Tag Archives: Reviews

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 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++

A Year in Books/Day 22: I Like You

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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++
    English: Amy Sedaris book signing (Simple Time...

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A Year in Books/Day 21: Stanislavski A Biography

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  • Title: Stanislavski A Biography
  • Author: Jean Benedetti
  • Year Published: 1988/This Edition 1990 (A Routledge Book)
  • Year Purchased: 1992/1993
  • Source: The Book Harbor, Columbus
  • About: An exhaustive account of the theatrical genius’ influential life.
  • Motivation: I was a theatre student and, as an extension of my great love for the nation’s literature, infatuated with all things Russian.
  • Times Read: 3
  • Random Excerpt/Page 106: “The enthusiasm, the passions which the production aroused were unprecedented. Stanislavski experienced in full measure that electric flow of energy which passes from stage to auditorium and back not only when the
    English: Russian Constantin Stanislavski Русск...

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    performance is exciting but when ideas, feelings and convictions are shared.”

  • Happiness Scale: 10

A Year in Books/Day 20: The Outermost House

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  • Title: The Outermost House A Year of Life on the Great beach of Cape Cod
  • Author: Henry Beston
  • Year Published: Original Edition-1928/This Edition-2003 (An Owl Book Henry Holt and Company)
  • Year Purchased: 2004
  • Source: Bas Bleu
  • About:
    Cape Cod

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    Henry Beston’s classic masterpiece details his year spent on Cape Cod ,in a house of his own design, amidst nature’s ever-changing cruelty and splendor.

  • Motivation: I was moved by a really stellar reader review in the Bas Bleu catalogue. I’m immensely satisfied that I did, as it subtly yet powerfully changed my life.
  • Times Read: 2
  • Random Excerpt/Page 118: “One great sea drowned all the five. Men on the beach saw it coming and shouted, the men on the deckhouse shouted and were heard, and then the wave broke, hiding the tragic fragment in a sluice of foam and wreckage. When this had poured away, the men on the afterhouse were gone. A head was visible for a minute, and then another drifting southward, and then there was nothing but sea.”
  • Happiness Scale: 10++

A Year in Books/Day 7: The Pirates Own Book

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  • Title: The Pirates Own Book
  • Author: Charles Ellms
  • Year Published: 1837/reprinted 2002 (Bookspan/Book-of-the-Month Club)
  • Year Purchased: 2002/2003
  • Source: Book-of-the-Month Club
  • About: At the time of its publication, this book was the definitive guide to the history of piracy. Compiled from various sources, it remains a boisterously gritty, informative read.
  • Motivation: Included among the roster of high seas outlaws are female pirates Anne Bonney and Mary Read. I also love that the book was published only a few years after some of the episodes it depicts, giving it a legitimacy that no 21st-century account could.
  • Times Read: 1 (with another about due)
  • Random Excerpt/Page 242: “This ferocious villain (Captain Edward Low) was born in Westminster, and received an education similar to that of the common people in England. He was by nature a pirate; for even when very young he raised contributions among the boys of Westminster, and if they declined compliance, a battle was the result. When he advanced a step farther in life, he began to exert his ingenuity at low games, and cheating all in his power; and those who pretended to maintain their own right, he was ready to call to the field of combat.”
  • Happiness Scale: 9
    Anne Bonny (1697-1720). Engraving from Captain...

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A Year in Books/Day 6: Arthur Conan Doyle A Life in Letters

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  • Title: Arthur Conan Doyle A Life in Letters
  • Edited by: Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower & Charles Foley
  • Year Published: 2007 (The Penguin Press New York)
  • Year Purchased: 2011
  • Source: Dollar Tree
  • About: A biography-through-letters of the struggling medical man turned world famous writer.
  • Motivation: Letter writing, once the definitive mode of communication for millions, is a nearly obsolete art. It is also the straightest path to the real feelings, opinions and events of a person’s life. When creating Sherlock Holmes is only one of many odd and diverse accomplishments for that person, then the straightest path is by far the best.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 192: “Dear Mrs. Boismaison- Though I am forced to send in my bills at regular intervals in order to keep my books square, I need hardly say that there is not the slightest reason for your settling them until it entirely suits your convenience. Hoping that you are keeping well, I remain Very sincerely yours A. Conan Doyle, MB CM”.
  • Happiness Scale: 10 (9 for content with a bonus point awarded because I read the
    Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 – 1930) English: Arth...

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    book on my honeymoon)

A Year in Books/Day 5: Dictator Style

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  • Title: Dictator Style Lifestyle’s of the World’s Most Colorful Despots
  • Author: Peter York (Foreword by Douglas Coupland)
  • Year Published: 2006 (Chronicle Books LLC)
  • Year Purchased: 2008/2009
  • Source: Barnes & Noble clearance rack
  • About: It’s hardly a surprise to discover that some of history’s worst dictators, egomaniacs all, also had really execrable aesthetic preferences. By taking us behind the curtains into seldom seen private sectors, this book manages to add a new layer of psychological insight into the minds of these historical horrors. The old adage that money (and an obscene amount of power) does not buy taste or happiness has never been better proven.
  • Motivation: I am a sucker for the all-too-rare pairing of history and style. And the cheetah-print cover didn’t hurt.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 2: “An enthusiasm for railway travel may be Victorian, but (Porfirio)
    Porfirio Diaz

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    Diaz’s carriage is more suggestive of the kind of Texan whorehouse we see in Westerns. It is smothered in textiles: silk damask upholstery, squishy cushions, elaborate fringing, and there’s a raised ceiling with fanciful stencilling and small arched windows inset in the roof-the sort of thing you might find in a traditional nineteenth-century sunroom. There’s a large oval mirror in the panelling, a lot of shiny wood and a hanging brass lamp. It’s ideal for the secret assignations of an elderly Latin American soldier who liked to play away from home.”

  • Happiness Scale: 9

A Year in Books/Day 3: George Sand A Woman’s Life Writ Large

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Eldre George Sand, fotografi

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  • Title: George Sand A Woman’s Life Writ Large
  • Author: Belinda Jack
  • Year Published: 1999 (Alfred A. Knopf New York)
  • Year Purchased: 2000/2001
  • Source: Barnes & Noble clearance rack
  • About: An absorbing, fast-paced telling of the iconoclastic French novelist’s controversial life.
  • Motivation: I’ve a thing for biographies of lady writers. No, really, it’s almost an obsession.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 214: “According to Sand, “The experiment failed completely. I cried with pain, disgust and despair. Instead of finding a friendship that would allow me to unburden my feelings of resentment and discouragement, I found only bitter and frivolous mockery. That was all, and the whole story has been summed up in…words that I did not say [it was nothing], that Mme Dorval neither betrayed nor invented, and which bring little honour to the imagination of M. Dumas.”
  • Happiness Scale: 8 1/2