Out of the Frying Pan

On the reading table (or tablet)

• Crazy U: One Dad's Crash Course in Getting His Kid Into College, Andrew Ferguson. I'm glad I didn't read this book before our family got into the process years ago. Things turn out OK for this kid (as I think they did for ours), but one gets the idea that it was more the operation of luck than the result of a rational exercise. Sitting on the sidelines many years later, I found the book an amusing and poignant fable of true parenting.


• America the Edible: A Hungry History, from Sea to Dining Sea, Adam Richman. Apparently the author hosts a TV travel show; this book might be a riff on it. It hits a number of American cities including Austin and Portland, Maine. The narrative arc is a little contrived, but trying to inflict narrative on travelogue is likely to be, right?


• This Boy's Faith: Notes from a Southern Baptist Upbringing, Hamilton Cain. Having been "brung up" Baptist, myself, I tend to be interested in memoirs such as these, but I wish I'd given this one a miss. There's a lot of reciting of his history here and not much in the way of reflection. His parents get bashed hard and, in my view, unfairly. Over at Amazon I gave it two stars, which was generous.

On the reading table (or tablet)

A couple days late because I'm sometimes lazy about writing, but never about reading!

• Chicken and Egg: A Memoir of Suburban Homesteading with 125 Recipes, Janice Cole. My nascent interest in suburban homesteading is going nowhere but to the bookstore. Although I'm delighted to read other people's stories, more and more I find that I am less and less interested in "cultivating" (har har) any stories of my own. The recipe to text ratio is something like 60/40 or even 70/30: not ideal for the iPad, truthfully, but a good value in the other format.


• Goat Song: A Seasonal Life, A Short History of Herding, and the Art of Making Cheese, Brad Kessler. But if I were amenable to being tipped into homestead behaviors, this is the book that would have done it. In fact, I'll just say it: read this book, because I'm pretty sure you'll enjoy it.


• Sh*t My Dad Says, Justin Halpern. The son of "the least passive-aggressive human being on the planet" serves up a book with an incredible number of LOLs per page. With a humdinger of a coda. Even if you don't buy this book (you should, imho), find a way to read the last chapter. It is one of the most beautifully instructive pieces about life I've come across in quite a while.


• If You Ask Me: (And of Course You Won't), Betty White. What a hoot. Among the many anecdotes, the peek behind the curtains at SNL was priceless.


• Concierge Confidential: The Gloves Come Off--and the Secrets Come Out! Tales from the Man Who Serves Millionaires, Moguls, and Madmen, Michael Fazio and Michael Malice. There's some snarkiness, but the interesting part was about what it takes to get things done... all kinds of things.


• Good Stuff: A Reminiscence of My Father, Cary Grant, Jennifer Grant. I like Cary Grant a lot and would probably even try to read sawdust, okay?

On the reading table (or tablet)

• How to Eat a Small Country, Amy Finley. Dropping marital counseling and moving the scene of the marriage to France together isn't conventional wisdom on how to save a troubled marriage, but it might have worked in this case. Finley, to her husband's great chagrin and disappointment, won a competition on the Food Network for a new cooking show. Why she entered despite his wishes and what they did after she won is grist for this book's mill. I thought it was worth a read, but I was disappointed by how little in terms of good behavior is expected of very young Americans.
• A Box of Darkness: The Story of a Marriage, Sally Ryder Brady. Finley's story was that of early marriage; this story is of a marriage that ends after 46 years with the death of Upton Brady. The secrets Upton leaves behind are, in reality, the harvest of almost half a century of love and deception. I haven't yet decided what I think of this book; I'm only reporting that I read it last week. Cop out...
• Come to the Edge, Christina Haag. Two stories of marriage and now, a story of no marriage at all. Rather, it is a memoir of the author's five year affair with John Kennedy, Jr. The two became acquainted in high school, better acquainted in college, and became lovers at age 25. It would seem that any story involving a Kennedy would be sensationalistic, and yet this is anything but. Rather, it is a meditation on the joy and griefs of an ill-fated love. And, frankly, to me it made sense of Kennedy's death. Some have faulted the quirky timeline the author has chosen. In context of the story, I thought it was an appealing device.
• A Redbird Christmas, Fannie Flagg. When Oswald T. Campbell learns that his health will not see him through another Chicago winter, he takes a bold step into the charmed world of Fannie Flagg. Unlike the sad or uncertain endings of the stories above, in a book by Fannie Flagg, you can depend on things working out. The fun is in seeing how her characters resolve to change... and do.
• Bad Dog (A Love Story), Martin Kihn. Ever heard of the Canine Good Citizen® program? Ever known of a dog who needs it? Meet Hola. Or, rather, wait until he gets through it. Otherwise, you might get knocked over or maybe get a little nip. This completely engaging story of a man and his dog and the marriage the dog almost ruined -- well, it might have been the drinking, too -- had more turns than a boxwood maze. I loved it.

