Tag Archives: bookreview

The Panama Hat Trail

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Where do Panama Hats come from?
One might sooner ask who was buried in Grant’s tomb,
except the answer is not so obvious.
Panama hats are made in Ecuador.

~ from introduction, The Panama Hat Trail 

Tom Miller, author of The Panama Hat Trail, traveled high and low in Ecuador to answer the question above; undoubtedly, you too have pondered and meditated on this mystery.

If you enjoy travel books, this book will appeal to you.  Through Miller’s eyes you see all strata of Ecuadoran society.  If you are interested in Fair Trade issues, I recommend you read this book.  Once again I bemoan my meager understanding of economics. 

“We should be there soon.”  Soon?
What does soon mean to someone who walks
barefoot three hours to work in the morning
and back again at night?  Soon?
Distance and time are two of life’s limitations
that take on surreal qualities in South America. p.54

One of the unacknowledged facts in the artesaniá trade
in much of Latin America is that without the admiration
and marketing skills of North Americans and Europeans,
many handicraft skills would be virtually lost to us now.
Indigenous products in Ecuador,
like the people who make them,
have generally been of little interest
to the rest of the country. p.197

Ludwig Bemelmans, author of the Madeline books, made a surprising appearance in this book.  [In a curious convergence, he was referenced in two very disparate books I read in one day – here and in Mimi Sheraton’s Eating My Words “I have never stopped collecting stuff, with a strong preference for what Ludwig Bemelmans once called “beautiful dreck.””  Dreck means trash, inferior goods or excrement.] 

Bemelmans wrote The Donkey Inside, a book which poked fun at Ecuador and her customs.  Some argue that it was good-natured fun, but many Ecuadorans took offense. 

Virtually unknown to Ecuadorans, however,
are two other books Bemelmans wrote about their country;
for childre, Quito Express, about a little Otavalan boy
who rides the train to Guayalquil; and
Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep,
a novel about a general living in European exile
who returns to his Ecuadoran hacienda. p.236

A Panama hat is a signature accessory of my favorite blues/folk/gospel singer, Eric Bibb.  He even wrote a finger picking ballad called Panama Hat.  

Breakin’ in a brand new Panama hat
bought in a valley just like that
best hat Yankee dollars can buy
Workin’ on the brim ’cause I like it real flat
 talkin’ bout my brand new Panama hat
 It’s gonna take some time
but I’m a patient guy.

Living in a Foreign Language

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Living in a Foreign Language: A Memoir of Food, Wine, and Love in Italy details the adventures of Michael Tucker and wife Jill Eickenberry in Umbria.  This book has so many parallels to Frances Mayes’ Under the Tuscan Sun.  They both chronicle a year of fixing up a rustic farmhouse in Italy from an American’s perspective. 

Michael Tucker is a funny guy.  He’s the guy that keeps the party going, full of stories and jokes.  His story has more for purveyors of pop-culture.  Most of his Italian friends and experiences are within the ex-patriot community.  He loves good food, but at the heart he is an entertainer.  Each chapter is framed and paced to tell a charming or funny story.  His language is salty, peppered too strongly with profanity for my tastes.  

Frances Mayes’ style is quite different.  Her book comes with recipes, thoughtful reflection about the cultural differences (particularly the pace of life), and a cast of Italian neighbors and workers.  I would recommend her take on Tuscan life over Michael Tucker’s tale of Umbria.

Here are several tidbits that tickled or tugged me from Tucker’s book:

Suddenly the cold wind of doubt blew up my pant leg.  I shivered.  It was at least 90 degrees outside.  (p.57)

It seems we never had time to get things done because our days were filled to the brim with lingering.  Breakfast became a longer and longer linger.  Not mine, which is just coffee and a crossword puzzle.  But Jill and Caroline have a way of making breakfast into a full-act play which unfolds in long, slow, Chekhovian acts–from the yogurt and peaches, into the cheese, prosciutto, tomatotes and panini, into the biscotti dipped in chesnut honey, all washed down with tea. (p.95)

The ricotta–literally “recooked” cheese–had a freshness that connected it in taste and smell to the milk of the animal it had just come from.

