FINISHED: a bunch of books

Taxonomy of Barnacles

I first read about The Taxonomy of Barnacles in the New York Times. Not in the Book Review, as one might imagine, but I read an interview with Galt Niederhoffer in the “Fashion and Style” section, in which she reveals her eccentric family, the basis of her first novel. Her family story was deliciously odd. I finally got around the purchasing the book when it was released in trade paper. Niederhoffer wows with a confident comedy of manners, as well as a nod to Charles Darwin and Shakespeare’s King Lear. The patriarch of the Barnacle family presents his six daughters with a challenge: produce a male heir, and win the family fortune. The others get nothing. The characters are richly drawn (two of the sisters have “befriended” twin brothers who live in their building). The setting—New York City—is delightfully rendered. This is for anyone looking for something that reads like Wes Anderson’s Royal Tenenbaums. Or you could wait for the movie.

The View from the Seventh Layer

Last April I read Kevin Brockmeier’s brilliant, bestselling novel The Brief History of the Dead. Before I even finished the book, I promised that I would read any future book that he wrote. Imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon his follow-up, hot off the press, at the library. The View from the Seventh Layer is a collection of thirteen stories, all of which have previously appeared in print. The very first story—“A Fable Ending in the Sound of a Thousand Parakeets”—knocked my socks off. It had all of the playful qualities of Brief History, as well as an ending with a big payoff. Many stories have a fantastical, surreal, speculative feel to them, which appeals to me. I found myself setting the book aside after reading many of the stories so they could linger, like a long finish on a fine wine. Another story, “The Human Soul as a Rube Goldberg Device,” is a clever Choose Your Own Adventure for adults. This is for anyone who liked early Jonathan Lethem, Judy Budnitz, or Borges. Can’t wait to read more Brockmeier.

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
Some time ago, in anticipation of the forthcoming move, my friend Caryl kindly loaned me her beautiful copy of Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. The idea was that I would read the book in time to see the movie. But as fate would have it, I didn’t manage to get past the first chapter. Just bad timing with other reading engagements. We went to the movie, and I loved it. Then I read the book, and I loved that too.

Written by Winifred Watson, Miss Pettigrew was first published in 1938. The novel is currently in print from Persephone Books, the super-cool British publisher that specializes in reviving lost twentieth-century classics, mostly written by women. Miss Pettigrew is sent by an employment agency to the wrong house. Instead of the governess job she was expecting, Miss Pettigrew finds herself thrust into a new role as social secretary to a nightclub singer, Miss LaFosse. And hijinks ensue. I loved Watson’s wit, humor, and carefree storytelling. Lighthearted line drawings make a charming package, immediately drawing the reader into the period and spirit of the novel.

I’m pleased to say that the movie stood alone quite nicely, and I was glad not to feel fierce loyalty to the novel. Amy Adams was spectacularly dramatic in the role of the Miss LaFosse, while Frances McDormand played Miss Pettigrew with great pathos. The movie follows the novel’s plot, adding a number of embellishments—most of which work, some of which are inexplicable (such as newspaper headlines of WW2's approach and air-raid drills, which I'm sure were meant to establish the time period, as if costuming were insufficient to the task).

I urge you to see the movie and read the book. Doesn’t matter in which order. Simply enjoy each on its merits.

las vegas reading postmortem

I’m back from Las Vegas. As always, my reading intentions were overly ambitious. I had purchased a few books specifically for Las Vegas—Casino Royale, The Emperor’s Children, and On a Hoof and a Prayer. As always, when planning a trip, I lost sleep over which would be the best book(s) to bring. Practicing some restraint, of these books, I only packed the Ian Fleming, for obvious thematic reasons.

In my carry-on, I included Death in a Strange Country, by Donna Leon. I read for almost every minute of the three-hour flight and knocked off about two-thirds of the mystery. Determined to finish this book by the return flight, three days later, I schlepped it with me everywhere, mostly to the pool. My suitcase, which had ample room, carried Then We Came to the End and Casino Royale. Neither saw the light of day.


