I was recently at a benefit auction that had tons, literally hundreds, of gift baskets for the silent auction part. Imagine my giddiness when one of those baskets had a design book and a gift certificate for a one hour design consultation. I DIE.
Yes, I guarded my bid all night. Yes, I can be a jerk. Cue evil laughter.
The book is the Comfortable Home by Mitchell Gold and Bob Williams. I *heart* design books. They are big and glossy and drool worthy. Plus, they look great on your coffee table!
I am slightly familiar with Gold and Williams. They design classic furniture and bedding etc.
The book is organized to help you along your home design journey and begins like every book on design: clip pictures that you love. Which I do. I have a binder full of gorgeous pictures for inspiration. And, on my refrigerator is a paper protector sleeve full of kitchen inspiration pictures.
Inspiration is the easy part. Seriously, who couldn't look at House Beautiful and find 10 inspiring rooms? The hard part is putting it together. It takes time. Design is never done. It is ever evolving. And there are some very tricky parts.
For example, room layout. How do you arrange your furniture to make the most of the room and to facilitate all that you use that room for? The Comfortable Home provides templates for different room layouts, from tiny spaces to grand spaces. I found this part of the book particularly helpful and useful.
Another feature of the book is taking a room and decorating it two different ways so you can see how dramatically different a room can be.
The photos are beautiful and it doesn't disappoint on the glossy beauty front. However, the design is very classic and very safe. The rooms are beautiful, but don't seem INSPIRED to me. You know those rooms that just ooze character and individuality? There were none of those. Anyone could live in these rooms. They could be staged for a sale...no personality. Very safe.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
The Kindness of Strangers
While looking for books on traveling with children, I happened across this book in the stacks. I was actually at the library alone, so I had time to browse.
It's a compilation of stories by both published and first-time authors about encounters with kind strangers while traveling around the world. With an introduction by the Dalai Lama and a focus throughout on kindness and what binds us together as humans, this book radiated faith in the goodness of people.
A little bit of everything and a fast read, this book would make an excellent companion on a journey or a good escape through the adventures of others for the homebound.
It's a compilation of stories by both published and first-time authors about encounters with kind strangers while traveling around the world. With an introduction by the Dalai Lama and a focus throughout on kindness and what binds us together as humans, this book radiated faith in the goodness of people.
A little bit of everything and a fast read, this book would make an excellent companion on a journey or a good escape through the adventures of others for the homebound.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
The Hole in Our Gospel
Don't let the word "Gospel" throw you off. This book is about social justice, plain and simple. It's about authentic faith. It's about poverty, children, hunger, injustice and what the Church with a capital C is neglecting. It's about the gaping hole in the message of Hope Christians are supposed to be promoting.
Richard Stearns is the current president of World Vision, a Christian based humanitarian organization. In the first part of the book he tells the story of how he was challenged to leave his job as CEO of Lenox, a luxury tableware company, and take the CEO position at World Vision. He is brutally honest about his struggle and eventual realization that "he is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose".
The first part of the book tells Stearns' story and as an avid memoir and biography reader, I thoroughly enjoyed it and appreciated the humility and transparency with which he shared his journey. The second part is a dizzying account of the statistics of poverty and injustice in our world. The third section is a challenge to do something about it.
This book has changed my thinking, or rather solidified my thinking. I've traveled to a third world country. I sponsor two children, one in Bolivia and one in Sierra Leone. We give money to various international charities. These issues are ones I think about...but this book took it to a new level.
Here are a few of the statistics I found staggering, "...AIDS has now left 15 million children behind as orphans. Again, this is a number that is incomprehensible. Picture a chain of children holding hands and stretching out across America. This chain, starting in New York, would stretch all the way to Seattle, back to Philadelphia, back to San Francisco, then east to Washington DC, back again to Los Angeles, and finally to about Kansas City." Can you see those children?
"It is estimated that a child dies every five seconds from hunger-related causes." That means about 12 children died in the time it's taken you to read this blog post to this point.
I could go on with the statistics but it becomes mind-numbing. Stearns does a great job of using word pictures, like the chain of children one above, to make the statistics real. But can we really fathom it? Does it mean anything to us?
Stearns advocates that it should. He constantly puts things in perspective with statistics like this one, "If you make $50,000 per year, you are wealthier than 99 percent of the world! ... If you don't feel rich, it's because you are comparing yourself to people who have more than you do--those living above even the 99th percentile of global wealth. It's also because we tend to gauge whether or not we are wealthy based on the things we don't have...our difficulty is that we see our American lifestyles as normative, when in fact they are grossly distorted compared to the rest of the world. We don't believe we are wealthy, so we don't see it as our responsibility to help the poor. We are deceived."
He also calls the Church to account for its negligence in these matters. He clarifies that not all churches are lacking and that many have done great things. But in general, all could do more. He states, "There is much at stake. The world we live in is under siege--three billion are desperately poor, one billion hungry, millions are trafficked in human slavery, ten million children die needlessly each year, wars and conflicts are wreaking havoc, pandemic diseases are spreading, ethnic hatred is flaming, and terrorism is growing...and in the midst of this stands the Church of Jesus Christ in America, with the resources, knowledge, and tools unequaled in the history of Christendom. When historians look back in one hundred years, what will they write about this nation of 340,000 churches? ... Will they write of ... Christians who lived in luxury and self-indulgence while millions died for lack of food and water?"
