Non-Fiction - Results from #400

The Memory Palace
Mira Bartok, 2011
Simon & Schuster
305 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781439183311

Summary
"People have abandoned their loved ones for much less than you’ve been through," Mira Bartok is told at her mother’s memorial service. It is a poignant observation about the relationship between Mira, her sister, and their mentally ill mother. Before she was struck with schizophrenia at the age of nineteen, beautiful piano protege Norma Herr had been the most vibrant personality in the room. She loved her daughters and did her best to raise them well, but as her mental state deteriorated, Norma spoke less about Chopin and more about Nazis and her fear that her daughters would be kidnapped, murdered, or raped.

When the girls left for college, the harassment escalated—Norma called them obsessively, appeared at their apartments or jobs, threatened to kill herself if they did not return home. After a traumatic encounter, Mira and her sister were left with no choice but to change their names and sever all contact with Norma in order to stay safe. But while Mira pursued her career as an artist—exploring the ancient romance of Florence, the eerie mysticism of northern Norway, and the raw desert of Israel—the haunting memories of her mother were never far away.

Then one day, Mira’s life changed forever after a debilitating car accident. As she struggled to recover from a traumatic brain injury, she was confronted with a need to recontextualize her life—she had to relearn how to paint, read, and interact with the outside world. In her search for a way back to her lost self, Mira reached out to the homeless shelter where she believed her mother was living and discovered that Norma was dying.

Mira and her sister traveled to Cleveland, where they shared an extraordinary reconciliation with their mother that none of them had thought possible. At the hospital, Mira discovered a set of keys that opened a storage unit Norma had been keeping for seventeen years. Filled with family photos, childhood toys, and ephemera from Norma’s life, the storage unit brought back a flood of previous memories that Mira had thought were lost to her forever.

The Memory Palace is a breathtaking literary memoir about the complex meaning of love, truth, and the capacity for forgiveness among family. Through stunning prose and original art created by the author in tandem with the text, The Memory Palace explores the connections between mother and daughter that cannot be broken no matter how much exists—or is lost—between them. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
Mira Bartok is a Chicago-born artist and writer and the author of twenty-eight books for children. Her writing has appeared in several literary journals and anthologies and has been noted in The Best American Essays series. She lives in Western Massachusetts where she runs Mira’s List, a blog that helps artists find funding and residencies all over the world. The Memory Palace is Mira’s first book for adults. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
Like the cabinet of wonders that is a frequent motif here, Bartok's memory palace contains some rare, distinctive and genuinely imaginative treasures.
Melanie Thernstrom - New York Times

The Memory Palace is not so much a palace of memories as a complex web of bewitching verbal and visual images, memories, dreams, true stories and rambling excerpts from the author's mentally ill mother's notebooks. It is an extraordinary mix.
Washington Post

Bartok juggles a handful of profound themes: how to undertake a creative life ...how we remember...how one says goodbye to a loved one in a manner that might redeem in some small way a life and a relationship blighted by psychosis; and, most vividly and harrowingly, how our society and institutions throw mental illness back in the hands of family members, who are frequently helpless to deal with the magnitude of the terrifying problems it generates. On all counts, it’s an engrossing read.
Elle

This moving, compassionately candid memoir by artist and children’s book author Bartok describes a life dominated by her gifted but schizophrenic mother. Bartók and her sister, Rachel, both of whom grew up in Cleveland, are abandoned by their novelist father and go to live with their mother at their maternal grandparents’ home. By 1990, a confrontation in which her mother cuts her with broken glass leads Bartok (née Myra Herr) to change her identity and flee the woman she calls “the cry of madness in the dark.” Eventually, the estrangement leaves her mother homeless, wandering with her belongings in a knapsack, writing letters to her daughter’s post office box. Reunited 17 years later, Bartok is suffering memory loss from an accident; her mother is 80 years old and dying from stomach cancer. Only through memories do they each find solace for their collective journey. Using a mnemonic technique from the Renaissance—a memory palace—Bartok imagines, chapter by chapter, a mansion whose rooms secure the treasured moments of her reconstructed past. With a key found stashed in her mother’s knapsack, she unlocks a rental storage room filled with paintings, diaries, and photos. Bartok turns these strangely parallel narratives and overlapping wonders into a haunting, almost patchwork, narrative that lyrically chronicles a complex mother-daughter relationship.
Publishers Weekly

Beginning at the end, we're given a summary: the author's 80-year-old homeless paranoid schizophrenic mother has just flown off a window sill. She survives but then ends up on her deathbed with cancer. This ends 17 years of estrangement during which Bartok went to great lengths to conceal her own identity and whereabouts from her mother. Chilling in its horrible intimacies, this is an amazing rendering of an artist's life surrounded by, and surviving, mental illness. Bartok also reveals her own brain trauma from a car accident. What I'm Telling My Friends: All you'd need is to see my copy to know—I have Post-It notes marking phrases and sentences I wanted to repeat because they were so good. About one-third of the way through, I thought that if this book were a person, I'd consider making out with it. —Julie Kane, "Memoir Short Takes," Booksmack!
Library Journal

(Starred review.) Bartok’s mother, Norma Herr, was a pianist who suffered from schizophrenia and was homeless for much of her life.... Poignant, powerful, disturbing, and exceedingly well-written, this is an unforgettable memoir of loss and recovery, love and forgiveness. —June Sawyers
Booklist

A disturbing, mesmerizing personal narrative about growing up with a brilliant but schizophrenic mother.The book is comprised of two intertwining narratives. One concerns artist Bartok's mother, Norma Herr, and her struggle with mental illness. The other examines the author's midlife struggle with a traumatic brain injury. Norma was a gifted pianist whose musical career came to an unexpected end when she was diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 19. In the lucid intervals between the debilitating episodes of her illness, Norma—who married an equally gifted alcoholic—fostered a love of art in her two daughters. In so doing, she gave both girls the tools to survive her illness and their father's abandonment. Throughout their childhood and adolescence, Bartok and her sister used art as a coping mechanism for dealing with their mother's illness. As Norma's condition worsened, escape from domestic turbulence became more difficult. In an act of radical self-preservation, the sisters changed their names and severed nearly all ties with Norma; letters sent via PO Box became the only way they communicated with her. As a young adult, Bartok forged a life as a peripatetic artist haunted by the fear that her mother would find her. At age 40, she was involved in a car accident that left her with a speech and memory-impairing brain injury. From that moment on, her greatest challenge became recollection, which manifested textually as a slightly exaggerated concern with descriptive detail. She and her sister then discovered that their now-homeless mother was dying of cancer, and both decided to see her, 17 years after their decision to disappear from Norma's life. By chance, Bartok found a storage unit filled with her mother's letters, journals and personal effects—a veritable palace of memories. The artifacts she uncovered helped her to better understand her mother, and herself, and find the beginnings of a physical and emotional healing that had eluded her for years. Richly textured, compassionate and heartbreaking.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. The prologue describes a homeless woman standing on a window ledge, thinking about jumping. The author writes, "Let's call her my mother for now, or yours" (p. xiii) How does imagining a loved one of your own in that position change the way you think about the book? Does it help you connect or make the situation more personal?

2. Early in the book, Mira sees her mother for the first time in seventeen years. What is your impression of this hospital visit? What impact does it have on Mira?

3. While their mother is dying at the hospital, Mira and her sister Natalia go through their mom's storage facility. How did it make you feel to be with the two sisters as they rummaged through the collection? What discovered or rediscovered items touched you most and why.

4. On page 29, Mira says, "Memory, if it is anything at all, is unreliable." How does Mira's own unreliable memory—a lingering effect of her auto accident—underscore the schizophrenic mind of her mother? Do you think it helps her relate to her mother? Why or why not?

5. Mira turns to art as a way to express herself. On page 53, when she visits a Russian Orthodox Church with her grandfather, she sees the "Beautiful Gate" of painted icons and wonders: "Can a painting save a person's life?" Describe ways in which art is therapeutic in this book.

6. As an illustration of how memory can be unreliable, Mira explains that she vividly remembers seeing the Cuyahoga River burning in Cleveland in 1969, and then admits that she's almost certain she wasn't really there, even though the memory of the event is so clear. Can you think of things that are imprinted in your own memory (perhaps from hearing family stories or seeing images onscreen) even though you were not there? Do you think anyone's memory can be an accurate record of truth? Why or why not?

7. In Italy, Mira takes a job making reproductions of old paintings for tourists. She later learns that they are being sold as authentic antiquities. How does Mira react to this news? What deeper feeling does it evoke in Mira about her life in general? How does this discovery fit into the book's questions about authenticity?

8. After visiting their father's grave in the New Orleans area, Mira and Natalia decide to visit a state park. Their heads and hearts filled with emotion, they get lost along the way. But after they find the park and enjoy some peaceful time in nature, the road away from the park seems clear and simple. Describe the role that nature and meditation play in Mira's life and in this book.

9. On page 238, when Mira's husband William is in a fit of depression, Mira feels like "It's January in 1990 all over again." Compare and contrast Mira's characterization of her husband and her mother. How do her experiences with her mother impact the way she responds to William's depression?

10. At her mother's memorial service, on page 295, the director of MHS (Mental Health Services, Inc.) says to Mira, "I know of children who have abandoned their parents for much less than you two have gone through," but Mira wonders if she and her sister truly did enough. How does this book make you think about the obligations that children have to their parents? Are there limits to what family members owe each other?

11. Mira seems to regard the homeless people she sees on the streets a little differently—as though any one of them could be a mother or father. She wants people to understand the "thin line, the one between their worlds and ours" (p. 297). Has this book helped you see the homeless in a different light? Why or why not? How has it impacted the way you think about mental illness?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

top of page

Men We Reaped: A Memoir
Jesmyn Ward, 2013
Bloomabury USA
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781608197651

Summary

We saw the lightning and that was the guns; and then we heard the thunder and that was the big guns; and then we heard the rain falling and that was the blood falling; and when we came to get in the crops, it was dead men that we reaped. —Harriet Tubman

In five years, Jesmyn Ward lost five young men in her life—to drugs, accidents, suicide, and the bad luck that can follow people who live in poverty, particularly black men. Dealing with these losses, one after another, made Jesmyn ask the question: Why? And as she began to write about the experience of living through all the dying, she realized the truth—and it took her breath away.

Her brother and her friends all died because of who they were and where they were from, because they lived with a history of racism and economic struggle that fostered drug addiction and the dissolution of family and relationships. Jesmyn says the answer was so obvious she felt stupid for not seeing it. But it nagged at her until she knew she had to write about her community, to write their stories and her own.

Jesmyn grew up in poverty in rural Mississippi. She writes powerfully about the pressures this brings, on the men who can do no right and the women who stand in for family in a society where the men are often absent. She bravely tells her story, revisiting the agonizing losses of her only brother and her friends.

As the sole member of her family to leave home and pursue higher education, she writes about this parallel American universe with the objectivity distance provides and the intimacy of utter familiarity. A brutal world rendered beautifully, Jesmyn Ward’s memoir will sit comfortably alongside Edwidge Danticat’s Brother, I'm Dying, Tobias Wolff's This Boy’s Life, and Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1977
• Where—DeLisle, Mississippi, USA
• Education—B.A., Stanford University; M.F.A., University of Michigan
• Awards—2 National Book Awards (others below)
• Currently—lives in Mississippi; commutes to Mobile, Alabama

Jesmyn Ward is an American novelist and two-time National Book Award winner for fiction. Salvage the Bones won in 2011 (it also won a 2012 Alex Award), and Sing, the Unburied, Sing, won in 2017. Her other two books include her first novel, Where the Line Bleeds (2008) and a memoir, The Men We Reaped (2013), about the deaths of her brother and other young male friends.

Early years
Jesmyn Ward grew up in DeLisle, a small rural community in Mississippi. She developed a love-hate relationship with her hometown after having been bullied at public school by black classmates and, subsequently, by white students while attending a private school paid for by her mother’s employer.

Ward received her undergraduate degree from Stanford University, choosing to become a writer upon graduation in order to honor the memory of her younger brother killed by a drunk driver earlier that year. Ward went on to earn an M.F.A. from the University of Michigan in 2005. At U of M she won five Hopwood Awards for essays, drama, and fiction.

Shortly afterwards, she and her family became victims of the 2005 Hurricane Katrina. With their house in De Lisle flooding rapidly, the Ward family set out in their car to get to a local church, but ended up stranded in a field full of tractors. When the white owners of the land eventually checked on their possessions, they refused to invite the Wards into their home, claiming they were overcrowded. Tired and traumatized, the refugees were eventually given shelter by another white family down the road.

Ward went on to work at the University of New Orleans, where her daily commute took her through neighborhoods ravaged by the hurricane. Empathizing with the struggle of the survivors and coming to terms with her own experience during the storm, Ward was unable to write creatively for three years—the time it took her to find a publisher for her first novel, Where the Line Bleeds.

In 2008 she returned to Stanford as a Stegner Fellow—one of the most prestigious awards available to emerging American writers.

Literary career
Earlier in 2008, just as Ward was deciding to give up writing and enroll in a nursing program, Where the Line Bleeds was accepted by Doug Seibold at Agate Publishing. Starting on the day twin protagonists Joshua and Christophe DeLisle graduate from high school, Where the Line Bleeds follows the brothers as their choices pull them in opposite directions. Unwilling to leave the small rural town on the Gulf Coast where they were raised by their loving grandmother, the twins struggle to find work, with Joshua eventually becoming a dock hand and Christophe joining his drug-dealing cousin.

In a starred review, Publishers Weekly called Ward "a fresh new voice in American literature" who "unflinchingly describes a world full of despair but not devoid of hope." The novel was picked as a Book Club Selection by Essence and received a Black Caucus of the American Library Association (BCALA) Honor Award in 2009. It was shortlisted for the Virginia Commonwealth University Cabell First Novelist Award and the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award.

Her second novel Salvage the Bones (2011) homes in once more on the visceral bond between poor black siblings growing up on the Gulf Coast. Chronicling the lives of pregnant teenager Esch Batiste, her three brothers, and their father during the 10 days leading up to Hurricane Katrina, the day of the cyclone, and the day after, Ward uses a vibrant language steeped in metaphors to illuminate the fundamental aspects of love, friendship, passion, and tenderness.

Explaining her main character's fascination with the Greek mythological figure of Medea, Ward told Elizabeth Hoover of the Paris Review

It infuriates me that the work of white American writers can be universal and lay claim to classic texts, while black and female authors are ghetto-ized as "other." I wanted to align Esch with that classic text, with the universal figure of Medea, the antihero, to claim that tradition as part of my Western literary heritage. The stories I write are particular to my community and my people, which means the details are particular to our circumstances, but the larger story of the survivor, the savage, is essentially a universal, human one.

In 2011, Ward won the National Book Award in the Fiction category for Salvage the Bones. Interviewed by CNN’s Ed Lavandera, she said that both her nomination and her victory had come as a surprise, given that the novel had been largely ignored by mainstream reviewers. In a television interview with Anna Bressanin of BBC News on (December 22, 2011), Ward said...

When I hear people talking about the fact that they think we live in a post-racial America, … it blows my mind, because I don’t know that place. I’ve never lived there. … If one day, … they’re able to pick up my work and read it and see … the characters in my books as human beings and feel for them, then I think that that is a political act.

Jesmyn Ward received an Alex Award for Salvage the Bones in 2012. The Alex Awards are given out each year by the Young Adult Library Services Association to ten books written for adults that resonate strongly with young people aged 12 through 18. Commenting on the winning books in School Library Journal, former Alex Award committee chair, Angela Carstensen described Salvage the Bones as a novel with "a small but intense following—each reader has passed the book to a friend."

In 2013, Ward published her memoir Men We Reaped. She announced on her blog two years earlier that she had finished the book's first draft, calling it the hardest thing she had ever written. The memoir explores the lives of her brother and four other young black men who lost their lives in her hometown. (Adapted from the publisher and Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/28/2013.)

Book Reviews
[Ward] chronicles our American story in language that is raw, beautiful and dangerous… [Her] singular voice and her full embrace of her anger and sorrow set this work apart from those that have trodden similar ground… With loving and vivid recollection, she returns flesh to the bones of statistics and slows her ghosts to live again… [It’s a] complicated and courageous testimony.
Tayari Jones - New York Times Book Review

[H]eart-wrenching.… A brilliant book about beauty and death… at once a coming-of-age story and a kind of mourning song… filled [with] intimate and familial moments, each described with the passion and precision of the polished novelist Ward has become… Ward is one of those rare writers who’s traveled across America’s deepening class rift with her sense of truth intact. What she gives back to her community is the hurtful honesty of the best literary art.
Hector Tobar - Los Angeles Times

A memoir about loss in rural Mississippi that burns with brilliance.
Harper’s Bazaar

A memoir that, in plainsong prose punctuated with sudden poetic flashes, schools us in the unforgiving experiences from which [Ward] has drawn her triumphal fiction… It paints in unshowy colors her impoverished coming-of-age in the narrow strip of lowlands where Mississippi touches the Gulf of Mexico.… [Ward is an] eloquent envoy from a forgotten part of America… [Men We Reaped is an] unvarnished and penetrating view into the infernal machinery of race hatred, pervasive mistrust, self-loathing, drugs, guns, and life’s bloody accidents.
Ben Dickinson - Elle

Devastating… Ward is a vivid, urgent writer, and here she is bearing witness to poverty and racism, the inequality that plagues her community and so many others like it.… Her story shines a light on this darkness, reminding us we will never be able to lift it if we do not at least look.
Oprah.com

A lovely book about stuff so painful that Ward must have written it in a kind of fever… The final chapters are so moving you have to avert your eyes, both for the trauma and the tenderness.
Entertainment Weekly

[A] riveting memoir.… Ward has a soft touch, making these stories heartbreakingly real through vivid portrayal and dialogue.
Publishers Weekly

As [Ward] reflects on her losses, telling the stories of her community, she gives us an intimate understanding of deep-rooted social issues.
Library Journal

Ward…lovingly profiles each of those she lost, including a brother, a cousin, and close friends, and their tragic ends as she weaves her family history…. This is beautifully written homage, with a pathos and understanding that come from being a part of the culture described.
Booklist

An assured yet scarifying memoir by young, supremely gifted novelist Ward.… [I]t's a wonder that anyone should have escaped the swamp to make their way [the]world beyond it.… [B]eautifully written, if sometimes too sad to bear.
Kirkus Reviews

top of page (summary)

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir of Going Home
Rhoda Janzen, 2011
St. Martin's Press
241 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780805092257

Summary
Not long after Rhoda Janzen turned forty, her world turned upside down. It was bad enough that her husband of fifteen years left her for Bob, a guy he met on Gay.com, but that same week a car accident left her injured. Needing a place to rest and pick up the pieces of her life, Rhoda packed her bags, crossed the country, and returned to her quirky Mennonite family's home, where she was welcomed back with open arms and offbeat advice. (Rhoda's good-natured mother suggested she get over her heartbreak by dating her first cousin—he owned a tractor, see.)

Written with wry humor and huge personality—and tackling faith, love, family, and aging—Mennonite in a Little Black Dress is an immensely moving memoir of healing, certain to touch anyone who has ever had to look homeward in order to move ahead. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1963
• Where—North Dakota, USA
• Education—Ph. D, University of California, Los Angeles
• Currently—lives in Michigan

Rhoda Janzen is an American poet, academic and memoirist, best known for her three memoirs: Mennonite in a Little Black Dress (2011), Does This Church Make Me Look Fat? (2012), and Mennonite Meets Mr. Right (2013).

Janzen grew up in a Mennonite household in North Dakota. She earned a Ph.D. from UCLA, where she was the University of California Poet Laureate in 1994 and 1997.

In 2006, Janzen’s husband of 15 years left her for a man, and she suffered serious injuries in car accident a few days later. While on sabbatical from her teaching position, she went home to her Mennonite family in Fresno, California, to heal from these crises. These experiences are recounted in her memoir Mennonite in a Little Black Dress.

Her second memoir, Does This Church Make Me Look Fat?, tells the story of her experiences surviving breast cancer, becoming a stepmom, and attending her new husband’s Pentecostal church. Mennonite Meets Mr. Right recounts Janzen's courtship with her eventual husband.

In addition to her memoir, Janzen is the author of Babel’s Stair, a collection of poetry. Her poems have also appeared in Poetry, The Yale Review, The Gettysburg Review, and The Southern Review. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 11/01/2013.)

Book Reviews
Mennonite in a Little Black Dress is snort-up-your-coffee funny, breezy yet profound, and poetic without trying. In fact, the whole book reads as if Janzen had dictated it to her best non-Menno friend, in her bathrobe, over cups of tea…Her tone reminds me of Garrison Keillor's deadpan, affectionate, slightly hyperbolic stories about urbanites and Minnesota Lutherans, and also of the many Jewish writers who've brought mournful humor to the topics of gefilte fish and their own mothers, as well as to the secular, often urban, often intellectual world they call home now. It's the narrative voice of the person who grew up in an ethnic religious community, escaped it, then looked back with clearsighted objectivity and appreciation.
Kate Christensen - New York Times Book Review

At first, the worst week of Janzen's life—she gets into a debilitating car wreck right after her husband leaves her for a guy he met on the Internet and saddles her with a mortgage she can't afford—seems to come out of nowhere, but the disaster's long buildup becomes clearer as she opens herself up. Her 15-year relationship with Nick had always been punctuated by manic outbursts and verbally abusive behavior, so recognizing her co-dependent role in their marriage becomes an important part of Janzen's recovery (even as she tweaks the 12 steps just a bit). The healing is further assisted by her decision to move back in with her Mennonite parents, prompting her to look at her childhood religion with fresh, twinkling eyes. (She provides an appendix for those unfamiliar with Mennonite culture, as well as a list of “shame-based foods” from hot potato salad to borscht.) Janzen is always ready to gently turn the humor back on herself, though, and women will immediately warm to the self-deprecating honesty with which she describes the efforts of friends and family to help her re-establish her emotional well-being.
Publishers Weekly

The author takes stock of the tribulations, tragedy and hilarity that has shaped her experiences thus far, reexamining religious roots, familial influences and personal choices. Janzen (English and Creating Writing/Hope Coll.; poems: Babel's Stair, 2006) excavates her past with the might of a backhoe and the finesse of an archaeologist's brush. Lines as jolting as "Nick had been drinking and offering to kill me and then himself," about her troubled ex-husband, are tempered by poignant moments of grace during her recovery from a debilitating accident: "Because I couldn't raise my right arm, students sprang up to take notes on the board." The author's relatives feature prominently throughout the narrative, her mother's quirky sensibilities bubbling over in merry nuggets of old-fashioned, home-spun wisdom. Punctuating overarching themes of blithe humor and Mennonite values are brief glimpses of raw despair, which Janzen eloquently, albeit briefly, explores. The recurring question of whether her abusive former spouse ever loved her is found in numerous contexts-solemn, analytical, even whimsical. After hesitantly re-entering the dating world, the author faced the revelation that she is woefully codependent by creating her own 12-step program, with directives such as "Step Two: Sit Down at the Computer with Wild Medusa Hair" and "Step Ten: Branch Out from Borscht." Within the humor, Janzen offers depictions of calamity and dark truths about regrettable relationships. Unfortunately, the closing primer on Mennonite history falls flat. A buoyant, somewhat mordant ramble through triumphs, upheavals and utter normalcy.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Rhoda's parents are deeply religious. What are some of the more notable ways their faith manifests itself? What qualities do they possess that you admire? Were you surprised by anything you learned about the Mennonite community?

2. The lover named Bob pops up with an almost incantatory persistence, like a refrain. Do you think it would be harder to be left for a man or a woman? Given that Rhoda returns to the lover's gender again and again, what do you think Rhoda would say?

3. Consider the marriages portrayed in this book. Rhoda and Nick remain together fifteen years; Mary and Si, more than forty-four years; Hannah and Phil, eleven years. Does the book make any tacit suggestions about what makes a good marriage? Do you know of any marriages that make you say, " want what they have"?

4. Consider Rhodas family gatherings on Christmas Eve and Christmas. Would you describe this as a functional or a dysfunctional family dynamic? Rhoda and her siblings are very different from one another — do they get along better than you would expect, or not?

5. Rhoda does not explicitly state that her parents opposed her marriage to an intellectual atheist, but we may infer that with their deeply held religious convictions, they grieved for Rhoda's future. Do you think that Rhoda's parents would have opened their home to Nick, if he had wished to become a part of the family? What should loving parents do when their child chooses unwisely?

6. Rhoda announces early on in the memoir that her husband left her for a man he met on Gay.com; however, as the book progresses, she slowly reveals that her marriage had been troubled for some time, and that she knew Nick was bisexual before they were married. Does this revelation change your perspective? Can we sympathize with a woman who knowingly entered into a marriage with a bisexual man? Do you think Rhoda's piecemeal revelations mimic the way in which Rhoda comes to terms with the end of her marriage? Why do you think the book is structured this way?

7. To what extent is this a memoir about growing up? Rhoda humorously relates her embarrassment at having to eat "shame-based foods" at school as a child — but admits that as an adult, she enjoys them. Similarly, she looks back fondly on other experiences that were likely not very pleasant at the time — setting off a yard bomb inside the van she was sleeping in on a camping trip, for one. Are there other examples you can think of? Do you think this kind of nostalgia — a willingness to appreciate and poke fun at bad memories — is something that's indicative of maturity, of adulthood? Or is it a dodge, a way to avoid facing unpleasant truths?

8. The Mennonites disapprove of dancing and drinking alcohol. Rhoda says that while growing up, radios, eight-track tapes, unsupervised television, Lite-Brites, and Barbies — among other things — were all forbidden. Does her family gain anything positive by limiting "wordly" influences? Did Rhoda and her siblings lose anything in being so sheltered? What "wordly" influences would you try to protect your children from today?

9. Some Mennonites disapprove of higher education. Do you think that a career in academia necessarily precludes one from faith? How does Rhoda reconcile the two?

10. Rhoda's mother is, as Rhoda puts it, "as buoyant as a lark on a summer's morn." Rhoda claims to be not as upbeat as her mother, but do you think that in some ways, she is? Given the seriousness of some of the issues explored in the memoir, did the humorous voice surprise you?