On the reading table (or tablet)

Memoir week here and memoirs can be pretty long sometimes (or maybe they just seem that way).

• The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie, Wendy McClure. McClure's interest in the life of the author of Little House on the Prairie is more than a hobby, but no more obsessive than that of the many people she meets on the trail of Wilder's biography. I had no idea of the museums and pageantry that keep alive the myth of the Little House and truly no concept of the extent to which Wilder's life has been scrutinized.
  
  
• No Biking in the House Without a Helmet, Melissa Fay Greene. I have conflicted feelings about this book. On one hand, there is no doubt but that the writer and her family rescued five children from what would have been horrible lives. On the other hand, I think maybe the author underplays the extent to which privilege plays a role in the story she writes. Without an income many times what constitutes middle class in America today, I doubt that it is possible to pursue Greene's path. It's a virtuous path, to be sure, but also a path of where Greene holds a number of trump cards unavailable to most people pursuing international adoption.
  
  
• Reading My Father: A Memoir, Alexander Styron. If Darkness Visible outed the reality of major depression for the sufferer, Reading My Father documents some of the ways families can be damaged when one member has poorly controlled illness. Reading this book, I have to say it occurred to me that more than unipolar depression was at work here. The mood swings, the rages... I dunno.

I realize I sound kind of cranky this week. Probably I could do with a little light entertainment after all the drama of the week. But what's a memoir without drama? It's my grandma's diary about the weather, the garden, and church-going, that's what. There was plenty of drama in her life, but none of it made it onto the page. These writers have weather and maybe gardens; none of that makes it onto the page because it doesn't make for interesting reading. (Sorry, Grandma!)

On the reading table (or tablet)

This is kind of a clean up week, a sweep of some odds and ends left over from weeks past.

• The Investment Answer, Daniel C. Goldie and Gordon S. Murray. Frankly, once you get away from tips about frugality and basic household finances (topics I had covered about thirty years ago), finance books tend to lose me. This one riveted me because I could understand it. It made sense and I could see clearly how it applies. And I could also see clear action steps. Highly recommended.
• The Ladybug Farm books, Donna Ball. These three books are the purest kind of fantasy. Friends buy a big place in the country together to Change Their Lives and, despite various hardships, It All Works Out. Far, far from the reality of money pits, but sometimes escape is kinda fun, 'kay? ;)
• Lost and Found, Geneen Roth. The acclaimed diet (actually, anti-diet) guru turns out to have been one of the many Madoff victims. It's breathtaking, really, how many victims acted against the more most important investment strategy they knew -- diversify! And the author discovers her yearning for spending "highs" even after being brought low. It's almost anti-climactic that soon after losing it all, she published a best-seller. I think this is worth a read as an inoculation against being stupid with money.
• The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, Maggie O'Farrell. A story of what might have happened to "difficult" daughters in the Edwardian age and, taking the matter further, what might happen now with de-institutionalization. I found this a difficult read; you might like it better.