The call to action section of the book is full of stories of individuals making huge differences by simply offering what they are able. This one was my favorite: Austin Gutwein, a nine-year-old learned about children orphaned by AIDS. He decided he could do something so he decided to shoot 2,057 free throws on World AIDS day, one for each child orphaned by AIDS that day. He got people to sponsor him and raised almost $3,000. Today, he's raised almost a million dollars. A nine-year old.
I am contemplating what I can do. What more I can do. How I can teach my children to live with compassion, generosity, and genuine faith. I want to get beyond the feeling of hopelessness and find a way to help. Even if it's small, I have to do something. How can I not?
Richard Stearns is the current president of World Vision, a Christian based humanitarian organization. In the first part of the book he tells the story of how he was challenged to leave his job as CEO of Lenox, a luxury tableware company, and take the CEO position at World Vision. He is brutally honest about his struggle and eventual realization that "he is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose".
The first part of the book tells Stearns' story and as an avid memoir and biography reader, I thoroughly enjoyed it and appreciated the humility and transparency with which he shared his journey. The second part is a dizzying account of the statistics of poverty and injustice in our world. The third section is a challenge to do something about it.
This book has changed my thinking, or rather solidified my thinking. I've traveled to a third world country. I sponsor two children, one in Bolivia and one in Sierra Leone. We give money to various international charities. These issues are ones I think about...but this book took it to a new level.
Here are a few of the statistics I found staggering, "...AIDS has now left 15 million children behind as orphans. Again, this is a number that is incomprehensible. Picture a chain of children holding hands and stretching out across America. This chain, starting in New York, would stretch all the way to Seattle, back to Philadelphia, back to San Francisco, then east to Washington DC, back again to Los Angeles, and finally to about Kansas City." Can you see those children?
"It is estimated that a child dies every five seconds from hunger-related causes." That means about 12 children died in the time it's taken you to read this blog post to this point.
I could go on with the statistics but it becomes mind-numbing. Stearns does a great job of using word pictures, like the chain of children one above, to make the statistics real. But can we really fathom it? Does it mean anything to us?
Stearns advocates that it should. He constantly puts things in perspective with statistics like this one, "If you make $50,000 per year, you are wealthier than 99 percent of the world! ... If you don't feel rich, it's because you are comparing yourself to people who have more than you do--those living above even the 99th percentile of global wealth. It's also because we tend to gauge whether or not we are wealthy based on the things we don't have...our difficulty is that we see our American lifestyles as normative, when in fact they are grossly distorted compared to the rest of the world. We don't believe we are wealthy, so we don't see it as our responsibility to help the poor. We are deceived."
He also calls the Church to account for its negligence in these matters. He clarifies that not all churches are lacking and that many have done great things. But in general, all could do more. He states, "There is much at stake. The world we live in is under siege--three billion are desperately poor, one billion hungry, millions are trafficked in human slavery, ten million children die needlessly each year, wars and conflicts are wreaking havoc, pandemic diseases are spreading, ethnic hatred is flaming, and terrorism is growing...and in the midst of this stands the Church of Jesus Christ in America, with the resources, knowledge, and tools unequaled in the history of Christendom. When historians look back in one hundred years, what will they write about this nation of 340,000 churches? ... Will they write of ... Christians who lived in luxury and self-indulgence while millions died for lack of food and water?"
The call to action section of the book is full of stories of individuals making huge differences by simply offering what they are able. This one was my favorite: Austin Gutwein, a nine-year-old learned about children orphaned by AIDS. He decided he could do something so he decided to shoot 2,057 free throws on World AIDS day, one for each child orphaned by AIDS that day. He got people to sponsor him and raised almost $3,000. Today, he's raised almost a million dollars. A nine-year old.
I am contemplating what I can do. What more I can do. How I can teach my children to live with compassion, generosity, and genuine faith. I want to get beyond the feeling of hopelessness and find a way to help. Even if it's small, I have to do something. How can I not?
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
12 Months of Reading
Last night I met with my real-in-the-flesh book club. We go to a coffee shop once a month and last night was our book selection night. We each brought two books (or summaries of our two choices) and people voted and picked one.
Here is the list of what we will be reading the next twevle months:
NOVEMBER - Firefly Lane by Kristen Hannah
DECEMBER - Little Bee by Chris Cleave
JANUARY - Frankenstein by Mary Shelly
FEBRUARY - Thousand Splended Suns by Khaled Hosseini
MARCH - Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
APRIL - Moloka'i by Alan Brennert
MAY - Same Kind of Different As Me by Ron Hall
JUNE - The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson
JULY - Mao's Last Dancer by Li Cunxin
AUGUST - Leaving the Saints by Martha Beck
SEPTEMBER - Color of Water by James McBride
OCTOBER - Traveler's Gift by Andy Andrews
This looks like a great list! I'm surprised because I haven't read a single one. Anyone read any of these?
