Author Archives: maedez

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About maedez

Writer, biographer, poet. History nerd, silent movie maven. Punk rocker, amateur baker, bookworm. Cricket fan, Scotch drinker, craft beer snob.

A Year in Books/Day 44: Good Old Index

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  • Title: Good Old Index The Sherlock Holmes Handbook
  • Author: Thomas W. Ross
  • Year Published: 1997 (Camden House)
  • Year Purchased: 2002/2003
  • Source: Edward R. Hamilton Bookseller Company
  • About: Every single thing you could ever want or need to know about Sherlock Holmes, except, perhaps, which actor best embodies the timeless sleuth.
  • Motivation: Although I am not an obsessive Holmes fanatic, I am quite the ardent reader. I also love lists and encyclopedias.
  • Times Read: Cover-to-cover: 1/As consulting tool: countless

    Sherlock Holmes

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  • Random Excerpt/Page 62: “Epithets, for Holmes, hurled at him by scoffers: see busybody; cocksure; jack-in-office; theorist; clever.”
  • Happiness Scale: 7

A Year in Books/Day 43: The Big Bam

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  • Title: The Big Bam The Life and Times of Babe Ruth
  • Author: Leigh Montville
  • Year Published: 2006 (Doubleday)
  • Year Purchased: 2010
  • Source: History Book Club
  • About: A first-rate biography of Babe Ruth, written by a first-rate sports writer, Leigh Montville (‘Ted Williams’). A good biography is easy enough to find. If you can manage to locate one that combines in-depth research with a nuanced understanding of human psychology, all blended together with sports knowledge and the ability to tell a damn fine story, then you are likely in the presence of greatness.
  • Motivation: I grew up watching baseball with my Grandpa (the Indians, not the Yankees). It remains one of my favorite past-times, evoking fond memories whilst simultaneously creating new ones. I love a good character study and, wow, is Babe Ruth’s life perfect fodder for that!
    Babe Ruth, full-length portrait, standing, fac...

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  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 122: “The Los Angeles Times reported that this was the biggest national rumor since the famous “Fake Armistice” story of November 7, 1918, which at first sent people into the streets in celebration of the end of the world war, then resulted in a number of riots when the news turned out to be false. The Babe rumor, while it did flash through poolrooms and boardrooms everywhere in the country, had a much quieter finish as baseball officials immediately denied it.”
  • Happiness Scale: 10

The Dead Writers Round-Up: 24th-27th January

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  • Edith Wharton was born on 1/24/1862. “Beware of monotony; it’s the mother of all the deadly sins.”
  • Vicki Baum was born on 1/24/1888. Her novel, ‘Menschen im Hotel’ supplied the basis for the 1932 Hollywood film, ‘Grand Hotel’. Starring John and Lionel Barrymore, Greta Garbo and Joan Crawford (along with many others), it was one of the first big budget all-star productions.
  • Robert Burns was born on 1/25/1759. “Dare to be honest and fear no labor.”
  • W. Somerset Maugham was born on 1/25/1874. “Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams.”
  • Virginia Woolf was born on 1/25/1882. “A good essay must have this permanent quality about it; it must draw its curtain round us, but it must be a curtain that shuts us in not out.”
  • Ouida died on 1/25/1908. Her novel ‘Under Two Flags’ has been adapted for the screen 5 times, the 1936 version starring Ronald Colman and Claudette Colbert being the most famous.
  • Lewis Carroll was born on 1/27/1832. “Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end. Then stop.”

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A Year in Books/Day 42: Vermeer

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  • Title: Vermeer The Complete Paintings
  • Author: Norbert Schneider
  • Year Published: 2001 (Taschen)
  • Year Purchased: 2002/2003
  • Source: Barnes & Noble clearance rack
  • About: Mid-way between a coffee table book and scholarly treatise, this small, slim volume is a surprisingly stunning study of the legendary Dutch master’s entire output (35 paintings). Norbert Schneider has serious chops as an art historian, yet manages to present technical details, sociological factors and biographical information in a straightforward and engaging manner. He takes you considerably deeper than ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’. His beautifully nuanced precision is well worthy of Vermeer.
  • Motivation: I have wildly eclectic taste. Though my preferences twist and turn, slither and lurch to a thousand and one different places, doubling back before shooting off in another hundred seemingly random, sometimes contradictory directions, one thing is always indisputable: I like what I like. And I like Vermeer. In fact, I have an overall fondness for Dutch painting. A quick thumb-through of this lush little gem and I was sold.
  • Times Read: Countless
  • Random Excerpt/Page 36: ” A peeled lemon in ‘Woman and two men’ lies on a silver dish next to a jug which has been placed on a white cloth in an arrangement which is almost like a still life; the purpose if the lemon was to reduce the effect of love potions.”
  • Happiness Scale: 10++
    Johannes Vermeer, The Milkmaid (1658–1660)

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The Dead Writers Round-Up: 19th-23rd January

