Tag Archives: Books

Inspiration Board-8 February 2012

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  1. The work of the late Cincinnati (and internationally famous) artist, Charley Harper. I’ve never been a big fan of animal art (or puns) but there is something about his clean lines and mid-century modern aesthetic (which he dubbed “minimal realism”) that has been drawing me in, almost unwillingly. Any previously declared distaste for animals-in-art has been sliding slowly away, in the face of his compelling creations. I don’t love them all (far from it, actually) but am seriously enamored of some of the pieces.
  2. Although this is hardly new, or cutting edge, I’m slightly obsessed with Jane Wiedlin‘s acoustic version of ‘Our Lips Are Sealed’. I love kooky chicks; for this reason alone she has always been my favorite member of the Go-Go’s. When I was very young, my Aunt Linda gave me her copy of ‘Beauty and the Beat’. Ah, nostalgia, right? Not entirely. I almost prefer this version to the original; maybe it’s just because the stripped-down sound goes better with winter’s quiet ways.
  3. Margaritas. Maybe I’m terribly eager for warm weather but I have been ordering this salt-rimmed concoction at every available opportunity, instead of my usual Scotch.
  4. The book reviews in the current (FEB/MAR 2012) issue of ‘BUST’. There are so many compelling entries. I want to read them all, particularly ‘Agorafabulous!: Dispatches From My Bedroom’ by Sara Benincasa (William Morrow), ‘Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality’ by Hanne Blank (Beacon) and ‘Treasure Island’ by Sara Levine (Europa).
    Charley Harper

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A Year in Books/Day 36: Shadows, Fire, Snow

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  • Title: Shadows, Fire, Snow The Life of Tina Modotti
  • Author: Patricia Albers
  • Year Published: 1999 (Clarkson Potter/Publishers)
  • Year Purchased: 2002
  • Source: Barnes & Noble clearance rack
  • About: Tina Modotti, though little recognized today, was a woman of many talents: she worked as an actress, artisan, photographer (which is her main claim to immortality) and communist revolutionary. Her fierce abilities, ideals and passions took her from her native Italy to the shores of America, Mexico and Russia.
  • Motivation: I love strong, artistic, intelligent women. Her photography is stunning, never-to-be-forgotten.
  • Times Read: 2
  • Random Excerpt/Page 32: “Meanwhile, the military debacle had cut off communications with the family in Italy, leaving Tina, Mercedes, and Giuseppe frantic with anxiety. Was Tina also experiencing guilt that she had been absorbed in playacting as her loved ones suffered? If so, it was not the last time she would anguish over the thought of art making in the face of human affliction.”
  • Happiness Scale: 10

    English: The white Iris (tina modotti)

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A Year in Books/Day 35: Ford Madox Ford

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  • Title: Ford Madox Ford
  • Author: Alan Judd
  • Year Published: 1990 (Harvard University Press)
  • Year Purchased: 2004
  • Source: Unknown
  • About: A biography of the great, prolific and mostly forgotten English writer who was so closely associated with Joseph Conrad.
    Ford Madox Ford

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  • Motivation: Although I mostly concentrate on dead female writers, I am always eager to add to my collection of literary (auto)biographies. I especially love those obscured by time or circumstances; the more out of favor, the better! I actually bought this volume as a vacation read for a 3-week trip to Canada in the summer of 2004.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 168: “Goldring adds that he cannot vouch for the accuracy of the story ‘but if it didn’t happen it ought to have done. Events of this description occurred daily, almost hourly, during the twelve month’s of Ford’s editorship of ‘Review’. Looking back, it seems amazing to me, that so much could have happened in so short a time. It was only a year: but what a year!’ “
  • Happiness Scale: 9 1/2

A Year in Books/Day 34: A History of Ireland

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  • Title: A History of Ireland
  • Author: Mike Cronin
  • Year Published: 2001 (Palgrave)
  • Year Purchased: 2001/2002
  • Source: History Book Club
  • About: A compact, well-written account of the last 900 years of Irish history.
  • Motivation: I could read history tomes all day, every day. This volume is one of many I own on the Emerald Isle.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 15: “Following the favourable reaction from the Irish kings, Henry called an Irish synod together at Cashel. The synod brought the Irish Church
    Drawing by Albrecht Dürer of Irish soldiers.

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    back into line with the greater Church and enacted reforms which addressed Papal concerns. Through his actions, Henry brought a level of peace to Ireland which had been absent for years, reformed the Church and won the approval of the majority of the different native kings.”