11. Rhoda freely discusses the problems in her marriage, and how poorly her husband sometimes treated her. Looking back on it, however, she thinks that she probably still would have married him regardless. She asks, "Is it ever really a waste of time to love someone, truly and deeply, with everything you have?" What do you think?

12. Does the memoir signal Rhoda's forgiveness of Nick? Or does the writing of it suggest that in some ways she is still hanging on to her hurt? Forgiveness isn't often explicitly taught. Some religious institutions fall short in this area, stressing that we should forgive rather than telling us how to forgive. How did you learn to forgive? How can we teach forgiveness to our children?

13. Rhoda and Hannah make a list of men they would refuse to date ‚Äî it includes, but is not limited to: men named Dwayne or Bruce; men who have the high strange laugh of a distant loon; men who bring index cards with prewritten conversation starters on a first date. What qualities might you assiduously avoid in a romantic partner?

14. Rhoda's mother tells her, "When you're young, faith is often a matter of rules...but as you get older, you realize that faith is really a matter of relationship — with God, with the people around you, with members of your community." Is Rhoda's own relationship with faith an example of this, in a way?

15. Toward the end of the book, Rhoda remarks that she "suddenly felt destiny as a mighty and perplexing force, an inexorable current that sweeps us off into new channels." Do you believe in destiny? Can you really ever escape your roots or change your beliefs?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

top of page (summary)

Mennonite Meets Mr. Right: A Memoir of Faith, Hope, and Love
Rhoda Janzen, 2013
Grand Central Publishing
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781455502875

Summary
At the end of her bestselling memoir Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, Rhoda Janzen had reconnected with her family roots, though her future felt uncertain. When this overeducated professor starts dating the most unlikely of men—a weight-liftin', church-goin', truck-drivin' rocker named Mitch—she begins a surprising journey to faith and love.

Nothing says, "Let's get to know each other!" like lady problems on an epic scale, but Mitch vows to stay by her side. Convinced that his bedrock character has something to do with his Pentecostal church, Rhoda suits up for a brave new world of sparkler pom-poms and hand-clappin' hallelujahs.

Written with her trademark "uproarious, bawdy sense of humor" (Minneapolis Star-Tribune), Mennonite Meets Mr. Right is witty and moving, perfect for anyone who has taken an unexpected detour only to find that new roads lead to rich destinations. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
Janzen is the kind of writer-world-weary yet incredulous; girlfriend-esque and conversational-that draws you along through a story with ease...[Does This Church Make Me Look Fat] would fit naturally on a shelf, say, next to your collection of beat-up Anne Lamott paperbacks. It has that same sort of accessibility to it; that same sort of acceptance.
Charity Vogel - Buffalo News

Smart and witty.... Janzen has a remarkable ability to demystify religion through humor and humanity.
Susanne Jaffe - Columbus Dispatch

Amazingly light-hearted... [Janzen] is not so much proselytizing for her particular religion as she is pointing toward the value of examining one's own beliefs, whatever they might be, and finding a way to live with them in joy.
Colette Bancroft - Tampa Bay Times

A delight for fans of [Janzen's] warm, wisecracking style.... Her enthusiasm and spirit and knack for finding humor in the God details make this book a crowd-pleaser.
Hannah Sampson - Miami Herald

(Starred review.) Following up on the success of her previous memoir (Mennonite in a Little Black Dress), Janzen tackles her next set of difficult and joyful experiences with humor and gratitude.... Janzen’s new love, a devoted Pentecostal, rekindles her lackluster feeling about religion and she delights in comparing her Mennonite faith to the brash style of Pentecostals.... This is a joyful trek through one woman’s spiritual journey into a new life as a wife, stepmother, and believer.
Publishers Weekly

A hilarious account of the small details that make a life.... Readers from all backgrounds will be inspired by Janzen's tale of love and faith told with her trademark wit and honesty.
Booklist

Discussion Questions
1. Much of this memoir turns on the contrast between faith and intellect. Do you believe that the two are fundamentally incompatible? Does Rhoda?

2. The story frames breast cancer as a "lady problem," but the narrative implies that there are other far more significant lady problems. What are they? Does Rhoda suggest any solutions for these lady problems?

3. When Rhoda and her brother played the geography game, she stumped him by choosing Chad, a country so large and obvious that her brother wouldn’t spot it. Have you ever had a blind spot the size of Chad in your life? What was it? What did it take for you to notice it?

4. Why does Rhoda use humor to downplay her struggle with cancer? At one point Rhoda suggests that since childhood she has struggled with avoidance. Is the cancer humor an example of avoidance? If so, what is Rhoda failing to confront? If not, what positive function might the humor have? Can humor enable growth? Can it free us from fear?

5. Rhoda grew up in a sober Mennonite community, and she is surprised to find that the Pentecostals really know how to shake it. What other differences did you notice between Mennonite and Pentecostal services? Have you ever visited places of worship different from your own? Did your visit broaden your understanding of your faith?

6. Rhoda says that gratitude has become so important to her that she is willing to do almost anything to get more of it. In your experience, what are the positive outcomes of gratitude? Gratitude is an action that Rhoda goes out of her way to practice. How does she achieve it? Can anyone achieve it, or do you have to be predisposed to it? Can you think of any dangers inherent in the deliberate cultivation of gratitude?

7. Rhoda speaks of learning to put down past resentments and grudges. How has she achieved that? Have you been able to set down your biggest grudge, your all-time worst hurt? Can it be done without calling on a Higher Power?

8. When it comes right down to it, chapter eight, "The Gottman Island Survival Experience," is an argument for abstinence. What are the pros and cons of abstinence in contemporary American culture? How would your life have been different if you had (or had not) embraced abstinence before making a commitment to your partner?

9. Rhoda and Mitch wonder if other couples have been similarly impacted by the sacramental power of the marriage covenant. What do you think? Is the institution of marriage ultimately any different from a monogamous romantic partnership?

10. Chapter ten, "The Poovey Voice," suggests that spiritual seekers must learn to give before they will receive. Do you believe that financial giving is important to spiritual growth? What about other kinds of giving? Think of the greatest, hardest gift you have ever given; did it result in your growth?

11. Mitch admits that Albert does not love him "overmuch." Do you know any parents who do not love their children "overmuch"? Rhoda and Mitch believe that Albert’s chronic negativity is harmful. How do they respond to it? What should adult children do when parents display unhealthy behavior? How can we have both boundaries and forgiveness?

12. Albert keeps all of his late wife’s things. Rhoda says she believes in "a clean sweep" after a breakup or the death of a loved one. In what ways is Rhoda making "a clean sweep" after her first marriage? How is Mitch making a sweep of his own?
(Questions from the author's website.)

top of page (summary)

Mess: One Man's Struggle to Clean Up His House and His Act
Bary Yourgrau, 2015
W.W. Norton
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780393352900

Summary
Hilarious and poignant, a glimpse into the mind of someone who is both a sufferer from and an investigator of clutter.

Millions of Americans struggle with severe clutter and hoarding. New York writer and bohemian Barry Yourgrau is one of them. Behind the door of his Queens apartment, Yourgrau’s life is, quite literally, chaos.

Confronted by his exasperated girlfriend, a globe-trotting food critic, he embarks on a heartfelt, wide-ranging, and too often uproarious project—part Larry David, part Janet Malcolm—to take control of his crammed, disorderly apartment and life, and to explore the wider world of collecting, clutter, and extreme hoarding.

Encounters with a professional declutterer, a Lacanian shrink, and Clutterers Anonymous—not to mention England’s most excessive hoarder—as well as explorations of the bewildering universe of new therapies and brain science, help Yourgrau navigate uncharted territory: clearing shelves, boxes, and bags; throwing out a nostalgic cracked pasta bowl; and sorting through a lifetime of messy relationships.

Mess is the story of one man’s efforts to learn to let go, to clean up his space (physical and emotional) and to save his relationship. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1948-49
• Where—South Africa
• Raised—U.S., Europe
• Education—N/A
• Currently—lives in New York, New York, USA; Istanbul, Turkey

Writer and performer Barry Yourgrau is the author of the 2015 memoir about clutter and hoarding, Mess: One Man's Struggle to Clean Up His House and His Act. His books of short fiction include Wearing Dad's Head and The Sadness of Sex in whose film version he starred.

He's appeared variously on MTV and NPR.

He's also written for NY Times, Paris Review Daily, Vice, Spin, The Independent (UK., Salon, Artforum, and elsewhere.

Born in South Africa, he moved to the US as a child. He lives in New York and Istanbul, and travels widely with his girlfriend, Anya von Bremzen, a food writer.

Book Reviews
A fascinating read by a hoarder about the psychology and culture of hoarding.
Melissa Clark, food writer - New York Times

In this hilarious memoir, Yourgrau regales readers with tales of his tendency to collect objects and keep them.... Eventually, as he explains with wit and honesty, he begins to deal with the clutter...as he makes space for himself and [the] girlfriend he shut out five years earlier.
Publishers Weekly

This isn't a how-to book.... Yourgrau shares histories of famous hoarders, psychological theories about clutter.... [The author] provides engaging company..., but the actual decluttering in the book might have taken less than a chapter.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
The following questions for Mess were generously submitted to LitLovers by Jennifer Johnson, Reference Librarian, at Springdale Public Library in Arkansas. Thank you, Jennifer!

1. What are the author’s goals for the book? Are these goals clearly defined or ambiguous?

2. Do you think the book has at least some level of therapeutic value? Who would this book most benefit?

3. Did you notice that slowly throughout the book the author reveals all of the emotional and physical triggers for his depression, mental illness, and hoarding? What are some of those triggers? Can we relate to his situation?

4. After reading it, do you think the author is guilty of oversharing? Are there some areas where he overshares information that is not related to the focus of the book?

5. Does the author, after going through and completing his "project," truly grasp his mental illness and emotional baggage? If he does not, does he have the right to write a memoir that timidly walks the line as a self-help book?

6. Consider the relationships depicted in the book—are they healthy relationships? Think about the relationship he had with his parents, "Cosima," and himself and the role of transitional objects. Do you believe he truly had no idea that there was a relationship between his emotional baggage, childhood, inability to have healthy relationships, and the stuff?

7. Considering transitional objects, do you think we are all guilty of some type of hoarding? Do we save items that have an emotional trigger?

8. What stereotype(s. does this book show that is reflective of our current society? How is hoarding viewed in society and culture?

9. Does society have expectations for hoarding? How do reality shows depict hoarding and other mental illness issues? Is there a level of voyeurism in the commercialization and authorship of hoarding?

10. What coping skills does the author exhibit? Have those skills benefitted him or hindered him?

(Questions by Jennifer Johnson for LitLovers. Please feel free to use, online or off, with attribution to both. Thanks.)

top of page (summary.

The Middle Place
Kelly Corrigan, 2008
Voice
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781401340933

Summary
For Kelly Corrigan, family is everything. At thirty-six, she had a marriage that worked, two funny, active kids, and a weekly newspaper column. But even as a thriving adult, Kelly still saw herself as the daughter of garrulous Irish-American charmer George Corrigan. She was living deep within what she calls the Middle Place—"that sliver of time when parenthood and childhood overlap"—comfortably wedged between her adult duties and her parents' care.

But Kelly is abruptly shoved into coming-of-age when she finds a lump in her breast—and gets the diagnosis no one wants to hear. When George, too, learns that he has late-stage cancer, it is Kelly's turn to take care of the man who had always taken care of her—and to show us a woman who finally takes the leap and grows up. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—August 16, 1967
• Where—Chicago, Illinois, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Richmond; M.F.A., San
Francisco University
• Currently—lives in the San Francisco Bay Area

Kelly Corrigan is a writer living in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, Edward Lichty, and their two daughters. She is a graduate of The University of Richmond and San Francisco State University (for a Masters in Literature).

Shortly after her own battle with breast cancer, she launched CircusOfCancer.org, a how-to web site for friends and family of women with the disease. The website includes a photo album of her own struggle against breast cancer and writings in such categories as “Finding a Lump” and “Losing My Hair.” Below is an excerpt from “Getting the Diagnosis”:

At 1pm, Emily Birenbaum called and said these exact words, "Kelly, I understand that you called in this morning. I have the biopsy report and Kelly, it's cancer." I called out: "Edward!" and he came to me and we crowded around the phone, politely asking the simplest of questions. "Is the test always correct?" "Does it say how much cancer there is?" "Could it be a false positive?" After a very short conversation where we learned the phrase 'invasive ductal carcinoma', we hung up. The girls were at our knees, needing to be fed and put down for a nap. There was so much to do, on so many fronts, that the only thing to do was to start doing.

Kelly is a newspaper columnist with columns appearing in print, online and notably in the January 2009 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine. Her first book, The Middle Place, is a memoir about her Irish-American father’s battle with cancer and her own triumph over the disease. Published in 2008, the memoir became a New York Times bestseller.

Kelly is also the author of an essay about "women's remarkable capacity to support each other, to laugh together, and to endure." Publisher Hyperion/Voice videotaped Kelly as she read her essay and posted it on Youtube. It has recieved millions of views. (From Wikipedia and GoodReads.)

Book Reviews
Come for the writing, stay for the drama. Or vice-versa. Either way, you won't regret it.
San Francisco Chronicle

If you're in a book club or just love to read, make sure this book ends up in your lap, where it will remain until you finish. Plan to laugh, cry, and be consumed by Kelly Corrigan.
Winston-Salem Chronicle

Newspaper columnist Corrigan was a happily married mother of two young daughters when she discovered a cancerous lump in her breast. She was still undergoing treatment when she learned that her beloved father, who'd already survived prostate cancer, now had bladder cancer. Corrigan's story could have been unbearably depressing had she not made it clear from the start that she came from sturdy stock. Growing up, she loved hearing her father boom out his morning "HELLO WORLD" dialogue with the universe, so his kids would feel like the world wasn't just a "safe place" but was "even rooting for you." As Corrigan reports on her cancer treatment—the chemo, the surgery, the radiation-she weaves in the story of how it felt growing up in a big, suburban Philadelphia family with her larger-than-life father and her steady-loving mother and brothers. She tells how she met her husband, how she gave birth to her daughters. All these stories lead up to where she is now, in that "middle place," being someone's child, but also having children of her own. Those learning to accept their own adulthood might find strength—and humor—in Corrigan's feisty memoir.
Publishers Weekly

This is Corrigan's heart-wrenching and humorous memoir of her struggle with breast cancer. The chapters alternate between detailed descriptions of her chemo and radiation treatments and her happy childhood growing up in a large, loving Irish family. The text is well written and poignantly read by Tavia Gilbert, whose narration brings out the personalities and feelings of the main characters: Corrigan's ebullient father, her worried mother, her loving husband, and her supportive brothers. Corrigan writes magazine articles (her most recent appears in the April 2008 issue of Glamour magazine) and a newspaper column. Highly recommended for self-help and health collections in public libraries.
Ilka Gordon - Library Journal

A cancer survivor's memoir with a welcome twist: a laughter-filled celebration of family. Newspaper columnist Corrigan was 36 when she discovered a lump in her left breast. Happily married and the mother of two young daughters, she was also still very much the adoring daughter of demonstrative, exuberant George Corrigan. Being upbeat and funny was de rigueur with her optimistic father, so the author's reaction to her breast-cancer diagnosis was to send an e-mail to about 100 people inviting them to a party one year hence to celebrate her recovery. But when George was diagnosed with bladder cancer and seemed too casual about his treatment, she became exasperated. Living in the Bay Area, she hounded his East Coast doctors by e-mail and took over the central role of information gatherer and advice dispenser. Only her own upcoming surgery kept her from heading to Philadelphia to take charge. At the same time that she was coping with her own cancer and trying to micromanage her father's, she was busy mothering two little girls too young to understand what was happening. Tender scenes with her daughters and some frustrating ones with her strong-willed mother give context to Corrigan's account of two battles against cancer. She also tosses into the mix funny, often self-deprecating tales of growing up in a boisterous Irish Catholic family, her adventures abroad in her 20s and her marriage to the comparatively subdued Edward. The author is, in her words, living in "the middle place-that sliver of time when childhood and parenthood overlap." Attachments to both the family she grew up in and the family she created remain strong, but as her husband reminds her, their daughters, not her parents, are the future. Warm, funny and a touch bittersweet.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. What is the effect of having the book structured as it is? Why do you think Kelly’s childhood is presented as flashbacks rather than chronologically? In what ways does her childhood affect her adult self?

2. What role does religion play in the Corrigan family? How do you think Kelly feels about her parents’ faith? About her own? What sorts of things does Kelly believe in?

3. How do you think Kelly feels about her mother? What does she seem to want from her and what does she actually get from her? What events cause her to see her mother differently over time?

4. How do Kelly’s parents help her to feel secure and protected as a child? How does that continue or fade in her adult life? Which of her parents does she emulate in her own role as a parent?

5. How does Kelly’s breast cancer diagnosis prepare her for her father’s cancer? Does her own experience help her to help her father, or does it hinder her ability to cope?

6. Given her attachment to her family, why do you think Kelly moves so far away from home at the age of twenty-five? Do you think families need to live physically close to one another to remain emotionally close? Why or why not?

7. Kelly plays the role of both patient and caretaker. How does being a patient change her? How does being a caretaker change her? Do you think having an illness matures Kelly? Does caring for her father?

8. Why do you think it is important for Kelly to travel in Australia and Nepal? What need does the act of traveling fill for her?

9. How does Kelly change when she becomes a parent? In what ways does she choose the family she’s created over the one that created her? Do you think is a common occurrence as we mature into adulthood? Discuss.

10. Do people need crisis—like the illness or death of a parent—to become full-fledged adults? Is it possible to outgrow childhood without losing a parent? In what ways do our parents keep us in the “child” role?

11. How does Kelly learn to be sick? How much help do you think she should have accepted from others, and how much should she explain and share with those trying to help? What are the benefits she finds from letting people be involved? How do Kelly’s attitudes about sickness differ from her father’s?

12. Kelly’s family is her safety net. She turns to them when she’s in trouble and they run to help. What are the safety nets in your life? What are the mainstays in your life that you can’t imagine living without?

14. What is “The Middle Place”? Why is this the title of this book? What does being in The Middle Place mean to Kelly? What does it mean to you?
(Questions from the author's website.)

top of page

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
John Berendt, 1994
Knopf Doubleday
386 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780679751526

Summary
Shots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the misty,early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. John Berendt's sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative reads like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and yet it is a work of nonfiction. Berendt skillfully interweaves a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case.

It is a spellbinding story peopled by a gallery of remarkable characters: the well-bred society ladies of the Married Woman's Card Club; the turbulent young redneck gigolo; the hapless recluse who owns a bottle of poison so powerful it could kill every man, woman, and child in Savannah; the aging and profane Southern belle who is the "soul of pampered self-absorption"; the uproariously funny black drag queen; the acerbic and arrogant antiques dealer; the sweet-talking, piano-playing con artist; young blacks dancing the minuet at the black debutante ball; and Minerva, the voodoo priestess who works her magic in the graveyard at midnight These and other Savannahians act as a Greek chorus, with Berendt revealing the alliances, hostilities, and intrigues that thrive in a town where everyone knows everyone else.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is a sublime and seductive reading experience. Brilliantly conceived and masterfully written, this enormously engaging portrait of a most beguiling Southern city is certain to become a modern classic. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—December 5, 1939
• Where—Syracuse, New York, USA
• Education—A.B., Harvard
• Awards—Southern Book Award for General Nonfiction, 1994;
Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction, 1995
• Currently—lives in New York, New York

"I like crazy people," John Berendt once told an interviewer for The Independent. "I encourage them, they make good copy."

They do indeed, if Berendt is writing about them. His first book, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, which Berendt has called "a nonfiction novel," could be classified as a true crime story, or a travelogue, but it's also an absorbing collection of crazy people, cranks, eccentrics and oddballs, whose lives Berendt chronicles with as much detail as he devotes to murder suspect Jim Williams, ostensibly his main character.

As readers and critics have noted, the true "main character" of Midnight in the Garden is the city of Savannah, Ga., which enjoyed a tremendous boost in tourism as a result of what Savannahians now refer to simply as "the book."

Berendt started visiting Savannah in the early 1980s, flying in from New York, where he worked as a writer at Esquire. "All I did the first year," he later said in the London Daily Telegraph, "was take notes and interview, because I knew, the longer I was there, the less strange the whole thing would seem."

For Berendt, who once edited New York magazine, Savannah may have seemed strange at first, but in a fascinating way. As he explained in an Entertainment Weekly interview, "People in Savannah don't say, 'Before leaving the room, Mrs. Jones put on her coat.' Instead, they say, 'Before leaving the room, Mrs. Jones put on the coat that her third husband gave her before he shot himself in the head.'"

After gathering facts, gossiping with the locals and getting to know the city, Berendt shaped his experiences into a work Kirkus Reviews called "stylish, brilliant, hilarious, and coolhearted." Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil spent a record-setting four years on the New York Times bestseller list and sold 2.7 million copies in hardcover.

Not everyone adored it, however. In a controversy that perhaps anticipated author James Frey's troubles in the publishing world, some journalists wondered whether Berendt's embellishments were too numerous and substantial for the book to hold up as nonfiction. The book included an author's note explaining that Berendt changed the sequence of some events in the narrative.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil became a fixture on bestseller lists and was made into a movie directed by Clint Eastwood. Some of the real people profiled in the book became minor celebrities in their own right—most notably Berendt's drag-queen friend Lady Chablis, who played herself in the movie and later published an autobiography.

Readers wondered what Berendt would do for an encore, but the author was relatively slow to oblige them. It wasn't until more than ten years after the publication of his first book that Berendt released The City of Falling Angels, a portrait of Venice as experienced not by tourists, but by its year-round residents, who turn out to be as eccentric and weirdly compelling as the Savannahians of Midnight in the Garden. ("The man whose palazzo features three space suits and a stuffed monkey is par for the course," noted Janet Maslin in the New York Times Book Review.)

Though some critics thought Berendt's second book lacked the narrative pull of his first, many agreed that, as Washington Post critic Jonathan Yardley put it, "The story of the Fenice fire and its aftermath is exceptionally interesting, the cast of characters is suitably various and flamboyant, and Berendt's prose, now as then, is precise, evocative and witty."

As Ann Godoff, Berendt's editor (first at Random House and now at Penguin Press), explained it, "By no means is this the same book. But nobody else could have written them both."

Extras
From a 2005 Barnes & Noble interview:

• I never use an alarm clock. I have an internal mechanism that wakes me up when I want to wake up. I'm not sure how I developed this ability, or what its significance is. Anyhow, I always fall asleep secure in the knowledge that I will wake up within ten minutes of the desired time. And I always do.

• When I'm writing, I like to gain distance from my work so I can tell how it will strike a reader who is seeing it for the first time. I do this through a trick I devised while I was living in Savannah writing Midnight—I would call my apartment in New York, the answering machine would pick up, I'd read the page of text I'd just written, then I'd hang up. A minute later, I'd call my apartment again and listen to the "message." Hearing my own voice reading the page over the phone—my voice having traveled 1800 miles (900 each way )—gave me just the detached perspective I needed.

• On occasion, while I was working on Falling Angels, I used the same technique, ridiculous though it may sound; in this case the calls were from Venice to New York rather than from Savannah. Gay Talese says he achieves a similar detachment by tacking pages to the opposite wall and then reading them through binoculars. Whatever works."

• I had an early start in the world of books. I was hired at the age of fourteen as a stock boy at the Economy Book Store in downtown Syracuse. It was my first job. I worked after school every day for four hours and made ten dollars a week."

• I stay fit by exercising daily on a treadmill or a stationary bicycle for close to an hour. I'd be bored out of my mind doing this if it weren't for the fact that I watch movies at the same time. That way, time flies. I call it my Treadmill and Bicycle Film Festival. I've found that if I'm watching a thriller, my pace ratchets up a notch."

• My number-one hobby, my preferred means of unwinding, and my most often-used route of escape are all the same: reading. Nothing takes me out of myself faster or more completely than a good read. It relieves stress, lifts me out of a funk, and makes me feel I'm doing something worthwhile.

• When asked what book most influenced his life as a writer, he answered:

I could cite any number of great classics that, when I first read them, introduced me to the excitement of books, but the book that meant the most to me is not at all well known and is now out of print.

It's Small World a novel published in 1951 by Simon & Schuster. The story concerns a family of four living in upstate New York. It's charming and beautifully written. Carol Deschere, the athor, happens to be my mother, and the family depicted in her novel closely resembles our own. The book sold about 2,000 copies and, although my mother never wrote another book, Small World was a life-changing experience for me, because in addition to making me enormously proud of her, it showed me for the first time how real life could be transformed into words and stories and published in a book for all to read. It also planted the first seed in my mind that I might become a writer one day. (From Barnes & Noble.)

Book Reviews
Mr. Berendt's writing is elegant and wickedly funny, and his eye for telling details is superb.... Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil might be the first true-crime book that makes the reader want to call a travel agent and book a bed and breakfast for an extended weekend at the scene of the crime.
Glenna Whitley - New York Times

After discovering in the early 1980s that a super-saver fare to Savannah, Ga., cost the same as an entree in a nouvelle Manhattan restaurant, Esquire columnist Berendt spent the next eight years flitting between Savannah and New York City. The result is this collection of smart, sympathetic observations about his colorful Southern neighbors, including a jazz-playing real estate shark; a sexually adventurous art student; the Lady Chablis (' "What was your name before that?" I asked. "Frank," she said.' "); the gossipy Married Woman's Card Club; and an assortment of aging Southern belles. The book is also about the wealthy international antiques dealer Jim Williams, who played an active role in the historic city's restoration—and would also be tried four times for the 1981 shooting death of 21-year-old Danny Handsford, his high-energy, self-destructive house helper. The Williams trials—he died in 1990 of a heart attack at age 59—are lively matches between dueling attorneys fought with shifting evidence, and they serve as both theme and anchor to Berendt's illuminating and captivating travelogue.
Publishers Weekly

It's difficult to categorize this book. On one level, it is a travelogue, recounting former New York magazine editor Berendt's eight years in Savannah, Georgia, that beautifully preserved hothouse of the South where eccentric characters like black drag queen Lady Chablis and charming con man Joe Odom blossom in rich profusion. It is also a true-crime tale, the saga of antiques dealer Jim Williams whose 1981 shooting of his sometime lover Danny Hansford in the historic Mercer House obsesses Savannah denizens; they watch as Williams endures four trials and is eventually acquitted, only to die of a heart attack a few months later, haunted (some say) by Hansford's vengeful ghost. Although non-fiction, Berendt's book reads like a novel (he admits he has taken 'certain storytelling liberties'), and this reviewer sometimes wondered where the truth ends and the fiction begins. Still, this entertaining book will appeal to many readers. —Wilda Williams
Library Journal

Perhaps one of the things that make this nonfiction work unique is that its plot centers on a murder, but Berendt takes his sweet time getting around to that fact, allowing the reader to be as surprised as he must have been watching the events unfold. Midnight is a solidly rewarding read. —Martha Schoolman
Booklist

Steamy Savannah—and the almost unbelievable assortment of colorful eccentrics that the city seems to nurture—are minutely and wittily observed here. In the early 1980's, Berendt (former editor of New York magazine) realized that for the price of a nouvelle cuisine meal, he could fly to just about any city in the U.S. that intrigued him. In the course of these travels, he fell under the spell of Savannah, and moved there for eight years. Central to his story here is his acquaintance with Jim Williams, a Gatsby-like, newly moneyed antiques dealer, and Williams's sometime lover Danny Hansford, a 'walking streak of sex'—a volatile, dangerous young hustler whose fatal shooting by Williams obsesses the city.

