The Food of a Younger Land, by Mark Kurlansky

Subtitled “A portrait of American food — before the national highway system, before chain restaurants, and before frozen food, when the nation’s food was seasonal, regional, and traditional–from the lost WPA files,” you must at least read the extremely interesting Introduction to this treasure mine sampled from what remains in the archives of America Eats, five dusty boxes of manuscript copy on onionskin.  Here Kurlansky showcases the best of what he uncovered, just as writer Merle Colby had hoped when writing the final report before the unedited, unpublished manuscripts were tucked away in the 1940s: “Here and there in America some talented boy or girl will stumble on some of this material, take fire from it, and turn it to creative use.”

The entries are informative and amusing excerpts from food writing and recipes gathered regionally for a federally funded writing project that employed out-of-work writers.  When spending priorities changed after Pearl Harbor, the unfinished project materials were abruptly preserved in the Library of Congress, and we can thank Kurlansky for digging out its most fascinating gems for our enlightenment.

Among the southern and eastern sections where I focused my perusal, I really got a kick out of the anecdotes and details on preparing such delicacies as squirrel, [o]possum, chittelins, and corn pone, how the hush puppy got its name & why some forms of cornbread were once much lower in status.  Of course, Virginians will find some definitive yet highly opinionated historical notes on the famed Brunswick Stew.

The WPA (Works Progress Administration) was a government agency that sprung up as one of  many efforts to alleviate poverty in 1930s America.   Some WPA projects designed programs according to individual skill, field of study or expertise. Remarkably, these included plans for the fields as art, music, drama, and literature. The Federal Writers’ Project commissioned writers to research, write, edit, and publish works and series on particular topics, usually with American themes or interests in mind; writers employed included Zora Neale Hurston and Eudora Welty. Following the successful production of numerous travel guidebooks, the concept for America Eats provided a means for capturing the distinct regional and cultural uniqueness of food and how it was prepared, served, and eaten in an America on the cusp of immense change. America’s culinary differences were destined to be homogenized through the diverse means that food production would soon become so heavily industrialized and globalized.

If you’re one of the many readers eagerly devouring information on real food, whole foods, traditional foods, or even paleolithic foods, in what seems like a mass revolution against modern food (in which I’m still trying to figure out what works best for my lifestyle), you’ll find much to inform and inspire you in Kurlansky’s book.  Some will reminisce; others will find a lot of eye-opening and useful knowledge about the way we once were; all we be entertained.

Check the WRL catalog for The Food of a Younger Land

I read the title in the e-book version.

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The Art Detective, by Philip Mould

The Art Detective Philip Mould became a television celebrity from his role appraising works of art unearthed from dusty attics or flea markets on the popular “Antiques Roadshow,” but according to his memoir he began as an ambitious art dealer who just happened to fall in love with the game of chasing down a good find using the forensic and research expertise of his reliable staff, his vast knowledge of artists and fine art portraiture and often pure instinct along with a willingness to risk his reputation in the highly competitive art world.  Sheer luck seems to have been in his favor with a number of great finds that, had he been wrong — such as in his decision to scrape away some over-painting — might have had disastrous consequences both financial and for art’s sake.  He seems very fortunate to have found early success that he has been rolling with ever since, which makes for a very fascinating read about his life’s work.

“In this book I explain how the history of a picture can color its appearance.  I show how provenance can completely blind eminent authorities into believing a picture is authentic when it is a fake, and also how provenance can unlock a picture’s importance and stature.”

This book was very appealing for the sense of mystery involved with researching and following clues to determine a work of art’s provenance and condition, often literally peeling layers of paint to reveal the true masterpiece in disguise. I liked the storytelling skill and use of suspense.  Descriptions of bizarre art collectors’ habits created vivid portraits of the persons associated with the art under investigation.  These and some incredible frauds provided a number of laugh-out-loud moments for me as well.

The stories relating the complex process of unraveling the truth about individual works of arts were rich with detail, wit, and sensationalism.  I will say that they could have benefited from more complete documentation of his findings; particularly, some additional dates would have oriented me into the moment better.  Some of the works discussed are in museums or locations that I have either had access to or had contemplated in books previously, which increased my interest in learning more.  The book also sparked my interest in seeking episodes of Antiques Roadshow on both BBC and PBS, which before I read this book were the type of put-me-to-sleep programs I would have clicked right past.  I felt as though I were being welcomed behind the scenes of the elite art environment in which Philip Mould makes his living.

Check the WRL catalog for The Art Detective

I found it to be a very quick and engaging read as an e-book.

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Just Kids, by Patti Smith

Patti Smith is the proto-punk goddess whose music is fierce, but hardly every listener’s cup of tea. Robert Mapplethorpe was a photographer whose most famous works were pictures of nude men, often depicted in sexually explicit poses and masochistic acts. I like some edgy things, but neither of these artists really do much for me, and a more conservative person might run the other way. I’m not even a huge fan of their scene, where style and innovation seem to matter more than substance, but I’ve always been curious about those magical moments in history where a group of creative people find each other and use the energy of their meeting to create something new.

