Reading Ivan Doig

Book Lover's Cafe met on November 3 and discussed favorite books written by Seattle author Ivan Doig. Residents of Port Townsend particularly enjoy reading "Winter Brothers". The book relates the life of James Swan, an early resident of Port Townsend and Neah Bay and a collector of Northwest artifacts for the Smithsonian Institution.

We also enjoy reading the Montana trilogy that begins with "Dancing at the Rascal Fair", a personal all time favorite of mine. The family saga continues with "English Creek" and concludes with "Ride with Me, Mariah Montana.

Ivan Doig, the author selected for November, gave a radio interview Friday 11/07/08 about his latest book "The Eleventh Man" on the Weekday 9 a.m. hour on public radio station KUOW 94.9.

Here's the link to download a podcast:

http://www.kuow.org/program.php?current=WK1

Kathleen in Port Townsend, WA where retirement is great

Sue Estes recommends "Agent Zig Zag" by Dan MacIntyre. 2007

Vivian Chapin thinks the novel "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle" by David Wroblowski 2008, and "The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey" by Candice Millard, 2005, are well worth your time .

"A Sudden Country", by Karen Fisher is highly recommended by Brad Offutt.

WHAT WE ARE READING

Librarians out rowing.
August 26, 2008.

It's now autumn and we are excited about all the great books we have been reading and want to share with you. Here are our current staff picks:


Theresa Percy Sante Fe Trail: It's History, Legends and Lore by David Dary. 2001
Jody Glaubman Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon. 2007
Carol Costello Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson. 1994
Bev Moore The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein. 2008
Cris Wilson Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo. 2007
Terry Campbell Bangkok Haunts by John Burdett. 2007
Christina Lobo The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. 2004
Kiesy Strauchon Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule by Thomas Frank. 2008
Lee Brown The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald. 1958
Lynn Ring Down the Garden Path by Beverley Nichols. 1932
Kitty Gibson The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets by Eva Rice. 2006
Kathi Johnson The Knitting Circle by Ann Hood. 2007
Jean Tarascio The Forbidden Daughter by Shobhan Bantwell. 2008
Dave Van Kleeck In the Spirit of Happiness by Monks of New Skete 2001

Book clubs looking for ideas can check out these helpful websites:
http://www.readinggroupchoices.com/

http://bookgroupbuzz.booklistonline.com/

Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer

Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer by Warren St. John. Crown. 2004.

Reviewed by David Van Kleeck, Staff

Thank goodness college football season is just around the corner! Maybe you have to have been raised in the South, like me, to understand that sentiment. It’s a land of passions. Sweet tea, BBQ, Baptist churches, tailgating, and college football.

Warren St. John’s book gives the reader a wide ranging insight into some of these passions. For an entire season he joined the legions of University of Alabama fans that travel by RV to all home and away Tide games. He knows where of he speaks and he knows how to put it down on paper. Growing up a Bama fan in Birmingham, where Bear Bryant was and still is considered a god; he later went to Columbia University and now writes for the New York Times. With just the right blend of storytelling and analysis, he shows us what it’s like inside the hearts and minds of many typical Southeastern Conference football fans.

The whole RV subculture that surrounds college football is a fantastic bit of the American way of life. In Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer St. John skillfully illuminates the Crimson Tide version of it. Sure, some of these folks are rednecks. Sure, some of them seem to have plenty of disposable income. Enough in fact, to afford RVs that are nicer than my house; maybe yours too! And, no doubt, some of them have a psychological condition that a team of doctors couldn’t decode, but it sure is fun to read about them.

If you’re a college football fan, you’ll feel right at home with this book. If you aren’t, then you’ll get a delightful glimpse into the wonderful world these folks live in.

Spoiler alert: The title comes from a cheer Alabama fans chant near the end of games when they’re winning - great fun!

Here’s a link to St. John’s Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer website: http://www.rammerjammeryellowhammer.com/

the post-birthday world

the post-birthday world. Lionel Shriver. Harper Collins. 2008

Reviewed by Cris Wilson

What would you choose? Passion and risk, with a handsome London East-End Snooker champion or security and domesticity, with a rumpled American think-tank intellectual? This relationship pageturner gives both options a go for Irina Galina. In one chapter she stays with popcorn-in-front-of-the-telly, Lawrence, and in the next chapter she goes on tour with Ramsey the snooker player, staying in 5 star hotels, eating scallops in saffron cream, and drinking till morning.

Irina is a children's book illustrator and it looks like she's going to throw her career away as she goes on tour for over a year with Ramsey. The reader is not sure Irina should choose to stay with Lawrence either. Why is he going to Russia for a month without her? Life does not always let us keep the cake in the post-birthday world. This is my pick for a summer beach read.

