Hey April Part 2

 So, where were we? That's right. I was going to talk about Eleanor by David Michaelis. I dearly loved this book with a couple of reservations. It was both sensitive to and admiring of Eleanor Roosevelt. The research was thorough. Themes were well-established with good follow-through. What I'm about to write may seem picky, may make me seem like Karen or June Cleaver clutching their pearls, but I'm not, I'm really, really not. No pearls on this girl; that's not me at all. And yet: I cringed in the chapter where Eleanor is a young mother and Michaelis refers to her giving birth not once but twice as "push[ing] out her [first/second/third/etc.] baby". Excuse me??? This seems a little crude for an otherwise respectful biography. Yes, I KNOW that that's what women do during a birthing process that isn't a Caesarian, and Eleanor Roosevelt certainly did, but it seems like a lapse in judgement. Is it possible that Michaelis had an editor who didn't like him and went back and inserted "pushed out her # baby", removing the more genteel "gave birth to a daughter/son"? Or is this way of describing childbirth a new and accepted thing and I've totally lost touch? After all, I haven't given birth or pushed anyone out since 1984. Anyway. Ahem. The other thing that bothered me was a mistake in a caption in one of the photos that refers to a necklace Eleanor is wearing as made out of tiger claws. In the book's text, it clearly states that the necklace is made of tiger teeth, and inspection of the actual photo bears this out. Other than those two things, Eleanor is a wonderful biography, warm and perceptive and intelligent as Eleanor herself.

Who Was Levi Strauss? was not one of my favorites in the Who Was..? series. Although Strauss was an immigrant who came to America and made his fortune making pants for miners during the 1849 Gold Rush which turned out to be the most popular form of clothing EVER, the man surprisingly, didn't have a very colorful life. There were a lot of awkward filler articles in the book to make up for that lack of color. This book would have worked better as What Are Levis? Or What Are Blue Jeans?

A Who Was...? book that I really enjoyed was Who Was Julia Child? This was co-authored by Geoff Edgers, writer of  Who Were The Beatles? one of my new favorites. I loved the way Child's zest for life and her quirky personality were conveyed. Her time in the OSS during WWII was especially well-done. I had to stop reading periodically and go watch YouTube videos from The French Chef. The book gave me a warm glow. When her kitchen at the Smithsonian was mentioned, I smiled, remembering how I got to see it for myself several years ago. And Julia's junk drawer! This really is a charming addition to the Who Was...? series.

Who Was Milton Bradley? was lively and interesting. It's well-written, and the sidebar articles feel organic to the text. Even better, the illustrations by Tim Foley make Bradley's story come to life. Another new favorite.

The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue was my only fiction book for the month, and I don't feel as if I read it; I feel as if I absorbed it through my skin. The novel takes place over three days in a makeshift maternity ward in Dublin during WWI and also during the 1918 pandemic. The main character, Nurse Julia is left to run the ward alone until a young volunteer named Bridie appears to assist her. This isn't a long book. It's brief and packs a wallop. Brutal and tender. I feel as if I need to read it again.

Hey, April Part One

 1. Eat a Peach - David Chang. Memoir.

2. Who Were The Beatles? - Geoff Edgers. Biography.

3. Who Were The Brothers Grimm? - Avery Reed. Biography.

4. Eleanor - David Michaelis. Biography.

5. Who Was Levi Strauss? - Ellen Lebrecque. Biography.

6. Who Was Julia Child? - Geoff Edgers. Biography.

7. Who Was Milton Bradley? - Kirsten Anderson. Biography.

8. The Pull of the Stars - Emma Donoghue. Novel.

Notes:

I really didn't enjoy Eat a Peach. David Chang's authorial voice was turned up to 11, and things were lost or discordant or distorted. Very few of those precise and evocative descriptions of food that you usually see in food memoirs. Props to Chang for making the reader feel the clanging and banging in his head, and I am very glad that he got help. I wish I had liked Eat a Peach. Now I feel guilty. Don't let me put you off reading it.

Confession time: You know how Pawn Stars runs allll day and alll night on Mondays on The History Channel? If I'm off work, I'll spend hours in front of the television, patiently waiting for a glimpse of my newest bookworm crush, Rebecca Romney to appear and help Rick and Chumlee and the rest of the gang figure out the correct value of a book. My admiration for Rebecca seems to know no bounds; I follow her on Twitter and I rented the documentary The Booksellers so I could bask in her reassurance that bookselling is alive and well and thriving. (There were a bunch of old farts who were grimly steadfast in their conviction that bookselling is on life support. Team Rebecca!) In one of the many ways that Rebecca uses her powers for bookworm good, she and and her bookselling partner Heather O'Donnell (Honey & Wax Booksellers) established an annual prize for American women book collectors age 30 and younger. The smaller the focus, the quirkier the collection, the better Rebecca and Heather like it. One of this year's honorable mentions has a collection of Beatlemania. She said that she got interested in The Fab Four after she read Who Were The Beatles? Wow! So there they were, several of my passions colliding at once: Rebecca Romney, the Who Was...? series, beguiling "odd shelves", as the late Larry McMurtry called very specific book collections, and the Beatles. The magic of inter-library loan yielded a copy, I read it and loved it. Who Were The Beatles? is staunchly on my favorites list in this series.

I've always been charmed at the idea of the Grimm brothers traveling through Germany and getting people to tell them stories. It reminds me of A.P. Carter of The Carter Family traveling through the mountains in Virginia and getting people to sing old ballads and other songs. I also love it that the Grimms were linguists. Another winner in the Who Was...? series.

I want to talk about Eleanor and The Pull of the Stars so badly, but I'm fading, (actually, I may have broken something with that Rebecca paragraph!) and morning comes early. April will have to be in two parts.

Yikes, Two Months!

 No, I haven't lost that blogging feeling! I woke up this morning, casting about for reasons and excuses why it's been two frigging months. But nevermind. Blog, just blog!

So waaaaaaaaaaay back in March: That was a good month for reading:

1. Little Town on the Prairie - Laura Ingalls Wilder

2. Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less - Greg McKeown

3. Always Young and Restless - Melody Thomas Scott

4. Solutions and Other Problems - Allie Brosh.

5. Who Was Catherine the Great? - Pam Pollack and Meg Belviso

6. Who Is Kamala Harris? - Kirsten Anderson

7. Who Was Walt Whitman? - Kirsten Anderson

Notes:

I always love me some Laura, but the minstrel show is pretty ugh. Also ugh but also kind of horrifying and funny was Pa's dream about going to the barber only to wake and find that a mouse has been chewing off his hair to make a nest.

My takeaway from Essentialism is that if you say no, people will be pissed off in the short term. If you say yes, they won't really respect you for it. This book was too closely related to a very narrow sliver of the workplace and not enough to other avenues of life.

Always Young and Restless was fun as I expected, but there was also more depth than I expected.

Solutions and Other Problems: I'm just not a fan of Allie Brosh's style of art, but I very much enjoy her writing.

Who Was Catherine the Great?  Who indeed! Wow, the authors tackled some extremely grown up subjects here to present a portrait of a complex woman which is satisfying to readers of all ages.

The Kamala Harris biography felt rushed out and was disappointingly short.

Who Was Walt Whitman? wasn't one of my favorites of this series. It seemed a little hazy.