"So Glad We Had This Time Together"

Carol Burnett sang this at the end of every show:

"I'm so glad we had this time together,

Just to have a laugh, or sing a song.

Seems we just get started and before you know it

Comes the time we have to say, 'So long'."

Fans of Carol Burnett will like her even more after reading her memoir, This Time Together: Laughter and Reflection.

She recalls her early career with humor, pathos and kindness.

On Thursday, March 1 we will be reviewing this book and watching some fun clips in the basement of the library.

Join us at 10 a.m. in the theater in the basement of the library.

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.

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.

The Whistling Season

R.E.A.D. Book Group will be meeting on Thursday, May 5th at 10:00 a.m. in the library. Joyce Fife will be reviewing The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig.

Everyone is welcome.

The Whistling Season is set in the past in rural eastern Montana—and addresses that time and place in distinct, uncluttered prose that carries the full enthusiasm of affection and even love—for the landscape, the characters, and the events of the story—without being sentimental or elegiac. The novel is narrated by an aging Montana state superintendent of schools, Paul Milliron, who is charged with deciding the fate of the state's last scattered rural schools, and who, in the hours preceding his meeting to determine those schools' fate, recalls the autumn of 1909, when he was 13 and attending his own one-room school in Marias Coulee.

Recently widowed, Paul's father, overwhelmed by the child-rearing duties presented by his three sons, in addition to his challenging farming duties, hires a housekeeper, sight unseen, from a newspaper ad. The housekeeper, Rose, proclaims that she "can't cook but doesn't bite." She turns out to be a beguiling character, and she brings with her a surprise guest—her brother, the scholarly Morris, who, though one of the most bookish characters in recent times, also carries brass knuckles and—not to give away too much plot—somehow knows how to use them.

The schoolteacher in Marias Coulee runs away to get married, leaving Morris to step up and take over her job. The verve and inspiration that he, an utter novice to the West, to children and to teaching children, brings to the task is told brilliantly and passionately, and is the core of the book's narrative, with its themes of all the different ways of knowing and learning, at any age.

Doig's strengths in this novel are character and language—the latter manifesting itself at a level of old-fashioned high-octane grandeur not seen previously in Doig's novels, and few others': the sheer joy of word choices, phrases, sentences, situations, and character bubbling up and out, as fecund and nurturing as the dryland farmscape the story inhabits is sere and arid. The Whistling Season is a book to pass on to your favorite readers: a story of lives of active choice, lived actively.



Ivan Doig



Ivan Doig (born on June 27, 1939) is an American novelist. He was born in White Sulphur Springs, Montana to a family of homesteaders and ranch hands. After the death of his mother Berneta, on his sixth birthday, he was raised by his father Charles Doig and his grandmother Elizabeth Ringer. After several stints on ranches, they moved to Dupuyer, Pondera County, Montana in the north to herd sheep close to the Rocky Mountain Front. After his graduation from Valier high school, Doig attended Northwestern University, where he received a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in journalism. He later earned a Ph.D. in American history at the University of Washington, writing his dissertation about John J. McGilvra (1827-1903). He now lives with his wife Carol Doig, a university professor of English, in Seattle, Washington. Before Ivan Doig became a novelist, he wrote for newspapers and magazines as a free-lancer and worked for the United States Forest Service. Much of his fiction is set in the Montana country of his youth. His major theme is family life in the past, mixing personal memory and regional history. As the western landscape and people play an important role in his fiction, he has been hailed as the new dean of western literature, a worthy successor to Wallace Stegner.

Ivan Doig is the author of eleven books. Eight are novels, including English Creek and Dancing at the Rascal Fair, and three are nonfiction, including the highly acclaimed memoir This House of Sky, which was a finalist for the National Book Award.

From Columbus to Ronald Reagan

Howard Carpenter did a great job on his review of Seven Miracles That Saved America: Why They Matter and Why We Should Have Hope by Chris Stewart and Ted Stewart.

We learned about seven of the miracles that took place at critical times in our nation's history:

• Columbus's discovery of America
• Survival of Jamestown
• The timely fog during The Battle of New York
• Creation of the United States Constitution
• Abraham Lincoln & the Gettysburg Address
• The pivotal Battle of Midway
• President Reagan's miraculous survival

Howard showed us his great-grandfather's Civil War sword.

This picture doesn't do it justice. It's beautiful--and very heavy. Thankfully, the sharp point has been filed down. 

