How Do I
Julie's Picks
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Moore, Lorrie Birds of America Short Stories |
| I took a humor writing class once, and the instructor’s main premise was that humor bubbles up best through the morass of personal sadness and even tragedy. Of the model stories she handed out, my favorite was one of the short stories in Birds of America. Lorrie Moore’s characters are familiar folks, people you know, your relatives, you. They act in familiar ways, but they react in ways that are funnier than in my familiar world. These stories offer little lessons in constructive humor. Birds of America is a stunning collection, dark yet lit brightly. Recommended November 2008 |
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Wormser, Baron The Road Washes Out in Spring: A Poet's Memoir of Living Off the Grid Nonfiction |
| It starts as a familiar story. In 1970, a young couple
longs for an authentic life in the Maine woods. With construction
help from a neighbor who can see that these outsiders are unprepared
to erect their own house, they make a home miles from town, foregoing
indoor plumbing and electricity. Kerosene lanterns light the darkness,
forty-eight treed acres supply fuel for heat and cook stoves. Garden
produce put up in late summer becomes minestrone soup in February.
What’s unfamiliar is the passionate perseverance evident in the twenty-three
years Wormser and his wife live off the grid while raising their daughter
and son. Wormser is a devoted high school librarian who mindfully
carries out the daily chores that make possible living without a furnace,
running water, or refrigeration. He thrives in the woods’ quiet, the
place that nurtures his rich development as a poet. (In 2000 he was
appointed Poet Laureate of Maine). Neither preachy nor defensive,
in calm prose Wormser reflects on reading and writing poetry, “first-hand”
cooking and eating, old time Maine farmers whose livelihoods are waning,
troubled high school teens, and the desperation and violence in the
local community that keeps romantic ideals of rural life in check.
Employing neither chapter divisions nor linear time, Wormser explores
questions such as, “What does it mean to be a poet in the United States?”
“What kind of work can a man do in a suit and tie?” “What do the trees
say?” “What are we doing and why are we doing it?” A thought provoking,
satisfying read, highly recommended. Recommended October 2008 |
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Schenone, Laura The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken: A Search for Food and Family Nonfiction |
| By shining a light on both the joys and pains of her
multi-generational family's history, Laura Schenone attempts to understand
her own passions. These take the form of multiple research trips to
Liguria, the region of Italy from which her great-grandparents emigrated,
honing painstaking techniques for handmade ravioli, and raising two
sons while pursuing her writing career. Her sorrows are affecting,
her successes triumphant. She also shares recipes, so you can delve
into the mysteries of ravioli. Recommended by Julie, July 2008 |
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Beaton, M. C. Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death Mystery |
| Agatha Raisin's dream is coming true. She has sold her
PR firm in London in order to begin early retirement in a quaint cottage
in the Cotswold countryside. Once ensconced in her carefully chosen
new setting, she realizes that her personal life has always, in fact,
been professional. Nor is she inclined domestically. No one asks her
to tea. The vicar's wife does not call. Entering a quiche in the village
baking contest purchased from her favorite London bake shop seems
like the perfect solution-a sure way to win friends. But her entry
kills the judge, and the embarrassing truth that the quiche was purchased
spreads quickly. Agatha's dreams are turning nightmarish. Published
in 1992, The Quiche of Death is the first in the Agatha Raisin
series by M.C. Beaton. Number eighteen, Kissing Christmas Goodbye:
An Agatha Raisin Mystery, arrived last year. And the fun continues:
September 30, 2008, is the release date for A Spoonful of Poison:
An Agatha Raisin Mystery. Recommended by Julie, June 2008 |
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Kaufman, Frederick A Short History of the American Stomach Nonfiction |
| Americans seem to be obsessed with dieting, health, and
nutrition, while at the same time the incidence of diseases related
to over-eating are increasing. I’ve been reading food history books,
both old and new, searching for how we arrived at this schizoid state.