Not Even Wrong: Adventures in Autism

Not Even Wrong: Adventures in Autism. Paul Collins. Bloomsbury House. New York. 2004

Reviewed by Dorothy Coakley, Patron




I fly back and forth from Port Townsend to San Francisco about once a month. Sometimes I pick up a book from the PT library for the journey. If I forget, I get one from a vendor at SEATAC. All of the books are short enough to be read on one flight but interesting enough to take away the tedium of travel.

Paul Collins is an articulate author, researcher and reviewer who happens to have an autistic son named Morgan. The child can read, spell, and do arithmetic, but lives in a world of his own. Unable to answer to his own name, Morgan is a riddle to his own parents and to those around him.

As Morgan's dad struggles to communicate with the boy, he also researches autism in general. His studies include "Peter the Wild Boy, (an early autistic savant), Temple Grandin, the autistic animal researcher, and a visit to the Autism Center at the University of Washington which was "funded by an unnamed Microsoft executive."

Paul Collins has given us a journey into the joys and stresses of parenthood, the meaning of "normal behavior"and a new understanding of the nature of autism. All of this is a short, lively book that can be read on a two hour journey. Put it into your flight bag.

Dorothy Coakley (Port Townsend/Berkeley)

1776

1776. by David McCullough. Simon & Schuster. 2005

Reviewed by Dave Van Kleeck

David McCullough is a great story teller. 1776 is another fine example of his Pulitzer Prize winning ability to engage even the most history-phobic among us and turn whatever subject he tackles into a fascinating read.

Focusing on the title year, he shows us many of the key events and participants in this critical period of the American Revolution. We see just how tenuous the American cause was, not just in the face of superior British forces, but in the making-it-up-as-we-go-along strategies of the Continental Congress and the army under his command.

Central to McCullough’s book is the remarkable growth of Washington as a commander. Through hard lessons learned on the battlefield, in winter camps, and in his dealings with the Congress, he faced an incredibly steep learning curve. Yet, learn he did, and McCullough deftly describes this transformation in Washington. At less than 300 pages of text 1776 is an intriguing read. Due to McCullough’s wonderful writing one can easily soak up the rich history of the era. Whether reading history is at the top of your list or well down it, I bet you’ll find that 1776 is well worth the time. Enjoy.

Also, if you’re a fan of David McCullough as a narrator, you’ll love his reading of 1776 in the book on CD edition. The library has both the regular and large print editions of the book as well as the book on CD.

Here’s a link to a piece on NPR about 1776. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4724787

Ordinary Wolves by Seth Kantner

Ordinary Wolves. Seth Kantner.
Milkweed Editions. 2004

Reviewed by Cris Wilson

Although this book is a novel, it struck me as one of the most vividly accurate books about life in bush Alaska yet written. Forget Krakauer and even McPhee. The book's narrator is a young white boy named Cutuk, who lives with his father and his brother and sister outside a native village accessible only by mail plane. I once was a teacher in a similar village where I flew out to work with white families living a subsistance lifestyle. I know the toll it takes on the kids who can't claim membership in either world. That was the life of Seth Kantner who was raised 200 miles from the nearest village. He expresses the wonder and the heartbreak of growing up and trying to find a way as an adult when the only place he truely feels right is in camp by the river. Who are the wolves? Are they on the tundra or in Anchorage? A truely extraordinary story.

Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace One school at a Time

by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

Greg's story begins on K2 in the Balti region of Pakistan as a great mountain climbing survival tale. But this is not the most exciting part of the book. We learn that the same qualities that make a successful climber also enable Greg to overcome obstacles to build a one room school in remote Northern Pakistan. He survives fatwas issued by mullahs and kidnapping in Waziristan. He succeeds by being a completely genuine citizen of this earth. He then works on, from his basement in Bozeman, to establish the Central Asia Institute that has built 64 schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as created vocational opportunities and libraries for the women in these villages. Yes, all this, while the Taliban and Al-Qaeda were also on the move in a region where Americans are mostly feared and hated. This book is truly inspirational and hopeful in a time when good news is hard to find.

Cris Wilson

Suite Francaise

by Irene Nemirovsky

This book is a great mixture of imagination and history of the fall of France in 1940. The first section "Storm in June," follows a cross section of the Parisian population as they come to terms with the impending disaster. Most of the characters are from the elite class and are spoilt and self centered. They feel they have a right to good food and lodging as they flee the capital. The story shows how much caste and class matter and how people were really on their own. The French countryside in all its lush summer beauty is described in contrast to the devastating path of the war.

The second part, "Dolce" covers the occupation by the Germans of a small French village. The French see the war as a conflict between the Germans and the British and they are just waiting for a return to peace and a normal life. Nemirovsky describes how easy it is for women to befriend the young German soldiers, especially when most of the village men are fighting or imprisoned. The Germans are depicted as individuals capable of acts of consideration and kindness instead of a monolithic evil force rolling over the countryside.

