14. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett 04/21/2012
 "The kind of love that offers its life so easily, so stupidly, is always the love that is not returned." Patchett Bel Canto by Patchett is a delightful read. Really it's a meditation on the place of love, art, and beauty in everyday life. It takes place in an un-named South American counrry where a group of terrorists take over the Vice-Presidential palace. At the Vice-Presidential palace are many international figures who have come to celebrate the birthday of a Japanese businessman who may be interested in investing in a business in the small country. Among the guests is an opera singer whose mesmerizing voice provides cover for the terrorists to take over Patchett makes each character interesting and explores the ways in which the disparate group becomes a community. The opera singer, Roxanne Coss, plays a large role in this community by singing and training one of the young terrorists to sing as well. Many of the members of the party become intimate with the terrorists and both groups are surprised by the humanity of the other. Earlier this year, I read Lucy Grealey's Autobiography of a face. Grealey and Patchett were friends and it's interesting to see how the themes of beauty and love play out in two very different works. I would recommend Bel Canto. 2 Comments 
“Being for something is better than being against something”- Cecil Andrus as quoted by Chris Carlson (133). This quote is an example of one of many political axioms that Cecil Andrus lived by and that Chris Carlson uses to support this book’s premise that Andrus was Idaho’s greatest governor. Carlson was Andrus’s former press secretary and his respect for Andrus is apparent throughout the book. Although Cecil Andrus: Idaho’s Greatest Governor: A Reminiscence contains many biographical details of Andrus’s life, but it primarily a recounting of Carlson’s experiences with Andrus. This leads to a very conversational style throughout the 256 pages of the book. Andrus never planned on getting involved with politics but was dissatisfied with the quality of education at his daughter’s school in Northern Idaho. Once in politics, Andrus took to it like a duck to water spending 4 years as an Idaho Senator, 4 terms as Governor of Idaho, and 1 term as the Secretary of the Interior. Numerous pictures provide visual documentation of many of the events and people that Carlson mentions. There are also several appendices that include Andrus’s election results and articles about him that appeared in major newspapers. By recounting many personal stories and experiences, Carlson portrays Andrus as warm, intelligent, ethical, and not one to ever forget the name of a constituent. In 1974, Andrus won the election with 73% of the vote, quite the feat for a Democrat from Idaho. Carlson reports that Andrus had a remarkable ability to work with both Democrats and Republicans in a bi-partisan way and believed in judging issues on their merit and not on party lines. Now 80, Andrus still works about 20 hours a week at his Downtown Boise office. He enjoys time with his wife of 62 years, Carol, their three children, three grandchildren and a great-granddaughter. This book would be valuable for public and academic libraries as part of their collection of writings by and about Idaho’s politicians. It could have used more editing, as there are slight grammatical errors that can be distracting. Carlson also includes a chapter on his political battles against physician assisted suicide. Although it’s a cause he believes in it doesn’t have anything to do with Andrus and detracts from the rest of the book. All in all, a great read.  "Everyone has a theory of marriage; few of them agree: The happiest marriages are based on the least romantic expectations; the happiest marriages are maintained by spouses who cling to rosy lenses and insist on holding their partners in delusionally high regard. In a happy marriage, the focus is inward, the relationship comes first; in a happy marriage, each spouse encourages the other to attain individual goals. " Elizabeth Weil Ever since Scott and I started talking about getting married, I've been reading books about marriage. I believe in educating yourself about big decisions. And for me, education usually comes in the form of books. I really enjoyed Elizabeth Weil's chronicle of her project to to make her marriage better. What she discovered through self-examination and through reading everything she could get her hands on, was that marriages are as individual as the people in them. There are a million ways to make them work. And a million ways to make them not work. I particularly liked her descriptions of her husband's culinary efforts and the times when he seems to her to be cooler than her (her insecurities, not his). Her honesty about their monetary struggles is refreshing and makes for an interesting read. As Scott and I embark on our marriage, I'd like to remember all the ways there are many to make it work and that the important thing is the commitment to finding the way that works for you.   "After the hymn had been sung, the Rev. Mr. Sprague turned himself into a bulletin-board, and read off "notices" of meetings and societies and things till it seemed that the list would stretch out to the crack of doom -- a queer custom which is still kept up in America, even in cities, away here in this age of abundant newspapers. Often, the less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it." Mark Twain This quote from Twain really struck me as interesting because he's talking about getting rid of arcane customs here and how he thinks that it is unnecessary to read off information found in a church bulletin. The same day I read this we had just had a conversation at work about what should be discussed in person in a meeting and what we could just email about. Twain's displeasure at the repetition struck me as funny in light of that fact that we are still struggling with how to negotiate it 100 years after his death. One of the things that struck me about this book was the time-less quality of some of the themes. The wonder and imagination of childhood, the internal struggle of good vs. evil and whether or not to be a tattletale. I hadn't read Tom Sawyer in years and re-reading it for this years Read Me Treasure Valley celebration made me to remember why I like reading classics. Because they are usually classics for a reason, something timeless and applicable to the present or the past in each of them. I enjoyed reading it again and had forgotten how funny Mark Twain's writing is. I remembered that Tom witnessed a murder, that he got caught in a cave, and that he was friends with Huckleberry Finn, but I didn't remember his relationship with Becky Thatcher, the way he accidentally faked his death, and the challenges he faced at school. Many of the stories in Twain's writing have become part of the cultural fabric of our lives. We remember them without knowing quite where we remember them from. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is this year's Boise Community Read. More information can be found at www.readmetv.com. 10. Bossypants by Tina Fey 02/29/2012
 "Do your thing and don't care if they like it". "To me, YES AND, means don't be afraid to contribute. Always make sure that you are adding something to the discussion. Your initiations are worthwhile" Tina Fey I found this audiobook to be delightful. Fey is funny, sharp, and entertaining. She's also opinionated, passionate, and occasionally offensive. When she says " Do your thing and don't care it they like it" she seems to be referring to the world at large and I found it to be inspiring. How much less stressful would my world be if I just did my thing and didn't care if they liked it? This also gives the reader the opportunity to take the things that you like from her book and from her body of work and leave the rest. The quotes that I've chosen seem to exemplify how Fey defines, "Bossypants". There might have been a time or two in my life when I have been accused of being bossy,and the book makes me want to revel in that bossyness and not see it as something to apologize for, but as something to celebrate and to propel the world forward. Whether she is describing playing both Hilary Clinton and Sarah Palin in one season, or her experiences at summer high school drama camp, or planning a Peter Pan themed birthday party for her daughter, she's funny. And I like it. 9. The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes 02/19/2012
 "And that's a life, isn't it? Some achievements and some disappointments. It's been interesting to me, though I wouldn't complain or be amazed if others found it less so. Maybe, in a way, Adrian knew what he was doing. Not that I would have missed my own life for anything, you understand." Julian Barnes Well, I picked this up because it won the Man Booker Prize for 2011 http://www.themanbookerprize.com/ and I usually enjoy reading them and this is a pick for our Literature for Lunch program later this year. The Sense of an Ending is a page-turner and Barnes definitely kept my interest. The story takes place in England as Tony Webster looks back over his life and the pivotal suicide of one of his childhood friends directly after college. It's a deceptively simple story with very little action, but a lot of underlying tension. The problem is that I kept waiting to get it. To have that pivotal moment where it all comes together and makes sense. I finished the book without having that experiences. I think I understand what happened in the book, but I still finished with the sense that I had missed something. Perhaps if I read it again... 8. Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy 02/11/2012
 "What would it be like to walk down the street and be able to trust that no one would say anything nasty to me? My only clues were from Halloween and from the winter, when I could wrap up the lower half of my face in a scarf and talk to people who had no idea that my beauty was a lie, a trick that would be exposed the minute I had to take off the scarf" Lucy Grealy Autobiography of a Face is a gripping memoir that compels the reader to follow the journey of Grealy's diagnosis of Ewing's Sarcoma when she is nine through countless surgeries and re-constructive attempts. The cancer (which has a survival rate of 5%) affected her jaw and left her face permanently changed. As Grealy describes her chemotherapy, frequent doctor visits, and hospital stays through the eyes of a child, the language and beauty that she uses are truly impressive. The book reads much more like a soliloquy on beauty than just a recounting of her life. Her meditations on truth and how it relates to beauty are inspiring. She uses her experiences and helps the reader to understand more about the human condition. That being said, this is not an easy book to read. There are no pat answers to explain the pain of life or the value of family. I've seen the book for years, know that it appears on many awards lists, but it wasn't until a friend gave it to me for Christmas that I finally was motivated to read it. I'm glad that I did because it's a superb example of great writing. 7. Rex Libris. I, Librarian by James Turner 01/28/2012
