bookpagedev

Fiction

Review

Review by bookpagedev

EEN THE WINES It probably started with Nora Ephron, and almost certainly reached a high point with Ruth Reichl, but in the last few years the recipe-studded novel/memoir call it the kitchen-counter novel has become a virtual genre. So many of them have been bubbling up on reading lists that news of another might give even the most adventurous palate pause.

And in the case of Secrets of the Tsil CafŽ, pause is not a bad idea, because the primary ingredient of many of the first recipes is hot chili peppers. Right off, that warns of a heavy knot of meaningful references as author Thomas Fox Averill, a graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, blends savory, but spicy recipes into this novel of a hot-blooded family with two battling kitchens.

Indeed, the central metaphor of the story and even the title reference refer to the fiery ingredient. Chilis are Native American in the truest sense, as all hot or sweet peppers are derived from about six major types of capsicum that the indigenous Americans had already domesticated long before the Europeans arrived. The name Tsil comes from the god-avatar of the chili pepper in the ceremonial dances of the Hopi. Hot spices excite the soul, an underlying theme in this story of a battling family, but they also excite the body, one reason many passive contemplative sects in Asia abjure them.

The product of a cross-cultural family obsessed with food, Weston Tito begins his story by saying he was a seed in his parents’ kitchens plural in both cases. Weston’s mother is Italian and works the successful catering business BuenAppeTito upstairs; downstairs, his father, who is fixated on cooking only indigenous foods “Santa Fe style” (they live in Kansas City), runs the Tsil Cafe, a restaurant as iconoclastic as it is tear-inducingly spicy. Wes’ crib and later his cot are literally in his mother’s kitchen (in the cabinets, for a while), and she teaches him her “vocabulary,” the names of foods, by letting him taste them like Annie Sullivan pouring water over Helen Keller’s hands. His father refuses him entry into his own obsessive domain, almost a holy order, until he can claim to enjoy such un-childlike flavors as habanero and anchovy. After that, like a knight’s apprentice, he is allowed to help slice and chop ingredients carry his own sword, in effect.

One of the points of contention between Wes’ hot-blooded parents is the local restaurant critic, an old admirer of his mother’s (and as a critic myself, I have to say Averill’s early enunciation of the critic’s sometimes pompous philosophy and his fictional reviews made me wince). Nevertheless, the critic, who acts first as a teeter-totter between the two adults, ultimately becomes a sort of bridge, giving Wes his first opportunity to critique to see the food of both parents objectively and start to develop his own concept of food.

Over the years, Wes absorbs a rich stew of influences and emotions from his mixed-ethnic family, along with the various Mexican employees of the cafe who serve as surrogate relatives and even a Native American graduate student who takes him foraging for cactus and cattails and invites him to a corn dance. Ultimately, he will even marry the critic’s female successor.

So pervasive is food in this coming-of-age novel that the recipes become a reflection of life’s shifting flavors in Averill’s kitchen novel. The almost magic-realism intensity of the flavor descriptions and the author’s habit of dropping in dictionary definitions of various terms such as “turkey,” “mescal” and “maple” re-emphasizes the native quality of the ingredients. The narrator’s entire life is lived in the study, anecdotal and later academic, of foods; ultimately he will become a chef as well, melding his parents’ Old World and New World cuisines into a One-World cuisine.

The ideal pairing: spicy chilis with cool Chardonnay Even when I was mentally trying to prepare the hottest recipes from the book (and while some seem excessive, they are clearly workable), I could imagine starting off by myself in the kitchen with a chilly, acidic white wine. While I’m not usually a Chardonnay fan, at least not those oaky enough to drive a stake through a vampire’s heart, I’m much taken with the bargain of the summer: the Santa Julia Vineyards 2000 Chardonnay from the Argentine Mendoza. Moderately light, with easy citrus flavors, crisp apple peel, Japanese apple-pear and just a little burnt sugar, it’s one of the most attractive and modestly swaggery $7 wines I’ve had in a long time. I’m not sure how it would work with the stuffed prunes, but many of the salsas would be proud of the match.

Eve Zibart is the restaurant critic for The Washington Post’s weekend section. This column reflects her dual interest in wine and travel.

EEN THE WINES It probably started with Nora Ephron, and almost certainly reached a high point with Ruth Reichl, but in the last few years the recipe-studded novel/memoir call it the kitchen-counter novel has become a virtual genre. So many of them have been bubbling…
Nature

Review

Review by bookpagedev

siana’s wetlands are a religious thing for Christopher Hallowell. “Life begins for untold animal and plant species in the twilight of swamps and the hidden reaches of marshes,” he writes. “They are breeding grounds, cradles, larders, the source of life, fecund beyond comprehension.” In Holding Back the Sea, Hallowell sounds the alarm on behalf of these natural nurseries. Louisiana’s 300 miles of wetlands almost half the coastal wetlands in the U.S. are rapidly succumbing to man-made depredations. Artificial levees, reckless tunneling and drilling for oil are killing off native wildlife, from marsh grass to oyster to muskrat. Throw in the global warming that is raising the level of the adjacent Gulf of Mexico, and you’ve got an entire state slowly sinking below sea level.