[on his marriage]  For better or worse, we cultivate this closeness.  The better is obvious, I suppose.  The worse is that one of us will die first and the other will be left alone.  Some couples we know hedge against this eventuality by maintaining a distance, by emphasizing their individuality.  But that’s not for us. (p.158)

[dancing with his wife]  On one anniversary, back in the New York days, Jill surprised me with ballroom dancing lessons, while I had gotten her an evening of dancing at the Rainbow Room at the top of the Rockefeller Center–all unbeknownst to each other.  It was like our own little O’Henry story.

[dancing with another woman] JoJo and I were not doing so well, either.  First of all, there was the question of who was leading. […] I tried following as best I could, but moving backward with my right foot was a very odd way to begin a dance; I couldn’t get the hang of it.  Not that it mattered — Benny Goodman and JoJo were not in any way marching to the same drummer.  But by God she had enthusism!  At one point — she was coming at me out of a spin at seventy miles an hour, minimum — I frankly didn’t know what to do with it.  My whole life flashed in front of my eyes.  Just standing my ground — or God forbid trying to catch her in some way — would have been to commit suicide.  I held out my arms wide, running back and forth like a shepherd, somehow herding her toward the center of the room.  We needed space. Help me, Jesus, we needed space. (p. 173)
 

        

Simple Courage

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Why am I excited about Simple Courage: The True Story of Peril on the Sea?

Not only is it a ripping good yarn about Captain Kurt Carlsen of the  S.S. Flying Enterprise; it doubles as a memoir of Delaney’s Irish childhood, his fascination with all things nautical, and the effect the news of this ship in peril had on his family. 

Above all, I love this book because of words.  Frank Delaney loves words.  Fathom used to mean embrace; season, seed and sow all share the same root; to list, to tilt unwantedly comes from the same word for lust or inclination…that sort of word lore charges my batteries.  And it abounds in this book.

I treasure this book for the phrases: slapped and slopped; pound and expound; aggression and transgression; hard but not hurtful.

Words and phrases turn into sentences.  Delaney can explain unfamiliar nautical situations with ease.  He writes simple sentences that are profound in their simplicity.

He made sure to eat to strengthen his body and
he made sure to sleep to strengthen his mind.

and

He had the rare gift of keeping friendships
in good repair over the years. 

and

Good bos’uns work like magpies.  They gather seemingly
randoms objects and store them.  Later on, they press them
into service for stowage, dunnage, all sorts of purposes. 

The story takes place in 1951 when the sensibilities of the culture did not lean towards protecting yourself from legal liability and risk.  It tells of the character of one man who took his responsibilities as captain seriously, who did all he could to bring a crippled, listing ship back to harbor.

Simple Courage: The True Story of Peril on the Sea is roughly divided into three parts: the story of the shipwreck, the investigation, and the author’s personal response.  The shipwreck and rescue are riveting; the investigation a necessary but less absorbing story.  I found the author’s examination of his own fascination intriguing.  Father hunger is epidemic. 

If it is at all possible, listen to this book.   Ask your librarian to get the audio book.  At the moment, you can buy the audio edition used at Amazon for $10 + $4 shipping.  Look into library downloads.  People!  If my small town library in the middle of nowhere has library downloads, many of yours do.  I have not used Audible.com, but there is another option. 

Why all the fuss?  Because Delaney, himself, reads the book in lilting Irish brogue.  It will melt you.  Still don’t believe me?  Go here or here and listen!
 

More books reviews here.
  

I Want to Read This

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Losing Mum and Pup: A Memoir

From the product description:

“I had more or less resolved not to write a book about my parents. But I’m a writer, and when the universe hands you material like this, not writing about it amounts either to waste or a conscious act of evasion.”

