Mary's Library

Apathy/Cynicism

2011-04-08T15:40:00.000-07:00

Dick Morris is going on about how Republicans (and moderates) who voted for the conservative Republicans who now control the house will be outraged if the their new representatives vote for less than $61 billion in cuts, if they compromise with the administration in order to avoid a government shutdown. He's wrong. The people who made an effort to get out there and vote are going to divide into two groups. The much smaller group will be irate and work to find another Republican to replace the congressman who doesn't take seriously the public insistence on cutting the budget and the deficit. But most people will shrug cynically and mumble apathetically about politicians being all alike, crooks all of them, and either not vote or perhaps vote for the Democrat. In a climate where the unions are in full crusader mode over Wisconsin this will be disastrous for the Republicans. The unions will do what they are best at doing, organize, and we will have another of those landslide elections where the house changes hands in a dramatic fashion. When will politicians listen to the people who elected them and do what they promised in their campaigns?

Airport ‘Security’? - Thomas Sowell - National Review Online

2010-11-23T16:50:00.000-08:00

Thomas Sowell has never hesitated to say what he thought about anything. Here's his take on the Obama administration and what the new security policy tells us about them:

Airport ‘Security’? - Thomas Sowell - National Review Online

Your Tax Money, Union Dues, Campaign Contributions

2010-10-28T08:53:00.000-07:00

I see where AFSCME, the union of state and local government employees, has donated $84,500,000 in this election. (I wonder how much of that went to Republican candidates.) They donated $400,000,000 in the 2008 election.

There are more union members working for the government than for private industry. What would Franklin Roosevelt think?

"The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service," he said in the 1930s. A public employee strike, he said, "looking toward the paralysis of government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable."

Islam is not a religion

2010-10-19T13:17:00.000-07:00

I have nothing against the people. I don’t hate Muslims. But Islam is a totalitarian ideology. It rules every aspect of life — economics, family law, whatever. It has religious symbols, it has a God, it has a book — but it’s not a religion. It can be compared with totalitarian ideologies like Communism or fascism. There is no country where Islam is dominant where you have a real democracy, a real separation between church and state.
-- Geert Wilders, 2009

2010-05-09T08:58:00.001-07:00

Americans have always hated bureaucracy. One of the charges against King George III in the Declaration of Independence was that he “has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.” Who wants to be ruled by a national DMV? It is costly, inefficient, and, well, bureaucratic.

“It is not by the consolidation, or concentration of powers, but their distribution, that good government is effected,” Jefferson warned. “Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread.” - Matthew Spalding, The New Despotism of Bureaucracy

Jefferson on Big Government

2010-05-09T08:36:00.001-07:00

"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare but only those specifically enumerated."-- Thomas Jefferson

Duh!

2010-05-07T07:17:00.000-07:00

. . . when you have a situation where a government is spending four trillion dollars, but only taking in two trillion in revenue, basically, you’re telling the rest of the world you’ve no intention of paying that off ever, and the rest of the world eventually figures that out. - Mark Steyn

The Past

2010-05-05T06:02:00.000-07:00

"We predicate things now in the schools on race, class, and gender, and we do it as remedies for present angst, and anxieties, and controversies. So history's become melodrama rather than tragedy. That's too bad because we're not fair to the past at all." -- Victor Davis Hanson

And still no need to use the word Muslim

2010-05-04T13:30:00.001-07:00

The latest story in the NY Times on the arrest of the terrorist who tried to blow up Times Square.

Equality

2010-05-04T07:36:00.000-07:00

David Brooks in today's NY Times talks about the fact that Asians in New Jersey live an average of 26 years longer and are 11 times more likely to have a college degree than an American Indian in North Dakota:

When you try to account for life outcome differences this gigantic, you find yourself beyond narrow economic incentives and in the murky world of social capital. What matters are historical experiences, cultural attitudes, child-rearing practices, family formation patterns, expectations about the future, work ethics and the quality of social bonds.

Equality of opportunity will never result in equality of outcome until the culture of every ethnic group changes. Or the government adjusts every outcome, as some folks would dearly love to do.

Why is the press afraid to use the word Muslim?

2010-05-04T07:30:00.000-07:00

As in this op ed piece . . .

Equality

2009-12-26T07:12:00.000-08:00

There is, in fact, a manly and lawful passion for equality which excites men to wish all to be powerful and honored. This passion tends to elevate the humble to the rank of the great; but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level, and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom. - Alexis de Tocqueville

A REAL Education

2008-11-25T10:39:00.000-08:00

From Victor Davis Hanson at RealClearPolitics.com.

Four years of high-school Latin would dramatically arrest the decline in American education. In particular, such instruction would do more for minority youths than all the 'role model' diversity sermons on Harriet Tubman, Malcolm X, Montezuma, and Caesar Chavez put together. Nothing so enriches the vocabulary, so instructs about English grammar and syntax, so creates a discipline of the mind, an elegance of expression, and serves as a gateway to the thinking and values of Western civilization as mastery of a page of Virgil or Livy (except perhaps Sophocles's Antigone in Greek or Thucydides' dialogue at Melos). After some 20 years of teaching mostly minority youth Greek, Latin, and ancient history and literature in translation (1984-2004), I came to the unfortunate conclusion that ethnic studies, women studies--indeed, anything "studies"-- were perhaps the fruits of some evil plot dreamed up by illiberal white separatists to ensure that poor minority students in the public schools and universities were offered only a third-rate education.

Today's News

2008-11-20T09:57:00.000-08:00

I've taken to reading the local paper, The Spokesman-Review. Once in a while there's a story so good that knocks your hosiery off. But usually there's a conglomeration of news widely mismatched in importance.

This morning the front page offered us an important story (right hand column of page one - it's the #2 story of the day.) "Scientists Envision Mammoth's Return." Yup, with the economy crashing around us somebody is funding a project to bring back the wooly mammoth. They apparently found a hair from one of these beasts, frozen some 10,000 years ago. They broke down the genes and they're ready to apply them to a modern elephant and hope to come up with a less than useful result, in my opinion.

Why aren't these people trying to save what we still have, like the Bengal tiger or those gorillas in the African mist.

Following that story to page 4 I see where an alligator was found walking down the street in LA. The most startling thing about that is the fact that it was walking. Nobody and nothing walks in LA.

The major story in the Spokesman today was above the fold on page one: "Cuts Taking 'Awful' Shape." That's not encouraging. You would hope the state government budget cutting (which is what this is about - cutting the state budget to deal with a $5.1 billion revenue shortage) would take as pleasing a shape as possible. I'd expect them to cut funds for people who are doing things like re-creating prehistoric beasts. Instead we get a $600 million cut in state higher education. The University of Washington is one of the "public ivies" - it's the pride of Washington State. Is there nothing else out there a little less important to our future that could be cut? I shouldn't complain - they would probably cut library funding instead.

Books will get you through times of no money a whole lot better than money would get you through times of no books. I have a tee-shirt somewhere that says that.

A few other stories:

Wal-Mart is planning to power 100 of its store with wind generated electricity. (Does this mean stores will be open only on breezy days?)
Florida is joining the Powerball Lottery. This will increase the odds of winning from 1 in 146 million to 1 in 195 million. This, we are told, means a lot more people will be playing Powerball. I'm not good with numbers, but this doesn't on the face of it make a lot of sense. I suggest buyers of Powerball lottery tickets should be required to sign away their right to vote in the next election. It's scary that these people have a vote that weighs just as much as mine.
The CEOs of the big-three automakers traveled to the bailout hearings in DC on their own private jets. And they want me to cough up a couple of billion to bail them out? Uh-un.
The Indian Navy sank a pirate ship in the Gulf of Aden. Go India!
An Air Canada stewardess was drafted into service to help land a jetliner in Ireland. Apparently she did a whole lot better than the co-pilot was doing just before he went bezerk and was removed from the cockpit, restrained, and sedated. No diagnosis on the co-pilot.
The city wants the citizens of Spokane to take an online questionairre telling them what we consider most important issues in our neighborhoods and in the city as a whole. Notice of this questionairre is in a news story on the bottom of page four. Police, firefighting, a balanced budget, parks, and street improvements are ranked highest so far. Libraries are down there with opening business improvement centers and bike lanes.
Spokane County has issued an alert that three level 3 sex offenders have registered as transients. These people kidnapped a woman, molested a 13-year old boy, and "took indecent liberties" with a 10-year old boy. Why, exactly, have they been let out of jail?
The state is going to begin keeping track of MRSA. That's the infection that killed a newborn on House, MD the other night. MRSA stands for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Cases have grown from 141 a few years ago to 4,723 last year. How do they know that if they are only now beginning to keep track of cases?
And finally, some of the news is good. We have a headline: "Group Aims to Help Orcas with Cleanup." Killer whales are very intelligent animals. I can understand why they would want to clean up the waters off the Washington Coast. And it seems only fair that humans should help them do it.

Miss Emma Woodhouse

2008-10-22T17:25:00.000-07:00

2008-10-20T04:48:00.000-07:00

2008-10-19T11:39:00.000-07:00

Alice

2008-10-18T11:05:00.000-07:00

Grrrrrrr

2008-10-17T11:21:00.000-07:00

Miss Georgiana Darcy

2008-09-10T11:07:00.000-07:00

In Duncan Garden

2008-08-19T11:12:00.000-07:00

Three-Dimensional Reading List

2008-07-09T11:14:00.000-07:00

Dad

2008-07-01T11:16:00.000-07:00

Contrails

2008-06-19T11:17:00.000-07:00

The Duck Pond

2008-05-11T11:19:00.000-07:00

Library of America

2008-04-09T11:22:00.000-07:00

Early Morning on 22nd Avenue

2008-03-21T11:24:00.000-07:00

Spaghetti and Meatballs - After

2008-02-09T11:29:00.000-08:00

Spaghetti and Meatballs - Before

2008-02-09T11:27:00.000-08:00

Snow

2008-01-29T11:30:00.000-08:00

The Invention of Hugo Cabret

2007-12-12T07:59:00.000-08:00

A librarian friend told me last Sunday about Brian Selznick's book, The Invention of Hugo Cabret. I immediately requested it from the library.

The book is intended for children in grades 4 to 9, so I was startled to discover that it's 533 pages long. A bit thick for your typical 9 year old. But I found that the thickness comes from the intriguing use of many detailed charcoal drawings along with the text, with an occasional movie still thrown in.