Patti Smith’s memoir, Just Kids, captures just such a time perfectly. Smith came to New  York in 1967 after giving up a baby to adoption upstate. She was young and looking for a fresh start. One of the first people she met was Robert Mapplethorpe, a minor acquaintance who became her fast friend after saving her from a bad date. The two moved in together and tried to make a go of a relationship, even though it soon became apparent that Mapplethorpe was obviously homosexual. Patti somewhat naively believed that their love would overcome Robert’s sexual preference, and so began several years of ups and downs. Robert could be incredibly supportive of Patti and her art, but substance abuse and a need for fame could make him neglectful at other times.

The background here is fascinating, as Smith and Mapplethorpe rub elbows with the artists and scenesters of the Chelsea Hotel, Andy Warhol’s Factory, and the pioneering music venue CBGB’s. The story follows the early rise of both friends, then jumps forward a decade and ends poignantly with Robert’s death from AIDS in 1989.

Smith writes with real heart. The prose gets a bit florid at times, but that’s easy to forgive, as is her sometimes naive view of Mapplethorpe, as the author so clearly feels all of the emotions behind her story honestly. This especially shines through on the audiobook. Smith is a clumsy reader, a bit monotone and with funny pronunciations for some words (“drawlings” instead of “drawings”), but she’s so absolutely free of pretense that I found the awkwardness charming and authentic, not off-putting.

Check the WRL catalog for Just Kids

Or try it on audiobook on CD

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Really the Blues, by Mezz Mezzrow and Buzz White

It’s “Lost in the Stacks” week, and Bud is back with another post:

“Poppa, have you got any idea how a man took to jazz in the early days? Do you know how he spent years watching the droopy chicks in cathouses, listening to his cellmates moaning low behind the bars, digging the riffs the wheels were knocking out when he rode the rods – and then all of a sudden picked up a horn and began to tell the whole story in music? I’m going to explain that.”

So says Milton “Mezz” Mezzrow in the opening chapter of his strange but fascinating autobiography,  Really the Blues. Mezzrow, a white Jewish kid, was born in 1899. A wild child from the beginning, he landed in reform school at the age of 15 where he discovered and became completely enamored of black culture in general and New Orleans jazz in particular. He learned how to play the clarinet and immersed himself in the jazz world of the 1920s, a world that, for him, revolved around three big Ms – musicians, mobsters and marijuana. As the story unfolds we learn a lot about all three.

Really the Blues will appeal to music lovers because Mezzrow knew just about every famous jazz artist of the period. He jammed with Sidney Bechet, Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, Bessie Smith, Joe Oliver, Baby Dodds, Gene Krupa and many others. His unadulterated portraits of these talented people and their colorful milieu are fascinating.

The Mob also played a prominent role in Mezz’s life. He worked in some of Al Capone’s road houses, was turned onto opium by a member of Detroit’s vicious Purple Gang, and had Dutch Schulz try to muscle in on his marijuana distribution business.

And, yes, there is marijuana, lots of, as it was referred to in the ‘20s, muta, tea, reefer or muggles (the word pre-dates Harry Potter). In fact, Mezzrow was such a heavy user (a viper) and dealer that in his circle of acquaintances it became known by another slang term–the mezz–and was referenced as such in the song, “If You’re a Viper” by Stuff Smith. The book contains gritty descriptions of the joys and subsequent lows of drug addiction. His four-year stint as an opium addict is particularly grim.

The stories are great, whether or not they’re all true is questionable, but what makes this book distinctive is the style in which it’s written.  As you can tell by the paragraph quoted above, the prose tends to flow like musical cadences and is rife with jazzy slang. This can make for disconcerting reading at first but it soon seems natural and appropriate to the author and what he’s describing.  If you have difficulty with the slang, the back pages contain a helpful glossary.

This is not a book for everyone. It’s a strange, often lurid tale, told in a distinctly unusual manner by an arch iconoclast. If you’re looking for something warm and fuzzy this ain’t it.  But if you have an interest in the history of music or the Chicago underworld or are just in the mood for something really unusual then give Really the Blues a try.  It’s a book you won’t forget.

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“King Lehr” and the Gilded Age, by Baroness Elizabeth Wharton Drexel Beresford Decies

“Bud” shares this as the first “Lost in the Stacks” week post:

Picture this scene:

A beautiful young woman sits in her boudoir.  Married that morning, she anxiously awaits her new husband.  In he comes and makes the following statement, “There are some things I must say to you, and it is better that I should say them now at the very beginning so that there can be no misunderstanding between us.”  “In public I shall be to you everything that a most devoted husband should be to his wife… I will give you courtesy, respect and apparently devotion. But you must expect nothing more from me. When we are alone I do not intend to keep up the miserable pretense, the farce of love and sentiment. Our marriage will never be a marriage in anything but name. I do not love you, I can never love you …The less we see of one another except in the presence of others the better.”  The shocked girl asks him why he married her? With a bitter laugh he replies, “Since you force me to do so I must tell you the unflattering truth that your money is your only asset in my eyes.”

Wow.

