Michael Dirda ~ Part Deux

Michael Dirda

 

I received an email from one of my  legion of  loyal few Book Barmy readers regarding this post on the book of essays entitled Browsings by Michael Dirda.  This reader wondered why, as a declared Anglophile, I had failed to mention his essay called Anglophilia or perhaps I had skipped it?

Well, this sent me scurrying back to the book because I frankly didn’t remember said essay.  After reading it I realized that I must have skipped this one — you see, I did not adhere to Mr. Dirda’s introductory rule of reading his essays in order.

I hung my head in shame, and as penance, last night I again browsed through Browsings (sorry for that phrase, but you knew it was coming, didn’t you?).  I ended up re-reading several of my favorites and finding a passage or two I had fogotten.

The neglected essay Anglophilia was written during Queen Elizabeth’s 60-year jubilee and should be read in its entirety, as it is chocked full of British greatness.  Mr. Dirda admits his secret fantasy of being picked for a knighthood or an OBE.  He feels he may have earned such an honor given his lifetime of dreaming of Harrods Christmas hampers, box seats at the Grand National and pub lunches of shepherds pie.

In real life, his Anglophilia is limited to a Harris Tweed sport coat, a few Turnbull & Asser shirts (picked up at a local thrift shop) and watching Miss Marple mysteries on television.

(I watch them) less to guess the identity of the murderer than to look at the wonderful clothes and the idyllic Costwoldian village of St. Mary Mead.  My wife tells me I should check out Downton Abbey, but I gather that series might be almost too intense for my temperate nature.

Of course, most of Mr. Dirda’s Anglophilia is bookish, and he imagines his very own country house library – (my imagined room is quite the same):

…lined on three walls with mahogany bookshelves, their serried splendor interrupted only by enough space to display, above the fireplace, a pair of crossed swords or sculling oars and perhaps a portrait of some great English worthy.  The fourth wall would, of course, open on to my gardens, designed and kept up by Christopher Lloyd, with the help of Robin Lane Fox…There would definitely be a worn leather Chesterfield sofa, its back covered with a quilt (perhaps a tartan? decisions, decisions) and its corners cushioned with a half-dozen pillows embroidered with scenes from Greek mythology.  Here, I would recline and read my books.

I found a few other passages I must read out loud to you…okay you can read them yourselves.

He ruefully muses about his book buying expenditures:

It’s true that even $5 book purchases do add up.  Yet, what after all is money?  It’s just this abstraction, a number, a piece of green paper.  But a book — a printed volume, not some pixel on a screen — is real.  You can hold it in your hand.  Feel its heft.  Admire the cover.  Realize that you now own a work of art that is 50 or 75 or even 100 years old.  My Beloved Spouse constantly berates me for failing to stew sufficiently about money.  For 30 years I diligently set aside every extra penny to cover the college educations of my three sons.  I paid off my home mortgage long ago.  I even have some kind of mutual fund.  Nonetheless, it’s hard for me to feign even minimal interest in investing or studying the stock market.  What a weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable – okay, make that profitable — way of life it is to think constantly about the bottom line.  Keogh plans, Roths, Schedule C, differed income, capital gains, and rows and rows of little numbers…The heart sinks.

And finally, I’ll leave you with more about his plan to travel around the US visiting second-hand bookstores.

(In addition to stopping at bookstores) …I’d naturally take the time to genuflect at the final resting places of writers I admire. Come lunchtime I would obviously eat in diners and always order pie for dessert, sometimes à la mode.  During the evenings sipping a local beer in some one-night cheap motel, I would examine the purchases of the day and fall asleep reading shabby, half-forgotten novels.

Thinking  I would not need or want to re-read this book, it almost went into the library donation bag.  See what I almost missed?  I stand vindicated in my board hoarding collecting.  I’m giving Browsings its permanent and rightful place on my bookshelves.

 

Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes

Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes

I’m not usually one for “self help” books – especially celebrity ones.  Still, one day, when I turned on NPR, Ms. Rhimes was being interviewed about her new book, Year of Yes.  I was suddenly in rapt attention.  She was witty, smart-mouthed, exceedingly down-to-earth and wow – a woman of color, and a driving force in the male-dominated world of network television.

