Fault In Our Stars

"the universe wants to be noticed"
"I had grand plans to be asleep tonight by two. But before I turned out the light I started reading The Fault in Our Stars. I just now finished. And I'm not sure if it's the bizarre combination of black coffee and red wine, or that I'm awake and the world's asleep, or that I've read 1000 pages of the most non-fiction ever the past two weeks, but this is the best book I've ever read. The recommendation letter written for John Nash read simply, 'this man is a genius.' That's the kind of review I give this book. I'll be shocked if it's not read a hundred years from now."

a few words of early morning praise
for the awesome & multi - talented John Green
from my awesome & multi - talented son Ben McCartney

************************
A couple of months ago, on this blog (scroll down or click), I took a brief look at Green's main character, cancer survivor ("All salvation is temporary" 59) Hazel Grace Lancaster, who comes of age while also coming to terms with an array "Cancer Perks" and the "Side Effects of Dying," the Good Days and the Bad Days, the dignity and the indignities, the nostalgia and the cynicism, even the absurdity.

As someone who has worked with young cancer patients, John Green, without any hint of didacticism or prescribed order, portrays his characters cycling in and out of anger, denial, bargaining, depression, and acceptance: "There are no bad guys. . . . Even cancer isn't a bad guy really: Cancer just wants to be alive" (246).

As Green's starry title suggests,
his engagement with the topic of cancer is cosmic:
p 13: "There will come a time when all of us are dead. All of us. There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything. There will be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you. Everything that we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this will have been for naught. Maybe that time is coming soon and maybe it is millions of years away, but even if we survive the collapse of our sun, we will not survive forever. There was time before organisms experienced consciousness, and there will be time after. And if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it. God knows that’s what everyone else does."

p 194: " . . . the definition of humanness is the opportunity to marvel at the majest of creation . . . "

p 202: "The tales of our exploits will survive as long as the human voice itself . . . And even after that, when the robots recall the human absurdities of sacrifice and compassion, they will remember us. They will robot - laugh at our courageous folly . . . But something in their iron robot hearts will yearn to have lived and died as we did: on the hero's errand."

p 223: “I believe the universe wants to be noticed. I think the universe is improbably biased toward consciousness, that it rewards intelligence in part because the universe enjoys its elegance being observed. And who am I, living in the middle of history, to tell the universe that it -- or my observation of it -- is temporary?"

p 294: "I was thinking about the universe wanting to be noticed, and how I had to notice it as best I could. I felt that I owed a debt to the universe that only my attention could repay, and also that I owed a debt to everybody who didn't get to be a person anymore and everyone who hadn't gotten to be a person yet."

p 233: "Some infinities are bigger than other infinities" (see also 260).

p 266: "We live in a universe devoted to the creation, and eradication, of awareness. Augustus Waters did not die after a lengthy battle with cancer. He died after lengthy battle with human consciousness, a victim -- as you will be -- of the universe’s need to make and unmake all that is possible.”

p 276: "Omnis cellula e cellula "All cells come from cells. Every cell is born of a previous cell, which was born of a previous cell. Life comes from life. Life begets life begets life begets life begets life.”

p 308: "Who am I to say that these things might not be forever? Who is Peter Van Houten to assert as fact the conjecture that our labor is temporary? All I know of heaven and all I know of death is in this park: an elegant universe in ceaseless motion, teeming with ruined ruins and screaming children."

p 312: " . . . the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention."

***************************
Ben and I also had some fun tracking down the following literary allusions:

1. Shakespeare
First of all, for his title, Green provides a subtle inversion of Shakespeare's dictum --
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are the underlings.”

Julius Caesar (I, ii, 140-141)
suggesting not that we are free of responsibility, but that the stars themselves may not be without fault. After all, we're not in charge of everything.