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  • Edgar Allan Poe was born on 1/19/1809. “All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.”
  • Robinson Jeffers died on 1/20/1962. “Corruption never has been compulsory; when the cities lie at the monster’s feet there are left the mountains.” (Shine, Perishing Republic, 1941)
  • Lytton Strachey died on 1/21/1932. Strachey revolutionized the genre of biography, finally bringing it out of the Victorian era by infusing his profiles with wit and genuine human emotions.
  • George A. Moore died on 1/21/1933. “Art must be parochial in the beginning to be cosmopolitan in the end.”
  • George Orwell died on 1/21/1950. “Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.”
  • Lord Byron was born on 1/22/1788. “Between two worlds life hovers like a star, twixt night and morn, upon the horizon’s verge.”
  • August Strindberg was born on 1/22/1849. Strindberg was an artistic triple-threat, engaging in painting and photography as well as the writing for which he is known. He also fancied himself an alchemist.
  • Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle) was born on 1/23/1783. “A novel is a mirror carried along a main road.

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A Year in Books/Day 41: Mary Queen of Scots

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  • Title: Mary Queen of Scots
  • Author: Marjorie Bowen
  • Year Published: First Edition-1934/This Edition: 1971 (Sphere Books Limited)
  • Year Purchased: 2001
  • Source: Book Harbor, Westerville, Ohio
  • About: A fine biography that gives the Scots queen her full due. A true classic.
  • Motivation: I have a largish collection of Tudor-themed books. Although I have never been strongly attached to Elizabeth’s cousin, I thought it was time to give a few feet of shelf space to the House of Stuart. I’m glad I did.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 200: “It was Sir Henry Killigrew who brought the official warning and the secret complaint to Edinburgh. He had his notes to make on the affairs, domestic and politic, of the young Queen of Scots who should, by the birth of her son, have been at the height of her triumph.”
  • Happiness Scale: 10
    Mary, Queen of Scots, who conspired with Engli...

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A Year in Books/Day 40: The World’s Most Notorious Women

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  • Title: The World’s Most Notorious Women Secrets, lies, murders, and scandals….The Notorious Acts of Women
  • Author: None listed. I cannot say that I blame them (see below).
  • Year Published: 2001/This Edition 2002 (ALVA PRESS)
  • Year Purchased: 2003/2004
  • Source: Via mail/unknown source
  • About: When I bought this book for a dollar or two, my hopes were admittedly pretty low. I thought it would be an easy, quick, silly beach-type read. Little did I know then how wrong I was. This is, without any doubt, the shoddiest book I have ever seen or read. If writing 2,000 words enumerating exactly how awful it is, in every damn way, was not wildly out of proportion to its inherent insignificance, I would probably do so. Continue reading →

A Year in Books/Day 39: Elizabethan Cross Stitch

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  • Title: Elizabethan Cross Stitch
  • Author: Barbara Hammet
  • Year Published: 2004 (A David & Charles Book)
  • Year Purchased: 2005
  • Source: Likely a book club of some sort
  • About: Yes, this is a craft book. It contains 25 cross stitch patterns based on Elizabethan designs. Scintillating, I know.
  • Motivation: The Elizabethan is one of my favorite eras. I was piqued by the ever-so-slight historical bent. As an adult I can barely sew on a button. As a child, I was a very intermittent but quite excellent cross stitcher. Also, deep down, I know that there is a craft-beast waiting to be unleashed. If only I had the time. Apparently, I don’t. I completed a stunning pin cushion for my Grandma circa 2007. My second project ( a pillow based on a garden) has been in the planning stages since then. Sigh.
  • Times Read: 1 (or, as much as you can actually read a book containing cross stitch patterns)
  • Random Excerpt/Page 5: “The embroidery of the Elizabethan period is characterized by great richness and originality. The works are often more complex than modern ones, often on a finer scale and frequently allude to historical figures, but in them we recognize the beginning of all the embroidery we know today.”
  • Happiness Scale: 7

Intermezzo: Like a Yoko in the Night

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Yoko Ono stole my commission. Behind that sweet face is a heart sated with greed. She walked away with three of my customers. Each time I stood there, mouth hanging open mid-sentence, she just kept on smiling. Saying soothing things to them, never missing a beat; her theft audacious under the fluorescent lights. Wide-eyed, brown-eyed, soul-eyed. No hint of wrong-doing troubled her placid face. She took their sales, pocketed their money, said strange things and sent them on their way as if nothing was wrong in her world. It wasn’t. Each time she turned to me, pirouetted, and grinned. “This is how it is done. This is how you make a sale. It’s easy. Follow my lead and you’ll be just like me, my dear.” I kept tumbling after her, now sure that she was right: I really could learn a lot by watching her. She’s crafty, serene, enigmatic. I suddenly, forcefully knew that she isn’t driven by greed at all. A few seconds later I looked over, expecting to be gifted with her smile and odd natural wisdom. She wasn’t there. The sun was hitting my face.