Stet: An Editor's Life by Diana Athill
This book, to borrow a phrase from John le Carre, wears many hats upon its head. First, it's a word picture of publishing as it used to be, or at least was sometime, somewhere, and I think almost inadvertently a parallel portrait of working women post-war. The first half is a personal narrative of Athill's life as an editor, and the second remembrances of individual writers she edited, the most compelling (and appalling) chapter of which is on Jean Rhys*.
The story began with my father telling me: 'You will have to earn your living.'
she writes, and then goes on to fill in her background, one of privileged, upper class English country life filled with horses and books. She fell passionately in love in her teens with a young British officer who then dumped her, which experience she says scarred her emotionally for life. Sorry if I sound a little skeptical here, but really, she was 17 years old when her doomed romance commenced. Get over it, kid.
# Permanent link to ‘You will have to earn your living.’
The Wind off the Small Isles by Mary Stewart
More of a short story than a novel, I would recommend this only for Mary Stewart completionists and those who are traveling to Lanzarote. Her descriptions of the landscape of these volcanic islands are as immediate and evocative as anything she ever wrote about Crete or Corfu.
# Permanent link to For Mary Stewart completionists.
The Soiling of Old Glory: The Story of a Photograph That Shocked America by Louis P. Masur
On April 5, 1976, a white man attacked a black man with an American flag on a pole. By great good luck—or bad, depending on your point of view—Boston's Herald American photographer, Stanley Forman, was standing in the right place at the right time—or wrong, see above—with his finger on the shutter of his camera. The resulting photograph was reprinted around the world and won the Pulitzer Prize, and pretty much stopped busing in Boston dead in its tracks.
# Permanent link to Who was that white man with the flag?
Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod by Gary Paulsen
This was a Book Talk Alaska selection, and I laughed so hard while I read it that I was afraid I wasn't going to be able to talk intelligently on the air. Hilarious. Although guest Libby Riddles had her doubts about what parts were really Paulsen's story, she said they were at least some musher's story.
# Permanent link to Warning: Injury from laughing too hard may result.
...Younger sons cannot marry where they like.”
...“Is this,” thought Elizabeth, “meant for me?”
# Permanent link to A Paean or a Lament?
Washington: The Indispensable Man by James Thomas Flexner
Any good biography is not only a portrait of the subject, it is a doorway that opens into a place and a time, and Flexner’s book is rich with this kind of detail. “The “Wild West” was then on the Atlantic seacoast,” he writes of Virginia in 1675, the year the first Washington came to America.
There, that gives you a little perspective on the time.
# Permanent link to “The “Wild West” was then on the Atlantic seacoast…”
In la Belle Epoque Paris people lined up for art exhibitions the way we do today for blockbuster movies. In this case John Singer Sergeant caused a scandal by painting something that was much more than just a portrait of a beautiful woman, and Paris didn't like it. It almost ruined him, it did ruin his model, and I still want to ask him why he put the strap back up. Go here to see the portrait and then go read the book.
# Permanent link to The painting almost ruined him, and did ruin her.
Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before by Tony Horwitz
In Blue Latitudes journalist Tony Horwitz follows in the footsteps of Captain Cook, beginning with a week working as a member of the crew on board a replica of Cook’s ship Endeavor. I’d always thought of Cook as this stereotypical British officer, all his buttons properly polished and looking down a very long nose at all these dreadful loincloth-clad natives. In fact, Cook was born in a pigsty, was subject in his youth to a strong Quaker influence, and worked his way up from shoveling coal to captain in the British Navy. He wrote about the aboriginal people he met with respect and admiration. His name is now a bad word all over the Pacific, but in truth Cook was the best white man they’d ever meet. This already lively narrative is made more so by Horwitz’ travelling buddy Roger, one of the funniest, most cynical guys ever to walk through the pages of a book.
# Permanent link to Cook’s name is now a bad word all over the Pacific
The Better Part of Valor by Tanya Huff
Even better than the first in the series (Valor's Choice). Torin Kerr and her three-species space-going marines lead a team of civilian scientists and a pain-in-the-ass reporter into an enormous alien vessel they call Big Yellow. Their only handicaps are a glory-hound commanding officer the brass want to shine so as to placate his species' representatives in the galactic Parliament, and, uh, oh yes, the enemy ship that unexpectedly shows up, loaded and ready for bear. Turns out they've got people on board Big Yellow, too. It's like a haunted house story, only, you know, on a big, sentient banana with transmogriphic powers, with nothing but the cheery presence of absolute zero and fighters exchanging missile fire on the other side of the hatch.
# Permanent link to Spreadable Broccoli
The Stone War by Madeleine E. Robins
A spooky book. In the unfortunately not too distant future, architect John Tietjen lives in and loves New York City, in spite of the homeless on every street, and the gangs on every other street, and the security guards on every street corner. Then things really go to the dogs. When John is out of town on a job, some mysterious force unleashes true evil on the city by way of earthquakes, flooding, and an horrific force creating monsters of many of the few people left living. John makes his way back to help the survivors take back their city. Dystopian, horror, fantasy, mystery, noir, there are too many labels to choose from, but here's another one for you: Mesmerizing.
Also, spooky. Did I say?
# Permanent link to A spooky book.