Once you have finished the book it is vital to read the appendix. The story of Irene Nemirovsky during the war and then what happened to her manuscripts until they were published 60 years later is another book in itself.

Cris Wilson

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
by Jean Dominique Bauby

This spring the library began hosting a new book club called the Book Lover's Cafe. We meet at the Port Townsend Community Center Lounge the first Monday of the month at 2:30. The group began with a short work of nonfiction, Jean Dominique Bauby's “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.” Bauby was paralyzed by a brain stem stroke that left him a quadriplegic with "locked-in syndrome" able only to blink the left eye lid to communicate. Bauby helped us empathize with the emotions he felt when he vividly recalled "the simmering memories" of preparing and eating meals and the loss of physical activity and sensual touch. We also noted the lines that the "glory of friendship keeps the vultures at bay". Bauby so appreciated letters when friends wrote of slices from their everyday life rather than spiritual or philosophical bromides.

His writing was neither bitter nor full of self pity. It was a very realistic description of his plight yet full of ironic humor and lyrical flights of imagination.

We also discussed future book club reads. Here are some of the suggested titles.


Life of Pi- Yann Martel
An award winner in Canada (and winner of the 2002 Man Booker Prize), Life of Pi, Yann Martel's second novel, should prove to be a breakout book in the U.S. At one point in his journey, Pi recounts, "My greatest wish--other than salvation--was to have a book. A long book with a never-ending story. One that I could read again and again, with new eyes and fresh understanding each time." It's safe to say that the fabulous, fablelike Life of Pi is such a book. --Brad Thomas Parsons

Bel Canto- Ann Patchett
Amazon.com's Best of 2001In an unnamed South American country, a world-renowned soprano sings at a birthday party in honor of a visiting Japanese industrial titan. His hosts hope that Mr. Hosokawa can be persuaded to build a factory in their Third World backwater. Alas, in the opening sequence, just as the accompanist kisses the soprano, a ragtag band of 18 terrorists enters the vice-presidential mansion through the air conditioning ducts. Their quarry is the president, who has unfortunately stayed home to watch a favorite soap opera. And thus, from the beginning, things go awry.


The Inheritance of Loss- Kiran Desai
Desai's second novel is set in the nineteen-eighties in the northeast corner of India, where the borders of several Himalayan states—Bhutan and Sikkim, Nepal and Tibet—meet. At the head of the novel's teeming cast is Jemubhai Patel, a Cambridge-educated judge who has retired from serving a country he finds "too messy for justice." He lives in an isolated house with his cook, his orphaned seventeen-year-old granddaughter, and a red setter, whose company Jemubhai prefers to that of human beings. The tranquillity of his existence is contrasted with the life of the cook's son, working in grimy Manhattan restaurants, and with his granddaughter's affair with a Nepali tutor involved in an insurgency that irrevocably alters Jemubhai's life. Briskly paced and sumptuously written, the novel ponders questions of nationhood, modernity, and class, in ways both moving and revelatory.

Elegy for Iris- John Bayley
Memoir by the husband of novelist Iris Murdoch of her life and effects of her struggle with Alzhemiers

The Worst Hard Time- Tim Egan
From The New Yorker On April 14, 1935, the biggest dust storm on record descended over five states, from the Dakotas to Amarillo, Texas. People standing a few feet apart could not see each other; if they touched, they risked being knocked over by the static electricity that the dust created in the air. The Dust Bowl was the product of reckless, market-driven farming that had so abused the land that, when dry weather came, the wind lifted up millions of acres of topsoil and whipped it around in "black blizzards," which blew as far east as New York. This ecological disaster rapidly disfigured whole communities. Egan's portraits of the families who stayed behind are sobering and far less familiar than those of the "exodusters" who staggered out of the High Plains. He tells of towns depopulated to this day, a mother who watched her baby die of "dust pneumonia," and farmers who gathered tumbleweed as food for their cattle and, eventually, for their children.



In the Heart of the Sea: the Sinking of a the Whale Ship Essex- Nathaniel Philbrick
Amazon.comThe appeal of Dava Sobel's Longitude was, in part, that it illuminated a little-known piece of history through a series of captivating incidents and engaging personalities. Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea is certainly cast from the same mold, examining the 19th-century Pacific whaling industry through the arc of the sinking of the whaleship Essex by a boisterous sperm whale. The story that inspired Herman Melville's classic Moby-Dick has a lot going for it--derring-do, cannibalism, rescue--and Philbrick proves an amiable and well-informed narrator, providing both context and detail. We learn about the importance and mechanics of blubber production--a vital source of oil--and we get the nuts and bolts of harpooning and life aboard whalers. We are spared neither the nitty-gritty of open boats nor the sucking of human bones dry.

