stories and novels have always filled my life with meaning, but, at least in the first decade of my career, they were no more capable of supporting me than my dog was. But part of what I love about both novels and dogs is that they are so beautifully oblivious to economic concerns. We serve them, and in return they thrive. It isn’t their responsibility to figure out where the rent is coming from.”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky (FEB 24, 2014)

Before Ann Patchett achieved fame as a novelist, she honed her writing skills as a contributor to Seventeen, where she worked for eight years. She also wrote articles for such publications as Elle, Vogue, Gourmet, and the New York Times Magazine. These free-lance jobs paid Ann’s bills and taught her self-discipline, flexibility, and humility. This is the Story of a Happy Marriage is a compilation of Ann Patchett’s most memorable essays.

All of Patchett’s pieces are nicely done, but some are particularly meaningful. I was deeply moved by the author’s account of the time she spent with her aging grandmother, who was gradually losing her sight, memory, and ability to think clearly. “The Mercies” is a wonderful tribute to the nuns, especially Sister Nena, who taught Ann to read and write when she was slow to catch on and thought no one would notice. Years later, Sister Nena and Ann reconnected; the two became close friends. Ann supported her former teacher with money for needy children and also offered her time, effort, and comradeship. She no longer regarded Sister Nena as a forbidding and judgmental presence. Instead she recognized her as an exemplary human being to be reckoned with–an independent, compassionate, hard-working, and indomitable force of nature.

With self-deprecating humor, refreshing candor, and lovely, expressive writing, the author generously shares details about her past and reveals what her experiences have taught her about relationships, intellectual freedom, and personal growth. The best entries in this collection are wise, witty, poignant, and refreshingly down-to-earth. Patchett discusses how challenging it is to find a partner who appreciates your strengths and is tolerant of your weaknesses; how fortunate people are who spend each day doing the work that they love; how important family is (even when our relatives disappoint us, they influence who we become); and what a great gift it is to offer others solace, a helping hand, and friendship when they need it most. “This is how we change the world,” she says. “We grab hold of it. We change ourselves.”

AMAZON READER RATING: from 174 readers
PUBLISHER: Harper; First Edition (November 5, 2013)
REVIEWER: Eleanor Bukowsky
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Ann Patchett
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

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]]> EUROPE IN SEPIA by Dubravka Ugresic /2014/europe-in-sepia-by-dubravka-ugresic/ Fri, 21 Feb 2014 13:07:30 +0000 /?p=25745 Book Quote:

“Every day the world we’re living in is increasingly turning into…a circus. Yes, I know, the comparison’s a dull one. It’s what people used to say in ancient B.G., (Before Google). It’s a compete circus! My life has turned into a circus! Politics is a circus! The word ‘circus’ was an analogy for chaos, madness, unbecoming behavior, for events that had gotten out of hand, for life’s more grotesque turns. It’s possible, though, that the word might soon regain currency. Let’s remember P. T. Barnum for a second, father of the circus and American millionaire, and his declaration that ‘no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.’ Barnum’s cynical declaration naturally doesn’t only apply to Americans. The circus is global entertainment.”

Book Review:

Review by Jana L. Perskie  (FEB 21, 2014)

Dubravka Ugresic’s new collection of cultural essays deal, primarily, with “Nostalgia,” the title of her first piece.

Ms. Ugresice is a Croatian, formally a Yugoslavian, who now lives in Amsterdam.

Her essays delve into politics, history, popular US, Yugoslavian and European culture from the 1950’s to the 21st century, as well as her own thoughts and flights of fancy. She is branded a “Yugonostalgnic,” by many of her fellow countrymen and women. This is a derogatory term, a synonym for those who long for the days of the Yugoslavia of yore under the reign of Tito; dinosaurs who look back fondly to the slogan “brotherhood and unity.”

Her “Yugonostalgia” began before the death of Tito, before the unified country of Yugoslavia broke up into six different states: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Slovenia and Serbia. “Back then I was haunted by an unnerving premonition that the world around me was about to suddenly vanish.” She wonders if she has developed what psychologists call LAT, or “Low Authoritarianism Syndrome.”

The collection’s first essay, which really captivated me, has the author visiting New York City in 2011. She is searching for Zucotti Park during the “Occupy Wall Street” protests. She asks a stranger, “Excuse me, where’s the ah, revolution.” She wonders if “a long dormant rebel virus” was stirring in her.

She visits Washington Square in New York City’s Greenwich Village and laments the absence of the “dropouts, the refuseniks, the superfluous men and women, the alcoholics and smokers, the homeless, the pickpockets the vagrants, the hustlers, the grumblers grumbling to themselves, the idlers, the losers, the dreamers,” of before…the Washington Square Park as she remembers it.

The author was born in 1949, around the time when Marshall Josip Broz Tito, a statesman, revolutionary and authoritarian head of the post WWII state of Yugoslavia, told Soviet dictator Stalin “NO!” He modeled his economic development plan independently from Moscow, which resulted in a diplomatic escalation followed by a bitter exchange of letters in which Tito affirmed that although his country would follow the examples of the Soviet system, his country would remain separate from Russia and the Eastern Bloc Countries. Ms. Ugresic seems to be having trouble with what the future has brought. She asks herself, “What in her lifetime of civil war, new passports and fractured identities, betrayals, etc., had actually been realized of all the things promised to us by communists’ ideologues.”

She reflects on a post Soviet Union world, “a BG, (Before Google),” world. However, although she paints the past with artificial colors, (which she is very much aware of), she really doesn’t want to turn time back, but is not happy with life in the present. The author quotes Peter Sloterdijk, a German philosopher, cultural theorist TV host and columnist, “Europe no longer loves life. The radiance of historical fulfillment is gone, in its place only exhaustion, the entropic qualities of an aging culture,” a reign of “spiritual nakedness.” Yes, she agrees, “Europe is in decay.”