Other notable characters include Chablis, a show-stealing black drag queen; Joe Odom, cheerfully amoral impresario and restaurateur; Luther Driggers, inventor of the flea collar, who likes it to be known that he has a supply of poison so lethal that he could wipe out every person in the city if he chose to slip it into the water supply; and Minerva, a black occultist who works with roots and whom Williams hires to help deal with what the antiques dealer believes to be Hansford's vengeful ghost.

Showing a talent for penetrating any social barrier, Berendt gets himself invited to the tony Married Women's Card Club; the rigidly proper Black Debutantes' Ball (which Chablis crashes); the inner sanctum of power-lawyer Sonny Seiler; and one of Williams' fabled Christmas parties (the one for a mixed group; the author opts out of the following evening's 'bachelors-only' feast). The imprisonment and trial of Williams, and his surprising fate, form the narrative thread that stitches together this crazy-quilt of oddballs, poseurs, snobs, sorceresses, and outlaws. Stylish, brilliant, hilarious, and coolhearted.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. John Berendt describes Savannah as inward-turning, a "semitropical terrarium" (p. 28). What effect does this characteristic have on the life of the city and of its inhabitants? In what ways does Savannah differ from other cities or communities you know?

2. Eccentrics thrive in Berendt's Savannah. Does this mean that the people of Savannah are unusually tolerant? In what ways are they tolerant, and in what instances do they prove to be intolerant? How tolerant are they when it comes to the crossing of sexual, racial, or class lines?

3. Do you think that people would put up with Joe Odom and his countless misdemeanors in a city with a different character from Savannah? Might he end up in jail if he lived somewhere else?

4. How would you describe Jim Williams's character? Do you find him amusing? Sinister? How much sympathy do you have for him? Reading the book, did you hope for him to be acquitted? Why, or why not?

5. Some of Jim Williams' acquaintances think that the Nazi flag episode was insignificant; others do not. "Nazi symbols are not totally bereft of meaning, " says one man. "They still carry a very clear message, even if they're displayed under the guise of `historic relics'" (p. 178). Do you believe that Williams was being deliberately offensive when he displayed this flag? If so, why?

6. There was a tacit acceptance in Savannah of Jim Williams's homosexuality before the murder. How would you describe the shift in climate after the murder? Were people really surprised to hear about Williams's sexual practices? How did they adjust their attitudes?

7. After everything you have heard about Lee Adler, do you goalong with the general opinion people have of him in Savannah? Do you think that the reservations so many people hold about him spring from the fact that he is Jewish? Would his actions and behavior be more good-humoredly accepted if he did not happen to be Jewish?

8. Do you think that Danny's actions and violent scenes indicate that he was following a suicidal course? What were his real feelings towards Jim Williams? What was he trying to get out of him?

9. Is Chablis as frivolous a person as she likes to present herself as being? What does her argument with Burt at the nightclub tell you about her character?

10. Talking about the Oglethorpe Club types, Jim Williams says "When people like that see somebody like me, who's never joined their silly pecking order and who's taken great risks and succeeded, they loathe that person. I have felt it many times" (p. 237). Do you think that Williams is correct?

11. Black and white people's lives "are more intermingled here than in New York, " Berendt has said (USA Today). "I love the banter back and forth among whites and blacks. They don't mix socially that much, but there's a civility that's remarkable" (Washington Post). Do you find that relations between the races in the Savannah that Berendt describes are healthier, or less healthy, than in other parts of America? What might the high black crime rate indicate about the city?

12. What does the black debutante ball tell you about the black community—or at least that part of the black community—in Savannah? Why is Chablis so scornful of the ball and the people there? Do you sympathize with her feelings?

13. At the St. Patrick's Day parade, the narrator observes that the wagon following the Confederate marchers contained "a blue-clad Union soldier sprawled motionless on the floor of the wagon. It was a chilling tableau, the more so because it was meant to be surreptitious" (p. 257). What does this say about attitudes in Savannah? Does the scene indicate that the passions roused by the Civil War are still alive there? Why did the marchers keep the tableau surreptitious?

14. What do you think the narrator's attitude is toward the voodoo that is practiced on Williams's behalf? Does he imply that it is of any value? How would you describe Minerva? Is she the sort of person you would expect to be practicing voodoo?

15. After the trial, Minerva says "I saw it all: The boy fussed at him that night. Mr. Jim got angry and shot him. He lied to me, and he lied to the court" (p. 380). Do you concur with Minerva's scenario?

16. How would you describe Savannah's feelings to tradition and to the past? Are these feelings characteristic of the South in general? How do they differ from those in other parts of the country?

17. One reader from Georgia has said of Berendt, "I think he captured what it is to be Southern. He captured the not-talked-about way of life" (USA Today). If this is true, what would you say it is to be Southern? What does the South Berendt describes represent? Does it differ from stereotypes about the South?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

top of page (summary)

Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War
Tony Horwitz, 2011
Henry Holt & Co.
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780805091533

Summary
Plotted in secret, launched in the dark, John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was a pivotal moment in U.S. history. But few Americans know the true story of the men and women who launched a desperate strike at the slaveholding South.

Now, Midnight Rising portrays Brown's uprising in vivid color, revealing a country on the brink of explosive conflict.Brown, the descendant of New England Puritans, saw slavery as a sin against America's founding principles. Unlike most abolitionists, he was willing to take up arms, and in 1859 he prepared for battle at a hideout in Maryland, joined by his teenage daughter, three of his sons, and a guerrilla band that included former slaves and a dashing spy.

On October 17, the raiders seized Harpers Ferry, stunning the nation and prompting a counterattack led by Robert E. Lee. After Brown's capture, his defiant eloquence galvanized the North and appalled the South, which considered Brown a terrorist. The raid also helped elect Abraham Lincoln, who later began to fulfill Brown's dream with the Emancipation Proclamation, a measure he called "a John Brown raid, on a gigantic scale."

Tony Horwitz's riveting book travels antebellum America to deliver both a taut historical drama and a telling portrait of a nation divided—a time that still resonates in ours. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—June 9, 1958
• Where—Washington, DC, USA
• Education—B.A., Brown University; M.A.
Columbia University
• Awards—Pulitizer Prize (Reporting); James
Aronson Award
• Currently—lives in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts

Tony Horwitz is an American journalist and writer. His works include Blue Latitudes (also titled Into the Blue), One for the Road, Confederates In The Attic, Baghdad Without A Map, A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World, and Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War.

Horwitz was born Anthony Lander Horwitz in Washington, DC, the son of Norman Harold Horwitz and Elinor Lander Horwitz, a writer of young adult and adult books. Horwitz is an alumnus of Sidwell Friends School, in Washington, DC, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa as a history major from Brown University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

He won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, and 1994 James Aronson Award, for his stories about working conditions in low-wage America published in the Wall Street Journal, where he also worked as a foreign correspondent covering conflicts in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. He also worked as a staff writer for The New Yorker.

Horwitz married the Australian writer and fellow Pulitzer recipient Geraldine Brooks in France in 1984. After formerly dividing their time between homes in Waterford, Virginia and Sydney, Australia, they now live with their sons Nathaniel and Bizu in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. (From Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
Horwitz has given us a hard-driving narrative of one of America's most troubling historical figures: the fearsome John Brown, whose blood-soaked raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Va., in October 1859…helped to push the nation into the most devastating war it would ever endure.
Kevin Boyle - New York Times

Horwitz, an exceptionally skilled and accomplished journalist…here turns his hand to pure history with admirable results. Midnight Rising is smoothly written, thoroughly researched, places Brown within the context of his time and place, and treats him sensitively but scarcely adoringly…Without sentimentalizing him, Tony Horwitz has given [Brown] his due.
Jonathan Yardley - Washington Post

Horwitz’s skills are a good match for this enormously compelling character, and his well-paced narrative incorporates masterful sketches of Brown’s family, foot soldiers, financial backers, admirers and prosecutors.… The result is both page-turning and heartbreaking—a book to engage mind and soul.
Boston Globe

What do you call John Brown? Is he a terrorist or a freedom fighter?... Tony Horwitz settles upon the word insurgent—and the label seems just right, as does Horwitz’s book as a whole… Midnight Rising rolls through a series of indelible scenes… The book becomes a graceful narrative, ever engaging, with the reader allowed to connect Brown and his contemporaries to conflicts that continue to our day.
Seattle Times

Horwitz’s description of the little band of idealists and adventurers who signed on for Brown’s offensive—including five black men and two of Brown’s own sons—is both fascinating and touching. His careful recreation of the bloody events of October 16, 1859, the day of Brown’s disastrous raid on Harpers Ferry, is both suspenseful and heartwrenching.
Christian Science Monitor

In this engrossing history of John Brown’s 1859 slave-liberation raid on the Harper’s Ferry, Va., arsenal, bestselling author Horwitz (Confederates in the Attic) concentrates on action set against deftly sketched historical background and compelling characters rendered without overdone psychologizing. His vivid biographical portrait of Brown gives us an American original: a failed businessman and harsh Calvinist with a soft spot for the oppressed and a murderous animus against oppressors (even if sometimes, as at Pottawatomie Creek in Kansas, his victims were unarmed). Brown’s raiders—a motley crew of his sons and various idealists, adventurers, freedmen, and fugitive slaves—come alive as a romantic, appealing bunch; their agonizing deaths give Horwitz’s excellent narrative of the raid and shootout a deep pathos. The author’s shrewd interpretation of Brown (similar to that of other scholars) makes him America’s great propagandist of his deed; after the raid ended in fiasco, he used his eloquent trial statements to transform himself in the public eye from madman and desperado to martyr and prophet—and a symbol who hardened both Northern and Southern militancy. But Horwitz smartly gives priority to the deeds themselves in this dramatic saga of an American white man who acted, rather than just talked, as if ending slavery mattered. 35 illus.; 2 maps.
Publishers Weekly

Horwitz (Confederates in the Attic), Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and best-selling author, presents a gripping narrative of Brown and the raid on Harpers Ferry that in many ways set the stage for Southern secession and civil war. Horwitz brings all his gifts of character building and storytelling to Brown's rise and self-promotion as an instrument of a supposed God-ordained command to purge with blood the land of the sin of slavery.... Verdict: Horwitz's Brown did not die in vain. By recalling the drama that fired the imagination and fears of Brown's time, Midnight Rising calls readers to account for complacency about social injustices today. This is a book for our time. —Randall M. Miller, Saint Joseph's Univ., Philadelphia
Library Journal

Horwitz’s potent prose delivers the facts of this bellwether incident in riveting fashion… It is an absorbing portrait of the often frustrated but passionately driven firebrand who successfully convinced a country of the shame of slavery and, to the South’s great regret, earned martyr status in the aftermath of his execution. Brown qualifies as America’s first important post-revolution terrorist… Horwitz brings events to life with almost cinematic clarity, and for American history and Civil War aficionados, Midnight Rising is required reading.
Bookpage

A crisply written but not entirely original retelling of John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry. Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and historian Horwitz returns to the Civil War era...and John Brown's infamous raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry in what is now West Virginia. The author depicts a morally upright abolitionist deeply committed to his cause but also well known for his "fixedness," a rigid stubbornness that could be a source of strength but was equally a source of weakness....Though the author's archival sleuthing pays off with a rich narrative,...[it] lacks deep historical analysis. Lucid and compelling but hardly groundbreaking.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Midnight Rising:

1. Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison called John Brown's raid a "misguided, wild and apparently insane" act. How was the raid viewed, initially, by Northerners and Southerners? How and why did the views of the Northerners' change? How does author Tony Horwitz view the raid?

2. How should we look at John Brown, today—as hero, provocateur, or terrorist? How does Tony Horwitz present him? How do you see him? Was he insane as many historians have claimed? Or was he sane, as many other historians have claimed?

3. Talk about the way in which Brown's parents and Calvinist upbringing shaped his views as an adult.

4. How would you describe Brown's temperament as portrayed in Midnight Rising? How did it affect his role as provider and father? What role did his temperament play during the three phases of the Harpers Ferry raid—planning, conduct, and outcome?

5. William Lloyd Garrison (see Question 1), a pacifist, believed that moral suasion could turn the South away from slavery. What was Brown's belief? What do you think? Was war inevitable, a necessary evil? Or could it (should it) have been avoided?

6. Prior to Harpers Ferry, Brown envisioned conducting raids to free slaves, retreating to the mountains, then conducting more raids to free more slaves. What was his intended goal? Why didn't he carry out those earlier raids?

7. In 1856, after a particularly murderous raid at Pottawatomie Creek in Kansas, Brown rationalized his brutality by exclaiming, "God is my judge." He also said he and his sons "were justified under the circumstance." What do you think?

8. What mistakes were made before and during the Harpers Ferry raid that doomed its outcome? What do you think might have happened had Brown made it to the mountains instead of being captured?

9. After Brown was captured and hanged, Ralph Waldo Emerson called his death "as glorious as the Cross." Louisa May Alcott said that his "dying made death divine." Horwitz wonders whether Brown's intention all along was to die as a martyr. What do you think? If it had been his intention, were the 29 other deaths, during the raid or by hanging afterward, worth the price?

10. Horwitz is concerned that, "through the lens of 9/11," we might be tempted to view John Brown as a "long-bearded fundamentalist" and Harpers Ferry as an "al-Qaeda prequel." Is he right to worry? Can a link be made between the 19th-century actions of John Brown and 21st-century events?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

top of page (summary)

A Mighty Heart: The Inside Story of the Al Qaeda and Kidnapping of Danny Pearl
Mariane Pearl with Sarah Crichton, 2003
Simon & Schuster
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780743262378

Summary
For five weeks the world waited for news about Danny Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan.... And then came the broadcast of his shocking murder. The complete account of his abduction, the intense effort to rescue him, and the aftermath are told here—in astonishing detail, and with courage and insight—by his surviving wife, Mariane.

A Mighty Heart is the unforgettable story of two journalists who fell in love with their work—and with each other. Together, Mariane and Danny Pearl traveled across the globe, dedicated to journalism that increases the understanding of international politics and of ethnic and religious conflict. In the end, Danny was caught in the dangerous fissure where warring cultures, politics, and ideologies collide. A Mighty Heart is both a portrait of a partnership built on the ideals of love, truth, and justice and a critical look at the methods and structure of the Al Qaeda network. (From the publisher.)

The book was adapted into a 2007 film, starring Angelina Jolie./p>

Author Bio
• Birth—July 23, 1967
• Where—Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine, France

Mariane van Neyenhoff Pearl is a French freelance journalist and a reporter and columnist for Glamour magazine. She is the widow of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and murdered by terrorists in Pakistan in early 2002.

Pearl was born in Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine, France being of Dutch-Jewish, Afro-Latino-Cuban and Chinese Cuban ancestry and raised in Paris, Van Neyenhoff met Daniel Pearl while he was on assignment in Paris.

They married in August 1999, lived for a time in Mumbai, India where Daniel was the South Asia bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, and later traveled to Karachi, Pakistan to cover aspects of the war on terrorism. Their son Adam Daniel was born in Paris three months after his father died.

Pearl's memoir, A Mighty Heart, which deals with the events surrounding her husband's kidnapping and assassination, was adapted for the film A Mighty Heart. Co-produced by Brad Pitt, Andrew Eaton and Dede Gardner and directed by Michael Winterbottom, the film stars Angelina Jolie and Dan Futterman as Mariane and Daniel Pearl.

Mariane Pearl is a practicing Nichiren Buddhist and a member of Soka Gakkai International. (From Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
Deftly written with the help of Sarah Crichton, formerly an editor at Newsweek and publisher at Little, Brown, A Mighty Heart resists the obvious peril of falling into hackneyed sentimentality. Instead of playing the part of the helpless, hopeless weeping widow while "screaming inside," Mariane Pearl is both sharp-eyed and practical, and at some points even mordantly amusing.
Jane Mayer - Washington Post

Documentary film director and former French public radio and television journalist Pearl tenderly recounts the heartbreaking story behind the 2002 kidnapping and barbaric videotaped execution of her husband, Wall Street journalist Daniel Pearl, in this candid and inspirational audio recording. There's no mistaking the steel beneath Mariane's lilting French accent as she explains why she wrote this book—to defy her husband's killers-and how she distrusted Karachi, a decadent city where anti-American and anti-Semitic sentiments abound, from the start. Her telling of her husb—and's abduction and the frantic attempts to save him is dramatic and disturbing, but she tempers it with choice memories of her and Danny's first meeting, courtship, marriage and excitement over their impending baby. Details about the historical, social and political background of the Middle East help illuminate the area and its inhabitants, but ultimately, this is a loving, illuminating and movingly recounted tale of love and courage.
Publishers Weekly

Danny and Mariane Pearl felt that good reporting is essential to a person's understanding of the complicated relationship between regional politics and religions around the globe. They both knew and understood the risks in their line of work. Believing he was taking all the necessary precautions, Danny went to Karachi, Pakistan, as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal to investigate terrorist activity there. The Pearls believed in the ideals of truth, justice, and love; they thought they would be able to contribute to world peace and/or world understanding. When the news came of her husband's abduction, the author put her reporter's instincts and the network of connections she had accumulated during her time in South Asia to work in the hopes of finding and saving him. A global effort to locate him and his captors was also going on, but culture, politics, and language separated the American rescuers from the Islamic terrorists. Tragically, it was impossible to save Danny despite the many kind and brave people who helped Pearl in her search. For five weeks, the world watched and waited with her, then pregnant with the couple's first child. This is a complex and moving story, offering an intimate glimpse of a marriage built on idealism. Recommended for public libraries. —Pam Kingsbury, Univ. of North Alabama
Library Journal

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

top of page

The Milk of Female Kindness: An Anthology of Honest Motherhood
Kasia James et al, 2014
223 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780992389116

Summary
"Mother" is a word heavy with associations.

Becoming a mother is surely one of the biggest changes and challenges in a woman's life. It is at once an absolutely unique experience, and yet one which is so common that it is often overlooked. Motherhood is intense, relentless and absorbing, in all senses of the word.

Popular culture seems to have a split personality when it comes to motherhood - at once holding it up as a sacred ideal, and yet being a little dismissive of women as mothers.

A diverse international group of women have been brave enough to share their stories, poetry and artwork to encourage you to think and feel about this most influential of relationships in a new and enlightened way. (From the publisher.)

Learn more on Facebook.

Author Bio
This international collection of creative works, covers diverse topics including loss and changes to identity, mental health, disability, managing the work/life balance, birthing practices, adoption, schools of thought on parenting, and aging. There are valuable historical, feminist and medical perspectives.

The anthology features the work of award winning poets and writers from Australia, Canada, the UK, and the US—including Angelique Jamail, Marie Marshall, Christa Forster and Sandra Danby, and renowned professionals including Dr. Carla Pascoe, Professor Alison Bartlett, and Heather Sadiechild Harris.

Full list of contributing authors and artists (alphabetical order):
Professor Alison Bartlett, Maureen Bowden, Kitty Brody, Sarah Cass, Tara Chevrestt, Sandra Danby, Judith Dickerman-Nelson, Laura Evans, Judith Field, Christa Forster, Sabrina Garie, Heather Sadiechild Harris, Jennifer James, Kasia James, Angelique Jamail, Mary Jeavons, Judith Logan-Farias, Jessica Kennedy, Judy McKinty, Ceridwen Masiulanis, Marie Marshall, Betty Ming Liu, Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali, Tram Nguyen, Carla Pascoe, Cheri Roman, Valerie Walawender, Gemma Wright, Rhyannon Yates. (From the editor.)

Discussion Questions
1. Birth
Pregnancy and the birth of a baby change a woman’s world fundamentally. There is no going back. The experience itself is an integral part of the becoming a parent.

1a. Was your birth experience what you expected? Explain.

1b. What did your experience with pregnancy and birth tell you about the mother you are becoming?

1c. How has your infant surprised you? What personality traits is she or he already manifesting?

2. Life lessons on being a mother
Once you find your bearing, motherhood evolves into not only a physical redesign of your world, but a mental and psychological one, with assumptions, world views and expectations about life being continuously reshaped.

2a. How has having a child changed your life? Discuss it through all lenses—gain and loss.

2b. What family rituals have you established as part of the parenting role? Do rules and rituals matter and why?

2c. How does parenting differ between mother and father, and what impact does that have on family dynamics?

2d. How do you balance work, motherhood and other family/community obligations? What toll does that balance take on you?

3. Identity Challenges
Having children can fundamentally alter how we see ourselves and our place in the world and how others see us. It can layer on duties and responsibilities that have to be balanced with our own, often volatile egos and sense of self.

3a. How do you feel your identity has changed since having children?

3b. How has that identify altered as your children have grown?

3c. What do we owe to our children? Is there a limit?

4. External Pressures on Mothers
Women face a lot of external pressures—from books, media, family and friends, community groups, politicians—that is always telling them how to be a mother, and by definition how not be one. Those pressures often dig deep, undermining our confidence, and overwhelming us with conflicting information.

4a. How do you think society sees motherhood?

4b. To what degree do you agree with that perception?

4c. How have these external perceptions affected your own experience?

4d. How do you feel society has put limits on your parenting and how have you dealt (or not dealt with it).

4e. How do you keep negative pressures at bay?

4f. Which influences have been positive and useful?

5. Adapting and Accepting Change
Often, our child(ren) surprise us, challenge us, and defy the expectations we constructed when we contemplated childbirth. Sometimes, our experience with parenting looks nothing like we had been taught to expect.

5a. What do you find most difficult about being a mother, and how do you handle it?

5b. Is "normal" a realistic or even desirable goal for our children?

5c. How do the expectations and dreams for the children/family we expected to have impact the reality of our mothering? Discuss your experience juggling expectations and your child’s reality.

5d. What do you dream for your child(ren)? How much of those dreams stem from your own dreams for the world?

5e. Are your hopes for your children shaped by your own successes and failures in life?

5f. How has parenting changed you? In what ways has it not changed you enough?

6. Through the Generations
The experience of becoming a mother not only changes our relationship with our own parents but it has us seeing our own mothers through very different eyes.

6a. What did you learn about being a mother from your own mother? How did that learning occur?

6b. What has changed in the way you view and understand your own parents?

7. Pain
Not all families start in a traditional or even joyful way. But even with difficult beginnings, rich, loving families can still blossom.

7a. Has there been anything particularly difficult in your parenting experience? How did you cope? Was there sufficient support or did you have concoct your own?

7b. If you have a non-traditional family, how has that impacted your parenting style and your ability to be the parent you think you should be?

7c. How have the challenges changed as your children grow?

(Questions courtesy of Kasia James, ed./author.)

top of page (summary)

A Million Little Pieces
James Frey, 2003
Random House
448 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307276902

Disclaimer
In 2006, this book and its author became the subject of a highly publicized controversy—after Oprah had selected it as one of her books. It was revealed that parts of his "memoir" were fabricated.

Summary
A Million Little Pieces is James Frey's scorching account of his descent into the hell of addiction and the brutal journey to recovery. When he arrives at a famous clinic in Minnesota, he is nearly dead from a decade of drug and alcohol abuse so spectacular even doctors who have spent their entire careers treating addicts are amazed. He took everything he could find, and as much as possible: Cocaine, crack cocaine, crystal meth, PCP, glue, and alcohol in quantities so great he blacked out every day for years. His body is shot, and his mind is in an almost constant rage of self-hatred and destructiveness. He is wanted in three states for crimes ranging from DUI and resisting arrest to assaulting an officer, attempted incitement of a riot, and felony mayhem. He has, as they say, hit bottom. A few more drinks, the doctors tell him, will kill him.

His ordeal inside the clinic is hardly less harrowing. Balancing on the razor's edge between hope and despair, Frey describes the writhing delusions of withdrawal, the constant need of addictions screaming to be fed, and the blinding Fury that overtakes him and makes him want to run. That he completely rejects the clinic's Twelve Steps program makes his recovery seem even less likely. But he meets a fellow patient, Leonard, who will not give up on him, his brother gives him a copy of the Tao Te Ching, which speaks to him more profoundly than anything he reads in the AA literature, and he falls in love with Lilly, a beautiful and doomed crack addict. In them he finds reasons to try to heal himself. And he insists, in a gesture either heroic or just plain stubborn, that whatever the sources of his addictions might be, he will place the responsibility for his life and its disasters, the pain he's caused himself and others, squarely on his own shoulders. He will stay sober not by attending AA meetings in church basements, or praying to a god he can't believe in, but by deciding not to act on his addictions. A recipe for failure, his counselors tell him, but a risk he decides he has to take.