There are still a few leftovers, but maybe this next week's reading table will prove more interesting.

On the reading table (or tablet)

• My Father at 100, Ron Reagan. The Reagan children have interesting reputations, all, and it is hard to pick up a title by one of them without the reputation somehow preceding them. But if you pick up this book, try to set aside whatever you thought you knew about Ron Reagan and simply travel along on a journey of discovery with its roots in the 19th century. I admire the research and self-awareness that went into the writing of this book. And I am, as you probably know, a great admirer of President Reagan. After reading this book, I find more to admire in him as a man and much to admire about his son as a writer. I'm glad I picked it up.
• This Life Is in Your Hands: One Dream, Sixty Acres and a Family Undone, by Melissa Coleman. This book looks unblinkingly at the cost to a family of a father's single-minded quest to go back to the land as a disciple of Helen and Scott Nearing. It isn't that the mother did not support the dream; it was that the cost of trying to keep a family, not merely the land, fell disproportionately on her, with tragic results. In a way, this is a cautionary tale that should be read by anyone who feels the lure of putting a cause before all else. It's going to cause a world of damage.
• Mrs. Whaley and Her Charleston Garden, by Emily Whaley in conversation with William Baldwin. As much as the previous title was about lives out of balance, this one is about life balanced mentally, spiritually, emotionally, and physically. Oh -- and some of it is about gardening. Fun and inspiring read, even for those of us in zone 5 who cannot know, except by way of this delightful book, the joys of zone 9.
• The shibumi strategy: a powerful way to create meaningful change by Matthew E. May. This brief fable suggests more than teaches strategies for responding to the seismic shifts life sometimes puts in our way. Simplicity, austerity, stillness... "Japanese" ideas in their labels, but mostly good concepts --these and more-- worth considering and incorporating in taking on change.

On the reading table (or tablet)

Even more fluff than usual this week and that's about what I'm up for right now.

• Drawing Conclusions by Donna Leon is the latest in the Commissario Guido Brunetti series. It's a good mystery, not quite a cozy but not in the least blood curdling. I like this series a lot and wish only that this installment included more of the setting that has been so wonderfully evoked in other parts of the series.
• If Ignorance Is Bliss, Why Aren't There More Happy People? compiled by John Lloyd and John Mitchinson. This book of quotations is sorted by topic, which I enjoy. But its title seemed to promise a preponderance of funny quotations. I'm over considering sarcasm and irony to be funny, so I'm kind of over this book, too.
• Speaking of "over"... I'm Over All That by Shirley MacLaine is funny in some of the expected ways, but also actually amusing in the anecdotes she tells from a long career in show business. Some of this book was LOL funny.
• Standing in the Rainbow and Can't Wait to Get to Heaven by Fannie Flagg -- I read these in the wrong order, which usually drives me nuts, but in these happy and poignant novels I lost myself so much in each story that it didn't really matter. If you were my good friend and you were looking for something nice to read, I'd suggest these two books.

It seems that I read more and more on my iPad. It's convenient not only for reading, itself, but also for obtaining books. This past week, for instance, it was delightful to be able to download the Guido Brunetti book on the date of its publication. What I don't like is being unable to pass books along. The "loan" feature of Nook is really attractive; neither iPad nor Kindle have it.