2. Emily Dickinson
A central figure in the novel is Peter Van Houten, author of Hazel's favorite book An Imperial Affliction. Like Green himself, the fictional Van Houten choses his title from a pre - existing work, a poem by Emily Dickinson:

A Certain Slant of Light

There’s a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons —
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes —

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us —
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are —

None may teach it — Any —
’Tis the Seal Despair —
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air —

When it comes, the Landscape listens —
Shadows — hold their breath —
When it goes, ’tis like the Distance
On the look of Death —

Emily Dickinson, 1830 - 86
found in The Complete Poems
Reading Dickinson's poem, throws a couple of other passages into sharp relief:

Early in the novel, the spring air is "just on the cold side of perfect, the late-afternoon light heavenly in its hurtfulness" (18).

And later at the cemetery, the mourners stand "beneath the clear blue sky with its certain slant of light" (274).

3. T. S. Eliot
On the way to Amsterdam Hazel recites a few lines from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock":

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question….
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit. . . .

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
[Click to hear Eliot himself recite]
In the Anne Frank House, Augustus remembers the reference and promises Hazel that "The tales of our exploits will survive as long as the human voice itself" (153, 164, 202).

4. William Carlos Williams
One of the most touching allusions is Hazel's re-write of the straightforward and striking poem, "The Red Wheel Barrow" (246 - 47).

Here is Williams' original:

so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens
and here is Hazel's rendition:

so much depends
upon
the transparent
G - tube

erupting from the gut
of the blue - lipped boy

so much depends
upon
this observer
of the universe

4. Robert Frost
Frost's brief poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay" makes a brief appearance when Hazel despairs for the future: "It seemed to me that I had already seen everything pure and good in the world, and I was beginning to suspect that even if death didn't get in the way, the kind of love that Augustus and I share could never last. So dawn goes down to day, the poet wrote Nothing gold can stay" (278).

Here's the whole poem, short, sweet, sad:

Nothing Gold Can Stay
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Nature's first green: see the Wabash through the leaves?

There are plenty of other intertextual references, including allusions to The Great Gatsby (191) and V for Vendetta (17, 29 - 30). For more, check out The Fault in Our Stars Metatext site, which seems to have found them all.

P.S.
HAPPY 23rd BIRTHDAY BENEDICT!

Songs Our Grandmothers Sang

My friend Meg wrote:
"Kitti, my heart leapt when I saw this picture. Mommy, Buy Me a China Doll was my very favorite picture book (along with Rain Makes Applesauce)--it was the first book I could 'read' (because I memorized it). I also loved the eyes of the mother and daughter. Just last week, Elaine and I were parodying the text as she tried to convince me to get her a bigger bed."


What a great memory for Meg -- and even better that she has passed it on to her daughter Elaine! I don't know how I missed out on knowing this story as a child, but luckily it keeps coming into my life through my relatives!

Earlier this month when we were in England, Gerry's Auntie Jan showed me a copy of this book that she had discovered at a used book sale. When she asked if I knew the tune, I hummed a few bars as best I could and told her that I hadn't known it as child, but my cousins Maggie and Scott taught it to me at our family reunion in 1998! Like my friend Meg, my cousin Maggie has passed the song on to her children. She recalled nostalgically, "I think Grandma [Adeline Carriker] sang it to Mom [that would be my dad's only sister, Frances] when she was a child. Now all my grandsons know it as well!"

The book (rare now but available on amazon) contains many verses but no music. Luckily, Ben was able to download the music and leave a copy with Auntie Jan so that she can now learn the old Ozark melody and sing it to her British grandkids!

Another childhood song that my Grandma Rovilla Lindsey sang to me is "Babes in the Woods." It must have been a favorite of hers, for at some point (I'm guessing in the 1950s or 60s) she took time to write down all the verses:



If there's one thing I love to save
-- and I have only a very few samples of it for saving --
it is my Grandma Lindsey's beautiful elegant handwriting.
In addition to the above page of lyrics,
I am lucky enough to have this Easter Booklet
that she designed for her Sunday School Students

In Marilynne Robinson's novel Home, there is a reference to "Babes in the Wood" along with an interesting analysis of its effect on children. Glory Boughton, now thirty - eight, thinks back to what she was told as a child, "Glory, you take things too much to heart":

"That was what they always said about her. . . . Glory took everything to heart. She wished they had told her how to do otherwise, what else she should have done.

