Archive for June, 2009

The Whole Five Feet: What the Great Books Taught Me About Life, Death, and Pretty Much Everything El

Christopher Beha

Yesterday I spotted this book in the new books section at the library. I’d never heard of it before, but it looked interesting, so I took it home with me.

Book Summary:
In The Whole Five Feet, Christopher Beha turns to the great books for answers after undergoing a series of personal and family crises and learning that his grandmother had used the Harvard Classics to educate herself during the Great Depression. Inspired by her example, Beha vows to read the entire Five-Foot Shelf, one volume a week, over the course of the next year. As he passes from St. Augustine’s Confessions to Don Quixote, from Richard Henry Dana’s Two Years Before the Mast to essays by Cicero, Emerson, and Thoreau, he takes solace in the realization that many of the authors are grappling with the same questions he faces: What is the purpose of life? How do we live a good life? What can the wisdom of the past teach us about our own challenges? Beha’s chronicle is a smart, big-hearted, and inspirational mix of memoir and intellectual excursion—and a powerful testament to what great books can teach us about how to live our own lives.

I’m not sure if I’ll get to this before it’s due back, but I’m going to try.

EDIT: I just read this review of the book in today’s NY Times Book Review section. Very good review.

(This post was brought over from emilyw.vox.com. Click here for the original post and comments.)

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction

J.D. Salinger

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour an Introduction by J. D. Salinger is the second book I’ve read from my Summer Reading List.

It’s also the last of Salinger’s books that I had not read.

This book is actually two Novellas published together. The first, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, is an account of Seymour Glass’s wedding day – told by his brother Buddy Glass. Seymour Glass himself never actually makes an appearance in the story. It’s an excellent story, and made me love Salinger’s writing even more.

The second story however, is quite different. It’s an essay, pretty much, written by Buddy Glass. It attempts to be, just as the title says, an Introduction to Seymour Glass. At first it mainly focuses on Seymour’s poetry but then gets more general and talks about Buddy’s relationship with Seymour, and Seymour as a person.

I think Seymour an Introduction is possibly the best example of why I love Salinger so much, and how talented he is. I mean, goodness. Here’s a novella “written” by one of Salinger’s fictional characters, about another fictional character, and their fictional family. Nothing particularly sad happens. Seymour’s suicide is mentioned in almost every account of the Glass family, and is not the focus of this piece at all. It’s just a tribute to his “life” – who he was and what he was like. And the darn thing had me in tears while reading about Seymour and what sort of person he was. It was incredible.

I’ve now read his four published books, and I’ve read Catcher in the Rye twice. Now I’d like to go back and read them all again. If forced to choose a favorite, I’m not sure I could at this point. All I know is that it isn’t Catcher, though I do really like it. I love the other three so much I can’t imagine choosing a favorite. Maybe when I re-read them all it will help me make up my mind.

As much as I wish Salinger would release some new work, since it’s been nearly 50 years, I also am sort of ok with just the work that’s out there. I like the idea of re-reading his four books many times, and getting to know them very well. I like the idea of trying to track down his uncollected works, as M—–l did. (A few will be on my complete New Yorker DVDs, so I’ll start with those.) He has definitely become one of my top five favorite authors.

(This post was brought over from emilyw.vox.com. Click here for the original post and comments.)

First of all – a big thank you to everyone who entered my Summer Book Giveaway and helped to spread the word!

I will definitely do more giveaways in the future, and will explore other ways for people to enter, since I hate that Vox makes you register to leave a comment.

Without further ado, here are the winners of the Summer Book Giveaway!

Bookgiveawaywinners

(click here to see this image full size)

1. Maria – Water for Elephants
2. carapiccoladiva – The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
3. Ubi Caritas – Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
4. Morgan – Peony in Love
5. Dominique – The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

Congrats to the winners! I’m excited to send you your books. I’ll send a direct message to all of you to get your mailing address. Except Morgan, since I’ll see her soon! :)

Thanks again to everyone who entered! Stay tuned for the next giveaway – I’m thinking it might be an ARC giveaway.

(This post was brought over from emilyw.vox.com. Click here for the original post and comments.)

Good morning! I just wanted to post a reminder that you have until 8pm ET tomorrow to enter my Summer Book Giveaway!

Here are the books you could win:

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
Peony in Love by Lisa See
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Read more details and enter here!

Please feel free to spread the word to anyone who would be interested – thanks!

(This post was brought over from emilyw.vox.com. Click here for the original post and comments.)

I am very excited to be posting my first book giveaway!

When I went to the Friends of the Hoboken Library book sale last weekend (where books are for sale at incredible prices), I saw several books that I loved, in good condition, but that I already owned. A lot of times I’ll buy them anyway, and give them to friends or family. This time I thought it would be a lot of fun to have a book giveaway on my blog.

The books I’m giving away are all books that I’ve read and enjoyed, and that I think could make great summer reads. They are:

Summer Book Giveaway!

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
Peony in Love by Lisa See
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

The books are all used books, but they are in incredibly good shape, with clean pages, nice covers, no broken spines, etc.

There will be 5 winners – one book per person. Here are the rules:
1. Leave a comment to enter. I apologize that Vox makes you create a (free) account to leave a comment. When you comment, please list the books you would like, in order. So if you’re only interested in three of them, you’d list those three, 1 through 3, in the order you’d like them. If you’d like any of the five, then just list them in the order you’d like. This way, I can try to match the five winners up with the books they’d actually like to read. One entry per person, except for the extra opportunities described in number 2 below.

