Forging an Art

Last but not least – textual bibliography.  The list. 
Alloway, Ross. Cadell and the Crash (BH 2008)
Anesko, Michael. Friction with the Market (1986)
Baym, Nina. Early Histories of American Literature: A Chapter in the  Institution of New England (ALH 1989)
Bell, Ian F.A. The Jamesian Balloon: Romancing the Marketplace (JAS 1990)
Borus, Daniel H. Writing Realism: Howells, James and Norris in the Mass Market (1989)
Brake, Laurel. Print in Transition, 1850-1910: Studies in Media and Book History (2001)
Brodhead, Richard H. Cultures of Letters (1995)
Buell, Lawrence. New England Literary Culture from Revolution Through Renaissance (1986)
Carpenter, George Rice. Literature and the Literary Product (Sewanee R 1907)
Chartier, Roger. The Culture of Print: the Power and Uses of Print in Early Modern Europe (1989)
Chartier, Roger. Forms and Meanings (1995)
Chartier, Roger. The Practical Impact of Writing. A History of Private Life, vol. 3 (1993)
Charvat, William. The Profession of Authorship in America (1968)
Cohen, Matt. The History of the Book in New England: The State of the Discipline (BH 2008)
Colby, Robert A. Harnessing Pegasus: Walter Besant, “The Author” and the Profession of Authorship (VPR 1990)
Dane, Joseph. The Myth of Print Culture. The Myth of Print Culture (2003)
Diffley, Kathleen. The Roil of Contemporary Debate: Uncovering Literature and Culture in Nineteenth-Century America (JMMLA 2002)
Eggert, Paul. The Colonial Market, Imperial Publishers, and the Demise of the Three-Decker Novel (BH 2003)
Feltes, N.N. Literary Capital and the Late Victorian Novel (1993)
Finkelstein, David and Alistair McCleery, Eds. An Introduction to Book History (2005)
Finkelstein, David and Alistair McCleery, Eds. The Book History Reader (2002)
Finkelstein, David. The House of Blackwood (2002)
Garvey, Ellen Gruber. Anonymity, Authorship, and Recirculation: A Civil War Episode (BH 2006)
Gillies, Mary Ann. The Professional Literary Agent in Britain (2007)
Gilmore, Michael. American Romanticism and the Marketplace (1985)
Greetham,David C. Textual Scholarship: An Introduction (1994)
Gross, John J. The Rise and Fall of the Man of Letters (1969)
Hepburn, James. The Author’s Empty Purse and the Rise of the Literary Agent (1968)
Hochman, Barbara. Getting at the Author: Reimagining Books and Reading in the Age of AmericanRealism (2001)
Hochman, Barbara. Disappearing Authors and Resentful Readers in Late-Nineteenth Century American Fiction: The Case of Henry James (ELH 1996)
Hochman, Barbara. Uncle Tom’s Cabin in the National Era: An Essay in Generic Norms and the Contexts of Reading (BH 2004)
Howells, W.D. The Man of Letters as a Man of Business (1893)
Hutchisson, James M. The Rise of Sinclair Lewis: 1920-1930 (1996)
Iser, Wolfgang. The Act of Reading (1980)
Jackson, Leon. The Business of Letters: Authorial Economies in Antebellum America (2008)
James, Henry. The Art of Fiction (1884/1885)
Kaplan, Amy. Edith Wharton’s Profession of Authorship (ELH 1986)
Kaplan, Amy. The Social Construction of American Realism (1988)
Kilgour, Frederick G. The Evolution of the Book (1998)
McDonald, Peter. British Literary Culture and Publishing Practice, 1880-1914 (1997)
McGann, Jerome. The Textual Condition (1991)
McKenzie, D.F. Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts (1986)
McWhirter, David.  Henry James’s New York Edition: The Construction of Authorship (1995)
Moore, Rayburn. The Correspondence of Henry James and the House of Macmillan 1877-1914 (1993)
Perspectives in American Book History: Artifacts and Commentary (2002)Robinson, Solveig C. “Sir, It Is an Outrage”: George Bentley, Robert Black, and the Condition of the Mid-List Author in Victorian Britain” (BH 2007)
Sedgwick, Ellery. Magazines and the Profession of Authorship in the United States, 1840-1900 (PBSA 2000)
Sheehan, Donald. This Was Publishing: A Chronicle of the Book Trade in the Gilded Age (1952)
Sutherland, John. Victorian Novelists and Publishers (1976)
Tanselle, George Thomas. The Nature of Texts. A Rationale of Textual Criticism (1989)
Tanselle, George Thomas. The History of Books as a Field of Study (1981)
Thomas, Joseph M. “The Property of My Own Book”: Emerson’s Poems (1847) and the Literary Marketplace (NEQ 1996)
Topham, Jonathan R. John Limbird, Thomas Byerley, and the Production of Cheap Periodicals in the 1820s (BH 2005)
Weedon, Alexis. From Three-Deckers to Film Rights: A Turn in British Publishing Strategies, 1870-1930    (BH 1999)
West, James.  American Authors and the Literary Marketplace Since 1900 (1988)