"She wept easily. This did not mean that she felt things more deeply than other did. It certainly did not mean that she was fragile or sentimental . . . When she was four . . . she had sobbed over Heidi and Bambi and the Babes in the Woods. Which they read to her dozens of times. As if there were any other point to those stories after all but to elicit childish grief" (14 - 14).

Childish grief. Childish worry. I think I know exactly how Glory felt. Though, I did not have a picture book of "Babes in the Woods," the images evoked by my grandmother's singing were vivid and sorrowful. The deserted children, covered over with strawberry leaves, were merged in my storybook universe with Hansel and Gretel, searching in vain for the bread crumbs, and Little Red Riding Hood, alone and worried in the forest. The poor little things! And as Robinson mentions in this same passage, somehow "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep" was mixed in there too.

There are a lot of other things to like about Home, but that's enough for now.

P.S. On the topic of China Dolls,
I have never been known to have a way with houseplants
but the China Doll Plant has always been one of my favorites:

Radermachera sinica
.

Losing Strength, Not Style

I Love You ~ painting by Elena Desserich
Notes Left Behind
by Brooke and Keith Desserich
Brooke and Keith Desserich's personal journal entries -- about their six - year - old daughter Elena -- describe the last 256 days of Elena's life, starting with the tragic discovery of an inoperable tumor in her brain. Their loving anecdotes capture the despair and joy of each remaining day and preserve the precious personality of Elena, creating a memoir to be read in the future by little sister Gracie.
To learn more: The Cure Starts Now ( www.thecurestartsnow.org )

The Fault In Our Stars
by John Green
John Green's novel -- about the fictional seventeen - year - old Hazel Grace Lancaster, who has been living with thyroid cancer since the age of thirteen -- is based on his experience as a student chaplain in a children's hospital, helping children with life-threatening illnesses. Through Hazel and her friend Gus, Green opens our eyes to the tension of teen - age angst, compounded by the hope and uncertainty of living with cancer.
To learn more: This Star Won't Go Out ( www.tswgo.org )
Each of these sad sweet books is about an intelligent, creative, admirable girl engaged in a heartbreaking struggle against cancer. Though quite different in style and genre, the two stories explore similar themes: the sorrow of diagnosis at such a young age; the unfairness of interrupted youth; the reorganization of the family around new needs and priorities; the courage and energy of a bright young patient determined to seize the day no matter what the odds against her.

Both books brought to mind these sad lyrics from the musical Evita:

"Oh what I'd give for a hundred years
But the physical interferes
Every day more, O my Creator
What is the good of the strongest heart
In a body that's falling apart?
A serious flaw, I hope You know that . . .

Your little body's slowly breaking down
You're losing speed, you're losing strength, not style
That goes on flourishing forever
But your eyes, your smile
Do not have the sparkle of your fantastic past
If you climb one more mountain it could be your last

I'm not that ill, bad moments come but they go
Some days are fine, some a little bit harder
But that doesn't mean we should give up our dream
Have you ever seen me defeated?
Don't you forget what I've been through and yet
I'm still standing

Eva, you are dying

So what happens now?
Where am I going to?