The Mirage’s pool proved to be a difficult place to read. Pictured above is a view from the Dolphin Bar—seems almost postcard perfect, doesn't it? Usually, I would suit up and head down to the pool with a friend. The process of locating two empty lounge chairs, setting up towels, and getting situated with a tropical drink (pina colada is my poolside poison of choice) was exhausting. I would turn to chit-chat. And peoplewatching. Conclusion: the pool is not such a good place to read.

Here is a brief list of books other people were reading:
~ traveling companions: Lamb (Lisa, the birthday girl) and Eat, Pray, Love (Bonnie)
~ select books, poolside: Temptations by Douglas Kennedy (doesn't seem to be available in the U.S.), Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner, and, on a heavier note, Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama

Bonnie, the most social of the group, was on my return flight. Although I only had fifty or so pages remaining in my mystery, the only reading I managed was the InStyle magazine—the biggest waste of money, but a ritual when I fly.

Viva Las Vegas

I’m off to Vegas for the weekend to help a girlfriend celebrate a milestone birthday. It’s my first visit, and aside from neon and casinos, I don’t really know what to expect. I’m not a gambler but I am a keen observer. My flight lands at McCarran at 10:30 a.m., which gives me just enough time to get to the hotel and be poolside with a cocktail and a book by noon.

As far as my book wardrobe goes, I’m having a difficult time choosing which titles to bring. I’m a few chapters into Death in a Strange Country (Donna Leon) and stand a fair chance of finishing the book on the plane. I’ve made some good progress on the next book group title, Then We Came to the End, which could be perfect poolside fare. Since learning I have a conflict and can’t attend the next book group, there’s no need to finish it soon.

I’ve already ruled out my recent hardcover purchases (Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth or Geraldine Brooks’ People of the Book) owing to bulk. Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food is too nutritious for vacation reading.

Here are the contenders:

~ On a Hoof and a Prayer—Polly Evans’ tour of Argentina on horseback
~ Death by Pad Thai and Other Unforgettable Meals (edited by Douglas Bauer)—short in length, essays are good bedfellows when faced with the distractions of travel
~ Sound Bites—one part foodie, one part travel, essays written by Franz Ferdinand lead singer, Alex Kapranos
~ Casino Royale—James Bond, gambling, classic Ian Fleming, no brainer
~ Emperor’s Children—Claire Messud’s critically acclaimed novel

Back Monday...

tidbits for the first monday in may

~ Last week, the NYT reported that for the first time in 10 years, Harry Potter is missing from the bestsellers list. Unreal. I've traveled in my wayback machine to recall how ten years ago, while working as a rep for Holtzbrinck, it was difficult to get a book on The List because Potter was on the adult list. Yes, there wasn't even a separate children's list then. It's hard to deny that J.K. Rowling's series has had an incredible influence over the public's reading habits, but also on the publishing industry and other venerable institutions, such as the The List (a measure of a book's success).

~ The National Book Critic Circle (NBCC) announces their Good Reads list for Spring '08. A few of these—Price, Lahiri, and Baxter, for sure—are on my TBR list. Read more here.

FICTION

1. Richard Price, LUSH LIFE, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
2. Jhumpa Lahiri, UNACCUSTOMED EARTH, Knopf
3. Steven Millhauser, DANGEROUS LAUGHTER, Knopf
*4. Charles Baxter, THE SOUL THIEF, Pantheon
*4. Peter Carey, HIS ILLEGAL SELF, Knopf
*4. J. M. Coetzee, DIARY OF A BAD YEAR, Viking
*4. James Collins, BEGINNNER’S GREEK, Little, Brown
*4. Brian Hall, FALL OF FROST, Viking
*4. Roxana Robinson, COST, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
*4. Owen Sheers, RESISTANCE, Nan A. Talese: Doubleday