Although this sounds like something  from a hackneyed romance novel, it’s not. This really happened to Elizabeth Drexel Lehr, and the story of her life with Harry Lehr, the gold digging cad that she was unfortunate enough to marry,  is recounted in the rather astonishing autobiography, King Lehr and the Gilded Age, by Lady Decies (formerly Elizabeth Drexel Lehr).

Elizabeth was a child of wealth and grew up happy and comfortable in late 19^th century New York City. Harry Lehr was also born into money,  but when his father died he was left penniless, embittered and determined to make his way back into the privileged world of the wealthy. His plan was twofold, first he ingratiated  himself to society matrons by being ever so engaging, witty and fun. He survived on their largesse and kickbacks from suppliers whose goods he encouraged his benefactors to purchase. Secondly, he kept an eye out for a wealthy and pliable heiress to marry. Poor Elizabeth was gullible enough to fall for his smarmy charms.

What may be surprising to modern readers is that she didn’t divorce Harry the day after the shocking  wedding night declaration. Fear of shaming her mother and alienating herself from her society friends kept her bound to Lehr for decades despite the fact that he emotionally abused her and lavishly indulged all his whims with her money.

The narrative follows their unhappy life together as they travel amongst the rich and powerful in the U.S. and Europe during the early years of the 20^th century.  We get a decidedly jaundiced view of the American “Downton Abbey” crowd, although many of the grandees mentioned will probably be unknown to people nowadays.

Elizabeth’s story is an interesting expose of a lost world and its dubious mores and manners. The book was considered quite shocking when it was originally published in 1938.  It’s an  engrossing page-turner for people who enjoy social history, women’s lives or scandal among the rich and famous.

NOTE: There’s a famous photo of Lady Decies taken by Weegee. Here you see Elizabeth going to the opera in 1943. The image makes a startling  contrast to the beautiful painted portrait of her on the cover of the book.

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God Said, “Ha!” by Julia Sweeney

A friend told me she picked up this book for the title alone.  She didn’t know Julia Sweeney was part of the Saturday Night Live cast several years ago.  She was just drawn to the title and the blurb on the front that says “Laughing through the worst year of my life.”  My friend kept recounting the funny parts, so I had to read the book for myself.

Julia Sweeney is well known for playing the androgynous character “Pat” in the SNL skits and the 1994 movie It’s Pat.  She also has appeared in numerous television shows and films, including Pulp Fiction and Beethoven 3.

But this isn’t a Hollywood “tell all.”

The book  describes how Julia is at a turning point in her life in the 1990s.  Her stint with SNL was ending, her marriage was breaking up (amicably), and she was ready for a new start.

She writes:

I was finally an independent adult! I felt so mature and self-reliant.  I had gone to college, I’d started my career, I’d even had the big wedding, and that BIG relationship.  But nothing was more exciting to me now than having my own place.

And that’s when God just said… “Ha!”

Her brother Mike, who had always been an independent, private individual, was diagnosed with lymph cancer.  His condition worsened quickly and he had to move in with her in her new, cozy bungalow.  Her parents, whom she loved (but perhaps loved best from a distance of several hundred miles), moved in with her to help take care of Mike.  And Julia was reduced to sleeping on the sofa in the dream home she had finally created.

The interplay of Julia and her parents had me laughing out loud.  She writes that the fresh chunky salsa she purchased was replaced with a can of tomato paste that her mother was sure could double as salsa. Julia’s mother interrupted her at work because she couldn’t find the Parmesan cheese. It blew her mom’s mind that she had to grate the chunk of Parmesan in the fridge herself.  “And she said, shaking her head, ‘Oh, Julie, you don’t have to do all that.’”

Then when things can’t get any worse, they do.  Julia herself is diagnosed with a rare form of cervical cancer.  But she focuses on taking things one day at a time, and she continues to find humor in the interactions with her family.

Don’t get me wrong: there was a point where I had to continue reading through my tears, but I didn’t feel the book was about the cancer, or the medical treatments, or the unfairness of life—it was about family.  A quirky, loving family.  And Julia Sweeney does a fantastic job of taking the reader through the journey of the worst year of her life.

Check the WRL catalog for God Said, “Ha!”

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The Journal of Best Practices, by David Finch

The Journal of Best Practices: A Memoir of Marriage and Asperger Syndrome, and One Man’s Quest to be a Better Husband.  This quirky title really had me because I had been interested in learning more about Asperger Syndrome.

Reading David Finch’s book helped satisfy my curiosity and also endeared me to this amazing story about a man who isn’t diagnosed with Asberger until after he’s married with children.  The diagnosis explains a lot for him, but his approach to dealing with the problems it has caused in his relationship is so intense that he actually saves his marriage.  Wow, if only every spouse would be willing to do whatever it takes to adjust behavior and communication skills and to make such a powerful difference for his family!

This book was hilariously funny, and I did not want to put it down.  Sometimes, a memoir is just a one-time deal, but I think Finch should write more of them on a variety of subjects that touch his life.  His odd personality and easygoing writing style were the perfect ingredients for a very entertaining read.

