Tag Archives: Reviews

A Year in Books/Day 107: Redheads

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  • Title: Redheads
  • Author: Joel Meyerowitz
  • Year Published: 1991 (Rizzoli International Publications, Inc.)
  • Year Purchased: 2000?
  • Source: Edward R. Hamilton Bookseller Company
  • About: This photography book is a visual declaration of love to all redheads. The subjects are real people-male and female, of all ages. No models, no insane airbrushing. There are freckles, wrinkles, imperfections and wildly different personal styles. The images are easily dated to the period of publication but are otherwise lovely.
  • Motivation: Ahem. I’m a natural ginger.
  • Times Read: Several.
  • Random Excerpt/Page 17: “Photography quite often overturns preconceptions. In this burst of curiosity about what a portrait is and how to go about making it, I discovered that, out of a hundred or so portraits I had made during an intensive month’s work some summers ago, thirty-five were of redheads. How had that happened?”
  • Happiness Scale: 7

A Year in Books/Day 106: Observatory Mansions

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  • Title: Observatory Mansions A Novel
  • Author: Edward Carey
  • Year Published: 2000 (Crown Publishers)
  • Year Purchased: 2001/2002
  • Source: Edward R. Hamilton Bookseller Company
  • About: Eccentric, engaging fiction at its best! The bizarre world at the center of the novel is oddly, disturbingly irresistible. What happens when a thirty-something street performer who has never left the nest mixes with his lonely neighbors, when not amassing stolen pieces for his ‘museum of significant objects’?
  • Motivation: I’m picky when it comes to fiction, especially contemporary fiction. I don’t like most of it, for a variety of convoluted reasons. I happily make exceptions for works of great imagination or originality guided by strong, firm voices. I could tell from a one paragraph blurb that I would love, love, love this book.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 32: “The new resident would be encouraged to leave the next day. Everything would be as it was. No one was going to touch my glove diary.”
  • Happiness Scale: 9

 

A Year in Books/Day 105: Truly Wilde

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  • Title: Truly Wilde The Unsettling Story of Dolly Wilde, Oscar’s Unusual Niece
  • Author: Joan Schenkar
  • Year Published: 2000 (Basic Books)
  • Year Purchased: 2002/2003
  • Source: Edward R. Hamilton Bookseller Company
  • About: Only five when her famous uncle died, as an adult she blossomed into the spitting, female image of Oscar. She was an It Girl of epic proportions, with a life and end even more complicated than his. If she never approached his creative genius, it’s largely due to the wanton neglect of her talent (which those who knew her insisted she had an excess of) in favour of fast, impulsive living. She was a scintillating, thorny, frank and witty woman: she would have made an ideal Wilde heroine. Instead, hers was a real-life tragedy.
  • Motivation: The Wildean pedigree + a decidedly strange, strong woman in her own right=a heady combination.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 51: “A single photograph of Dolly’s mother, Lily Wilde, with her infant daughter has survived the dissolution of the Wilde family. It is notable both for the attractiveness of its two subjects and for the fact that Dolly’s father, Willie Wilde, though ‘out of the picture’, signed it, dated it, labelled its contents, and dedicated it, inscribing himself for posterity on what is the only image of the ‘second’ Wilde family.”
  • Happiness Scale: 10

A Year in Books/Day 104: London The Biography

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  • Title: London The Biography
  • Author: Peter Ackroyd
  • Year Published: 2000 (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday)
  • Year Purchased: 2001-2003
  • Source: History Book Club
  • About: A city is a living, breathing, changing thing; it makes sturdy sense to give the biographical treatment to one of the world’s leading capitals. At nearly 800 pages, this account of London from pre-history to the late twentieth century is exhaustively comprehensive. Ackroyd manages to keep the pace quick without sacrificing detail or context. This is as good as anything he’s ever written, which is large praise indeed.
  • Motivation: Anglophile in the house here. I’m also a life-long history nerd.
  • Times Read: 2
  • Random Excerpt/Page 51: “On either side of the southern entrance to that bridge, there now rear two griffins daubed in red and silver. They are the totems of the city, raised at all its entrances and thresholds, and are singularly appropriate. The griffin was the monster which protected gold mines and buried treasure; it has now flown out of classical mythology in order to guard the city of London. The presiding deity of this place has always been money.”
  • Happiness Scale: 9 1/2
    The Great Fire of London destroyed 80% of the ...