In writing that jumps off the page with all the rawness and immediacy of life, A Million Little Pieces is an unforgettable act of self-witnessing and a terrifying account of what the human spirit can destroy, endure, and overcome. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1969
• Where—Cleveland, Ohio, USA
• Currently—lives in New York, New York

In his words
I was born in Cleveland, Ohio. I spent most of my childhood in Ohio and Michigan, and I have also lived in Boston, Wrightsville Beach NC, Sao Paulo Brazil, London, Paris, Chicago, and Los Angeles. I graduated from high school in 1988 and received further education at Denison University and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1993, I was sent to the Hazelden Foundation for the treatment of cocaine addiction and alcoholism. I moved to Chicago in 1994, where I worked variety of jobs, including doorman, stockboy, and member of a janitorial crew. In 1996, I moved to Los Angeles where I worked as a screenwriter, director and producer. In 2000, I took second mortgage on my house, and spent a year writing A Million Little Pieces. It was published by Nan A. Talese/Doubleday in May of 2003 and became a New York Times Bestseller, a #1 National Bestseller, and an International Bestseller. It was also named The Best Book of 2003 by Amazon.com. In 2004, I wrote My Friend Leonard, which is a sequel to A Million Little Pieces. In June of 2005, Riverhead Books published My Friend Leonard, which also became a New York Times and International Bestseller. I live in New York with my wife, daughter, and two dogs. (From the author's website and publisher.)

Extras
From a Barnes and Noble interview:

• I've cut my own hair since I was 18, which is probably a bad thing.

• I once worked as Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny at a department store.

• I have about 15 tattoos.

• I love baseball, boxing, football, and playing with my daughter.

• I read for a couple hours a day. I surf. I love looking at art, spend tons of time in galleries.

• When asked what book influenced him the most, Frey said:

The Tao te Ching, by Lao Tzu, translated by Stephen Mitchell. Completely changed how I think and live my life. It's an ancient book of Chinese philosophy, the basis for most Eastern religion and thought. Teaches the principles of patience, simplicity, compassion, and acceptance. Helped me get through some hard times in my life, and still helps me. (Auther interview and bio from Barnes and Noble.)

Book Reviews
[I]t gives away nothing to say that he finds himself whole at the end of A Million Little Pieces. How that came to be would be a first-rate tale of suspense, if it weren't drawn so hideously from an actual life.
James Sullivan - San Francisco Chronicle

For as long as he can remember, Frey has had within him something that he calls "the Fury," a bottomless source of anger and rage that he has kept at bay since he was 10 by obliterating his consciousness with alcohol and drugs. When this memoir begins, the author is 23 and is wanted in three states. He has a raw hole in his cheek big enough to stick a finger through, he's missing four teeth, he's covered with spit blood and vomit, and without ID or any idea where the airplane he finds himself on is heading. It turns out his parents have sent him to a drug rehab center in Minnesota. From the start, Frey refuses to surrender his problem to a 12-step program or to victimize himself by calling his addictions a disease. He demands to be held fully accountable for the person he is and the person he may become. If Frey is a victim, he comes to realize, it's due to nothing but his own bad decisions. Wyman's reading of Frey's terse, raw prose is ideal. His unforgettable performance of Frey's anesthesia-free dental visit will be recalled by listeners with every future dentist appointment. His lump-in-the-throat contained intensity, wherein he neither sobs nor howls with rage but appears a breath away from both, gives listeners a palpable glimpse of the power of addiction and the struggle for recovery.
Publishers Weekly

Frey wakes up on an airplane with four broken teeth, a broken nose, a massive cut on his cheek, and unsure where he is or where he's going. Where he ends up is a residential treatment center based in Minnesota. This is the story of his experiences in that center as an addict and alcoholic. Listeners will meet the residents, including some who helped Frey continue his treatment and his work toward sobriety. The author's tale is brutal and honest, providing a realistic view of the life of an addict, something not for the faint of heart. It's full of profanity and graphic depictions of violence and drug use. In fact, Frey's description of the repair of his teeth without painkillers or anesthesia may keep people from ever going to the dentist again. That said, this presentation, read by Oliver Wyman, is an important addition for all library collections. Organizations that provide support for substance abusers, counseling centers, and prison libraries also should consider purchase. —Danna Bell
Library Journal

Frey’s lacerating, intimate debut chronicles his recovery from multiple addictions with adrenal rage and sprawling prose. After ten years of alcoholism and three years of crack addiction, the 23-year-old author awakens from a blackout aboard a Chicago-bound airplane, "covered with a colorful mixture of spit, snot, urine, vomit and blood." While intoxicated, he learns, he had fallen from a fire escape and damaged his teeth and face. His family persuades him to enter a Minnesota clinic, described as "the oldest Residential Drug and Alcohol Facility in the World." Frey’s enormous alcohol habit, combined with his use of "Cocaine...pills, acid, mushrooms, meth, PCP and glue," make this a very rough ride, with the DTs quickly setting in: "The bugs crawl onto my skin and they start biting me and I try to kill them." Frey captures with often discomforting acuity the daily grind and painful reacquaintance with human sensation that occur in long-term detox; for example, he must undergo reconstructive dental surgery without anesthetic, an ordeal rendered in excruciating detail. Very gradually, he confronts the "demons" that compelled him towards epic chemical abuse, although it takes him longer to recognize his own culpability in self-destructive acts. He effectively portrays the volatile yet loyal relationships of people in recovery as he forms bonds with a damaged young woman, an addicted mobster, and an alcoholic judge. Although he rejects the familiar 12-step program of AA, he finds strength in the principles of Taoism and (somewhat to his surprise) in the unflinching support of family, friends, and therapists, who help him avoid a relapse. Our acerbic narrator conveys urgency and youthfulspirit with an angry, clinical tone and some initially off-putting prose tics—irregular paragraph breaks, unpunctuated dialogue, scattered capitalization, few commas—that ultimately create striking accruals of verisimilitude and plausible human portraits. Startling, at times pretentious in its self-regard, but ultimately breathtaking: The Lost Weekend for the under-25 set.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. A Million Little Pieces presents some unusual formal innovations: Instead of using quotation marks, each piece of dialogue is set off on its own line with only occasional authorial indications of who is speaking; paragraphs are not indented; sentences sometimes run together without punctuation; and many passages read more like poetry than prose. How do these innovations affect the pace of the writing? How do they contribute to the book's rawness and immediacy? How is James Frey's unconventional style appropriate for this story?

2. A Million Little Pieces is a nonfiction memoir, but does it also read like a novel? How does Frey create suspense and sustain narrative tension throughout? What major questions are raised and left unresolved until the end of the book? Is this way of writing about addiction more powerful than an objective study might be?

3. Why does the Tao Te Ching speak to James so powerfully? Why does he connect with it whereas the Bible and Twelve Steps literature leave him cold? How is this little book of ancient Chinese wisdom relevant to the issues an addict must face?

4. James is frequently torn between wanting to look into his own eyes to see himself completely and being afraid of what he might find: "I want to look beneath the surface of the pale green and see what's inside of me, what's within me, what I'm hiding. I start to look up but I turn away. I try to force myself but I can't" [p. 32]. Why can't James look himself in the eye? Why is it important that he do so? What finally enables him to see himself?

5. When his brother Bob tells James he has to get better, James replies, "I don't know what happened or how I ever ended up like this, but I did, and I've got some huge fucking problems and I don't know if they're fixable. I don't know if I'm fixable" [p. 131]. Does the book ever fully reveal the causes of James's addictions? How and why do you think he ended up "like this"?

6. Why are James and Lilly so drawn to each other? In what way is their openness with each other significant for their recovery?

7. Joanne calls James the most stubborn person she has ever met. At what moments in the book does that stubbornness reveal itself most strongly? How does being stubborn help James? How does it hurt or hinder him?

8. The counselors at the clinic insist that the Twelve Steps program is the only way addicts can stay sober. What are James's reasons for rejecting it? Are they reasons that might be applicable to others or are they only relevant to James's own personality and circumstances? Is he right in thinking that a lifetime of "sitting in Church basements listening to People whine and bitch and complain" is nothing more than "the replacement of one addiction with another" [p. 223]?

9. What are the sources of James's rage and self-hatred? How do these feelings affect his addictions? How does James use physical pain as an outlet for his fury?

10. How is Frey able to make the life of an addict so viscerally and vividly real? Which passages in the book most powerfully evoke what it's like to be an addict? Why is it important, for the overall impact of the book, that Frey accurately convey these feelings?

11. When Miles asks James for something that might help him, James thinks it's funny that a Federal Judge is asking him for advice, to which Miles replies: "We are all the same in here. Judge or Criminal, Bourbon Drinker or Crackhead" [p. 271]. How does being a recovering addict in the clinic negate social and moral differences? In what emotional and practical ways are the friendships James develops, especially with Miles and Leonard, crucial to his recovery?

12. James refuses to see himself as a victim; or to blame his parents, his genes, his environment, or even the severe physical and emotional pain he suffered as a child from untreated ear infections for his addictions and destructive behavior. He blames only himself for what has happened in his life. What cultural currents does this position swim against? How does taking full responsibility for his actions help James? How might finding someone else to blame have held him back?

13. Bret Easton Ellis, in describing A Million Little Pieces, commented, "Beneath the brutality of James Frey's painful process, there are simple gestures of kindness that will reduce even the most jaded to tears." What are some of those moments of kindness and compassion and genuine human connection that make the book so moving? Why do these moments have such emotional power?

14. In what ways does A Million Little Pieces illuminate the problem of alcohol and drug addiction in the United States today? What does Frey's intensely personal voice add to the national debate about this issue?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

top of page (summary)

The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl
Issa Rae, 2015
Atria / 37 Ink
224 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781476749051

Summary
In the bestselling tradition of Sloane Crosley’s I Was Told There’d Be Cake and Mindy Kaling’s Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, a collection of humorous essays on what it’s like to be unabashedly awkward in a world that regards introverts as hapless misfits, and black as cool.

My name is "J" and I’m awkward—and black. Someone once told me those were the two worst things anyone could be. That someone was right. Where do I start?

Being an introvert in a world that glorifies cool isn’t easy. But when Issa Rae, the creator of the Shorty Award–winning hit series The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, is that introvert—whether she’s navigating love, work, friendships, or "rapping"—it sure is entertaining. Now, in this debut collection of essays written in her witty and self-deprecating voice, Rae covers everything from cybersexing in the early days of the Internet to deflecting unsolicited comments on weight gain, from navigating the perils of eating out alone and public displays of affection to learning to accept yourself—natural hair and all.

A reflection on her own unique experiences as a cyber pioneer yet universally appealing, The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl is a book no one—awkward or cool, black, white, or other—will want to miss. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—January 12, 1985
• Raised—Potomac, Maryland, and Los Angeles, California, USA
• Education—B.A., Stanford University
• Awards—Shorty Award, Best Web Show
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California

Issa Rae is an American actress and writer. She is the creator of the YouTube workplace-comedy series Awkward Black Girl as well as Ratchet Piece Theater, The "F" Word, and The Choir. Since the premiere of Awkward Black Girl in 2011, Rae’s shows have garnered over 20 million views and over 180,000 subscribers on YouTube. She is also the author of a 2015 collection of personal essays, The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl.

Personal life
As a child, Rae lived in Potomac, Maryland, where she grew up with "things that aren't considered 'black,' like the swim team and street hockey and Passover dinners with Jewish best friends."[2] When she was in sixth grade, her family moved to Los Angeles and enrolled her in a predominantly black middle school where she was “berated for ‘acting white'" and initially found it difficult to "fit into this ‘blackness’ I was supposed to be."

Rae attended Stanford University and graduated in 2007. As a college student, she made music videos, wrote and directed plays, and created a mock reality series called Dorm Diaries for fun. It was at Stanford that she met Tracy Oliver, who helped produce Awkward Black Girl and starred on the show as Nina. The two started taking classes together at the New York Film Academy.

After graduation, Rae worked odd jobs and at one point was struggling between business school and law school, but abandoned both ideas when Awkward Black Girl started taking off.

Early career
Rae created Awkward Black Girl out of the belief Hollywood stereotypes of African-American women were limiting: "I felt like my voice was missing, and the voices of other people that I really respect and admire and wanna see in the mainstream are missing." Her other show—Ratchet Piece Theater, The "F" Word, Roomieloverfriends, and The Choir—also focus on African-American experiences that are often not portrayed in the mainstream media.

In 2012, Rae made it to the Forbes "30 Under 30" Entertainment list, and Awkward Black Girl won the Shorty Award for Best Web Show. In 2013, she began working on a pilot for the show I Hate LA Dudes. She has also teamed up with Larry Wilmore to co-write Non-Prophet, an HBO comedy series about the awkward experiences of a contemporary African-American woman, in which she will be starring. Rae is currently signed with UTA and 3 Arts Entertainment. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/22/2015.)

Book Reviews
[Rae's] unwavering candidness, the sheer energy of her voice and the fact that she clearly finds herself to be terrific material make her a charismatic, if occasionally exasperating, narrator worth rooting for.... Some readers...may be offended but laugh out loud anyway.... An authentic and fresh extension of the author's successful Web series
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Rae writes candidly about her family in nearly all of her essays. How does she use humor to write about very private family stories in a very public way?

2. The anonymity of the internet, particularly in its early days, when it was difficult to upload pictures and find out who was friends with whom, allowed Issa to project a personality different from her own. Was that the internet’s "age of innocence," or the beginning of so many troubles we now associate with hook up culture?

3. Like so many, Issa struggles with weight, sometimes putting on thirty pounds more than what she deems optimal. After successfully completing the Master Cleanse she writes, "once the compliments come in, you're totally seduced into equating self-worth with skinniness....The compliments were the most addictive drug of all." Can you relate? Do you, too, "live for that validation that accompanies weight loss"?

4. Issa writes amusingly of the apprehension she felt as a young girl when she thought she might be expected to fulfill stereotypes associated with being black: to either know the latest hit rap lyrics by heart or to be able to dance like she came straight from a video shoot. She felt as if she were expected to "put my hands on my knees, pop my booty, and do the Tootsie Roll." How does she use humor to deflect the anxiety? What stereotypes have people projected onto you, and how do you deflect their assumptions?

5. Race is a central issue in the book, but Rae describes her frustration at people who make it a central point in their lives. How does she walk this line herself in the book?

6. In "Leading Lady," Rae writes, "You could say I have an entertainment complex. It stems from growing up during the golden age of nineties television. I look back and realize what a huge and amazing influence it was to have an array of diverse options to watch almost every night of the week." She then laments how the subsequent decade offered fewer options. What about now? Are our choices more diverse? Does the internet, with YouTube and the like, level the playing field in a substantive way?

7. The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl is about learning to accept yourself. In Rae’s case she had to accept that she was typically the most awkward girl in the room. How did being an introvert limit her? If you are an introvert, how does it limit you? Is the world easier for extroverts?

8. How is Rae’s life and artistry unique to the internet age?

9. Is it okay to use humor to talk about difficult subjects? Are there any taboo subjects, i.e. those that simply can't be approached with anything approaching humor or satire?

10. In "The Struggle" Rae writes, "I love being black; that's not a problem. The problem is that I don't want to always talk about it" Does being a card-carrying member of one group mean you always have to represent that group in public? What group do you represent, and are you expected to always speak for that group? (Gay, Asian, single mom, Latin, trust-fund baby, Jewish, geek, metrosexual, big girls, skinny girls, for example).

11. The topic of infidelity is a difficult one to approach with cool-headed nuance. How does Rae come to terms with this difficult topic in her life?

12. In what ways does Issa’s unique background—half African, half African-American, one half of her childhood spent on the East Coast, the other on the West Coast—position her to see the world in a unique way? If your life is also composed of interesting cultures, how has your perspective on life been influenced? Is it empowering? Or more fractious?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

top of page (summary)

The Missing Kennedy: Rosemary Kennedy and the Secret Bonds of Four Women
Elizabeth Koehler-Pentacoff, 2015
Bancroft Press
270 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781610881746

Summary
Rosemary (Rosie) Kennedy was born in 1918, the first daughter of a wealthy Bostonian couple who later would become known as the patriarch and matriarch of America’s most famous and celebrated family.

Elizabeth Koehler was born in 1957, the first and only child of a struggling Wisconsin farm family.

What, besides their religion, did these two very different Catholic women have in common?

One person really: Stella Koehler, a charismatic woman of the cloth who became Sister Paulus Koehler after taking her vows with the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis of Assisi. Sister Paulus was Elizabeth's Wisconsin aunt. For thirty-five years―indeed much of her adult life―Sister Paulus was Rosie Kennedy’s caregiver.

And a caregiver, tragically, had become necessary after Rosie, a slow learner prone to emotional outbursts, underwent one of America’s first lobotomies―an operation Joseph Kennedy was assured would normalize Rosie’s life. It did not. Rosie’s condition became decidedly worse.

After the procedure, Joe Kennedy sent Rosie to rural Wisconsin and Saint Coletta, a Catholic-run home for the mentally disabled. For the next two decades, she never saw her siblings, her parents, or any other relative, the doctors having issued stern instructions that even the occasional family visit would be emotionally disruptive to Rosie.

Following Joseph Kennedy’s stroke in 1961, the Kennedy family, led by mother Rose and sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver, resumed face to face contact with Rosie. It was also about then that a young Elizabeth Koehler began paying visits to Rosie.

In this insightful and poignant memoir, based in part on Sister Paulus’ private notes and augmented by nearly one-hundred never-before-seen photos, Elizabeth Koehler-Pentacoff recalls the many happy and memorable times spent with the "missing Kennedy."

Based on independent research and interviews with the Shriver family, she tries to come to grips with Joseph Kennedy’s well-intended decision to submit her eldest daughter to a still experimental medical procedure, and his later decision to keep Rosie almost entirely out of public view.

She looks at the many parallels between Rosie’s post-operative life, her own, and those of the two families.
And, most important, she traces how, entirely because of Rosie, the Kennedy and Shriver families embarked on an exceedingly consequential campaign advancing the cause of the developmentally disabled―a campaign that continues to this day.

Ten years after Rosie’s death comes a highly personal yet fitting testimonial to a sad but truly meaningful and important life. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1957
• Where—Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
• Education—B.A., California State University-Fresno
• Currently—lives in northern California

Elizabeth Koehler-Pentacoff is an American author of both fiction and nonfiction for children and adults. She wrote the instructional book, The ABCs of Writing for Children, which was a Writer's Digest Book Club selection. Her biography The Missing Kennedy: Rosemary Kennedy and the Secret Bonds of Four Women was published in 2015.

Personal life
Koehler-Pentacoff was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and grew up in nearby Oconomowoc. She moved to California as a teenager to attend college, graduating from California State University Fresno with a double major in children's theater and liberal studies.

In 1981 she married Robert Pentacoff. Before turning to freelance writing, she taught elementary and middle school and directed children's theater. When her son, Christopher, was young, she wrote stories for him, which led her to writing books for children.

Career
When Koehler-Pentacoff began writing children's books, she also instructed adult teachers through California State University, East Bay. She taught weekend classes of creative drama and improvisation and later taught writing for children and writing comedy through UC Santa Cruz Extension located in Cupertino.

She has worked with the California Writers Club |Mt. Diablo Branch's Young Writers Contest since 1995. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 10/20/2015.)

Book Reviews
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, nascetur neque iaculis vestibulum, sed nam arcu et, eros lacus nulla aliquet condimentum, mauris ut proin maecenas, dignissim et pede ultrices ligula elementum. Sed sed donec rutrum, id et nulla orci. Convallis curabitur mauris lacus, mattis purus rutrum porttitor arcu quis
Publishers Weekly

[C]enters on the treatment [Rosemary Kennedy] received at a Catholic nursing facility from Sister Paulus Koehler, the author's aunt, who cared for Rosemary during much of her adult life.... [A] poignant look at the life of a lesser-known yet remarkable Kennedy, with its dozens of never-before-published photos .—Mary Jennings, Camano Island Lib., WA
Library Journal

With average prose, Koehler-Pentacoff flip-flops from one family to another, making the narrative a bit difficult to follow, but she does reveal an untold chapter in the Kennedy saga.... A middling memoir that provides a few interesting glimpses into one member of the Kennedy clan who was almost lost to her family.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. What should have been the correct diagnosis of Rosemary’s pre-lobotomy condition?

2. What quality of life did Rosemary lead after her lobotomy?

3. Why did no one visit Rosemary for more than two decades?

4. In what ways did immense good come from Rosemary’s tragic life?
(Questions from the publisher's press kit.)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points for further discussion.

5. Talk about young Rosemary—before her symptoms became so severe? What was she like as a child and as a young woman?

6. How much did you know about Rosemary Kennedy before reading this book? What surprised you the most about her history...and about the Kennedy family?

7. What do you think of Joseph Kennedy, his ambitions and obsessions? Why did he never reveal the truth of Rosemary's lobotomy to the family? What moral issues, if any, are at stake in both making the decision for the lobotomy and in keeping it secret?

top of page (summary)

Missoula: Rape and the Justice System In a College Town
Jon Krakauer, 2015
Knopf Doubleday
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385538732

Summary
A stark, powerful, meticulously reported narrative about a series of sexual assaults at the University of Montana—stories that illuminate the human drama behind the national plague of campus rape.

Missoula, Montana, is a typical college town, with a highly regarded state university, bucolic surroundings, a lively social scene, and an excellent football team—the Grizzlies—with a rabid fan base.

The Department of Justice investigated 350 sexual assaults reported to the Missoula police between January 2008 and May 2012. Few of these assaults were properly handled by either the university or local authorities. In this, Missoula is also typical.

A DOJ report released in December of 2014 estimates 110,000 women between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four are raped each year. Krakauer’s devastating narrative of what happened in Missoula makes clear why rape is so prevalent on American campuses, and why rape victims are so reluctant to report assault.

Acquaintance rape is a crime like no other. Unlike burglary or embezzlement or any other felony, the victim often comes under more suspicion than the alleged perpetrator. This is especially true if the victim is sexually active; if she had been drinking prior to the assault—and if the man she accuses plays on a popular sports team. The vanishingly small but highly publicized incidents of false accusations are often used to dismiss her claims in the press. If the case goes to trial, the woman’s entire personal life becomes fair game for defense attorneys.

This brutal reality goes a long way towards explaining why acquaintance rape is the most underreported crime in America. In addition to physical trauma, its victims often suffer devastating psychological damage that leads to feelings of shame, emotional paralysis and stigmatization. PTSD rates for rape victims are estimated to be 50%, higher than soldiers returning from war.

In Missoula, Krakauer chronicles the searing experiences of several women in Missoula—the nights when they were raped; their fear and self-doubt in the aftermath; the way they were treated by the police, prosecutors, defense attorneys; the public vilification and private anguish; their bravery in pushing forward and what it cost them.

Some of them went to the police. Some declined to go to the police, or to press charges, but sought redress from the university, which has its own, non-criminal judicial process when a student is accused of rape. In two cases the police agreed to press charges and the district attorney agreed to prosecute. One case led to a conviction; one to an acquittal. Those women courageous enough to press charges or to speak publicly about their experiences were attacked in the media, on Grizzly football fan sites, and/or to their faces.

The university expelled three of the accused rapists, but one was reinstated by state officials in a secret proceeding. One district attorney testified for an alleged rapist at his university hearing. She later left the prosecutor’s office and successfully defended the Grizzlies’ star quarterback in his rape trial. The horror of being raped, in each woman’s case, was magnified by the mechanics of the justice system and the reaction of the community.

Krakauer’s dispassionate, carefully documented account of what these women endured cuts through the abstract ideological debate about campus rape. College-age women are not raped because they are promiscuous, or drunk, or send mixed signals, or feel guilty about casual sex, or seek attention. They are the victims of a terrible crime and deserving of compassion from society and fairness from a justice system that is clearly broken. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—April 2, 1954
• Where—Brookline, Massachusetts, USA
• Reared—Corvalis, Oregon
• Education—B.S., Hampshire College (Massachusetts)
• Awards—American Academy of Arts and Letters, 1999
• Currently—lives in Seattle, Washington

Krakauer was born as the third of five children. He competed in tennis at Corvallis High School and graduated in 1972. He went on to study at Hampshire College in Massachusetts, where in 1976 he received his degree in Environmental Studies. In 1977, he met former climber Linda Mariam Moore; they married in 1980 and now live in Seattle, Washington.

More
In 1974, Krakauer was part of a group of seven friends pioneering the Arrigetch Peaks of the Brooks Range in Alaska and was invited by American Alpine Journal to write about those experiences. Though he neither expected nor received a fee, he was excited when the Journal published his article. A year later, he and two others made the second ascent of The Moose's Tooth, a highly technical peak in the Alaska Range.

One year after graduating from college (1977), he spent three weeks by himself in the wilderness of the Stikine Icecap region of Alaska and climbed a new route on the Devils Thumb, an experience he described in Eiger Dreams and in Into the Wild.

Much of Krakauer's early popularity as a writer came from being a journalist for Outside magazine. In 1983, he was able to abandon part-time work as a fisherman and a carpenter to become a full-time writer. His freelance writing appeared in Smithsonian, National Geographic Magazine, Rolling Stone, Playboy, and Architectural Digest.

Into the Wild was published in 1996 and secured Krakauer's reputation as an outstanding adventure writer, spending more than two years on the New York Times bestseller list, which was adapted for film (director Sean Penn) and released in 2007.

In 2003, Under the Banner of Heaven became Krakauer's third non-fiction bestseller. The book examines extremes of religious belief, particularly fundamentalist offshoots of Mormonism. The book inspired the documentary, Damned to Heaven.

2010 saw the publication of Where Men Win Glory, about former NFL football player Pat Tillman, who became a US Army Ranger after 9/11. Tillman was eventually killed in action under suspicious circumstances in Afghanistan. (Adapated from Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
As of yet, there are no reviews of this book. Due to the subject material and expected controversy, no advance copies were released to reviewers. We'll add reviews when they become available.

Discussion Questions

1. What insights does Missoula offer into campus culture that can lead to or enable acquaintance rape? Do the attitudes and atmosphere at the University of Montana resemble schools with which you are familiar? Is this culture unique to campus life or does it reflect American culture more generally?

2. For many students (and their parents), college campuses promise a sense of security—a feeling that people watch out for one another. In what ways is this assumption belied by the situations discussed in Missoula? Consider both the circumstances of the sexual assaults and the reactions of other students who learned about the allegations.

3. The descriptions of the assaults feature graphic, harrowing details. Is this essential to our understanding of the victims’ experiences?

4. Almost all the cases Krakauer discusses involve drinking. Does this color your notions of responsibility and blame? Does it influence your feelings about the victims? The perpetrators?