Later that day, as a treat after teeth cleaning, I ducked into a favorite bookstore in the Marina and picked up Year Of Yes, certain it wouldn’t be for me, but 20 pages later, laughing out loud in the aisle, I had to buy it.

Shonda Rhimes is the creator and producer of Thursday night network television – Greys Anatomy, Private Practice, Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder.  She claims she merely “makes stuff up for living” – which has made her a highly-respected television mogul and a multi-millionaire.

Although I was a fan of Grey’s Anatomy (until Sandra Oh left), I’ve never watched any of her other hit series.  But I’ve always admired that all her shows feature characters whom reflect what she calls normalcy – all races, ages, sizes, sexual orientation and backgrounds.  Creating and producing these ground breaking dramas we find out took guts, perseverance and some major rule breaking.  No gentle “lean-in” for Ms. Rhimes — she kicked down doors, stereotypes, racism, sexism, and a few butts along the way — all in order to get her ground breaking, vibrantly diverse shows on air.

This part self-help – but mostly memoir reveals that as strong as Ms. Rhimes was at work, internally she was a shy introvert, was most comfortable writing alone in mismatched pajamas and wished to remain very far removed from the typical Hollywood hype.

When I first got a publicist, I told him and his team that my main reason for having a publicist was so that I never ever had to do any publicity.  Everyone thought this was a joke, I was not joking.

 Ms. Rhimes is a highly-educated, hard- working genius, raising three children as a single mom and a sister in a large competitive family – that seemed enough and protected her from having to say yes to things that made her uncomfortable.

Then, one Thanksgiving morning, her older sister angrily mutters that she never says yes to anything — not to social events, publicity, family affairs,  or to having fun.  This proved to be a turning point for Ms. Rhimes as she realized her excuse of being too busy with three prime-time television shows and raising her daughters on her own — was actually a cop-out.   Ms. Rhimes began to discover that her “no’s” were preventing her from fully experiencing her life — trapping her in negativity and isolation.

So begins her scary year of saying yes.  Yes to accepting compliments and the help she needs to balance her career with single motherhood and yes, to taking care of herself —  which results in a 100+ lb weight loss.

Ms. Rhimes gives herself permission to answer the question “How do yo do it all?” with the honest answer – she doesn’t.  She credits and idolizes her live-in nanny, makes no excuses when relying on Costco baked goods for school events (despite the other mothers’ home baked offerings) and gives herself permission to unashamedly practice “badassery”.

One chapter relates her decision to remain single and the hurt she causes the men she’s loved in her life.   And to those who ask, she answers that  their idea of a happily-ever-after ending is not the same as hers. Again, yes to her life choice(s).

It doesn’t mean she doesn’t say no…

No is a powerful word. To me, it’s the single most powerful word in the English language. Said clearly, strongly and with enough frequency and force, it can alter the course of history.

Her public calendar becomes full.  She revels at sitting  next to First Lady Michelle Obama at the Kennedy Center Honors – and realizes that, a year ago, she would have turned down this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

If you google Shondra Rhimes you can watch her interviews and public appearances with Oprah, Jimmy Kimmel, even a commencement address to her alumni at Dartmouth.

But, I believe her best speech is a short one, when she was awarded the Sherry Lansing Award for leadership.  Here Ms. Rhimes credits the many, many women who came before, those who actually broke the glass ceiling so that women in the last 20 years could be successful.  Recommended viewing HERE.

Trust me, Year of Yes is not a fluffy celebrity memoir with advice thrown in, Ms. Rhimes doesn’t preach or condescend.  She touts a mean work ethic and her message is; you’ve just got to do it — the impossibly difficult, soul-breaking work; you can’t (and won’t) be able to do everything; you will make sacrifices; you’ll make mistakes – but no matter what, you continue to do the hard work.

Year of Yes is a quick read, it’s funny and down-to-earth, but don’t sell it short – within its short pages are the thought-provoking life lessons learned by a woman overcoming her fears, succeeding on her own terms and being comfortable with all of it.  She ends the book with this:

I am different.  I am original. And like everyone else, I am here to take up space in the universe.  I do so with pride.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Drop Dead Healthy by A. J. Jacobs

Drop Dead Healthy by A. J. Jacobs

One Man’s Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection

It’s January and all thoughts here at Book Barmy turn towards new beginnings. It’s time to clean out the fridge, toss the leftover Christmas cookies, make a salad or two and get back to the gym – or at least dust off and organize my gym bag — small steps, folks, small steps.  So what better book to read than this?