It’s not just a plethora of critters that’s in peril, Hallowell explains. The loss of wilderness threatens Louisiana’s booming oil and natural gas industries whose pipes lie under a shallow layer of sand on an eroding beach. With Louisiana quietly providing 25% of the nation’s natural gas and nearly 20% of its oil, the prospect of losing this resource is horrifying. Saltwater intrusion on freshwater wetlands also endangers Louisiana’s oysters and the communities that have for generations made their living by oystering. Why is an environmentally conscious nation letting these things happen? Hallowell cites some tentative reasons. Louisiana’s reputation for dumping toxins in its own marshes is one possibility. The state’s relative invisibility is another. While Floridians raise a hue and cry over the Everglades, the death of Louisiana’s sweeping wetlands provokes few headlines, Hallowell argues. On his travels through the wetlands, Hallowell meets memorable characters, politicians, fishermen and engineers who give the narrative the feel of a novel at times. His skill in conveying the demise of the Louisiana oyster reveals the fragile interconnection of living things in a way few writers have accomplished since Farley Mowat’s Never Cry Wolf. Though it’s necessarily scientific and technical, Hallowell’s ability to poeticize nature makes this an eminently readable book.

Lynn Hamilton writes from Tybee Island, Georgia.

siana's wetlands are a religious thing for Christopher Hallowell. "Life begins for untold animal and plant species in the twilight of swamps and the hidden reaches of marshes," he writes. "They are breeding grounds, cradles, larders, the source of life, fecund beyond comprehension." In Holding…
NonfictionEssays

Review

Review by bookpagedev

have been tortured by some of the fanciest ear-benders in the world, including George Bernard Shaw, reporter Joseph Mitchell wrote in 1938, “and I have long since lost my ability to detect insanity. Sometimes it is necessary for me to go into a psychopathic ward on a story and I never notice the difference.” Such is the life of a journalist. The consummate listener, a gentleman reporter whose Joycean stories about the everyday people of New York are tinged with melancholy, Joseph Mitchell went to work for The New Yorker in 1938. A notoriously slow and meticulous craftsman, he wrote with lapidary skill. A collection of his New Yorker pieces, Up in the Old Hotel, was a 1992 bestseller, but when Mitchell died four years later, he left precious little work.

Now, for the first time in more than 60 years, readers can treat themselves to the reportage of Mitchell’s pre-New Yorker days with the newly reissued My Ears Are Bent, a collection of his contributions to The Herald Tribune and The World Telegram, originally published in 1938. The new, expanded edition includes articles and feature stories unavailable since they first appeared in the papers during the 1930s. Mixing with lushes and chorus girls, pickpockets and speakeasy proprietors, the latter of which proved invaluable to the reporter (“the saloonkeeper is apt to know the address or hangout of any citizen dopey enough or unlucky enough to be of interest to a great metropolitan newspaper,” he writes), Mitchell, on his beat, visited establishments like the Broken Leg and Busted Bar ∧ Grill, where he observed and interviewed the regulars. The stories that resulted are miniature noirs peopled with characters who crack wise, journalistic pieces, replete with smoke and shadows and snappy badinage, that show the city at its seediest.

Along with looks at society’s less savory members, the new edition includes talks with Jimmy Durante, jazz giant Gene Krupa and George M. Cohan blasts from the past that give the book a time-capsule appeal. Indeed, a sort of na•vete pervades the pieces overall. Some of the strippers and fan dancers featured in a chapter called “Cheese-cake” seem to have an air of wide-eyed innocence, as Mitchell himself does in their presence: “It was the first time a woman I had been sent to interview ever came into the room naked . . .,” he writes. “She didn’t even have any shoes on.” In “The Marijuana Smokers” a classic snapshot of a more innocent America, a country befuddled by the new drug Mitchell dodges bullets and crashes a Harlem rent party. Such cultural curiosities are, of course, no longer news, but they were big scoops when Mitchell snooped them out. He writes with economy in these classy, clear-eyed accounts of a time when society was a bit more civilized. No words are wasted here, and his descriptive prose is often as pure and precise and image-oriented as the poetry of William Carlos Williams. Above all, perhaps, what Mitchell’s writing reveals is the way the world in general and New York in particular have changed. Reading My Ears Are Bent, one can’t help but contrast the present with the past. The collection reflects a younger era, an age when the world had more mystery in it. They don’t write ’em like this anymore.

have been tortured by some of the fanciest ear-benders in the world, including George Bernard Shaw, reporter Joseph Mitchell wrote in 1938, "and I have long since lost my ability to detect insanity. Sometimes it is necessary for me to go into a psychopathic ward…
Pop CultureArts & Culture

The oddball world of Scrabble

Review by bookpagedev

Stefan Fatsis is a familiar figure to many as a regular commentator on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. In 1997, when he decided to write about the world of competitive Scrabble, he had no idea where studying the phenomenon would take him. He recounts the story of his experience in Word Freak, a wonderfully engaging narrative about the insular and somewhat oddball world of people who compete at the popular board game.