With a wry, often quirky sense of humor, she does riffs on 21st century Europe – western and eastern. The essays contain comments on the Netherlands, where undocumented immigrants are not wanted. Here Poles are branded as thieves – they are blamed for everything that goes wrong. Even the Polish prostitutes flourish, taking work away from Amsterdam’s ever famous “ladies” who work their trade in the infamous red light district. As far as Hungary goes – they are “anti-Semitic and despise the Roma, (gypsies).” She muses on formerly great Russian literature and Europe’s neglected film industry, where only yesterday directors, i.e., Luis Bunuel, Ingmar Bergman, Lina Wertmueller, Federico Fellini, Jean-Luc Goddard, Sergei Eisenstein, Michelangelo Antonioni, etc., created cinematic masterpieces. She even mentions the popularity of aquarium ownership among wealthy young men, to the marginalization of unattractive people.

There are also pieces ranging from her travels to USA’s Midwest and her native Zagreb, from Ireland to Israel. There are lots of personal anecdotes here. Her insights on the people she meets in her travels are perceptive. Like an anthropologist, she analyzes the norms of the times and writes of “Lookism.” ” ‘Lookism’ is a widespread and very powerful prejudice based on a person’s physical appearance.” It is discriminatory. Fat people are targeted as ugly. Even Sak’s Fifth Avenue has closed their plus-size department. Fat people and smokers are “intolerable social evils.”

The “Sepia” from the title refers to the past…to old photographs in sepia.

These essays are passionate, intriguing, and skillfully written. They should appeal to those who are curious about the take on today’s world by a woman who is the product of both a communist regime and the “now” of the 21st century. Highly recommended. (Translated from the Croatian by David Williams.)

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 1 readers
PUBLISHER: Open Letter Books; Reprint edition (February 18, 2014)
REVIEWER: Jana L. Perskie
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? Not Yet
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Dubravka Ugresic
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

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]]> LEVELS OF LIFE by Julian Barnes /2014/levels-of-life-by-julian-barnes/ Mon, 10 Feb 2014 13:24:38 +0000 /?p=21890 Book Quote:

“You put together two things that have not been put together before; and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Pilâtre de Rozier, the first man to ascend in a fire balloon, also planned to be the first to fly the Channel from France to England. To this end he constructed a new kind of aerostat, with a hydrogen balloon on top, to give greater lift, and a fire balloon beneath, to give better control. He put these two things together, and on the 15th of June 1785, when the winds seemed favourable, he made his ascent from the Pas-de-Calais. The brave new contraption rose swiftly, but before it had even reached the coastline, flame appeared at the top of the hydrogen balloon, and the whole, hopeful aerostat, now looking to one observer like a heavenly gas lamp, fell to earth, killing both pilot and co-pilot.”

Book Review:

Review by Roger Brunyate  FEB 10, 2014)

Julian Barnes’ memoir of grief for the death of his wife Pat Kavanagh in 2008 after a thirty-year relationship, must be one of the most moving tributes ever paid to a loved one, but also the most oblique. So let’s start with something simple, a photograph. Look up the title in the Daily Mail of London, partly for the marvelously-titled review “Lifted by Love, Grounded by Grief” by Craig Brown, but mostly for the photograph that accompanies it. Julian is seated. Pat stands behind him, her arms around his shoulders, her chin resting on the crown of his head. Her love is obvious, she whom Barnes refers to as “The heart of my life; the life of my heart.” But equally striking is the unusual vertical composition. Pat, who on the ground was a small woman beside the gangling Barnes, here appears above him, like a guardian angel reaching down.

Which is relevant, because Barnes’ book is about verticality, about love and loss, and incidentally about photography. The first of its three sections, “The Sin of Height,” is essentially an essay. It begins with three ascents by balloon: the English adventurer Colonel Fred Burnaby in 1882, the French actress Sarah Bernhardt in 1876, and a French entrepreneur named Félix Tournachon in 1863. Tournachon was to become one of the most famous early photographers under the name Nadar; it was he who took the iconic photographs of Bernhardt, and it was in his studio in 1874 that the first Impressionist exhibition was held. Barnes’ second section, “On the Level,” is typical of many of his short stories (and also longer works such as Flaubert’s Parrot and Arthur & George), starting off from fact and developing it in the imagination. In this case, his subject is the passionate affair between Fred Burnaby and Sarah Bernhardt in the mid-1870’s, the remarkable openness of the actress with the soldier (on the level, indeed), and its inevitable end. All the way through these sixty-plus pages, you can see the author conjuring examples of daring and discovery, love and loss, and creating a language of metaphor with which to describe it.

My assumption was that in the third and longest part, “The Loss of Depth,” he would apply these things directly to his wife, giving us a portrait of her more intimate and revealing even than those Nadar took of “the divine Sarah.” But no, he does almost exactly the opposite; in photographic language again, what he gives us is the negative, leaving it for us to develop. Almost immediately, he plunges into a description of grief, the constant reminders of things no longer shared, the intolerable intrusion of friends with euphemistic circumlocutions or bracing suggestions, or worse still avoidance of the subject altogether. Pat (whom he never names except in the dedication) is present only in the spaces she has left in his heart; one of the things that turns him away from thoughts of suicide is the knowledge that he retains the mould of her memory; without him, that too would be lost. He comes back, to a degree, through art: through the discovery of opera, through reading, and above all through writing. As you read on, you see him using links to the earlier sections, a phrase here, an idea there, and you think: “Ah, now he is going to pull it all together, and himself too.” But it is never as easy as that. Barnes has great skill, but also the daring to leave doors open and loose ends untied; I am sure that “closure” is one of those words he hates. And that is fine, because this strange asymmetrical hybrid is Barnes’ tribute to a love that will never end, and probably the best book he has ever written.

AMAZON READER RATING: from 82 readers
PUBLISHER: Knopf (September 24, 2013)
REVIEWER: Roger Brunyate
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Julian Barnes
EXTRAS: Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

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Essays:

]]> ELIZABETH OF YORK by Alison Weir /2014/elizabeth-of-york-by-alison-weir/ Tue, 14 Jan 2014 02:35:30 +0000 /?p=24023 Book Quote:

“Elizabeth of York’s role in history was crucial, although in a less chauvinistic age it would, by right, have been more so. In the wake of legislation to give women the same rights in the order of succession as male heirs, it is interesting to reflect that England’s Elizabeth I would not have been the celebrated Virgin Queen but Elizabeth of York. But in the fifteenth century it would have been unthinkable for a woman to succeed to the throne. Elizabeth lived in a world in which females were regarded as inferior to men physically, intellectually, and morally. It was seen as against the laws of God and Nature for a woman to wield dominion over men: it was an affront to the perceived order of the world. Even so, Elizabeth of York was important.”