In twelve months between 2007 and 2008, Buckley coped with the passing of his father, William F. Buckley, the father of the modern conservative movement, and his mother, Patricia Taylor Buckley, one of New York’s most glamorous and colorful socialites. He was their only child and their relationship was close and complicated. Writes Buckley: “They were not — with respect to every other set of loving, wonderful parents in the world — your typical mom and dad.”

Memoirs are one of my favorite genres.  Right up there with histories, Victorian novels, travelogues and poetry.  Everyone has a story.  Because of my own personal history, I am all the more interested when the story involves the loss of a parent.  That sounds twisted, but think of it as “comparing notes.”

My first impression of William F. Buckley was “his vocabulary is massive.” And so, in my early twenties, I began reading his Blackford Oakes Novels with a dictionary, pen and paper next to me.  I was on a treasure hunt and looked up every word I didn’t know.  Buckley taught me more words than my English teacher with the southern drawl whose last name I can’t remember. [Her first name was Agnes.  I can still see her standing before the class giving a quiz; she said incongruous with a lilt that came out in-Con-gress. Forever will Congress and incongruous be linked in my brain.]

Firing Line was one of the shows we hated to miss.  We would scurry around finishing our chores, so we could sit down together and watch Buckley at play.  His eyes widened, he grinned and out came something erudite. 

I haven’t purchased this book whose publishing date is 2009.  But I am eager to read it.
 

How to Cook a Wolf

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“Nothing seems particularly grim
if your head is clear
and your teeth are clean
and your bowels function properly.”

The problem is how to characterize How to Cook a Wolf.   

~  It is a cookbook, but one with only 75 recipes added like seasoning to the prose.  Along the way you will learn how to cook fish, eggs, fritattas, polenta, gravy, bread and War Cake.

~  It is a book on frugality.

~  It is a survival book including a basic recipe for a gruel/sludge that will keep you alive.

~  It is sort of a social history, illuminating life at home during the second world war.

~  It is a dialog between the author and herself.  She wrote the book in 1942 and revised it in 1954.  The original is kept intact and revisions added in [brackets].  This is one of the most entertaining features.  As any writer knows, reading your work at a later date can make you alternately wince or nod your head.  Fisher, an opinionated writer, tends to argue with herself, retract a statement or two; but she admits at the end of one chapter that she is pleased with what she wrote. 

~   It is a book worth reading for its delightful prose.  W. H. Auden wrote about M.F.K. Fisher “I do not know of anyone in the United States today who writes better prose.”  Here’s what I want you to do: click on the link above, click on the picture of the book “Click to Look Inside” and read the table of contents.  I don’t know any other book with better chapter titles. 

If you are curious about the wolf in the title, it comes from the ditty by C.P.S. Gilman: There’s a whining at the threshold.  There’s a scratching at the floor.  To work! To work! In Heaven’s name! The wolf is at the door! 

Here’s some morsels of Fisher’s writing to further tempt you:

As for butter and other shortening,
I have always felt that I should prefer
too little of the best
to plenty of the inferior kind.  p. 18

[As an older and wiser frittata cook
I almost always, these richer days,
add a scant cup of good dry Parmesan cheese
to the eggs when I mix them.
Often I add rich cream too.
How easy it is to stray from austerity!]  p.61

I believe more firmly than ever in fresh raw milk,
freshly ground whole grains of cereal,
and vegetables grown in organically cultured soil.
If I must eat meats I want them carved from beasts
nurtured on the plants from that same kind of soil.  p. 71

The doubtful triumphs of science over human hunger
are perhaps less dreadful to the English than to us,
for in spite of our national appetite for pink gelatine puddings,
we have never been as thoroughly under the yoke
of Bird’s Custard Sauce as our allies.  p.152

In the old days, before Stuka and blitz became part of
even childish chitchat, every practical guide to cookery
urged you to keep a well-filled emergency shelf
in your kitchen or pantry.
Emergency is another word
that has changed its inner shape;
when Marion Harland and Fanny Farmer used it
they meant unexpected guests.
You may, too, in an ironical way,
but you hope to God
they are the kind who will never come.  p.187

The Invisible Heart, An Economic Romance

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“In popular culture, business is always portrayed
as monstrous because that’s what sells.  People like
feeling victimized so that they can hate their oppressor.
But monsters don’t often succeed in business.
The sweeter competitor offering good service
and low prices is a better bet.
There’s an invisible heart at the core of the marketplace,
serving the customer and doing it joyously.”