Here is the list of what we will be reading the next twevle months:
NOVEMBER - Firefly Lane by Kristen Hannah
DECEMBER - Little Bee by Chris Cleave
JANUARY - Frankenstein by Mary Shelly
FEBRUARY - Thousand Splended Suns by Khaled Hosseini
MARCH - Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
APRIL - Moloka'i by Alan Brennert
MAY - Same Kind of Different As Me by Ron Hall
JUNE - The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson
JULY - Mao's Last Dancer by Li Cunxin
AUGUST - Leaving the Saints by Martha Beck
SEPTEMBER - Color of Water by James McBride
OCTOBER - Traveler's Gift by Andy Andrews
This looks like a great list! I'm surprised because I haven't read a single one. Anyone read any of these?
Saturday, October 16, 2010
The Things They Carried
Apparently this is a classic, at least for military types. Which is probably why I didn't know about it. It was one of those "interesting covers" books in the library in the Staff Favorites area. I read the jacket flap and it sounded fascinating.
The whole book read like a nonfiction memoir, especially because the author gave his main character his name and occupation (writer). I checked the back of the title page many times and it states directly that it is fiction. It seems to be based on the author's memory, however. You can read more information here.
This book is a collection of related short stories, with common themes throughout. It follows a platoon in Vietnam and explores their changing reactions to war, violence, death and "normalcy".
The author writes with a blunt candor yet in a strange beautifully poetic way. This was one of my favorite passages:
"For the most part they carried themselves with poise, a kind of dignity. Now and then, however, there were times of panic, when they squealed or wanted to squeal but couldn't, when they twitched and made moaning sounds and covered their heads and said Dear Jesus and flopped around on the earth and fired their weapons blindly and cringed and sobbed and begged for the noise to stop and went wild and made stupid promises to themselves and to God and to their mothers and fathers, hoping not to die. In different ways, it happened to all of them. Afterward when the firing ended, they would blink and peek up. They would touch their bodies, feeling shame, then quickly hiding it...as if in slow motion, frame by frame, the world would take on the old logic--absolute silence, then the wind, then sunlight, then voices. It was the burden of being alive." (p. 19).
If you are looking for reading material out of your ordinary genres, pick this one up.
The whole book read like a nonfiction memoir, especially because the author gave his main character his name and occupation (writer). I checked the back of the title page many times and it states directly that it is fiction. It seems to be based on the author's memory, however. You can read more information here.
This book is a collection of related short stories, with common themes throughout. It follows a platoon in Vietnam and explores their changing reactions to war, violence, death and "normalcy".
The author writes with a blunt candor yet in a strange beautifully poetic way. This was one of my favorite passages:
"For the most part they carried themselves with poise, a kind of dignity. Now and then, however, there were times of panic, when they squealed or wanted to squeal but couldn't, when they twitched and made moaning sounds and covered their heads and said Dear Jesus and flopped around on the earth and fired their weapons blindly and cringed and sobbed and begged for the noise to stop and went wild and made stupid promises to themselves and to God and to their mothers and fathers, hoping not to die. In different ways, it happened to all of them. Afterward when the firing ended, they would blink and peek up. They would touch their bodies, feeling shame, then quickly hiding it...as if in slow motion, frame by frame, the world would take on the old logic--absolute silence, then the wind, then sunlight, then voices. It was the burden of being alive." (p. 19).
If you are looking for reading material out of your ordinary genres, pick this one up.
Friday, October 15, 2010
I Am Charlotte Simmons
If you ask me for a book recommendation, the one that first comes to mind is Tom Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons. Of course, anything Tom Wolfe is brilliant. But, at the time I read Charlotte Simmons, I was just past the age of Charlotte, with enough similar experiences and just enough time between those experiences and reading the book that I could put it into perspective.
Charlotte is a brilliant college freshman who has led a sheltered life. She goes to a very prestigious university and is culture shocked and completely let down by it. The cast of characters includes the stereotypical college types: the frat guy, the intellectual (socially awkward) geek, and the star basketball player.
What is simply amazing about this book is that an older guy wrote it. He does an amazing job of capturing college life. He did lots of research on college campuses including Stanford and Michigan. With one little exception, a completely melodramatic boy induced depression, he nails the life of a college girl. Or, a college girl like me.
I certainly was not as smart as Charlotte Simmons, but I was definitely the sheltered girl who went to the big fancy school and got an education. Before I started college I barely knew what brand names were, let alone high end brand names. Gucci for example. Not a lot of need for designer duds when growing up on a ranch. I remember using a month's worth of food money for a pair of Diesel jeans...just like Charlotte.
I've read reviews that pan Wolfe for setting the stage to make a big social commentary on college life, race relations, and sex hierarchies. Or saying that Wolfe trying to "shock" us. Having been there, nothing in the book is that shocking and telling it like it is...well, it is what it is.
This is definitely one of my favorite books. Have you read it? What do you think? If you haven't read it, go get it right now! It reads fast. And, stop by and let me know what you think.
Charlotte is a brilliant college freshman who has led a sheltered life. She goes to a very prestigious university and is culture shocked and completely let down by it. The cast of characters includes the stereotypical college types: the frat guy, the intellectual (socially awkward) geek, and the star basketball player.
What is simply amazing about this book is that an older guy wrote it. He does an amazing job of capturing college life. He did lots of research on college campuses including Stanford and Michigan. With one little exception, a completely melodramatic boy induced depression, he nails the life of a college girl. Or, a college girl like me.