In 1931 Hugo Cabret lives in a tiny room behind the air ducts of a Paris railroad station. He repairs the station clocks and in his spare time he tries to recreate an automaton that his father, a clockmaker, found in the attic of a museum. Hugh runs into trouble when he tries to steal a mechanical mouse from a mysterious toy shop owner.

He meets the toy store owner's god-daughter who is fascinated with photography and with her he sneaks into a movie theater to watch a film. And he continues to work on his mechanical man. The second half of the story moves on to the early history of French film.

This is a story with hidden identities, secret messages, and the fundamental mystery of the automaton. The alternating text and pictures move the story quickly along. I am stunned at the creativity of Selznick's conception -- a blending of a conventional book with a graphic novel. The book is unlike anything I've ever seen and it's superb.

The Wall

2007-12-11T07:56:00.000-08:00

I've begun reading books from the Mock Newbery lists that libraries and bookstores create every year at this time.

The first book I read is The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain by Peter Sis, a book for children aged 8 and up.

Born just after World War II, Sis was raised in Communist-controlled Cold-War Czechoslovakia, being indoctrinated at the state school, joining the Commnist youth organization, and not thinking much about the way the world around him worked. He spent his time and creative energy drawing.

The book shows some of the things Sis drew as a small child and then as a young man. There are brief quotes from his journal. He tells us what life was like in his country. Slowly over the years Western culture filtered through to Prague and he learned about blue jeans and the Beatles and rock music. He realized there were many things that the Czech people weren't being told by the government.

Sis devoted himself to his drawing. He grew increasingly skilled and eventually had a chance to travel in the West. He was in London when the Prague Spring, as the easing of Communist control was called, came to a sudden halt as the Russians sent tanks into Czechoslovakia and again the iron curtain rang down.

I was excited about this book and about to declare it, a bit prematurely, my choice for the medal. But then I picked up another book, and suddenly my perspective changed. More about that tomorrow.

Dewey's Big Day

2007-12-10T07:54:00.000-08:00

Happy birthday, Melvil!

The Preaching of the Pine Trees

2007-12-09T19:52:00.000-08:00

Few are altogether deaf to the preaching of pine trees. Their sermons on the mountains go to our hearts; and if people in general could be got into the woods, even for once, to hear the trees speak for themselves, all difficulties in the way of forest preservation would vanish. -John Muir

The World Without Us

2007-12-07T19:54:00.000-08:00

A move to the inland west from the east coast is among other things a move to a to a semi-arid place where people are constantly searching for water. The east is a place where the problem is getting rid of it.
That water is the key to what would happen in our world if human beings were to disappear suddenly from the earth. If you want to get rid of a barn, says a farmer, cut an 18-inch square in the roof. A decade later the barn will be a pile of decaying rubble.
It might seem that a city such as Manhattan would be more sturdy than a wooden barn, but "water's retaliation for being squished under all that city cement" would take its toll there as well. Acid rain, pathogens, the alanthus tree (an aggressive non-native invader), fire, freezing and thawing, and other elements of nature would join water to do much of the work of razing New York City.
An unintended example of this process in the city can be found in an abandoned LIRR track that has become a garden of crocus, Queen Anne's lace, and other flowers and its beauty has led to its being officially designated a park called The High Line.
I'm "reading" the audio book of Alan Weisman's wonderfully shocking and frightening book, The World Without Us. The waiting list at the library for the paper book is so long that on a whim I requested the book on CDs. That was a good move. I love to be read to and a charming man named Adam Grupper is reading this book to me this morning What a treat!
When Mr Grupper finishes Weisman's book, a fellow named Holter Graham will be reading me David Michaelis' Schulz and Peanuts I'm going to go looking for more books on CD. This is a perfect way to read while knitting!

Free Rice

2007-12-06T19:55:00.000-08:00

My sister just told me about FreeRice.com, the web site that gives the UN World Food Program 20 grains of rice for each vocabulary word you correctly define. The advertisers you see on the page pay for it. Snopes.com says it's legit. Give it a go.

Teaching Expository Writing

2007-12-04T19:56:00.000-08:00

Every now and then I read something that is so well written or badly written that it makes me wish I were back teaching Expository Writing 101. That was the designation of the English class I taught years ago at what was then North Carolina College. It was an attempt to bring freshmen up to speed so they could write skillfully the essays they would be required to write in order to meet the requirements not just of their English classes but of history, sociology, psychology, and occasionally the hard sciences and math.
One of the ways to teach this kind of writing is to examine closely the writing of other expository writers, journalists being some of the best. When I was in a similar freshman class my professor, Mr Derocco, had us reading the New York Times and the Daily News - a tabloid - every day. (Also Time magazine and the New Yorker every week. I've been reading the New Yorker ever since.)
The Daily News didn't believe in keeping the reader going for 20 minutes as they explored the details and implications of the latest city government scandal or movie opening. They didn't allow breaks on the front page, sending you to page 5 or page 38 or whatever. The Times, in order both to feature lots of stories on the front page and to examine them in depth, was all breaks. It still is with much text and few graphics vs the Daily News and their half-page photos.
The Daily News, it goes without saying, was tighter, more focused, and more entertaining since it wanted to grab the reader's attention, if only to keep it for 2 1/2 minutes, which if I recall was the amount of time the editors had decided their readers would be willing to spend on each story. It was a surprise to most of us to find that the "trash" paper was so much better written than the Good Grey Lady, which was and is considered the best paper in the country. I'm not convinced of that, but I read it every day so maybe it is.
When I was a newspaper reporter this training came in handy as I had an idea what was important in a news story from reading so many of them in two different (very different) papers years before and knew how to hook a reader in the lede with the heart of the story rather than waiting to reveal it in paragraph six on page 38 as is sometimes the case in the Times.

Books that Mean a Lot

2007-10-17T17:48:00.001-07:00

Susan over at Pages Turned has posted a new meme. I thought I'd give it a go:

How many books do you own? About 5,000. I gave away 1,054 books before we moved from Virginia to Washington State.

Last book you bought? The new translation of War and Peace. Before that, Proust was a Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer and Consider the Lobster: and Other Essays by David Foster Wallace.

Last book someone bought you? Jan Polek gave me Anne Tyler's Digging to America.

Last book you bought for someone else? Flotsam for my grand-niece, Piper.

Last book you finished reading? Always Magic in the Air: The Bomb and Brilliance of the Brill Building Era by Ken Emerson. It's about the people who wrote popular music from the mid-50s through the mid-60s.

Five books that mean a lot to you. This is a tough one. Only five!

1. Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope. Trollope is far and away my favorite author and I am always reading a Trollope novel. That is not an exaggeration. I've been reading along with an online Trollope group for many years and I'm always working on one of his novels. Right now it's John Caldigate. We just finished Doctor Thorne. Next up is Framley Parsonage. I picked Phineas Finn out of a hat. All of Trollope's 57 novels mean a lot to me.

2. Persuasion by Jane Austen. Again, I chose my favorite, but any of Jane Austen's six novels will do. My friend Leslie says, "Jane Austen has brought me through more times of trouble than the Bible."

3. The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton. This is a heartbreaking novel about a woman who doesn't realize until too late what really matters in her life. It was made into a terrific movie with Gillian Anderson as Lily Bart.

4. The Memoirs of Miss Sydney Bidulph by Frances Sheridan, published in 1761. This is the novel I wrote my thesis about at Duke. I was studying the 18th century English novel. It was 20 years later before I realized I was more a 19th century sort of gal. Meanwhile I really got to know this gem of the earlier period. (Those were the days of "close reading.")

5. The Bartletts of Box B Ranch by Camilla Campbell. This was the first book I borrowed from the Acushnet Town Library. I made my first visit to a library when I was 9 years old. Before that books were thin on the ground. I've been making up for those dry years ever since.

And the Winner Is . . .

2007-10-17T17:19:00.000-07:00

The Man Booker prize has been announced. It's The Gathering by Anne Enright. I feel sure the Spokane Library with acquire it eventually and I will read it in due time.

My enthusiasm for reading Booker prizewinners has waned over the years. So few of them please me. As I heard an English professor say last week, "Modern literature is angst - all angst." Real life provides enough of that - I want my reading to provide entertainment, character development, positive direction, and resolution. Do I ask too much?

Autumn Poetry

2007-10-17T17:15:00.001-07:00

It seems to me that poetry written about autumn is some of the most beautiful and touching. Nan, at Letters from a Hill Farm, has been posting some particularly lovely verse lately. Check out "Ay, thou art welcome, heaven's delicious breath!" You need to scroll down to 16 October 2007 to find it, under the gorgeous maple leaf.

Dear Frankie

2007-09-22T21:53:00.000-07:00

I just watched the movie, "Dear Frankie." It was one of the "coming attractions" on "Bride and Prejudice," which I watched the other night, and it looked good so I requested it from Netflix. I was particularly interested because of the Irish accents of the characters and I thought I'd get to see some Irish scenery.

So much for my linguistic skills. The accent is Scottish and the movie takes place in Glasgow. (I did get to see some spectacular Scottish scenery.) It's a good movie with exceptionally good acting, especially by the children.

This Morning in the Park

2007-09-21T12:39:00.000-07:00

Keeping Cool

2007-07-01T12:27:00.000-07:00

I should print this out and hang it on the fridge to keep us cool this week.

Hot Weather

2007-07-01T12:16:00.000-07:00

For the last week my friends on the east coast have been complaining about the sweltering weather. I've been complaining about the cold. I wore a long sleeved turtleneck and a cardigan yesterday and never opened the windows.

Now the weatherman is predicting a heat wave for Spokane, with the high temperature going up 10 degrees a day, with an expected high of 102 on Thursday. I expect I'm going to get ribbed about that.

Moving to Typepad

2006-11-21T07:40:00.000-08:00

Mary's Library is moving to Typepad. This move is not made lightly. I've thought about it for a long time.

I've had a Typepad account for months and have been trying to decide whether it was better to stay at Blogspot where my 10-month history is available, or to move to Typepad with its more musical bells and louder whistles.

Typepad won the day. Blogspot has been a fine host and has treated me to much pleasurable posting but it's time to move on.

Mary's Library's new address is: http://maryslibrary.typepad.com/

Period Piece

2006-11-20T15:32:00.000-08:00

My not-trollope group is reading an interesting book this month. It's called Period Piece and was written in 1952 by the artist Gwen Raverat, who was a granddaughter of Charles Darwin and who circled in the outer orbit of Bloomsbury.