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Europe on 5 Wrong Turns A Day, by Doug Mack

One Man, Eight Countries, One Vintage Travel Guide…

In 1870, the English diarist Francis Kilvert complained that, “Of all noxious animals…the most noxious is a tourist.”  But despite this scathing criticism, Doug Mack, author of Europe on 5 Wrong Turns a Day, desperately wants to be one.  Unlike the trailblazers of recent decades seeking to explore new and uncharted parts of the globe, Mack wants to undertake a journey on the very firmly well-beaten path, hoping to obtain “full immersion in the modern tourist experience.”

And so he decides to backpack around Europe using only a 1963 edition of the quintessential Europe on Five Dollars a Day by Arthur Frommer that he found at a secondhand book festival in Minneapolis.  To add to the retro charm, he also brings with him the postcards and letters that his mother wrote to her fiancé (Mack’s father) during her own Grand Tour in the late 1960s.  And that’s it.  There would be no Internet research, no competing guidebooks.  As much as possible Mack planned to stay in the same hotels recommended by Frommer, eat in the same restaurants, and visit the same sites – although perhaps not on the same budget.

On his Not-So-Grand Tour, Mack visits eleven of Europe’s great cities, including Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Rome, and Venice, boldly going  “where millions have gone before, relying only on the advice of a travel guide that’s nearly a half century out-of-date.”  Setting out on this well-beaten path, Mack’s goal was not to live on $5 a day in some kind of “gimmicky challenge,” but to explore the ways the traditional tourist experience has changed–and hasn’t–during the last fifty years.

Just like any traveler, he enjoys some cities more than others (a big fan of Madrid, not so much of Venice).  But of course, as Mack travels around Europe, he finds most of Frommer’s suggestions are either closed, have been converted into a giftshop, or serve food so expensive that if Frommer were writing this guide today (adjusted for inflation, of course!) they would never have made the cut.  Other differences include Frommer’s choice of seventeen “must-see” cities, which leaves out destinations that are very popular today, such as Prague and Barcelona.  And let’s not forget that Berlin was a divided city in 1963.  But in 2009, Mack finds the American and East German soldiers at Checkpoint Charlie are now played by Russian and North African actors, demanding tips for photos.

Europe on 5 Wrong Turns A Day offers an interesting analysis of the culture of travel, the changes that have taken place since Frommer’s seminal work was published, and the changes that the book caused (e.g. cheap travel as something you could boast about).  To flesh out the travel narrative, Mack includes some history of American tourism to Europe, the evolution of guidebooks, Frommer’s success story, and how politics affect the travel decisions of Americans.

If you have ever traveled abroad, particularly in Europe, you will see yourself in this book.  But Mack’s teasing is kind and you won’t be able to help laughing at yourself.  I freely admit to doing the “Tourist Dance” myself:

Hold out your camera, smile sheepishly, point to yourself.  Half the time the other person is already performing the same gestures to you…”

The book is sweetly charming, with laugh-out loud moments, but it also has some serious points to make about modern travel and the effects of globalism over the last half-century.  Europe on 5 Wrong Turns a Day is an amusing, self-effacing, and very wry travel memoir, told by an observant and affable narrator.  The book is an entertaining mix of social commentary, history,  ode to Frommer’s “manifesto for the common traveler” and exoneration of your average, much-maligned tourist.

Check out the WRL catalog for Europe on 5 Wrong Turns a Day

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Kosher Chinese: living, teaching, and eating with China’s other billion, by Michael Levy

Today, Benjamin takes up a spirited memoir.

Mike Levy’s autobiographical work recounts his experiences as a Peace Corps volunteer in central China from 2005 to 2007.  Levy’s engaging writing and wonderful adventures make the book a quick and entertaining read.  His tale is amusing, disturbing, heartwarming, and revealing.

Few Americans know much about most of China.  What we generally learn is through the Western media and about urban areas.  China has large, modern, cosmopolitan cities that make the news as they grow in economic strength, population, and international importance.  The majority of the country, however, is rural and less advanced.  This is where Levy lives for two years.  After a two month crash course in Chinese, the author is shipped off to teach English at the local university in the city of Guiyang.  There this Jewish boy from America learns how the other billion Chinese live their lives. During his time in China, Levy plays on a basketball team, teaches English to undergraduate students, leads a graduate seminar on classic American literature, befriends a local peasant family, and, through no fault of his own, becomes the Ann Landers of Guiyang.

As probably the only Jew anyone in Guiyang has ever met, Levy is instantly the full-blown expert on his religion.  His social status is raised by the fact that Marx and Einstein were Jewish.  Soon his expertise extends far beyond Judaism, as he is asked for input on buying real estate, dating, celebrating Christmas and any topic the people surrounding him feel he has experience with because he is an American.  Mike Levy manages to take nearly everything in stride, from squat toilets to uncompromising prejudice.  As an outsider he is frequently viewed as a rich information source.  At the same time, when his knowledge or advice contradicts what his Chinese friends must believe, Levy finds his opinion dismissed. Levy encounters traditions that include superstition, dedication to communist dogma, acceptance of government propaganda, the desire for a better life, and a resignation to make do with less.  He sees both the genuine humanity of the people and their extraordinary contradictions.

Before the end of the book Levy admits he has gone native.  He no longer wonders what he is eating.  He accepts that often contest winners are predetermined based on their position in the community, not on merit.  While he does not always like what he sees, he accepts that people do the best they can with what they have and that is simply how life is for the people of Guiyang.