Many of the characters who play the game cheerfully admit they’re social misfits. They provide rich material for Fatsis. Perhaps because of his prior experience with the game, the author discovered a kinship with their obsession with words. Soon Fatsis was not just covering Scrabble, he was competing himself—and taking the competition seriously.

Fatsis blends a reporter’s eye for detail with a frank admiration of the eccentric players’ abilities, whatever their social shortcomings. He’s particularly awestruck by the attendees of an international tournament, many of whom barely speak English but know thousands of words.

As Fatsis gradually improves at the game, awakening to a new obsession and becoming a top-ranked player, the reader delights in his accomplishment. His thoroughly researched book also details the history of Scrabble—a tale that sometimes plays out like a corporate melodrama. Like Monopoly, another favorite American diversion, Scrabble was developed during the Depression as a means of passing the time. But word of mouth developed into perennial popularity, and the game went from a family-owned business to the property of a giant toy conglomerate.

In Word Freak, Fatsis also offers a few practical tips for living room players and competitors, making it clear that memorizing obscure word lists is the key. He indicates "phonies" or unacceptable words and even provides an appendix of terms he uses in the text that are not acceptable in Scrabble. A wonderfully readable work, Word Freak is a winner—both as a portrait of a subculture and as a journal of a seasoned competitor.

Gregory Harris is a writer and editor living in Indianapolis.

 

Stefan Fatsis is a familiar figure to many as a regular commentator on National Public Radio's All Things Considered. In 1997, when he decided to write about the world of competitive Scrabble, he had no idea where studying the phenomenon would take him. He recounts…

History

Review

Review by bookpagedev

n war, Napoleon wrote, “three-quarters turns on personal character and . . . the balance of manpower and materials counts only for the remaining quarter.” In notable biographies of Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy’s president, and John C. Breckinridge, its last secretary of war, and in dozens of other books on the Civil War, historian William C. Davis has underscored the prominence of “personal character” in shaping the Confederacy’s rise and fall.

In his engaging and well written An Honorable Defeat, Davis focuses closely on the last four months (January-April 1865) of the Confederacy’s existence. He frames the South’s defeat around the differing visions and personalities of Jefferson Davis and Breckinridge. William C. Davis knows the history of the Confederacy as well as any historian today, and his penetrating analysis of Jefferson Davis and Breckinridge provides a fresh look at their contrasting emotions, differing world views and divergent conceptions of southern honor and defeat.

Jefferson Davis was a cold, combative, distant autocrat. He meddled constantly in his generals’ affairs, gave his cabinet secretaries little authority and frittered away the Confederacy’s one economic ace in the hole “King Cotton.” Yet for all his shortcomings as president, Jefferson Davis was totally dedicated perhaps too dedicated to the southern cause. “If only Davis’ personality and temperament had been more winning,” writes William C. Davis, “and his grasp of human nature more keen . . . those who became his enemies might have forgiven him a multitude of lesser shortcomings.” In contrast to Davis, Breckinridge was flexible, balanced and popular, and the Kentuckian rose rapidly through the hierarchy of the Confederate Army to the rank of major general. “Charming and engaging, diplomatic, the least egotistical or confrontational of men,” William C. Davis explains, Breckinridge “never sought conflict, and yet even [Jefferson] Davis, so often undiscerning, saw well enough that this was a man he could not dominate.” The conflict of wills erupted in March 1865, as Union troops encircled Richmond, and the Confederacy disintegrated from within. President Davis, unwilling to accept anything short of independence and refusing to surrender, admonished white southerners to fight a guerilla war and to rally around remaining Confederate troops in Texas. Secretary of War Breckinridge disagreed, favoring an honorable, negotiated peace. “This has been a magnificent epic,” Breckinridge lectured a delegation of Confederate senators, urging them “in God’s name let it not terminate in a farce.” Though the Confederacy ultimately received a lenient peace, Davis spent two years in prison and remained “unreconstructed” long after Appomattox. Breckinridge escaped to Cuba, relocated to Canada and returned to the U.

S. in 1869. He urged southerners to accept the war’s verdict and move forward. Fortunately for America and the South, Breckinridge’s vision of Confederate defeat and Reconstruction, not Jefferson Davis’, prevailed.