Don't ask anymore . . . "
**************************
In Memoriam
Marilyn, 7 March 1957 - 27 November 1993
Celine, 27 August 1942 - 24 April 1997
Dagmar, 13 April 1959 - 9 March 2011

Transfixed

Yet I believe beyond believing
that life can spring from death,
that growth can flower from our grieving,
that we can catch our breath
and turn transfixed by faith.
~ William Gay ~


Sun Shining Through Lace Curtains Onto the Hardwood Floor
(photo taken 15 September 2011)
~ Some books I like to reread each year around Easter ~
Fifth Business
Robertson Davies

A wise aging priest discusses the need for a role model: "My own idea is that when [Christ] comes again it will be to continue his ministry as an old man. I am an old man and my life has been spent as a soldier of Christ, and I tell you that the older I grow the less Christ's teaching says to me. I am sometimes very conscious that I am following the path of a leader who died when He was less than half as old as I am now. I see and feel things He never saw or felt. I know things He seems never to have known. Everybody wants a Christ for himself and those who think like him. Very well, am I at fault for wanting a Christ who will show me how to be an old man?* All Christ's teaching is put forward with the dogmatism, the certainty, and the strength of youth: I need something that takes account of the accretion of experience, the sense of paradox and ambiguity that comes with years!" (164.)

* Or how to be a woman of any age!
The Secret Life of Bees
Sue Monk Kidd
[Also mentioned in 2003]

So similar to what Davies says about the need for an old Christ: "I wish you could've seen the Daughters of Mary the first time they laid eyes on [the Black Madonna]. You know why? Because when they looked at her, it occurred to them for the first time in their lives that what's divine can come in dark skin. You see, everybody needs a God who looks like them" (141).

For years now, I've been saying that Jesus needed a twin sister; and Kidd has incorporated this own personal heresy of mine into her novel: "I could read her thought: If Jesus' mother is black, how come we only know about the white Mary? This would like women finding out Jesus had had a twin sister who'd gotten half God's genes but none of the glory" (53).

The Last Temptation of Christ
Nikos Kazantzakis
[See previous posts: 2007 & "Let Them All In"]

His somewhat unconventional Jesus insists that he is "son of man, I tell you, not son of God. . . I shall stand up and proclaim the truth!"

The Apostle Paul replies in anger: "True or false -- what do I care! It 's enough if the world is saved. . . . What is 'truth'? What is 'falsehood'? Whatever gives us wings, whatever produces great works and great souls and lifts us . . . above the earth -- that is true. Whatever clips off our wings -- that is false. . . . I create the truth, create it out of obstinacy and longing and faith." (477)

In an excellent closing note, P. A. Bien, writes that Kazantzakis "was not primarily interested in reinterpreting Christ or in disagreeing with, or reforming, the Church. He wanted rather, to lift Christ out of the Church altogether . . . The measure with which the reader of this book feels (perhaps for the first time) the full poignancy of the Passion will be the measure of the author's success" While I feel no doubt of this novel's success, it is actually another novel which, in my opinion, renders the Passion most poignantly, and that is . . .

The Master and Margarita
Mikhail Bulgakov
[See also "Illusion of Control"]

Bulgakov treats not only the Passion of Christ, but also

~ the Passion of the Master, whose novel about Pontius Pilate is rejected by the critics and lands him in the mental asylum but is later read by both Jesus and Pilate, himself;

~ and the Passion of Margarita, whose quest for happiness leads her to Satan's ball and the final realization that "the world is built on" forgiveness, complete forgiveness;

~ and the Passion of Pontius Pilate, who commands the prisoner Yeshua to "swear by your life since it is hanging by a thread."

Yeshua responds calmly: "You do not think, do you, Hegemon, that you hung it there? . . . If you do, you are very much mistaken."

Pilate: "I can cut that thread."

Yeshua: "You are mistaken about that too . . . Don't you agree that that thread can only be cut by the one who hung it?" (19).

Pilate then asks: " . . . the kingdom of truth will come?"

"It will, Hegemon," replied Yeshua with conviction.

"It will never come! Pilate shouted in such a terrible voice that Yeshua recoiled. (23).

Bulgakov's doubting Pilate is utterly conflicted, whereas his mephistophelean Woland is a devil of great confidence. Like Paul, above, in Last Temptation, Woland teaches by "obstinacy, longing, and faith." He whispers to the doubting poet Berlioz: "Keep in mind that Jesus did exist."