In terms of dusting things off, I’ve had Drop Dead Healthy on my shelves for ages and never opened it.  Strangely, I can’t remember where I got it.  I wonder if it was a gift from a well-meaning fit friend?  But then I remembered, I bought this book last January during what now appears to be my annual mission to transform myself.  As one of quotes on this books says, “Why go to the gym when you can sit and read a funny book about it instead?”  USA Today

During this month of repent and resolutions, we are bombarded with a myriad of health fads, hard-sell gym memberships, hundreds of different diets —  not to mention, legions of healthy living articles, cook books and television shows.  Mr. Jacobs, on his own quest to get healthy and fit, takes us through his experimental dips into many of these fads and trends .. all with very funny results.

He goes “Caveman” with the Paleo movement and enjoys their diet of nuts and berries (but passes on crushed insects, despite their reputed high protein value).  I laughed out loud when Mr. Jacobs tries a pole dancing workout class where he was the only man among fifty women wearing high heels and sporting an alarming amount of cleavage.

In an attempt to combat the “Crimes of Excessive Sedentary Behavior” and consume extra calories while working, he bypasses the webpage advertisements for $400 treadmill desks and rigs up his own version — with his laptop perched on a stack of four cardboard boxes that teeter on an end table at the end of the treadmill — and he even dares to include a photo.

Mr. Jacobs mystifies his family by bringing home a toilet seat that requires a third world squatting pose to navigate, which he read was healthier than the conventional sitting position – again a photo is provided — thankfully, with the author fully clothed

Jacobs tries veganism, raw food, Atkins, juice cleanses, along with dozens of other diets.  He tries Cross Fit, anti-gravity yoga, running barefoot though New York (ouch and yuck) and Stroller-cise with other new moms and dads — “I push Zane’s stroller through Central Park while jogging, jumping, stretching and getting stared at”.

What Drop Dead Healthy does best is detail the author’s personal experiences and reactions — much like sitting with friend over coffee (non-fat of course) and listening to his funny and self-deprecating stories of trying to get fit and healthy.  However, we are laughing WITH him….not at him.  In fact, we cheer along as he posts his periodic checkup results and his slow, but steady weight loss.

Even the appendixes are fascinatingly funny – from how to fit in exercise all day long; “wear a diving weight vest all day – be prepared for suicide bomber jokes”  (or potential police arrest, I’d venture) to best food advice; “Don’t be so obsessed with healthy food that you end up alone in the corner eating organic kale and silently judging your friends.”

There is humanity to Mr. Jacobs story.  He finds inspiration in his loved ones.  His 90-year old grandfather who remained active in community affairs long after his formal retirement, his eccentric Aunt Marti, those adorable but rambunctious sons, and his endlessly patient wife, Julie–all are a constant reminder that healthy relationships are paramount in any well-lived life.  In the end, we are motivated to get some exercise in any way we can and eat healthier —  but the larger lesson is that health is highly personal – each of us must choose what feels right and healthy for us – a  balance of body, mind and spirit.

 

 

I just have to show you the back cover~~~

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

N.B. I also learned that drinking ice water burns 8 calories a glass. If you drink 8 glasses, that’s 64 extra calories a day.  Now let’s see, a small glass of wine is 100 calories…

Gift Ideas for the Gardener

Winter is actually a very pleasant time for gardeners.  There is very little to be done in the garden, so we can rest our weary backs, put our feet up and dream of spring with seed catalogs and Garden Literature.

Garden Literature, you wonder, really?

Let me assure you, there is nothing better than reading about other people’s gardens,  and despite the occasional pang of garden envy, we learn a great deal from our readings.

I’m not talking about your standard gardening reference books – the ones that help identify diseases and pests, or instruct on how to grow larger tomatoes.  No dear reader, this unique Garden Literature series is something else altogether.