Book Review:

Review by Jana L. Perskie (JAN 13, 2014)

Elizabeth of York: A Tudor Queen and Her World is not historical fiction, rather a work of history researched and well written by Alison Weir. Here she documents the life of an English Queen Elizabeth – not as well known as Elizabeth I, “The Fairy Queen,” nor Elizabeth II, England’s modern day monarch. Our protagonist is Elizabeth of York, whose obscurity belies the high profile of her connections.

I have read almost all of Ms. Weir’s works, including The Six Wives of Henry VIII, The Princes in the Tower, Mary, Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley, Mary Boleyn: The Mistress of Kings. She has twelve histories to her credit, and four novels, all related to the medieval monarchs and the Tudor royal families. One thing which all the author’s books have in common is that they are very readable – so much so that many of her books seem almost like historical fiction – rather than the historical non-fiction that they are. So, don’t be put off if you are a lover of the York and Tudor periods in history but are wary of tackling a history book. This is not a difficult book to read. I found myself quickly absorbed.

In English history, the War of the Roses was a series of dynastic civil wars over the right to occupy the English throne. The two families with rival claims to the throne, were the Yorks and the Lancasters. This feud brought on a series of cruel civil wars in England in the years 1455 to 1485. The emblem of the Yorkists was a white rose and that of the Lancastrians a red rose. Hence, the “Wars of the Roses.”  Elizabeth was very much a “White Rose of the family York.”  Ultimately, the entire Plantagenet line, which had ruled England for over 300 years, was brought to an end. In terms of convoluted plot twists, reversals, treachery, shifting alliances, military setbacks, and “surprise” endings, it has few parallels in history.

These thirty years of warfare were even more destructive than the Hundred Years War had been in the previous century. Much of the fighting in the Hundred Years war took place in France, which meant the military damage effected the French peasantry rather than the English. In the War of the Roses, most of the fighting occurred in England. and thus loss of life and property was far greater for English citizens. The last Angevin ruler, King Richard II died without an heir. He had been overthrown and murdered by Henry IV, Henry Bolingbroke, the first Lancastrian king through his father John of Gaunt. Henry’s descendants and their supporters were the “Lancastrian faction.” The other branch, descended from Edward IV, were associated with families in the North of England, particularly the House of York and Richard, Duke of York. They are called the “Yorkist faction.”

After a huge Yorkist victory at the Battle of Towton in March 1461, Edward IV proclaimed himself king. King Henry VI, his queen and their son fled to Scotland for nine years. When they returned trouble followed…but that is another story. On June 28, 1461, Edward was formally crowned king at Westminster. He ruled England until his death in 1483. This is a very brief synopsis of the war, one of the more fascinating periods in English history.

Elizabeth’s father, King Edward IV, married for love, not political alliance, which was something of scandal and caused endless problems during his reign. Elizabeth’s mother, the former Elizabeth Wydville, (also spelled Woodville), was Queen consort of England as the spouse of King Edward IV from 1464 until his death in 1483. Her marriage to Edward was her second. She had previously married Sir John Grey of Groby, a Lancastrian, who was killed at the Second Battle of St Albans, leaving Elizabeth a vulnerable widowed mother of two sons. Her second marriage, to Edward IV, was a cause célèbre of the day, thanks to Elizabeth’s great beauty…she certainly lacked great estates as a war widow of the opposing faction. Edward was only the second King of England since the Norman Conquest to have married one of his subjects, and Elizabeth was the first such consort to be crowned Queen – to the dismay of Edward’s family, and supporters, although the English people celebrated that the new Queen was “one of them.” Elizabeth and her Woodville family’s advancement was the cause of much strife in the country and resulted in at least three attempts to take the crown from Edward. The Wydville family’s great influence, while Edward lived, including care of the future king, Edward’s son, Prince Edward V, and also lead to the familys’ ignominious downfall after his death.

Elizabeth of York was born at the Palace of Westminster, February 11, 1466, the eldest child of King Edward IV and his Queen. As the infant Elizabeth had no brothers or sisters, she had a strong claim to the throne in her own right – and, even though a woman, she may have been the rightful heir to the throne after the death of her uncle Richard III – but she did not rule as queen regnant, (such a convention would not truly come to England for another sixty-seven years with the ascension of her granddaughter, Mary I). However, she was certainly party to several kingly conspiracies and mysteries in her lifetime.

She ultimately had eight living siblings, five sisters – princesses all, and two brothers, both princes – one brother, Edward, was to become King Edward V, and the 2nd male child, Richard of York, was named after Edward IV’s father, Richard, the “Grand Old Duke of York.”

On Edward’s death in 1483, the crown passed to his twelve year-old son Edward.  Richard III, Duke of Gloucester, Edward IV’s younger brother, was appointed Protector, and escorted the young king, and his brother Richard, to the Tower of London where they were settled in the royal apartments…at least for a time. The famous “Princes in the Tower” were never seen again. However it is unknown whether they were killed or who killed them if it happened. On Richard III’s orders, (betrayal), Parliament declared, in the document “Titulus Regius,” that the two boys were illegitimate, on the grounds that Edward IV’s marriage was invalid, and as such Richard was heir to the throne. He was crowned Richard III in July 1483.