"You know, Professor . . . we respect your great knowledge, but we happen to have a different point of view regarding that issue."

Woland: "No points of view are necessary . . . He simply existed, and that's all there is to it."

Berlioz: "But surely some proof is required."

Woland: "No, no proof is required. . . . But as we part, I implore you, at least believe that the devil exists! I ask no more than that. Keep in mind that for this we have the seventh proof . . ." (12, 34).

***********************

" . . .there is nothing but mystery in the world,
how it hides behind the fabric of our poor, browbeat days,
shining brightly, and we don't even know it"
~ The Secret Life of Bees (63) ~

Book Haven

Happy 131st Birthday to James Joyce
and Happy One Year Anniversary to The Book Haven

Book Haven ~ F Street ~ Salida, Colorado
I've never been to Salida, but should I ever visit, I know where I'm heading first -- straight to Lisa Marvel's Book Haven on F Street!

My friend Laura wrote to me a year ago to tell me all about it: "We, and about sixty of Lisa's Salida friends, moved all of the books to the new location in about two hours in mid - January, then spent the next 10 days re - arranging, re - alphabetizing, and safely shelving them all. The Grand - Re - Opening on February 2nd was great fun. Lisa and I spent about eight hours preparing hors d'oeuvres for the even, and Joachim and I gave them fun names:

Cannery Row Wannabees (herring in wine sauce)
Grapes of Wrath (skewered fruit)
Pride and Prejudice (sweet and sour meatballs)
Pigs in Heaven (little smokies nestled in crescent rolls)
Call of the Wild (greens and veggies)
Tortilla Flat (chips & salsa)
Joy Luck Club (wraps / mini eggrolls)
Health Food for Heidi, etc.
"Following food and fellowship, thirty of us participate in a "Rapid Fire Salute to the Written Word" -- 30 one - minute readings. Kent Haruf convinced me to read the cose of Molly Bloom's Soliloquy, since it was James Joyce's birthday, so we ended with a big celebratory 'yes I said yes I will Yes!' "

favorite page from
The Family of Man
I am looking forward to hearing
Shellie K. Johnson sing
"The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs"

to be performed on 24 February 2013
by The Tippecanoe Chamber Music Society
text from Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
music by John Cage

The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs
"night by silentsailing night. . .
Isobel. . .
wildwoods' eyes and primarose hair,
quietly,
all the woods so wild, in mauves of
moss and daphnedews,
how all so still she lay neath of the
whitethorn, child of tree,
like some losthappy leaf,
like blowing flower stilled,
as fain would she anon,
for soon again 'twil be,
win me, woo me, wed me,
ah weary me!
deeply,
Now evencalm lay sleeping; night
Isobel
Sister Isobel
Saintette Isobel
madame Isa
Veuve La belle"

And a New One Just Begun

Thanks to my sister Peg for sending me
one of these cool readerly shirts from Wonder Book!

**************

~ Optimism ~ Delusion ~ Illusion ~
"I thought I might do some writing along the way, perhaps essays, surely notes, certainly letters, I took paper, carbon, typewriter, pencils, notebooks, and not only those but dictionaries, a compact encyclopedia, and a dozen other reference books, heavy ones. I suppose our capacity for self-delusions is boundless. I knew very well that I rarely make notes, and if I do I either lose them or can't read them. . . . And in spirit of this self-knowledge I [packed] enough writing material to take care of ten volumes. I also laid in a hundred and fifty pounds of those books one hasn't got around to reading -- and of course those are the books one isn't ever going to get around to reading. . . . I judge now that I carried about four times too much of everything" (emphasis added).

from Travels With Charley
by John Steinbeck

****************

And this from Michael Lipsey:

"The greatest illusion is not religion —
it’s waking up in the morning imagining
how much you’re going to get done today."