5. “Not unlike many other rape victims, [Keely] Williams reacted by wondering if she was somehow to blame” (p. 23). What does this imply about our understanding of rape? How does it relate to Allison Huguet’s reluctance to ruin her attacker’s life (p. 28), Kelsey Belnap’s to “get anyone in trouble” (p. 42), and Cecilia Washburn’s own testimony at trial (p. 273–74)?

6. Allison Huguet’s mother “reminded Donaldson that he had betrayed [Allison’s] trust” (p. 26). Does the personal betrayal inherent in acquaintance rape make it more traumatic than a rape committed by a stranger?

7. One of the most unsettling aspects of the book is Krakauer's exploration of how student athletes at the University of Montana are insulated from repercussions when they commit crimes. Do you think that a willingness to excuse the bad behavior of athletes is widespread? In general, are young men still allowed greater latitude than young women in issues of sexual activity?

8. “Most women are all too familiar with men . . . whose sense of prerogative renders them deaf when women say, ‘No thanks,’ ‘Not interested,’ or even ‘Fuck off, creep’” (p. 104). What does the portrait of serial rapists (pp. 132–137) convey about how a “sense of prerogative” can escalate into continued offenses? Do you agree with David Lisak that “predators like Frank get away with it over and over . . . because most of us are in denial” (p. 135)?

9. Kraukauer recounts the emotional difficulties the women he interviewed faced in the aftermath of their assaults (pp. 68, 173, 186–87) and cites several experts on post-traumatic symptoms that emerge both immediately after an incident and in the months and perhaps years to come (pp. 69, 106, 155). How are victims affected by the legal outcomes of their cases—that is, whether their attackers are brought to justice? Are the constitutional rights guaranteed to the accused unfair to victims of crime (p. 247)?

10. What do the meetings the Huguets have with prosecutors Shaun Donovan (pp. 178–185) and Suzy Boylan (p. 188–89) demonstrate about the difficulties of pursuing rape cases, even when the accused has confessed? What legal obligations do prosecutors have to victims?

11. Krakauer writes, “Seemingly by design, the American legal system encourages defense counsel to be as mendacious as possible” (p. 266). Do the defense attorneys in the Johnson trial go beyond their professional responsibility to create doubts about Cecilia Washburn and present a sympathetic portrait of Johnson? Do the proceedings reveal a fundamental flaw in the adversarial nature of our justice system?

12. Krakauer casts a harsh light on Kirsten Pabst, who as Missoula County prosecutor often refused to file charges in rape cases and later left her position to join Jordan Johnson’s defense team (pp. 97–98, 107, 259). Does her behavior—and her manner at the Jordan trial (pp. 282–288)—strike you as unethical, or can her choices be justified? What motives—both professional and personal—might explain her actions?

13. Throughout the book, people—including the police, defense attorneys, prosecutors, and friends of the victim and the accused—offer reasons why a woman might lie about being raped (pp. 23, 45, 60, 66,105, 116). What beliefs about girls and women in today’s society underlie these theories?

14. Why are allegations of rape often doubted or dismissed by authorities? Do you think reports of acquaintance rape should be subject to more scrutiny than rape by a stranger? Discuss how misconceptions about rape (pp. 278–81) affect police investigations, court proceedings, and ultimately a jury’s decision (p. 334).

15. Is the fear of false rape accusations valid? What are the short- and long-term consequences of the publicity surrounding the cases at Duke University, Polytechnic High School (pp.119–20), and the notorious article in Rolling Stone about the alleged gang rape at the University of Virginia?

16. Should schools play a disciplinary role in sexual assaults that occur on campus? Based on the cases Kraukauer recounts, what can school administrators accomplish that the police and court system cannot? How well do the protocols at the University of Montana and other universities (p. 198) balance the need to avoid punishing the innocent and protect the college community from harm? Do schools have an ethical obligation to inform local authorities about a campus sexual assault?

17. After the U.S. Department of Justice released a damning report on the Missoula County Attorney’s office, an agreement was reached to change the way rapes were investigated (pp. 357–59). Is the intervention of the federal government necessary to institute reforms in local judicial systems?

18. What are the strengths and weaknesses of Krakauer’s case-study approach to campus rape—his focus on a single city? How do the specifics of Missoula help us begin to deal with a national crisis?

19. Krakauer also chose to report from the perspective of the victims (p. xiv). Does this influence your reaction to the book? What, if any, information or points of view would you have liked to have learned more about?

20. What effect might the experiences recounted in Missoula have on a woman who is wondering whether to report a rape?
(Questions issued by the publisher... And thank you, Anne R.)

top of page (summary)

Mister Owita's Guide to Gardening: How I Learned the Unexpected Joy of a Green Thumb and an Open Heart
Carol Wall, 2014
Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780399157981

Summary
A true story of a unique friendship between two people who had nothing—and ultimately everything—in common.

Carol Wall, a white woman living in a lily-white neighborhood in Middle America, was at a crossroads in her life. Her children were grown; she had successfully overcome illness; her beloved parents were getting older. One day she notices a dark-skinned African man tending her neighbor’s yard. His name is Giles Owita. He bags groceries at the supermarket. He comes from Kenya. And he’s very good at gardening.

Before long Giles is transforming not only Carol’s yard, but her life. Though they are seemingly quite different, a caring bond grows between them. But they both hold long-buried secrets that, when revealed, will cement their friendship forever. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—N/A
• Education—B.A., Vanderbilt University
• Currently—lives in Roanoke, Virginia, USA

A graduate of Peabody College for Teachers at Vanderbilt University, Carol Wall has taught high school English in both public and private schools in Tennessee and Virginia. Carol’s articles and essays centering on family life have been popular features in publications such as Southern Living Magazine and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for more than twenty years.

An accomplished public speaker, Carol served as Writer-in-Residence for Roanoke County Schools, where high school audiences learned to look forward to her entertaining and engaging presentations. Beginning in 1973, with her first teaching job at East High School in Nashville, TN—Oprah Winfrey’s alma mater—Carol has been known for her ability to connect with listeners, sharing her passion for storytelling and eagerly reaching out to include even the most reluctant student. Whether she’s describing the culinary exploits of her husband—a “binge cooker”—or detailing the day her little beagle Rhudy was banished from an exclusive spa for dogs, she brings a trademark wit and liveliness to ordinary subjects.

Her professional life has unfolded against the backdrop of a busy household where the Walls’ three children were joined by a teenage foster son and exchange students from Lithuania and Croatia.

Carol is active in the P.E.O. Sisterhood, a philanthropic educational organization which boasts 250,000 members worldwide and provides college scholarships for women. She sings second soprano in an eight-member women’s ensemble at her church.

She and her husband have three grown children, three beautiful granddaughters, and a grandson. They make their home in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Carol has been battling Stage 4 breast cancer since 2008. Mister Owita’s Guide to Gardening is her first book (From the author's website.)

Book Reviews
In this lovely memoir, a surprising friendship blossoms between a horticulturist with a harrowing secret and the author, a cancer survivor with a bad attitude and a sad yard. A perfect spring awakening.
Good Housekeeping

(Starred review.) [A] moving memoir.... [Carol] Wall enlists a neighbor’s gardener, a man from Kenya, to help her maintain her garden. What begins as a purely professional relationship...blossoms into an intimate friendship.... This tender narrative gently probes the complicated terrain of American race relations, dealing with serious illness and facing the death of loved ones.
Publishers Weekly

Wall, a white woman with grown children who had survived illness and was now contemplating her next move, noticed a black man working hard in a neighbor's yard. Giles Owita, who had come from Kenya and bagged groceries to make ends meet, was soon cleaning Wall's yard, too. They became friends, bonding over secrets they've both hidden, and the result is this much-touted memoir.
Library Journal

I couldn’t put this book down. I found myself liking the principal characters from the opening pages, and my affection for them never wavered. If you enjoy inspirational memoirs or gardening books (or both), this moving account of a life-changing friendship is for you.
Kelly Blewett - BookPage

Serendipitous life lessons from an unexpected source.... Owita not only performed an aesthetic miracle on Wall's property, but he also educated, enlivened and transformed her life and surroundings in graceful, heartwarming and rewarding ways. A pleasure to read. Wall's bittersweet story of human kindness has universal appeal.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Carol's friendship with Giles begins with a letter. She continues her correspondence with him throughout their friendship. How do these letters help them grow together as friends? What do they each gain by writing and receiving the letters? Do you write letters? Can writing down your feelings, worries, news, and so on be therapeutic? How is writing a letter to someone different from—or similar to—keeping a diary or journal?

2. Aristotle refers to a "friendship of virtue," in which self-seeking finds no place. Have Carol and Giles attained this level of friendship? If so, when does this happen?

3. Carol plays the role of both patient and caretaker. How does each of these roles change her? How does her role of caretaker for her parents affect her role as patient?

4. Carol did not learn until adulthood that the radiation treatment she received as a girl could cause cancer later in life. How would you deal with finding out such news? Do we, as adults, have a right to blame our parents for mistakes they may have made while raising us?

5. From the beginning, Carol finds Bienta a bit distant. In fact, Carol worries that she may have done something to offend her. She eventually learns that Bienta considers her one of her truest, closest friends. Why is Bienta unable to show this? Why does Carol's friendship matter so much to Bienta?

6. Is our Western culture too focused on romantic love, and does this focus make some friendships difficult to pursue? Can you give an example from the story?

7. Carol makes it clear at the beginning of the book that she is inept at and uninterested in gardening. Yet Giles opens her mind—and her heart. Discuss her evolution as she becomes a true gardener. How do you think her newfound interest in gardening helps her through the toughest times in her life? What parallels can you find between the improvements in Carol's garden and her spirit? Why does Carol become so interested in gardening? What is it about gardening that gives people such joy? What other hobbies facilitate a sense of renewal and rebirth?

8. We do not learn the real reason behind the decline in Giles's health until the end of the book. Were you surprised to find out that he had HIV/AIDS? Or did you suspect that he had a devastating illness? At the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, not only was the diagnosis a death sentence, it was extremely stigmatizing. Consider how the stigma associated with this illness could cause trouble for Giles's family. Why does he never tell Carol about it, even though she has shared so much of her own personal life with him? How have—or haven't—times changed over the past three decades?

9. Carol and Dick often talk about how they have so much to lose. What is Carol most worried about? What would you be most concerned about losing in your own life?

10. In the legend of Saint Elizabeth, Bienta explains, the Lord changed bread into roses. What do the roses symbolize? What about the bread? Recall that Saint Elizabeth's husband berates her for stooping to give bread to the poor. When she looks down to find her apron filled with roses, what is the message?

11. Symbols of Giles's and Carol's friendship and love for their families appear throughout the book. For instance, the rose signifies a kind of warmth in human interactions. Point to a time in the book when the rose helps convey the story's deeper meaning.

12. When Carol finds Dick's garment bag with a woman's dress inside, she accuses him of having an affair. Once the truth is made clear, she apologizes and confesses that she feels like a crazy person. Has Carol actually lost trust in her husband? Or is her overreaction due to something else? In what ways is Carol's reality turned upside down as a result of her cancer diagnosis?

13. Giles shares much wisdom from his native culture. Which of his words of wisdom was most striking to you?

14. Carol and Giles are very different people from very different backgrounds, and they navigate life's difficult challenges very differently. Yet they are kindred spirits and find that they have more in common as they learn more about each other. What are some of the things—both shared and dissimilar—that brought them close together? Why might their friendship seem so unlikely at the start? How does illness affect their friendship? How will Carol be changed in the life she lives without Giles?.
(Questions issued by publisher.)

top of page (summary)

Modern Romance: An Investigation
Aziz Ansari, Eric Klinenberg, 2015
Penguin
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781594206276

Summary
A hilarious, thoughtful, and in-depth exploration of the pleasures and perils of modern romance from one of this generation’s sharpest comedic voices

At some point, every one of us embarks on a journey to find love. We meet people, date, get into and out of relationships, all with the hope of finding someone with whom we share a deep connection.

his seems standard now, but it’s wildly different from what people did even just decades ago. Single people today have more romantic options than at any point in human history. With technology, our abilities to connect with and sort through these options are staggering. So why are so many people frustrated?

Some of our problems are unique to our time. Why did this guy just text me an emoji of a pizza? Should I go out with this girl even though she listed Combos as one of her favorite snack foods? Combos?! My girlfriend just got a message from some dude named Nathan. Who’s Nathan? Did he just send her a photo of his penis? Should I check just to be sure?

But the transformation of our romantic lives can’t be explained by technology alone. In a short period of time, the whole culture of finding love has changed dramatically.

A few decades ago, people would find a decent person who lived in their neighborhood. Their families would meet and, after deciding neither party seemed like a murderer, they would get married and soon have a kid, all by the time they were twenty-four. Today, people marry later than ever and spend years of their lives on a quest to find the perfect person, a soul mate.

For years, Aziz Ansari has been aiming his comic insight at modern romance, but for Modern Romance, the book, he decided he needed to take things to another level. He teamed up with NYU sociologist Eric Klinenberg and designed a massive research project, including hundreds of interviews and focus groups conducted everywhere from Tokyo to Buenos Aires to Wichita.

They analyzed behavioral data and surveys and created their own online research forum on Reddit, which drew thousands of messages. They enlisted the world’s leading social scientists, including Andrew Cherlin, Eli Finkel, Helen Fisher, Sheena Iyengar, Barry Schwartz, Sherry Turkle, and Robb Willer. The result is unlike any social science or humor book we’ve seen before.

In Modern Romance, Ansari combines his irreverent humor with cutting-edge social science to give us an unforgettable tour of our new romantic world. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—February 23, 1983
• Where—Columbia, South Carolina, USA
• Education—B.A., New York University
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York

Aziz Ishmael Ansari is an American actor and comedian. He starred as Tom Haverford on the NBC show Parks and Recreation.

Ansari began his career performing standup comedy in New York City during the summer of 2000 while attending New York University. In 2007, he created and starred in the critically acclaimed MTV sketch comedy show Human Giant, which ran for two seasons. This led to acting roles in feature films, including Funny People; I Love You, Man; Observe and Report; and 30 Minutes or Less.

In addition to his acting work, Ansari has continued to work as a standup comedian. He released his debut CD/DVD, entitled "Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening," in January 2010 on Comedy Central Records, and still tours nationally between acting commitments.

In 2010 and 2011, he performed his Dangerously Delicious tour. This tour was self-released for download on his website in March 2012 and debuted on Comedy Central in May 2012. He completed his third major tour of new material, Buried Alive, in the summer of 2013. His fourth major comedy special, Live at Madison Square Garden, was released on Netflix in 2015.

His first book, Modern Romance: An Investigation, was released in June 2015

Early life and career
Aziz Ansari was born in Columbia, South Carolina, to a Tamil Muslim family from Tamil Nadu, India. His mother, Fatima, works in a medical office, and his father, Shoukath, is a gastroenterologist. Ansari grew up in Bennettsville, South Carolina, where he attended Marlboro Academy as well as the South Carolina Governor's School for Science and Mathematics. He graduated from New York University with a major in marketing.

He frequently performed at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, as well as weekly shows such as Invite Them Up. In 2005, Rolling Stone included him in their annual "Hot List" as their choice for the "Hot Standup," and he won the Jury Award for "Best Standup" at HBO's 2006 U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado.

Human Giant
Around the summer of 2005, Ansari began collaborating with fellow comedians Rob Huebel and Paul Scheer (both from the improv troupe Respecto Montalban), as well as director Jason Woliner to make short films.

The first series created by the group was Shutterbugs, which followed Huebel and Ansari as cutthroat child talent agents. This was followed up by the Illusionators, which starred Ansari and Scheer as Criss Angel–style goth magicians. In mid-2006, MTV greenlit a sketch series from the group, which debuted in 2007. The critically acclaimed show completed two seasons and the group was offered a third season, but it opted to pursue other opportunities.

Parks and Recreation
The show, Parks and Recreation, debuted in 2009 with Ansari portraying government employee Tom Haverford. Ansari's performance has received notable praise from critics, including Entertainment Weekly naming him one of 2009's "Breakout TV Stars", TV Guide naming him a "Scene Stealer" and Yahoo! TV placing him in the No. 1 spot on its list of "TV MVPS."

MTV Movie Awards
On June 6, 2010, Ansari hosted the 2010 MTV Movie Awards. The show opened with a spoof of the film Precious with Ansari appearing as Aziz "Precious" Ansari. Ansari also created the short film "Stunt Kidz," which reunited him with his "Human Giant" castmates. A second short film was also made with actor Zach Galifianakis in which Ansari portrayed Taavon, Galifianakis' "swagger coach". He accepted Galifianakis' award for Best Comedic Performance in character as Taavon. Ansari also performed a musical tribute to the film Avatar in the style of singer R. Kelly.

Other notable television work
In addition to his work on Parks and Recreation, Ansari appeared on the HBO series Flight of the Conchords as a xenophobic fruit vendor who had difficulty telling the difference between Australians and New Zealanders. He had a recurring role in season eight of the ABC sitcom Scrubs as Ed, a new intern at the hospital. Ansari's character was written off the show so he could work on Parks and Recreation. Ansari also has a recurring role on the animated comedy Bob's Burgers as Darryl.

In 2011, Ansari made a cameo appearance in the music video for "Otis" by Jay-Z and Kanye West from their collaborative album, Watch the Throne.

Stand-up comedy
Even among various acting commitments, Ansari has continued performing and touring as a standup comedian. In 2006 and 2007, he toured with the Comedians of Comedy and Flight of the Conchords. In the fall of 2008 and early 2009, Ansari headlined his own comedy tour, the Glow in the Dark Tour. The material on this tour became the basis for a DVD/CD special for Comedy Central. The set, titled Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening, aired January 17, 2010, with a CD/LP/DVD release on January 19.

Ansari's comedy style tends to focus on aspects of his personal life. "I like talking about things that are going on in my life, because that's always going to be different and original", he says. "No one else is gonna be talking about my personal experiences."

In July 2010, Ansari began a new tour, Dangerously Delicious, which was in theaters across the United States; stops included the Bonnaroo Music Festival and Carnegie Hall in New York City. The tour wrapped with a filming for a special, Dangerously Delicious at the Warner Theatre in Washington, D.C., in June 2011. This special was released on his website in March 2012 for download or stream.

In 2012, Ansari announced a new tour entitled "Buried Alive," and a third stand-up special, Aziz Ansari: Buried Alive, was filmed during the tour at the Merriam Theater in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and premiered on Netflix on November 1, 2013.

Writing
Ansari's first book, Modern Romance: An Investigation, was released in 2015. The book is about the comedic pitfalls of dating in the modern world and was written with sociologist Eric Klinenberg.

In 2014, it was reported that Ansari was in a relationship with professional chef Courtney McBroom. He has self-identified as a feminist, saying his girlfriend has helped influence him.

Ansari is a "foodie"; he and his friends Eric Wareheim and Jason Woliner have formed what they called "The Food Club," which involves dressing up in suits and captain hats and rewarding restaurants with "Food Club" plaques. The plaques have their faces engraved along with the words: “The Food Club has dined here and deemed it plaque-worthy.”

He explained to Vanity Fair,

It’s a really serious-looking plaque and all of the restaurants we've given it to have put it front and center. It’s funny because people will walk into a restaurant and be like, "What the fuck is the Food Club? Who are these guys etched in gold?"

They also produced a tongue-in-cheek video about the club for Jash, filming them debating whether or not restaurants were plaque-worthy. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 8/25/2015.)

Book Reviews
A sprightly, easygoing hybrid of fact, observation, advice and comedy, with Mr. Klinenberg, presumably, supplying the medicine—graphs, charts, statistics and the like—and Mr. Ansari dispensing the spoonfuls of sugar that help it go down. The best part of Modern Romance comes when Mr. Ansari and his team get people to share the most embarrassing aspects of their romantic quests.
Sarah Lyall - New York Times Book Review

With topics like online dating apps to serious social science research, the book is sure to have you laughing if not taking a few notes.
USA Today

Entertaining and illuminating.
Guardian

A hilarious, often unsettling account of what young singles go through as they search for love in the digital age.
Rolling Stone

A funny and scholarly examination of the 24-hour romance cycle.
Boston Globe

The book is an obsessive exploration of what makes hearts flutter and break across the globe, but most importantly, it dissects those ideas through the lens of a right-and-left swiping society. And as a result, Ansari’s final product doesn’t only feel complete—it’s hilariously executed, even without his unmistakable high-register voice belting the punchlines. At 250 pages, Modern Romance is a lean, pithy read that’s perfect to reach the tech-obsessed generation it explores.
Paste Magazine

With his first foray into the literary sphere, Ansari handedly accomplishes what he set out to do. Modern Romance provides insight into what people do to find love. He infuses their stories with his sass and parallels their shame with much of his own. On top of that, Ansari’s advice is easy to follow and backed with science and research. Modern Romance is the pinnacle of romantic guides—at least until a new dating app makes it obsolete.
VOX

It’s hard to think of another celebrity book that also feels like breaking news…. Aside from the jokes, the science of Modern Romance holds water, and is absolutely fascinating.
A.V. Club

This book is essentially an Aziz Ansari standup routine in print form. His unique voice is present throughout the book. One reason that people love Aziz is his outlook on life. He has a funny way of refocusing seemingly ordinary things and zeroing in on very small details that most would not notice. He brings all of that and more to the table with this book. This book is informative, presents a lot of thought provoking topics and discusses them thoroughly. Paired with Aziz’s distinct voice, this book is even more endearing.
The Source

Funny, informative, and surprisingly earnest.
Daily Beast

Modern Romance reads like a CliffsNotes to relationshipping as it is currently experienced by (mostly middle-class, Ansari admits, and mostly straight) Americans. It’s the familiar stuff of research and sitcomedy, distilled into a funny, and highly readable, summary.
Atlantic

You’re not going to find a traditional humor book. And that’s a good thing. Modern Romance is something a bit more unique: a comprehensive, in-depth sociological investigation into the "many challenges of looking for love in the digital age." Modern Romance gives an impressive overview of how the dating game has changed with the advent of cell phones and the Internet. But there’s also some practical advice peppered in there by Ansari himself.
Bustle.com

Even comedy phenoms get dumped. But when it was this Parks and Recreation star’s turn, he channeled the rejection into an extensive (and riotous) investigation of the current state of dating, going as far as recruiting an NYU sociologist to be his collaborator/wingman.
Oprah Magazine

Inspired by his own romantic woes, comedian Ansari teamed up with sociologist Klinenberg in 2013 to design and conduct a research project to better understand the dating game.... [M]ost of this material has been covered exhaustively elsewhere, but Ansari’s oddball sense of humor does bring something new and refreshing to the conversation.
Publishers Weekly

A social-science book that’s pleasant to read and a comedy book that actually has something to say.
Bookforum

[A] surprisingly insightful exploration of the complex realities of dating today.... Ansari's eminently readable book is successful, in part, because it not only lays out the history, evolution, and pitfalls of dating, it also offers sound advice on how to actually win today's constantly shifting game of love. Often hilarious, consistently informative, and unusually helpful.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
We have two sets of Questions. The first set by LitLovers...and the second kindly submitted to us by Jennifer Johnson, Reference Librarian for the Springdale (Arkansas) Public Library. Thank you, Jennifer!

1. How have cell phones changed the conventions of modern dating? Overall, despite some of the drawbacks that Ansari points to in Modern Romance, would you say our instant texting and communications make the dating scene better or worse...or, basically, no different.

2. Talk about Ansari's statement that "the whole culture of finding love and a mate has radically changed” in the modern era." In what way...and why? Or maybe you don't really agree with him? If so, why not?

3. Discuss the research protocols that Ansari and his partner Eric Klinenberg followed in writing this book. Do their methods make the study more scientific or lend it more credibility? Does Ansari's humor undermine the seriousness of their study...enhance it...or make no difference to the results or to your experience of reading the book?

4. What do you think of the millennials' preference for texting rather than actually talking on the phone?

5. What aspects of Modern Romance do you relate to personally? What, say, embarrassments or mortifications have you experienced in the dating arena?

6. What parts of the book intrigued you, sparked your interest, irritated you...or made you laugh?

7. Toward the end, Ansari says this: “The main thing I’ve learned from this research is that we’re all in it together.” What exactly does he mean? Do you agree...or not?

8. What advice would YOU offer those in the dating world?

Additional Questions by Jennifer Johnson:

1. According to Ansari, he interviewed hundreds of people in diverse focus groups in 7 cities in 2013 – 2014. What biases can be identified in this statement—soul mate marriage “delivers levels of fulfillment that the generation of older people I interviewed rarely reached. (p. 25)”

2. What –isms does Ansari suffer from? (e.g. Feminism, Ageism, racism, sexist)

3. After reading his book, do you think Ansari has committed any failures in writing and researching the book?

4. Do you consider Ansari’s book an academic, well research book?

5. How much of a presence does Eric Klinenberg have in this manuscript?

6. How well are the generations represented in his book—Golden Age, Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials?

7. Given the obvious digital divide, do you think Ansari’s subreddit participants are diverse and reflective of the general population?

8. Considering Ansari’s personal diverse background, do you think his research in the United States is diverse? What evidence does he provide that shows us he included diverse persons (various ages, gender, and ethnicity)?

9. What stereotypes are represented in his book?

10. Ansari gives the impression that he is an expert in modern romance, but is he? Can one be an expert on modern romance when they are obvious of romance throughout the ages?

11. Does Ansari have an agenda and did he research the book first or decide the outcome first and made the research match his outcome?

12. Do you think his research methods took into consideration differences between large metropolitan areas and the rural geographic areas?

13. Given that Ansari recently broke up with long term girlfriend in January 2016, what impact could this book have on his romantic live?

(First set of Questions by LitLovers; second set by Jennifer Johnson. Please feel free to use both sets, online of off, with attribution to Jennifer and LitLovers. Thanks.)

top of page (summary)

Mom and Me and Mom
Maya Angelou, 2013
Random House
224 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781400066117

Summary
The story of Maya Angelou’s extraordinary life has been chronicled in her multiple bestselling autobiographies. But now, at last, the legendary author shares the deepest personal story of her life: her relationship with her mother.