2. For up to two extra entries – tweet this and/or blog about it, with a link back here. To keep things simple and fair with the number generator, please leave a new comment with a link to your tweet or post for each of the two extra entries. (I’ve shortened the URL as well – http://bit.ly/fXQ6u)

3. This is open to any book lover across the globe. I will ship internationally.

4. Since Vox also doesn’t number the comments, I’m going to keep track of the entries in order in an excel document. Then I’ll use Random Number Generator to pick the winners, and I won’t have to manually count the comments.

5. You must enter by 8pm Eastern time on Friday, June 19th, 2009. Winners will be drawn that weekend, and I’ll post a new entry with the results. The winners will receive a direct message through Vox (which also sends an email to the account you used to register) and you’ll need to reply with your address within 4 days, or I’ll pick a new winner.

So – remember – leave a comment to enter, rank the books in the order you’d prefer, and tweet or blog for up to two extra entries!

And just to be totally clear – if you only list three of the books, and you’re the 4th or 5th name drawn, and if those 3 books were claimed ahead of you, I’ll go on to the next winner.

Ok, that’s it! I’m excited for this first giveaway – if all goes well it will be the first of many more! :)

(This post was brought over from emilyw.vox.com. Click here for the original post and comments.)

Books Purchased:

Books Bought – May 2009

Alice, Let’s Eat by Calvin Trillin
Another Marvelous Thing by Laurie Colwin
A Big Storm Knocked it Over by Laurie Colwin
The Lone Pilgrim by Laurie Colwin
A Very Private Eye: An Autobiography in Dairies and Letters by Barbara Pym
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
The Best American Short Stories 2008 edited by Salman Rushdie
Shortcomings by Adrian Tomine
American Food Writing edited by Molly O’Neill
Alone in the Kitchen With an Eggplant edited by Jenni Ferrari-Adler
I Love You More Than You Know by Jonathan Ames
A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenburg
Food With the Famous by Jane Grigson
The Art of Eating by M. F. K. Fisher
The Best American Non-Required Reading 2002 edited by Dave Eggers
Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart
The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton
The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet by Reif Larsen
Shanghai Girls by Lisa See
A Mess of Everything by Miss Lasko-Gross

A lot of books this month – due mainly to trips to Michigan and Milwaukee that involved a lot of book shopping. I won’t write about every book on the list, but I will comment on some of my best finds this month:

-I picked up three of Laurie Colwin’s fiction books from Strand, for about $5 each. Very excited to try her fiction after loving her two collections of food writing essays.

-I was extremely excited to find a hardcover copy of The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks for $3.98 at the Milwaukee Borders. Emma and I both got ourselves a copy.

-Food with the Famous is a book I had never heard of until I found it in the food section of Renaissance Books in Milwaukee. (I had heard of Jane Grigson, the author, before – Laurie Colwin writes affectionately about her books.) In this book, Grigson explores the culinary lives of famous women and men. It contains recipes and the social history of the food mentioned in classic literature and that famous figures ate. The featured people include: John Evelyn, Parson James Woodforde, Jane Austen, Thomas Jefferson, Rev. Sydney Smith, Lord & Lady Shaftesbury, Alexandre Dumas, Emile Zola, Claude Monet, and Marcel Proust. For example – one of the foods in the Jane Austen section is White Soup – what it is, how it originated, and how to make it yourself. This book is out of print now, but there are used copies on Amazon Marketplace that are reasonably priced.

Books Read:

Books Read – May 2009

Betsy and the Great World by Maud Hart Lovelace (re-read)
Betsy and Joe by Maud Hart Lovelace (re-read)
A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenburg
Shortcomings by Adrian Tomine
Lucky by Gabrielle Bell (library)
Escape from “Special” by Miss Lasko-Gross (library)
When I’m Old and Other Stories by Gabrielle Bell  (library)
The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet by Reif Larsen
The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright (library)
Shanghai Girls by Lisa See
A Mess of Everything by Miss Lasko-Gross
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

I talked about the Betsy-Tacy series last month, and here are links to my reviews of A Homemade Life, The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet, and Shanghai Girls. I’m planning a separate post about Mrs. Dalloway, since it’s one of my summer reading list books.

I read a lot of graphic novels this month. It helped me to read a decent number of books even though this month was incredibly busy. :) I read several graphic novels by Gabrielle Bell and Miss Lasko Gross before their event at Strand. It’s hard to pick a favorite of the five graphic novels I read this month – I enjoyed them all in different ways, and the three artists are very different. It was fun to discover Miss Lasko-Gross, I hadn’t heard of her until I saw she’d be with Gabrielle Bell at Strand. Her books are memoirs, and her style is very different then most of the graphic novels I’ve read. She uses very deep, rich artwork with a lot of shading, and the effect is gorgeous and moody. A Mess of Everything is the sequel to Escape from “Special” – and I’d recommend starting in order if you’d like to read them yourself.

I also read the first book of the Melendy Quartet by Elizabeth Enright, The Saturdays. This was a fantastic children’s novel, and I can’t believe I hadn’t read it before now. The Melendy family includes four kids (two girls and two boys), their father, and their lovable live-in housekeeper, Cuffy. Of course the children have all kinds of adventures, and get into the occasional mischief. In The Saturdays, they decide to pool their allowance each week so that one of the four can go out in the city on a Saturday and have their own adventure: going to a museum, opera, etc. Reading The Saturdays was great fun, and I’m looking forward to the other books in the quartet; I currently have the next two checked out from the library.

May Book Events:

I went to three great book events in May:
Neil Gaiman (Part of the Pen World Voices festival) 5.2.09
Gabrielle Bell & Miss Lasko-Gross (Strand) 5.19.09
Lisa See (Barnes and Noble on 82nd Street) 5.27.09

As always, my complete Polysyllabic Spree can be found here.

(This post was brought over from emilyw.vox.com. Click here for the original post and comments.)