John David Smith has written or edited 14 books, including Black Judas: William Hannibal Thomas and The American Negro (University of Georgia Press).

n war, Napoleon wrote, "three-quarters turns on personal character and . . . the balance of manpower and materials counts only for the remaining quarter." In notable biographies of Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy's president, and John C. Breckinridge, its last secretary of war, and in…
Pop CultureArts & Culture

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Books a mother can love There’s no better way to celebrate Mother’s Day than with a gift book that immortalizes the maternal role. Joyce Ostin’s Hollywood Moms, a volume of radiant photographs, does just that. In Ostin’s touching tribute to womanhood, some of Tinseltown’s biggest names shed their glamorous facades, and the results are simple, stripped-down pictures that reveal the buoyancy, serenity and joy inherent in the mother-daughter relationship.

Much in the limelight, these mothers have daughters named Coco and Collette, Stella and Chelsea, girls with above-average genes who are, in the end, just regular girls. More than 50 black and white photos feature the likes of dynamic duo Goldie Hawn and Kate Hudson; Madonna and a saucer-eyed Lourdes Leon; Melanie Griffith and Stella Banderas (inheritor of Antonio’s brooding stare). Anecdotes and poems from the moms themselves and Carrie Fisher’s introduction to the book offer fresh insights into the mother-daughter connection. With an intuitive eye, Ostin has captured this classic bond, revealing the reality behind the fantasy the private sides of these very public women. Ostin, a two-time breast cancer survivor, will donate all of the proceeds from Hollywood Moms to cancer research.

“The family is one of nature’s masterpieces,” wrote George Santayana, and his statement is proven true by a volume of stunning pictures called Family: A Celebration of Humanity. Photographers from around the world some of them Pulitzer Prize winners have captured the unit in its many configurations (a family, after all, can be as small as two or as large as two dozen). There are brothers and sisters, fathers and sons, children and pets; there are families in poverty and families who flourish. Spanning the globe, the book touches down in Russia, Mexico, South Africa, Australia and the United States, and the multiplicity of cultures makes for some wonderful visual juxtapositions. Artful, honest and at times, graphic (the photo of a baby, fresh from the womb, its umbilical unwound like a telephone cord, is not a sight for the weak-eyed), Family, the first volume in a series by M.I.L.K. Publishing, Ltd., offers timeless images of humanity at its best. M.I.L.K., an acronym for Moments of Intimacy, Laughter and Kinship, hopes to develop a collection of photographs showcasing diversity in family, friendship and love, and will publish two more books in September.

Two new titles celebrate one of the world’s most famous moms, that icon of family and fashion, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. The woman who founded a modern-day dynasty and helped set style standards throughout the ’60s and ’70s is the inspiration behind Jay Mulvaney’s Jackie: The Clothes of Camelot. Filled with fabulous, Camelot-era photographs, Mulvaney’s book features Jackie’s dreamy dresses, frocks like confections from Oleg Cassini and other designers done in sugary pink, pastel blue and vivid tangerine, clothes fit for a queen or a First Lady. Those classic suits boxy, modest and perfectly chic are included, too. With over 300 photos and sections on Jackie’s fashion influences, her casual wear and her style during the post-Camelot years, this volume presents a well-rounded fashion portrait of one of the White House’s most regal matriarchs. Mulvaney, author of Kennedy Weddings: A Family Album, contributes lucid captions that set the context for the costumes. Dominick Dunne provides the book’s introduction.

Jackie Style by Pamela Clarke Keogh is part biography, part beauty book. Covering the former First Lady’s childhood in New York, her years at Vassar, her time in the White House and her work as an editor at Doubleday, this volume offers a behind-the-scenes look at Jackie’s life while providing advice on how to make her style your style. Jackie’s makeup and fashion ideas are included, along with never-before-seen photos and sketches, and exclusive interviews. Keogh, author of the bestselling Audrey Style, has created a loving tribute, which has an introduction by fashion designer Valentino.

Both Jackie titles are being published to coincide with a May retrospective of Kennedy’s White House wardrobe at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, an exhibit that will commemorate the 40th anniversary of Camelot.

Books a mother can love There's no better way to celebrate Mother's Day than with a gift book that immortalizes the maternal role. Joyce Ostin's Hollywood Moms, a volume of radiant photographs, does just that. In Ostin's touching tribute to womanhood, some of Tinseltown's biggest…

History

Review

Review by bookpagedev

hen he moved to Washington in December, 1823, newly elected Tennessee Senator Andrew Jackson was carefully scrutinized by other politicians and citizens from all walks of life. His reputation had preceded him, and he was prominently mentioned as a presidential candidate. His charismatic presence calm, dignified, tall, ramrod-straight stood in vivid contrast to what many had expected. He wrote to a friend, “I am told the opinion of those whose minds were prepared to see me with a Tomahawk in one hand, and a scalping knife in the other has greatly changed and I am getting on very smoothly.” Jackson was indeed best known for his military exploits, especially as the hero of the Battle of New Orleans in 1815 when his ragtag forces impressively defeated the British in the War of 1812. But he also had a reputation as an Indian fighter. His most notable victory in that role had come against the Creek Nation in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814.