A Short History addresses these questions in a new way. Though
Ben Franklin and Cotton Mather are prominent characters, this is not
a dusty history of food. Employing hip language and humor, Kaufman’s
revelations surprise and even shock. Kaufman contends that the American
Puritan practice of fasting is the clinical ancestor of anorexia nervosa,
and goes on to explore our “separate-but-equal urges to stuff and
starve ourselves” (as the book jacket copy puts it). He backs up his
thesis with enough evidence to convince me. Recommended May 2008 |
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Sorin, Fran Digging Deep: Unearthing Your Creative Roots Through Gardening Nonfiction |
| If I were categorizing this book, I’d invent the term,
“garden therapy.” Sorin is a counselor who wants to help gardeners
(including indoor gardeners) think about their gardening wants and
needs, while understanding and accepting the limitations imposed by
their garden spaces. Though the chapters include instruction on actual
plant cultivation, the reason to read Digging Deep is for its lessons
in creativity. Your garden is a perfect place to imagine, explore,
play, work, risk, share, and celebrate. Recommended by Julie, May 2008 |
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Bender, Aimee An Invisible Sign of My Own Fiction |
| This novel requires more than the usual suspension of
disbelief. If you haven’t read within the magical realism genre, the
extreme quirks of character and plot may surprise you. One definition
of magical realism includes “heightened reality in which elements
of the miraculous appear while seeming natural and unforced.” An
Invisible Sign of My Own offers large doses of heightened reality
as well as miraculous events that defy expectations. Though the protagonist
is an obsessive counter, knocker-on-wood (or paper if no wood is available),
and a compulsive quitter, it’s easy to sympathize with her as she
teaches math to second graders, worries about her ill father, and
tries to avoid emotional encounters with the attractive male art teacher
who has a few quirks of his own. Recommended by Julie, April 2008 |
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Rybczynski, Witold Last Harvest: How a Cornfield Became New Daleville: Real Estate Development in America from George Washington to the Builders of the Twenty-First Century and Why We Live in Houses Anyway Nonfiction |
| In an intimate, conversational style, architecture critic
Rybczynski tells the story of New Daleville, a "neotraditional" residential
subdivision in rural Pennsylvania. Over the course of five years,
Rybczynski met the developers, the community leaders whose approvals
they needed, the home builders and sewage experts, and the first families
who moved in. Along the way, he explores how Americans came to prefer
single family houses and other pertinent housing history. As a committed
pedestrian, I loved reading about how smaller lots, narrower streets,
and other seemingly old-fashioned, small town characteristics of communities
like New Daleville contribute to a community that accommodates walkers
as well as cars. Exciting, too, is the planning for new communities
where people can choose to live within walking distance of their work,
and where opportunities for shopping and entertainment are also within
walking range. Recommended by Julie, July 2007 |
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Meyer, Danny Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business Nonfiction |
| Danny Meyer opened Union Square Cafe in 1985 when he
was 27 years old. Since then his New York City restaurant empire has
grown to include 11 establishments. In Setting the Table
Meyer explores his family, business, and taste history with an emphasis
on food. Readers interested in dining and restaurants are likely to
enjoy his stories. But what I value most about this book is that Meyer
has woven his management philosophy throughout, showing the development
of what he calls "Enlightened Hospitality." I got excited about "Enlightened
Hospitality" while reading an interview just before Setting the
Table was published, in which Meyer emphasized the importance
of making his customers feel heard. He said, "The customer is certainly
not always right. But they must always feel heard." Setting the
Table has inspired me to pay more attention to the importance
of listening to others, whether customers, employees, supervisors,
or friends, regardless of my reaction to what they might be saying.
Among many other important lessons, this book has encouraged me to
focus on the act of listening. We take listening for granted, but
careful listening really is a gift we give each other. Recommended by Julie, April 2007 | |
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Harrison, Jim Returning to Earth Fiction |
| Returning to Earth chronicles a year in the life
of a closely knit family in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Four characters
are each given one-quarter of the novel to tell their first-person
tale. Donald, who is Chippewa-Finnish, begins the story. He is dying
of Lou Gehrig's disease at age forty-five. As he dictates to his wife
the story of his ancestors, he weaves family history, strong ties
to the natural world, and hints of private, mystical views of life,
death, and an afterlife. On page one Donald says, "I don't have the
right language to keep up with my thinking or my memory or all of
my emotions over being sick." But his authentic, distinct voice and
stream of consciousness style is just right for a man overwhelmed
with love for life. The members of Donald's family who narrate the
remaining three sections of the novel face their private grief as
well as struggle to help each other cope with Donald's death. Each
narrator's voice is distinctive and utterly believable, and the themes
of integrity and reverence for the earth are completely compelling.
Recommended by Julie, February 2007 |
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