Daily Archives: February 25, 2012

Book Spree

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As a writer, I naturally spend a lot of time writing. Shocking, I know! On my down-time, I can usually be found reading a book or four. I’m always cycling amongst a weird combination of disparate volumes. If I’m not engaged in those activities, there’s a very good chance that I am thinking about one or the other. Writing and reading are the fuels that fire my passion for life. Continue reading →

A Year in Books/Day 54: The Prospect Before Her

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  • Title: The Prospect Before Her A History of Women in Western Europe Volume One 1500-1800
  • Author: Olwen Hufton
  • Year Published: 1995 (Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.)
  • Year Purchased: 2002-2004
  • Source: Edward R. Hamilton Bookseller Company
  • About: A lengthy, serious study of what girls could expect from their lives, from the cradle to the grave, between the years 1500-1800 in Western Europe. This isn’t the most well-made volume, and is falling apart at the binding, but the scholarship and writing are first-class.
  • Motivation: I’m a feminist. I dig history and women’s studies.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 91: “The women involved were drawn not from the city of Lyons, unless they were the master’s daughters, but from the mountainous villages of the Forez, Besse and Bugey and parts of the Dauphine. They were known as silk-maker’s servants because they lived in (often sleeping under the looms) and like domestic servants they were paid on an annual basis or when they left the employment of the master. Like servants they started in their early teens and expected to work for about fifteen years before having saved enough to embark on matrimony.”
  • Happiness Scale: 9

A Year in Books/Day 53: The Illustrated History of the 19th Century

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  • Title: The Illustrated History of the 19th Century Month by Month Year by Year
  • Year Published: 2000 (Hackberry Press)
  • Year Purchased: 2002/2003
  • Source: Unknown
  • About: This is a thick encyclopedia devoted to the century that gave us Victoria and Dickens, Edison and Bernhardt, Lincoln and Eliot. It maintains a nice balance between text and illustrations.
  • Motivation: I love history, reference books and arcane data.
  • Times Read: Cover-to-cover:2/As reference tool: countless
  • Random Excerpt/Page 118: “A food scare is caused by an English chemistry professor, Frederick Accum, who publishes ‘Adulteration of Foods and Culinary Poisons’, showing that food on sale in Britain is usually adulterated, some with poisons, and has to flee to Berlin to avoid prosecution.”
  • Happiness Scale: 8 1/2
    Sarah Bernhardt, 1877

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A Year in Books/Day 52: Hollywood Babylon

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  • Title: Hollywood Babylon
  • Author: Kenneth Anger
  • Year Published: 1975/This Edition: 1981 (Dell Books)
  • Year Purchased: 2011
  • Source: This was a Christmas gift from my best friend.
  • About: I first read Kenneth Anger’s trash classic as a sophomore in high school. My English teacher loaned me her copy because she knew that I was a budding film buff. This collection of movie colony scandals is sordid and full of minor inaccuracies, neither of which lessens the fun one bit! Just don’t take it too seriously.
  • Motivation: My best friend knows how much I love classic movies and their stars. It was a great gift and, since I hadn’t read it since high school, it was pretty much like reading it for the first time.
  • Times Read: 2
  • Random Excerpt/Page 108: “If Wally Reid’s robin’s egg blue McFarlan was no longer seen cruising down Sunset, there was enough gaudy horsepower to take its place: Clara Bow in her red Kissel convertible with Chow dogs to match; Valentino’s custom-built Voisin tourer with its coiled-cobra radiator cap; Mae Murray’s canary yellow Pierce-Arrow or more formal white Rolls-Royce with liveried chauffeur and ever-present Borzoi; Olga Petrova’s purple Packard touring sedan; Gloria Swanson’s leopard-upholstered Lancia.”
  • Happiness Scale: 8
    English: Mae Murray

    Image via Wikipedia