Jackson’s personal and public lives were often controversial, particularly his complex dealings with Native Americans. In Andrew Jackson and His Indian Wars, noted Jackson scholar Robert V. Remini focuses exclusively on this subject, providing a well documented, thoughtful and sensitive exploration. Remini, who won the National Book Award for his definitive three-volume biography of Jackson, assures readers that “it is not my intention to excuse or exonerate Andrew Jackson for the role he played in the removal of Native Americans west of the Mississippi River. My purpose is simply to explain what happened and why.” To begin to understand what happened, “modern Americans must first appreciate the fact that the mood and temper of Americans during Jackson’s lifetime tolerated and actually condoned removal.” The author traces the life of the boy who “learned to fear and hate Indians from an early age,” sharing the attitude of most frontier settlers. Jackson never forgot his early life in South Carolina when the British allied with Native Americans to wage war against the Americans. “In his mind, and the minds of most frontiersman, the Indians were pawns to be used by any foreign power seeking to gain dominance in North America.” Remini follows Jackson into Tennessee where he develops into “a bold and resourceful Indian fighter, thirsting for Ôencounters with savages.’ ” Jackson was an early convert to the idea, first proposed by Thomas Jefferson, that Indian removal be linked to an exchange of land. Through the years, for Jackson, the most compelling argument for this approach was national security. American settlers could better protect the country against foreign invaders than the Indians.

Remini details not only the numerous battles between Jackson’s forces and Native Americans, but also the many negotiating sessions. “He always addressed Indians as though they were children, irrespective of their age, education, or intellectual maturity.” When negotiating, Jackson never hesitated to use bribery or the threat of violence if his demands were rejected.

The author shows how Indian removal began in the early 1800s by presidential action and continued for 20 years; Congress became involved only when the Senate eventually ratified the treaties. Remini notes that “the Indian Removal Act did not remove the Indians at all. . . . What Jackson did was force the Congress to face up to the Indian issue and address it in the only way possible. And what it did at his direction was harsh, arrogant, racist and inevitable.” Remini believes Jackson can be blamed in particular for his desire to speed things up. “He lacked patience, and by his pressure to move things along quickly he caused unspeakable cruelties to innocent people who deserved better from a nation that prided itself on its commitment to justice and equality.” Remini is to be commended for his balanced study of a difficult period and the complex man at its core.

Roger Bishop is a regular contributor to BookPage.

hen he moved to Washington in December, 1823, newly elected Tennessee Senator Andrew Jackson was carefully scrutinized by other politicians and citizens from all walks of life. His reputation had preceded him, and he was prominently mentioned as a presidential candidate. His charismatic presence calm,…
Business & Finance

Review

Review by bookpagedev

t steps on the career path “Not making a decision IS a decision,” says a friend. He should know. After graduating from a fine law school he lounged for two months on a sofa in his parents’ basement watching Oprah, Ricki Lake and all forms of daytime TV in his bathrobe. Was he afraid of work? No, he was avoiding the inevitable decision of what to do with his law degree. Not making a decision about a job meant he didn’t have to face the fact that he didn’t want to work for the traditional large law firm.

No time is more uncertain for college or professional school graduates than the summer they’re about to enter. Fortunately, recent career books offer valuable advice for making a smooth transition from school to work. Most experts recognize that step one in getting a job is defining what you really want to do with your career.

What’s Your Type of Career? Unlock the Secrets of Your Personality to Find Your Perfect Career Path by Donna Dunning utilizes a personality approach to finding the perfect career for you. Worksheets help you determine your personality type (analyzer? visionary? explorer?), then Dunning guides the novice through the options for each type. Don’t be embarrassed if you’re an introvert. Dunning highlights the usefulness of that personality type in the healing arts (not to mention writing) and outlines why some outgoing people may be drawn to certain careers. No Parachute Required: Translating Your Passion into a Paycheck and a Career by Jeff Gunhus is a soup-to-nuts career book with a twist. Hip and aware, Gunhus offers the traditional “How to Prepare for Your Job Search” stuff, but also starts and ends his book with the unconventional caveat that “it makes sense to do your soul-searching now, at the beginning of your career, and start on the right path the first time out of the gate.” A chapter on your inevitable and upcoming “Prelife Crisis” is priceless. Gunhus, 28, has experienced these feelings of angst and doubt up-close and personally, not to mention, recently. I loved his exercises to help weed parental expectations from your garden of experience (“My Tommy has always wanted to be a Doctor!”) and wish I had read this book before I filled my college course load with chemistry classes.