NONFICTION

1. Nicholson Baker, HUMAN SMOKE: THE BEGINNING OF WORLD WAR II, THE END OF CIVILIZATION, S. & S.
2. Drew Gilpin Faust, THIS REPUBLIC OF SUFFERING: DEATH AND THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, Knopf
3. Mark Harris, PICTURES AT THE REVOLUTION: FIVE MOVIES AND THE BIRTH OF THE NEW HOLLYWOOD, Penguin Press
4. Honor Moore, THE BISHOP’S DAUGHTER: A MEMOIR, Norton
5. Susan Jacoby, THE AGE OF AMERICAN UNREASON, Pantheon

POETRY

1. Grace Paley, FIDELITY, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
2. Frank Bidart, WATCHING THE SPRING FESTIVAL, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
3. Eric Gansworth, A HALF-LIFE OF CARDIO-PULMONARY FUNCTION, Syracuse University Press
4. Marie Howe, THE KINGDOM OF ORDINARY TIME, Norton
5. Robert Pinsky, GULF MUSIC, Farrar, Straus & Giroux

nuggets

~ Pulitzer Prizes were awarded earlier this week. You can see a list of winners here. I think it's finally time to read the wondrous Junot Diaz.

~ As I was cleaning off my desk, I found a printout of an old article, dated July 11, 2007, announcing an official new James Bond story. Marking the centenary of Ian Fleming's birth, Doubleday will release Devil May Care on May 28, 2008. I'm pretty excited for many reasons, the approaching release date chief among them, but also because Sebastian Faulks, author of Birdsong and On Green Dolphin Street, has written it. Viva le Bond!



On a related note, check out Penguin's Bond reissues. Their retro appeal is perfect. I just purchased Casino Royale (1954) to read, appropriately, on a flight to Las Vegas next month.

Get a Bond fix:
Commander Bond
Ian Fleming Centre, the official site of Ian Fleming Publications, the Fleming literary estate
Which Bond are you? Take a quiz.

~ Are you ready for a new Carlos Ruiz Zafon? Doubleday will publish the English translation of The Angel's Game, a prequel to Zafon's wildly bestselling The Shadow of the Wind, in summer 2009. According to Publishers' Lunch, the novel is set in 1920s Barcelona, combining a love story, a mystery, a fantasy and an exploration of literature. I've read elsewhere that there was, not surprisingly, "an intense seven-figure auction."

catching up

When I left off here, I was fiercely determined to finish The Omnivore’s Dilemma before my book group met. I wish that I could have continued to write my impressions as I was reading, but with only four days to read two hundred pages—did I mention I am a s-l-o-w reader?—I gave myself over to the book. I’m pleased to say that I came within thirty pages of finishing. Book group met, six members strong, and we had a very good discussion—each of us equally horrified where appropriate, motivated to make the best food choices for ourselves and our families, and wowed by Pollan’s talent.

Where was I, then?

In the last half of the second section, Pollan continues writing about the animals on Joe Salatin’s farm, specifically about the rich symbiosis shared between the cows and the chickens. The cows produce manure. Three or four days later, the chickens eat fat, protein-rich grubs out of the cow manure, which not only produces rich and tasty eggs, but sanitizes the pasture so Salatin doesn’t need to use toxic dewormers or antibiotics on his cattle. I can’t get over how cool that is. Why can’t more farmers do this?

Pollan also details chicken slaughter, which Salatin is allowed to conduct on his farm. He visits Bev Eggleston, who markets Polyface meat and eggs, and he tags along with Joel’s brother, Art, as he delivers Polyface items to local restaurants that endorse farm-to-table menus. In the spirit of eating locally, the third of four meals is eaten in Charlottesville, before Pollan’s return to California. Pollan roasts chickens, which he helped slaughter, as well as corn, picked from Salatin’s hoop house. Pollan also prepares a soufflé from Salatin’s eggs and serves local wine, a Virginia-state viognier.