Seven Miracles That Saved America

R.E.A.D. book group will be meeting Thursday, April 7th at 10:00 a.m. in the library. Howard Carpenter will be reviewing Seven Miracles That Saved America by Chris and Ted Stewart.

Everyone is welcome.

The authors, Chris and Ted Stewart, answer this question in the book: 

"When the odds were stacked against us--and there were many times when this experiment that we call America could have and should have failed--did God intervene to save us?"

In each of the seven examples that they cite "the people who were living these things all had doubts about how they would turn out," says Ted. "But what's remarkable is that every one of them, to some degree or another, acknowledged the help of Divine Providence."

The brothers bring diverse backgrounds to the task. 

Chris was a record-setting Air Force pilot (he holds the record for the fastest nonstop flight around the world) before he retired to become president and CEO of The Shipley Group, a nationally recognized consulting and training company, as well as a best-selling author. His techno-military thrillers have been released in multiple languages in seven countries, and he's published a number of novels for Shadow Mountain. 

Ted was appointed as a U.S. District judge in 1999 by President Bill Clinton. Before that, he served as chief of staff to Gov. Mike Leavitt, as a member and chairman of the Public Service Commission and as chief of staff to Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah. He has also taught university courses in law, the Constitution, the Supreme Court and public policy.

They talk about the book in this video:

R.E.A.D. Book Group for March

On Thursday, March 3 at 10:00 a.m. Eloise Fugal will review Driven: An Autobiography by Larry H. Miller and Doug Robinson at the library for the R.E.A.D. Book Group. Everyone is invited to attend.

When he was sixteen years old, Larry Miller came home one summer night to find all his possessions sitting in three bags on the porch of his darkened house. The door was locked. From those troubled and humble beginnings rose a man whose influence has touched, according to reliable pollsters, more than 99 percent of the population of Utah as well as myriads of people worldwide. Seven months before Miller passed away, he began working with Doug Robinson on this biography. Written in first person, the book talks about the many facets of Larry's life and legacy and speaks candidly about the people and experiences that influenced him. It doesn't just tell Larry Millers story, it shares painful lessons as well as joyful lessons he learned from his many experiences. 

This fascinating and inspiring autobiography includes a moving foreword by Utah Jazz great John Stockton, 

an epilogue written by Gail Miller, Larry s wife, and numerous photographs.

 

It gives a firsthand look at the incredible breadth of Larry Miller's work and contributions in business, in sports, in the arts, in his support of the Joseph Smith Papers Project, as well as his personal humanitarian service.  It has a full section addressing the question Larry was most often asked: How did you do it? 

 

We hope you will plan to join us for the book review and discussion about this interesting man. 

February R.E.A.D. Book Group

On February 3 the R.E.A.D Book Group met to hear a wonderful book review by Diane Marsh. The featured book was Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford.

 

This book is a favorite among the librarians at Pleasant Grove City Library. 

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is a sweet love story set during the bitter time of World War II in Seattle, Washington.  Henry Lee is a twelve year old Chinese-American who has been sent to an all white school where his father thinks he will get a better education. He is bullied and made fun of by the other students and his “scholarship” is really a requirement to work in the lunchroom and clean after school. One day another student arrives to share this work. Keiko Okabe has also been sent by her parents to the all white school but she is Japanese-American.  As they work together, walk home together and Henry protects her from the anti-Japanese cruelty of the time they form a lasting friendship. Henry hides the relationship from his parents, who would disown him if they knew he had a Japanese friend. His father insists that Henry wear an "I am Chinese" button everywhere he goes. Keiko’s family being forced to leave their home and taken to an internment camp does not end their relationship. Henry is able to visit her in the camp and even bring her a gift: a record album of the music they both love.  When her family is moved to camp Minidoka in Idaho, they promise to write and wait for each other.  

This part of the story brought about interesting discussion at the book group. We talked about the many Japanese internment camps that existed in the United States during this time in history.

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 which permitted the military to circumvent the constitutional safeguards of American citizens in the name of national defense.

 

 

The order set into motion the exclusion from certain areas, and the evacuation and mass incarceration of 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast, most of whom were U.S. Citizens or legal permanent resident aliens.  

 

These Japanese Americans, half of whom were children, were incarcerated for up to 4 years, without due process of law or any factual basis, in bleak, remote camps surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards. They were forced to evacuate their homes and leave their jobs; in some cases family members were separated and put into different camps. President Roosevelt himself called the 10 facilities "concentration camps."