Modern Library Gardening Series

Edited by Michael Pollan

 

These books are beautifully published (the covers alone catcalled me from a bookstore display table), they make lovely “dip in and out” reading, but most importantly, the series has rediscovered and published out-of-print and forgotten titles from both American and British renowned gardeners.

Once upon a time, in the not-so-distant past, Gardening was the number one leisure activity and there were phenomenal garden writers.  They wrote articles in publications, authored books about their gardens, but mostly wrote of the pure delight of having and maintaining their gardens.  These are not dry treatises that go on and on about soil augmentation, but funny, down-to-earth and friendly writings that expose both the gardeners’ mistakes and successes.  But in each of these slim volumes,  whether a hobby, a pastime or as an all encompassing obsession – the joy of gardening shines through.

The publishers’ (Random House) summary of each book will give you an idea of the delight these titles hold for any gardener.

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First published in 1929, The Gardener’s Bed-Book is a much beloved gardening classic by the renowned editor of House & Garden magazine in the 1920s and ’30s. Each of its 365 perfectly sized little essays is meant to be read in bed at night after a long day’s work, either real or imagined, in the garden. A charming and mischievously funny companion to curl up with.

 

 

 

Old Herbaceous is a classic British novel of the garden, with a title character as outsized and unforgettable as P. G. Wodehouse’s immortal butler, Jeeves. Born at the dusk of the Victorian era, Bert Pinnegar, an awkward orphan child with one leg a tad longer than the other, rises from inauspicious schoolboy days spent picking wildflowers and dodging angry farmers to become the legendary head gardener “Old Herbaceous,” the most esteemed flower-show judge in the county and a famed horticultural wizard capable of producing dazzling April strawberries from the greenhouse and the exact morning glories his Lady spies on the French Riviera, “so blue, so blue it positively hurts.” Sprinkled with nuggets of gardening wisdom, Old Herbaceous is a witty comic portrait of the most archetypal—and crotchety—head gardener ever to plant a row of bulbs at a British country house.

In the Land of the Blue Poppies. During the first years of the twentieth century, the British plant collector and explorer Frank Kingdon Ward went on twenty-four impossibly daring expeditions throughout Tibet, China, and Southeast Asia, in search of rare and elusive species of plants. He was responsible for the discovery of numerous varieties previously unknown in Europe and America, including the legendary Tibetan blue poppy, and the introduction of their seeds into the world’s gardens. Kingdon Ward’s accounts capture all the romance of his wildly adventurous expeditions, whether he was swinging across a bottomless gorge on a cable of twisted bamboo strands or clambering across a rocky scree in fear of an impending avalanche. Drawn from writings out of print for almost seventy-five years, this new collection, edited and introduced by professional horticulturalist and House & Garden columnist Tom Christopher, returns Kingdon Ward to his deserved place in the literature of discovery and the literature of the garden.

There are prefaces that entice even before you enter the book itself – from today’s gardening notables such as Jamaica Kincaid, Dominque Browning, and Penelope Hobhouse (don’t gardeners have just the best names?).

 Michael Pollan is the contributing editor to this series and perhaps he says it best:  

“these writers are some of the great talkers in the rich, provocative, and frequently uproarious conversation that, metaphorically at least, has been taking place over the back fence of our gardens at least since the time of Pliny.”

 

Here’s a Garden Literature series that will gladden the heart of the gardener on your list.

 

Gift Idea for the New Parents

Operating Instructions

by Anne Lamott

“There really are places in your heart you don’t know exist until you love a child” — Anne Lamott

I give this slim volume to every new mother, and no, I don’t think it’s weird to give a book at baby showers.  Remember, please, a book is never a bad gift here at Book Barmy.

There’s a lovely new Mom-to-be on my Christmas list this year and before I wrapped Operating Instructions I chuckled away in re-reading parts of this unique book.

Anne Lamott is best known for her book on writing (Bird by Bird) and her many books on her own brand of spirituality (start with Traveling Mercies).

She writes achingly, from her heart and everything she pens has a clear authenticity that strikes a cord with this reader.  Even her books on spirituality are affectionate, wise and very funny  —  regardless of your religious persuasion.