  • Happiness Scale: 9

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

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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
    Signature of Allen Ginsberg

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A Year in Books/Day 32: The Great American Bars and Saloons

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  • Title: The Great American Bars and Saloons
  • Author: Kathy Weiser
  • Year Published: 2006 (Chartwell Books, Inc.)
  • Year Purchased: December 2010
  • Source: A wedding gift from a dear friend.
  • About: Although hardly a sociological study, ‘The Great American Bars and Saloons’ IS deeper than the average coffee-table volume. With limited text, it is up to the period photographs to tell their history: they do so with gritty, unflinching, and fascinating detail. You can almost smell the mixture of whiskey, sweat and sawdust.
  • Motivation: We have weird friends who obviously appreciate our own weirdness.

    English: "Judge Roy Bean, the `Law West o...

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  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 10: “Because the saloon was usually one of the first and bigger buildings within many new settlements, it was common that it was also utilized as a public meeting place. Judge Roy Bean and his combination saloon and courtroom in Langtry, Texas was a prime example of this practice. Another saloon in Downieville, California, was not only the most popular saloon in town, but also held the office of the Justice of the Peace. In Hays City, Kansas, the first church services were held in Tommy Drum’s Saloon.”
  • Happiness Scale: 7

A Year in Books/Day 31: Ernest Hemingway A to Z

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  • Ernest Hemingway in Milan, 1918

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    Title: Ernest Hemingway A to Z

  • Author: Charles M. Oliver
  • Year Published: 1999 (Checkmark Books)
  • Year Purchased: 2004/2005
  • Source: Unknown book seller, Upstate New York
  • About: Every knowable fact about Hemingway, contained in one large volume. With photographs.
  • Motivation: I’m of 3 or 4 minds about Hemingway the writer, and many more about Hemingway the man. However, since I write about dead writers, I knew this would be a useful reference tool. I also love-love!-any kind of encyclopedia.
  • Times Read: Cover-to-cover-1/as reference-countless
  • Random Excerpt/Page 348: “In criticizing her husband’s writing, Catherine Bourne says, in ‘The Garden of Eden’ , that a wastebasket is “the most important thing for a writer”. She later burns his stories and the reviews of his second novel in a wastebasket.”
  • Happiness Scale: 8

A Year in Books/Day 30: The Medieval World Europe 1100-1350

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  • Title: The Medieval World Europe 1100-1350
  • Author: Friedrich Heer
  • Year Published: 1961/This Edition: 1998 (WELCOME RAIN)
  • Year Purchased: 2000/2001
  • Source: Edward R. Hamilton Bookseller Company
    English: A medieval page presumably from a Boo...

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  • About: A modern, scholarly classic that remains enjoyably readable whilst sparing no attention to detail.
  • Motivation: I felt a need to brush up on my Medieval European history. No, really.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page: “Our contemporary European societies, both Western and Eastern, in many ways continue to live on their medieval inheritance. History is the present, and the present is history. When we look more closely into the crises and catastrophes, the hopes and fears of our own day, whether we know it or not we are concerned with developments whose origins can be traced back directly or indirectly to their source in the high Middle Ages.”
  • Happiness Scale: 9

A Year in Books/Day 29: The Gashlycrumb Tinies

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  • Title: The Gashlycrumb Tinies or, After the Outing
  • Author: Edward Gorey
  • Year Published: 1963/This Edition: 1991 (Harcourt Brace & Company)
  • Year Purchased: 1999/2000
  • Source: Gift from a friend
  • About: The delightfully macabre master’s most famous, and oddly eloquent, Edwardian-esque alphabet.
  • Motivation: I’m a squealing, hand-clapping Gorey fangirl.
  • Times Read: Countless
  • Random Excerpt: “H is for Hector done in by a thug.”
  • Happiness Scale: Off the charts

A Year in Books/Day 28: Cinderella’s Big Score

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  • Siouxsie Sioux at the Edinburgh Tiffany's, 1980

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    Title: Cinderella’s Big Score Women of the punk and Indie Underground

  • Author: Maria Raha
  • Year Published: 2005 (Seal Press)
  • Year Purchased: 2010
  • Source: Barnes & Noble clearance rack
  • About: ‘Cinderella’s Big Score’ is a potent combination of music history and witty, trenchant beatdown on the punk patriarchy, served up with an awesome array of black and white photographs.
  • Motivation: Come closer. Come closer still. You may not know it-after all, we’re fairly new acquaintances and I usually look so mild-mannered-but I’m a punk chick, old school. I’m also a feminist. This book is a dream come true.
  • Times Read: 2
  • Random Excerpt/Page 44: Exene Cervenka exudes pure power. This sense of assuredness emanates from a stark emotional purity and her ability to fully, bravely expose herself without posturing. She hits hight notes without compromise and her voice conveys a raw severity and nakedness, once prompting John Doe to extol: “She had poems that were obviously songs, plus she was cut from classic lead singer cloth. She was such a bad ass! I pretended to be, but Exene was the real thing. She had the ax to grind, the sadness of her mother’s death, and the unusual wiring that made it possible for her to throw a drink in somebody’s face and still be right. She totally delivered as a lead singer.”
  • Happiness Scale: 10++