“After all,” continued Sam,
“under capitalism, man oppresses man.
But under socialism,”-here Sam paused-
“it’s the other way around.”

In The Invisible Heart: An Economic Romance romance takes back seat while economics drives.  Laura Silver, an English Literature teacher is in turn intrigued, repelled, astonished, and ultimately wooed by Sam Gordon, a free-market libertarian who teaches at the same school. 

George Will calls this book “Delightfully didactic.”   It is 100% didactic (instructive) but is clearly delightful.  If economics has intimidated you, this is a book to read.  The book was fun, engaging and winsome.   

“Welcome to the wonderful world of economics.
Everything precious in life has a cost.”
    

All But My Life & The Hours After

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All But My Life begins at 9:10 a.m. on September 3, 1939, when the Nazis invaded the Weissmann’s home town of Bielitz, Poland.  Immediately her family lost any sense of safety and security.  About the beginning of October there was a timid knock at the door.  It was not the ominous thump of the Gestapo, but a hesitant, tired signal.  It is strange how many feelings a knock can express, if you listen carefully. The book chronicles the progressive losses which accumulate one after another after another through the days after the end of the war.  It is staggering.  Layer by layer, everything Gerda treasures is stripped away. 

When she is liberated the only valuable thing she owns are the ski boots her father insisted she wear on the June day three years ago when Gerda was transferred out of the ghetto to a labor camp.  Her love and admiration of her older brother Artur, made his loss one of the heaviest of all. 

At our final parting, when I was fifteen and my brother nineteen, he asked me to be brave and take care of our parents.  My promise to him was my most sacred vow.  And during the years that followed, I did the best I could–always, I suppose, in the hope that he would praise me when we next met.  How could I have imagined that on a snowy winter’s night many decades later, in a suite at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York, Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel would express the fulfillment of part of that irrational hope when he took me into his arms and said, “I have waited so long to meet Arthur’s little sister.” As I wept, he stroked my hair and said, “You have been very brave.”  He had never met my brother but had read what I wrote about him, and with uncanny sensitivity he had identified with us; thus he gave me the praise I had hoped to hear from my brother.

Gerda’s story continues with The Hours After: Letters of Love and Longing in War’s Aftermath.   The first American soldier to see Gerda on Liberation Day was Kurt Klein.  In spite of her filthy, broken down, ematiated figure, there was a spark in Gerda which immediately attracted Kurt.  A Lieutenant in the Army, Klein was also  Jewish, born and raised in Germany before he emigrated to America.  Two months after meeting her and the evening before he was shipped to another location, Kurt asked Gerda, alone in the world, to marry him.  Their letters during their year of separation before they could marry form the framework of this book. 

This book grew on me, the second half more absorbing than the first.  Gerda’s daily letters offer a mosaic of life in Munich immediately after the war.  How can she reconcile the kindness of her landlords with the fact that they were Nazi party members since 1933?  Her plight underscored the difficulty displaced persons had in proving who they were, getting visas, with so little documentation available.  Gerda worked for a while with the Bavarian Aid Society.  Her descriptions of the people seeking help are either full of sorrow or ironic humor. 

Because Kurt and Gerda are both so articulate, their letters, which they translated for the book, are rich reading. They cover daily life, problem solving, hope for their future, acknowledgment of painful realities, yearning for the miraculous appearance of a family member, and, at their core, a deep love for one another.   