I certainly was not as smart as Charlotte Simmons, but I was definitely the sheltered girl who went to the big fancy school and got an education. Before I started college I barely knew what brand names were, let alone high end brand names. Gucci for example. Not a lot of need for designer duds when growing up on a ranch. I remember using a month's worth of food money for a pair of Diesel jeans...just like Charlotte.
I've read reviews that pan Wolfe for setting the stage to make a big social commentary on college life, race relations, and sex hierarchies. Or saying that Wolfe trying to "shock" us. Having been there, nothing in the book is that shocking and telling it like it is...well, it is what it is.
This is definitely one of my favorite books. Have you read it? What do you think? If you haven't read it, go get it right now! It reads fast. And, stop by and let me know what you think.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Sleeping Through the Night
This book was the only book on infant and toddler sleep that wasn't checked out of the library. That made me feel a little better. Apparently I am not alone in my quest for my baby to sleep all night, or alone in the desire to sleep all night. Or at least for more than three hours at a time.
I've been down this road before. I swore I would never make the same mistakes twice. But then I did. Because the mistakes are easier at the time, and because I was trying to figure out how to get two kids to nap and go to bed, and because I was flying solo a lot of the time.
In my quest about a year and a half ago, I read many sleep books and articles on the internet. I read Ferber and Sears; I read the No-Cry Sleep Solution and the Baby Whisperer; I read Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Child, which was my favorite and the approach that ultimately worked for my son.
For those of you who've never had to pry your bleary eyes open for the third time in a night at 4:00 am, I doubt you've given much thought to how to get a baby to sleep. I know I never did. I love to sleep! It's one of my favorite things. Little did I realize how complicated it really can be.
Most sleep books talk about the basic structure of sleep, how it works, etc. So I skipped right on through those chapters. In essence, every human wakes up multiple times in the night. And every human figures out ways to fall back asleep, often without even realizing they awoke (or they have insomnia). Babies begin to associate "conditions" with sleep at an early age.
Parents unwittingly (or in my case, knowingly) cause negative sleep conditions by providing "sleep props" that help the baby sleep and consequently must be there when the baby awakes naturally several times a night. If a baby gets a bottle, or breastfed, or rocked or sung to (you get the idea) to fall asleep, then they expect that at night. Wouldn't you be a little disturbed if you awoke and your favorite pillow and blanket had been removed in the night and placed in the hallway?
Experts disagree about how best to respond to night-wakings. Some advocate straight crying-it-out and others promote a gentler approach. Still others say do whatever it takes to get your baby to sleep as it's your responsibility as a parent. And as a parent, there can be a lot of guilt and angst involved when sleep-training occurs.
This book provides the most moderate, middle-of-the-road approach I've read yet. Basically, you do the sleep-training only when you are putting the child to bed in the evening. After you've established a set bedtime and a bedtime routine (something all experts agree is crucial) then you lay the baby down awake in the crib and leave. Most babies will cry, some will scream. The parent should continue to check in and stay no more than a minute, then leave again, continuing this until the baby falls asleep. On average, the first night babies cry 40 minutes, the second night 60+minutes and the third night 20 minutes. After that most babies will simply fall asleep, maybe with a little crying.
But what is different (and so encouraging if it works) about this book is that the author advocates continuing to do whatever you normally do in the middle of the night to get the baby to sleep. She says within two weeks of sleep training at bedtime, most babies will learn to console themselves to sleep and will begin sleeping through the night.
When we did sleep-training with our son, we did cry-it-out in the middle of the night. It was awful...he screamed for more than an hour (from midnight to one thirty) the first night. Personally, I'd rather go through the crying earlier in the evening when I'm not desperate for sleep. And I also now have a two-year-old that I don't want to awaken from his sister's crying for long periods in the middle of the night.
We've got a trip coming up so now isn't a good time to start, but the book provided several ideas for changing things that I can do now without implementing the full-on training. I feel like this book and this author finally gave me a solution I can live with. Highly recommended.
I've been down this road before. I swore I would never make the same mistakes twice. But then I did. Because the mistakes are easier at the time, and because I was trying to figure out how to get two kids to nap and go to bed, and because I was flying solo a lot of the time.
In my quest about a year and a half ago, I read many sleep books and articles on the internet. I read Ferber and Sears; I read the No-Cry Sleep Solution and the Baby Whisperer; I read Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Child, which was my favorite and the approach that ultimately worked for my son.
For those of you who've never had to pry your bleary eyes open for the third time in a night at 4:00 am, I doubt you've given much thought to how to get a baby to sleep. I know I never did. I love to sleep! It's one of my favorite things. Little did I realize how complicated it really can be.
Most sleep books talk about the basic structure of sleep, how it works, etc. So I skipped right on through those chapters. In essence, every human wakes up multiple times in the night. And every human figures out ways to fall back asleep, often without even realizing they awoke (or they have insomnia). Babies begin to associate "conditions" with sleep at an early age.
Parents unwittingly (or in my case, knowingly) cause negative sleep conditions by providing "sleep props" that help the baby sleep and consequently must be there when the baby awakes naturally several times a night. If a baby gets a bottle, or breastfed, or rocked or sung to (you get the idea) to fall asleep, then they expect that at night. Wouldn't you be a little disturbed if you awoke and your favorite pillow and blanket had been removed in the night and placed in the hallway?