Hot on the heels of the twentieth century – which sounds backwards, but that’s the way we did it – is the reading list for the nineteenth century:
(1799) Brown, Charles Brockden. Ormond
(1824) Child, Lydia Maria. Hobomok
(1819) Irving, Washington. “Rip Van Winkle,” from The Sketchbook
(1827) Cooper, James Fenimore. The Last of the Mohicans
(1827) Sedgwick, Catherine. Hope Leslie
Poe, Edgar Allan
(1839) “The Fall of the House of Usher” Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine
(1841)“A Descent into the Maelstrom” Graham’s Magazine
(1841) “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” Graham’s Magazine
(1843) “The Gold-Bug.”Dollar Magazine
(1845) “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Broadway Journal
Nathaniel Hawthorne
(1832) “Roger Malvin’s Burial”
(1832) “My Kinsman, Major Molineux”
(1835) “Young Goodman Brown”
(1846) “The Birthmark”
(1851) Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick or The Whale.
(1852) Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly.
(1853) Brown, William Wells. Clotel, President’s Daughter. Note that significantly revised reprints include (1860) Miralda; or, The Beautiful Quadroon. Weekly Anglo-African; (1864) Clotelle; A Tale of the Southern States; (1867) Clotelle; or, The Colored Heroine
(1864) Fern, Fanny (pseud: Sarah Willis Parton) Ruth Hall
(1868/1869) Alcott, Louisa May. Little Women
(1881) Harris, Joel Chandler. Selections from Legends of the Old Plantation
“The Wonderful Tar-Baby”
“How Mr. Rabbit Was Too Sharp for Mr. Fox”
Twain, Mark.
(1889) Connecticut Yankee
(1885) The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Freeman, Mary E. Wilkins
 (1890) “Revolt of Mother” and “A New England Nun”
James, Henry
(1881) The Portrait of a Lady
(1877) The American
(1886) The Bostonians
Howells, William Dean.
(1885)  The Rise of Silas Lapham
(1872) Their Wedding Journey
(1892) Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper”
(1896) Jewett, Sarah Orne. Country of the Pointed Firs and “Dunnet Landing Stories”
(1899/1900)Crane, Stephen.
(1895) The Red Badge of Courage
(1898) “The Open Boat”
(1893/1896) Maggie
(1899) Chopin, Kate. The Awakening
 Chesnutt, Charles W.
(1899) The Conjure Woman
(1900) House Behind Cedars
(1901) Marrow of Tradition 

Poetry
Bryant, William Cullen

(1817, 1832) “Thanatopsis”

(1825, 1832) “To a Mosquito”

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

(1839) FromVoices of the Night: “Hymn to the Night”

(1845) From Poems: “A Psalm of Life”

(1846) From The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems: “The Day Is Done”

(1856) From Poems: “Wreck of the Hesperus.”

(1858) From The Courtship of Miles Standish and Other Poems: “My Lost Youth” 

Kemble, Fanny

(1844) “To the Wissahiccon”

(1844) “Impromptu” 

Ralph Waldo Emerson

(1839) “The Humble-Bee”

(1847) “Each and All”

(1847) “The Problem”

(1847) “Ode, Inscribed to W. H. Channing”

(1867) “Terminus” 

Lowell, James Russell

(1846) From A Fable for Critics: Emerson, Poe, Bryant, Hawthorne, Lowell

(1846) From The Biglow Papers: Letter 6—The Pious Editor’s Creed 

Whitman, Walt (Walt Whitman Archive)

(1855) “Song of Myself”

(1881) “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking”

(1860) “As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life” (1881 title)

(1865) “Vigil Strange I kept on the Field One Night”

(1865) “The Dresser, ” re-named “The Dresser” in 1876

(1865)“When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” 

Poe, Edgar Allen

(1845) “The Raven”

(1849) “Annabel Lee” 

Dickinson, Emily (Johnson or Franklin edition)

(1859) “Success is counted sweetest”

(1859, 1861) “Safe in the Alabaster Chambers”

(1861) “I like a look of Agony,”

(1861) “Wild Nights—Wild Nights!”

(1861) “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain”

(1862) “I heard a Fly buzz—when I died—”

(1863) “Publication—is the Auction”

(1863) “Because I could not stop for Death—”

(1865) “A narrow Fellow in the Grass”

(1868) “Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—”

(1879) “The Bible is an antique Volume—”

 Melville, Herman

(1866) From Battle-Pieces; or Aspects of the War: “The Temeraire,”

 “A Utilitarian View of the Monitor’s Fight,”

“Stonewall Jackson,”

“The College Colonel”

(1891) From Timoleon:“Art”

“After the Pleasure Party”

 “In a Church of Padua” 

Crane, Stephen

(1894) “Black riders came from the sea”

(1897) “A man adrift on a slim spar”

(1894) “The wayfarer” 

Dunbar, Paul Laurence

(1895) “Accountability”

(1895) “We Wear the Mask”

(1897) “An Ante-Bellum Sermon” 

Memoirs & Autobiography

(1845) Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

(1854) Thoreau, Henry David. Walden

(1861) Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by Herself

(1863) Alcott, Louisa May. Hospital Sketches

(1883) Winnemucca, Sarah. Life among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims

(1901) Washington, Booker T. Up from Slavery

 

 

 

 

Essays & Speeches

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

(1838) “The American Scholar”

(1838) “Divinity School Address”

(1841) “Self-Reliance”

(1844) “Experience”

(1844) “Nature”

 

Poe, Edgar Allen

“The Philosophy of Composition.”Graham’s Magazine (1846)

“The Rationale of Verse” (1848)

 

Thoreau, Henry David.

(1848) “Resistance to Civil Government”

 

Lincoln, Abraham

(1863) “Gettysburg Address”

(1865) “Second Inaugural Address”

 

(1884) James, Henry. “The Art of Fiction”

(1895) Twain, Mark. “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offences”

 

Criticism

(1835) Tocqueville, Alexis de. Democracy in America

(1941) Matthiessen, F. O. American Renaissance

(1960) Fiedler, Leslie. Love and Death in the American Novel

(1985) Tompkins, Jane P. Sensational Designs

(1993) Sundquist, Eric J. To Wake the Nations

 

 

 

What does a twentieth century American literature doctoral exam reading list look like?  This . . . 

1900 Sister Carrie – Dreiser

1903 The Call of the Wild – London

1909 Martin Eden – London

1919 Winesburg, Ohio – Anderson

1922 Babbitt – Lewis

1922 The Hairy Ape – O’Neill

1924 Desire Under the Elms – O’Neill

1925 Arrowsmith – Lewis

1925 Manhattan Transfer – Dos Passos

1925 An American Tragedy – Dreiser

1925 The Great Gatsby – Fitzgerald

1926 The Sun Also Rises – Hemingway

1929 The Sound and the Fury – Faulkner

1929 A Farewell to Arms – Hemingway

1929 Look Homeward, Angel – Wolfe

20s-30s Life Being the Best, etc. Boyle

1930 USA Trilogy/42 – Dos Passos

1930 USA Trilogy/1919 – Dos Passos

1930 USA Trilogy/Big Money – Dos Passos

1932 Light in August – Faulkner

1933 The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas – Stein

1933 Tender is the Night – Fitzgerald

1935 Waiting for Lefty – Odets

1936 In Dubious Battle – Steinbeck

1936 Absalom, Absalom – Faulkner

1937 Nightwood – Barnes

1925-1938 Collected Short Stories of EH – Hemingway

1937 Their  Eyes Were Watching God – Hurston

1939 The Grapes of Wrath – Steinbeck

1940 The Iceman Cometh – O’Neill

1940 For Whom the Bell Tolls – Hemingway

1945 The Glass Menagerie – Williams

1946 All the King’s Men – Warren

1947 A Streetcar Named Desire – Williams

20s/30s Short  Stories of FSF – Fitzgerald

1947 Invisible Man – Ellison

1948 Guard of Honor – Cozzens

40s/70s Short Stories – Welty

1955 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof – Williams

40s-60s A Good Man is Hard to Find, etc.  – O’Connor

1955 Lolita – Nabakov

1955 Catch 22 – Heller

1960 Zoo Story – Albee

1960 The Moviegoer – Percy

1963 Lost in the Funhouse – Barth

1969 Slaugherhouse Five – Vonnegut

1973 Gravity’s Rainbow – Pynchon

1976 American Buffalo – Mamet

1984 Slow Learner – Pynchon

1982 Glengarry Glen Ross – Mamet

1985 White Noise – Delillo

1988 Libra – Delillo

1990 The Things They Carried – O’Brien

 

1973 The Pound Era – Kenner

1989 A Homemade World – Kenner

1987 Postmodernist Fiction – McHale

 

Robert Frost

Wallace Stevens

William Carlos Williams

Ezra Pound

Marianne Moore

T.S. Eliot

John Crowe Ransom

Robert Penn Warren

 

 

 

Forget Cliff’s Notes and SparkNotes – breeze through the classics with Sarah Schmelling’s Ophelia Joined the Group Maidens Who Don’t Float.  This looked amusing as a title, but the book in hand is hilarious.  The treatment of the traditional school reading list torture, including Moby Dick and Little Women, is instructive, with valuable insight regarding characterization in particular, while maintaining snort-inducing humor.  Yes, snort-inducing.  The connections, which are key to the Facebook mindset, make real people out of some pretty cardboard characters, as Schmelling imagines interactions that never could or would happen between a variety of characters and authors.  Where else can you find references to Henry James, Jerry Seinfeld, and Mr. Roper – of Three’s Company fame/infamy – in one volume?  Actually, I don’t think I have ever seen Mr. Roper referenced before, except in TV Guide, and I don’t think that counts.

The Adventures of Amir Hamza.  This was required reading, and a long tale to boot, as are most epics.  It is rather repetitive, again, as some epics, with the usual battle, triumph, marriage/feast.  There is a particularly strange line/translation that I just can’t make sense of – “her eyebrows shot out the arrows of her eyelashes and deeply pierced his heart” and one phrase that I really like – “the crocodile of their swords.”  What a great image, and one I have not yet encountered.  I like the dust clouds that, while contrived, magically appear before or during a battle to offer an intermission, if you will, for discussion and consideration between armies and enemies.

How to Take Over Teh Wurld – this is an absolute scream.  Beyond snorting, in fact.  I can’t get enough of these great cat pictures, tagged with brilliantly hysterical captions in LOL-speak.  For someone like me, who responds to my son’s “ROFL” with “MAO” – not via email, but in everyday passing conversation, as if such an exchange could be considered conversation – this is like manna from the sky.  This sort of business keeps me sane, or insane, take your pick.  I need to get my hands on its predecessor, I Can Has Cheezburger? in order to make my life complete.

I made the mistake of re-reading Rebecca West’s Henry James. I really can’t stand Rebecca West, but I know I need to – and want to – know what others think of my man Henry.  As my coworker Miss Terri says, it’s best to know your enemy.  What an obnoxious, self-centered person this one was, too.

More required reading in the form of Efuru, the very concise tale of an African woman that leaves so much unsaid.  Nwapa’s no-nonsense prose is reminiscent of Hemingway and the iceberg; so much under the surface.  This book could be ten times as long as it is, but there is no reason for an expansion.  Efuru’s experience is understood, and the lack of bemoaning her plight or celebrating her triumph – if it is a triumph, and isn’t it pretty to think so – only adds to that which the reader can imagine.

Just finished Jacqueline Kolosov’s A Sweet Disorder, which was, well, sweet, but not as good as The Red Queen’s Daughter.  It was a bit slow to start but I knew that Kolosov would make the time investment worthwhile, and she did.  The focus on needlework made this romance particularly interesting to me, along with the relationship between embroidery and healing, both of which require strong observation and creative skills: “a man must study life if he is to master even a fraction of its complexity,” one of Miranda’s suitors notes, and in this case, it is attention to detail that allows her and other strong female characters to greater agency in their fates. 

Who else can accuse a character of “excessive barbering” but Scott Donaldson?  Just in love with his collection of essays, Fitzgerald and Hemingway: Works and Days.

I just adore bibliographies in old books:

Miss Mallows Among the Publishers: A Sad Literary Experience.  By Miss Mallows’ Friend (1881).  ” A little book composed mainly of rejection slips.”

“The Brain-Sucker: Or, the Distress of Authorship.” (British Mercury, 1787). ” A farmer recounts how his son went mad and then went to London and became a hack writer.”

Um, there seems to be an awful lot of “Miss Mallows” out and about on the Internet.  A few sites were more than questionable, and did not merit – at least from the work computer – a click.

I didn’t actually read Causing a Scene in its entirety, as in “word for word” - but my son did.  Some of these pranks are funny, some are kind of lame, but the book is worth a look, even for browsing purposes.  A bathroom title, if you will.  Must reads – the Anton Chekhov book signing and the pantsless subway ride.  Yes, there are police involved in the second event.  I don’t think I’d want to be present at that one . . .

Go Like Hell is so not random at all.  A powerful story of great men in contention and the sport that drove them to compete, this is well-written and informative.  The web site has a great YouTube video of the Le Mans 1964 start which is worth a look – I love to watch old races of any sort, as long as they involve four wheels.  This is a must for Ford, Ferrari, and racing fans.  I particularly liked the details on Mario Andretti‘s involvement, the details of which I was unaware until now.

Originally published thirty years ago, this collection of essays, speeches, and introductions by Ursula K. Le Guin is a must for any writer, student, teacher, or reader of science fiction and fantasy.  My political and religious views could not be more different than this great writer’s, but as one who falls into the four aforementioned categories, I agree with her in most every other way, and am grateful that she has been around to give words to so much that defines the craft.  I can do no better than to note those parts of the collection that speak to me the most closely:

Absolute freedom is absolute responsibility.  The writer’s job, as I see it, is to tell the truth.

Artists are people who are not at all interested in the facts – only in the truth.  You get the facts from the outside.  The truth you get from inside.

If you want to strike out in any new direction – you go alone.  With a machete in your hand and the fear of God in your heart.

When the genuine myth rises into consciousness, that is always its message.  You must change your life.

Fantasy is the natural, the appropriate language for the recounting of the spiritual journey and the struggle of good and evil in the soul.

It is above all by the imagination that we achieve perception, and compassion, and hope.

There are, however, two instances in which I do not quite understand Le Guin’s stance.  Why is poetry held separate from fiction in these situations?  Maybe someone out there can offer insight:

The lovable rogue, the romantic criminal, the revolutionary Satan are essentially literary creations, not met with in daily life.  They are embodiments of desire, types of the soul; thus their vitality is immense and lasting; but they are better suited to poetry and drama than to the novel  (141).

Always the book one imagines and the book one writes are different things.  The one exists objectively, a scribbled manuscript or so many thousand printed copies.  The other exists subjectively.  It is the other’s first cause and final cause.  Toward it the written book, during its writing, continually strives, like the image in a mirror approaching the person moving toward it.  But they do not merge.  Only in poetry, which breaks all barriers, do the two ever meet, each becoming the other (140).

This is a real treasure – Kazan’s personal journal entries and notes taken during work on his great productions, along with the editor’s (Robert Cornfield) clarifications, letters between Kazan and those he worked with, and speeches and writings by Kazan on the art of directing make for an intense journey into the creation of the masterpiece.  Kazan is famous for his productions of Williams and Miller plays, and for his hot temper and arrogance.  Anyone who writes, acts, directs, produces, designs sets – in essence, anyone involved with creative work on the stage and screen, and even creative work in general, needs to take the time to revel in this volume.  Kazan is open, honest, and fearless in his self-evaluations, in the criticism of his actors, his family, his friends – there are no holds barred here as he offers himself to us, not for praise or acceptance, but instead, as he says at the very end, to save his own life.  The artist “must put himself and his talent and his career in mortal danger, and he will live again only as he emerges from it.” 

Kazan, who died in 2003, lives on in his creations, those explorations of humanity and relationships that are not without flaw, and not wholly accepted by viewers and critics.  His decisions, when great, are perfection; however, in A Face in the Crowd, I wonder what happened.  Andy Griffith is hideous, and while I know – from this book – that the character is meant to be a caricature – and I do not like caricatures, in film, fiction, or otherwise –  I find it too far over the top to be more than ridiculous.  Matthau and Neal are quite amazing, and Lee Remick is appallingly beautiful.  The end is not what it was meant to be, again, as I find in the book, and I think it would have been better with the original scripted ending.  Of course, I am not a director, and certainly not the great Kazan – and I say that without sarcasm – so who am I to say?

As always, I look for ways to increase my knowledge of the American Civil War as painlessly and as memorably as possible, and being a librarian helps quite a bit.  Being a librarian for teenagers is even better – these two books came to me and I was hooked.  Lots of great information told in a way even I will remember – and more info on poor Mary Todd Lincoln, who really was quite a basket case.

I’ll Pass for Your Comrade tells the true stories of several female soldiers who were either devoted wives and girlfriends or committed patriots to the cause of their side of the fight.  Women in combat are one thing, but women used to giant hoop skirts and some sense of privacy in the midst of the ferocity of this vicious war are quite another.  It is really beyond my imagination how these women – and girls – managed on a day to day basis without the niceties we take for granted.  Now, it’s true that the men were in the worst of conditions as well, but in a world where women were coddled and petted, it is astonishing that so many of them affected disguise to offer themselves for their cause.

Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker is a very close and emotional look at Mary Todd Lincoln and her dressmaker, Elizabeth Keckley, who survived enslavement to become a successful businesswoman.   Keckley was a proud and talented woman who believed in herself, her abilities, and her worth as a human being, in spite of the jealous and hateful opinions of others.  Mrs. Lincoln’s emotional instability is so evident in her dependence on Keckley, as well as her mood swings, which Keckley takes in stride, and ultimately, in her need for Keckley above all others when the president is murdered. 

Neither of these books should be limited to the young adult audience; anyone looking for an enjoyable way to learn about the Civil War, as well as human relationships in difficult times, could do no better than to read them.

This is hysterical.  Yes, you must have a certain sense of humor to appreciate what is in this book, and I’ll admit that it’s not the most socially acceptable sort of sense of humor, but with it, these comic strips are incomparably amusing.  Some of them take a few moments for the full effect to take over; it’s one of those “aha!” moments before I start snorting at an embarassing volume – read “loud” - that is uncontrollable once it begins.  This title is not for the squeamish or easily offended – in a way, it is like South Park.  You must be able to laugh at yourself as well as others, because there are certainly some pages that may speak to you personally, and not in a flattering way.  Suck it up and have a laugh with Nicholas Gurewitch, creator of the PBF.

Carrie Stettheimer, designer of the dollhouse featured in this charming coffee table book, channeled her creative talents into an autobiographical sculpture of sorts – this highly detailed and carefully tended masterpiece is a testament to the life of this early twentieth century salon hostess.  Salon as in literary and artistic, that is.  Sheila W. Clark, Curator of the Toy Collection at the Museum of the City of New York, offers a history of the house as well as detailed information on the artistic contributors to the ballroom art gallery, which features original paintings and sculptures.  The art gallery is the highlight of the house, which was nineteen years in the making and is now housed at the Museum of the City of New York.   Ettie Stettheimer’s introductory foreward, written for a catalogue about the dollhouse the museum provided in 1947, is included, offering a history of the composition of the house as only one involved could.

This book is a pleasure to hold and to read; it is just the right size for the close inspection the photographs invite.  The wallpaper-themed edging to the pages ties the physical to the topical, and the clear close-up photographs of each room show the attention given to every detail in the house.  I particularly like the musician’s gallery that overlooks the ballroom; the lower backstairs leads to the entrance to this clever addition.  It is obvious that Carrie Stettheimer tended her dollhouse as a mother would a child, and the careful attention given her creation in this title is a fitting tribute to her talent.

  Bits and pieces off the shelf . . .

Eudora Welty as Photographer
Pearl Amelia McHaney, Sandra S. Phillips and Deborah Willis contribute very informative essays to surround this collection of thoughtful photographs by this great Southern writer.  Of great interest is the discussion on Welty’s use of light as she captures moments in time, moments when flickers of interest pass through a man and a woman’s face as they meet on the street, or as tomato pickers on a break talk amongst themselves, a few noticing the camera and gazing at what? The device, the photographer?  What do they think as they are frozen in time, carried forever into the future and the gaze of readers like me?  They may be lost to us, but their expressions become familiar as we recognize them as our own.  Welty the photographer shines through the black and white of these pages in a must-see collection of Americana.

The Du Mauriers
When one’s family history is as fascinating as Daphne Du Maurier’s, what else can a great writer do but fictionalize it?  First published in 1937, this no holds barred account of her, um, more interesting predecessors shows no shame or pity on the part of the author.  She weaves her great-great grandmother into a caricature of motherhood, a woman devoid of morals and obsessed with pleasure.  Her daughter Ellen is a serious child, embarassed by her mother and eventually disappointed in her husband and her children.  George, or “Kicky,” her eldest and the author’s grandfather, stumbles on his way to becoming the writer we remember him to be.  This is quite a soap opera, and since, as we say, the truth is often stranger than fiction, it is the more charming for it.

Mouse Noses on Toast
Oh, the cleverness of an insane Tinby! 

A Gift of Grace
First time author Amy Clipston has penned a complicated story that makes it clear that in spite of the simplicity of the Amish way of life, members of the Amish community struggle with the same relationship problems and emotional issues as the rest of the world.  When Rebecca’s sister Grace, who left the community and the faith years earlier, dies along with her husband in a car accident, she becomes guardian to her two nieces.  Lindsay finds comfort in Amish traditions and beliefs, but Jessica wrestles with her aunt and uncle, insisting that she doesn’t belong with them.  Rebecca wants to fulfill her sister’s wish to raise the girls, but her insistence may be blinding her to God’s will.  I was sorry to reach the end of this well-written story, and will be happy to see the next book in this series.

Crowned in a Far Country
This is more than a series of facts about eight royal brides; Princess Michael of Kent reveals the distinct personalities of each woman as she fulfills her duties as a monarch.  Some had voracious appetites for men or for jewels; others longed mostly for their homeland and their families.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that Catherine the Great, known for her many lovers, was patron of her new country’s literary culture.  She founded the Russian Academy of Letters and charged them with producing a dictionary and a grammar for the Russian language, both of which did not exist before Catherine determined the need.  The other seven contributed in some way to their new culture, making the best of what, in some cases, were frightening and unwelcome situations.

 

Superfun new titles that I have come across very lately, and would be remiss if I did not share:

Brides Behaving Badly - those of us who love My Big Redneck Wedding can appreciate this one.  It is off-the-hook hysterical, a bit nasty, and moderately offensive. 

Some people have no pride, and yet, it must be nice to be comfortable with yourself, even when you look and act like these people do.  If you can’t understand Junior‘s drawl during the post-race interview, don’t bother picking this one up, but if you have ever been to a wedding where both the bride and groom held a cigarette and a beer for formal pictures, it’s all good. 

Appetite for Detention - oh-so-cute chicks pose for those oh-so-common high school moments when you wish your mom would have let you stay home in bed with the heating pad and a bottle of Pamprin.  Back in the day, I didn’t have to worry about my mom reading my Facebook page, like poor Edgar, but she did go through my desk drawers. 

 She’ll deny it forever, but really, there are some things she could not have known if she hadn’t, so I feel for Ed.  And should Caitlin suggest Botox because her mother doesn’t look as “fresh” as Madonna?  That would be a no.  While there was no Botox available to the masses back in the 80s, I did make some mistakes in suggesting anti-aging processes to my mother, who absolutely did not appreciate it.  Just say no, Cait!  Great for teens as well as us old folks.  The next one is, too.

All the Wrong People Have Self-Esteem – I love love love this book.  Where else can you get in-your-face brutal honesty that is socially acceptable from obnoxious teenagers but not from those of us who still kick and scream over stuff that other grown ups, well, think that we should just get over?  I am not a big Darwin fan (yeah, go ahead, I’m used to that), but in the Laurie Rosenwald world, I could totally sit beside him on a plane.  A must have. 

Don’t miss Dave in his Peruvian chullo hat (he is so bad!), excellent McCullers references, warnings about foreign dinner conversation, and advice to boys on eating soup.  Way cool and very informative.  This should be used as a textbook for, um, something or other.

 

These are too fun.  I might actually be able to understand math now.  I won’t hold my breath or anything, but still . . .
There are several of these adorable and helpful titles available.  The first, The Manga Guide to Statistics, just came across my desk yesterday.  It has a section in the back dedicated to the use of Excel to calculate statistics, which seems pretty practical.  Excel makes me nervous and I only use it to complete my timesheet at work, but this is readable.
Those of us who need a little help with stats can learn by graphing ramen noodle prices on a histogram, determining the probability of getting an A on a math test (okay, so I am laughing out loud at that one, because I already know the answer), calculate the Cramer’s coefficient to determine how boys and girls prefer to be asked out, and (now this could be interesting, as I have never understood how this works) learn how standard score is used to change tests results when teachers grade on a curve.  That’s just a few of the fun ways author Shin Takahashi teaches the scary stuff. I wish I would have had this book back in high school, when my pet pterodactyl cawed at my side as I wrote on the cave walls.
Others in this series include:
The Manga Guide to Calculus
The Manga Guide to Databases
The Manga Guide to Electricity
The Manga Guide to Physics-Dynamics
The Manga Guide to Molecular Biology

I have had this strange fear that Joyce Carol Oates is going to die soon.  I woke up a few days ago, and there it was.  It has followed me since.  It isn’t too irrational, she is seventy, after all, but really seems to be one of those people who are above such earthly interruptions.  I maintain that she is the only great living writer - fiction, essays, reviews, you name it, she is the master.  It is terrifying to imagine an end to her production.

Ellen Hopkins’s Identical should appeal to her entourage of teen fans because of the edgy (that might be putting it too mildly) subject matter and trademark verse format.  Dramatic is one thing, but this is really over the top.  An exploration of family dynamics and a potentially interesting protagonist are suffocated by the multitude of problems this poor girl carries.  She is a surviving twin, an incest victim, a drug and alcohol abuser, sex addict, bulimic – I’m not sure I covered it all, but I might be close.  A couple of the issues/situations would be plenty.  Some of the poetry is trite, but there are lines every few pages that speak to the author’s ability to turn a phrase, albeit inconsistently.  I just finished reading Girl, Interrupted for the high school book discussion group next week, so this was an appropriate companion piece that took me under two hours to read, which was not too much of an investment – still, it kept me from moving on to the McCullers essays I’ve been craving and picked up as soon as I put Hopkins in the ‘library return’ pile on the kitchen table.

This book is like the Star Magazine.  It follows the James family and makes snap judgements and dramatic assumptions, as well as blatantly slanderous remarks.  Paul Fisher might as well be one of the paparazzi, stalking Britney Spears to see if she holds hands with a female friend, because if she does, it means, for certain, that she is gay.  Better yet, he could snap a photo of them kissing each other on the cheek and there would be his proof.  This is what Fisher does with anecdotes and letters, taken out of context and used as he wishes, in order to make his portrait more marketable for its claims – and this goes beyond the sexual preferences of the family; that aspect of their lives is only one example.  One does not have to make up tales about the James family - the reality is definitely more interesting than fiction, and sensationalizing it is just plain mean.  This smacks of Sheldon Novick’s nasty work, but is not quite that awful.  Two complaints aside from the obvious and stated: Fisher’s overuse of the word “horror.”  Everything is a horror, every emotion felt is a horror, his book is a horror.  No, no, that isn’t quite right, Novick’s books are horrors, so Fisher doesn’t quite deserve that, but he does come close; and his insistence on translating every French word he prints.  Those of us interested in the James family are more than likely familiar with French and can do very well on our own, thank you very much, so don’t insult us with your translations.

-no more WaterWorks (hysterical crying follows)
-the B caught a broken thumb in New Hampster with her dad
-the morning we left Cedar Point, we stopped at a Cracker Barrel for breakfast and saw a man with wrinkly, knobby knees sporting a green t-shirt that said “I am the man from Nantucket.” 
-my children’s reactions to the gigantic waterslide at CP:  the B – crying, terror, wide eyes full of fear; the F – joyously screaming obscenities and howling with glee the entire ride.  The B wanted to go down the slide so badly and harassed us until we did.  Her brother, in typical adolescent fashion, could not have cared less whether we did or not.
-no more WaterWorks (did I already say that?)
-collected tiny, perfectly formed shells on the beach at CP while my children watched new episodes of Fairly Oddparents in the hotel room.  Love that Poof.
-read books on Victorian publishing pratices in the hotel room during the evenings at CP, while my children watched new episodes of Fairly Oddparents.

August 13 was NASCAR night at Canal Park, home of the Akron Aeros baseball team.  Yes, it was my boy Tony’s nemesis, Kurt Busch, who was on hand signing autographs and talking to fans, but we had to go.  He is a series driver, after all.  He was very sweet and we were very fortunate (or we planned well) to get there early enough to get a place at the front of the line.  He is the first to sign my Young Guns book, so now the quest is on to get signatures from the rest of the drivers featured in the 2002 publication.
Most fun thing about Aeros games – Acme cream stick races!  I think the photo speaks for itself.  Rock on, vanilla! 

 

 

 

This is so funny that I had to buy it instead of read it at Borders, because I was laughing and snorting so obnoxiously that I thought the other store patrons would run me out.  I was impressed that James had two shout outs during this amusing tirade against lemming-ness (my term, not Lander’s, thank you very much):
1. number four on the ‘white annotated bibliography:’ Henry James, all books. “If you send me to a desert island, just make sure I have a page of James’s delicate prose in my back pocket.  I promise you it can keep me entertained and thinking for months.”
2. under ‘liberal arts degrees,’ specifically as to how such a degree can help one sound smart at parties: it all begins by saying, “Reading Henry James was the most rewarding part of undergrad.”

I did find something utterly unbelievable within this fine text, again referring to higher education as a means to becoming the star of the party:  ”They can also impress their friends at parties by referencing Jacques Lacan or Slavoj Zizek in a conversation about American Idol.”  I would run screaming from anyone who mentioned these names outside of an academic context (and even then, I would be nervous) but then again, if the other partygoers have no idea that the one attempting to impress them is referring to frightening figures of French psychoanalysis/philosophy (emphasis on the ‘psycho’) and Slovenian philosophy/Marxism/Stalinism/psychoanalysis (once again, emphasis on the ‘psycho’) they might be impressed or merely annoyed, thinking that the speaker is making such names up.

(keep up on the stuff white people like a la email)

Uneasy lies the head, as The Bard noted, and how true that was with the tumultuous years of Yorkist rule in England.  During less than a half century filled with intense and violent family conflict, the House of York ultimately defeated itself by internal divisions that were much more damaging than any outside threat.  These were the years of the princes in the tower, the king’s personal control of crown finances, and the establishment of a permanent royal library.  Archivist Anne Crawford chronicles the facts behind the fantastic, some of which are one and the same, in this engaging text.  Anne Easter Smith recently speculated upon a romantic relationship between Margaret of York, who married Charles of Burgundy, and her very married brother in law, Anthony Woodville, in Daughter of York.  Smith admits the fictional account is just that, but she imagines it so well it seems real.

The Yorkists
Anne Easter Smith

 

 

Tagged by Lawrence with this one:
Grab the nearest book and turn to page 123. Write down the fifth sentence, post it, and then tag 5 others to do this.
Here it is:
These conveyances came complete with postilions – brightly costumed attendants who rode on the coach horses’ backs instead of driving from the front of the carriage like British coachmen. [Paul Fisher, House of Wits: An Intimate Portrait of the James Family]

the small child would like to contribute this one:

I started with the car in second and the clutch pressed down. [Diandra Leslie-Pelecky, The Physics of NASCAR].

Only a couple of hours ago, I was standing in front of the stove, frying up a batch of beer battered bluegill for my dad, and, having just come from swimming and water sliding, was still in my swimsuit with damp hair and sandy toes. The cat was completely unaffected by the fish, which is strange, since she gets very excited over chicken nuggets and other processed animals. She is a big slug of a cat.

Now that things have settled down a bit for the night, I am looking through Novel Destinations: Literary Landmarks from Jane Austen’s Bath to Ernest Hemingway’s Key West by Schmidt and Rendon. This is very fun, and practical if one is really planning a trip with a theme based on a book or author. Of course, I had to turn to page 137 first to see what was said about James, who adored Venice and traveled to Paris, lived in London and Rye, and summered in Newport, while maintaining ties to his birthplace of New York City and customary haunts in Cambridge. Lamb House, his final home in Rye, is open for visits (oh, if I only had a spare thousand dollars for the plane ticket) and some of the hotels in which he slept in Italy are still open for business. The flat in London in which he died, at Carlyle Mansions on Cheyne Walk, is privately owned, so admirers have to stand on the street and gaze longingly through the windows. His many travel writings practically offer itineraries themselves, so a look through English Hours or Italian Hours might be helpful for those contemplating a trip to those places loved most by the Master.

One of the chapters, “Literary Walks and Tours,” offers information on guided tours in the big cities. I am not a big fan of guided tours in general, but I had a great aunt Gladys who was crazy about them. She took holidays in Scotland and Venice on such tours with her friend Ethel (she was always referred to in this manner by Gladys and her sister, my grandma – “my friend Ethel”) and were very pleased. My great aunt Gladys and her friend Ethel, however, were not interested in stopping at every playground on Fifth Avenue to play for a half hour or so with the local children (unlike me and my brood), so the usual haunts at a pleasant pace were fine for them, while I think I would be kicked out very quickly and blacklisted with all the travel agencies.

If you’re looking to drink up in the pubs of the London literati, look no further. It’s all here. Steinbeck, Lee, Hemingway, Austen, Joyce, Dickens, Kafka, Alcott, Hawthorne, Fitzgerald, Twain, and Wharton are all given special attention as well. Mystery lovers can find direction to Hammett, Doyle, Sayers, and Christie events and tours. Even if you aren’t planning a trip now or in the near future, this book is fun to browse, and if you are seriously working towards a holiday it should be very helpful in saving time and effort finding places that will satisfy your affection for your favorite author or book. James might be long gone, but standing in Washington Square, and taking photos of my daughter at the James family graves in Cambridge were thrilling to one who adores him as I do. I can not imagine visiting Rye and standing in the home where he felt most comfortable, where he wrote his great masterworks of the early twentieth century; but it will happen someday. If you really love a writer, getting to know them as a person is very satisfying, and seeing where they lived, where they socialized, wrote, or died, are important to developing an idea of them as a man or woman first, before the writer who created characters and stories you love.

I tried to read this last year when it first arrived at the library.  I ordered it for my area (teen), thinking it would be fun and appropriate for those girls whose boyfriends were D&D participants.  Actually, now that I think about it, most guys I know who play D&D have girlfriends who play or are gamers and/or fantasy buffs anyway, so . . . when I first had my hands on it for processing, I tried to read it and couldn’t.  It was annoying in several ways.  Yesterday, my ex-husband started running a D&D program here and I stumbled on this again while gathering materials for him (all were outdated, of course, seeing as 4e just came out) and thought, I’ll give it another chance.  I made myself read it, even thought I had the same feelings about it as I did during my first attempt.  While there are some cool illustrations (black, white, and pink) and basic information about the game, the majority of the book is full of Mazzanoble’s cutesy anecdotes and obnoxious, sterotypical comments about girls and gaming.  I don’t know about anyone else, but I don’t sit around eating ice cream out of a carton, and I don’t own a hundred pairs of shoes.  I don’t care if she has a brother who thinks he’s Donald Trump, which made her Monopoly experiences negative, and I didn’t watch Melrose Place, so I did not have post-partum depression when it was cancelled, thus freeing my Monday nights emotionally for a D&D experience.  Her fabricated little diary entries are annoying.  This 177 page piece could be cut to about five pages for all the useful information it holds.  She aims to debunk myths about male D&D players (nerds in basements, drinking orange pop and eating chips, wearing robes – um, this isn’t too far from the experience I have had with D&D, and what’s wrong with that?) but she perpetuates stereotypes about women that aren’t very flattering or necessarily true.  And – she makes a huge error in stating that when D&D came along, it gave these basement dorks something else to do besides play Ms. Pacman.  Last I checked, D&D was released in 1974, and Ms. Pacman strutted onto the scene in 1981.  Why did no one at WOTC catch this?  At one point Mazzanoble wonders, “maybe I just disclosed too much information” when gabbing about her shoes, or purse, or mall food, or whatever.  The entire book is too much personal information, much of which is probably exaggerated.

As a Capetian descendant, I am always interested in the Plantagenets, and so, just finished browsing this melodrama by Martin Aurell last night.  Melodrama, yes, fiction, no.  “The court was a stormy place” is quite the understatement on Aurell’s part.  Many historians/authors/scholars have deemed this family “a dysfunctional (or disturbed) house of Oedipus,” and for good reason.  The Ewings and the Carringtons have nothing on these warring relatives.  Of course, this family and time offered the legacy of the Magna Carta and the beginning of parliamentarianism in England, so the drama was not limited to family life.  Reality, in this case, is much more interesting than fiction.

Our cat friend checks out my next five books.  Yes, I know it was supposed to be six, but five plus one is too much math for me.  I should have asked my eight year old for help.

June
DragonLight – Paul
Coffin County – Braunbeck
Cry Wolf: A Political Fable – Lake
Into the Storm – Anderson
Promise of the Wolves – Hearst
Steampunk – ed. VanderMeer
Bloodheir – Ruckley
Daemons Are Forever – Green
The Summer Palace – Watt-Evans
Hawkspar – Lisle
The Dead and the Gone – Pfeffer (YA)
The Demon Queen – Lewis (YA)
House of Many Ways – Wynne Jones (YA)
Frozen Fire – Bowler (YA)
Noman – Nicholson (YA)
The Last of the High Kings – Thompson (YA)
The Lost Art – Morden (YA) 

July

Victory of Eagles: A Novel of Temeraire – Novik
By Schism Rent Asunder – Weber
Mage-Guard of Hamor – Modesitt
Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy – ed. Schafer
The Word of God; or, Holy Writ Unwritten – Disch
The City in the Lake – Neumeier (YA) 

August

The Gypsy Morph – Brooks
The Last Theorem – Clarke/Pohl
Mars Life – Bova

 September

Faefever – Moning
The Stowaway: Stone of Tymora – Salvatore
A Dance With Dragons – Martin

 October

The Pirate King (Forgotten Realms) – Salvatore

 November

The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia – Sansweet/Hidalgo

Just got this in today – I ordered it not too long ago so I’m surprised at how fast it came in.  Greenwood’s An Unofficial Companion to the Novels of Terry Pratchett is edited by Andrew M. Butler, who teaches at Canterbury Christ Church University in the UK.  The entries are pretty comprehensive, from influences, characters, and themes, to adaptations, parodic sources, and locations.  There is a good sized bibliography and some hilarious photos of Discworld fans in costume (the one on page 141 is particularly amusing).  I have at least four other books I should be reading right now, but . . . it’s too hard not to look through it as it sits in front of me here at the reference desk.

 

If you are not an eight year old girl, I warn you, you will lose.

I mention this because my own smallish child spent way too much time yesterday morning doing just that.

I do intend to keep this journal focused primarily on books and related subjects (I’m not sure what that might include so we’ll see what happens) but, as my grandma says, the road to hell is paved in just this manner. I might mention one of my children (herein referred to as Small Child and Large Child, as they are 8 and 16) or whatever else is on my mind at the time of posting, but books are the bomb. I can’t get enough, and the LC and SC can’t get enough either. I usually prefer historical fiction and fantasy, and nonfiction in the realm of history (English) or car racing. The LC adores fantasy, mostly dragon related, and I will include his comments on his reading here, too. Those comments may and probably will be limited to “very good” or “it sucked” because he is a sixteen year old boy. He just finished The Door Within trilogy by Wayne Thomas Batson within a matter of days (all three books in about three days) and said they were “very good,” so there you go.

I have written one book review for FBS – The Golden Rose – and am working on one for Lavinia by Ursula LeGuin, with whom you can never go wrong. I am reading Cozzens’s Guard of Honor on the advice of my dissertation advisor, also with whom I can never go wrong, and Enacting History in Henry James by Buelens.