Henry Tudor, leader of the red rose Lancastrian faction, seized the throne in 1485 after Richard was killed in the Battle of Battle of Boswell Field. Henry grudgingly agreed to marry the Yorkist’s white rose, Elizabeth. Weir puts down his deliberate delay to marry Elizabeth to her extremely hypothetical affection for Richard III, but she provides plenty of evidence that Henry’s was a carefully political move. He hated the House of York, and was insistent that he rule in his own right rather than Elizabeth’s. He postponed their marriage until after his own coronation and did not allow hers until she had given birth to a Tudor heir. He had the “Titulus Regius” repealed, thereby legitimizing the children of Edward IV and acknowledged Edward V as his predecessor, since he did not want the legitimacy of his future wife or her claim as heiress of Edward IV called into question. After a papal dispensation was procured, Henry VII and Elizabeth of York married on 18 January 1486. Their first son, Arthur, was born on 20 September 1486. Elizabeth of York was crowned queen on 25 November 1487. Following her coronation she gave birth to five other children, but only three survived infancy – Margaret, Henry and Mary…

As queen, Elizabeth of York did not exercise much political influence, due to her strong-minded mother-in-law Lady Margaret Beaufort, but she was reported to be gentle and kind. Weir’s Elizabeth was generous to her family, benefactors and random supplicants. She was well-read, pious and enjoyed music, dancing, as well as dicing. She came of age during the War of the Roses. As the daughter of a Yorkist king, Edward IV, and the wife of the first Tudor, (Lancastrian) king, Henry VII, she united these warring houses. For this alone, she deserves a prominent place in English history. Throughout her lifetime, she was daughter, sister, niece and wife of English monarchs – Edward IV, Edward V, Richard III, and Henry VII, respectively. She was also the mother of Henry VIII, as well as grandmother to his children Mary I, Elizabeth I and Edward VI. She is the most recent common ancestor of all English and Scottish monarchs, which reigned after James I and VI. “Elizabeth was also a renowned beauty, inheriting her parents’ fair hair and complexion; all other reigning Tudor monarchs inherited her red gold hair and the trait became synonymous with the dynasty.”

I am an English history junkie, especially interested in the period in which Elizabeth lived – medieval and Tudor. So, Weir’s documentation of the feasts and pageants that mark coronations, births, marriages and deaths with good, juicy and documented details fascinates me. While thoroughly scholarly, with pages of annotations at the end, and much time spent in the text on detailed, substantiated arguments and counter arguments of historical contention, Elizabeth of York: A Tudor Queen and Her World, still manages to be irresistible as gossip. It’s full of vivid descriptions of the personalities, the ceremonies, the clothes, the residences, the beliefs, and the viewpoints that made up royal life, and to some extent common life, during the time of Elizabeth of York.

Some may not like this abundance of detail, but it is almost like reading a People Magazine “literary” article of the Queen, her children, husband, and the times they lived in. My likening this history to People Magazine is not a slur on the book, but rather a way of emphasizing, once more, what an easy and interesting read this is. It is clear that Weir truly admires her subject, and does honor to an almost forgotten queen. Elizabeth, she argues, “is often unfairly overshadowed by her successors, the wives of Henry VIII, but she was more successful as queen than any of them. For this, and for her integrity . . . and her many kindnesses, her memory deserves to be celebrated.”

As with all biographies, there are times when Ms. Weir must draw conclusions as to Elizabeth’s thoughts, her knowledge of certain situations, and even her actions. Rather than drawing on popular opinion, Ms. Weir presents her conclusions methodically and carefully, documenting what other historians have said and the reasons why she may or may not agree with them. I was constantly entertained by the authors writing and method of telling this story. The author subtitles her biography “A Tudor Queen and Her World,” for a good reason. Elizabeth was extremely influenced by the tumultuous times she lived in…therefore the background history.

If you want to take a wondrous trip though 15th and 16th century England, this is the book for you.

AMAZON READER RATING: from 89 readers
PUBLISHER: Ballantine Books (December 3, 2013)
REVIEWER: Jana L. Perskie
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Alison Weir
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Continuing the history, read our review of:

Bibliography:

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Nonfiction:

]]> JUNKYARD PLANET by Adam Minter /2013/junkyard-planet-by-adam-minter/ Fri, 13 Dec 2013 13:29:35 +0000 /?p=23889 Book Quote:

“Copper wire is bought, sold, chopped, and sorted until it reaches a new place–and a stage–where somebody can afford to make it into something new. The chain is commonplace: refrigerators, plastic bottles, and old textbooks follow the same path, the only difference being the processes used to turn the used-up goods into raw materials, and the locations of the people and companies who want to buy the results.”

Book Review:

Review by Poornima Apte  (DEC 13, 2014)

It was probably just a coincidence that we put up our holiday lights today. The setting up of the twinkling bulbs is probably as much of an annual tradition as its other unfortunate side-effect: practically every year, we discover some strands that just don’t work. Now imagine the same scene being played out in every American household. That’s a lot of unwanted strands of Christmas lights. As it happens bales upon bales of these get exported to China, where workers set upon them stripping the wires free of insulation to get at the copper that is one of the most valuable raw commodities a booming China needs. The demand for raw goods — copper, steel, aluminum — in rapidly growing countries like China is fueling a global demand for all kinds of scrap be it metal, plastic and even rags (white rags can be turned into paper).

Adam Minter’s lively account of these peregrinations of our discards around the world make for fascinating reading. He visits scrapyards in China, India and countries in Africa, emphasizing the point that goods will flow to places where it can be shipped most cheaply and for the most net profit. So it is that India imports scrap not from the United States, but from Dubai. Why? Because India exports a lot of foodstuffs to Dubai and when those containers return, they come loaded with scrap from the middle-eastern country. It’s the same method that works for China and the United States. Minter adroitly points out the symbiotic relationship between these two large economies. American consumption of cheap Chinese goods means huge shipping containers departing for American shores from China. Scrap left over after all that consumption is then shipped to China in these same (now) empty containers. For those who worry about American scrap being shipped “all the way to China,” — Minter points out that these containers would be moving back and forth anyway. It’s just that now on the return journey, they get filled with scrap culled from multiple American outlets.

Each chapter is devoted to a particular kind of scrap — copper metal/wires, steel, plastics, even e-waste. Along the way we get to meet all kinds of interesting players and learn fun facts (trivia lovers, rejoice!). For example, did you know that in the scrap industry, Talk is shorthand for “aluminium copper radiators,” Lake for “Brass arms and rifle shells, clean fired,” and Taboo for “mixed low copper aluminum clippings and solids?” Even if it could have used some more detail into the hows of the various kinds of recycling, Junkyard Planet is still a great read. Excellent pictures complement an already powerful story.