Kosher Chinese is a wonderful story of exploration, discovery, adventure, and friendship.  Fun to read, the book illustrates a part of China that is not frequently seen, yet clearly exists.  Anyone interested in learning more about the Chinese people through the humorous and lighthearted writings of a good-natured Peace Corps volunteer will certainly enjoy this memoir.

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Committed, a Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage, by Elizabeth Gilbert

Benjamin’s second post looks at a sequel.

Committed is the follow up memoir to Eat, Pray, Love.  The first book told of Ms. Gilbert’s journey from unstable, heartbroken, despondent, divorcee to balanced, enlightened, fulfilled girlfriend.   This memoir recounts her adventures soon after finding the love of her life.  As with her previous memoir, the author reads Committed, which adds to the enjoyment of it.

The story is predicated on events that occur during what might have been a routine effort by the couple to enter the United States.  Liz (i.e. the author) and her Brazilian boyfriend Felipe find their love affair torn asunder by Homeland Security regulations.  Felipe is barred from entering the United States.  The only way to remedy the situation is to get married.  But, there are two problems; it will take months to collect all the necessary paperwork and proof to convince the U.S. government there is a valid reason to issue a Fiancé visa to Felipe that will allow them to marry on American soil (which is necessary for them to live in the US) and two, the couple, both divorced, have vowed never to marry again.

Faced with the scenario of separate or marry, they decide they love each other enough to officially tie the knot.  However, first they must complete pounds of paperwork and collect miles of proof to confirm their credibility and non-terrorist intentions.  Exiled from American soil until the paperwork can be completed, they find themselves wandering through South East Asia trying to survive.  While the constant travel and untenable waiting leads to stress and dissatisfaction for the individuals involved, this is not really the story of Liz and Filipe’s love affair coming apart.  They have disagreements, but nothing catastrophic.

In fact, this is a recounting of Liz’s efforts to justify, accept and embrace the concept of marriage.  As the couple travel, the author researches the institution of marriage, including its history, purpose and importantly, modern women’s experiences with it.  She looks at why marriage became a part of society (largely for economic factors), how the institution has been viewed by different religions through the centuries, who gets married, why marriages work or do not, and what the institution means in various cultures.   She interviews females she meets and women from her life about their views and experiences with marriage.  She is conflicted in part because the institution is being forced upon her and in part because she is scared of again committing herself to a legal concept that once nearly destroyed her.

Her interesting and detailed journey keeps the reader hoping she will eventually find peace.  As the title reveals, by the end of her story, Liz has come to terms with marriage.  For readers who have been happily married for many years, the author’s attempt to justify her aversion to marriage may be difficult to accept.  But, the author is honest and open about herself and her relationship and that makes the book human and touching.  She includes the reader in her very personal journey, a glimpse into her world that encourages personal reflection for anyone who reads Committed.

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Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert

This week’s reviews are from WRL’s Development Officer, Benjamin Goldberg.

I cannot recall why I picked up this audio recording, but whatever the motivating factor, I am glad I did listen to Eat, Pray, Love.  Elizabeth Gilbert’s 30-something memoir of discovery and discussion is entertaining and educational.  Her life experiences are vastly beyond what most of us will ever encounter, yet the clarity of soul she develops as a result of her travels is something from which I think most people could benefit.

The title of this book refers to the author’s year-long journey filled with epiphany, serendipity, and equanimity.  Following a horrible and devastating divorce, Gilbert has the opportunity to travel for a year.  She spends four months in Italy, four months in India, and four months in Indonesia.  On each leg of her trip she focuses on herself in a different way, enjoying wonderful food first, then delving into meditation and self-awareness and eventually finding love in Bali (Indonesia).

Gilbert is upfront about how fortunate she was to be able to experience this year of exploration.  Had she failed to acknowledge how extraordinary her opportunities were, the book would have been more a travel log of a privileged woman than a discourse of revelation.  In Italy she pursues her lifelong desire to learn to speak Italian.  Living in Rome, she soaks up the culture through the people, food and language.  Before heading to her second country, two changes in Gilbert’s are evident.  Her path to healing has begun and she’s gained weight from eating delicious food.

In India, Gilbert has arranged to visit the Ashram of her guru.  During her time at this temple of meditation and prayer, the author transitions from a person haunted by her demons, to a woman who has conquered much of her darker side.  With humility and beauty, she describes her spiritual experiences that bring her more peace of mind than she had previously ever known.

The author’s final destination is Indonesia. In Bali, her life’s paradigm shift is completed.  Not only does she improve the lives of the people around her through acts of personal charity and gain the friendship of a ninth-generation medicine man, but she also finds the love of her life.  Bali is the final puzzle piece in her jigsaw journey of discovery.

Throughout her travels Gilbert collects a bevy of personalities and characters that move her own story forward.  She admits that she is blessed with an outgoing, welcoming personality that helps her find friends anywhere.  There seems to be divine providence at work during her year abroad.  From the coincidences of travel to the people she meets, everything comes together to make her transformative story work.