 "1. Books are to be read. 2. Every person his or her book. 3. Every book its reader. 4. Save the time of the reader. 5. The library is a growing organism." I'm not usually much of a graphic novel gal, but when one of my students brought this into class last fall, I knew that it needed to get on my list. And it was a really fun read. It was a mix of libraryland theory and super-hero fantasy. Characters from books at the Middleton Public Library come alive and need to be shushed by Circe, one of the resident librarians who is 2000 years old. Rex's mission in the book is to collect a library book that has not been turned in from another galaxy. The print in this graphic novel is very small and I had a hard time reading it. This may be because I am unfamiliar with the format and if I read more I'd have an easier time following it. Since reading this book, I find myself fantasizing about the super-hero powers to the library I work in and maybe even my super-hero powers as well. I'm also linking a buzz feed with some beautiful libraries in it. http://www.buzzfeed.com/nileguide/8-bad-ass-libraries-566k 6. When She Woke by Hillary Jordan 01/20/2012
 "When she woke, she was red. Not flushed, not sunburned, but the solid declarative red of a stop sign". Hillary Jordan Hillary Jordan's new novel When She Woke is an engaging read. I started and finished it in one evening and the story gripped me. She describes a futuristic society in which criminals are mela-chromed for different crimes. Red if you've committed murder, yellow for other crimes. Hannah, the protagonist, had an abortion and is thus convicted of murder. It's a re-telling of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter mixed with Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale . I really liked Jordan's first novel Mudbound, which won the Bellwether prize http://www.pen.org/page.php/prmID/2145, sponsored by Barbara Kingsolver. Mudbound deals with racism in Mississippi and offers effective conclusions to the issues that it brings up. When She Woke brings up so many issues that it's impossible to fully explore all of them and the result leaves the reader slightly confused and frustrated. I love a good "issue" novel, but this one fell flat for me during the last 80 pages. However, this did make me want to read The Scarlet Letter and The Handmaid's Tale again. It also made me think about how often in my life I try to take on too many issues and how much more effective it is to choose one and deal with it effectively.  " The pleasures of eating are trumpeted loudly in today's society and that is a wonderful thing. But the pleasure of knowing what occurred on the journey from the field to the table are just as important, because food tastes so much better that way..." Georgia Pellegrini Yep. That's a picture of me. Plucking a duck. A pretty mallard one at that. The theme of Georgia Pellegrini's book matches one of the theme of my life pretty well right now. A few years ago, I got interested in thinking about eating locally and where my food was coming from. This led to joining Global Gardens CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) and learning more about where my vegetables were coming from. Then, I met Scott and his freezer full of food. I haven't bought meat in the last 2 and a half years and it's been an education in what it really means to know where your food comes from. For us, it means if you're gonna know where your meat is coming from you're gonna have to be comfortable getting your meat and when I say getting your meat, I mean hunting or fishing. I've caught a few fish, but at this point, Scott's the big hunter in the household, but I'm definitely getting more comfortable with it. 
Me? Ice fishing.
 But, the thing about hunting and knowing where your food comes from is that sometimes it's gross. Cleaning the innards out of a duck stinks, literally, and sometimes it might make you feel like throwing up. Especially when it's cold and you're tired and hungry. At the same time, it feels really true. When you sit down to a meal where you helped pluck and clean the duck at the table, the food tastes delicious and the effort is worth it. I can definitely relate to Pellegrini when she talks about knowing what has transpired on the way to the plate. Her book is part-memoir and part cookbook. 
She travels to many sought after hunting locations and hunts turkeys, javelina, squirrels, pheasants, hog, doves, and many other birds. She reflects on many of the hunts that are on private land and therefore not available to all hunters and about the hunts that are available to gentleman hunters. Pellegrini used to be a chef and uses her culinary prowess to invent and share recipes that make you want to try them. She also explains the history of hunting in the United States and experiences some hunters with questionable hunting ethics. Hunting is complicated and each state regulates things slightly differently which makes it a research project to find out what the regulations are each time you got out. We are really lucky to live in Idaho where there are so many opportunities to hunt and gather. We tried her recipe for Balsamic Deer Heart for dinner tonight and it was a success. 
Balsamic Deer Heart, Buttercup Squash with homemade Strawberry Jam, Sauteed Lentil and Alfalfa Sprouts, and Sour Milk Potato Muffin.
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AuthorHi! My name is Becca and I am a Reference Librarian in Boise, Idaho. For 2012, I've decided to track what I read using this blog. ArchivesMarch 2012 CategoriesAll |
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