The book has a quiet charm and is a great change from Emile Zola. It's not a memoir or a diary though it is autobiographical. Raverat drifts along drawing word pictures of the world of Cambridge in her youth. She was born in 1885 and died in 1957.

The book is illustrated with Raverat's line drawings, which are cheerful and droll, as is the English world in the 1990s that she describes. She enjoys poking fun at her mother, who was an American, with all the idiosyncracies that implies. (Think Daisy Miller.)

My opinion of the book hasn't jelled yet. I'll let you know what I think as I read along.

November Books - 15

2006-11-20T08:56:00.000-08:00

One of the finest books about World War I is Paul Fussell's The Great War and Modern Memory (1975.) Fussell describes his book perfectly in the first sentence of his preface:

This book is about the British experience on the Western Front from 1914 to 1918 and some of the literary means by which it has been remembered, conventionalized, and mythologized. . . . if the book had a subtitle, it would be something like 'An Inquiry into the Curious Literariness of Real Life.'

I have focused on places and situations where literary tradition and real life notably transect, and in doing so I have tried to understand something of the simultaneous and reciprocal process by which life feeds materials to literature returns the favor by conferring forms upon life.

. . . At the same time the war was relying on inherited myth, it was generating new myth, and that myth is part of the fiber of our own lives.

Fussell describes the course of the war and some of the battles, and he quotes extensively from the literature that was written during and after the war. Much of that literature, especially poetry, was very different from what had gone before.

Some of the conclusions about the effect of WW I on our world that Fussell reaches are significant:

. . . at the beginning of 1916, with the passing of the Military Service Act, England began to train her first conscript army, an event which could be said to mark the beginning of the modern world.

. . . one powerful legacy of [General Sir Douglas] Haig's performance is the conviction among the imaginative and intelligent today of the unredeemable defectiveness of all civil and military leaders.

I am saying that there seems to be one dominating form of modern understanding; that it is essentially ironic; and that it originates largely in the application of mind and memory to the events of the Great War.

For those of us who read "literary fiction" as well as those who read history, sociology, political science, current affairs - for all of us - this book is a revelation. It's one of the best books I've read in the last 20 years.

My To-Be-Read-Immediately List

2006-11-18T13:05:00.000-08:00

My reading list is swelling with new titles that I want to read now. Not tomorrow, not even later today. Now.

The new biography of Leonard Woolf has been piling them on. There's the novel, Reuben Sachs (1888), by Amy Levy, about the sort of middle-class English Jewish family that Woolf came from. There are half a dozen books by Compton Mackenzie including The East Wind of Love (1937) and Sinister Street (1914); E C Bentley's Trent's Last Case (1913); and Ruth Dudley Edwards' Victor Gollancz (1987.) I'm ignoring my increasingly urgent need to read Woolf's autobiography and a couple of his other books.

I have Arnaldur Indridason's Jar City (2000), a Reykjavik thriller, which rose like cream to the top of the list on the recommendation from dovegreyreader. I have Aucassin and Nicolette, a 13th century French chantefable mentioned this morning by Rory in the Trollope group. The new biography, Mary Poppins She Wrote: The Life of P L Travers by Valerie Lawson awaits me at the library along with The Uses of Enchantment, by Heidi Julavits, which I read about in Publisher's Weekly.

Then there's Philip Roth, the early works of whom I've been reading with a surprising amount of pleasure. Letting Go is next. And Imperium: A Novel of Ancient Rome by Robert Harris, which is due at the library on the 21st and can't be renewed.

Leonard Woolf

2006-11-17T09:17:00.000-08:00

Victoria Glendinning's new biography of Leonard Woolf arrived yesterday and already I'm on page 110. (Brown's Zola is history. I didn't get to page 110 of that 888-page tome even after three weeks of reading.)

There are those who disparage Glendinning, especially some in the Trollope community who feel her work is not sufficiently serious. I on the other hand, find her treatment of Elizabeth Bowen, Edith Sitwell, Vita Sackville-West, Anthony Trollope, and now Woolf, to be approachable and the very opposite of tedious. So many biographers struggle to include in their books every detail they have dug up in their research. They may have needed to know the minutia of their subject's life but the reader does not. Anyone in need of that kind of detail should be reading primary sources and not biographies.

So here I am, sharing little Lennie's pleasure at a formal, written dinner invitation from his father, cycling to the Shetlands (I think there was a ferry ride involved), becoming an Apostle at Cambridge, and heading off as a Cadet to administer 10,000 square miles of Ceylon's hinterland.

PW’s Best Books of 2006 – Part IV

2006-11-17T07:43:00.000-08:00

Among the books that PW has chosen as the best of 2006 are three cookbooks. Well, Julia’s book isn’t exactly a cookbook, but close enough.

Joy of Cooking: 75th Anniversary Edition, by Irma S Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, and Ethan Becker “The new narrative and compilation of Joy is one of, well, joy.” No kitchen should be without Joy.

My Life in France, by Julia Child and Alex Prud’homme. “This is a valuable record of gorgeous meals in bygone Parisian restaurants and the secret arts of a culinary genius.” I haven’t read this, but Sarah has and she raves.

The Bon Appetit Cookbook, by Barbara Fairchild. “Mirroring the magazine on which it is based, this collection of 1,200 accessible recipes is a pure pleasure.”

PW's Best Books of 2006 – Part III

2006-11-16T07:05:00.000-08:00

Here are three mysteries from PW’s list of those 2006 books that they identify as the best. About these three I agree entirely.

All Mortal Flesh, by Julia Spencer-Fleming. “Anthony-winner Spencer-Fleming’s fifth mystery to feature Clare Ferguson, a helicopter pilot turned Episcopal priest, is her most captivating to date.” Warning: You must read these mysteries in order. The first is In the Bleak Midwinter (2002.)

The Summer Snow, by Rebecca Pawel. “Set in fascist Spain shortly after WW II, Edgar-winner Pawel’s fourth mystery to feature Gardia lieutenant Carlos Tejada is a triumph of characterization, suspense and atmosphere.” Read the series in order. The first is Death of a Nationalist (2003) and takes place immediately after the Spanish Civil War.

Two Time, by Chris Knopf. “This superb mystery, set on the east end of Long Island, features strong plotting, solid characters and dialogue worthy of Elmore Leonard or John D McDonald.”

PW's Best Books of 2006 – Part II

2006-11-15T11:28:00.000-08:00

Publisher's Weekly has listed their Books of the Year, many of which I don’t find very interesting (Sci Fi / Fantasy / Horror) or enjoyable (comics.) But there are some fine books on the list. Here are a few more of them.

Theft by Peter Carey. “A fallen-from-grace Aussie artist and his mentally handicapped brother are drawn into a counterfeit art conspiracy in Carey’s heartbreaking novel.” Booker longlisted.

The Inheritance of Loss, by Kiran Desai. “Love, politics and revolution drive this evocative ensemble novel that moves swiftly between Himalayan India and New York – and between comedy and changing consciousness.” Booker winner.

The Night Gardener, by George Pelecanos. “Set in Washington, DC, Pelecanos’ dignified, character-driven thriller emphasizes the fallacy of ‘solving’ a murder and explores the ripple effects of violent crime on society.” I have been a fan of this author for a decade. Forget "West Wing"; Pelecanos captures the real DC.

My Election Day Post (a week late)

2006-11-14T18:09:00.000-08:00

We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate. -Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author (1743-1826)

PW's Best Books of 2006

2006-11-14T13:55:00.000-08:00

It’s a little early for this sort of thing, but PW, probably looking toward bookstore displays for the holidays, has announced their choices for the very best novovels, comics, cookbooks, poetry, children’s books, and more.

Here are a few of PW’s nonfiction choices that I heartily endorse. I’ll list more in future posts.

Flaubert: A Biography, by Frederick Brown. "A superb portrait of a literary master, full of passion and tragedy, overflows with keenly portrayed characters." I haven't read this book, but I've been mesmerized by Brown's Zola: A Life (1995.)

At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-1968, by Taylor Branch. “The final volume in Branch’s brilliant trilogy, this magisterial work is a fitting tribute to a magisterial man.” The other volumes are Parting the Waters: 1954-1963 (1988) and Pillar of Fire: 1963-1965 (1998.)

Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War, by Nathaniel Philbrick. “Another masterpiece from Philbrick, a myth-breaking narrative of American origins and the first, tragic colonial-Native clash.”

November Books - 6 - 14

2006-11-12T12:19:00.000-08:00

Charles Todd is the pseudonym of mother-son writers who have just published the ninth in a provocative series of mysteries that take place in post-WW I England. So far so good.

But these books are unique. The protagonist, Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge, is suffering from shell shock. World War II called it combat fatigue and we now call it post traumatic stress syndrome. Rutledge’s problem manifests as a hallucination.

He hears the voice of one of his men whom he was ordered to shoot just before the end of the war. This Scotsman offers criticism and sometimes useful advice as Rutledge goes about his job, whether it’s finding a murderer, solving a disappearance, or defusing a hostage situation. Never does the author forget that it is actually Rutledge’s subconscious that is speaking to him. His unwanted companion never reveals information that Rutledge has not himself discovered or deduced from what he observes.

These are mysteries in that category I’ve called Crossovers. They are superb novels. The mystery part is simply a vehicle that helps carry the story along. Every one of these nine novels is worth reading. (I’m assuming the last is worthy as it is not yet published and I haven’t read it, but PW gives it the red star treatment and I am a believer.)

A Test of Wills (1996)
Wings of Fire (1998)
Search the Dark (1999)
Legacy of the Dead (2000)
Watchers of Time (2001)
A Fearsome Doubt (2002)
A Cold Treachery (2005)
A Long Shadow (2006)
A False Mirror (2007)

Books We Could Do Without

2006-11-12T10:24:00.000-08:00

Norman Mailer has written a new novel, The Castle in the Forest, which will be on the shelves in late January. And I’ll be darned if PW hasn’t given it the coveted red star, meaning they think it’s a mighty good book. I have my doubts. Do we really need another parlor psychology of Hitler?

Says PW: “. . . he plumbs the psyche of history’s most demonic figure in this chilling fictional chronicle of Hitler’s boyhood. Mailer tells the story through the eyes of Dieter, a devil tasked by Satan (usually called the Maestro) with fostering Hitler’s nascent evil, but in this study of a dysfunctional 19th-century middle-class Austrian household, the real presiding spirit is Freud. . . . The novel sometimes feels like a psychoanalytic version of The Screwtape Letters . . .” (C S Lewis should sue.)