I know Eat, Pray, Love was made into a movie, but I missed it and have no interest in seeing it.  The book is so well-crafted, I do not believe any film could do it justice.  Gilbert’s style is clear, gentle and enlightened.  Not only is this book written in Gilbert’s voice, as a definite bonus, she also reads it to the listener.  This brings a special element to the memoir because you can hear her emotions and her honesty.  If you want a book about self-discovery, travel and celebration of life try Eat, Pray, Love.

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A Moveable Feast, by Ernest Hemingway

The Lost Generation returns to active duty every few years as it captures the imagination of each generation that follows. Hemingway, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Joyce, Eliot, Stein, Pound, Picasso and company flicker by in images on the walls of our brains: wild parties, spirited discussions, sidewalk cafes, manly men, and lively women, eternal poster children for a creative new generation taking the world by storm.

Recently the Paris emigrés have resurfaced in Woody Allen’s lovely Midnight in Paris, Paula McLain’s The Paris Wife, and in an earlier in David McCullough’s The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris 1830-1900.

Forever at the center of this circle, occupying just the position he would like, despite any protestations to the contrary, is Ernest Hemingway. No matter what one thinks of the man, one must admit that his presence is as vivid as ever. Personally, I admire his lean, economical writing style and the idea of grace under pressure, but loathe his chest-beating narcissism and the way he treated his wives. Ultimately, it would be a shame to let your feelings about the man keep you away from his best work or from appreciating its resounding echoes through generations of other writers.

If you want to read Hemingway on the Lost Generation, you have two basic choices. Fiction fans should probably pursue The Sun also Rises at some point (although the frequent assignment of this book to high schoolers—who find the ennui of drunken, burnt out thirty-somethings completely alien—is a personal pet peeve).  I prefer A Moveable Feast, Hemingway’s nonfiction about his early years in Paris with first wife Hadley. In a series of vignettes, he captures the place, the people, and the good and bad in himself.

The long gestation of Feast is fascinating. It was constructed from notes taken at the time, which Hemingway began to cobble into a memoir when he rediscovered them in the mid 1950s. The book didn’t actually see publication until 1964, when after his death, his last wife and literary executor Mary edited it into publication readiness. Another revision appeared in 2009 under the guidance of grandson Seán. Scholars have disputed Hemingway’s characterizations of Fitzgerald, Ford Madox Ford, and Stein; questioned his depictions of himself as a starving artist or as completely self-assured; and mourned Mary’s removal of his apologies to Hadley. Quibbles aside, however, the heart of the book beats strongly. It’s still a fast and evocative read after all these years, one that’s at the heart of the Hemingway mystique.

Check the WRL catalog for A Moveable Feast

Or listen to it on audio CDs

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Drama: An Actor’s Education, by John Lithgow

When John Lithgow collects another acting award—a frequent occurence for a man who has won the Tony, the Golden Globe, and the Emmy among other trophies—he always gets a little more applause than the other winners. Perhaps the fond regard of his fellow actors is the highest award of all for Lithgow. It made the publication of his memoir of special interest to this reader.

Drama: An Actor’s Education is exactly what the title implies, a look at all of the events that brought Lithgow to his current status in the profession. As such, it’s more focused than most actor biographies, concentrating more on his youth and development as a stage actor and less on his most famous later roles on television and film. What it lacks in gossipy tales of contact with inflated egos (the one time Lithgow takes a colleague to task, he withholds the name), it more than makes up for with frank, often humble accounts of the many pitfalls he negotiated in his rise to stardom.

Central to the story is Lithgow’s complicated relationship with his father, an actor and theatrical producer of some skill whose star never rose beyond the regional theater. Young John struggled to escape his father’s shadow and find his approval. Later, he had to cope with the awkwardness that comes when child eclipses parent.

Lithgow is especially good at conveying how, in his youth, he was entranced by the lure of the theatre. He’s refreshingly honest about his mistakes as well, particularly in admitting to foolish affairs (most prominently with Liv Ullman) that led to the distruction of his first marriage. He’s generous in giving credit to all the people who helped make him what he is as an actor.

Because Lithgow has played a great variety of roles on stage and screen, worked at every level from playing humble parts to starring and also directing, his perspective is broad and well-informed. Whether you are interested in this particular actor, the art and process of acting in theater and film, or just the experience of a person trying to learn a skill and succeed, I think you’ll enjoy his book.

Check the WRL catalog for Drama: An Actor’s Education

Or try the book on audio CD, as read by Lithgow himself

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Moonwalking with Einstein, by Joshua Foer

I’ve always believed I possessed a good memory, but as my forties progress, and especially since I’ve taken up the amateur theatrical life and the line memorization that comes with it, I’ve had to face the limits of my brain more frequently. So when I saw good reviews for a book about all things memory, I had to give it a try.

A trip to the World Memory Championships in pursuit of a magazine article sends Joshua Foer (brother of the novelist Jonathan Safran Foer) on a year-long memory odyssey in Moonwalking with Einstein.