Rick Nelles, author of Proof of Performance: How to Build a Career Portfolio to Land a Great New Job, is a professional recruiter with 20 years of experience, but his book is about the times, right after college, when he made all his mistakes. Looking back, he says he waited until the last quarter of college to job search, winged it going into interviews (“thinking they would hire me on my good looks and great personality”) and didn’t even know what he wanted to do. In this book, he shows recent grads how to land a job by documenting their job skills and showing proof of their performance. Build Your Own Life Brand! (Free Press, $25, ISBN ) by Stedman Graham is an atypical career book. The long-time companion of Oprah Winfrey, Graham owns a successful management and marketing consulting company. He shares his philosophy that “each of us has a unique blend of talents, knowledge and other personal assets” called a Life Brand. Borrowing from marketing strategy, Graham says “you create a method for sharing your gifts and putting them to their highest use” when you build the brand that is You. Above all, Graham advises, remember that transforming your talents, values and passions into your career will help to ensure that your work will be meaningful.

So how did my friend fare? He finally got off the couch and became a public defender. Later he took a job as the child advocate for a five-county court system. Recently, after soul-searching, he moved to a small law firm he loves. Life Brand, perfect personality matching, whatever you call it, with careful planning the right career choice lies just ahead.

t steps on the career path "Not making a decision IS a decision," says a friend. He should know. After graduating from a fine law school he lounged for two months on a sofa in his parents' basement watching Oprah, Ricki Lake and all forms…
Memoir

The strength of the creative spirit

Review by bookpagedev

In her early 50s, Australian historian Inga Clendinnen found herself diagnosed with an incurable liver disease. As her body and her mind deteriorated, she felt a need to write about her childhood as well as her experience with illness. The result is Tiger’s Eye, a moving story about the fragility of self and the strength of the creative spirit.

Though she had written historical texts about everything from Mayan culture to the Holocaust, Clendinnen had never turned her historian’s eye inward. Illness, however, forced her hand, and she began to write fragments at first, and then full-blown reminiscences about her parents, aunt and siblings, about her loves, lies, embarrassments and joys, about all of the messy, half-remembered, half-created memories that make up a life. During her many days in the hospital, Clendinnen grew attached to her laptop, the writing serving as her only defense against the cold impersonality of existence in an institution and against the slow wasting of her body and mind.

Luckily, she eventually became a candidate for a liver transplant. Some of the most striking writing in the book comes in the hallucinatory days after the transplant, in which all semblance of a whole, non-fragmented self completely dissolves. Here, her writing becomes a mad, frightening and vivid jumble of images, which nonetheless reveal truths about her mind and personality.

One of the things Clendinnen learns, through her illness and her personal writing, is that she cannot completely rely on memory; memory, she finds, is as much fiction as it is an accurate reflection of reality. This lesson ultimately carries over into her professional, historical writing, which she takes up again once she is well. Memory, she has learned, is unreliable, but however imperfect, it nonetheless forms the foundation of history.

One of Clendinnen’s earliest revelations in Tiger’s Eye is of the divide that exists between those who are well and those who are ill. She soon learns that little communication is possible between the two sides. Her memoir, however, ultimately works to bridge that divide. To take the Alice in Wonderland metaphor she offers in the book’s opening pages, Clendinnen shows how she fell into the rabbit hole of illness and returned to tell the tale.

Vivian A. Wagner, Ph.D., is a freelance writer in New Concord, Ohio.

In her early 50s, Australian historian Inga Clendinnen found herself diagnosed with an incurable liver disease. As her body and her mind deteriorated, she felt a need to write about her childhood as well as her experience with illness. The result is Tiger's Eye, a…

Business & Finance

First steps on the career path

Review by bookpagedev

"Not making a decision IS a decision," says a friend. He should know. After graduating from a fine law school he lounged for two months on a sofa in his parents’ basement watching Oprah, Ricki Lake and all forms of daytime TV in his bathrobe. Was he afraid of work? No, he was avoiding the inevitable decision of what to do with his law degree. Not making a decision about a job meant he didn’t have to face the fact that he didn’t want to work for the traditional large law firm.

No time is more uncertain for college or professional school graduates than the summer they’re about to enter. Fortunately, recent career books offer valuable advice for making a smooth transition from school to work. Most experts recognize that step one in getting a job is defining what you really want to do with your career.