Junkyard Planet is especially good at painting a complex picture of recycling, the morality behind doing the right thing (with respect to recycling) and our consumption. It should be noted that this is not a preachy book. The son of scrap metal dealers, Minter has a fondness for the industry that any regular outsider might not, and as a journalist, he lends interesting insights while painting a picture that’s more grey than black and white. For example, when he visits Wen’an County in China where a plastics recycling industry was in full force, and where environmental standards and workers’ safety issues were blatantly disregarded, Minter is quick to add that for many workers here, these jobs were actually a step up. While this might indeed be the case, Minter is sometimes too ready to condone some of these more atrocious acts of violations. His “who are we to judge especially because we are such eager consumers” attitude might be a worthy journalistic outlook but it washes over the crimes too easily sometimes.

The true problems can really be solved only when living standards rise, he points out, and when more pressing issues that face every developing country–food safety, proper nutrition, and clean water–are solved first. No one can really argue with that thesis. But this list fails to overlook the fact that workers’ safety and environmental standards on the one hand and the attainment of these other “must-dos” on the other, need not be mutually exclusive. In fact, they’re quite interdependent.

One of the most sobering lessons that Junkyard Planet delivers with precision (and with excellent bedside manners) is that recycling is not really a get-out-of-jail-free card for consumption. “Boosting recycling rates is far less important than reducing the overall volume of waste generated–recyclable or otherwise,” Minter writes. Amen to that!

A couple of days ago, we received a card in the mail that advertised the services of a company that would take away our metal scrap for free. Old and rusted appliances were their friends, they said. Thanks to Junkyard Planet, we now know what fate these appliances actually meet. Adam Minter’s journalistic account is an intriguing and eye-opening account of one of the many gears that keeps the world economy going.

AMAZON READER RATING: from 14 readers
PUBLISHER: Bloomsbury Press; 1 edition (November 12, 2013)
REVIEWER: Poornima Apte
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: The Personal Blog of Adam Minter
EXTRAS: NPR interview with Adam Minter
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: More on China:

Bibliography:

]]> BOLTZMANN’S TOMB by Bill Green /2011/boltzmanns-tomb-by-bill-green/ Sun, 18 Dec 2011 16:19:31 +0000 /?p=22187 Book Quote:

“This is not a book about the great Austrian physicist, Ludwig Boltzmann, nor, despite its importance in my life, is it about Antarctica. It is more about time and chance and the images and dreams we bring with us from childhood which shape who we are and what we become. It is about science and atoms and starry nights and what we think we remember, though we have made it up.”

Book Review:

Review by Bill Brody  (DEC 18, 2011)

Boltzmann’s Tomb: Travels in Search of Science by Bill Green is at once a travelogue and joyous celebration of science. The author is a chemist who has done significant research in the dry lakes of Antarctica. Boltzmann was a brilliant physicist and teacher, a pioneer in the study of entropy. He was an early champion for the atomic model of matter in the 19th century, to the derision of many of his peers. Ironically, he committed suicide at almost the same time as Einstein was doing his pioneering work on brownian motion. This work, unknown to Bolztmann, provided persuasive evidence for the atomic model by demonstrating the existence of tiny units of matter, so small they are invisible and yet energetic enough that they cause macroscopic dust particles to move randomly in water. The author notes that Boltzmann died in Duino, the same city where Rilke wrote his Duino Elegies, brilliant poetry of profound melancholy. Boltzmann and Rilke were kindred spirits in the sense that both suffered profound depression, and were tortured by self-doubt. More importantly, the two shared the supreme gift of being able to take experience and use their respective media of mathematics and written language creatively to express unique truths.

This short work is not intended to do justice to the arduous task of skeptical inquiry and the continuing cycle of intellectual labor turning observation into theory, theory into prediction, prediction into experiment that supports or falsifies the theory. What this book does is illuminate the spark that drives scientists, and it makes clear that science comes from the work of real people who are so moved by the mystery and magic of their experience that they will walk through the fire of scorn, self-doubt and in the case of Galileo, the very real fear of torture, to seek and speak truth.

Boltzmann’s entropy formula S= k*log(W) is carved onto his tomb. His work on entropy describes the relationship between what one can observe such as the temperature of a volume of gas and a statistical description of the more or less random states of tiny units such as the motion of the constituent molecules. His work on entropy metaphorically focuses our attention on the role of chance in our every endeavor. Chance encounters with scientists during the author’s travels as a younger man lead to opportunities such as the chance to work in Antarctica. The capacity for poetic wonder at the splendors of nature fueled his scientific career. The message is that what comes to everyone does so more or less by happenstance, but some find mystery and beauty in these chance encounters. Creative souls, the scientists and poets, are then inspired for a lifetime of expression.

Boltzmann’s Tomb is a scientific travelogue celebrating a number of pilgrimages to the places where great science was made. As we follow the author on his travels, we visit the Vienna of Boltzmann and so many others in science and the arts. We spend time in Galileo’s Florence, hometown of the Renaissance. Cambridge was home to Isaac Newton and Watson and Crick of DNA fame. We visit Prague where Copernicus and Kepler created the basis for modern astronomy and laid the groundwork for Newton’s description of gravity. Along the way we see the scientists as human beings, creatures of their place and time and inspired to transcend their beginnings by creating glorious structures of thought to explain the mysteries of the universe. We come to appreciate the passionate and poetic wonder that informs much of great science. Do yourself a favor and put this book on your shelf of inspirational literature.

AMAZON READER RATING: from 1 readers
PUBLISHER: Bellevue Literary Press (June 14, 2011)
REVIEWER: Bill Brody
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? Not Yet
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Bill Green
EXTRAS: Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

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]]> BLUE NIGHTS by Joan Didion /2011/blue-nights-by-joan-didion/ Thu, 10 Nov 2011 13:13:59 +0000 /?p=22049 Book Quote:

I know that I can no longer reach her.

I know that, should I try to reach her–should I take her hand as if she were again sitting next to me in the upstairs cabin on the evening Pan Am from Honolulu to LAX, should I lull her to sleep against my shoulder, should I sing her the song about Daddy gone to get the rabbit skin to wrap his baby bunny in–she will fade from my touch.