    The Great Fire of London destroyed 80% of the city in 1666. The Guildhall was damaged in this and other great fires. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

     

A Year in Books/Day 103: Art Nouveau

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  • Title: Art Nouveau A Fascinating Guide to One of the Most Notable Periods of Decorative Art
  • Year Published: 2002 (A Quantum Book/Published in the United States by TODTRI Book Publishers)
  • Year Purchased: 2004
  • Source: Barnes & Noble clearance rack
  • About: The average level of craftsmanship involved in Art Nouveau creations-from jewelry to illustration, textiles to furniture-is exquisite. This mini coffee table book is one part history, one part design eye candy and one hundred percent stunning. I know that I am tossing out superlatives like they are going out of business but we’re discussing Art Nouveau here. Nothing less than poetic turns of phrase will do! No matter how many times I see the still modern looking periodical illustrations or the sensuous, undulating lines of a Rene Lalique brooch or Georges Fouquet hair comb, I’m gobsmacked. Don’t even get me started on the architecture, where the tiniest detail is impeccable. It’s all covered here.
  • Motivation: It’s Art Nouveau, hello!
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 14: “Nature was to be the ultimate source book of the Art Nouveau artist, particularly the plant world, for many artists had a scientist’s depth of knowledge of botany. Flowers, stems, and leaves were chosen for their curving silhouettes. Naturally, lilies, irises, and orchids were favored, although any and every form, from palm fronds to seaweed, offered potential for development into an animated pattern.”
  • Happiness Scale: 7 1/2

    La Plume, 15 January 1898. Cover composition by Mucha.

    La Plume, 15 January 1898. Cover composition by Mucha.

A Year in Books/Day 102: LIFE Goes to the Movies

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  • Title: LIFE Goes to the Movies
  • Editor: David E. Scherman
  • Year Published: 1975/This Edition: 1986 (Time-Life Books, Inc./Pocket Books)
  • Year Purchased: 1990s
  • Source: On clearance at a forgotten store (likely Waldenbooks).
  • About: The binding of this book is falling apart; if you pick it up carelessly, random pages tumble to your feet. I’ve retrieved the disordered middle third of the book from the floor more than once. It’s that kind of volume-delightful, informative, unique and just damn good to ogle. It’s light on text but big on informatively captioned photographs. The staff of this quintessentially American periodical had a degree of privileged access to film studios and stars that today would be unthinkable. The best of forty years of their coverage is stuffed into 304 kaleidoscopic pages.
  • Motivation: LIFE magazine employed top-notch photographers; many of the images they published are instantly recognizable classics. I knew that I would never tire of looking through it, which I haven’t (apparently to the point of nearly destroying it from the inside out).
  • Times Read: Countless
  • Random Excerpt/Page 86: “In the Hollywood of the ’30s and ’40s, stars were not born; they were mass produced. The machinery that swallowed up legions of girls with pretty midwestern faces and that ground out sultry vamps and sexy hoydens gave each young hopeful a buildup that can only be described as relentless.”
  • Happiness Scale: 9

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A Year in Books/Day 101: A Treasury of Peter Rabbit and Other Stories

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  • Title: A Treasury of Peter Rabbit and Other Stories
  • Author: Beatrix Potter
  • Year Published: No copyright date noted.
  • Year Purchased: The year I turned five.
  • Source: According to the inscription, this was a gift from my Aunt Lauree.
  • About: Every classic Beatrix Potter story is in this volume, including ‘The Tale of Two Bad Mice’*. Maybe it was just me, but I did not like Tom Thumb and his wife, Hunca Munca. I thought they were creepy, but I loved, loved, loved the rest of the book. I loved it so much I even wrote in it (very unlike me). I’ve managed to keep it in my possession for three decades (very like me). Her illustrations are enchantingly timeless.
  • Motivation: I was a girl. I loved animals and, at five, I had already been reading for two years.
  • Times Read: Hundreds during kindergarten alone. I was an obsessive reader even then.
  • Random Excerpt: “The water was all slippy-sloppy in the larder and in the back passage. But Mr. Jeremy liked getting his feet wet; nobody ever scolded him, and he never caught a cold.”
  • Happiness Scale: 10
  • * Having just spent a minute re-reading this story, I stand firmly by my initial assessment: it is scary and horrible and undeniably sad.