The book’s final section—the forest—was my favorite. Pollan examines the ethics of eating animals juxtaposed against a vegetarian diet. He also forages for mushrooms (morels), hunts wild boar, and harvests salt. For his fourth meal, Pollan establishes the following rules:

1. Everything on the menu must have been hunted, gathered, or grown by me.

2. The menu should feature at least one representative of each edible kingdom: animal, vegetable, and fungus, as well as an edible mineral (the salt).

3. Everything served must be in season and fresh. The meal would reflect not only the places that supplied its ingredients, but a particular moment in time.

4. No money may be spent on the meal, though already purchased items in the pantry could be deployed as needed.

5. The guest list is limited to those people who helped me in my foraging and their significant others. . . . There would be ten of us in all.

6. I would cook the meal myself.

Here is his menu:

Fava Bean Toasts and Sonoma Boar
Pate Egg Fettuccine with Power Fire Morels
Braised Leg and Grilled Loin of Wild Sonoma Pig
Wild East Bay Yeast Levain
Very Local Garden Salad
Fulton Street Bing Cherry Galette
Claremont Canyon Chamomile Tisane
2003 Angelo Garro Petite Syrah

Ambitious and a little (intentionally) pretentious. If you’d like to know the meal's outcome, I’d strongly suggest you read this book. It’s worth it for Pollan’s richly detailed writing.

Pollan concludes that without the fast food we wouldn't be able to appreciate the slow food fully, but ultimately argues that it would be nice to get to a point where food is food. He would like to enjoy food for food's sake and leave the politics out of the meal. Amen.

Thumbing through the book, trying to refresh my memory, I’ve read random, impeccably constructed sentences that remind me how much I enjoyed reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma. I know I’ll read it again, but in the meantime I’m passing along the book to my sister because I know she’ll appreciate it and we’ll have a good conversation later. I love Michael Pollan's dense narrative style, which pretty perfectly blends factual information with his personal experience. I have added some of his backlist to my TBR list—The Botany of Desire (another book that weaves science with anecdotes to explore the relationship between people and plants) and A Place of My Own (in which Pollan explores home construction through history and personal experience). And, I'd like to read the provocatively titled In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, his continuing discussion about what we eat.

The next selection for our book group is Joshua Ferris’s critically acclaimed Then We Came to the End, an office dramedy described as such by Publishers Weekly:

This wickedly funny, big-hearted novel about life in the office signals the arrival of a gloriously talented new writer. The characters in Then We Came to the End cope with a business downturn in the time-honored way: through gossip, secret romance, elaborate pranks, and increasingly frequent coffee breaks. By day they compete for the best office furniture left behind and try to make sense of the mysterious pro-bono ad campaign that is their only remaining "work."

Substitute "architecture magazine group" for the protagonist's "ad agency" and "gut-wrenchingly stressful" with "wickedly funny," and Ferris's little novel strikes too close to home. Which may explain why I haven't started it yet. This book has been on my radar since I received an insider tip before it was published, but the glowing reviews for the hardcover, the nomination for a National Book Award, and making it to the semi-final round of the '08 Tournament of Books certainly boosted TWCTTE up my TBR list.

Links Fest

~ No, it's not an April Fool's—Borders is considering putting itself up for sale, finally.

~ The Morning News' Tournament of Books is halfway through the second round. I tanked in Round One, Game Two when I predicted The Savage Detectives would handily beat Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name. Even though I disagree with the judge's assessment, I will give the Vendela Vida book a shot.

~ If there is such a thing as an afterlife, I hope Geo. J. and Jon Hassler have been reunited. Beloved author Jon Hassler, whose unconquerable will to write became as much admired as his novels steeped in small-town Minnesota, died early Thursday of Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, a Parkinson’s-like disease. He was 74.