Vanish.

Book Review:

Review by Doug Bruns  (NOV 10, 2011)

Blue Nights is ostensibly about the loss of a child. In reality, however, it is about the passing of time. Indeed, it is the passing of time that captures all loss, loss of children, of loved ones, and ultimately, of self. It is the classic Heritclitian flow and Ms. Didion has here given herself to it fully, embracing every ripple, bend and eddy. With superhuman strength she resists fighting the current. She does not emote. She does not wax sentimental. Rather she turns her hard-edged and beautiful prose squarely upon her subject matter–as she always has done–and sets to work. Yet even she wonders if the manner in which she practices her art is up for the task. Halfway through the book she wrestles with the question: “What if the absence of style that I welcomed at one point–the directness that I encouraged, even cultivated–what if this absence of style has now taken on a pernicious life of its own?” How can one write about the loss of a child with prose chiseled from tempered steel?

How does one make sense of it, bestow order where there is but chaos, the losses, the aging and the attendant frailty?. How does the writer rise to this? She exhibits no pretension, no artifice. There is that line, repeated throughout her previous memoir, A Year of Magical Thinking: “She’s a pretty cool customer.” Never did anyone seem so cool than the writer does here. She is a reporter, a cool and trained observer, even when she is her own subject matter. Yet she is laid bare. “When I tell you that I am afraid to get up from a folding chair in a rehearsal room…” she writes, noting her infirmities, “is this what I am actually saying? Does it frighten me?”

Yet, she is present, bold and unflinching. She is serious. We can ask for nothing more, and at times wish she would hold back–a trait, I would wager, of which she is not capable. In characteristic Didion fashion she brings her steely eye and razor-precise prose to her subjects: the loss of her daughter Quintana Roo, and, unflinchingly, her advancing inescapable personal extinction. Her narrative is peppered with bits of her childhood, her fading friendships, the loss of her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and the adoption (March 1966) of Quintana. All this reflected against the backdrop of growing old. It is all loss.

“When we lose that sense of the possible we lose it fast,” she writes.

Early in the book, reflecting on the loss of her daughter, she wonders, “Had she no idea how much we needed her?” When I first read this–it is a sentence repeated throughout, like a mantra–when I first read this my mind filled in the blanks quickly rushing ahead. My mind read, Had she no idea how much we loved her? I stumbled over the word need and had to reread the sentence. Was love too strong an emotion to bring to the page, I wondered? Or was she saying something else? A few pages later, while remembering the adoption of the infant Quintana, she asks, “…what if I fail to love this baby?” (Her italics.) Only here will love appear as a doubt-filled question.

Late in the book she finds herself in the hospital. She had awakened in the night on the floor of her bedroom, lying in a pool of blood. “It seemed clear that I had fallen, but I had no memory of falling, no memory whatsoever of losing balance, trying to regain it, the usual preludes to a fall. Certainly I had no memory of losing consciousness.” The event, however, is not the point. The point is the question of who to contact in case of emergency. “Whole days now spent on this one question, this question with no possible answer: who do I want notified in case of emergency?” (Her italics.) She goes through the lists of people, possible candidates. But there are problems. They live elsewhere, or are out of the country, or aren’t someone with whom she wants to share such intimacy. Or are gone. Ultimately she concludes, “Only one person needs to know.” And then the bookend to Had she no idea how much we needed her? “She is of course the one person who needs to know.” And she is gone.

It is the intertwined nature of family and friendship, of life itself, on display here. The denouement comes in the fashion in which it all unravels, how fast the end arrives and the struggle of the observer, the chronicler–indeed, the mother–to survive. As she confesses at the book’s end: “The fear is for what is still to be lost.”

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-5from 21 readers
PUBLISHER: Knopf (November 1, 2011)
REVIEWER: Doug Bruns
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Wikipedia page on Joan Didion
EXTRAS: Powerful Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

Fiction

]]> WHAT I TALK ABOUT WHEN I TALK ABOUT RUNNING by Haruki Murakami /2011/what-i-talk-about-when-i-talk-about-running-by-haruki-murakami/ /2011/what-i-talk-about-when-i-talk-about-running-by-haruki-murakami/#comments Sun, 23 Oct 2011 23:06:17 +0000 /?p=21773 Book Quote:

“People sometimes sneer at those who run every day, claiming they’ll go to any length to live longer. But I don’t think that’s the reason people run. Most runners run not because they want to live longer, but because they want to live life to the fullest. If you’re going to while away the years, it’s far better to live them with clear goals and fully alive than in a fog, and I believe running helps you do that. Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: that’s the essence of running, and a metaphor for life – and for me, for writing as well. I believe many runners would agree.”

Book Review:

Review by Devon Shepherd  (OCT 23, 2011)

In his running journal-cum-memoir, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, titled in obvious homage to Raymond Carver, Haruki Murakami claims that “people basically become runners because they’re meant to” –I know exactly what he means. Runners are different; if only for the fact they think nothing of doubling up socks to run in 20-degree weather while incredulous spouses look on; they brave downpours for the bliss of having paths to themselves; they passionately debate the relative merits of Body Glide vs. Vaseline, bare feet vs. high-tech shoes, real food vs. GU gels. Runners know it’s possible, even enjoyable, to be alone for hours, pushing themselves “to acquire a void” and these quirks of temperament are often enough to form a bond with other distance runners.

Last winter, here in New York, I only cancelled one scheduled run due to the weather which meant I was out in Central Park in rain and hail and snow, passing the same brave souls every day. On a bitterly bleak run, a smile or a nod of acknowledgment was enough to warm those December mornings. On the flipside, summer arrived and I was then having difficulty acclimatizing myself to the heat, and on a particular arduous day, when day’s high was nearing 100F, an older gentleman and fellow runner, passed me with an encouraging shout: “You’re going to do more than finish; you’re going to win.” The kindness of this stranger brought a smile to my face, and although when I run my first marathon here in New York in November, I’ll be far behind the winners, I will be among a group of very special people taking over the streets: runners.