At competitive memory events, contestants battle to remember the longest strings of random numbers possible, to recite poems word-for-word after an initial reading, and to memorize the sequence of a shuffled deck of cards as quickly as possible (among other events). Apparently American competitors aren’t quite up to world standard, and a cocky young European convinces Foer that with his expert training, Foer could be a real competitor at the next American championship. Curious about the potential of his mind, Joshua begins.

Over the coming year, he participates in studies with memory scientists, meets both gifted savants and sad medical cases with severe memory disabilities, and learns a variety of methods for enhancing the capacity of his memory. He discovers that “photographic” memories are considered a fiction by memory scientists and along the way uncovers the fraudulent claims of one memory expert. He is baptized in the quirky fraternity of competitive memory experts. He learns the ancient technique of the “memory palace,” and other methods that allowed scholars to memorize entire books before modern practices, an overload of information, and contemporary technologies wiped away most of our facility with this ancient intellectual art.

The book culminates as Foer scopes out the competition and puts his obsessive year of hard work to the test at the American championships. To save a little suspense, I won’t tell you whether or not he won, but I will say that Foer explained a few tricks that have made memorization easier for me. Regardless of the strength of your memory, I think you’ll be as fascinated as I was by a prime example of immersive journalism that gives the reader a better understanding of the capacities of the human brain.

Check the WRL catalog for Moonwalking with Einstein

We also have the book in large print or ebook format

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A Whole New Life, by Reynolds Price

Reading A Whole New Life made an enduring impact on me, and I’ve recommended it to individuals suffering from chronic illnesses or severe pain. Those who have read it reported that it was extremely comforting and led them to seek alternative pain management avenues they had not previously considered.

Perhaps, my experience with this book feels so profound to me due to the serendipitous way in which I discovered it on the sparsely populated shelves of a new library in 1995. I recognized the author because I have a book of his short stories used in a literature course I had taken at Hendrix College. I obtained Reynolds Price’s autograph for my book in 1985 when he was in residence there for the debut of his play August Snow, commissioned by the Hendrix theater department. Many of the events recounted in A Whole New Life occurred during that time, and it was not until I read this book that I realized what a dramatic period of Price’s life I had briefly witnessed! I was spending a lot of time at the Cabe Theatre that fall, for a theatre arts class, and recall seeing Reynolds Price in a wheelchair during production sessions with the actors. I hadn’t realized that he had lost his ability to walk so recently and that the request to write August Snow was the impetus for eradicating a bout of writer’s block he’d been experiencing since the cancer and its treatment, the only interruption of his writing gift since his childhood.

“… and I heard the summons as coming from some benign source more complex than a college. … With the first week of work, however slow and against the grain of the past jangled months, I tasted the old lost pleasure of mimicry and vicarious life, the pleasure of becoming people other than me and with other dilemmas as grave as mine.”

In this memoir, Price testifies to his ordeal with a spinal tumor that caused paralysis, depression, and debilitating pain as well as to his spiritual experience and a healing vision that comes across as very authentic and quite inspirational. He survived with a grace and gratitude that instilled in me the desire to strive toward responding to whatever the future brings with acceptance and fortitude. Even religious skeptics will appreciate his eloquence in relating his spiritual growth in an honest manner that never seems preachy.

You can’t go wrong with a master of the well-told story. In the process, Price gives the reader an idea of what it’s like to go through such a life-changing experience, from the first unsettling thoughts regarding symptoms and events leading up to his diagnosis and his receiving the terrible news, to the effects on his relationships with family, friends, and loved ones and the permanent changes to his lifestyle and work environment. An appendix includes relevant poetry that he elucidates within the story.

Please explore the WRL catalog for A Whole New Life and other works by Reynolds Price. Blogging for a Good Book posted a tribute to him following his death in January 2011, with “Farewell, Reynolds Price.”

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Waiter Rant, by The Waiter

The anonymous writer who subsequently revealed himself to be Steve Dublanica upon the publication of his second book is the creator of an award-winning blog in which he aired the behind-the-scenes dirty laundry of his workplaces in trendy New York restaurants. It’s often suggested that employees should avoid potentially slanderous comments online about their coworkers, bosses, or customers. Dublanica managed this anonymously for years with the only person ever pegging him as “the guy who writes that blog” turning out to be a famous actor who had patronized an upper-class bistro where he worked.

With hilarious anecdotes, Waiter Rant chronicles Dublanica’s early days as a fumbling beginner, at age 30, through his development into a top waiter with management responsibilities. He dealt with a lot of ups and downs, insane dealings with bosses and owners, but enjoyed being able to please the majority of his customers. His background in a Catholic seminary and a psychology degree helped him handle the toughest customers with ease. This “rant” made me recall my own awkward challenges with learning how to negotiate the delicate relationships and pecking order between wait staff and management as well as the hardworking kitchen crew and often-arrogant bartenders when I waitressed while in college and a few other times while I was still figuring out what I wanted to become. Apparently, restaurants are often quite the dysfunctional family, places where sexism, racism, nepotism, ethnic discrimination, segregation, indentured servitude, and sexual harassment are all alive and well.