Thanks to my friend Frankie (who lived in London during the war) for turning me on to Gerda Weissmann Klein’s books.    
 

Hitler’s Struggle, Mein Kampf

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Why did you want to read Mein Kampf (My Struggle)? 

•  Initially I wanted to see how transparent Hitler was.  How clear were his statements?  Abraham Foxman writes in the Introduction:  “Mein Kampf’s existence denies the free world the excuse of ignorance.”
•  Hitler’s opening words.  “To an ever-increasing extent world history became for me an inexhaustible source of understanding for the historical events of the present; in other words, for politics.  I do not want to ‘learn’ it, I want it to instruct me.  (p.16)  Reading this book is one of the steps in answering the question ‘How could the Holocaust happen?’
•  History fascinates me.  It is so interconnected: one really cannot understand WW2 without a knowledge of WW1; the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 is an important context of WW1, Napolean etc. etc.  A mentor long ago convinced me of the value of primary source documents. 

What was your overall impression?

I agree with Mussolini who called it ‘Hitler’s boring book‘.  Hitler considered himself a gifted orator.  He was no writer.  It was hard to follow his circular logic.  Much of his rhetoric was vitriol and vituperation.  Frankly, it was agony to read.  My husband could not understand my compulsion to make it through to the end. 

Was there anything to like?

Surprisingly, yes. 
•  Describing the poverty of his youth: “Hunger was then my faithful bodyguard.” (p.21). 
•  “The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. ”  (p.180)
•  This phrase tickled me: “a sneak and a spineless lickspittle”
•   He advocated strong sports and physical fitness programs for boys. 
•   Hitler’s commentary on (generic) committee members: “…who were in a kind of continuous pregnancy with excellent plans, ideas, projects, methods.”  He said that the best means of making them harmless was to assign them to some real work.

So.  How did he really feel about the Jews?

•  Gradually, I began to hate them [Jews].  p.63
•  I had ceased to be a weak-kneed cosmopolitan and became an anti-Semite. p. 64
•  All who are not of good race in this world are chaff.  p. 296
•  personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew  p.324
•  The Jew is the great master in lying.

Whom, besides the Jews, did Hitler hate?

•  Pacifists
•  Marxists (particularly that Jew, Karl Marx)
•  Parlimentarianism
•  Western democracy
•  Mixed races (particularly in Slavs)
•  Signers of The Treaty of Versailles
•  Bastards, physically degenerate, mentally sick
•  France (inexorable mortal enemy of the German people)

Were there any foreshadowings of Hitler’s invasions?

•  Hitler describes correct foreign policy as “a strengthening of our continental power by gaining new soil in Europe.” (p.612)
•  These circles never even began to realize that Germanization can only be applied to soil and never to people.  (p.388)

Final thoughts?

Mein Kampf is a witness against Hitler and his followers.  He clearly articulated the philosophy of Nazism.  While the horror of ‘The Final Solution’ wasn’t revealed, the open hatred of Jews is never hidden.  

Criticizing Churchill

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In Churchill, Hitler, and “The Unnecessary War” Pat Buchanan argues that both World Wars could have been avoided.  He places a huge amount of culpability on Winston Churchill for both wars.  If you follow the link, under product description are six bullet points that list major Churchillian blunders.

I don’t have patience with all the “might have”s posited, as in if Churchill had ignored this, Hitler might have… Anyone can argue from the might haves, but Buchanan really works at backing up his conjectures with facts.   Buchanan firmly believes the both the Kaiser and Hitler had no interest in England, that they would have stopped at France in their appetite for land. 

The criticism of Churchill that sticks to him – in my mind – is his alliance with Joseph Stalin.  Buchanan compares this with Neville Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement with Hitler.  Many people are not aware that Stalin was responsible for more considerably more deaths than Hitler was.  (Joseph Stalin, Pure Evil – not for squeamish shows videos of labor camps coupled with a gorgeous choral rendition of the Lord’s Prayer).  How both the USA and Great Britain could ally themselves to Stalin baffles me.  (My husband suggests that Hitler was a greater threat and that we needed Stalin to fight against Hitler.  Nothing is clean and tidy in war.)