To those who can relate to the above: I highly recommend this book. To fans of Murakami, or those generally interested in writer’s biographies, I have to be more reserved.

Although Murakami describes himself as a mid-pack runner, somewhere between the “energetic ones . . .slicing through the air like they had robbers at their heels” and the “overweight” ones “[huffing] and [puffing], their eyes half-closed, their shoulders slumped like this was the last thing in the world they wanted to be doing,” he is, by most standards, an accomplished runner. After taking up running in 1982, at the age of 33, Murakami has run, on average, one marathon a year – bringing his total to 23 in 2005 when he wrote most of the book. He has also completed a 62-mile ultra-marathon (his time: 11 hours, 42 minutes), a wonderful account of which is included in the book, and six triathlons. Murakami has also been fortunate enough to run races that are on many runners’ bucket lists– Boston, New York, Honolulu, Athens – and an excerpt of an article he wrote chronicling his re-creation of the first marathon, from Athens to Marathon (aptly enough, Murakami’s first marathon), is as inspiring as it is harrowing – I got thirsty just reading it.

But this is first and foremost a runner’s journal. Chapters are structured as discrete journal entries, most dated between 2005 and 2006 – the ultramarathon entry is dated 1997; the excerpted Athens article is from 1983. Consequently, the style is casual, conversational, and for those used to Murakami’s subtly layered narratives, the looseness of the prose might be disappointing. However, perhaps the biggest problem with the book is the lack of focus on Murakami, the writer.

To be fair, Murakami readily admits, this is a book about what “running has meant to [him] as a person” rather than a writer’s memoir. But while, Murakami draws parallels between the “focus” and “endurance” required by both runners and writers, and says that “most of what [he knows] about writing [he’s] learned through running everyday,” I couldn’t help but feel that while he was able to write honestly about his failures as an athlete and the limitations of his aging body (Murakami is 62), he was less candid in describing his life as a writer. Such creative descriptions of his struggles as a runner (at one point he likens his mind to Danton and Robespierre and his body to the rebellious Revolutionary Tribunal) only whetted my appetite for similar descriptions of his struggles as a writer.

Lest you think I’m a sadist, let me clarify. Murakami tells of his experience interviewing the former Olympian, Toshihiko Seko. Murakami asked Seko if he ever experienced days when he just didn’t feel like running. Seko ,“in a voice that made it abundantly clear how stupid he thought the question was, replied, ‘Of course. All the time!’ ” What Murakami was trying to discover with his inane question was “whether, despite beings worlds apart in terms of strength, the amount we can exercise and motivation, when we lace up our running shoes early in the morning we feel exactly the same way” and concluded that “In the final analysis we’re all same [sic].” I wanted Murakami to ask a similarly inane question of himself about his writing, because I, as an aspiring novelist, would too like to know if in the final analysis, we’re all the same.

That is why writers read writers’ biographies. We look for personality quirks or life experiences we can identify with. We’re comforted by tales of hardship and rejection, hoping that if we persevere, our day, too will come. Murakami started running around the time he started writing, at the age of 32. As the owner of a jazz bar, he worked long hours. Without any previous literary ambitions, he remembers the exact moment he first had the idea to write a novel: around 1:30pm April 1, 1978. He was at Jingu Stadium watching a baseball game, when the thought struck him: “You know what? I could try writing a novel.” From that day on, he wrote at the kitchen table after he got home from the bar until he got sleepy. This first novel, published as Hear The Wind Sing won a literary contest and started Murakami on his career as a writer. Eventually, Murakami sold his bar, and took the plunge to writing full-time, devoting himself to writing more serious novels.

The trouble is: Murakami’s breezy accounting of his career path reads as glib after the detailed accounts of how salt caked his body in Athens, or of how his feet swelled so much he had to switch his shoes for a bigger size during the ultra-marathon. Writing is as a difficult as distance running, and for all his well-deserved literary success, Murakami has also experienced the literary equivalent of aching legs, slowing times, and embarrassing disqualifications. It’s unfortunate that he chose not share them.
While I suspect it will mostly appeal to runners, far be it for me to discourage people from picking up this book. While Murakami admits that he is not out to proselytize on the physical and psychological benefits of running, “still, some might read this book and say, ‘Hey, I’m going to give running a try,’ and then discover that they enjoy it. And of course that would be a beautiful thing.” A beautiful thing, indeed.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 189 readers
PUBLISHER: Vintage; Reprint edition (August 11, 2009)
REVIEWER: Devon Shepherd
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Haruki Murakami
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

 

Bibliography:

Non-Fiction:

Related:

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]]> /2011/what-i-talk-about-when-i-talk-about-running-by-haruki-murakami/feed/ 1 AT HOME, A SHORT HISTORY OF PRIVATE LIFE by Bill Bryson /2011/at-home-a-short-history-of-private-life-by-bill-bryson/ Fri, 14 Oct 2011 13:01:31 +0000 /?p=21534 Book Quote:

“On one occasion in the 1890s, Lord Charles Beresford, a well-known rake, let himself into what he believed was his mistress’s bedroom. With a lusty cry of ‘Cock-a-doodle-doo!’ he leapt into the bed – only to discover that it was occupied by the Bishop of Chester and his wife.”

Book Review:

Review by Vesna McMaster  (OCT 14, 2011)

What would the world do without Bill Bryson? One simply wants to sit at his knee with a huge grin and listen interminably. I’m an irredeemable skinflint and get all my reading material from the library, but At Home is one book I would seriously like to buy for myself. Considering I have almost no books apart from reference books, my Complete Shakespeare and a Bible I once found in a discard pile somewhere, that’s saying quite a lot.

The volume is in essence a long and amiable discourse on the marvel that was the Victorian era. It’s loosely based around (and supposedly inspired by) the Victorian rectory Bryson lives in. The chapters have titles like: “The Hall,” “The Kitchen,” and so on. The theory is that “houses aren’t refuges from history. They are where history ends up.” However, apart from in the early chapters (notably “The Hall”) there’s little talk about anything prior to the Victorians. It’s the speed of change and the immeasurable vigor with which so many Victorians pursued their eccentricities and interests that really fascinates Bryson, and he re-tells it at the top of his engaging best.