Judging from PW’s review, the source of Hitler’s personality was poor toilet training and a childhood fascination with burning beehives. The book sounds superficial and squalid, which it probably is, this being Mailer.

The Lion's Pride

2006-11-12T06:25:00.000-08:00

As noted in my comment on my Veterans' Day post, the photo in that post is of the American Military Cemetery in Normandy, where two of Theodore Roosevelt's sons are buried. A very fine book on TR and family in war and peace is The Lion's Pride (1998) by Edward J. Renehan.

TR unsuccessfully lobbied President Wilson for permission to form a division and to lead it in France, as he did with the Rough Riders (First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment) during the Spanish-American War. The plan was unrealistic and, in any event, was likely doomed by the animosity between Roosevelt and Wilson caused by TR's ardent opposition to Wilson's neutrality policy before 1917. Nonetheless, TR took great pride in the military service of all four of his sons during WWI. In fact, TR's daughter Edith was the first of the family to arrive in France during WWI when she traveled there to serve as a nurse. Quentin, an aviator, was killed in action during WWI at the age of 20. Ted, Jr., died of a heart attack in France during World War II. This book sets out the remarkable story of a family's heroic service.

Veterans' Day 2006

2006-11-11T05:10:00.000-08:00

"to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan"

Abraham Lincoln
Second Inaugural Address
1865

Crossovers - 2

2006-11-10T15:40:00.000-08:00

Mysteries that can make their way in the world without being relegated to the crime fiction category are proliferating. And among the crime books that have jumped the fence is the first in a series of mysteries by Susan Hill, The Various Haunts of Men (2004.)

The book is about an English detective, Simon Serrallier, a complex man who has trouble putting together the different parts of his personality. One of the primary mysteries in this book is the question of what makes Simon Serrallier tick and how the dynamics of his family has made him the man he is.

The crimes are solved with the help of Serrallier's staff; his sister, who is a doctor; her colleagues; and her friend and patient who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. And interesting as are the various suspicious characters and the mystery of who murdered whom, it's the dying woman who most captured my attention. She is searching for something - anything - to help her cope with her situation and to give her peace and acceptance.

She doesn't find what she's looking for, but she does find what she needs and she is able to share her understanding of life and death with others. Her doctor, whose flexibility and open-mindedness have not extended to acceptance of the end of life as a natural part of it, begins to see the need for some people to avoid heroic medical interference in the course of a hopeless disease.

The most appealing character and the one through whose point of view we see the story is a colleague of Serrallier who has the makings of a first rate detective herself and whose understanding of herself and others Hill has developed carefully.

I'm not even touching on the woven themes of the story or the allusions and implications that are lying between the lines. And I'm avoiding the elephant in the room. The book has a dramatic and for me totally unexpected event at the end about which there is almost nothing I can say that isn't a spoiler.

You are going to have to struggle to get a copy of The Various Haunts of Men in the US. There are so few of them in libraries in this country that my copy had to be fetched from the other side of the continent. I was interested to see that it came from the College of William and Mary, whose academic library is not one devoted to the likes of Agatha Christie and Robert B Parker.

The book is scheduled to be released in this country next April. Meanwhile you can request it on Interlibrary Loan through your local public or university library. It might not hurt to rattle the cage of your library's acquisitions people and urge them to acquire all of the books in the four-book series, because you are going to want to read them all. You can purchase it, along with the others, from the English publisher, Long Barn Books.

Thanks to dovegreyreader for introducing me to this fine writer.

Crossovers

2006-11-09T06:46:00.000-08:00

In the music world a country and western song that becomes a rock favorite is called a crossover. The same sort of phenomenon is happening in the book world these days between the murder mystery and the "serious" novel genres.

I've read two mysteries in the last month that can hold their own as novels needing no mystery modifier before a reviewer can praise them. There have been more and more of these in recent years.

Meanwhile the novel - no modifier - has divided into two distinct sub-genres, unreadable and unrealistic trash and unreadable and disturbing "literary fiction." The middle ground of well-plotted, deftly written novels with at least marginally admirable characters who come alive on the page - books you enjoy reading and from which you learn something - is thinning.

Yesterday I finished a novel by Canadian author Louise Penny called Still Life (2005.) It's a story with a murder and a detective and a controlled group of suspects. It's also a story with characters whose view of the world and reaction to it are complex and understandable. There is some artificiality of course. The reader must be made to consider each major character as the possible killer and so a layer of distrust is laid over each in turn.

I mention Penny's nationality because this is a book about Canadians. You would not mistake any of these folks as British or Americans. They live in a Loyalist town, one of those villages just across the border from the US to which, during the American Revolution, Loyalists to the British Crown fled and settled. It may be this well-remembered history that gives the people their pronounced definition.

I recommend this novel to readers of popular page-turners, to mystery fans, and to the "serious" reader who is looking for "serious" fiction. It has it all.

November Books - 5

2006-11-08T16:56:00.000-08:00

Due to technical difficulties with uploading pictures to Blogger, Mary's Library has been running a little behind schedule this week. Nonetheless, here is a fifth book on our WWI/WWII topic for November: Fix Bayonets! (1926), John W. Thomason's account of his experiences as a United States Marine on the Western Front during World War I. The book is illustrated with the author's own sketches. This is a rousing read and will give you some idea why one historian (I forget who, I read this statement decades ago) expressed the opinion that notwithstanding all the horrific battles in the Pacific during World War II, the greatest battle ever fought by U.S. Marines was Belleau Wood during World War I. That conclusion certainly can be debated, but it is by no means unreasonable. And, you will see why, in the trenches of France in 1918, the United States Marines acquired from their German adversaries the nickname Devil Dogs.

Me and Jim Blandings, Part V

2006-11-08T05:39:00.000-08:00

Yes, progress actually is being made on the great renovation project of 2006. With the ghastly deck and metal awning removed from the back of the house, we were able to put in a brick patio that is vastly more in keeping with the character of the house. We had planned to use as many of the bricks as possible from the original patio in the construction of the new patio. The theory was that the old bricks could be intermingled with new bricks in an attractive pattern. Alas, the old bricks were handmade and not of exactly uniform size. Using them in conjunction with new bricks just would not have worked. So, the old bricks were taken up and a new patio installed. We are keeping the old bricks. We will consult with our landscaper as to how we can incorporate the old bricks into the yard -- perhaps to construct a walkway.

And, the contuining adventures of the new downstairs bath go on, along with a side trip to do some repair work on the bath that is on the main floor. It turns out that all was not well with the toilet in the main bath. This became obvious once the downstairs bath had been ripped out and wetness was discovered where dryness would have been much preferable. It turns out that the culprit was a broken wax ring caused by the improper installation (why am I not surprised?) of the toilet in the main bath some years ago. Fortunately, that could be repaired relatively quickly and easily by the plumber. While that repair was going on, however, there were exactly zero operational toilets in the house. Of course, since the main water valve was turned off, the toilets would not have worked anyway (at least not more than once). (This is getting to be a bit more indelicate than the usual post on Mary's Library. But, we have had to live with it, so buckle down and be willing to read about it at least.) This whole episode did give Mary the opportunity, when the gang at the yarn shop asked how things were going with the remodeling, to deliver the priceless line "when I got home from my walk, my toilet was in the bath tub." Fortunately, we have first rate plumbers who are doing everything right and doing it quickly.

In the meantime, Jason poured a new cement floor for the downstairs bath and has framed in the room. It's actually beginning to look like something. The plumbing has been roughed in and the electricians will be here this week to work on the wiring. Then, the shower, toilet, and sink will be installed, the plumbing finish-work done, the wall board put in, the tile laid, everything painted, and, voila, we will be ready to receive guests.

November Books - 4

2006-11-04T17:36:00.000-08:00

My favorite popular history of the origins of WW I is Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August. She introduces the political figures whose mistakes and machinations led to the situation that made war almost inevitable. She outlines the political and economic situation in each of the major countries of Europe, and shows how, slowly and inexorably, the situation deteriorated.

Also of great interest is Tuchman's The Proud Tower, which is a history of Europe from 1881 to 1914, and which goes into much more detail about the world in the 30 years before the war than does The Guns of August. I have recently re-read The Proud Tower and it's just as fascinating as it was the first time I read it.

November Books

2006-11-02T19:20:00.000-08:00

Over at Lesley’s Book Nook there’s one of those challenges so popular with book bloggers. This started in Canada and required those accepting the challenge, in honor of Remembrance Day, to read three books this month that are set during WW I or WW II.

I’ve decided not to accept the challenge to read three books. Instead I’m going to post each day this month about a book, fiction or nonfiction, with some connection to one of the two wars or written or set in the period between the beginning of WW I and the end of WW II.

I’m going to give you three titles today: The Regeneration Trilogy by Pat Barker, which is comprised of Regeneration (1991), The Eye in the Door (1993), and The Ghost Road (1995.)

These are far and away my favorite works of fiction about World War I and are, collectively, a masterpiece. They are about Dr W H R Rivers, an anthropologist with a medical degree who returned to practicing medicine during the war.

Regeneration takes place at Craiglockhart War Hospital, which is where Rivers treated soldiers with shell shock, what we would now call post-traumatic stress disorder. The characters who, like Rivers, are based on real-life counterparts, include Sigfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, and Robert Graves.

The book is about conflicting duties: the duty to fight for one’s country and the duty to protest a war that is needlessly killing millions of young men. The duty to help soldiers regain their mental health and the anguish of sending them back into the war as soon as they are well.

The Eye in the Door is about the stress that the war inflicts on society. From the cover: “It is the spring of 1918, and Britain is faced with the possibility of defeat by Germany. A beleaguered government and a vengeful public target two groups as scapegoats: pacifists and homosexuals. Many are jailed, others lead dangerous double lives and the ‘eye in the door’ becomes a symbol of the paranoia that threatens to destroy the very fabric of British society.”

The Ghost Road takes place during the last weeks of the war. From the cover: “In France, millions of men engaged in brutal trench warfare are all ‘ghosts in the making.’ In England, psychologist William Rivers, with severe pangs of conscience, treats the mental casualties of the war to make them whole enough to fight again. . . . Rivers, enfeavered by influenza, returns in memory to his experience studying a South Pacific tribe whose ethos amounted to a culture of death. Across the gulf between his society and theirs, Rivers begins to form connections that cast new light on his – and our – understanding of war.”