Experts disagree about how best to respond to night-wakings. Some advocate straight crying-it-out and others promote a gentler approach. Still others say do whatever it takes to get your baby to sleep as it's your responsibility as a parent. And as a parent, there can be a lot of guilt and angst involved when sleep-training occurs.
This book provides the most moderate, middle-of-the-road approach I've read yet. Basically, you do the sleep-training only when you are putting the child to bed in the evening. After you've established a set bedtime and a bedtime routine (something all experts agree is crucial) then you lay the baby down awake in the crib and leave. Most babies will cry, some will scream. The parent should continue to check in and stay no more than a minute, then leave again, continuing this until the baby falls asleep. On average, the first night babies cry 40 minutes, the second night 60+minutes and the third night 20 minutes. After that most babies will simply fall asleep, maybe with a little crying.
But what is different (and so encouraging if it works) about this book is that the author advocates continuing to do whatever you normally do in the middle of the night to get the baby to sleep. She says within two weeks of sleep training at bedtime, most babies will learn to console themselves to sleep and will begin sleeping through the night.
When we did sleep-training with our son, we did cry-it-out in the middle of the night. It was awful...he screamed for more than an hour (from midnight to one thirty) the first night. Personally, I'd rather go through the crying earlier in the evening when I'm not desperate for sleep. And I also now have a two-year-old that I don't want to awaken from his sister's crying for long periods in the middle of the night.
We've got a trip coming up so now isn't a good time to start, but the book provided several ideas for changing things that I can do now without implementing the full-on training. I feel like this book and this author finally gave me a solution I can live with. Highly recommended.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Authors to Love: Julia Glass
I just now realized that one of my favorite authors, Julia Glass, has a new book out.
I can't wait to get my paws on this book. I have loved all of her previous books, however, her first book is still my favorite. She has the ability to weave lives together and just when you think paths won't cross, they do.
From Publishers Weekly, "The artful construction of this seductive novel and the mature, compassionate wisdom permeating it would be impressive for a seasoned writer, but it's all the more remarkable in a debut. This narrative of the McLeod family during three vital summers is rich with implications about the bonds and stresses of kin and friendship, the ache of loneliness and the cautious tendrils of renewal blossoming in unexpected ways. Glass depicts the mysterious twists of fate and cosmic (but unobtrusive) coincidences that bring people together, and the self-doubts and lack of communication that can keep them apart, in three fluidly connected sections in which characters interact over a decade. These people are entirely at home in their beautifully detailed settings Greece, rural Scotland, Greenwich Village and the Hamptons and are fully dimensional in their moments of both frailty and grace. Paul McLeod, the reticent Scots widower introduced in the first section, is the father of Fenno, the central character of the middle section, who is a reserved, self-protective gay bookstore owner in Manhattan; both have dealings with the third section's searching young artist, Fern Olitsky, whose guilt in the wake of her husband's death leaves her longing for and fearful of beginning anew. Other characters are memorably individualistic: an acerbic music critic dying of AIDS, Fenno's emotionally elusive mother, his sibling twins and their wives, and his insouciant lover among them."
From Publisher's Weekly, "In her second rich, subtle novel, Glass reveals how the past impinges on the present, and how small incidents of fate and chance determine the future. Greenie Duquette has a small bakery in Manhattan's West Village that supplies pastries to restaurants, including that of her genial gay friend Walter. When Walter recommends Greenie to the governor of New Mexico, she seizes the chance to become the Southwesterner's pastry chef and to take a break from her marriage to Alan Glazier, a psychiatrist with hidden issues. Taking their four-year-old son, George, with her, Greenie leaves for New Mexico, while figures from her and Alan's pasts challenge their already strained marriage. Their lives intersect with those of such fully dimensional secondary characters as Fenno McLeod, the gay bookseller from Three Junes; Saga, a 30-something woman who lost her memory in an accident; and Saga's Uncle Marsden, a Yale ecologist who takes care of her. While this work is less emotionally gripping than Three Junes, Glass brings the same assured narrative drive and engaging prose to this exploration of the quest for love and its tests—absence, doubt, infidelity, guilt and loss."
From Publisher's Weekly by Lydia Millet, "The fictional palate of Julia Glass, bestselling author of 2002's Three Junes, is one of dog-breeding women and foxhunts, tony Manhattan galleries and boutiques, European travel and haute-cuisine chefs. In common with Rebecca Wells's Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood franchise, Glass's third novel, I See You Everywhere, has female bonding among the landed gentry, a focus on relationships, and devil-may-care, enigmatically charming women of great romantic allure. Like Three Junes, the novel is a series of vignettes across the years, in this instance from the points of view of two sisters with different personalities. Louisa, the elder, is the steady sister on the lookout for love, while Clem is the younger sister, an adventuring, restless spirit with an unfortunate habit of chewing men up and spitting them out. Their parents, too, resemble those in Three Junes: the mother is obsessed with raising and training expensive dogs on a country estate (this time in Rhode Island instead of Scotland); their father is a good-natured, kindly soul who plays second fiddle to a powerful wife. Louisa, not unlike Glass herself, is an urban woman who inhabits the New York art world and moves from making art (pottery) to writing; Clem, being a wilder sort, has a passion for wild animals and moves around the remoter reaches of the continent as an itinerant biologist to do contract work with charismatic fauna ranging from seals to grizzly bears. It's not entirely clear how the sisters relate to each other's livelihoods; Clem seems largely uninterested in art, whereas Louisa alternates between lavishly praising her sister's work to save animals as heroic and referring to polar bears, in 2005, as like Al Gore... suddenly all the alarmist rage. City and country mouse have a wary, competitive, sometimes antagonistic relationship grounded in affection; they occasionally steal each other's boyfriends, but are usually there for each other in times of need, up to and including possible drowning, maiming and cancer. Both cook well, though Louisa is the true gourmet. Clem is better in the sack, at least if we take her word for it: as she says in a letter—reminding us, perhaps inadvertently, of the piña colada song—what she likes most in life are laughter, sex, champagne and sunsets. The sisters do have music in common: though both white, they listen almost exclusively to music by black performers, from Billie Holiday to Bob Marley.I See You Everywhere has a bourgeois, chick lit sensibility, minus the proud vacuousness of the Bushnell set and plus a somewhat unexpected, sad vanishing act by one of the protagonists. It should prove an engaging and intelligent, though not literary, page-turner for sisters who like to revel in sisterhood."