The downside of the book may perhaps be that it has little structure. It is a little like swimming through thick soup, but oh such good soup! It’s the perfect book for sitting companionably of an evening. The urge to exclaim “Listen to this one!” and regale anybody within earshot with the latest snippet of fascinating information Mr. Bryson has dredged out of history for you, probably occurs about once every fifteen minutes. Which, incidentally, is the perfect interval for this sort of activity: any less and it’s startling, any more and it gets annoying.

The best thing about it is that it’s simply so shockingly knowledgeable. The bibliography alone goes on for 25 pages of dense text, with a further note at the bottom: “for Notes and Sources, please go to www.billbryson.co.uk/athome .”

Despite this, there are a number of curious little niches which harbour the oddest throw-away statements. Like the one that claims the dining room really came about because of the advent of upholstery, with the Victorians not really wanting people smearing greasy chicken over their expensive sofas. What on earth were all those Medieval dining halls doing, then, one wonders briefly? Or the later Elizabethan private dining rooms? Oh Billy, one thinks – but it’s such a lovely idea that a specialised room should be invented because people couldn’t quite envisage a table napkin that one quite forgives it.

These little anomalies only seem to add to the charm: they’re like “Easter eggs” in a computer game. The vast majority of the time, one is overwhelmed with gratitude at the sheer volume of reading and dredging that has been done to winkle these pearls of Victoriana from dusty obscurity. They range from the obscure (why forks usually have three tines: actually it’s never quite explained but apparently people have experimented with other numbers and it’s never quite right) to the monumentally important (such as the discovery of the sources of cholera and scurvy). Electricity holds sway over a whole chapter in “The Fuse Box,” and seems to hold a particular fascination for Bryson, as the “characters” who feature here pop up throughout the book. Perhaps it is not surprising, as without electricity so much of further development would simply not have been possible.

I would recommend this unreservedly to anybody, but actively prescribe it if you are feeling glum. Perhaps that’s why I’d like it on my shelf permanently. It’s cheering for three reasons. The unquenchable amiable spirit it’s written in, along with the sheer love of language and words that beams through the pages are two of these reasons – but any Bryson fan will already be familiar with these. The third is that the book will immerse you entirely in the day-to-day reality of Being Victorian. Which includes carrying 40 bucket loads of hot water upstairs nightly for a bath, having to take clothes apart and re-stitch them together for the laundry, refrigerating food (if one were so lucky) with ice brought over from lakes in the States, and countless other inconveniences and checks to daily living that we would simply never consider possible. The writing is so engrossing one’s arms almost ache with the weight of the water-buckets… only to look up and find that: joy! One can just turn the hot water on instead. If you think you’re bogged down with a tedious job or an unrewarding existence or poor working conditions, just read this. You’ll be skipping in no time.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 491 readers
PUBLISHER: Anchor; Reprint edition (October 4, 2011)
REVIEWER: Vesna McMaster
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Bill Bryson
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

]]> LET’S TAKE THE LONG WAY HOME by Gail Caldwell /2011/lets-take-the-long-way-home-by-gail-caldwell/ Wed, 24 Aug 2011 13:27:49 +0000 /?p=20305 Book Quote:

“It’s taken me years to understand that dying doesn’t end the story; it transforms it. Edits, rewrites, the blur and epiphany of one-way dialogue. Most of us wander in and out of another’s lives until not death, but distance, does us part – time and space and the heart’s weariness are the blander executions of the human connection.”

Book Review:

Review by Jill I. Shtulman  AUG 24, 2011)

Let’s Take The Long Way Home is, at its core, a love story. It’s a story of how a close connection with a friend can ground us and provide us with a life worth living. And it’s a story that any woman who has ever had a friend who is like a sister – I count myself among those fortunate women – will understand in a heartbeat.

Gail Caldwell, the Pulitzer Prize winning author, met Caroline Knapp, also a writer, over their mutual love of their dogs. Ms. Caldwell writes, “Finding Caroline was like placing a personal ad for an imaginary friend, then having her show up at your door funnier and better than you had conceived.”

Both women – about a decade apart in age – are passionate about writing and their dogs and have successfully dealt with alcohol addiction that knocked them to their knees. “We had a lot of dreams, some of them silly, all part of the private code shared by people who plan to be around for the luxuries of time,” Ms. Caldwell shares.

Quickly, Gail and Caroline and their two dogs become a “pack of four.” They are both self-described moody introverts who prefer the company of dogs. Yet, “…we gave each other wide berth – it was far easier, we learned over the years, to be kind to the other than to ourselves.” As they grow closer, Gail and Caroline learn that nurturance and strength “were each the lesser without the other.”

It is almost inconceivable that this close friendship would ever end, but Caroline is a smoker and at 42, she learns she has stage 4 lung cancer. Her death comes quickly, in a matter of weeks. Gail Caldwell reflects, “Death is a divorce nobody asked for; to live through it is to find a way to disengage form what you thought you couldn’t stand to lose.” And later: “Caroline’s death had left me with a great and terrible gift: how to live in a world where loss, some of it unbearable, is as common as dust or moonlight.” Eventually, she comes to realize “…we never get over great losses; we absorb them, and they carve us into different, often kinder, creatures.”

This memoir is poignant, authentic, unflinching, and genuine – never manipulative or sudsy. In addition to the profound look at an extraordinary friendship, it also focuses on “inter-species” love – between two fiercely private and self-reliant woman and their incredible dogs. The rich and moving portrayal of Gail Caldwell’s Samoyed, Clementine, will be entirely familiar to those of us who have shared our lives with four-legged “fur babies;” love in any guise is still love.

This eloquent book ends up being a celebration of life in all its complexities – including love, friendship, devotion, and grief. As Gail Caldwell writes, “The real trick is to let life, with all its ordinary missteps and regrets, be consistently more mysterious and alluring than its end.”

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-5from 87 readers
PUBLISHER: Random House Trade Paperbacks; Reprint edition (August 9, 2011)
REVIEWER: Jill I. Shtulman
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Interview with Gail Caldwell
EXTRAS: Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

By Gail Caldwell:

By her friend Caroline Knapp:

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