The Windhover

2006-10-31T12:30:00.000-08:00

I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

-- Gerard Manley Hopkins

What Am I Reading?

2006-10-29T14:02:00.000-08:00

Sharon over at Ex Libris posted a clever little meme the other day. It works like this:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 4 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book. I know you were thinking about it. Just pick up whatever is closest.

Here are my results:

“Do you believe him?”

Guastafeste helped himself to another olive and toyed with it between his fingers.

“I’m not sure. We had to conduct the interview through an interpreter.”

It’s from a very good mystery, The Rainaldi Quartet, by Paul Adam, in which a luthier helps his policeman friend track down the killer of one of the members of their string quartet (now a string trio I suppose.) The trail leads them into the convoluted world of instrument making and the collecting of historic violins.

Reformation Sunday

2006-10-29T04:47:00.000-08:00

Today, the last Sunday in October, is celebrated as Reformation Sunday in many Lutheran and other Protestant churches. If you are looking for appropriate reading, Roland Herbert Bainton's classic biography Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (1951) still holds up quite well. Also, Luther the Reformer: The Story of the Man and his Career (1986) by my late friend Professor Jim Kittelson of Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota, is another good read.

Ein’ feste Burg ist unser Gott,
Ein' gute Wehr und Waffen;
Er hilft uns frei aus aller Not,
Die uns jetzt hat betroffen.
Der alt’ böse Feind,
Mit Ernst er’s jetzt meint,
Groß’ Macht und viel List
Sein’ grausam’ Rüstung ist,
Auf Erd’ ist nicht seins Gleichen.

Happy Birthday TR

2006-10-27T06:25:00.000-07:00

The incomparable Theodore Roosevelt was born on this day in 1858. If you have never read a book about the 26th President, then by all means drop everything and get your hands on The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris (1979).

"There are two things that I want you to make up your minds to: first, that you are going to have a good time as long as you live - I have no use for the sour-faced man - and next, that you are going to do something worthwhile, that you are going to work hard and do the things you set out to do."
Talk to schoolchildren in Oyster Bay, Christmastime 1898

Attention les amis de Nothomb

2006-10-26T16:37:00.000-07:00

Attention Amelie Nothomb fans. Information has just reached me that Nothomb's latest novel, Journal d'hirondelle (a swallow’s diary), is # 2 on the best seller list in France. Is there an English translation in our future?

Me and Jim Blandings, Part IV

2006-10-25T16:32:00.000-07:00

The remodeling continues apace, which has somewhat slowed the pace of reading at Mary's Library. Mary had a headache and general malaise for a couple of days, apparently the result of renovation overload. She is doing better now. So is the house.

The jumble of pipes that previously dwelt, somewhat like the phantom of the opera, in and beneath our basement, now for the most part lies in a pile along side our garage waiting to be hauled away, presumably to a corrosion recycler. Now, we have some beautiful new pipes elegantly adorning the basement. The bright colors of these new plastic pipes do tend to cheer one up and momentarily distract one from obsessing upon the cost of the entire endeavor. Tomorrow, concrete is to be poured to replace the rather large chunk of flooring that was jackhammered out and spirited away.

Of course, getting to this relatively happy stage of development was not all exactly beer and skittles. On Monday and Wednesday, we had the water to the house shut off for extended periods of time while plumbing work was being done. And, the past two nights we have had to turn off the water to the house overnight, upon the advice of plumber, because the rotting old pipes, which had not yet been superseded, had been stressed during renovation and the bursting thereof was not an altogether remote possibility. But, it appears that the major plumbing inconveniences are now behind us. Tomorrow, Mary and I will be off to select fixtures for the new bathroom.

Next week, the landscaper is scheduled to show up and install the brick patio behind the house. This will replace, you may recall, the hideous deck, with metal awning, that had previously been a blot upon the premises. In the meantime, the intrepid Jason has been doing some repair work on the back of the house in the spots where the awning and deck were ripped away.

We are now three weeks into the project and are bloodied but unbowed. No, wait, we are actually bowed but unbloodied.

Brrrrrrrr

2006-10-23T06:14:00.000-07:00

Did you know that it’s the blue line on your thermostat that controls the heat and that the red controls the air conditioning? How much sense does that make? Red-heat; blue-cold. So logical. So wrong.

I decided yesterday that we didn’t need two lines moving back and forth as we changed the setting on the thermostat so I moved the blue line all the way to the left and put the red one up a bit from around 65 to 68. It’s getting down into the low 30s at night and I figured we needed a little more heat in the house.

It was 36 when I got up at 5:30 this morning. Inside! – No, actually that was outside. It just felt like 36 inside (still does.) It was 58 inside. Wilhelm, who isn’t normally allowed to touch the thermostat decided to step in. Fortunately, because I would have had that red line up to 90 and we would still have had no heat and I would still have had no idea why not.

Good thing he has a sense of humor.

New from Publishers Weekly

2006-10-20T11:49:00.000-07:00

Lots of interesting books will be on the shelves in the coming weeks.

I don't reead Alice Hoffman but those who do are devoted. Her new novel, Incantation, set during the Spanish Inquisition, will be published this month.

Vikram Chandra’s Sacred Games is still in galleys but it’s getting a lot of attention from discerning reviewers. Be on the lookout for it in January.

On the 23rd of this month Stephen King’s Lisey’s Story will be released. It got a starred review in PW, so if you’re a Stephen King fan you’re in for a treat.

And those of us who loved Devil in the White City should rush out to our local independent bookstore on the 24th for Erik Larson’s Thunderstruck, which also got a starred review. This book, like his last, weaves the stories of two men, Guglielmo Marconi and the infamous Dr H H Crippen.

On the 25th Robert B Parker’s 34th Spenser mystery, Hundred Dollar Baby will be out.

Roddy Doyle will have a new book on bookstore shelves in January, Paula Spencer. It features the return of the heroine of Doyle’s 1996 novel, The Woman Who Walked into Doors, now sober and worried that her daughter is following in her footsteps.

Whitbread award-winner Rachel Cusk has a new book to be published in January, Arlington Park. It gets a starred review.

There also new books by Colm Toibin, Dana Stabenow, and Jonathan and Faye Kellerman, and Stephanie Barron coming, the first two in January and the last two in November and December.

I’m looking forward to a nonfiction title that got a starred review this week: Chip and Dan Heath’s Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. It’s obviously inspired by Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point and according to PW, it's just as good.

What Wilhelm is Reading Now

2006-10-19T17:41:00.000-07:00

In anticipation of my imminent change in status from "retired" to "semi-retired" upon becoming a judge pro tem, I am currently working my way through that page-turner Washington Court Rules -- State Pamphlet 2006 (West Publishing, 2006). It is a page-turner in that I can scan many pages and conclude, "nope, nothing on this page that I need to know." On the other hand, there is an appallingly large amount of stuff that I do need to know.

With respect to literary merits, Court Rules has little to recommend it. There is essentially no character development. In fact, there are precious few characters at all, except for some shadowy figures, sketchily described as "plaintiff", "clerk", or "interested party". While Court Rules is more or less organized by topic, there is really nothing that you could legitimately call a plot. As for literary style, well, I imagine that Soviet reports on agricultural production under the latest five-year plan were a tad more sprightly.

So, why does such a book continue to sell, with new editions each year? For one thing, if you need this book, you really need it. Failure to comply with its edicts could get you yelled at, or even thrown into jail, I suppose, in extreme cases. And, if you get to wear a robe for professional, rather than for fashion, purposes, then you really had better know the contents of this hefty paperback. (I haven't even started yet on that series known to the cognizenti as "RCW", which has more volumes than Tom Clancy. Ach du lieber.)

Me and Jim Blandings, Part III

2006-10-18T10:37:00.000-07:00

Water, water, everywhere, but -- it's supposed to stay in the pipes. When you have an 83-year-old house and take a jackhammer to the concrete floor in the basement, what you find underneath is probably not going to be a pretty sight. In our case, indeed it wasn't. Any sentence that you hear that starts out "You're going to need to replumb . . . " is not going to be good news. Alas, we (we, again, meaning Jason -- see Part II), found a leaky pipe under the floor. If you look closely at the picture, the small red blotch is an old coffee can that we were using to catch the run-off, until Jason managed to stanch the flow with some duct tape. Seeing these "pipes" (if you can call the remaining cylinders of rust "pipes"), it's amazing that they still hold water at all.

So, tomorrow the plumber will be here to tell us what it will cost to ensure that we continue to have running water in the coming decades. Fortunately, the modifications to the remodeling plan have saved us some money that can now go towards the extra plumbing work. The adventure continues and the excavated dirt and concrete continue to pile up. Actually, the concrete has been mostly removed. Presumably, the dirt will again take its place under the floor, albeit with less water accompanying it.

And, for the time being at least, things are going well with the patio. More on that another time.

Tea (SD) and Ice Cream

2006-10-17T10:35:00.000-07:00

Wilhelm has been in Tea, South Dakota (that's the town logo on the left) for a few days and I've been scrambling to get my EZ Percentage System raglan sweater sleeve finished in time for my class tomorrow. So there hasn't been a lot of posting to Mary's Library lately.

Soon Wilhelm will report on the results of the jackhammering that Jason has been doing today and I'll tell you about the new books announced in Publisher's Weekly yesterday.

Meanwhile, here is some sage advice from Thornton Wilder: "[don't] inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate."

The World's 500 Greatest Books

2006-10-13T13:22:00.000-07:00

Today I want to tell you about a book I found about 20 years ago by Philip Ward called A Lifetime’s Reading: The World’s 500 Greatest Books (New York: Stein and Day, 1983.)

It’s divided into 50 years and it starts with Alice in Wonderland and finishes with Immanuel Kant. I’ve been reading some of the books from two years at a time and will start on Year 47 in January.

The 500 books part is misleading because under a single title he will sometimes include many books. Under Dickens, Pickwick Papers, for example, he includes all of Dickens’ novels. And he sometimes suggests you go see a ballet or an opera or listen to particular music or visit an art museum or read some history as you read a particular book.

Ward also has a trick of listing the works of an author, like Plato (right after Alice), then saying something like this: “The Classical Greek of Plato is so majestic and clear that it merits any amount of effort in the learning. Luckily there is an abundance of good grammars and dictionaries, such as Wilding’s Greek for Beginners . . .” He does the same thing with the Old Testament (R K Harrison’s Teach Yourself Hebrew.) And this is on page 2, so you have another 49+ years to go!