For the first time, Angelou reveals the triumphs and struggles of being the daughter of Vivian Baxter, an indomitable spirit whose petite size belied her larger-than-life presence—a presence absent during much of Angelou’s early life. When her marriage began to crumble, Vivian famously sent three-year-old Maya and her older brother away from their California home to live with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas.

The subsequent feelings of abandonment stayed with Angelou for years, but their reunion, a decade later, began a story that has never before been told. In Mom & Me & Mom, Angelou dramatizes her years reconciling with the mother she preferred to simply call “Lady,” revealing the profound moments that shifted the balance of love and respect between them.

Delving into one of her life’s most rich, rewarding, and fraught relationships, Mom & Me & Mom explores the healing and love that evolved between the two women over the course of their lives, the love that fostered Maya Angelou’s rise from immeasurable depths to reach impossible heights. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Aka— Margeurite Johnson
• Birth—April 04, 1928
• Where—St. Louis, Missouri, USA
• Education—High school in Atlanta and San Francisco
• Awards—Langston Hughes Award 1991; Grammy Award for
Spoken Word Recording, 1993 and 1995; Quill Award, 2006
• Currently—Winston-Salem, North Carolina

An author whose series of autobiographies is as admired for its lyricism as its politics, Maya Angelou is a writer who’s done it all. Angelou's poetry and prose—and her refusal to shy away from writing about the difficult times in her past—have made her an inspiration to her readers. (From the publisher.)

More
As a chronicler of her own story and the larger civil rights movement in which she took part, Maya Angelou is remarkable in equal measure for her lyrical gifts as well as her distinct sense of justice, both politically and personally.

Angelou was among the first, if not the first, to create a literary franchise based on autobiographical writings. In the series’ six titles—beginning with the classic I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and followed by Gather Together in My Name, Singin’ and Swingin’ and Gettin’ Merry Like Christmas, Heart of a Woman, All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes, A Song Flung Up to Heaven, and Mom and Me and Mom—Angelou tells her story in language both no-nonsense and intensely spiritual.

Angelou’s facility with language, both on paper and as a suede-voiced speaker, have made her a populist poet. Her 1995 poem “Phenomenal Woman” is still passed along the Web among women as inspiration:

It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips
The stride of my steps
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally
Phenomenal woman
That's me.

Her 1993 poem “On the Pulse of the Morning,” written for Bill Clinton’s presidential inauguration, was later released as a Grammy-winning album.

Angelou often cites other writers (from Kenzaburo Oe to James Baldwin) both in text and name. But as often as not, her major mentors were not writers—she had been set to work with Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. before each was assassinated, stories she recounts in A Song Flung Up to Heaven.

Given her rollercoaster existence—from poverty in Arkansas to journalism in Egypt and Ghana and ultimately, to her destiny as a successful writer and professor in the States—it’s no surprise that Angelou hasn’t limited herself to one or two genres. Angelou has also written for stage and screen, acted, and directed. She is the rare author from whom inspiration can be derived both from her approach to life as from her talent in writing about it. Reading her books is like taking counsel from your wisest, favorite aunt.

Extras
• Angelou was nominated for an Emmy for her performance as Nyo Boto in the 1977 miniseries Roots. She has also appeared in films such as How to Make an American Quilt and Poetic Justice, and she directed 1998’s Down in the Delta.

• Angelou speaks six languages, including West African Fanti.

• She taught modern dance at the Rome Opera House and the Hambina Theatre in Tel Aviv.

• Before she became famous as a writer, Maya Angelou was a singer. Miss Calypso is a CD of her singing calypso songs. (From Barnes and Noble.)

Book Reviews
Angelou is smart and gifted enough to write for any audience she pleases. Clearly, she chooses to write for readers as open, playful and straightforward as herself…Mom & Me & Mom is delivered with Angelou's trademark good humor and fierce optimism. If any resentments linger between these lines, if lives are partially revealed without all the bitter details exposed, well, that is part of Angelou's forgiving design. As an account of reconciliation, this little book is just revealing enough, and pretty irresistible.
Valerie Sayers - Washington Post

Mesmerizing.... Angelou has a way with words that can still dazzle us, and with her mother as a subject, Angelou has a near-perfect muse and mystery woman.
Essence

[The] latest, and most potent, of her serial autobiographies.... [a] tough-minded, tenderhearted addition to Angelou’s spectacular canon.
Elle

Written with her customary eloquence, Angelou’s latest focuses on her relationship with her mother, the fierce, beautiful, charismatic, and determined Vivian Baxter—dubbed “Lady” by the 13-year-old Angelou.... There are difficult times...as well as triumphs, such as Angelou’s job as the first African-American female streetcar conductor, obtained thanks to Baxter’s encouragement. The book follows in the episodic style of Angelou’s earlier volumes of autobiography, pulling the reader along effortlessly. The lessons and the love presented here will speak to those trying to make their way in the world. B&w photos
Publishers Weekly

[A] distinct addition to Angelou's autobiographical writings. When Angelou was three her parents separated and sent both Maya and her brother to live with their grandmother. When Angelou was reunited with her mother ten years later, the initial relationship was difficult, though eventually they formed a strong bond. Here Angelou writes about critical episodes from her life while giving attention to her mother's positive influence at various crossroads. —Stacy Russo, Santa Ana Coll. Lib., CA
Library Journal

In this loving recollection of a complicated relationship, Angelou for the first time details the mother-daughter journey to reconciliation and unwavering connection and support.... Angelou vividly portrays a spirited woman.... [A] remarkable and deeply revealing chronicle of love and healing.
Booklist

Angelou has given us the opportunity to read much of her life, but here she unveils her relationship with her mother for the first time. True to her style, the writing cuts to the chase with compression and simplicity, and there in the background is a calypso smoothness, flurries and showers of musicality between the moments of wickedness. And wickedness abounds, for Angelou had a knack for picking bad men. But the pivot of the book is her mother.... "[S]he was there with me. She had my back, supported me. This is the role of the mother….She stands between the known and the unknown." Strung through the narrative are intense episodes in Angelou's personal progress.... A tightly strung, finely tuned memoir about life with her mother.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to get a discussion started for Me and Mom and Me:

1. Maya says her mother was "irrestible." What makes her so? How would you describe Vivian Baxter? What did you admire most about her? And what did you not admire?

2. How do you view Vivian's decision to send her children to live with their father at such a young age? Why did it take her so long, even after the divorce, to call her children back to her?

3. Talk about Maya's resentment of Vivian...and the halting path toward reconciliation that she followed. The Washington Post reviewer believes this process contains some of the best writing in the book. Do you agree...or not?

4. Discuss Maya's brother Bailey and his easier path into his mother's orbit. What can explain his later struggles with drugs?

5. What are some of the episodes in Maya's life that particularly shocked you?

6. Talk about the society in which Maya grew up and the degree to which it was pervaded with racism. How have we changed...or have we?

7. Reviewers talk about the tone of optimism in this book—the fact that Angelou's prose lacks bitterness. Do you agree? If so, why do you suppose that is? How has she been able to overcome a resentment that many of us would carry with us for years?

8. Mom and Me and Mom is the seventh book in Maya Angelou's remarkable autobiographical series, starting with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Have you read any other of the books in this series...or any of her books of poetry? If so, how does this book compare with the others? Can you identify elements of poetic writing in the prose style of this work?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online of off, with attribution. Thanks.)

top of page (summary)

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game
Michael Lewis, 2003
W.W. Norton & Co.
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780393324815

Summary
The Oakland Athletics have a secret: a winning baseball team is made, not bought. In major league baseball the biggest wallet is supposed to win: rich teams spend four times as much on talent as poor teams.

But over the past four years, the Oakland Athletics, a major league team with a minor league payroll, have had one of the best records. Last year their superstar, Jason Giambi, went to the superrich Yankees. It hasn't made any difference to Oakland: their fabulous season included an American League record for consecutive victories. Billy Beane, general manager of the Athletics, is putting into practice on the field revolutionary principles garnered from geek statisticians and college professors.

Michael Lewis's brilliant, irreverent reporting takes us from the dugouts and locker rooms—where coaches and players struggle to unlearn most of what they know about pitching and hitting—to the boardrooms, where we meet owners who begin to look like fools at the poker table, spending enormous sums without a clue what they are doing.

Combine money, science, entertainment, and egos, and you have a story that Michael Lewis is magnificently suited to tell. (From the publisher.)

Moneyball became a 2011 film staring Brad Pitt.

Author Bio
• Birth—October 15, 1960
• Where—New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
• Education—B.A., Princeton; M.B.A., London School of Economics
• Currently—Currently—lives in Berkeley, California

Michael Lewis is an American contemporary non-fiction author and financial journalist. His bestselling books include Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt (2014); The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine (2010); The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game (2006); Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game (2003); and Liar's Poker (1989).

Background
Lewis was born in New Orleans to corporate lawyer J. Thomas Lewis and community activist Diana Monroe Lewis. He attended the private, nondenominational, co-educational college preparatory Isidore Newman School in New Orleans. Later, he attended Princeton University where he received a BA in art history in 1982 and was a member of the Ivy Club.

After graduating from Princeton, he went on to work with New York art dealer Daniel Wildenstein. Despite his degree in art history, he nonetheless wanted to break into Wall Street to make money. After leaving Princeton, he tried to find a finance job, only to be roundly rejected by every firm to which he applied. He then enrolled in the London School of Economics to pursue a Master's degree in economics.

While still in England, Lewis was invited to a banquet hosted by the Queen Mother at St. James's Palace. His cousin, Baroness Linda Monroe von Stauffenberg, one of the organizers of the banquet, purposely seated him next to the wife of the London Managing Partner of Salomon Brothers. The hope was that Lewis, just having obtained his master's degree, might impress her enough for her to suggest to her husband that Lewis be given a job with Salomon Bros.—which had previously turned him down. The strategy worked: Lewis was granted an interview and landed a job.

As a result of the job offer, Lewis moved to New York City for Salomon's training program. There, he was appalled at the sheer bravado of most of his fellow trainees and indoctrinated into the money culture of Salomon and Wall Street in general.

After New York, Lewis was shipped to the London office of Salomon Brothers as a bond salesman. Despite his lack of knowledge, he was soon handling millions of dollars in investment accounts. In 1987, he witnessed a near-hostile takeover of Salomon Brothers but survived with his job. However, growing disillusioned with his work, he eventually quit to write Liar's Poker and become a financial journalist.

Writing
Lewis described his experiences at Salomon and the evolution of the mortgage-backed bond in Liar's Poker (1989). In The New New Thing (1999), he investigated the then-booming Silicon Valley and discussed obsession with innovation.

Four years later, Lewis wrote Moneyball (2003), in which he investigated the success of Billy Beane and the Oakland A's. In August 2007, he wrote an article about catastrophe bonds entitled "In Nature's Casino" that appeared in the New York Times Magazine.

The Big Short, about a handful of scrappy investors who foresaw the 2007-08 subprime mortgage debacle, came out in 2010. Flash Boys, detailing high-speed trading in stock and other markets, was published in 2014. Like both The Big Short and Moneyball, the book features an underdog type who is ahead of the pack in understanding his industry.

Lewis has worked for The Spectator, New York Times Magazine, as a columnist for Bloomberg, as a senior editor and campaign correspondent to The New Republic, and a visiting fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. He wrote the "Dad Again" column for Slate. Lewis worked for Conde Nast Portfolio but in February 2009 left to join Vanity Fair, where he became a contributing editor.

Film
The film version of Moneyball, starring Brad Pitt, was successfully released in 2011. The Big Short, with its all-star cast—Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gossling, and Brad Pitt—came out in 2015 to top reviews.

Personal life
Lewis married Diane de Cordova Lewis, his girlfriend prior to his Salomon days. After several years, he was briefly married to former CNBC correspondent Kate Bohner, before marrying the former MTV reporter Tabitha Soren in 1997. Lewis lives with Tabitha, two daughters, and one son (Quinn, Dixie, and Walker) in Berkeley, California. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 1/11/2016.)

Book Reviews
Whether Billy Beane is a prophet or a flash in the pan remains to be seen. In either case, by playing Boswell to Beane's Samuel Johnson, Lewis has given us one of the most enjoyable baseball books in years.
Lawrence S. Ritter - New York Times

The Oakland Athletics have reached the post-season playoffs three years in a row, even though they spend just one dollar for every three that the New York Yankees spend. Their secret, as Lewis's lively account demonstrates, is not on the field but in the front office, in the shape of the general manager, Billy Beane. Unable to afford the star hires of his big-spending rivals, Beane disdains the received wisdom about what makes a player valuable, and has a passion for neglected statistics that reveal how runs are really scored. Beane's ideas are beginning to attract disciples, most notably at the Boston Red Sox, who nearly lured him away from Oakland over the winter. At the last moment, Beane's loyalty got the better of him; besides, moving to a team with a much larger payroll would have diminished the challenge.
The New Yorker

[An] ebullient, invigorating account of how an unconvential general manger named Billy Beane rebuilt the A's, a team with the second lowest payroll in baseball, into a team that won 103 games last year—as many as the filthy-rich Yankees.
Time

One of the best baseball—and management—books out. It chronicles and examines the extraordinary success of the Oakland Athletics' general manager, Billy Beane, who is a colorful mix of genius, discipline and emotion. If you ever come across anyone connected with professional baseball and want to witness an interesting sight, just mention Beane and this book—there will be gurgling, sputtering, angry mutterings.
Forbes

Lewis (Liar's Poker; The New New Thing) examines how in 2002 the Oakland Athletics achieved a spectacular winning record while having the smallest player payroll of any major league baseball team. Given the heavily publicized salaries of players for teams like the Boston Red Sox or New York Yankees, baseball insiders and fans assume that the biggest talents deserve and get the biggest salaries. However, argues Lewis, little-known numbers and statistics matter more. Lewis discusses Bill James and his annual stats newsletter, Baseball Abstract, along with other mathematical analysis of the game. Surprisingly, though, most managers have not paid attention to this research, except for Billy Beane, general manager of the A's and a former player; according to Lewis, "[B]y the beginning of the 2002 season, the Oakland A's, by winning so much with so little, had become something of an embarrassment to Bud Selig and, by extension, Major League Baseball." The team's success is actually a shrewd combination of luck, careful player choices and Beane's first-rate negotiating skills. Beane knows which players are likely to be traded by other teams, and he manages to involve himself even when the trade is unconnected to the A's. " 'Trawling' is what he called this activity," writes Lewis. "His constant chatter was a way of keeping tabs on the body of information critical to his trading success." Lewis chronicles Beane's life, focusing on his uncanny ability to find and sign the right players. His descriptive writing allows Beane and the others in the lively cast of baseball characters to come alive.
Publishers Weekly

A solid piece of iconoclasm: the intriguing tale of Major League baseball's oddfellows—the low-budget but winning Oakland Athletics. Here's the gist, that baseball, from field strategy to player selection, is "better conducted by scientific investigation—hypotheses tested by analysis of historical baseball data—than be reference to the collective wisdom of old baseball men." Not some dry, numbing manipulation of figures, but an inventive examination of statistics, numbers that reveal what the eye refuses to see, thanks to ingrained prejudices. As in most of Lewis's work (The New New Thing, 1999, etc.), a keen intellect is at work, a spry writing style, a facility to communicate the meaning of numbers, an infectious excitement, and a healthy disdain for the aura and power of big bucks. Such is the situation here: The Oakland A's have a budget that would hardly cover the Yankee's chewing tobacco. Their General Manager, Billy Beane, and his band of Harvard-educated assistants, are the heirs of Bill James (of whom there is an excellent portrait here). They creatively use stats to discover unsung talent—gems not so much in the rough as invisible to the overburden of received wisdom—a guy who will get on base despite being shaped like a pear or control the strike zone even if his fastball can't get out of third gear, measuring the measurables to garner fine talent at basement prices. At least for a few seasons, until the talent's worth is common knowledge and off they go to clubs who can pay them millions. And the A's win, and win and win, not yet to a Series victory, but edging closer. The story clicks along with steady momentum, and possesses excellent revelatory powers. There s a method to the madness of the Beane staff, and Lewis incisively explains its inspired, heretical common sense. Has Lewis spilled Beane's beans? Maybe so, but considering the mulish dispositions of baseball's scouts and front offices, they'll miss the boat again.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Moneyball:

1. Michael Lewis writes of Billy Beane, "it was hard to know which of Billy's qualities was most important to his team's success." What are those qualities? What kind of character is Beane? And what do you think most accounts for his success in remaking the A's?

2. Why does Billy Beane stop playing baseball, which seems to Lews an unimaginable decision. What explanation is offered? Why do you think Beane quit playing?

3. What does Lewis mean by the following passage...and what are baseball's "eternal themes?

The old scouts are like a Greek chorus; it is their job to underscore the eternal themes of baseball. The eternal themes are precisely what Billy Beane wants to exploit for profit—by ignoring them.

4. Follow-up to Question 3: Talk about the way Beane turns received wisdom on its head: his theory of selecting players. In his eyes, what makes a player valuable?

5. How has measuring each player's on-base percentage, for instance, revolutionized baseball strategy, at least in Oakland?

6. Are the geeks going to take over sports (as well as the rest of the world)—is their cutting-edge analytical data the future? Put another way—is Beane a "flash in the pan" as the New York Times reviewer wonders? Have Beane's methods truly redefined the way baseball is...and will be played?

7. What does the book's subtitle mean by "an unfair game"? Why "unfair"?

8. Follow-up to Question 7: Newsweek columnist George Will, an avid baseball fan, once proposed that teams pool financial resources so as to level the playing field between big media market teams and small market teams. How do you feel about his proposal? (Will, by the way, is a conservative in politics, despite his socialistic approach to sports.)

9. Who is Lewis referring to, and what does he mean, when he writes...

Baseball offered a comfortable seat to the polysyllabic wonders who quoted dead authors and blathered on about the poetry of motion. These people dignified the game, like a bow tie?

Lewis goes on to say that those polysyllabic wonders "were harmless. What was threatening was cold, hard intelligence." What was threatening about data?

10. Lewis gives us Beane-in-action as he trades players. What are some of the tactics Beane uses to outfox his opponents?

11. Who are some of the other characters Lewis describes? Bill James? Jeremy Brown? Any other vignettes you found particularly engaging?

12. In his review of Moneyball, Steve Forbes points out that the three players who formed the foundation of the A's success—Tim Hudson, Barry Zito, and Mark Mulder—were "the kind of players any GM would have taken." He also points out that other small-budget teams have had similar successes: Seattle Mariners and the Anaheim Angels (a mid-level budget) for instance. Does Forbes's arguments undermine the premise of Michael Lewis's book...and Beanes' analytical approach?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

top of page

The Monk of Mokha
Dave Eggers, 2018
Knopf Doubleday
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781101947319

Summary
"A gripping, triumphant adventure" (Los Angeles Times) from bestselling author Dave Eggers, the incredible true story of a young Yemeni American man, raised in San Francisco, who dreams of resurrecting the ancient art of Yemeni coffee but finds himself trapped in Sana’a by civil war.

Mokhtar Alkhanshali is twenty-four and working as a doorman when he discovers the astonishing history of coffee and Yemen’s central place in it.

He leaves San Francisco and travels deep into his ancestral homeland to tour terraced farms high in the country’s rugged mountains and meet beleaguered but determined farmers.

But when war engulfs the country and Saudi bombs rain down, Mokhtar has to find a way out of Yemen without sacrificing his dreams or abandoning his people. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—March 12, 1970
• Where—Boston, Massachusetts, USA
• Raised—Lake Forest, Illinois
• Education—University of Illinois (no degree)
• Currently—lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, California

Dave Eggers is an American writer, editor, and publisher. He is known for the best-selling memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and for his more recent work as a novelist and screenwriter.

He is also the founder of McSweeney's, the co-founder of the literacy project 826 Valencia, and the founder of ScholarMatch, a program that matches donors with students needing funds for college tuition. His works have appeared in several magazines, most notably The New Yorker. His works have received a significant amount of critical acclaim.

Personal life
Eggers was born in Boston, Massachusetts, one of four siblings. His father was John K. Eggers (1936–1991), an attorney. His mother, Heidi McSweeney Eggers (1940–1992), was a school teacher. When Eggers was still a child, the family moved to the upscale suburb of Lake Forest, near Chicago. He attended high school there and was a classmate of the actor Vince Vaughn. Eggers attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, intending to get a degree in journalism, but his studies were interrupted by the deaths of both of his parents in 1991–1992—his father in 1991 from brain and lung cancer, and his mother in January 1992 from stomach cancer. Both were in their 50s.

These events were chronicled in his first book, the fictionalized A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. At the time, Eggers was 21, and his younger brother, Christopher ("Toph"), was 8 years old. The two eldest siblings, Bill and Beth, were unable to commit to care for Toph; his older brother had a full-time job and his sister was enrolled in law school. As a result, Dave Eggers took the responsibility.

He left the University of Illinois and moved to Berkeley, California, with his girlfriend Kirsten and his brother. They initially moved in with Eggers's sister, Beth, and her roommate, but eventually found a place in another part of town, which they paid for with money left to them by their parents. Toph attended a small private school, and Eggers did temp work and freelance graphic design for a local newspaper. Eventually, with his friend David Moodie, he took over a local free newspaper called Cups. This gradually evolved into the satirical magazine Might.

Eggers lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and is married to Vendela Vida, also a writer. They have two children.

He was one of three 2008 TED Prize recipients. His TED Prize wish was for community members to personally engage with local public schools The same year, Utne Reader named him one of "50 Visionaries Who Are Changing the World."

In 2005, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters from Brown University. He delivered the baccalaureate address at the school in 2008.

Literary work
• Egger's first book was a memoir (with fictional elements), A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000), which focused on the author's struggle to raise his younger brother in San Francisco following the deaths of both of their parents. The book quickly became a bestseller and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction.

• In 2002, Eggers published his first novel, You Shall Know Our Velocity, a story about a frustrating attempt to give away money to deserving people while haphazardly traveling the globe. He has also published a collection of short stories, How We Are Hungry, and three politically themed serials for Salon.com.

• In 2005, Eggers published Surviving Justice: America's Wrongfully Convicted and Exonerated, a book of interviews with former prisoners sentenced to death and later exonerated. The book was compiled with Lola Vollen, "a physician specializing in the aftermath of large-scale human rights abuses" and "a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley's Institute of International Studies and a practicing clinician." Lawyer novelist Scott Turow wrote the introduction to Surviving Justice.

• Eggers' 2006 novel What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. Eggers also edits the Best American Nonrequired Reading series, an annual anthology of short stories, essays, journalism, satire, and alternative comics.

• In 2009, he published Zeitoun and, as a result, was presented with the Courage in Media Award by the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Zeitoun is the account of a Syrian immigrant, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, in New Orleans who was helping neighbors after Hurricane Katrina when he was arrested, imprisoned and suffered abuse. The book has been optioned by Jonathan Demme, who is working on a screenplay for an animated film-rendition of the work. To Demme, it "felt like the first in-depth immersion I’d ever had through literature or film into the Muslim-American family.... The moral was that they are like people of any other faith."

• Eggers published A Hologram for the King in July 2012, which became a finalist for the National Book Award. The novel is the story of one man's struggle to hold himself and his splintering family together in the face of the new realities of a global economy.

• In 2013, he released The Circle, a satirical novel about the internet's subversive power over citizen privacy. The Circle is a combination of Facebook, Google, Twitter and more, as seen through the eyes of Mae Holland, a new hire who starts in customer service.

McSweeney's
In 1998, Eggers founded McSweeney's, an independent publishing house, which takes his mother's maiden name. Apart from its book list, McSweeney's also publishes the quarterly literary journal Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, the daily-updated literature and humor site McSweeney's Internet Tendency, the monthly magazine The Believer, the quarterly food journal Lucky Peach, the sports journal Grantland Quarterly (in association with sports and pop culture website Grantland), and the quarterly DVD magazine, Wholphin. The publishing house also runs three additional imprints: Believer Books; McSweeney's McMullens, a children's book department; and the Collins Library.

826 National
In 2002, Eggers and educator Nínive Clements Calegari co-founded 826 Valencia, a nonprofit writing and tutoring center for kids ages 6–18 in San Francisco. It has since grown into seven chapters across the United States: Los Angeles, New York City, Seattle, Chicago, Ann Arbor, Boston, and Washington, D.C., all under the auspices of the nonprofit organization 826 National.

In 2006, Eggers appeared at a series of fund-raising events, dubbed "Revenge of the Book–Eaters Tour," to support his educational programs. The Chicago show featured Death Cab for Cutie front man Ben Gibbard. Other performers on the tour included Sufjan Stevens, Jon Stewart, Davy Rothbart, and David Byrne.

In 2007, the Heinz Family Foundation awarded Eggers a $250,000 Heinz Award (given to recognize "extraordinary achievements by individuals"). In accordance with Eggers' wishes, the award money was given to 826 National and The Teacher Salary Project. In April 2010, under the umbrella of 826 National, Eggers launched ScholarMatch, a nonprofit organization that connects donors with students to make college more affordable. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/17/2013.)