What’s Your Type of Career? Unlock the Secrets of Your Personality to Find Your Perfect Career Path by Donna Dunning utilizes a personality approach to finding the perfect career for you. Worksheets help you determine your personality type (analyzer? visionary? explorer?), then Dunning guides the novice through the options for each type. Don’t be embarrassed if you’re an introvert. Dunning highlights the usefulness of that personality type in the healing arts (not to mention writing) and outlines why some outgoing people may be drawn to certain careers. No Parachute Required: Translating Your Passion into a Paycheck and a Career by Jeff Gunhus is a soup-to-nuts career book with a twist. Hip and aware, Gunhus offers the traditional "How to Prepare for Your Job Search" stuff, but also starts and ends his book with the unconventional caveat that "it makes sense to do your soul-searching now, at the beginning of your career, and start on the right path the first time out of the gate." A chapter on your inevitable and upcoming "Prelife Crisis" is priceless. Gunhus, 28, has experienced these feelings of angst and doubt up-close and personally, not to mention, recently. I loved his exercises to help weed parental expectations from your garden of experience ("My Tommy has always wanted to be a Doctor!") and wish I had read this book before I filled my college course load with chemistry classes.

Rick Nelles, author of  Proof of Performance: How to Build a Career Portfolio to Land a Great New Job, is a professional recruiter with 20 years of experience, but his book is about the times, right after college, when he made all his mistakes. Looking back, he says he waited until the last quarter of college to job search, winged it going into interviews ("thinking they would hire me on my good looks and great personality") and didn’t even know what he wanted to do. In this book, he shows recent grads how to land a job by documenting their job skills and showing proof of their performance. Build Your Own Life Brand! by Stedman Graham is an atypical career book. The long-time companion of Oprah Winfrey, Graham owns a successful management and marketing consulting company. He shares his philosophy that "each of us has a unique blend of talents, knowledge and other personal assets" called a Life Brand. Borrowing from marketing strategy, Graham says "you create a method for sharing your gifts and putting them to their highest use" when you build the brand that is You. Above all, Graham advises, remember that transforming your talents, values and passions into your career will help to ensure that your work will be meaningful.

So how did my friend fare? He finally got off the couch and became a public defender. Later he took a job as the child advocate for a five-county court system. Recently, after soul-searching, he moved to a small law firm he loves. Life Brand, perfect personality matching, whatever you call it, with careful planning the right career choice lies just ahead.

 

"Not making a decision IS a decision," says a friend. He should know. After graduating from a fine law school he lounged for two months on a sofa in his parents' basement watching Oprah, Ricki Lake and all forms of daytime TV in his…

Memoir

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Legend has it that the marathon commemorates an ancient Greek herald who collapsed and died after running 26 miles to announce a victorious battle at the city of Marathon. Today, the race, while an impressive feat of endurance, is nonetheless a commonplace one.

Still recovering from the shock of his older brother’s suicide, New York Times reporter Kirk Johnson learned of a race that would define a new kind of endurance. The Badwater Ultramarathon is a grueling 126-mile run with a course that unfolds across the scorching desert of Death Valley.

Assigned to write about the race, Johnson decided to participate in it, although he had never even run in a regular marathon. He set out to discover the limits and definitions of human endurance, and he shares his discoveries in To the Edge, a compelling memoir about his training for and running of Badwater.

Johnson’s involvement with the marathon surprised even himself. Though serving as a sports reporter for the Times, he was not athletically inclined. But the suicide of his older brother, an avid runner, gave him a need to understand why people give up and what reserves of strength humans find in order to endure. In his early passages, Johnson notes the striking contrasts between the marathon and the ultramarathon. Although run as a competitive race, the latter is all about endurance; a third of the participants don’t even complete the course. His own amateur status caused Johnson to feel an unaccustomed aversion to speaking with those participating in the race, lest they ridicule his lack of experience or his presumption at joining them. This intimidation motivated him to attempt several 50-mile-plus races, a punishment his body was hardly capable of taking.

Johnson writes candidly about these and other self-doubts. Though attempting such a race at all is a remarkable feat, he shies away from center stage, instead relating the stories of the race’s diverse participants. The common thread these runners share is not so much perseverance as courage and an indomitable To the Edge is a remarkable, inspiring memoir about the strength people can find within themselves and the camaraderie of individuals sharing a solitary yet common struggle.

Gregory Harris is a writer and editor living in Indianapolis.

 

Legend has it that the marathon commemorates an ancient Greek herald who collapsed and died after running 26 miles to announce a victorious battle at the city of Marathon. Today, the race, while an impressive feat of endurance, is nonetheless a commonplace one.

Business & Finance

Review

Review by bookpagedev

irst steps on the career path “Not making a decision IS a decision,” says a friend. He should know. After graduating from a fine law school he lounged for two months on a sofa in his parents’ basement watching Oprah, Ricki Lake and all forms of daytime TV in his bathrobe. Was he afraid of work? No, he was avoiding the inevitable decision of what to do with his law degree. Not making a decision about a job meant he didn’t have to face the fact that he didn’t want to work for the traditional large law firm.