I can't wait to get my paws on this book. I have loved all of her previous books, however, her first book is still my favorite. She has the ability to weave lives together and just when you think paths won't cross, they do.
From Publishers Weekly, "The artful construction of this seductive novel and the mature, compassionate wisdom permeating it would be impressive for a seasoned writer, but it's all the more remarkable in a debut. This narrative of the McLeod family during three vital summers is rich with implications about the bonds and stresses of kin and friendship, the ache of loneliness and the cautious tendrils of renewal blossoming in unexpected ways. Glass depicts the mysterious twists of fate and cosmic (but unobtrusive) coincidences that bring people together, and the self-doubts and lack of communication that can keep them apart, in three fluidly connected sections in which characters interact over a decade. These people are entirely at home in their beautifully detailed settings Greece, rural Scotland, Greenwich Village and the Hamptons and are fully dimensional in their moments of both frailty and grace. Paul McLeod, the reticent Scots widower introduced in the first section, is the father of Fenno, the central character of the middle section, who is a reserved, self-protective gay bookstore owner in Manhattan; both have dealings with the third section's searching young artist, Fern Olitsky, whose guilt in the wake of her husband's death leaves her longing for and fearful of beginning anew. Other characters are memorably individualistic: an acerbic music critic dying of AIDS, Fenno's emotionally elusive mother, his sibling twins and their wives, and his insouciant lover among them."
From Publisher's Weekly, "In her second rich, subtle novel, Glass reveals how the past impinges on the present, and how small incidents of fate and chance determine the future. Greenie Duquette has a small bakery in Manhattan's West Village that supplies pastries to restaurants, including that of her genial gay friend Walter. When Walter recommends Greenie to the governor of New Mexico, she seizes the chance to become the Southwesterner's pastry chef and to take a break from her marriage to Alan Glazier, a psychiatrist with hidden issues. Taking their four-year-old son, George, with her, Greenie leaves for New Mexico, while figures from her and Alan's pasts challenge their already strained marriage. Their lives intersect with those of such fully dimensional secondary characters as Fenno McLeod, the gay bookseller from Three Junes; Saga, a 30-something woman who lost her memory in an accident; and Saga's Uncle Marsden, a Yale ecologist who takes care of her. While this work is less emotionally gripping than Three Junes, Glass brings the same assured narrative drive and engaging prose to this exploration of the quest for love and its tests—absence, doubt, infidelity, guilt and loss."
From Publisher's Weekly by Lydia Millet, "The fictional palate of Julia Glass, bestselling author of 2002's Three Junes, is one of dog-breeding women and foxhunts, tony Manhattan galleries and boutiques, European travel and haute-cuisine chefs. In common with Rebecca Wells's Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood franchise, Glass's third novel, I See You Everywhere, has female bonding among the landed gentry, a focus on relationships, and devil-may-care, enigmatically charming women of great romantic allure. Like Three Junes, the novel is a series of vignettes across the years, in this instance from the points of view of two sisters with different personalities. Louisa, the elder, is the steady sister on the lookout for love, while Clem is the younger sister, an adventuring, restless spirit with an unfortunate habit of chewing men up and spitting them out. Their parents, too, resemble those in Three Junes: the mother is obsessed with raising and training expensive dogs on a country estate (this time in Rhode Island instead of Scotland); their father is a good-natured, kindly soul who plays second fiddle to a powerful wife. Louisa, not unlike Glass herself, is an urban woman who inhabits the New York art world and moves from making art (pottery) to writing; Clem, being a wilder sort, has a passion for wild animals and moves around the remoter reaches of the continent as an itinerant biologist to do contract work with charismatic fauna ranging from seals to grizzly bears. It's not entirely clear how the sisters relate to each other's livelihoods; Clem seems largely uninterested in art, whereas Louisa alternates between lavishly praising her sister's work to save animals as heroic and referring to polar bears, in 2005, as like Al Gore... suddenly all the alarmist rage. City and country mouse have a wary, competitive, sometimes antagonistic relationship grounded in affection; they occasionally steal each other's boyfriends, but are usually there for each other in times of need, up to and including possible drowning, maiming and cancer. Both cook well, though Louisa is the true gourmet. Clem is better in the sack, at least if we take her word for it: as she says in a letter—reminding us, perhaps inadvertently, of the piña colada song—what she likes most in life are laughter, sex, champagne and sunsets. The sisters do have music in common: though both white, they listen almost exclusively to music by black performers, from Billie Holiday to Bob Marley.I See You Everywhere has a bourgeois, chick lit sensibility, minus the proud vacuousness of the Bushnell set and plus a somewhat unexpected, sad vanishing act by one of the protagonists. It should prove an engaging and intelligent, though not literary, page-turner for sisters who like to revel in sisterhood."