Having been raised to adore Churchill, it was jarring to hear him so blatantly criticized.   To be sure, Churchill made mistakes (who would argue that he didn’t?) but I don’t believe you can pin both wars on him.  This book is hands down the best written book and most documented one I’ve read this year.  Whatever he is, Buchanan is a wordsmith, par excellence.  I listened to an audio version of this book and could follow the complex but cogent arguments without any problem.  Hearing the book, my husband inevitable stopped and listened instead of walking away. I only recommend it for those with a working knowledge of both wars.            

I Scream, I Shout, Who Listens?

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Carson and Noah in training (my son and grandson)
Clarification:  I am not screaming or shouting at my guys!
After I wrote this post, I saw the picture and thought it was cute. 
Isn’t that a cute baby?


Television is thus not simply the dominant medium of popular culture, it is the single most significant shared reality in our entire society.  Christendom was defined as a region dominated by Christianity.  Not all citizens of Christendom were Christians, but all understood it, all were influenced by its teaching, all institutions had to contend with it.  Christianity was the one great assumption of Christendom.  I can think of no entity today capable of such a culturally unifying role except television.  In television, we live and move and have our being.

…television, serve[s] in our culture a role once reserved for God: the role of defining reality.

There is a price today for the ease of images over words.

Entertainment is the one constant in our lives.

…the addiction to diversion…

Ours is the cult of the electronic fragment.

Excerpts taken from Chapter 10, “Popular Culture’s Medium” in All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes, by Kenneth A. Myers, 1989.

When I talked on children’s literature recently, I argued that reading with your child on your lap is altogether different from watching a DVD with a child on your lap.  My primary argument was the power, the beauty, and the glory of words, and the joy of experiencing them with a child.

Words are powerful!  Words are the way we communicate, the necessary components for a conversation. Reading a book is like opening a present: the gift is words to season our speech, words to nurture our spirits.  Words are fascinating and fun.  Words can unlock emotions, bring understanding.  How often have you experienced something that you felt incapable of expressing, only to read a book and exclaim, That is exactly what I meant to say, but didn’t have the words for it.  Words nurture us.  Books will give you words, ideas and stories.

If we used the analogy of food, what would consuming weeks of day-in/day-out television be?

I’d say boxed cereal or K-rations. Albert Marrin writes, “One never felt full after a K-ration meal.  Soldier food was dull and tasteless.”  When did you feel full after watching a show?  Often there is no response at all; the show just covered a void.  Sometimes you feel slimed.  The most recent episode of The Bachelor drew a lot of irritated comments from bloggers.  Why would anyone watch it in the first place?  Do we really want to “nourish” our soul and spirit with that essence of tubercular spittle?

See, I knew it. 
I knew I would get the “screamin’ meemies.” 
My kids know this voice. 
[deep, cleansing breaths]

It is too easy for me to crusade about television because that is the medium “under control” at my house.  I’m very interested in how this translates to the internet (a medium I cannot say is completely under control).  They can both be addictive, time-consuming and there are issues with each medium regardless of content. 

I would love to see a second edition of this book after twenty years.  How do we move from thoughtless consumption of contemporary culture to thoughtful engagement in the age of TIVO, wifi and text messaging? 

I’m flirting with the idea of subscribing to Mars Hill Audio (see link above) to get more thought-provoking commentary.  From their website:

We believe that fulfilling the commands to love God and neighbor requires that we pay careful attention to the neighborhood: that is, every sphere of human life where God is either glorified or despised, where neighbors are either edified or undermined. Therefore, living as disciples of Christ pertains not just to prayer, evangelism, and Bible study, but also our enjoyment of literature and music, our use of tools and machines, our eating and drinking, our views on government and economics, and so on.

A gulp of All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes on Google Reader.