Tag Archives: Book Reviews

A Year in Books/Day 60: The First Elizabeth

Posted on February 29, 2012 by maedez

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• Title: The First Elizabeth
• Author: Carolly Erickson
• Year Published: 1983 (St. Martin’s Griffin)
• Year Purchased: 1990’s
• Source: Antique Barn at The Ohio State Fair, Columbus, Ohio
• About: My favourite historical personage and all around kick-ass woman receives an above-average biographical treatment here.
• Motivation: See above. Also, I love my fellow redheads.
• Times Read: 2
• Random Excerpt/Page 187: “There were more festivities in the coming days. The queen went to Woolwich to launch a fine new ship for her navy, christened the ‘Elizabeth’, and returned to Greenwich to watch more military games-among them a “great casting of fire, and shooting of guns, till twelve at night.” The recent peace, these exercises proclaimed, had not dimmed England’s warlike spirit; let other nation’s take warning.”
• Happiness Scale: 10
  

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A Year in Books/Day 59: Jailbird

Posted on February 29, 2012 by maedez

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• Title: Jailbird
• Author: Kurt Vonnegut
• Year Published: 1979 (Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence)
• Year Found: 2009
• Source: It was on the giveaway table in our apartment building.
• About: It’s Vonnegut, and it’s awesome. Walter F. Starbuck is a classic character and this novel makes for a wonderful albeit quick (as is the Vonnegut way) read. Of course, it is always better to read Vonnegut than to try to explain his work. So, you should go do that now.
• Motivation: I love Vonnegut-the-writer and adore Vonnegut-the-person. He made it look easy and it is never easy. The book was also free. The back cover photo of the writer, taken by his wife Jill Krementz, is one of my favorites.
• Times Read: 2
• Random Excerpt/Page 127: “About the young man and his radio. I decided that he had bought the thing as a prosthetic device, as an artificial enthusiasm for the planet. He paid as little attention to it as I paid to my false front tooth. I have since seen several young men like that in groups-with their radios tuned to different stations, with their radios engaged in a spirited conversation. The young men themselves, perhaps having been told nothing but “shut up” all their lives, had nothing to say.”
• Happiness Scale: 9

A Year in Books/Day 58: Angela’s Ashes

Posted on February 27, 2012 by maedez

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• Title: Angela’s Ashes
• Author: Frank McCourt
• Year Published: 1996 (Scribner)
• Year Purchased: 1997
• Source: Unknown
• About: This is one of the most famous memoirs of all-time-I certainly don’t need to illustrate its contents or expound on its merits. I’ll just say that it is harrowing, lovely and every bit as good as all of the press it received back in the 1990s insisted it was. McCourt deserved the towering heap of praise-and the Pulitzer-that he was given.
• Motivation: I was alive when it came out. Seriously, this is one of the few books that almost everyone I know has read; this includes the few hard-core non-readers in my wide orbit. It also came highly recommended by a friend, who read it as soon as it hit the shelves of the bookstore she managed.
• Times Read: 2
• Random Excerpt/Page 59: “The room had a fireplace where we could boil water for our tea or an egg in case we ever came into money. We had a table and three chairs and a bed, which Mam said was the biggest she had ever seen. We were glad of the bed that night, worn out after nights on floors in Dublin and Grandma’s. It didn’t matter that there were six of us in the bed, we were together, away from grandmothers and guards, Malachy could say ye ye ye and we could laugh as much as we liked.”
• Happiness Scale: 9