On the reading table (or tablet)

• Keys to Good Cooking: A Guide to Making the Best of Food and Recipes by Harold McGee is a treasure, straight up. Both knowledge and wisdom are served up in liberal measure. And I found an implicit solution to a problem of cooking pasta at altitude (it takes forever): soak it for an hour! Maybe everybody else up here already knows this.
• The Moonflower Vine by Jetta Carleton. When I was 13 years old, I read the Reader's Digest Condensed Version on a cross-county road trip. What a great thing that the book has come out again. With its great sweep across the first 50 years of the 20th century, it's a real family saga. The novel is full of beautiful language and promises, from the outset, to break the reader's heart. I loved it, again, and highly recommend it.
• I Still Dream About You by Fannie Flagg. From the author of Fried Green Tomatoes, a novel that is hilarious and wraps up like a fairy tale. OK, so it's a little cheesy... And your point is?
• Who knows why, but my head was deep into chick lit this week. Of these three titles, the only one I might recommend as an airplane book is The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown. The father of the family insists on speaking in quotations from Shakespeare and it's a sweet story. The Island Elin Hinderbrand starts with pages and pages of language so wooden that you'll swear that you can write a novel but has some entertaining characters. Promises to Keep by Jane Green takes about 150 pages to get a thin story line going. So, in order: "OK", "eh", and "I warned you." Got that? ;-)

On the reading table (or tablet)

• Enchantment by Guy Kawasaki. In this context, enchantment is "the process of delighting people with a product, service, organization or idea." This book is for anyone who needs the power of persuasion -- in other words, everyone. It's a fun read with ideas that will stir up your mind and maybe your behavior. And it has been beta-tested, just like software. About how many books is that true?
• Old Filth by Jane Gardam. What does it mean to be a child of an empire, rather than the child of a natural family? For many, probably most, children born to colonists of the British Empire, it meant being sent "home" from their homes at an early age and knowing their minders, malevolent or benevolent, better than their own parents. Gardam's character Filth (Failed in London, Try Hong Kong) is an exemplar of the type and his story is deeply engrossing.
• The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party by Alexander McCall Smith. The latest installment of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency provides the expected cast of unexpected characters (really, how does he make up these people?) and the regular actors working together to make a fine story of many strands. One version of the e-book is enhanced by 15 short videos of the author talking about the series.
• The Paris Wife by Paula McLain. McLain sought, in this fictional account, to rescue Hemingway's first wife from under the heap of facts about Hemingway's life and she succeeds in virtuoso fashion. Paris after the Great War is right here, Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound included. And so is a plausible version of the woman Hemingway discarded and then yearned for, for the rest of his life.

On the reading table (or tablet)

• I wouldn't like to say why, but recently it was suggested that I revisit Carol Dweck's Mindset. I did and have prominently posted some words to remind me of what Dweck's work shows about growing, learning, and succeeding at life's challenges.
• This Time Together: Laughter and Reflection by Carol Burnett reviews her amazing career, from The Princess and the Pea to the traveling show she stages now, where it is just her on stage and the audience posing questions. Without blinking at the hardships of her life, she lavishes praise, seemingly on anyone who has contributed to her success. An upbeat, classy memoir.
• In My Korean Deli: Risking It All for a Convenience Store, Ben Ryder Howe tells a story of juxtapositions: his WASP background with living and working with his Korean in-laws; buying and breaking his backside in a New York deli while working as senior editor at Paris Review. It's a big, delicious story, with plenty of whiplash as Howe moves between worlds.
• Three Stages of Amazement: A Novel, Carol Edgarian. There it is: I went and read another book with "A Novel" in its title. The book begins with interesting characters in plausible situations and then launches into a kind of fairy tale, complete with the convenient disposition of characters whose survival might have proven problematic. I seem to be allergic to not finishing e-books, so I finished this one, but regret the time spent. Will I learn? (Mindset says I can!)