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A Year in Books/Day 100: Living Authors

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  • Title: Living Authors
  • Editor: Dilly Tante
  • Year Published: Original Edition-1931/This Edition-2001 (The H.W. Wilson Company/Bookspan)
  • Year Purchased: 2004
  • Source: Unknown
  • About: Since I spend so much time writing about dead writers, this is one of the most-used volumes in my personal reference library. Although I don’t remember where I bought it, I know that it only cost about $5; practically speaking, it is the best investment I have ever made in a book! ‘Living Authors’ features biographies of pretty much every still-breathing writer (400 of them!) of any importance at the time of initial publication (1931), which means that it covers the years that I most frequently focus on in my own writing. Each entry also has a detailed bibliography. For those of you wondering why I don’t just head over to Wikipedia/other informative web-site, I’ll stop you right there. It’s not the same! Dilly Tante filled his book with strange data and odd minutia, often provided by the authors themselves. It’s simply more interesting and fulfilling.
  • Motivation: I’m always excited to find reference materials contemporaneous to the subjects I write about.
  • Times Read: Cover-to-cover-1/As reference-countless
  • Random Excerpt/Page vi: “In themselves these facts are trivial and meaningless. If they concerned the man in the brown hat next door or the discreet lady across the way, they might be dismissed as idle gossip, both inexcusable and dull. But in the world of art, where talent is primarily a consolidation of personality, we have a right to be curious. Our desire to know the artist is matched by his desire to reveal himself, for the art of the modern world is fundamentally autobiographical, and Goethe, described by Spengler as “the man who forgot nothing, the man whose works, as he avowed himself, are only fragments of a single great confession,” may well stand as the type of the Western artist.”
  • Happiness Scale: Off the charts!
My copy of 'Living Authors' Edited by Dilly Tante

My copy of 'Living Authors' Edited by Dilly Tante: I'll award 2 bragging points for every writer you can name!

 

A Year in Books/Day 99: PUNK 365

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  • Title: PUNK 365
  • Author: Holly George-Warren/Foreword by Richard Hell
  • Year Published: 2007 (Harry N. Abrams, Inc.)
  • Year Purchased: 2010
  • Source: Barnes & Noble clearance rack
  • About: There’s one intense, arresting image for every day of the year. From the legendary to the obscure, the best and brightest, wildest and strangest punk rockers have been time-captured by a long list of great rock photographers. George-Warren’s brief but illuminating text accompanies each photo.
  • Motivation: I’m a punk girl to my soul.
    Siouxsie Sioux at the Edinburgh Tiffany's, 1980

    Siouxsie Sioux at the Edinburgh Tiffany's, 1980 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

    I could spend pages waxing eloquently about how Joe, Siouxsie, Ari, Poly, Richard, Lydia and Exene (and so many others) have affected my life, my outlook, my feminism, my humanity, my creativity.

  • Times Read: Countless
  • Random Excerpt/Page
  • Happiness Scale: Off the charts!!

A Year in Books/Day 98: The Writer’s Home Companion

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  • Title: The Writer’s Home Companion An Anthology of the World’s Best Writing Advice, from Keats to Kunitz
  • Edited and with an Introduction by: Joan Bolker, E D. D.
  • Year Published: 1997 (An Owl Book, Henry Holt and Company)
  • Year Purchased: 2001/2002
  • Source: Unknown
  • About: I revere books, both for what they contain and for what they symbolize. As a result, I can count on the fingers of one hand how many books I have ever highlighted passages in or written notes in the margin of, including textbooks. ‘The Writer’s Home Companion’ is one of the exceptions. Why? It contains so much stellar, spot-on advice for writers by writers. The kind of advice that you will actually heed and apply. The kind of advice that you probably already know, deep-down, but keep pushing away because that is the easy thing to do. The kind of advice that is at once remedial and advanced, that simultaneously disciplines and frees. The kind of advice that we all need to remember as we go about the task and joy that is writing.
  • Motivation: Who could resist practical advice by the likes of John Keats, Bernard Shaw, Ursula Le Guin and Natalie Goldberg all in the same volume? Not this girl.
  • Times Read: Countless
  • Random Excerpt/Page xi: “Writing is a solitary sport, but none of us can do it without good company at crucial moments. Most of the writers I’ve known are pulled and tugged between their wish for the quiet aloneness necessary for their work, and their longings for human connections. We write both to express ourselves and to be heard by others, but first we have to learn how to tolerate ourselves as we work at our writing. The authors of the pieces collected here share honestly, and often humorously, their thoughts and feelings about writing and the writer’s life, and can provide you with the good company you need to get on with your own work.”
  • Happiness Scale: 10