Cris Wilson

Party Out of Bounds

Party Out of Bounds: the B-52s, R.E.M. and the Kids Who Rocked Athens, Georgia. by Rodger Lyle Brown. everthemore books. 2003.

Reviewed by Dave Van Kleeck


Just think about the wonderful trajectory of some of the centers of creativity in American popular music over the last few decades. It seems like you could skip effortlessly back and forth across the country, at least a couple of times, in trying to get to each one. Traveling from the Folk scene of Greenwich Village, out to the vibes of the San Francisco Bay area and Los Angeles, then back to Detroit for the Motown sound, and down south for the Southern Rock scene coming out of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina, then to the College Rock milieu of Athens, Georgia, and finally back out west to Seattle for the Grunge Rock scene, you could easily cover a lot of ground. Think about the lives and times these trajectories have covered too. Stopping at each of these centers of inventiveness you'd work your way through the Sixties, the Seventies, the Eighties, and the Nineties. Whew!

Just visualize some of the artists and bands that have come from each of these pivotal places: there is Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan singing in Greenwich Village; Big Brother & the Holding Co., Country Joe & the Fish, and the Grateful Dead playing in San Francisco; the Byrds and the Buffalo Springfield launching folk rock in L.A.; Smoky Robinson, the Temptations, and Martha & the Vandellas shaking in Detroit; the Marshall Tucker Band and the Allman Brothers Band jamming in the 70s South; the B-52s, Love Tractor, and R.E.M. rocking in Athens; and finally, Pearl Jam and Nirvana putting Seattle on the map. Kind of restores your faith in America, doesn't it?

In view of the release of R.E.M.'s Accelerator album this past week, I thought it would be fun to highlight a book in the library's collection that focuses on the Athens, GA scene of the 1980s. Entitled Party Out of Bounds: The B-52's, R.E.M. and the Kids Who Rocked Athens, Georgia and written by Rodger Lyle Brown, it lays out much of the carrying on that went on in the town where College Rock stirred itself out of dingy clubs and frat parties into the mainstream of popular music. Originally published in 1991 and reprinted with a new introduction in 2003, it "tells the story of a town and a time that has become legendary in the history of contemporary popular art and music. Witten by someone who was at the center of the Athens music scene, the book is a 'you-are-there' account of wild kids rampaging in ramshackle houses jamming on pawnshop guitars, creating the scene that gave birth to such important bands as the B-52s and R.E.M."

As you'll learn from the book there was so much more going on in Athens than just the rise of these two bands. It was also a cultural nexus of highly talented and highly original artists, musicians, and poets. The B-52s and R.E.M. were but a part of this vibrant, peculiarly Southern vortex. Some of my favorites from the Athens scene include Jim Herbert, the painter, filmmaker, and Michael Stipe's art professor at the University of Georgia with his eccentric, yet highly engaging aesthetic; the band Pylon (all you have to do is watch the footage of them in the film "Athens, GA: Inside Out" to see why); and Love Tractor, another unconventional band that pushed boundaries and stirred a friendly rivalry with R.E.M. Even the visionary folk artist Reverend Howard Finster appears in the book.

All in all, this is a fun read. As the author freely admits, it’s a “conjured” history and certainly not scholarly, but for those of you interested in this stop on the trek across America's musical landscape, it's way worth your time!

Welcome to Pageturners

In "People of the Book" Geraldine Brooks has created an astonishing story based on the history of the actual Sarajevo Haggadah, an ancient Jewish prayer text. The Haggadah is an illuminated manuscript from the fourteenth century that went missing during the Serbian bombing of Sarajevo in 1992. The chief librarian of the Bosnian National Museum, a Muslim, risked his life to rescue the Haggadah. In 1996 the book has come to life again.

In Brooks’ novel Hannah Heath, a rare book specialist, a very skilled conservator, is chosen to work her powers on the Haggadah. She brings to her task her amazing ability to analyze, interpret and imagine parts of the journey the book has taken. Hannah discovers several bits in the aged text’s spine: a piece of an insect’s wing, a reddish stain, a grain of salt and a white hair. From these small spare clues she teases out the stories of several people giving us a very rich tapestry of character and place, spanning centuries and cities, Seville, Tarragona, Venice, Vienna. And we follow another road, Hannah’s other journey, her own story, revealing fiction, intrigue and deceit as she criss crosses continents tracking the Haggadah's clues.

Brooks won the 2006 Pulitzer prize for fiction for her novel “March”. Her work for the Wall Street Journal as a foreign correspondent in Bosnia, the Middle East and Somalia have greatly informed her writing of other peoples, other cultures.


by KZ