On the reading table (or tablet)

• A Person of Interest, Susan Choi. The story starts with a bombing and, it comes to seem, an increasingly unfortunate survivor. There are mysteries and secrets and lies and questions that turn on life's ultimate, daily pop quiz: what does it mean to be a good person. I liked this one a lot.
• Solitude, Robert Kull. Kull isn't writing about solitude "from the outside"; for a year he becomes a solitary on an uninhabited island near Chile. The narrative begins with near disaster: how much of his supplies survive a stormy drop-off and how much will he be able to retrieve? This is a long book and to call it narrative might be stretching things. Maybe it's more of a very long reflection. It was an interdisciplinary project, which is to say it's not for everyone.
• A Disorder Peculiar to the Country: A Novel, Ken Kalfus. I wish I'd checked the Amazon star rating on this one first. I figure the title has to call itself a novel because otherwise the book might be called a string of episodes related to a couple of common characters. Meh.
• How Not to Die: Surprising Lessons on Living Longer, Safer, and Healthier from America's Favorite Medical Examiner, Jan Garavaglia. OK, it's a little macabre. But it also has a bunch of scary examples of people who checked out before it should have been closing time. If you know somebody who refuses to visit a doctor or dentist or who does accident-provoking things like being a clutter-bug (guilty, somewhat!), this is the book to scare them to... well, you know.

On the reading table (or tablet)

• Walking in This World: The Practical Art of Creativity, Julia Cameron. In this book, as in Finding Water, the chapters are organized by week, as if one were attending one of Cameron's classes. I like the topics, which include matters like perspective, discernment, and resiliency, but in happy reality I found that each topic took more than a week to go through. The pages are liberally sprinkled with fine quotations. Although I would have appreciated a bibliography, I can also appreciate that this might have been an onerous task. I'll take the quotations and say "thank you."
right: Denver Botanic Gardens, September 2007
• The Truth About Garden Remedies: What Works, What Doesn't, and Why, Jeff Gillman. Okay, I'll cut straight to the chase. Ix-nay on the ammonia, enthusiastic yeps on the compost and eggshells (separately, with dandy "recipes" for prepping the eggshells), don't bother with the hydrogels, NO! with the hydrogen peroxide -- and if you find all this interesting, maybe get the book. The "why" as laid out here tends to include not only the author's own experiments but also surveys of relevant literature. Honestly, I could do with a little less of the "why" because it is the art more than the science of gardening that appeals to me, but I consider this a valuable resource for checking things out.
• Minding Frankie, Maeve Binchy. Her novels are always a place where good (eventually) triumphs, and yet where there is room for the least savory characters to amend their lives. There is sadness, because this is part of life, but throughout this novel there is a sense that the novelist is working things out as life should work out. We should all be so lucky as to live in Binchy's world. That said, if you are looking for something thrilling or intensely provocative, this book is not for you.
• Plutarch's Lives. Haven't finished it. Duh. And I'm wishing for a more modern translation than the one I picked up on iBooks. But having read little more than citations of Plutarch before, it's fascinating. I have a feeling, though, that it's important to stay grounded in real history (The Hemlock Cup, for instance, which I've still not finished). Otherwise, one could get carried away. You know, sort of like Shakespeare did ;)

The non-conformist

The only green shoots in the backyard are from crabgrass, apparently immune even to the coldest temperatures. But the birds are busy; we entertain dozens at a time. Mostly sparrows and house finches, but today I saw many robins -- headed south, ominously -- and even a northern flicker.

I finished up Jodi Picoult's Sing You Home, which disappointed me with its predictability and lack of nuance. It's a novel with a sound track, if that helps in your deliberations about reading it.

Leo Babauta has a good post about how to increase focus. I like the desk clearing idea, but I already have a couple of unyielding little boxes of things in my office. Would it really be a good idea to add another to deal with "later"? I'm thinking.