Nonetheless it’s excellent and includes a great deal of literature from non-English speaking countries, especially the East. The list of titles is online but the book has a short discussion of each title and lots of the references I have mentioned and it’s worth getting your hands on a copy.

And thank you Pamela for sparking this idea and sending me the online address.

Me and Jim Blandings, Part II

2006-10-10T14:43:00.000-07:00

Like capitalism, home renovation includes a great deal of creative destruction. At present, the destruction part is most apparent. Jason, from Integrity Remodeling, is coming up with some great ideas as he proceeds with what is resembling an archeological dig. There is some question whether the final remodeling job will contain any elements of the original plan. I am beginning to know how Jim Blandings felt, though on a much smaller scale.

Anyway, the hideous downstairs bathroom has been ripped out. It turns out that the bathroom was not only hideous, but was remarkably non-compliant with just about all applicable building codes. This, presumably, is the heritage of a do-it-yourself project by a prior owner of the house. The plumber took lots of pictures and commented on what great training materials those photos will make for teaching plumbers how not to do things. At least we will have both a properly functioning, as well as reasonably attractive, bathroom downstairs when we are done.

The back deck has been quite an adventure in itself. The plan was to rip off the metal awning over the deck and rip out the built-in benches, then build a new wood awning, build a railing around the deck, and paint everything to match the house. Only the ripping out part of that plan survived.

As we progressed, we (whenever I say "we", assume that I mean Jason, unless the context suggests otherwise) discovered that there was a step, and concrete path, and a brick patio under the deck. Also, it turns out that the back of the house looks much nicer with no awning. So, now the plan is to restore and to expand the brick patio and to leave off the awning.

There have been a few other tweaks made to the renovation plan, but I'll leave that for another post.

Moran Prairie Library

2006-10-10T13:15:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, I made it over to the Moran Prairie Library, where the Friends of the Moran Prairie Library were having a book sale. Our good friend, Jan, is quite active with the Friends. This event was not to be missed. The Moran Prairie Library is part of the Spokane County Library System. That means that Mary and I have County library cards, as well as Spokane City Library cards. Two library cards, however, are not nearly enough for Mary, so she has library cards for Washington State University and Eastern Washington University. WSU and EWU have branch campuses in Spokane.

Anyway, I did find three books to purchase. The book sale featured books from the personal library of the late press secretary for former U.S. Representative Tom Foley of Spokane (a former Speaker of the House). From that collection, I acquired Where Water Falls, by Clarence C. Dill (1970). Mr. Dill was a U.S. Representative and then a U.S. Senator from Washington in the 1920s through the 1940s. After retiring from the Senate, he practiced law in Spokane for many years. I met him briefly back in the 1970's when I was right out of law school and he was about 90 years old and all but retired from law. We had a delightful conversation. I doubt that I have ever had a greater encounter with living history. Mr. Dill told me about highlights of his career, such as authoring the original Federal Communication Act (which he still called the Radio Act) in the 1920's and negotiating with President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930's to get the Grand Coulee Dam built. Mr. Dill became a rather passionate advocate of public power -- especially hydro power -- and his legal career involved working on public power projects around the world. He was a very prominent lawyer in Spokane, and the house he built near Cliff Park is a Spokane landmark. Where Water Falls is his political memoir and I am eager to read it.

For Mary, I found The Young Brontes (can anyone tell me how to do an umlaut in Blogger?), by Phyllis Bentley (1960). This is a children's book, but Mary has been on a Bronte kick lately, and she likes children's literature, so I gave it a shot. Mary seems to be pleased with it.

Finally, I acquired, for both of us, Twenty Years at Hull House, by Jane Addams (1910). When I was in grade school, it seemed that Twenty Years at Hull-House was a book that all of the girls read. That, of course, meant that a boy simply could not read it. It just wasn't the done thing. But, I always wanted to read it. So, now I have my chance. In the 1880's Jane Addams travel to Europe and was both appalled by the poverty that she saw in London and elsewhere and was inspired by the settlement house movement in England. Upon returning to the United States she worked to found a settlement house in Chicago. This effort resulted in Hull-House, the most famous of American settlement houses. Hull-House provided opportunities for Chicago's poor (especially immigrants and children of immigrants) to pursue mental, physical, and cultural development.

What I'm Reading

2006-10-10T06:04:00.000-07:00

I’ve finished Charlotte Bronte’s The Professor, Anthony Trollope’s Cousin Henry, Zola’s Pot Luck, and Ruth apRoberts’ The Moral Trollope.

After that heavy reading I deserve a break, so I picked up the first in Caroline Graham's Inspector Barnaby series, The Killings at Badger’s Drift. Last night Wilhelm and I watched an episode of Midsomer Murders on DVD from Netflix, which is what inspired me to read Graham’s mystery. I have a serious crush on John Nettles.

We are, as Wilhelm has told you, having some work done on our 1923 bungalow and as we discussed with the folks from Integrity Remodeling what we were going to do with the deck in back the suggestion was made that we simply rip it out. A circa-1970 deck on a house like ours just doesn’t do.

So Jason ripped it out and he found beneath a brick patio, probably put there at the time the house was built. What a find! I’ve begun dreaming of the landscaping I’m going to do next spring in our much changed back yard, and to that end I've been reading (well, mostly looking at the pictures in) Outside the Bungalow by Paul Duchscherer and Douglas Keister.

Besides hundreds of pictures of plants and trees, walks and patios, seats and arbors, the book explains what materials were most often used in bungalow gardens and walkways (wood, concrete, and brick) and what plants were popular in early 20th century gardens. There are hundreds of plants listed and organized by zone, sun conditions, soil type, and more.

When I get through having fun with these books I’m going to begin reading the next selection for my trollope group, The Duke'sChildren, and for my not-trollope reading group, Zola’s The Ladies’ Paradise, which is a sort of sequel to Pot Luck.

James Lileks

2006-10-06T13:44:00.000-07:00

It's Friday! The weekend is here. We know what that means. Two days for us retired people to stay home and read books, while the gainfully employed frantically run around doing all of the things they don't have time for Monday through Friday. Even though I have actual serious reading that I'm doing (see What Wilhelm is Reading for details), it's always fun to have something a little lighter to dip into on the weekend. So, let's look at the works of James Lileks.

Mr. Lileks is a newspaperman, blogger, and author. And, he is a very, very funny man. I'm always amazed, and more than a little intimidated, by the quantity and quality of his work. His Daily Bleat, on his blog, is always a treat. I really don't know how he does it. Anyway, James Lileks has been making a career of poking fun at popular culture of past (but not that far past) decades. As the caption to his blog says -- "Humiliating Defenseless Ephemera Since 1996".

He seems to take special delight in skewering the domestic arts with books such as The Gallery of Regrettable Food (2001), Interior Desecrations: Hideous Homes from the Horrible 70's (2004), and Mommy Knows Worst: Highlights from the Golden Age of Bad Parenting Advice (2005). The Gallery of Regrettable Food is a tribute, so to speak, to the "cookbooks" of the 40's, 50's, and 60's -- especially those books published by food companies in order to hype their own products ("You're not just cooking. You're cooking with 7-UP!"):

They're not really recipe books. They're ads for food companies, with every recipe using the company's products, often in unexpected ways. (Hot day? Kids love a frosty Bacon Milkshake!) There's not a single edible dish in the entire collection. The pictures in the books are ghastly - the Italian dishes look like a surgeon got a sneezing fit during an operation, and the queasy casseroles look like something on which the janitor dumps sawdust. But you have to enjoy the spirit behind the books - cheerful postwar perfect housewifery is taught in every book. Sure, you'll fall short of the ideal. But what's an ideal for if not to show up your shortcomings?

From The Gallery of Regrettable Food

Transcendentalism and Chocolate

2006-10-05T19:32:00.000-07:00

This week’s Publishers Weekly has some ads and announcements that make me want to hustle to the bookstore. Among the more interesting ones:

Susan Cheever’s new book, American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work, about which PW says: “she keenly analyzes the positive and negative ways they influenced one another's ideas and beliefs and the literature that came out of "this sudden outbreak of genius.” I plan to read that one.

The photo on the cover is of Lava, the dog about which Jay Kopelman writes in From Baghdad, With Love. Dog books seem to be all the thing lately, but I’m not reading them. (The cats wouldn’t like it.)

Gene Wilder has written a novel, My French Whore (to be published in March 2007.) It’s about a 30-year old train conductor in Milwaukee who enlists in WW I. He speaks excellent German so when he deserts and makes his way to the German lines he is treated as a hero. Sounds promising, but I think I’ll wait for the movie.

A novel about the Jamestown colony called The Weight of Smoke by George Robert Minkoff interests me, just because I’m eager to read a story in which Pocahontas plays a starring role. Unfortunately, PW calls it “a noble but unsuccessful effort.” Too bad. It should have been a fine book.

The most interesting book reviewed in this issue is Flower Confidential: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful in the Business of Flowers by Amy Stewart, the author of the prize-winning book, The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms. I’ll have to ask Sarah if either of these is assigned reading in her horticulture class.

And the most significant book, The Essence of Chocolate: Recipes for Baking and Cooking with Fine Chocolate. I’m particularly intrigued by this one because the co-author is John Scharffenberger of the justly famous Sharffen Berger company. That one comes out in November and gets a red star from PW. Irresistible.

Me and Jim Blandings

2006-10-04T16:17:00.000-07:00

Today, the remodeling work on our house began. Our house is a gem. It's a beautiful 1923 bungalow in Spokane's wonderful Manito-Cannon Hill neighborhood. The house was nicely renovated about six years ago by a prior owner. The prior owner, however, we suspect, started to run short of funds during the course of the renovation project, and so a few flaws were left in our gem. A big flaw -- the antiquated wiring -- we had taken care of immediately. A few other flaws have persisted until now. These consisted mainly of a ghastly downstairs bathroom and metallic exterior touches from the 1950s.

Fortunately, we are having the work done by a very fine local company, Integrity Remodeling. (The two fellows doing the initial work are Jason and Troy, as if this weren't enough of an odyssey already.) Whenever work of this scale is done, though, I cannot help but think of Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, by Eric Hodgins (1946). I have to admit, I have never actually read the book, but I love the classic 1948 movie that was made from it, starring Cary Grant and Myrna Loy. Jim Blandings and his family have outgrown their New York apartment. So, they buy a house in Connecticut, not far from the city. Of course, everything goes wrong and the project ends up costing a fortune, by the standards of that day. (But then he ends up with what would ultimately amount to a multimillion dollar estate, which makes the movie even more amusing to watch now).