Book Reviews
The Monk of Mokha is the third in [Eggers's] series of real-life accounts of immigrants to America caught in the jaws of history.… Each book is a tale of a latter-day Job and a reflection on the act of storytelling itself, none more so than this latest, in which a singularly reckless young man keeps himself alive like Scheherazade—his ability to spin stories ensures his survival.… Narrative nonfiction …is [Eggers's] natural home. Telling other people's stories seems to focus him. The sentences take on an Orwellian clarity—they're lean and clean.… In The Monk of Mokha, he moves lightly between story and analysis, and between brisk histories of Yemeni immigration to America; gentrifying San Francisco; coffee cultivation …and the saints and thieves who dispersed the beans around the world.
Parul Sehgal - New York Times

A true account of a scrappy underdog, told in a lively, accessible style.… Absolutely as gripping and cinematically dramatic as any fictional cliffhanger.
Michael Lindgren - Washington Post

Exquisitely interesting.… This is about the human capacity to dream—here, there, everywhere.
Gabriel Thompson - San Francisco Chronicle

A cracking tale of intrigue and bravery.… A gripping, triumphant adventure story.
Paul Constant - Los Angeles Times

A heady brew.… Plainspoken but gripping.… Dives deep into a crisis but delivers a jolt of uplift as well.
Mark Athitakis - USA Today

Remarkable.… [O]ffers hope in the age of Trump.… Ends as a kind of breathless thriller as Mokhtar braves militia roadblocks, kidnappings and multiple mortal dangers.
Tim Adams - Guardian (UK)

[T]he exciting true story of a Yemeni-American man’s attempts to promote his ancestral country’s heritage.… [A] heartwarming success story with a winning central character and an account of real-life adventures that read with the vividness of fiction.
Publishers Weekly

The son of Yemini immigrants… journeys to his parents' homeland to learn more about its cultivation and help Yemeni farmers return their crops to the renown they once had. All's well until… Mokhtar finds he's… trapped in the crosscurrents of sectarian violence.
Library Journal

[A] phenomenally well-written, juggernaut of a tale of an intrepid and irresistible entrepreneur on a complex and meaningful mission. This highly caffeinated adventure story is ready-made for the big screen.
Booklist

(Starred review) [T]his book is about …the undeniable value of "U.S. citizens who maintain strong ties to the countries of their ancestors and who, through entrepreneurial zeal and dogged labor, create indispensable bridges between the developed and developing worlds…."
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Discuss the Saul Bellow epigraph that opens The Monk of Mokha. How does this paragraph set the tone for Mokhtar’s story?

2. Mokhtar grows up in the Tenderloin, one of the most notoriously crime-ridden neighborhoods of San Francisco. How does he navigate that world as a young man? How does the neighborhood color his perspective on the world? His understanding of himself? Of poverty? Once he leaves the neighborhood, how do the lessons of the Tenderloin stick with him?

3. On pages 18–19, the reader learns that despite his general apathy toward school, Mokhtar loves books. Describe how Mokhtar’s "library" acts as a means of escape for him. How do books open up his worldview? How does his love of learning follow him throughout his life and shape his career?

4. In Book 1, the reader is introduced to the scenario wherein Mokhtar loses the satchel containing thousands of dollars and his brand-new laptop. Describe Mokhtar’s reaction to his folly. What fears does this stoke? How does this incident motivate him?

5. San Francisco is an economically divided city, where stratification of wealth is readily apparent. At what point in Mokhtar’s life does he begin to understand this economic divide? How do his first jobs—at Banana Republic, at the Honda dealership, and later at the Infinity—provide him with a lens to understand wealth and power in the United States? How does his exposure to wealth change his worldview or shift his understanding of his own economic possibilities?

6. Discuss the role of family in Mokhtar’s personal and professional life. What expectations are laid upon him as the son of Yemeni immigrants? What values do Mokhtar’s parents instill in him? How does his family aid him in his journey to create his business?

7. After landing his job at Banana Republic, Mokhtar begins to dress in what he and his friends call his "Rupert" look, and Eggers notes that "the effect of his appearance on the world was profound" (page 30). Discuss this transition. How did this change in appearance affect his self-esteem? How others in the world treated him? Relate this emphasis on physical appearance to how he presents himself as he is growing his business. How does a polished physical presentation help him to gain confidence in his business interactions? What identity is he trying to signal to the world?

8. Throughout The Monk of Mokha, the concept of code-switching is discussed, particularly in relation to Mokhtar’s status as both an American citizen and that of a Yemeni American. Discuss situations wherein he is deemed "not American enough" or "not Yemeni enough." How is he forced to adapt his behavior based on his social setting? How does he contend with situations of injustice?

9. Discuss the development of Mokhtar’s business plan, from ideation to execution. What principles undergird his business? What business models does he admire? Who or what is most influential in helping to develop his business acumen? How does his understanding of the coffee industry evolve over the course of the narrative?

10. On page 75, Mokhtar is asked by Ghassan: "Are you a businessman or are you an activist? For now, at least, you have to pick one." Does he? How does his interest in social justice affect his plans for business development? Discuss the mission of his business. How does his interest in honoring his Yemeni heritage add an extra pressure for him to succeed?

11. Discuss the colonialist roots of the coffee trade. How was the Yemeni culture robbed of its resource? Were you aware of this background?

12. In The Monk of Mokha, coffee is described as a "recession-proof" commodity, yet the process for entering the trade is one that is very difficult for outsiders. Discuss the challenges that Mokhtar faced as he learned the trade. How does he gain the trust of those in the industry, from the pickers to the distributors? How does his business model interrupt the standard practices within the industry?

13. Discuss the difference in atmosphere between Mokhtar’s first experience living in Yemen as a teenager and his travels there as an adult. How does his understanding of the country change as he matures? Discuss the effect of the civil war on Yemeni culture. How does Mokhtar navigate this environment? What advantages does he have as an American citizen?

14. In the last few chapters of The Monk of Mokha, as Mokhtar tries to escape Yemen, the reader is drawn into a fast-paced, gripping narrative of his escape. What was the most disturbing aspect of his experience? When do you think Mokhtar was most frightened for his well-being? How did he rely on his street smarts to help him to safety?

15. In the final scenes of the book, Eggers reveals himself as a "character" directly in the text. How would you describe Eggers’s narrative style throughout this book? If you have read other works by Eggers, how does this book compare to those books from a stylistic perspective?

16. Discuss the idea of the "American dream" and its cultural import in today’s world. How does Mokhtar’s story adhere to this narrative? How does his experience complicate the idea of what the American success story can look like? Consider the last chapters of the book. What was the defining moment of his success?
(Questions issued by the publishers.)

top of page (summary)

The Monster of Florence
Douglas Preston with Mario Spezi, 2008
Grand Central Publishing
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780446581271

Summary
In the tradition of John Berendt's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City, Douglas Preston weaves a captivating account of crime and punishment in the lush hills of Florence, Italy.

Douglas Preston fulfilled a lifelong dream when he moved with his family to a villa in Florence. Upon meeting celebrated journalist Mario Spezi, Preston was stunned to learn that the olive grove next to his home had been the scene of a horrific double murder committed by one of the most infamous figures in Italian history. A serial killer who ritually murdered fourteen young lovers, he has never been caught. He is known as the Monster of Florence.

Fascinated by the tale, Preston began to work with Spezi on the case. Here is the true story of their search to uncover and confront the man they believe is the Monster. In an ironic twist of fate that echoes the dark traditions of the city's bloody history, Preston and Spezi themselves became targets of a bizarre police investigation.

With the gripping suspense of Preston's bestselling novels, The Monster of Florence tells a remarkable and harrowing chronicle of murder, mutilation, suicide, and vengeance-with Preston and Spezi caught in the middle. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1956
• Where—Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—B.A., Pomona College
• Currently—live in both Maine and in New Mexico

Douglas Preston was born in 1956 in Cambridge, MA, was raised in nearby Wellesley (where, by his own admission, he and his brothers were the scourge of the neighborhood!), and graduated from Pomona College in California with a degree in English literature.

Preston's first job was as a writer for the American Museum of Natural History in New York—an eight year stint that led to the publication of his first book, Dinosaurs in the Attic and introduced him to his future writing partner, Lincoln Child, then working as an editor at St. Martin's Press. The two men bonded, as they worked closely together on the book. As the project neared completion, Preston treated Child to a private midnight tour of the museum, an excursion that proved fateful. As Preston tells it, "...in the darkened Hall of Late Dinosaurs, under a looming T. Rex, Child turned to [me] and said: 'This would make the perfect setting for a thriller!'" Their first collaborative effort, Relic, would not be published until 1995, by which time Preston had picked up stakes and moved to Santa Fe to pursue a full-time writing career.

In addition to writing novels (The Codex, Tyrannosaur Canyon) and nonfiction books on the American Southwest (Cities of Gold, Ribbons of Time), Preston has collaborated with Lincoln Child on several post-Relic thrillers. While not strictly a series, the books share characters and events, and the stories all take place in the same universe. The authors refer to this phenomenon as "The Preston-Child Pangea."

Preston divides his time between New Mexico and Maine, while Child lives in New Jersey—a situation that necessitates a lot of long-distance communication. But their partnership (facilitated by phone, fax, and email) is remarkably productive and thoroughly egalitarian: They shape their plots through a series of discussions; Child sends an outline of a set of chapters; Preston writes the first draft of those chapters, which is subsequently rewritten by Child; and in this way the novel is edited back and forth until both authors are happy. They attribute the relatively seamless surface of their books to the fact that "[a]ll four hands have found their way into practically every sentence, at one time or another."

In between, Preston remains busy. He is a regular contributor to magazines like National Geographic, The New Yorker, Natural History, Smithsonian, Harper's, and Travel & Leisure, and he continues with varied solo literary projects. Which is not to say his partnership with Lincoln Child is over. Fans of the bestselling Preston-Child thrillers can be assured there are bigger and better adventures to come.

Extras
• Douglas Preston counts among his ancestors the poet Emily Dickinson, the newspaperman Horace Greeley, and the infamous murderer and opium addict Amasa Greenough.

• His brother is Richard Preston, the bestselling author of The Hot Zone, The Cobra Event, The Wild Trees, and other novels and nonfiction narratives.

• Preston is an expert horseman and a member of the Long Riders Guild.

• He is also a National Geographic Society Fellow, has traveled extensively around the world, and contributes archaeological articles to many magazines.

From a 2005 Barnes & Noble interview:

• My first job was washing dishes in the basement of a nursing home for $2.10 an hour, and I learned as much about the value of hard work there as I ever did later."

• I need to write in a small room—the smaller the better. I can't write in a big room where someone might sneak up behind my back."

• My hobbies are mountain biking, horseback riding and packing, canoeing and kayaking, hiking, camping, cooking, and skiing.

• When asked what book most influenced his life or career as a writer, here is his response:

I would have to say the novel War and Peace influenced me more than any other book. This greatest of novels demonstrated to me the enormous power of literature and fired me up with a desire to become a writer, to participate in what I considered then to be the greatest of all endeavors.

(Author bio and interview by Barnes & Noble.)

Book Reviews
The most memorable scene captures the collateral damage every murder inflicts.... Preston is indeed a stranger in a strange land.... Hard as this book is on the Italian legal system, a deep love for Italy, Italians and Italian culture permeates it. Particularly on the part of Preston, who often sounds like a man locked out of paradise.
Seattle Post Intelligencer

One of the most fascinating criminal cases in recent memory.... A vivid look at a largely close society, with elaborate mores and convoluted history, and a Byzantine justice system to match.... The perfect summer page turner—enough grim details to satisfy those fascinated with serial killer lore, enough twists and turns to engross those who are drawn to police procedures, as well as a chilling story of what happens when a writer becomes identified with a murder investigation in the eyes of the authorities.
New Orleans Time-Picayune

Remarkable true-crime story...passionately describes the investigations gone wrong.... Preston knows how to load his storytelling with intriguing evidence and damning details. His feverish style keeps the reader turning with the hope of uncovering the killer's identity.
USA Today

As taut and tense as any of the author's bestselling thrillers...fascinating, stomach-churning...nerve-tingling action and vivid writing...The Monster of Florence is a gripping tale, filled with shocking crimes, boldly drawn characters, and the careening suspense of the ultimate whodunit.
Dallas Morning News

(Starred review.) United in their obsession with a grisly Italian serial murder case almost three decades old, thriller writer Preston (coauthor, Brimstone) and Italian crime reporter Spezi seek to uncover the identity of the killer in this chilling true crime saga. From 1974 to 1985, seven pairs of lovers parked in their cars in secluded areas outside of Florence were gruesomely murdered. When Preston and his family moved into a farmhouse near the murder sites, he and Spezi began to snoop around, although witnesses had died and evidence was missing. With all of the chief suspects acquitted or released from prison on appeal, Preston and Spezi's sleuthing continued until ruthless prosecutors turned on the nosy pair, jailing Spezi and grilling Preston for obstructing justice. Only when Dateline NBC became involved in the maze of mutilated bodies and police miscues was the authors' hard work rewarded. This suspenseful procedural reveals much about the dogged writing team as well as the motives of the killers. Better than some overheated noir mysteries, this bit of real-life Florence bloodletting makes you sweat and think, and presses relentlessly on the nerves.
Publishers Weekly

In 2000, Preston, the best-selling coauthor of thrillers with Lincoln Child (e.g., The Relic) moved to Florence, Italy, to research a new mystery and fell headlong into the case of the Monster of Florence. Between 1968 and 1985, seven couples had been murdered in their cars in secluded lovers' lanes in and around Florence. (The murders took place near Preston's 14th-century farmhouse.) Intrigued, Preston teamed up with Italian journalist and "Monsterologist" Spezi to write an article-and became part of the story. The investigation of these serial murders had taken on a surreal edge, with wild conspiracy theories involving satanic cults being seriously considered by desperate investigators. At one point, Spezi himself was accused of the murders, while Preston was accused of planting evidence and even suspected of being an American spy. Eventually, the authors came to believe they knew the identity of the Monster, but nothing has been proven. Truth is truly stranger than fiction, as lives are destroyed, reputations are ruined, and evidence is manufactured to fit the suspect-of-the-month. Preston fans and true-crime fans are sure to be riveted. Recommended for public libraries.
Library Journal

Talk about your knotty true-crime situations! Officially, the investigation “grinds on with no end in sight,” having claimed one more victim—Spezi’s peace of mind. — Mike Tribby
Booklist

Meticulous account of the collaboration between American thriller author Preston (Blasphemy, 2008, etc.) and Italian journalist Spezi to plumb a long-unsolved series of murders. Between 1974 and 1985, seven couples were killed while having sex in parked cars in the hills around Florence, Preston learned shortly after he moved to Italy in August 2000. One of those double homicides occurred in an olive grove next to the stone farmhouse he had just moved into with his family. Preston's informant was Spezi, who had covered the serial killings and dubbed their perpetrator "the Monster of Florence." Italian authorities had charged various men with one or more of the murders. Some had been brought to trial; one had been convicted but acquitted on appeal. Looking back to a seemingly unrelated killing in 1968, Spezi believed he had determined the identity of the actual killer, and Preston bought his theory. The pair began to write a book outlining their ideas, and the Italian authorities retaliated by harassing them. In February 2006, Preston was interrogated by a police captain who accused him and Spezi of planting false evidence, then essentially told the American to get out of Italy and not come back. Spezi was arrested on April 7, 12 days before Dolci Colline di Sangue was slated to be published, accused not only of obstructing justice but of somehow being involved in the Monster of Florence murders. Three weeks later, a judicial tribunal exonerated him of all charges and he was released. The police detective and prosecutor responsible for Preston's interrogation and Spezi's arrest, as well as mishandling the serial-killing investigation, are awaiting trial on charges of abuse of office. With so many characters and so many theories about the case, the book is sometimes difficult to follow, and Preston's flat prose does little to help. He is a likable narrator, however, and his commitment to untrammeled press freedom is inspiring. A cautionary saga about how the criminal-justice system can spin out of control.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

top of page

The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History
Robert M. Edsel, Bret Witter, 2009
Little, Brown and Co.
496 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781599951492

Summary
At the same time Adolf Hitler was attempting to take over the western world, his armies were methodically seeking and hoarding the finest art treasures in Europe. The Fuehrer had begun cataloguing the art he planned to collect as well as the art he would destroy: "degenerate" works he despised.

In a race against time, behind enemy lines, often unarmed, a special force of American and British museum directors, curators, art historians, and others, called the Momuments Men, risked their lives scouring Europe to prevent the destruction of thousands of years of culture.

Focusing on the eleven-month period between D-Day and V-E Day, this fascinating account follows six Monuments Men and their impossible mission to save the world's great art from the Nazis. (From the publisher.)

The 2014 movie stars George Clooney, Matt Damon, Cate Blanchette, Bill Murray, John Goodman, among others.

Author Bios
• Birth—December 28, 1956
• Where—Oak Park, Illinois, USA
• Raised—Dallas, Texas
• Education—N/A
• Currently—lives in Dallas, Texas

Robert Morse Edsel is an American writer and businessman. He is the author of the non-fiction books Rescuing Da Vinci, The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History and Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nation's Treasures from the Nazis, about art treasures preserved during and after World War II and the heroes who saved them. Edsel is the founder and president of the Monuments Men Foundation for the Preservation of Art which received the 2007 National Humanities Medal under President George W. Bush and has donated two albums of photographic evidence of the Third Reich's theft of art treasures to the United States National Archives.

Background
Edsel was born in Oak Park, Illinois and raised in Dallas, Texas. He is the son of Norma Louise (nee Morse), a housewife, and Alpha Ray Edsel, a stockbroker. Edsel was formerly a nationally ranked tennis player. In 1981, he began his business career in oil and gas exploration. His company, Gemini Exploration, pioneered the use of horizontal drilling technology throughout the early 1990s. Gemini Exploration grew from a company with eight employees to almost 100. By 1995, Gemini had become the second most active driller of horizontal wells in the United States and Robert Edsel sold the company’s assets to Union Pacific Resources Company. The following year he moved to Europe with his family.

The Monuments Men
In the late 1990s, while living in Florence, Edsel began to think about the methods and planning used to keep art out of the hands of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. Following a divorce in 2000, Edsel moved to New York City, where he began a serious effort to learn about and understand the issue. By 2004, those efforts had become a full time career, and he established a research office in Dallas, his hometown. By 2005, he had gathered thousands of photographs and other documents, and began writing the manuscript for Rescuing Da Vinci. The book was published in 2006 and received wide attention.

In September 2009, Edsel’s second book, The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History, a narrative telling of the story of the Monuments Men, was released by Center Street, a division of Hachette Book Group. Current plans include publication of the book in seventeen languages. George Clooney wrote, directed and starred in the movie, The Monuments Men.

In May 2013, Edsel's sequel to The Monuments Men, entitled Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nation's Treasures from the Nazis, was published by W. W. Norton.

Edsel co-produced a documentary film, The Rape of Europa, based on the book by Lynn Nicholas. Narrated by Joan Allen with extensive commentary by looted art specialist Jonathan Petropoulos, the film was well received by critics and began a theatrical run in September 2007 at the Paris Theatre in New York City. In addition, Mr. Edsel has created The Greatest Theft in History educational program, which includes the two-hour documentary film and seven hours of additional clips, as well as a companion website featuring lesson plans, glossaries, timelines and other resources which allows teachers to easily utilize this material for classroom use.

In 2007, Edsel created the Monuments Men Foundation for the Preservation of Art. The foundation's mission is ...

to preserve the legacy of the unprecedented and heroic work of the men and women who served in the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (“MFAA”) section, known as "Monuments Men," during World War II, by raising public awareness of the importance of protecting and safeguarding civilization’s most important artistic and cultural treasures from armed conflict, but incorporating these expressions of man's greatest creative achievements into our daily lives.

He announced the foundation's creation during a ceremony on June 6, 2007, the 63rd anniversary of D-Day, to celebrate Senate and House concurrent resolutions honoring the Monuments Men.

The Monuments Men Foundation was one of ten recipients of the 2007 National Humanities Medal, an honor which was presented by President Bush during a ceremony held in the East Room of The White House on November 15, 2007. The National Humanities Medal is the highest honor given for excellence in the Humanities field, and honors individuals and groups whose work has deepened the nation’s understanding of the humanities, broadened citizens’ engagement with the humanities, or helped preserve and expand Americans’ access to important resources in the humanities.

Nazi albums
During the course of his research into the whereabouts of lost art and efforts both to save and profit from knowledge of the crime, Edsel discovered the existence of two large, leather-bound photograph albums which documented portions of the European art looted by the Nazis. The two photographic albums were in the possession of heirs to an American soldier stationed in the Berchtesgaden area of Germany in the closing days of World War II.

The albums were created by the staff of the Third Reich’s Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR), a special unit that found and confiscated the best material in Nazi-occupied countries, to use for exploitation. In France, the ERR engaged in an extensive and elaborate art looting operation, part of Hitler’s much larger premeditated scheme to steal art treasures from conquered nations.

The albums were created for Hitler and high-level Nazi officials as a catalogue and, more importantly, to give Hitler a way to choose the art for his art museum in Austria. A group of these photograph albums was presented to Hitler on his birthday in 1943, to "send a ray of beauty and joy into [his] revered life." ERR staff stated that nearly 100 such volumes were created during the years of their art looting operation.

Edsel worked with the owners of the albums to acquire them for preservation. In November 2007, at a ceremony with Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein, Edsel announced the existence of these photograph albums to the public and, separately, donated the albums to the National Archives. Weinstein, called the discovery "one of the most significant finds related to Hitler’s premeditated theft of art and other cultural treasures to be found since the Nuremberg trials." (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/10/2014.)

Bret Witter
Bret Witter cowrote the bestseller Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World (2008). He lives in Louisville, KY.

Book Reviews
Were the Allied (mostly American) soldiers who rescued works of art stolen by the Nazis before and during World War II really heroes, as Robert M. Edsel claims in The Monuments Men, or were they good men—aided by one resourceful, determined French woman—who were simply, in the best sense of the phrase, just doing their jobs? My vote is for the latter…Still, for the most part they have receded into the fog of history…and that is a pity, so it is good to have them given recognition in The Monuments Men. It's a somewhat problematical boo…But it's a terrific story, and it certainly is good to give these men (and that one remarkable woman) their due.
Jonathan Yardley - Washington Post

WWII was the most destructive war in history and caused the greatest dislocation of cultural artifacts. Hundreds of thousands of items remain missing. The main burden fell to a few hundred men and women, curators and archivists, artists and art historians from 13 nations. Their task was to save and preserve what they could of Europe's great art.... The story is both engaging and inspiring. In the midst of a total war, armies systematically sought to mitigate cultural loss.
Publishers Weekly

Adolf Hitler's plan for the subjugation of the world included its culture and treasures. Art was to be taken from conquered countries and stored in Germany until Hitler could build the world's largest museum complex in his hometown of Linz, Austria. It was the job of the Monuments Men (as they came to be called) to track down these missing treasures during the latter years of the war.... [W]ill appeal to many general and military history readers.
Library Journal

Also, consider using these LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for The Monuments Men:

1. "It was a good group, he had to admit. A group [Stout] himself might have chosen, if given the chance." Talk about the original group of 11 men put together to salvage the world's artwork. What made George Stoat believe that it was the right team for the job? What were the men's individual qualifications, both personal and professional?

2. What kind of man was George Stout? How would you describe James Rorimer? Why was his service so invaluable to the mission? Who else stood out among the Monuments Men?

3. What role did Rose Valland play? How critical was she to the success of the Monuments Men mission?

4. Why were the pieces of art so important to Hitler? Why was he so intent on creating his "Führermuseum...the largest, most imposing, most spectacular art museum in the world"?

5. Should the team who rescued the stolen art be elevated to the level of heroism as Robert M. Edsel indicates? Or should we consider them as good men doing a hard job very effectively—and extend our gratitude and respect?

6. Another question that must be asked is the degree of importance accorded to the mission. Is protecting art worth the price of a human life—or diverting resources otherwise used to protect lives? What do you think? What does Edsel suggest?

7. If you have seen the George Clooney directed movie, how does it compare to the book? What do you think of the film...it's music (especially), visuals, and actors. If you haven't yet seen the film, do you intend to after reading and discussing the book?

8. What have you learned from reading The Monuments Men—about the war, the Nazis, and most of all about art?

top of page (summary)

Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything
Joshua Foer, 2011
Penguin Group USA
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781594202292

Summary
Foer's unlikely journey from chronically forgetful science journalist to U.S. Memory Champion frames a revelatory exploration of the vast, hidden impact of memory on every aspect of our lives.

On average, people squander forty days annually compensating for things they've forgotten. Joshua Foer used to be one of those people.

But after a year of memory training, he found himself in the finals of the U.S. Memory Championship. Even more important, Foer found a vital truth we too often forget: In every way that matters, we are the sum of our memories.

Moonwalking with Einstein draws on cutting-edge research, a surprising cultural history of memory, and venerable tricks of the mentalist's trade to transform our understanding of human remembering

Under the tutelage of top "mental athletes," he learns ancient techniques once employed by Cicero to memorize his speeches and by Medieval scholars to memorize entire books. Using methods that have been largely forgotten, Foer discovers that we can all dramatically improve our memories.

Immersing himself obsessively in a quirky subculture of competitive memorizers, Foer learns to apply techniques that call on imagination as much as determination-showing that memorization can be anything but rote.

From the PAO system, which converts numbers into lurid images, to the memory palace, in which memories are stored in the rooms of imaginary structures, Foer's experience shows that the World Memory Championships are less a test of memory than of perseverance and creativity.

Foer takes his inquiry well beyond the arena of mental athletes-across the country and deep into his own mind. In San Diego, he meets an affable old man with one of the most severe case of amnesia on record, where he learns that memory is at once more elusive and more reliable than we might think.

In Salt Lake City, he swaps secrets with a savant who claims to have memorized more than nine thousand books. At a high school in the South Bronx, he finds a history teacher using twenty- five-hundred-year-old memory techniques to give his students an edge in the state Regents exam.

At a time when electronic devices have all but rendered our individual memories obsolete, Foer's bid to resurrect the forgotten art of remembering becomes an urgent quest. Moonwalking with Einstein brings Joshua Foer to the apex of the U.S. Memory Championship and readers to a profound appreciation of a gift we all possess but that too often slips our minds. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1982
• Where—Washington, DC, USA
• Education—Yale University
• Currently—lives in the New Haven, Connecticut

Joshua Foer is a freelance journalist living in New Haven, USA, with a primary focus on science. He was the 2006 U.S.A. Memory Champion, which was described in his 2011 book, Moonwalking with Einstein.

Foer is the younger brother of New Republic editor Franklin Foer and novelist Jonathan Safran Foer. He is the son of Esther Foer, president of a public relations firm, and Albert Foer, a think-tank president. He was born in Washington, D.C. and attended Georgetown Day School. He then went on to graduate from Yale University, where he lived in Silliman College, in 2004.

Foer is married to Dinah Herlands, a medical student at Yale, whom he met while an undergraduate at Yale.

Career
Foer published his first book, Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, in 2011. He received a $1.2 million advance for the book when he was 24. Film rights were optioned by Columbia Pictures shortly after publication.

In 2006, Foer won the U.S.A. Memory Championship, and set a new record in the "speed cards" event by memorizing a deck of 52 cards in 1 minute and 40 seconds. [4] Moonwalking with Einstein describes Foer's journey as a participatory journalist to becoming a national champion mnemonist, under the tutelage of British Grand Master of Memory, Ed Cooke.