A Year in Books/Day 57: Inside Oscar

Posted on February 26, 2012 by maedez

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• Title: Inside Oscar The Unofficial History of the Academy Awards 10th Anniversary Edition
• Authors: Mason Wiley and Damien Bona
• Year Published: 1986/This Edition: 1996 (Ballantine Books)
• Year Purchased: 1996/1997
• Source: Birthday gift
• About: Everything that you could ever want to know about Hollywood’s most important event in one ridiculously long volume (nearly 1200 pages). It includes data up to 1994. It’s a reminder that the Oscar telecast is a gaudy, self-congratulatory but mostly entertaining display of vanity gone wild.
• Motivation: You’re going to get sick of me telling you that I am a film buff and write about old movies. However, I am and I do! This is just one of many handy reference books in my library.
• Times Read: Cover-to-cover: 1/As reference tool: Countless
• Random Excerpt/Page 50: “Louella Parsons was upset at what she considered Hepburn’s indifference to the honor. “Katy was not very gracious,” Louella wrote in her column. “She didn’t send a telegram of appreciation when unable to attend. Someone at RKO realized this and sent one.” There was mail waiting for Best Director loser Frank Capra when he returned home-his relatives from Sicily had sent letters of congratulation, mistaking his nomination for a victory.”
• Happiness Scale: 10

A Year in Books/Day 55: Girl in Hyacinth Blue

Posted on February 26, 2012 by maedez

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• Title: Girl in Hyacinth Blue
• Author: Susan Vreeland
• Year Published: 1999 (Penguin Books)
• Year Purchased: 2006
• Source: A bookstore in Buffalo, New York
• About: Another book revolving around the Dutch painter, Vermeer. This is a lovely, intimate novel with a surprisingly large, sweeping historical scope. It is, more than anything, the story of a single painting as seen through the eyes of its creator and subsequent owners. It jumps through time yet is seamless, never jarring.
• Motivation: Jan Vermeer is one of my favourite painters. I was looking for a brief, well-written novel to read while on vacation.
• Times Read: 1
• Random Excerpt/Page 82: “Now, it’s not wise to be shocked. It makes one’s face blotchy and you don’t want that. I wouldn’t tell just anybody, because there are parts, there are parts-but since you asked for counsel in such matters, I will tell you. The truth, that I did not love the husband my father chose for me, I had concealed more carefully than a breast.”
• Happiness Scale: 7 1/2

 

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

Posted on February 25, 2012 by maedez

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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
  

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A Year in Books/Day 52: Hollywood Babylon

Posted on February 25, 2012 by maedez

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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
  

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A Year in Books/Day 33: Webster’s Dictionary of American Writers

Posted on February 3, 2012 by maedez

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• Title: Webster’s Dictionary of American Writers
• Year Published: 2004 (Barnes & Noble)
• Year Purchased: 2005
• Source: Barnes & Noble clearance rack
• About: A dense, delightfully thorough history of every American writer of merit, popularity or notoriety since the 17th Century.
• Motivation: I gobble up data like Wheaties or mac and cheese. I write about dead writers. I love history.
• Times Read: Cover-to-cover-1/As reference tool-countless.
• Random Excerpt/Page 65: “Grandson of the inventor of the adding machine, Burroughs was born into wealth and graduated from Harvard University in 1936. While living in New York, he met Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac and became one of the early core members of the group that would become known as the Beats. He became addicted to heroin around 1945 and would remain a junkie for almost 15 years. While living in Mexico in 1951, he killed his second wife in an attempt to shoot a glass off her head at a party. He fled Mexico and wandered through the Amazon region, continuing his experiments with drugs, experiences described in ‘The Yage Letters’ (1963), his 1953 correspondence with Allen Ginsberg.
• Happiness Scale: 9
  

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A Year in Books/Day 22: I Like You

Posted on January 22, 2012 by maedez

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• Title: I Like You Hospitality Under the Influence
• Author: Amy Sedaris
• Year Published: 2006 (Warner Books)
• Year Purchased: 2006
• Source: This was a Christmas gift from my lovely Mother.
• About: A refreshingly fun, kooky entertaining guide full of peculiar crafts and seriously good recipes.
• Motivation: I want to be Amy Sedaris when I grow up. Really, I think she’s the best. I also enjoy throwing anything-but-boring parties whenever I can pry myself from the keyboard.
• Times Read: Cover-to-cover-1. As a cookbook-frequently.
• Random Excerpt/Page 73: “Don’t question a lumberjack and never look one in the eye. Be polite when suggesting they remove their cleats, but be prepared if they don’t. I always have a clear path to the table, and another to the bathroom. Feeding lumberjacks can be very rewarding when you take care to follow all the necessary precautions.”
• Happiness Scale: 10++
  

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