On the reading table (or tablet)

A few books from the past week:

• Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother & Other Botanical Atrocities, Amy Stewart. Ever heard about the infamous umbrella murder? Where a Soviet defector died as a result of someone "accidentally" poking him with an umbrella. It was no apocryphal tale and the poison was an extract of the benign looking castor bean. This book is full of cautionary information that makes me think twice about at least one of my house plants. These are engaging essays with black and white drawings that fit the macabre subject.
• Finding Water: The Art of Perseverance, Julia Cameron. I was never drawn to the whole "Artist's Way" thing, but found myself picking up this book because I've been needing to develop more perseverance in my work. Cameron is a writer, so writing is the strong suit here. But in the text and exercises, I found much inspiration and even courage. For a person stuck at anything, this might be a useful book.
• Accidental Genius: Using Writing to Generate Your Best Ideas, Insight, and Content, Mark Levy. The title really says it. Levy gives a basic instruction such as "Go with the Thought" and then fleshes out how to approach writing associative thoughts. There are exercises, which I admit to not doing, because the game changer for me is simply the various approaches to probing my mind.
• That's Funny, You Don't Look Buddhist: on Being a Faithful Jew and a Passionate Buddhist, Sylvia Boorstein. This is a collection of little stories, autobiographical for the most part, about Boorstein's spiritual habitation within both Judaism and Buddhism. Reading the book without argument might be a challenge for some, but I found the book illuminating of both Judaism and Buddhism.

For several weeks, Bettany Hughes' The Hemlock Cup, a biography of Socrates, has also been on the reading table. I hope by next week nearly to have finished it. Short take: I love it.

On the reading table (or tablet)

The iPad facilitates an old habit of multiple lines in the water at once. Right now I'm looking at

• Following Through: A Revolutionary New Model for Finishing Whatever You Start by Steve Levinson Ph.D and Pete Greider, M.Ed. The ideas aren't especially "revolutionary" in my opinion, but the book does gather together in a single place various strategies for completing high priority tasks. I'm not certain, but maybe Brian Tracy's Eat That Frog is as useful or more so.
• Geology: The Key Ideas by David A. Rothery - Haven't we been here recently? Well, yes. But I still am having trouble sorting out a P-wave from an S-wave and anticlines from synclines and the deal is that I actually care. This book is more portable than my textbook was, even if most of the illustrations are not in color. I'd recommend this one, especially at the $14.95 price.
• Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation by Sharon Salzberg is a simple introduction to the practice of meditation. I understand that the dead-tree edition comes with a CD; my "enhanced" iBook comes with mp3s embedded in the text. I like the simplicity of the writing and find the author's lack of dogmatism refreshing.
• Uncommon Gratitude: Alleluia for All That Is by Joan Chittister, OSB and Archbishop Rowan Williams. Another title that I took on in iBook format, the book is a series of essays about "the meaning of 'alleluia'," as the introduction puts it. Sister Chittister writes personal reflections in her trademark style; Archbishop Williams writes essays I found provocative: Sinners, Saints, Genesis, Exodus, and Friday. I have quoted him here and will be searching out more that he has written. His writing strikes me as lucid, inspiring, and theologically interesting.

I had been highly skeptical of e-readers. But I have come to wish that much of my library were available in this form. Alas, iBooks doesn't have many titles and the Kindle app for iPad doesn't work very well. But these things will be sorted out. If reading on tablets is the wave of the future, I'm ready to ride.

Collaboration

The estimable Bob Sutton reviews a new book, Collaboration, by Morten Hansen. Hansen says that his research shows that "bad collaboration is worse than no collaboration."

Yeah, I have to say that empirical evidence has demonstrated that to me. Some of my greatest successes are the result of good ongoing collaborations with other "T-shaped" people: DC being first among the equals I work with these days.

A podcast about collaboration with Morten Hansen.

High society

Probably the 20th century novelist I most enjoy is Barbara Pym, and what do you know: there's a Barbara Pym Society.

Fun reading

Good fun: books by Reginald Hill. I'm glad to have read his introduction to the reissued paperback edition of A Clubbable Woman, the first book in the Dalziel and Pascoe series.

A hymn not taken

For several weeks my bedtime story has been the serial 44 Scotland Street, now published in four volumes (really, it is four; the latest, The World According to Bertie isn't on the list) has the most wonderful characters. One has written a hymn, helpfully transcribed in this blog.