Friday, October 8, 2010
The Girl Who Fell From the Sky
I judge books by their covers. When I'm strolling through the library, I look for interesting covers and titles. With my two little ones in tow, I don't have time to peruse the stacks like I used to. The cover of this book drew me in.
What a fascinating story Durrow has created. Tragedy woven with growing up tied into racial identity. Told from multiple points of view at multiple points in time, this book kept me turning the pages to see what happened next (or had already happened but not yet been revealed).
Who are we really? And what is the deepest kind of love? This book explores those questions in a way that I could identify with. Highly recommended.
What a fascinating story Durrow has created. Tragedy woven with growing up tied into racial identity. Told from multiple points of view at multiple points in time, this book kept me turning the pages to see what happened next (or had already happened but not yet been revealed).
Who are we really? And what is the deepest kind of love? This book explores those questions in a way that I could identify with. Highly recommended.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Am I a Hipster?
Here it is. My first post on this blog. I spent the weekend thinking about my varied reading interests, the little "kicks" I get on and what possibly I could blog about. I have gone through so many phases. One month loving biographies, to the next obsession of re-reading college textbooks, to where I am right now... which is, plain and simple, hard to describe.
I'm in an actual, real-life bookclub. We are going on almost 2 years now. I've gotten to read some great books and not so great books. It just comes with the territory of putting a group of ladies together with different backgrounds and interests. I may review some of those books on here, but I'm finding my true interest and love is in articles.
Right now, I'd say I break up my reading to about 30% novels to 70% articles of various topics (blogs, politics, religion, social justice, pop culture, fashion, and self-help). I'm just a sucker for a well-written article! And having a baby to take care of really changes my reading schedule. My time is broken down into much smaller increments, thus making article reading that much more attractive.
So my first review for the blog HAD to be about an article that I found super interesting. I have heard a lot lately about "hipsters" - on television, internet, and especially in pop culture. I needed the Urban Dictionary definition because for awhile, I wasn't quite wrapping my brain around the term.
It says "Hipsters are a subculture of men and women typically in their 20's and 30's that value independent thinking, counter-culture, progressive politics, an appreciation of art and indie-rock, creativity, intelligence, and witty banter"
Full definition here
When I saw that the September issue of Christianity Today had a cover article titled "Hipster Faith" I had to check it out.
I'm so glad I did. It was one of the best written pieces about my generation of Believers to date (at least that I've come across). On top of that, the article explained so much about the struggle I have with the "mega church" mentality. FYI - if you have no idea what I am talking about, do a quick google search and you'll be informed of mega churches in no time.
The article had a great historical overview that I really enjoyed. And when I read "in order to be a hipster, one must be a rebel" I fully understood why I feel so much connection to hipster Christianity. I like to fly against the norm. I always have. I like to shake things up. That's why this article really struck me. I can't say I agree with every single thing in this article (ie. progressive politics and publicity stunts for shock value) but overall, it was great.
The next logical question was and is - does this make me a hipster? I think maybe so (gasp!). I found myself agreeing with so much of what the hipster movement stands for. Tell me what you think. Are you a hipster? And if so, how do you add faith into the mix?
I'm in an actual, real-life bookclub. We are going on almost 2 years now. I've gotten to read some great books and not so great books. It just comes with the territory of putting a group of ladies together with different backgrounds and interests. I may review some of those books on here, but I'm finding my true interest and love is in articles.
Right now, I'd say I break up my reading to about 30% novels to 70% articles of various topics (blogs, politics, religion, social justice, pop culture, fashion, and self-help). I'm just a sucker for a well-written article! And having a baby to take care of really changes my reading schedule. My time is broken down into much smaller increments, thus making article reading that much more attractive.
So my first review for the blog HAD to be about an article that I found super interesting. I have heard a lot lately about "hipsters" - on television, internet, and especially in pop culture. I needed the Urban Dictionary definition because for awhile, I wasn't quite wrapping my brain around the term.
It says "Hipsters are a subculture of men and women typically in their 20's and 30's that value independent thinking, counter-culture, progressive politics, an appreciation of art and indie-rock, creativity, intelligence, and witty banter"
Full definition here
When I saw that the September issue of Christianity Today had a cover article titled "Hipster Faith" I had to check it out.
I'm so glad I did. It was one of the best written pieces about my generation of Believers to date (at least that I've come across). On top of that, the article explained so much about the struggle I have with the "mega church" mentality. FYI - if you have no idea what I am talking about, do a quick google search and you'll be informed of mega churches in no time. The article had a great historical overview that I really enjoyed. And when I read "in order to be a hipster, one must be a rebel" I fully understood why I feel so much connection to hipster Christianity. I like to fly against the norm. I always have. I like to shake things up. That's why this article really struck me. I can't say I agree with every single thing in this article (ie. progressive politics and publicity stunts for shock value) but overall, it was great.