The author had become disillusioned after a foray into various short-lived healthcare jobs that had made him feel victimized, alienated, and depressed, and had only taken the waiter job in order to make ends meet but found himself working in the business for more than ten years. Writing his blog and eventually publishing this memoir helped him find his career in writing, but simultaneously he contemplated continuing the service job because he found that he is quite good at it.

“Just like at the seminary and in my previous job, I once again found myself surrounded by well-educated people who looked good, said the right things, and behaved dishonestly.”

Restaurant employees as well as customers concerned about getting an insider’s advice that will get them priority seating as well as prevent them from eating food contaminated by a disgruntled server will appreciate this book. It’s also a good laugh with some amusing tongue-in-cheek stories and a perspective on human behavior that only an eavesdropping server can share. One thing the author loves and appreciates about being a waiter is being an anonymous witness to many of life’s moments that often occur over restaurant meals such as marriage proposals and life-changing conversations.

Check the WRL catalog for Waiter Rant, also available in audiobook format.

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Paris in Love: A Memoir, by Eloisa James

Mary Bly has published a charming memoir and travelogue of her family’s one-year sabbatical in Paris under her pen name, which has been selling romance novels since the late 1990s. As herself, Mary Bly is a Harvard, Oxford and Yale educated literature professor teaching Shakespeare at Fordham University who secretly published romances (successfully enough to pay all of her graduate school loans!) until she obtained tenure. Eloisa James is now regularly on the bestseller lists.

Paris in Love is a compilation of snippets from her carefully-composed Facebook entries along with some longer essays reflecting upon her carefree year in the “city of love” without deadlines and with few obligations. This makes it a perfect book for picking up and dipping into any page for the amusement of reading just a few paragraphs whenever you’re waiting somewhere, or just keeping it on the bedside or coffee table like you would a magazine. I found that I easily kept turning the pages.

Both parents are college professors, so they found it easy to take time off from work. Mary really wanted to make this drastic change because she had just survived breast cancer and was trying to force herself to savor life a little more fervently. Paris had also been on her bucket list since she was little. Emboldened with this second lease on life, they even sold their New Jersey home and gave away many of their possessions before flying off to France. Some of their time is spent in Italy, where Mary’s Italian husband Allessandro has family. Their children, 15-year old Luca and 11-year old Anna, who did not want to leave her friends in the states, provide excellent fodder for laugh-out-loud moments throughout the book. The reader gets to know each family member’s idiosyncrasies as well as a lot of interesting detail about Paris life, people, and culture.  My favorite parts are about the daughter’s rebellious nature and her exploits at school.

Two things appealed to me about this little memoir: the extravagant idea of spending an entire year living quite whimsically from day to day in a famously romantic and decadent city like Paris, and the author’s background as an Oxford scholar and Shakespeare professor. I’d love to know what it’s like to feel so free from deadlines, and I find inspiration in Mary Bly’s success story for my teenaged daughter, who has her heart set on attending Oxford University and becoming a literature professor.

Eloisa James has an official web site where you can match her delightful descriptions with photographs of her family members, including the obese Chihuahua named Milo.

Check the WRL catalog for Paris in Love: A Memoir.

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Below Stairs, by Margaret Powell

The runaway popularity of the BBC’s Downton Abbey has rekindled an interest in all things upstairs-downstairs, including this memoir, first published in 1968. Reprinted and blurbed as “The Classic Kitchen Maid’s Memoir That Inspired Upstairs, Downstairs and Downton Abbey,” it’s a plain-spoken reminiscence of life in domestic service in England in the 1920s.

Born in 1907, Margaret Powell went into service at age 14 as a kitchen maid (at Downton, she’d be Daisy). She eventually parlayed her experience into a position as cook at a variety of well-to-do households. A frustrated teacher, cut off from further education by lack of money, Powell had a hard time adapting to life below stairs, with its long hours, raw-knuckled scrubbing, and circumscribed social life. The class divide between upstairs and downstairs was the worst. Polishing their brass, scouring their floors, and ironing their bootlaces, Powell never bought into the idea that her employers were all that and a bag of chips. Early on, she was reprimanded for handing her mistress a newspaper that should have been placed on a silver salver: “Tears started to trickle down my cheeks; that someone could think that you were so low that you couldn’t even hand them anything out of your hands…”

“The employers always claimed that the training they gave you stood you in good stead when you left and married and had a family of your own. When I left domestic service I took with me the knowledge of how to cook an elaborate seven-course dinner and an enormous inferiority complex; I can’t say that I found those an asset to my married life.”

Powell’s account is a down-to-earth, no-nonsense counterbalance to television’s soap-operatic melodramas. There’s nothing romanticized about the work or the living conditions, which she escaped as soon as she could land a husband, and the grim reality of a young, single housemaid caught pregnant plays out very differently than is likely on Masterpiece Theater. Powell’s voice comes through clearly, like a long chat with a great-aunt (OK, OK, maybe foods had more flavor back in the day, but I had to laugh at her observation that spiders used to spin more complicated webs. They just don’t make arachnids like they used to!). It’s a quick read and an interesting window into a time and place.

And while you’re on the waiting list, you should be reading Rosina Harrison’s account of life as Lady Astor’s lady’s maid, Rose: My Life in Service.

Check the WRL catalog for Below Stairs.

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