Fortunately, we've seen examples of the work done by Integrity and are very happy with the work they done for us so far. The cats, on the other hand, are not pleased about being barred from the basement for the time being.

McPhee

2006-10-03T19:03:00.000-07:00

A new book has arrived, John McPhee’s Uncommon Carriers (2006.) I’ve been a McPhee fan since I read Encounters with the Archdruid in the New Yorker back in about 1971. If John McPhee wants to write it I want to read it. That includes the collection of geological books, Annals of the Former World.

Uncommon Carriers, like so many, perhaps all, of McPhee’s works was published originally in the New Yorker magazine, where I first read about the Mississippi pilots and truck drivers who are described in this latest McPhee book.

I’d recommend almost any of McPhee’s works, but I especially like Oranges, La Place de la Concord Suisse, A Sense of Where You Are, and A Roomful of Hovings. Most of his books are still in print.

That's Entertainment

2006-10-02T08:51:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, Mary and I and a couple of our good friends went to see the Spokane Civic Theatre performance of Singin' in the Rain. That was great fun. It was also a musical theater adaptation of a movie that was about making movies. So, I suppose that it was only appropriate that today's batch of e-mail brought us some photos of our godson, Colin, who is studying movie-making at the College of Santa Fe (New Mexico). Singin' in the Rain and That's Entertainment are now in our Netflix queue.

Just Wait

2006-10-01T19:07:00.000-07:00

Everything's funny if you just wait long enough. - W K Drew

What I’m Reading

2006-09-30T18:50:00.000-07:00

I’m supposed to be reading a lot of things. Mrs Gaskell’s Gothic Tales, in which I’m bogged down near the end. The Professor by Charlotte Bronte, a discussion of which I’m leading during October. The Duke’s Children, the next book on my online trollope group schedule. The Moral Trollope, by Ruth apRoberts, which I’ve borrowed on ILL and which is due soon.

But I’m spending all my time immersed in a book called Pot Luck by Emile Zola. My not-trollope group is going to read Zola’s The Ladies’ Paradise next month. (This is a prediction, but I feel certain this is the book we will choose.) And since Au Bonheur des dames (1883) is a kind of sequel to Pot-Bouille (1882) I decided to take a look at the latter before beginning to read the former.

185 pages later and I’m still looking. The book is about the bourgeoise families living in a pretentious but crumbling apartment building in Second Empire Paris. The main character, Octave Mouret, will go on in The Ladies’ Paradise to build the world’s first department store. But in Pot Luck he is a 24-year old newcomer to Paris working as a clerk in a draper’s shop.

I haven’t read much French literature. I’ve made my way through Proust and I’ve read and re-read The Count of Monte Cristo. The Three Musketeers, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, a little George Sand, a little Anatole France.

All of which in no way prepared me for the “naturalism” of Zola. For the first time I understand why the good middle class English parents in the novels of Trollope forbid their daughters to read French novels.

This isn’t simply a risqué novel. It’s not just a book about adultery and infidelity and money. It’s saturated with sex and greed and filth. You can almost smell the offal the servants throw from the kitchen window into the courtyard, a concrete manifestation of the incredible corruption in the lives of their masters and mistresses.

I’m shocked. And this is only Zola. What unimaginable horrors must be awaiting me in Balzac!

What Wilhelm is Reading Now

2006-09-29T10:07:00.000-07:00

I don't usually refer to myself in the third person. This is, however, Mary's Library, so I figure that the pronoun "I" in the titles of posts should be reserved for use exclusively by Herself. Thus, you now have Wilhelm on what Wilhelm is reading.

In my pursuit of recreational tax law, I am now reading International Taxation (2nd ed., 2005), by Joseph Isenbergh. The international taxation provisions of the Internal Revenue Code are, perhaps, the place where our rococo tax code becomes truly baroque. You have all of the usual tax issues, plus an array of international issues (differing depending upon whether you are talking about "inbound" or "outbound" tax rules), overlayed by tax treaties with many nations. So far, I have learned why accountants tell wealthy foreigners not to spend more than 121 days a year in the United States. Apparently, this can cause serious complications when planning annual ski trips to Vail.

I am also reading Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 by Steve Coll (2005 revised edition). (Hat tip to the Gentleman Farmer and Glib & Superficial). This is the book that I probably should have read before reading Cobra II. In any event, this book is fascinating and provides an extraordinary history of the subject. It reads like an international thriller, and is all the more frightening because it is true.

Romantic Affinities

2006-09-28T15:57:00.000-07:00

“‘This is the sort of book which will drive the professors mad,’ begins Richard Holmes’s enthusiastic review of Romantic Affinities in the Evening Standard. ‘It is a history of the Romantic Movement, told in the episodic style of an inspired, intellectual soap-opera.’

“The book opens as the young Andre Chenier dashes off his last poem—on the brown paper used for wrapping dirty linen – before he is carted off to the guillotine, and concludes as a restless band of students and artists – shouting and stamping – waits five hours in a cold, dark Comedie-Francaise for the opening of Victor Hugo’s Hernani. In between, Paganini plays a violin whose G string is said to have been made from the innards of his murdered mistress; the poet Holderlin shrouded in a white sheet frightens a servant in the middle of the night; and Coleridge, Shelley, and Byron mingle on the page – as they never did in life – with the likes of Goethe, Kleist, and Madame de Stael.

“These are the characters who people the tales of long walks, failed love, bank loans, slammed doors, seedy hotels; who play out the scenes of moments that changed lives, of bitterness choked back, of music heard over the water, and of notes scribbled at attic windows. Theirs are the stories of hunger, lies, and carnage; of waiting beyond the appointed hour; of running down empty corridors; of confronting death and grasping at joy.

“‘Both scholarly and funny’ – again in the words of Richard Holmes – Romantic Affinities is ‘a brilliant, sultry evocation . . . a flamboyant work of popularization . . . a stylish, spirited, and provoking extravaganza. The professors may rail, but it is well worth cramming.’”

Romantic Affinities: Portraits from an Age, 1770-1830 (1988) by Rupert Christiansen. From the jacket.

Cobra II

2006-09-27T05:27:00.000-07:00

The war in Iraq has become so divisive, and reactions to it so hardened and extreme, that I wonder how much interest there is in a detailed, dispassionate examination of the facts. For anyone with such an interest, though, Cobra II: the Inside Story of the Invasion of Iraq (2006), by Michael R. Gordon and General Bernard E. Trainor, is indispensible reading.

The book covers the run up to the war, the military campaign to overthrow Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime, and the military and political events following the fall of Saddam.

Despite the lack of discovery of weapons of mass destruction, the rationale for the war was not clearly wrong, and Saddam's own actions contributed to the conflict. Saddam played a dangerous game of attempting to deter foreign enemies (especially Iran) and internal enemies through a policy of creating uncertainty as to whether he had WMDs. This policy ultimately made it very difficult to say whether Saddam had the weapons or not. On the other hand, the Bush administration was so intent on regime change, that it is questionable whether a verified lack of WMD would have made any difference. And the removal of Saddam was, in itself, not a bad thing.

Unfortunately, the planning for the war and for the post-Saddam situation was very seriously flawed. It has become almost a cliche to blame these problems on Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Cobra II amply documents that this cliche is, actually, quite correct. While Rumsfeld was not alone in making serious misjudgments (L. Paul Bremer contributed his share), Rumsfeld's leadership was simply disastrous. Rumsfeld's view of military modernization emphasized technology, speed, and mobility rather than numbers of troops. This led to planning based on using the least number of troops to get the job (the overthrow of Saddam) done. Further, Rumsfeld incorrectly believed that fewer, rather than more, troops would be needed in Iraq following the fall of Saddam. These mistakes, combined with thoroughly wretched intelligence from the CIA (which had previously performed well in Afghanistan), were a recipe for disaster.

Whatever the ultimate outcome in Iraq, the current situation was not inevitable. The world's misfortune, and especially the misfortune of the Iraqi people, arose because of the ignorance regarding Iraq and the ideological blinders of Secretary Rumsfeld and a few others.

This is an important book. If you don't have the time or inclination to work your way through all 500 pages, at least read the 10-page epilogue.

Virginia Woolf

2006-09-26T10:34:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, for the first time in history, I gathered all my Virginia Woolf books together on one shelf. For the last 40-odd years as their numbers grew they have been scattered around in the bedroom, the living room, the guest room, the family room, my library, and in Boxes 113, 125, 136, 206, and others. There was even one in among my cookbooks, Quentin Bell’s Virginia Woolf: A Biography.

I have more than 40 books by and about VW, if you count Nigel Nicholson’s Portrait of a Marriage, a biography of Lytton Strachey, and a couple of other peripherals. I even have the five volumes of VW’s diary and the six volumes of her letters

And yet, when I decided to read along with the informal “Woolf for Dummies” course Susan Hill is doing on her blog, I had to order two books for just the first part. How could I own more than 5,000 books and not have Jacob’s Room?

Sam Insull

2006-09-25T07:09:00.000-07:00

John Wasik's The Merchant of Power: Sam Insull, Thomas Edison, and the Creation of the Modern Metropolis (2006), is a classic rags to riches to rags story. Insull is now largely forgotten. During the 1930s, though, after the collapse of his utilities empire, he was as reviled as were Ken Lay and Enron in recent years. The similarities between Insull and Lay, however, don't go much further. Insull, for all his faults, was a remarkable innovator who contributed greatly to the technical and financial development of the electric power system. Although indicted after the collapse of his businesses, he was acquitted of all charges. And, Insull lost his fortune when his businesses failed during the depression.

As a young man, Insull came to the United States from his native England to work for Thomas Edison. Insull quickly grasped the potential of electrification of cities. He understood (unlike Edison) that alternating current, which can be transmitted long distances, and the creation of a power grid were essential to providing efficient electrical service to metropolitan areas.

After leaving Edison's employ, Insull moved to Chicago and built an extensive utility system in the Midwest. In a largely unregulated business environment, Insull created a mind-boggling system of utility holding companies. These holding companies enabled Insull to control a huge financial empire with a relatively small investment. But while this system worked well during the boom years of the 1920s, it was unable to withstand the economic downturn of the 1930s.