Operating Instructions is the honest and funny diary of her son’s first year.  She recounts difficulties with sleep deprivation, colic, struggles to stay free from her addictions, grief over her father’s recent death and the absence of her son’s father  — all conveyed with self-deprecating humor and wit.

This is not a touchy-feely-how-to-be-a-perfect-mother guide, this is a brutally honest look at the good, the bad, the ugly and the scary parts of  the first year of parenting.

Ms. Lamott confesses to the times she wanted to just “put him outside as an experiment in natural selection” and recoils at the little guy’s private parts.

She boldly expresses her liberal political rants against the Bush presidency of the time, so the book feels a bit dated in that respect.  But in all other aspects this is a timeless and valuable gift for any new Mom (or Dad).

After my recipients have read Operating Instructions, I usually get comments along the lines of a” breath of fresh air”, “so funny I was reading it aloud to my husband”, “great fun while nursing” and even “reading this book made me feel less isolated and more connected — I wasn’t the only frightened mother out there”.

So, let’s help out any of those new parents on your gift list — offer to babysit, take over a casserole, walk their dog and most importantly — give them this book.

 

 

 

 

Gift Ideas for the Every Day Cook

I don’t mean everyday, as in common, I mean that person on your gift list who cooks for loved ones every day.  These are not foodies, per se, but people who enjoy preparing home cooked meals…well, most of the time anyway.

They cook from a place of love, they derive pleasure from preparing meals that not just nourish, but also bring family and friends together.

Let’s thank that dedicated meal preparer in your life with two largely unknown books about home cooking.

Home Cooking                               More Home Cooking

by Laurie Colwin

You may have never heard of Laurie Colwin, she never gained the notoriety of more famous food icons such as Julia Child or Ina Garten.  Best know as a novelist, Ms. Colwin’s two volumes of food essays continue to sell largely due to word-of-mouth recommendations from food enthusiasts who cherish these two volumes.  Many of these essays first appeared in the now out-of-business (sob!) Gourmet magazine.  Sadly, Ms. Colwin died of heart failure in 1992 at the age of 48.

We enter Ms. Colwin’s world warily at first — after all, her minuscule New York apartment reveals that her stove is used for storage and dish washing must be done in the bathtub.  But, soon her chatty, open and often humorous essays have you feeling right at home, perched on her counter, sipping a glass of beer, warmly embraced by her radiant joy of food.

Ruth Reichl, the writer, former Gourmet magazine (sob!) editor and New York Times restaurant critic, said it best: “You want to be in the kitchen with her — that is her secret. She is the best friend we all want. She never talks down to you.”

She talks of simple, homey food such as black beans, lentil soup, potato salad and this — “There is nothing like roast chicken. It is helpful and agreeable, the perfect dish no matter what the circumstances. Elegant or homey, a dish for a dinner party or a family supper, it will not let you down.”

She goes on to describe one of her most memorable meals– “beef stew and buttered noodles, runny cheese, and plain green salad with wonderful dressing.”  (Hungry yet?)

There is no pretension here, she won’t pretend that the boring bits of cooking are a higher calling; “It is wise to have someone you adore talking to you in the kitchen while you make these eggs,” she writes, “or to be listening to something very compelling on the radio.”

Of course, there are recipes, my two volumes are studded with markers and pencil checks…but there is also honesty and failure.  Ms. Colwin never shies away from recounting her very funny cooking disasters.  There is one dinner, prepared with friends under the influence, which was so inedible that her guests mutinied and they all went out to dinner.

To Ms. Colwin, the point of cooking is eating–eating with family and friends, definitely, but she also admits to eating straight from the cooking pot, ravenous and gloriously alone.

This quote below best captures the tone of the essays in Home Cooking and More Home Cooking.   “I was taught in my Introduction to Anthropology [a college course], it is not just the Great Works of mankind that make a culture. It is the daily things, like what people eat and how they serve it.”

This Christmas, please honor your every day cook — come to the table with your hunger, lots of compliments, a bottle of wine and these two volumes.

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I am hoping Santa will bring me this newest culinary treasure from another down-to-earth cook, Ruth Reichl.

 

 

 

Now, if you’ll excuse me, this every day cook has gotta go make dinner.