The next logical question was and is - does this make me a hipster? I think maybe so (gasp!). I found myself agreeing with so much of what the hipster movement stands for. Tell me what you think. Are you a hipster? And if so, how do you add faith into the mix?
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Book Club Review: The Book Of Salt
I kept reading The Book of Salt for its intoxicating language not its gripping story. While the actual story has a lot of merit and could be very intriguing, I found it was the language that kept bringing me back, not an intense desire to know how the story would end. Because there was no other way it could end. The book travels back and forth through time in a very dreamy manner, from Bin's childhood in his mother's kitchen, to his time on the seas, to his time at 27 rue de Fleurus.
Bin, a Vietnamese cook, comes to Paris after disgrace, hardship, and heartbreak and finds employment with Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas. Life certainly doesn't get any easier for Bin who constantly hears the derision of his father, The Old Man, in every step he takes.
I was constantly searching for the meaning of the title, "The Book of Salt". Which made me pay particular attention to every reference to salt. There were the obvious references to salt in cooking, and the less obvious references to salt in tears and in the sea. And, maybe I'm reading too much into to it, but a lot of salt in Bin's wounds.
"Intriguing," however, always calls for a second look, an irresistible glance back, a heightened desire to know and to have. Intrigue cannot be added at the very end. A sprinkling of sequins, a glazing of glass beads, a handful of store bought fringes, all suggest a lack of forethought, like salting a roast after it has cooked as opposed to before. My Madame knows that intrigue, like salt, is best if it is there from the beginning."
"A pinch of salt, according to my Madame, should not be a primitive reflex, a nervous twitch on the part of any cook, especially one working at 27 rue de Fleurus. Salt is an ingredient to be considered and carefully weighed like all others. The true taste of salt--the whole of the sea on the tip of the tongue, sorrow's sting, labor's smack--has been lost, according to my Madame, to centuries of culinary imprudence. It is a taste that Miss Toklas insists is sometimes unnecessary, as in the gazpacho of Malaga, and other times, as in the gazpacho of Segovia, it is the hinge that allows the flavors of the other ingredients to swing wide open. 'In m kitchen, I will tell you when salt is necessary,' my Madame said, concluding the real lesson for that day."
I found that reading about life at 27 rue de Fleurus was endlessly fascinating. I loved reading about Miss Toklas rearranging Gertrude Stein's impressive art collection to make room for new pieces. I loved reading about all the visitors who would worship at the feet of the woman credited with coining the phrase, "The Lost Generation". And, it broke my heart to read about Bin and his lover, Sweet Sunday Man.
One part of the book that made me feel incredibly ignorant was the cameo by Ho Chi Minh. Even when Bin revealed the man on the bridge's name, Nguyen Ai Quoc, I still didn't realize it was supposed to Ho Chi Minh until I read the back of the book and some other reviews.
Overall, I would definitely recommend this book.
Bin, a Vietnamese cook, comes to Paris after disgrace, hardship, and heartbreak and finds employment with Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas. Life certainly doesn't get any easier for Bin who constantly hears the derision of his father, The Old Man, in every step he takes.
I was constantly searching for the meaning of the title, "The Book of Salt". Which made me pay particular attention to every reference to salt. There were the obvious references to salt in cooking, and the less obvious references to salt in tears and in the sea. And, maybe I'm reading too much into to it, but a lot of salt in Bin's wounds.
"Intriguing," however, always calls for a second look, an irresistible glance back, a heightened desire to know and to have. Intrigue cannot be added at the very end. A sprinkling of sequins, a glazing of glass beads, a handful of store bought fringes, all suggest a lack of forethought, like salting a roast after it has cooked as opposed to before. My Madame knows that intrigue, like salt, is best if it is there from the beginning."
"A pinch of salt, according to my Madame, should not be a primitive reflex, a nervous twitch on the part of any cook, especially one working at 27 rue de Fleurus. Salt is an ingredient to be considered and carefully weighed like all others. The true taste of salt--the whole of the sea on the tip of the tongue, sorrow's sting, labor's smack--has been lost, according to my Madame, to centuries of culinary imprudence. It is a taste that Miss Toklas insists is sometimes unnecessary, as in the gazpacho of Malaga, and other times, as in the gazpacho of Segovia, it is the hinge that allows the flavors of the other ingredients to swing wide open. 'In m kitchen, I will tell you when salt is necessary,' my Madame said, concluding the real lesson for that day."
I found that reading about life at 27 rue de Fleurus was endlessly fascinating. I loved reading about Miss Toklas rearranging Gertrude Stein's impressive art collection to make room for new pieces. I loved reading about all the visitors who would worship at the feet of the woman credited with coining the phrase, "The Lost Generation". And, it broke my heart to read about Bin and his lover, Sweet Sunday Man.
One part of the book that made me feel incredibly ignorant was the cameo by Ho Chi Minh. Even when Bin revealed the man on the bridge's name, Nguyen Ai Quoc, I still didn't realize it was supposed to Ho Chi Minh until I read the back of the book and some other reviews.
Overall, I would definitely recommend this book.
Friday, October 1, 2010
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