Insull was especially reviled because financial disaster overtook him at a time when the fight between public and private utilities was at its height. Franklin Roosevelt, when he was Governor of New York, was very interested in public hydro-electric power generation. As President, Roosevelt continued to pursue public power with the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Bonneville Power Administration, and the Rural Electrification Administration. The magnates of the private utilities were considered arch enemies by the Roosevelt administration. Insull was a prime target of reforming zeal. The failure of Insull's utilities empire, and Insull's acquittals in his criminal trials, provided impetus for the enactment of securities and utilities laws during the New Deal. Those laws, along with the electrical power grid, are Insull's legacy.

Body Language

2006-09-24T18:53:00.000-07:00

Using research in pupillometry done at the University of Chicago, they were able to help Revlon increase sales of its lipstick by enlarging the pupil size of the models in the catalogs. I’m hard pressed to think of a better example of science at the service of humanity.
– Christopher Buckley, in a review of The Definitive Book of Body Language by Allan and Barbara Pease, in today’s New York Times Book Review section

What I'm Reading (cont)

2006-09-22T17:16:00.000-07:00

Various Haunts of Men (2004) by Susan Hill. This is the first of the author’s Simon Serrallier detective stories. It’s a cut or two (or three) above the rest. I look forward to many more mysteries in this series.

The Fugitive, the sixth novel in Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time (aka The Remembrance of Things Past.) This book, first published in French in 1925 as Albertine disparue, has been newly translated by Peter Collier.
If you have had trouble reading Proust in the past (and who of us hasn’t), it’s time to brush off your New Year’s Resolution from 1963 and give it another go as the entire work has been re-translated into English, each book by a different person. So far I’m finding it much superior to the old Moncrieff and Kilmartin translation.

Gothic Tales by Elizabeth Gaskell. I’m not much for short stories or for the paranormal or gothic, but these stories are pretty good. A couple are very good.

The Professor by Charlotte Bronte. This novel was written in about 1846 but not published until 1857, after Bronte’s death. It’s the sort of book about which we English majors want to pose a dozen essay test questions per chapter:

How reliable is the narrator?
Why does his brother treat him harshly?
Describe the conflict between the man of inherited wealth and the self-made man. Which does Bronte favor?
What part does the Industrial Revolution play in the plot?
What does the mysterious Hunsden represent?
Why was Bronte unable to get the novel published?

And so on and on. I could list a lot more juicy exam questions. It's that kind of book.

Chief Joseph (1840-1904)

2006-09-21T06:20:00.000-07:00

On September 21, 1904, Chief Joseph of the Wallowa band of the Nez Perce died on the Colville Indian Reservation in northern Washington State. Joseph became Chief of the Nez Perce in 1871, at the age of 31, upon the death of his father. His years as Chief were heroic and, ultimately, tragic.

For years, the Nez Perce had lived in peace with white settlers in Wallowa Valley in Northeastern Oregon and in Idaho. At the time Joseph became Chief, however, the Nez Perce and the United States Government were in conflict over efforts to force the Nez Perce from their homeland in the Wallowa Valley and onto a much smaller reservation in Idaho. Although many Nez Perce settled onto the Idaho reservation, hundreds of Nez Perce in the Wallowa Valley resisted.

War broke out in 1877 between members of the Wallowa band who refused to go to the Idaho reservation and the troops sent to force them onto the reservation. Chief Joseph skillfully led his people in a long retreat, trying to find refuge, and fought a series of defensive battles attempting to fend of U.S. Cavalry forces led by General Oliver O. Howard.

On October 5, 1877, Joseph and the Nez Perce were forced to surrender. The defeated Nez Perce were sent to Kansas and then to the Indian Territory (later Oklahoma). In 1885, Chief Joseph and a few his surviving Nez Perce followers were allowed to return to the Pacific Northwest. They were sent, though, to the Colville Reservation in Washington and not to Nez Perce reservation in Idaho or to their homeland in Oregon. Joseph never again saw his Wallowa Valley.

Joseph's words, upon his surrender, marked the death of a way of life:

Tell General Howard I know his heart. What he told me before, I have it in my heart. I am tired of fighting. Our Chiefs are killed; Looking Glass is dead, Ta Hool Hool Shute is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say yes or no. He who led on the young men is dead. It is cold, and we have no blankets; the little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are - perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my Chiefs! I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.

A new book on Chief Joseph has been published. Chief Joseph & the Flight of the Nez Perce: The Untold Story of an American Tragedy (2005) by Kent Nerburn It's going on my wish list.

What I'm Reading

2006-09-20T17:07:00.000-07:00

At the moment I’m reading eight books, which for me is modest. I routinely juggle 15 or 20 books at a time. I’ll post the rest of the titles later, but for now here are four of them.

Victorian London: The Life of a City, 1840-1870 (2005) by Liza Picard. Judy mentioned the book favorably in my not-trollope group and her advice is invaluable. The book is excellent.

The Moral Trollope (1971) by Ruth apRoberts. Acquired on Interlibrary Loan (ILL.) it’s tough sledding so far, with all those Latin terms and references to Cicero . . .

The History of England by Thomas Babington Macaulay, published between 1848 and 1855. I’m only dipping into this; I’m not reading all 5 volumes.

I Promessi Sposi by Alessandro Manzoni, written in 1825-26 but set in the 17th century. Believe it or not, I first read this book when I was about 8 years old. (I knew you wouldn’t believe it.)

A Woman Walks Across America

2006-09-19T12:48:00.000-07:00

On the 5th of May in 1896 a Spokane woman, Helga Estby, headed eastward along the railroad tracks intending to reach the town of Mica by the end of the day. She was taking up a challenge from “the fashion industries,” who offered to pay $10,000 if she would walk from Spokane to the east coast.

Finances were tight for the Norwegian-American and her family and she saw this as the only way to save their farm. And so Helga, accompanied by her teen-aged daughter, Clara, left behind her other eight children and started walking eastward.

This astonishing story is the subject of a recent book by Linda Lawrence Hunt called Bold Spirit: Helga Estby’s Forgotten Walk Across Victorian America (2003.)

I won’t tell you any more of the details of this expedition, some exhilarating and some tragic. You must read it for yourself. It’s a laugh-and-cry sort of book, suspenseful, gratifying, heartbreaking, unputdownable.

With thanks to Vickie Munch for telling me about this first-rate book.

A Writer Needs a Cat

2006-09-17T06:36:00.000-07:00

"A catless writer is almost inconceivable. It's a perverse taste, really, since it would be easier to write with a herd of buffalo in the room than even one cat; they make nests in the notes and bite the end of the pen and walk on the typewriter keys." - Barbara Holland

"I don't know how to kill Harold Crick"

2006-09-15T13:47:00.000-07:00

If you have read my Blogger Profile, then you have seen that one of my interests is listed as "recreational tax law". I used to do tax law for (not very much) money. Now I dabble in it purely for fun. Well, at least I don't pull the wings off of insects, so it could be worse. But now I have hope that tax-related entertainment is going mainstream. This November, Stranger Than Fiction, a movie about an IRS agent, will be released.

The agent in the movie is a fellow named Harold Crick (played by Will Ferrell). Harold leads a remarkably boring life. Then, he starts hearing a voice. This voice, which no one else can hear, is narrating his life very accurately. When he consults with a psychologist (Linda Hunt), she asks him: "You have a voice talking to you?" He replies: "About me. Accurately. And with a better vocabulary".

The voice turns out to be that of novelist Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson). She is writing a book about a character named Harold Crick. Her narration, as she writes her book, is taking control of the real Harold's life. That is enough of a problem for Harold, but the situation becomes potentially disastrous when the voice announces "I don't know how to kill Harold Crick." But killing off Harold in the novel, and inadvertently in real life, is just what she intends to do.

Can't wait to see it.

Hat tip to TaxProf.

Theodore Roosevelt

2006-09-14T10:38:00.000-07:00

On this date in 1901, the United States received one of the most invigorating bursts of fresh air in its history. Theodore Roosevelt was inaugurated as the 26th President, following the death of President William McKinley. At 42, he was the youngest President ever and he joyfully embraced a vigorous life.

I first became totally hooked on Theodore Roosevelt when I read Edmund Morris's brilliant The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (1979). Although I have read many books by and about TR since then, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt remains my favorite. The book not only chronicles well TR's life up to his inauguration as President, it brings to life TR in all of his vitality.

Before becoming President, TR had been a New York State legislator, a rancher, an author, a U.S. Civil Service Commissioner, a member and then chairman of the New York City Police Board, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, colonel commanding the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment (the Rough Riders), Governor of New York, and Vice President of the United States.

As President, TR built up the United States Navy, promoted conservation of natural resources, backed pure food and drug laws, and made the United States a major force in world affairs for the first time. His facilitating of the negotiations that ended the Russo-Japanese War brought him the Nobel Peace Prize.

From "Citizenship in a Republic," Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910:

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

From A Book-Lover's Holidays in the Open, 1916:

"Defenders of the short-sighted men who in their greed and selfishness will, if permitted, rob our country of half its charm by their reckless extermination of all useful and beautiful wild things sometimes seek to champion them by saying the 'the game belongs to the people.' So it does; and not merely to the people now alive, but to the unborn people. The 'greatest good for the greatest number' applies to the number within the womb of time, compared to which those now alive form but an insignificant fraction. Our duty to the whole, including the unborn generations, bids us restrain an unprincipled present-day minority from wasting the heritage of these unborn generations. The movement for the conservation of wild life and the larger movement for the conservation of all our natural resources are essentially democratic in spirit, purpose, and method."

A First Class Cup of Tea

2006-09-13T13:28:00.000-07:00

The NY Times had an article today about high-end teas and how they are now being sold in teabags. These aren’t the usual tea dust that we have come to appreciate in America, having for centuries been drinking the dregs from the holds of tea clippers after the good stuff was offloaded in England.

These are whole leaf teas, put into nylon pyramid shaped tea bags that can set you back two bucks apiece. I was fortunate to have been given some of these treasures for Christmas (in a tin box, of course) from Wilhelm's folks, so after reading the story in the Times I went upstairs and made myself a cup of the best tea I’ve had since the last time I made myself a cup from one of these tea bags a month ago.

Of course you know where this leading: to a book. I pulled off the shelf a book I had begun reading a while back, The History of the World In 6 Glasses (2005), by Tom Standage, the technology editor of the Economist. But I had read only only the beer section before my attention was drawn elsewhere.

However, judging from the beer and tea sections the book is a treasure. (The other glasses are wine, spirits, coffee, and Coca-Cola.)