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is an old-fashioned historical novel that alternates between the early 1940s and 1984, after Henry's wife Ethel has died of cancer. In 1942 the Panama Hotel was situated somewhat between the Chinese and Japanese areas of Seattle. Forty years later, Henry discovers a parasol in the hotel's dark and dusty basement as he is looking for signs of the belongings that Keiko's family left behind when they were swept up in the evacuations to the internment camps. 

Their story is told as a widowed Henry looks back on his life and wonders if what was lost and broken and be found and repaired.  This is a book about family and identity, language and communication, hope and home, but most of all its about enduring love.

Jamie Ford

Jamie Ford is the great-grandson of Nevada mining pioneer Min Chung, who emigrated from Kaiping, China, to San Francisco in 1865, where he adopted the Western name “Ford,” thus confusing countless generations. Ford is an award-winning short-story writer, an alumnus of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, and a survivor of Orson Scott Card’s Literary Boot Camp. Having grown up near Seattle’s Chinatown, he now lives in Montana with his wife and children.

On March 3, 2011 Eloise Fugal will review Driven: An Autobiography by Larry H. Miller and Douglas Robinson for the R.E.A.D. Book Group at 10:00 a.m. We hope to see you there!

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. 

The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain

Etta McQuade will give a presentation on Mark Twain for the R.E.A.D. Book Group on Thursday, January 6th at 10:00 a.m. Everyone is invited and encouraged to attend.

 Etta is a gifted reviewer and presenter. She will be sharing insight into Mark Twain's life and will share some of his writings as well as books written about him.

Samuel Clemens or Mark Twain

On Nov. 30, 1835, the small town of Florida, Mo. witnessed the birth of its most famous son. Samuel Langhorne Clemens was welcomed into the world as the sixth child of John Marshall and Jane Lampton Clemens. Little did John and Jane know, their son Samuel would one day be known as Mark Twain - America's most famous literary icon.

 

Approximately four years after his birth, in 1839, the Clemens family moved 35 miles east to the town of Hannibal. A growing port city that lies along the banks of the Mississippi, Hannibal was a frequent stop for steam boats arriving by both day and night from St. Louis and New Orleans.

Samuel's father was a judge, and he built a two-story frame house at 206 Hill Street in 1844. As a youngster, Samuel was kept indoors because of poor health. However, by age nine, he seemed to recover from his ailments and joined the rest of the town's children outside. He then attended a private school in Hannibal.

Samuel Clemens' childhood home.

When Samuel was 12, his father died of pneumonia, and at 13, Samuel left school to become a printer's apprentice. After two short years, he joined his brother Orion's newspaper as a printer and editorial assistant. It was here that young Samuel found he enjoyed writing.

At 17, he left Hannibal behind for a printer's job in St. Louis. While in St. Louis, Clemens became a river pilot's apprentice. He became a licensed river pilot in 1858. Clemens' pseudonym, Mark Twain, comes from his days as a river pilot. It is a river term which means two fathoms or 12-feet when the depth of water for a boat is being sounded. "Mark twain" means that is safe to navigate.

Because the river trade was brought to a stand still by the Civil War in 1861, Clemens began working as a newspaper reporter for several newspapers all over the United States. In 1870, Clemens married Olivia Langdon, and they had four children, one of whom died in infancy and two who died in their twenties. Their surviving child, Clara, lived to be 88, and had one daughter. Clara's daughter died without having any children, so there are no direct descendants of Samuel Clemens living.

Twain began to gain fame when his story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calavaras County" appeared in the New York Saturday Press on November 18, 1865. Twain's first book, "The Innocents Abroad," was published in 1869, "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" in 1876, and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" in 1885. He wrote 28 books and numerous short stories, letters and sketches.

Twain's last work was his autobiography, which he dictated and thought would be most entertaining if he went off on whims and tangents in non-chronological order.

 In 1909, Twain is quoted as saying:

I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: 'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.'

His prediction was accurate – Twain died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910, in Redding, Connecticut, one day after the comet's closest approach to Earth.

 Mark Twain has a following still today. His childhood home is open to the public as a museum in Hannibal, and Calavaras County in California holds the Calavaras County Fair and Jumping Frog Jubilee every third weekend in May. Walking tours are given in New York City of places Twain visited near his birthday every year.

Just this week Mark Twain has been in the news again. Huckleberry Finn is the fourth most banned book in America because of words that some find offensive. NewSouth Books in Alabama have decided to release a new volume which replaces those words with others which are more acceptable in their eyes. There has been quite a debate over it. You can read more about it here . We would love to know your opinion. Leave a comment and let us know what you think.

Watch for an upcoming post about the R.E.A.D. Book Group discussion.