No time is more uncertain for college or professional school graduates than the summer they’re about to enter. Fortunately, recent career books offer valuable advice for making a smooth transition from school to work. Most experts recognize that step one in getting a job is defining what you really want to do with your career.

What’s Your Type of Career? Unlock the Secrets of Your Personality to Find Your Perfect Career Path by Donna Dunning utilizes a personality approach to finding the perfect career for you. Worksheets help you determine your personality type (analyzer? visionary? explorer?), then Dunning guides the novice through the options for each type. Don’t be embarrassed if you’re an introvert. Dunning highlights the usefulness of that personality type in the healing arts (not to mention writing) and outlines why some outgoing people may be drawn to certain careers. No Parachute Required: Translating Your Passion into a Paycheck and a Career by Jeff Gunhus is a soup-to-nuts career book with a twist. Hip and aware, Gunhus offers the traditional “How to Prepare for Your Job Search” stuff, but also starts and ends his book with the unconventional caveat that “it makes sense to do your soul-searching now, at the beginning of your career, and start on the right path the first time out of the gate.” A chapter on your inevitable and upcoming “Prelife Crisis” is priceless. Gunhus, 28, has experienced these feelings of angst and doubt up-close and personally, not to mention, recently. I loved his exercises to help weed parental expectations from your garden of experience (“My Tommy has always wanted to be a Doctor!”) and wish I had read this book before I filled my college course load with chemistry classes.

Rick Nelles, author of Proof of Performance: How to Build a Career Portfolio to Land a Great New Job, is a professional recruiter with 20 years of experience, but his book is about the times, right after college, when he made all his mistakes. Looking back, he says he waited until the last quarter of college to job search, winged it going into interviews (“thinking they would hire me on my good looks and great personality”) and didn’t even know what he wanted to do. In this book, he shows recent grads how to land a job by documenting their job skills and showing proof of their performance. Build Your Own Life Brand! by Stedman Graham is an atypical career book. The long-time companion of Oprah Winfrey, Graham owns a successful management and marketing consulting company. He shares his philosophy that “each of us has a unique blend of talents, knowledge and other personal assets” called a Life Brand. Borrowing from marketing strategy, Graham says “you create a method for sharing your gifts and putting them to their highest use” when you build the brand that is You. Above all, Graham advises, remember that transforming your talents, values and passions into your career will help to ensure that your work will be meaningful.

So how did my friend fare? He finally got off the couch and became a public defender. Later he took a job as the child advocate for a five-county court system. Recently, after soul-searching, he moved to a small law firm he loves. Life Brand, perfect personality matching, whatever you call it, with careful planning the right career choice lies just ahead.

irst steps on the career path "Not making a decision IS a decision," says a friend. He should know. After graduating from a fine law school he lounged for two months on a sofa in his parents' basement watching Oprah, Ricki Lake and all forms…
Memoir

Review

Review by bookpagedev

The boy in question in Deborah Digges’ riveting new memoir The Stardust Lounge is her son Stephen, a reckless young boy who, by the age of 12, was bringing home guns and mixing with street gangs. With a turbulence that goes well beyond everyday teenage rebellion, Stephen tries his mother’s patience but never her love. Digges, in desperation, attempts everything to help her son. Following Stephen while he prowls the city streets, she watches as he takes the subway and sprays graffiti on the walls of the Massachusetts town where they live. She goes to counseling with him, tries to help him make his own way in the world and shares with her readers the tribulations and unexpected joys of parenting a very troubled adolescent.

Digges’ memories of her son’s growth are often painful, but she is unflinching as she recalls both Stephen’s actions and her own. She ruminates on why he is her more difficult son compared with his polite and studious older brother: "Why is he so troubled? Why does he act out in this way? How can two sons of the same mother and father be so different?" But she never lets herself off the hook, either, writing that "I am someone I never imagined, an isolated, bitter, defensive mother navigating by shame the deep waters of her son’s adolescence." With this sort of candor, Digges, a successful poet whose skill with language pervades her prose, provides insight into the many different sides of her and Stephen’s situations.

Digges’ own marriage and career ultimately take a back seat to Stephen and his problems. She devotes countless hours to keeping the boy in school and to making their home a place she and her son can share. As The Stardust Lounge progresses, the rewards of being Stephen’s mother become more apparent to the reader. Through her honest storytelling, Digges conveys the special connection she and Stephen share. "Not so deep in Stephen’s blood a wildness endures," she writes, "Good luck to the world, I laugh to myself, with Stephen in it." Eliza McGraw writes from Cabin John, Maryland.

The boy in question in Deborah Digges' riveting new memoir The Stardust Lounge is her son Stephen, a reckless young boy who, by the age of 12, was bringing home guns and mixing with street gangs. With a turbulence that goes well beyond everyday teenage…

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