*****************

A little self - delusion?
Well, why not? Our minds depend upon it!
See also, "So Many Books, So Little Time"

P.S. My second favorite quote from Travels With Charley:

"Before I went to sleep I went over all the things I wished I had
said . . . and some of them were incredibly clever and cutting" (69).

[cf. L'esprit de l'escalier]

P.P.S. And this from Von's Books: “Of course anyone who truly loves books buys more of them than he or she can hope to read in one fleeting lifetime. A good book, resting unopened in its slot on a shelf, full of majestic potentiality, is the most comforting sort of intellectual wallpaper.” ~ David Quammen

Another Year Over

Time to winterize your croquet set!

Memorable Passages from Books Read in 2012
A Couple of Novels by Kate Atkinson

1. Human Croquet

109: Eliza picked Isobel up from the counter and started nibbling her ear. Why, Vinny wondered, was Eliza always trying to eat bits of her children? What a tasty little morsel, Eliza murmured in Isobel's ear while Vinny patted butter aggressively, imagining it was Eliza's head. If Eliza wasn't careful, Vinny thought, she'd look around one day and discover that she'd eaten them all up."

131: "The sadness of autumn is in the air, the smell of woodsmoke and earth and things long-forgotten. Over our heads the first skein of geese (the souls of the dead) scissor through the air, heading for their winter home, north of Boscrambe Woods, the creaking noise they make engenders a fit of melancholy in both of us. The Dog lifts its head, watching them make their black wingprints across the sky and gives a sad little whine. 'Here comes winter,' Audrey says."

135: "Why do cats sleep so much? Perhaps they've been trusted with some major cosmic task, an essential law of physics -- such as: if there are less than five million cats sleeping at any one time the world will stop spinning. So that when you look at them and think, what a lazy, good - for - nothing animal, they are, in fact, working very, very hard."

2. Behind the Scenes at the Museum: I actually read this one back in 2002 and again in 2006, and have been meaning to read Human Croquet ever since. Finally, mission accomplished!


A Couple of Titles by Ann - Marie MacDonald

1. Fall on Your Knees

86: " . . . the mysterious population of that far - off place called the Old Country. A place better than any on earth, but a place you are nonetheless lucky to have escaped."

106: "On Christmas Day 1914, the British and the Germans had laid down their arms, climbed out of their trenches, and walked into No Man's Land. They met halfway between the lines, and exchanged gifts. Not so strange, considering that never before had so many nice men with families and decent job volunteered to face each other under arms across distances as brief and static as twenty yards. Such chocolate. Such bully beef. The truce was completely spontaneous and not repeated in nay thing like those numbers again -- somehow people can still get into the Christmas spirit when they've only been mowing each other down with ordinary bullets, but the festivity goes right out of the season once they've gassed each other."

174: "She still has all her dolls from when she was little. . . . there is Maurice, the organ - grinder's monkey; there is Scarlet Fever, the girl baby with the porcelain head; there is Diphtheria Rose . . . there are the twin sailors, Typhoid and TB Ahoy, and the little boy doll, Small Pox. There used to be a lovely lady doll in a ball gown, Cholera La France, but she got lost somewhere. In the pride of place is the flamenco dancer with her crimson dress and castanets. Spanish Influenza."

216: "When you're about to die and the priest comes and gives you extreme unction, he takes a set of clean underwear out of your drawer and blesses them. Then he puts them on you. Or if it's an emergency and there's no priest, anyone can bless teh clean underwear. That's where Fruit of the Loom underwear comes from, it comes from the Hail Mary when you say, 'Blessed is the fruit of thy loom, Jesus.'"

239: "It's simple really: just don't move, and you won't do anything you'll regret later."

481: Actually, you smell like the sea. . . . it smell[s] . . . Like rocks. Like an empty house with all the windows blowing open. Like thinking, like tears. Like November."

2. Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet)

7: "In neither play do the supposedly fate - ordained deaths of the flawed heroes and heroines, seem quite inevitable. . . . In both plays, the tragic characters, particularly Romeo and Othello, have abundant opportunity to save themselves. The fact that they do not save themselves, tends to characterize them as the unwitting victims of a disastrous practical joke. Insofar as these plays may be said to be fatalistic at all, any grains of authentic tragedy must be seen to reside in the heroines, Desdemona and Juliet."

The main character, Constance, is a sad Shakespearean academic whose theory is that Othello & Romeo Juliet would be comedies instead of tragedies except that both plays lack the character of the Wise Fool, whose role is to provide the characters with the information they need to avert tragic consequences. Constance then magically falls into the action of each of the plays and becomes the Wise Fool. She meets Desdemona and Juliet, introduces them to each other, and saves them from death. Voila - comedy! Very clever!

Years ago, I wrote something similar (though certainly not as clever) about the tragic heroine Anne Frankford in "A Woman Killed With Kindness" by Thomas Heywood (contemporary to Shakespeare). My complaint was that Anne is merely a character -- not a woman -- killed with kindness because Heywood leaves her woefully undeveloped and motive-less, using her only to serve the contrary and misogynistic point of his play. Who am I to criticize the master? Well, I am heartened to see that MacDonald also feels less than satisfied with the time - honored heroines. I applaud and recommend her most delightful re-write!


A Couple of Heartfelt Memoirs

1. So Briefly An Eagle
by Don Carriker

A sad and beautiful tribute written by my Uncle Don (my dad's youngest brother) about their older brother Uncle Rudy who died in France in WW II.

2. Mourning and Dancing: A Memoir of Grief and Recovery
by Sally Downham Miller

Very sad. A local hero, gone too soon. This book was recommended to me in 2010 by a local friend who died unexpectedly in 2011. Strange. As if she knew.


A Couple of Funny Family Tales

1. Bossypants
by Tina Fey

The early coming - of - age chapters were the most fun, all about growing up right outside of Philadelphia in neighborhoods that I recognized from my West Philly years. The show - biz chapters, less fun. Maybe you had to be there. By the end, I wasn't calling my friends to say "buy and read!" the way I had been at the beginning!

2. Happy Birthday or Whatever:
Track Suits, Kim Chee, and Other Family Disasters
by Annie Choi

I enjoyed the adventures -- food, fashion, travel, education -- of this odd but smart, lovable family and am looking forward to reading her upcoming Shut Up, You're Welcome: Thoughts on Life, Death, and Other Inconveniences


A Couple of History Books

1. Unfamiliar Fishes
by Sarah Vowell

Before starting in on Hawaii, Vowell reminisces about majoring in French: "Affection for the French Enlightenment kind of comes with the diploma, along with a map of the Paris subway and a foolproof recipe for Proust's madeleines. One of my first homework assignments at college was to read Voltaire's Candide. I loved the book, but I especially loved discussing the book in class. I had spent my high school years trying to hide just how pretentious I was. So imagine my teenage glee at sitting in a fluorescent - lit room arguing about what Voltaire meant by 'we must cultivate our garden.' It occurs to me now that the novel is actually about an optimistic young person's disillusionment, but that irony was lost on me."

After reading, you'll wish that all of your history classes had been taught by Sarah Vowell . . . or Bill Bryson . . .

2. At Home: A Short History of Private Life
by Bill Bryson


A Couple of Conspiracy Theories -- or Not

1. Diana: Death of a Goddess
by David Cohen

Well, what can I say. Every now and then, I just have to read a Diana book. Talk about gone too soon. I passed this one on to my British father - in - law.

2. Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot
by Bill O'Reilly

Very level - headed. No in - your - face agenda. One of my Christmas presents from Sam, which I read in conjunction with our visit to Dallas and New Year's Eve tour of the Book Depository and the Grassy Knoll. Next, I'll have to read O'Reilly's Killing Lincoln . . . but will be better than Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation?