The Desire of My Eyes

John Ruskin once said, "The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something, and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion, --all in one."

John Ruskin

The book featured for discussion this month with R.E.A.D. book group will be The Desire of My Eyes: The Life and Work of John Ruskin by Wolfgang Kemp. It will be reviewed by Jane Robinson. The group will meet in the library on October 6th at 10:00 a.m. Everyone is invited to attend.

The Desire of My Eyes examines the life and work of the prolific, visionary writer, painter and critic. Kemp finds in Ruskin's life, which spanned the same years as Queen Victoria's and thus embodied the Victorian era itself, a faithful mirror of the history and psychological evolution of his age.

Examining the English critic alongside Byron, Carlyle, Karl Kraus and others of his time, and considering views of him given by Shaw and Proust, the author, a German art historian, contends that Ruskin (1819-1900) was a reflection of Victorian history and pathology. Kemp regards him as not only a major reformer, educator and ecologist, but also as a great realistic draftsman whose drawings reveal developing emotional instability. Increasingly, Ruskin's attention moved from art to society as he came to criticize capitalism, religion, technology, the destruction of nature--and himself. First sightseer, then see-er, finally seer and mythmaker, Ruskin in his old age became industry as well as institution: there were Ruskin ceramics and linens, even Ruskin cigars. This distinguished work, gracefully translated, is illustrated with portraits of the critic and drawings by him. 

Wolfgang Kemp

Wolfgang Kemp was born on May 1, 1946 in Frankfurt, Germany. He is a German art historian, author and professor of art history at the University of Hamburg. He is considered to be one of the most internationally renowned representatives of the art-historical research. He also has visiting professorships in schools which  include Harvard, UCLA, Fellow Institute for Advanced Study Berlin and Getty Research Center in Los Angeles.

True American Hero

If it weren't true, we wouldn't believe it! At Bookenders book discussion, we discussed the amazing life of Louis Zamperini, as it was masterfully told by best-selling author, Laura Hillenbrand.

Louis was:

a teen-age troublemaker

Olympic runner

WWII bomber

plane crash survivor

tortured prisoner of Japanese

but more importantly,

he used his ingenuity, his perseverance, his strong will, his resilience,

his forgiveness,

to thrive.

He spent his life helping troubled youth

and inspiring people around the world

with his extraordinary story.

A New Year of Bookenders

Bookenders book group will get together at the library on Wednesday, September 28th at 7 p.m. The featured book for the evening is Unbroken:A World War II Airman's Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand. The discussion will be led by Eloise Fugal. 

Everyone is invited to attend.

We will also be choosing the book selections for the coming year at this meeting. Plan now to attend and bring suggestions on great books for discussion.

Unbroken is the inspiring true story of a man who lived through a series of catastrophes almost too incredible to be believed. 

Louie Zamperini

In evocative, immediate descriptions, Hillenbrand unfurls the story of Louie Zamperini--a juvenile delinquent-turned-Olympic runner-turned-Army hero. During a routine search mission over the Pacific, Louie’s plane crashed into the ocean, and what happened to him over the next three years of his life is a story that will keep you glued to the pages, eagerly awaiting the next turn in the story and fearing it at the same time. You’ll cheer for the man who somehow maintained his selfhood and humanity despite the monumental degradations he suffered, and you’ll want to share this book with everyone you know.  

Laura Hillenbrand

Laura Hillenbrand was born on May 15, 1967 in Fairfax, Virginia. She spent much of her childhood riding bareback "screaming over the hills" of her father's Sharpsburg, Maryland farm. She studied at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio but was forced to leave before graduation when she contracted Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which she has struggled with ever since. She now lives in Washington D.C., and rarely leaves her house because of the condition. On the irony of writing about physical paragons while being so incapacitated herself, she says, "I'm looking for a way out of here. I can't have it physically, so I'm going to have it intellectually. It was a beautiful thing to ride Seabiscuit in my imagination. And it's just fantastic to be there alongside Louie as he's breaking the NCAA mile record. People at these vigorous moments in their lives - it's my way of living vicariously."

Hillenbrand married Borden Flanagan, a professor of Government at American University and her college sweetheart, in 2008.

She is the author of the critically acclaimed Seabiscuit: An American Legend, which spent 42 weeks at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, in hardcover and paperback. It was made into the Academy Award nominated film Seabiscuit. After this success it took her almost a decade of research and writing before Unbroken was published.

Hillenbrand is a co-founder of Operation Iraqi Children, a charitable program created in 2004 to send school supplies to Iraqi children. 

 

Don't Sing at the Table

On Thursday, September 1st the R.E.A.D. Book Group at the library began a new year of book reviews and presentations. Tammra Salisbury reviewed Don't Sing at the Table: Life Lessons From My Grandmothers by Adriana Trigiani.

  

In this book Adriana Trigiani shares the lessons she learned throughout her life from the traditions, spiritual fortitude, values, strengths and talents of her grandmothers. She recalls experiences, humor and wisdom that have shaped her life. Her love for her grandmothers is obvious in her warm and descriptive writing which is a delight for readers of all ages.

 

Tammra also read from Cooking with My Sisters: One Hundred Years of Family Recipes, from Bari to Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani

For the Trigianis, cooking has always been a family affair–and the kitchen was the bustling center of their home, where folks gathered around the table for good food, good conversation, and the occasional eruption. Like the recipes that have been handed down for generations from mother to daughter and grandmother to granddaughter, the family’s celebrations are also anchored to the life and laughter around the table. We learn how Grandmom Yolanda Trigiani sometimes wrote her recipes in code, or worked from memory, guarding her recipes carefully. And we meet Grandma Lucia Bonicelli, who never raised her voice and believed that when people fight at the dinner table, the food turns to poison in the body.

Best-selling author Adriana Trigiani is beloved by millions of readers around the world for her hilarious and heartwarming novels. Adriana was raised in a small coal-mining town in southwest Virginia in a big Italian family. She chose her hometown for the setting and title of her debut novel, the critically acclaimed bestseller Big Stone Gap. 

Adriana’s 13 books have been translated and sold in over 35 countries around the world. Critics from the Washington Post to the New York Times to People have described Adriana’s novels as “tiramisu for the soul”, “sophisticated and wise”, and “dazzling.” They agree, “her characters are so lively they bounce off the page”, and that “… her novels are full bodied and elegantly written.”

After graduating from Saint Mary’s College in South Bend, Indiana, Adriana moved to New York City to become a playwright. She founded the all-female comedy troupe “The Outcasts,” which performed on the cabaret circuit for seven years. She made her off-Broadway debut at the Manhattan Theater Club and was produced in regional theaters of note around the country.

Among her many television credits, Adriana was a writer/producer on The Cosby Show, A Different World, and executive producer/head writer for City Kids for Jim Henson Productions. Her Lifetime television special, Growing up Funny, garnered an Emmy nomination for Lily Tomlin. In 1996, she wrote and directed the documentary film Queens of the Big Time. It won the Audience Award at the Hamptons Film Festival and toured the international film festival circuit from Hong Kong to London. Adriana then wrote a screenplay called Big Stone Gap, which became the novel that began the series. Adriana spent a year and a half waking up at three in the morning to write the novel before going into work on a television show.

Adriana is married to Tim Stephenson, the Emmy award-winning lighting designer of the Late Show with David Letterman. They live in Greenwich Village with their daughter, Lucia.

R.E.A.D. Book Group will meet again on Thursday, October 6, 2011 at 10:00 a.m. Jane Robinson will review The Desire of My Eyes: The Life and Work of John Ruskin by Wolfgang Kemp. 

Everyone is invited to attend.

Check out our new non-fiction!

The Pleasant Grove Library has recently acquired some great new non-fiction titles.

Check them out!

A Stolen Life: A Memoir by Jaycee Dugard

In Jaycee's own words:

In the summer of 1991 I was a normal kid. I did normal things. I had friends and a mother who loved me. I was just like you. Until the day my life was stolen.

For eighteen years I was a prisoner. I was an object for someone to use and abuse.

For eighteen years I was not allowed to speak my own name. I became a mother and was forced to be a sister. For eighteen years I survived an impossible situation.

On August 26, 2009, I took my name back. My name is Jaycee Lee Dugard. I don’t think of myself as a victim. I survived.

A Stolen Life is my story—in my own words, in my own way, exactly as I remember it.

Watch a clip of Diane Sawyer's interview with Jaycee Dugard {here}.

Watch the full episode {here}.

Raising a Soul Surfer: One Family's Epic Tale by Cheri Hamilton with Rick Bundschuh

Bethany Hamilton’s incredible story of surviving and thriving in the wake of a shark attack, told in her best-selling autobiography Soul Surfer, has sold more than 1.5 million copies. Yet her family’s adventures started long before Bethany lost her arm and became a pro surfer. Now Cheri Hamilton, Bethany’s mom, tells the inspiring story of the Hamilton Family.

This was recently released as a movie.

Watch the movie trailer {here}.

It comes out on DVD on August 2, 2011.

We also have the junior biography of Bethany Hamilton: Soul Surfer: A True Story of Faith, and Fighting to Get Back on the Board by Bethany Hamilton with Sheryl Berk and Rick Bundschuh

The Miracle of Freedom: Seven Tipping Points that Saved the World by Chris Stewart and Ted Stewart

The authors of the popular book, Seven Miracles that Saved America, with a new book that highlights seven miracles that changed the course of the world. Today, fewer than 12 of the 193 countries in the world have a democratic government that has survived for more than fifty years. So, what extraordinary events in history have made it possible for us to enjoy self-rule and personal liberty? And what role has the hand of God played in securing that freedom?

Watch Glenn Beck's interview with Chris Stewart {here}.

The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris by David McCullough

The Greater Journey is the enthralling, inspiring—and until now, untold—story of the adventurous American artists, writers, doctors, politicians, architects, and others of high aspiration who set off for Paris in the years between 1830 and 1900, ambitious to excel in their work.

After risking the hazardous journey across the Atlantic, these Americans embarked on a greater journey in the City of Light. Most had never left home, never experienced a different culture. None had any guarantee of success. That they achieved so much for themselves and their country profoundly altered American history.

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Berlin by Erik Larson

In his newest book, In The Garden of Beasts, Erik Larson unfolds the often startling story of William E. Dodd, the first American ambassador to Nazi Germany, and his family. History professor Dodd was an unlikely choice to represent the United States in Hitler's Berlin; indeed, he was FDR's fifth choice for the post. His on-the-job education in the barbarities of the "New Germany" sometimes contrasted with that of his romantic, impressionable, party-loving daughter Martha. Larson places these very personal stories within the context of the ever-worsening events.

Watch an interview with Erik Larson about this book {here}.

Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream at Home by Jeni Britton Brauer

Unique flavors, prepared from top-quality ingredients combined with minimally processed milk from grass-fed cows, transformed Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams, a small artisanal scoopery in Columbus, Ohio, into a nationally acclaimed (and beloved) brand.
Now with her debut cookbook, Jeni Britton Bauer is on a mission to help foodies create perfect ice creams, yogurts, and sorbets—ones that are every bit as perfect as hers—in their own kitchens.

Jeni talks about her ice cream and her book {here}.

Citizen U.S.A.: A 50 State Road Trip by Alexandra Pelosi

Alexandra Pelosi sets out on a road trip across America to attend naturalization ceremonies in all fifty states to meet brand-new citizens and find out why they chose America as their home. And even though they are no longer visitors, our newest citizens still look at America with an outsider's perspective; they hold up a mirror to show us how we look as a nation-and how much we take for granted.

Alexandra Pelosi talks about her HBO Documentary and her book, Citizen U.S.A. {here}.

The Greatest Music Stories Never Told: 100 Tales of Music to Astonish, Bewilder, and Stupefy by Rick Beyer

The ballet that sparked a riot?

The rock star who became an astrophysicist?

The song that saved Wheaties?

The man killed by his own conducting?

The controversy behind "Mary Had a Little Lamb"?

Prepare to be astonished, bewildered, and stupefied by the tantalizing tidbits of music history collected here: amazing stories about jazz, classical, country, rock 'n' roll, hip-hop, show tunes, composers, band names, song lyrics, instruments, technology, controversies, and more.

Unlikely Friendships: 47 Remarkable Stories from the Animal Kingdom by Jennifer S. Holland

Written by National Geographic magazine writer Jennifer Holland, Unlikely Friendships documents one heartwarming tale after another of animals who, with nothing else in common, bond in the most unexpected ways. A cat and a bird. A mare and a fawn. An elephant and a sheep. A snake and a hamster.

A Long Way Gone

Bookenders will be discussing Ishmael Beah's book, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, on Wednesday, April 27. Etta McQuade will be leading the discussion.

We will be meeting in the basement of the library.

Everyone is invited to attend.

Ishamel Beah was born in Sierra Leone West Africa in 1980. He had a peaceful childhood until his parents separated. Then the rebels came to his village and his entire family were killed. After months of traveling alone, he came to a village that was occupied by Sierra Leone Military Forces. He was coerced into recruiting and spent the next three years as a boy soldier, witnessing and participating in countless atrocities.

UNICEF workers rescued him and patiently helped him regain his humanity. He was chosen to speak about his experiences at the United Nations, where he met Laura Simms, who later became his foster mother.

He graduated from high school in New York City and earned a degree in Politics from Oberlin College.

“If I choose to feel guilty for what I have done, I will want to be dead myself,” Beah said. “I live knowing that I have been given a second life, and I just try to have fun, and be happy and live it the best I can.”  

January R.E.A.D. Book Group

Etta McQuade shared a delightful presentation on Mark Twain with the R.E.A.D. Book Group at the Pleasant Grove Library on January 6, 2011. She pointed out that one of the best things about reading Mark Twain's writings is that he is still funny and she certainly proved that as she shared many fun excerpts with us.

We discussed the new rewritten edition of The Adventrues of Huckleberry Finn and were all in agreement that it is best left as Mark Twain originally wrote it. Even though some of the words are now considered offensive it speaks to an important time in American history. It's good to remember that the moral to this story is to not be racist.

Changing the words of this book could open doors to all kinds of changes and censorship in classics novels that may be "offensive" to certain groups. If we go back and rewrite these books we, in a sense, rewrite history by altering the language to what is better accepted in modern times. What will future generations be able to learn if this becomes a common practice?

Etta read excerpts from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and we also discussed The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. We talked about the comparisons and the contrasts of the two books and these two beloved characters of American literature.

Etta shared some excerpts from Life on the Mississippi. This book is Mark Twain's memoir of the steamboat era on the Mississippi River before the American Civil War.

Then she shared some writings from Roughing It. This book tells of the escapades of Mark Twain in the American West. Etta pointed out how much he had written about Mormons, Utah and Brigham Young. She shared some of those passages with us. Twain's continued good humor in the face of misfortune and mishap throughout the book makes inspires laughter and makes it a fun book to read.

Etta told us about the first story that Mark Twain ever wrote. It is titled The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County which you can read here. Then she introduced us to The Innocents Abroad which is the first book Mark Twain wrote. It was published in 1869 and is based on Twain's letters to newspapers about his 1867 steamship voyage to Europe, Egypt, and the Holy Land. The Innocents Abroad sharply satirized tourists who learn what they should see and feel by reading guidebooks. Assuming the role of a keen-eyed, shrewd Westerner, Twain was refreshingly honest and vivid in describing foreign scenes and his reactions to them.

 

We were also introduced to Letters From the Earth, a book that is a miscellany of fiction, essays, and notes by Mark Twain, published posthumously in 1962. Written over a period of 40 years, the pieces in the anthology are characterized by a sense of ironic pessimism. The title piece comprises letters written by Satan to his fellow angels about the shameless pride and foolishness of humans.        

One of our favorite picture books at the library was presented to the group. The Extraordinary Mark Twain (According to Susy) by Barbara Kerley is a cute story told through the eyes of Twain's beloved daughter. In pursuit of truth, Susy Clemens, age 13, vows to set the record straight about her beloved (and misunderstood) father and becomes his secret biographer. Kerley uses Susy's manuscript and snippets of wisdom and mirth from Twain as fodder for her story. The child's journal entries, reproduced in flowing handwritten, smaller folio inserts, add a dynamic and lovely pacing to the narrative, which includes little-known facts about Twain's work. The text flawlessly segues into Susy's carefully recorded, sometimes misspelled, details of his character, intimate life, and work routine during his most prolific years. 

A very favorite part of the presentation was when Howard Carpenter and Etta read excerpts from the Adam and Eve Diaries which can be found in The Bible According to Mark Twain.

Etta told us about Mark Twain Tonight which was edited, adapted and arranged by Hal Holbrook

Holbrook had been bringing Twain to life for twenty years when an estimated thirty million viewers tuned in to see Mark Twain Tonight! on March 6, 1967. The two had been regular traveling companions, taking many roads to arrive at this electrifying moment in television history. This book brings together some of Holbrooks best work into an easy to read collection. It is really like reading a Mark Twain Biography. You can also watch scenes from Mark Twain Tonight! on Youtube. Please enjoy an example below.

 

We finished up with more great conversation and Almond Roca candy.

Etta shared many fun Mark Twain quotations during her presentation. Here are some of our favorites:

"I was born modest, but it wore off."

"When you cannot get a compliment any other way pay yourself one."

"Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow."

"If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything."

"A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read."

"It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."

"Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter."

"Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint."

You may like to checkout the new Autobiography of Mark Twain at the library. Mark Twain is his own greatest character in this brilliant self-portrait, the first of three volumes collected by the Mark Twain Project on the centenary of the author's death. It is published complete and unexpurgated for the first time. (Twain wanted his more scalding opinions suppressed until long after his death.) Eschewing chronology and organization, Twain simply meanders from observation to anecdote and between past and present. There are gorgeous reminiscences from his youth of landscapes, rural idylls, and Tom Sawyeresque japes; acid-etched profiles of friends and enemies, from his "fiendish" Florentine landlady to the fatuous and "grotesque" Rockefellers; a searing polemic on a 1906 American massacre of Filipino insurgents; a hilarious screed against a hapless editor who dared tweak his prose; and countless tales of the author's own bamboozlement, unto bankruptcy, by publishers, business partners, doctors, miscellaneous moochers; he was even outsmarted by a wild turkey. Laced with Twain's unique blend of humor and vitriol, the haphazard narrative is engrossing, hugely funny, and deeply revealing of its author's mind. His is a world where every piety conceals fraud and every arcadia a trace of violence; he relishes the human comedy and reveres true nobility, yet as he tolls the bell for friends and family--most tenderly in an elegy for his daughter Susy, who died in her early 20s of meningitis--he feels that life is a pointless charade. Twain's memoirs are a pointillist masterpiece from which his vision of America--half paradise, half swindle--emerges with indelible force. 

Scout, Atticus and Boo

We hope everyone is busy reading To Kill a Mockingbird.  We are looking forward to our citywide read discussion at Bookenders book group on Wednesday, September 29th at 7 p.m. Carl Sederholm, a popular professor at Brigham Young University, will lead the discussion on To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and Mockingbird: a Portrait of Harper Lee by Charles J. Shields.  Everyone is invited and encouraged to attend.  

Another book you might want to read is Scout, Atticus and Boo:  A Celebration of Fifty Years of  To Kill a Mockingbird edited by Mary McDonagh Murphy.

To Kill a Mockingbird may well be our national novel.  It is the first adult novel that many of us remember reading, one book that millions of us have in common.  It sells nearly a million copies a year, more than any other twentieth-century American classic.  Harper Lee's first and only novel, published in July 1960, is a beloved classic and touchstone in American literary and social history. In Scout, Atticus and Boo Mary McDonagh Murphy reviews its history and examines how the novel has left its mark on a broad range of novelists, historians, journalists, and artists. 


This book is a collection of essays written by a wide variety of people, all sharing their thoughts and feelings about the beloved classic. Contributors include Oprah Winfrey, Alice Finch Lee, Tom Brokaw, James McBride, Rosanne Cash and many more. The essays are short and poignant, and tell, very personally, about how the book touched many lives as well as reflected the larger struggle for civil rights in our country. This short volume compiled by Murphy, with a charming forward by Wally Lamb, is chock-full of insightful interviews and musings about one of the most important books of our time.

 

Mary McDonagh Murphy

Mary McDonagh Murphy has also filmed a documentary titled Hey Boo for the 50th year celebration.  To view a clip of that documentary you can click on the button to learn more about the 50th anniversary of To Kill a Mockingbird at the upper right hand corner of the sidebar. After that, click on the "videos" tab and then you can choose to watch the clip.

We would like to know what you think.  Would you agree that To Kill a Mockingbird could be our national novel?  Why or why not.  Please leave a comment and let us know.

Harper Lee

Harper Lee is Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on November 5, 2007

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird. To view a clip from the upcoming documentary "Hey, Boo: Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbird," click here.

Mockingbird: a Portrait of Harper Lee by Charles J. Shields will be reviewed at R.E.A.D. book group on Thursday, September 2nd at 10 a.m. by Tammra Salisbury. It will also be part of the citywide read discussion at Bookenders book group on Wednesday, September 29th at 7 p.m. Carl Sederholm, a popular professor at Brigham Young University, will lead the discussion on To Kill a Mockingbird and Mockingbird: a Portrait of Harper Lee. 

To Kill a Mockingbird—the twentieth century’s most widely read American novel—has sold thirty million copies and still sells a million yearly. Yet despite her book’s perennial popularity, its creator, Harper Lee, has become a somewhat mysterious figure. Now, after years of research, Charles J. Shields brings to life the warmhearted, high-spirited, and occasionally hardheaded woman who gave us two of American literature’s most unforgettable characters—Atticus Finch and his daughter, Scout.

At the center of Shields’s evocative, lively book is the story of Lee’s struggle to create her famous novel, but her colorful life contains many highlights—her girlhood as a tomboy in overalls in tiny Monroeville, Alabama; the murder trial that made her beloved father’s reputation and inspired her great work; her journey to Kansas as Truman Capote’s ally and research assistant to help report the story of In Cold Blood. Mockingbird—unique, highly entertaining, filled with humor and heart—is a wide-ranging, idiosyncratic portrait of a writer, her dream, and the place and people whom she made immortal.

I Am Scout: the Biography of Harper Lee is the young adult version of Mockingbird: a Portrait of Harper Lee.

It's a perfect book for teens who loved To Kill a Mockingbird and want to find out more about the author.

Charles J Shields

Charles J. Shields spent four years researching and writing Mockingbird. A former English teacher who taught Harper Lee's novel for a number of years, he later became a writer of nonfiction books for young people. For Mockingbird, he interviewed over 600 of Harper Lee's neighbors, childhood friends, law school classmates, and Kansas residents who became her friends while she was there helping Truman Capote research In Cold Blood. As a result of Shields' research into Truman Capote's papers, the papers of Harper Lee's agent, and the archives in the courthouse and historical museum in Lee's hometown of Monroeville, Alabama, information never before known appears in this insightful portrait of the Pulitzer prize-winning author, who stopped giving interviews in 1964. From her beginnings as an Alabama tomboy, to her novel's beginnings as a handful of stories, to a rough draft called Atticus, to its present form as one of the most popular books of the 20th century, the story of To Kill a Mockingbird and its author is told here for the first time.

Shields has a B.A. in English and an M.A. in American history from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, where he was a James Scholar. He lives in central Virginia with his wife, Guadalupe.