Foer's work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Slate, and The Nation. In 2007, the quarterly art & culture journal Cabinet began publishing Foer's column "A Minor History Of." The column "examines an overlooked cultural phenomenon using a timeline.

Foer has organized several websites and organizations based on his interests. He created the Athanasius Kircher Society which had only one session featuring Kim Peek and Joseph Kittinger." He is the co-founder, along with Dylan Thuras, of the Atlas Obscura—an online compendium of "The World's Wonders, Curiosities, and Esoterica". He is also a co-organizer of Sukkah City—an architectural design competition planned in partnership with New York City's union Square Park in 2010. (From Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
In his captivating new book, Moonwalking With Einstein, the young journalist Joshua Foer tackles the subject of memory the way George Plimpton tackled pro football and boxing…Mr. Foer writes in these pages with fresh enthusiasm. His narrative is smart and funny and, like the work of Dr. Oliver Sacks, it's informed by a humanism that enables its author to place the mysteries of the brain within a larger philosophical and cultural contex.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times

His passionate and deeply engrossing book...is a resounding tribute to the muscularity of the mind... In the end, Moonwalking with Einstein reminds us that though brain science is a wild frontier and the mechanics of memory little understood, our minds are capable of epic achievements.
Washington Post

It's delightful to travel with him on this unlikely journey, and his entertaining treatment of memory as both sport and science is spot on...Moonwalking with Einstein proves uplifting: It shows that with motivation, focus and a few clever tricks, our minds can do rather extraordinary things.
Wall Street Journal

"[An] inspired and well-written debut book about not just memorization, but about what it means to be educated and the best way to become so, about expertise in general, and about the not-so-hidden "secrets" of acquiring skills.
Seattle Times

He explores various ways in which we test our memories, such as the extensive training British cabbies must undergo. He also discusses ways we can train ourselves to have better memories, like the PAO system, in which, for example, every card in a deck is associated with an image of a specific person, action, or object. An engaging, informative, and for the forgetful, encouraging book. —David Pitt
Booklist

In his first book, freelance journalist Foer recounts his adventures in preparing for the U.S. Memory Championship, investigating both the nature of memory and why the act of memorization still matters. For much of human history, remembering was the key to retaining accumulated knowledge and wisdom. The invention of printing sparked the development of "externalized memory," which has been greatly accelerated by computers and the Internet. We need no longer remember everything, but rather know where to find it, relegating memory experts to a "quirky subculture" comprised of individuals able to remember a list of 1,000 numbers, the exact order of two decks of playing cards and other feats. Foer began to investigate this subculture and then joined it as he trained for a year to compete among other "mental athletes." Mental athletes are neither geniuses nor savants, but they have mastered the art of translating what the brain is not good at remembering—words and numbers—into what it is good at remembering—space and images. They employ the 2,500-year-old mnemonic device of constructing "memory palaces"—imaginary buildings with distinct images throughout these spaces. For example, an image of President Clinton smoking a cigar on the couch might be the number three. It becomes, of course, quite complex, but Foer emphasizes that memorization is neither a gift nor a trick; it is hard work developing "a degree of attention and mindfulness normally lacking." The author is as concerned with what memory means as he is with learning how to memorize. He offers fascinating and accessible explorations into the workings of the brain and tells the story of a man who could forget nothing and of another man who could only remember his most immediate thought. If "experience is the sum of our memories and wisdom the sum of experience," writes the author, what does it mean that "we've supplanted our own natural memory with a vast superstructure of technological crutches"? An original, entertaining exploration about how and why we remember.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Moonwalking with Einstein:

1. How's the state of your memory?

2. Talk about techniques to improve the memory—the PAO system and the Memory Palace. How do they work? Have you attempted to use either technique to improve your own memory? What are some of the lurid objects...or houses you would use to recall objects you want to remember?

3. How important is memory to us today when our culture provides so many other ways of recalling information: our ability to write, printed texts, photos, computers, and smart phones?

4. In the ancient world, learning was memorizing. How would you characterize today's learning? What role does memory play in acquiring knowledge? Were the students Foer visited in the South Bronx learning history or memorizing it...or both?

5. Talk about the way memory shapes our identities and perceptions of the world. How does it do so?

6. What is Foer's reaction when he wins the U.S. Memory Championship? Did it fulfill his hopes and ideals of what an improved memory would bring him?

7. What do you think of Foer's coach, Ed Cooke? What about his philosophy that "a heroic person should be able to withstand about 10 years of solitary confinement without getting terribly annoyed"?

8. Talk about Ribot's Law—the process of integtrating memories into the brain's network. Does that law seem to hold true for your brain?

9. What is the role of memory in our culture and why does Foer say it is eroding at an ever faster pace? How serious a problem is this national amnesia...if, in fact, that's what it is?

10. Foer says that in the process of learning to memorize, he also learned "to pay attention to the world around" him. Are you keenly aware of your surroundings? How much attention do you pay to the world around you?

11. What sections in this book did you find funny? What was most interesting to you?

12. How much of this book do you remember?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online of off, with attribution. Thanks.)

top of page (summary)

Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life and the Unique Child who Became Theodore Roosevelt
David McCullough, 1981
Simon & Schuster
370 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780671447540

Summary
Mornings on Horseback is the brilliant biography of the young Theodore Roosevelt. Hailed as "a masterpiece" (John A. Gable, Newsday), it is the winner of the Los Angeles Times 1981 Book Prize for Biography and the National Book Award for Biography.

Written by David McCullough, the author of Truman, this is the story of a remarkable little boy, seriously handicapped by recurrent and almost fatal asthma attacks, and his struggle to manhood: an amazing metamorphosis seen in the context of the very uncommon household in which he was raised.

The father is the first Theodore Roosevelt, a figure of unbounded energy, enormously attractive and selfless, a god in the eyes of his small, frail namesake. The mother, Mittie Bulloch Roosevelt, is a Southerner and a celebrated beauty, but also considerably more, which the book makes clear as never before. There are sisters Anna and Corinne, brother Elliott (who becomes the father of Eleanor Roosevelt), and the lovely, tragic Alice Lee, TR's first love. All are brought to life to make "a beautifully told story, filled with fresh detail", wrote the New York Times Book Review.

A book to be read on many levels, it is at once an enthralling story, a brilliant social history and a work of important scholarship which does away with several old myths and breaks entirely new ground. It is a book about life intensely lived, about family love and loyalty, about grief and courage, about "blessed" mornings on horseback beneath the wide blue skies of the Badlands. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—July 7, 1933
• Where—Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
• Education—B.A., Yale University
• Awards—National Book Award (twice); Pulitzer Prize (twice); Presidential Medal of Honor
• Currently—lives in Boston, Massachusetts

David McCullough is an American author, narrator, historian, and lecturer. He is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian award.

McCullough's first book was The Johnstown Flood (1968), and he has since written nine more on such topics as Harry S. Truman, John Adams, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Wright Brothers. McCullough has also narrated numerous documentaries, such as The Civil War by Ken Burns, as well as the 2003 film Seabiscuit, and he hosted American Experience for twelve years.

McCullough's two Pulitzer Prize-winning books, Truman (1992) and John Adams (2001), have been adapted by HBO into a TV film and a mini-series, respectively. McCullough's history, The Greater Journey (2011), is about Americans in Paris from the 1830s to the 1900s.

Youth and education
McCullough was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Ruth (nee Rankin) and Christian Hax McCullough. He is of Scots-Irish descent. He was educated at Linden Avenue Grade School and Shady Side Academy, in his hometown of Pittsburgh.

One of four sons, McCullough had a "marvelous" childhood with a wide range of interests, ranging from sports to drawing cartoons. McCullough's parents and his grandmother, who read to him often, introduced him to books at an early age. His parents often talked about history, a topic he says should be discussed more often. McCullough "loved school, every day"; he contemplated many career choices, everything from architect, actor, painter, writer, to lawyer, and contemplated attending medical school for a time.

McCullough attended Yale University, graduating with honors in English in 1955. He considered it a "privilege" to study at Yale because of faculty members such as John O'Hara, John Hersey, Robert Penn Warren, and Brendan Gill. He occasionally ate lunch with the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and playwright Thornton Wilder. Wilder, says McCullough, taught him that a competent writer maintains "an air of freedom" in the storyline, so that a reader will not anticipate the outcome, even if the book is non-fiction.

While at Yale, he became a member of Skull and Bones. He served apprenticeships at Time, Life, the United States Information Agency, and American Heritage, where he enjoyed research. "Once I discovered the endless fascination of doing the research and of doing the writing, I knew I had found what I wanted to do in my life."

Early career
After graduation, McCullough moved to New York City, where Sports Illustrated hired him as a trainee. He later worked as an editor and writer for the United States Information Agency in Washington, D.C. After working for twelve years, including a position at American Heritage, in editing and writing, McCullough reached a point where he believed he "could attempt something" on his own.

Although he had no idea that he would end up writing history, McCullough "stumbled upon" a story that he felt was "powerful, exciting, and very worth telling." After three years of writing in his spare time (while still at American Heritage), he published The Johnstown Flood. The book, a chronicle of one of the worst flood disasters in United States history, was published in 1968 to high praise. John Leonard, of the New York Times, said of McCullough, "We have no better social historian." Despite precarious financial times, but encouraged by his wife Rosalee, he decided to become a full-time writer.

People often ask me if I'm working on a book. That's not how I feel. I feel like I work in a book. It's like putting myself under a spell. And this spell, if you will, is so real to me that if I have to leave my work for a few days, I have to work myself back into the spell when I come back. It's almost like hypnosis.

Recognition
After the success of The Johnstown Flood, two new publishers offered him contracts, one to write about the Great Chicago Fire and another about the San Francisco earthquake. Not wishing to become "Bad News McCullough," he decided to write about people who "were not always foolish and inept or irresponsible." He also remembered Thornton Wilder telling told him that "he got an idea for a book or a play when he wanted to learn about something. Then, he'd check to see if anybody had already done it, and if they hadn't, he'd do it."

McCullough decided to write a history of the Brooklyn Bridge, which he had walked across many times.

To me history ought to be a source of pleasure. It isn't just part of our civic responsibility. To me it's an enlargement of the experience of being alive, just the way literature or art or music is.

Published in 1972, critics hailed The Great Bridge (1972) as "the definitive book on the event."

Five years later, The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal was released, gaining McCullough widespread recognition. The book won the National Book Award in History, the Samuel Eliot Morison Award, the Francis Parkman Prize, and the Cornelius Ryan Award.

In 1977, McCullough traveled to the White House to advise Jimmy Carter and the United States Senate on the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, which would give Panama control of the Canal. Carter later said that the treaties, which were agreed upon to hand over ownership of the Canal to Panama, would not have passed, had it not been for the book.

Other works
McCullough's fourth work was his first biography, reinforcing his belief that "history is the story of people." Released in 1981, Mornings on Horseback tells the story of seventeen years in the life of Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States. The work ranged from 1869, when Roosevelt was ten years old, to 1886, and tells of a "life intensely lived." The book won McCullough's second National Book Award, his first Los Angeles Times Prize for Biography, and New York Public Library Literary Lion Award.

Next, he published Brave Companions, a collection of essays written over a period of twenty years. Essays cover historical or literary figures such as Louis Agassiz, Alexander von Humboldt, John and Washington Roebling, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Conrad Aiken, and Frederic Remington.

McCullough's next book, his second biography, Truman (1993), was about the 33rd president. That book won McCullough his first Pulitzer Prize for "Best Biography or Autobiography" and his second Francis Parkman Prize. Two years later, the book was adapted as an HBO television movie by the same name, with Gary Sinise in the role of Truman. Commenting on his subject, Truman said

I think it's important to remember that these men are not perfect. If they were marble gods, what they did wouldn't be so admirable. The more we see the founders as humans the more we can understand them.

Seven years later, in 2001, McCullough published his third biography John Adams, about the life of the second US president. One of the fastest-selling non-fiction books in history, it won McCullough's second Pulitzer Prize for "Best Biography or Autobiography." He intended the book to be about the two founding fathers and back-to-back presidents, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, but he became so intrigued with Adams that he decided to focus on Adams alone. In 2008 HBO adapted the book as a seven-part miniseries by the same name, with Paul Giamatti in the title role.

Published in 2005, McCullough's 1776, tells the story of the founding year of the US, focusing on George Washington, the amateur army, and other struggles for independence. Because of McCullough's popularity, its initial printing was 1.25 million copies, many more than the average history book. Upon its release, the book became a number-one bestseller in the US.

McCullough considered writing a sequel to 1776 but instead wrote about Americans in Paris between 1830 and 1900. The Greater Journey, published in 2011, covers 19th-century Americans, including Mark Twain and Samuel Morse, who migrated to Paris and went on to achieve importance in culture or innovation. Others included in the book are Elihu Washburne, the American ambassador to France during the Franco-Prussian War, and Elizabeth Blackwell, the first female doctor in the US.

Personal life
David McCullough lives in Boston, Massachusetts, and is married to Rosalee Barnes McCullough, whom he met at age 17 in Pittsburgh. The couple has five children and nineteen grandchildren. He enjoys sports, history and art, including watercolor and portrait painting.

His son David Jr., an English teacher at Wellesley High School in the Boston suburbs, achieved sudden fame in 2012 with his commencement speech. He told graduating students, "you're not special" nine times, and his speech went viral on YouTube. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/2/2015.)

Book Reviews
I could be wrong, and often am, but I felt throughout Mornings on Horseback that Mr. McCullough wanted to write a book about Mittie and Bamie, and then refrained. The book he has written is excellent—we have no better social historian—but it doesn't address, out loud, that odd conspiracy of women that sabotages the self and encourages the machismo rubbish of a Teddy Roosevelt as he shoots the birds.
John Leonard - New York Times

[McCullough] brings us as close as anyone will ever get to understanding the unique alchemy of the Roosevelt family—and its power to help and hinder Theodore in his rise. It is a measure of the author's talent that one wishes the book were longer. We nw what happened to T.R. after 1886, of course, and a concise afterword sketches the subsequent careers of his siblings. But we want the details—for David McCullough has made us care deeply about every member of this vivid tribe.
Geoffrey C. Ward - New York Times Book Review

A fine account of Roosevelt's rise to manhood, well written and, like its subject, full of irrepressible vitality.
Denver Post

Discussion Questions
1. In 1851, Theodore was sent on a Grand Tour. With a jealous sentiment, Robert critiqued Theodore's pattern of experiences saying, "it [traveling] is not to see scenery, or places," but rather to see and have conversations with men of other cultures to see their points of view. Do you agree with this statement? How do most Americans travel and why? What is your goal when you travel? What would you want your family to take from an experience over seas?

2. In exploring the effect of asthma over Teedie's life and the Roosevelt family, McCullough writes, "For a child as acutely sensitive and intelligent as he, the impact of asthma could not have been anything but profound, affecting personality, outlook self-regard, the whole course of his young life, in marked fashion.... But he knows also that his particular abnormality lends a kind of power." What power is McCullough speaking of? How does Teedie's illness positively affect his life, interests, and ultimate passions and goals? Explain.

3. Teedie was encouraged by his father to build up his body as a way of overcoming his illness. His father says, "Theodore you have the mind, but you have not the body, and without the help of the body the mind cannot go as far as it should.... You must make your body." Do you think this was the correct approach in dealing with Teedie's asthma? What approach would you use in dealing with an asthmatic child? Would you be overprotective, or would you encourage self-sufficiency? Explain.

4. During the Depression, business for the Roosevelts was stagnant and competition was high. As opposed to putting more effort into import trade, the Roosevelt brothers, Theodore and James Alfred, became financers. When Alexander Graham Bell proposed his newly invented telephone, Theodore did not believe it had any real future outside of toys. Explain how Roosevelt could have arrived at this decision. In your lifetime, can you think of new technologies that you wished you had invested in? Discuss.

5. In 1869, Charles W. Eliot was named president of Harvard University. He believed, "to be educated in science was to be educated in the future," and that "science was the firm foundation for man's faith in himself and in the present infinite creator." The Harvard administration's commitment to excellence in Science under Eliot aligned well with Teedie's interests. For a young man so well traveled, when did Teedie gain most from his Harvard education?

6. Theodore, Jr. courted Alice for quite a while before she reluctantly surrendered to his affection. Although, he had many girlfriends and admirers Alice was exceptionally beautiful to him. After marriage, their relationship was as loving and intense as his father and mother. Compare Theodore, Jr. and Alice's relationship with Theodore, Sr. and Mittie. Of Alice's characteristics which of those did Teedie fall most for? In Teedie's upbringing, what did he learn about what's most important in a wife?

7. On a tiger hunt south of Hyderabad in India, Teedie shoots and kills one of the largest tigers ever seen in that area. To his father Teedie writes, "it is the life, old man. Our kind. The glorious freedom, the greatest excitement.... How everything here would have pleased your fondness for the unusual and the dangerous." What does Teedie imply by "our kind"? If you were a Roosevelt, how would you live? What would be the most important aspect of your lifestyle?

8. As a member of the State Assembly at the age of twenty-three, Theodore, Jr. proved to be an irreverent spirit in politics. After meeting Samuel Gompers and learning of the working conditions of cigar makers, Theodore supported the Cigar Makers Bill while simultaneously stepping on the toes of the notorious Jay Gould. What was Theodore's mistake in taking on Gould? How did he inadvertently fashion his political image? How was his polarized sense of right and wrong constructed by his upbringing? Was he wrong in his judgment of "the wealthy criminal class"?

9. Theodore often felt jaded about law as a profession, saying lawyers do not serve justice, they serve their clients; often equating a lawyers career with moneymaking and not with public service. If Theodore had similar sentiments about law, what did he say about politics, especially since he had a similar regard for the political profession? What was Theodore's ultimate goal in politics?

10. After the sudden deaths of Mittie and Alice, Theodore threw himself into his work as a way of compensating for his grief. In Alice's eulogy, he writes, "When my heart's dearest died, the light went out from my life for ever." Explain how he handled this sudden turn of events. How has his experience as an asthmatic prepared him for such fate?

11. Theodore's fascination with The Bad Lands and the romanticized West seemed the perfect antidote for his broken heart. What was it about the West that intrigued him and helped him to deal with life as a widow?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

top of page

Mother Daughter Me: A Memoir
Katie Hafner, 2013
Random House
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781400069361

Summary
The complex, deeply binding relationship between mothers and daughters is brought vividly to life in Katie Hafner’s remarkable memoir, an exploration of the year she and her mother, Helen, spent working through, and triumphing over, a lifetime of unresolved emotions.

Dreaming of a “year in Provence” with her mother, Katie urges Helen to move to San Francisco to live with her and Zoe, Katie’s teenage daughter. Katie and Zoe had become a mother-daughter team, strong enough, Katie thought, to absorb the arrival of a seventy-seven-year-old woman set in her ways.

Filled with fairy-tale hope that she and her mother would become friends, and that Helen would grow close to her exceptional granddaughter, Katie embarked on an experiment in intergenerational living that she would soon discover was filled with land mines: memories of her parents’ painful divorce, of her mother’s drinking, of dislocating moves back and forth across the country, and of Katie’s own widowhood and bumpy recovery. Helen, for her part, was also holding difficult issues at bay.

How these three women from such different generations learn to navigate their challenging, turbulent, and ultimately healing journey together makes for riveting reading. By turns heartbreaking and funny—and always insightful—Katie Hafner’s brave and loving book answers questions about the universal truths of family that are central to the lives of so many. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
Katie Hafner is an American journalist who writes books and articles about technology and society. She writes for the New York Times on technology and healthcare, and was a contributing editor for Newsweek. She has worked at Business Week, and has written for Esquire, Wired, New Republic and New York Times Magazine. She was born in Rochester, New York.

Her sixth book, Mother Daughter Me, a memoir about three generations of women trying to live together was published in 2013 to solid praise. It was named one of "Ten Titles to Pick Up Now" in O Magazine and made Parade Magazine's 2013 Summer Reading List, July's Goodreads "Mover and Shaker" list, and iTunes' "Best Books of July."

Bibliography

Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier (with John Markoff) (1991)
The House at the Bridge: A Story of Modern Germany (1995)
Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet (with Matthew Lyon) (1996)
The Well: A Story of Love, Death and Real Life in the Seminal Online Community (2001)
A Romance on Three Legs: Glenn Gould's Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Piano (2008)
Mother Daughter Me: A Memoir (2013)

Along with her other literary credits, Hafner's 2006 New York Times article "Growing Wikipedia Refines its 'Anyone Can Edit' Policy" is currently featured in The McGraw-Hill Guide Writing for College, Writing for Life, second edition an English composition textbook. It is used by hundreds of undergrads as source material for topical essays. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 7/17/2013.)

Book Reviews
In a curiously optimistic but ultimately doomed experiment in communal living, journalist and author Hafner (The Well) invites her 77-year-old mother, Helen, to share the household she and her teenage daughter.... Their year of living together elicits enormous spiritual growth, though not necessarily the way they envision. Sadly, the narrative is tedious, but some well-intentioned familial reckoning emerges.
Publishers Weekly

Hafner writes with compassion and wit about the often uneasy alliance between mothers and daughters and the surprising ways in which relationships can be redeemed even late in life.
Booklist

Hafner agreed [to rent] a house in San Francisco where all three women could cohabitate. It was only when they all came together under one roof that she realized she had totally misjudged the situation. In a narrative that skillfully moves between her present predicament and her difficult childhood, Hafner offers a compelling portrait of her remarkable mother and their troubled relationship.... Heartbreakingly honest, yet not without hope and flashes of wry humor.
Kirkus Reviews

top of page (summary)

The Motion of the Ocean: 1 Small Boat, 2 Average Lovers, and a Woman's Search for the Meaning of Wife
Janna Cawrse Esarey, 2009
Simon & Schuster
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781416589082

Summary
Choosing a mate is like picking house paint from one of those tiny color squares: You never know how it will look across a large expanse, or how it will change in different light.

Meet Janna and Graeme. After a decade-long tango (together, apart, together, apart), they're back in love—but the stress of nine-to-five is seriously hampering their happiness. So they quit their jobs, tie the knot, and untie the lines on a beat-up old sailboat for a most unusual honeymoon: a two-year voyage across the Pacific. But passage from first date to first mate is anything but smooth sailing. From the rugged Pacific Northwest coast to the blue lagoons of Polynesia to bustling Asian ports, Janna and Graeme find themselves at the mercy of poachers, under the spell of crossdressers, and under the gun of a less-than-sober tattooist. And they encounter do-or-die moments that threaten their safety, their sanity, and their marriage.

Join Janna and Graeme's 17,000-mile journey and their quest to resolve the uncertainties so many couples face: How do you know if you've really found the One? How do you balance duty to others while preserving space for yourself? And, when the waters get rough, do you jump ship, or do you learn to navigate the world...together?. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1971
• Where—San Diego, California, USA
• Education—B.A., Whitman College
• Currently—lives in Seattle, Washington

Janna Cawrse Esarey was born in 1971 in San Diego, California. When she was just an ankle biter, her family relocated to Yokosuka, Japan, where her dad was a dentist in the Navy. When Janna was four, her parents went ocean sailing with friends. They capsized (twice) in a typhoon off the coast of Japan.

The family moved back to Ohio for a brief time, and then to Seattle where Janna grew up. In high school, Janna fell in love with Crosby, Stills, and Nash’s song “Southern Cross” and swore she would one day sail the world. Janna’s mom, recalling her own typhoon experience, didn’t know if this was an idle threat or a cruel joke.

Janna attended Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, where she fell in love with a fisherman and fellow philosophy major. He dumped her. Janna studied in France for a year and became fluent in French the best way she knew how: from a French beau. Upon her return to the States, Janna graduated from Whitman cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, receiving the William Soper Prize in Philosophy.

Eager to put her philosophy major to good use, Janna worked on a dude ranch in Wyoming, baked pretzels in Bavaria, and ski bummed in Utah. When she grew tired of the phrase “knee-deep pow-pow, dude,” Janna became a Writing Center Fellow at Georgetown University. She earned an MA in English with an emphasis in teaching writing. During this time, that fisherman Janna had dated in college came crawling back. They enjoyed a six-month e-romance. She dumped him.

From 1997 to 1999, Janna taught middle school in New Orleans with Teach For America, a program committed to ending educational inequity. She received the New Orleans New Teacher of the Year Award in 1998. Janna moved home to Seattle where she taught high school English and met, yet again, that fisherman she’d dated in college. This time, instead of dumping each other, they tied the knot and set out across the Pacific on a 35-foot sailboat.

During the two years that Janna spent sailing from Seattle to Hong Kong, she wrote for sailing magazines, including Sail and Cruising World, and anthologies, including More Sand in My Bra and Sweat & The City. It wasn’t until she moved back to the States in 2006 that she began serious work on her relationship memoir, The Motion of the Ocean: 1 Small Boat, 2 Average Lovers, and a Woman’s Search for the Meaning of Wife. Janna blogs about relationships for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer at “Happily Even After.” (From the author's website.)

Book Reviews
Unconventional twists on love and family. When Janna Cawrse Esarey and her on-again, off-again boyfriend hit a roadblock in their relationship, they decided to quit their jobs, get married, and sail around the world. The Motion of the Ocean: 1 Small Boat, 2 Average Lovers and a Woman’s Search for the Meaning of Wife is Esarey’s account of her experience as a novice sailor and new bride, cash-strapped but rich in love and convinced that life should be an adventure.
Parade

This highly entertaining debut memoir follows thirty-something journalist Esarey and her new husband, Graeme, on a 17,000-mile journey around the Pacific Ocean in their small sailboat. Before they leave, countless married friends tell them, "If your relationship can survive this, it can survive anything." It doesn’t take the nautically challenged Esarey long to realize just how true the warning is. A well-written, rollicking high-seas adventure, this will appeal to anyone who enjoys a good love story. —Elizabeth Brinkley
Library Journal

Travel and relationship memoir from Seattle Post-Intelligencer blogger Esarey. After listening to Crosby, Stills & Nash's "Southern Cross" as a teenager, Esarey fell in love with the sea-but not the "literal, wet...get-a-degree-in-marine-biology sea.... The lyrical sea...the transformative sea," she writes. "To the extent that women-girls have pickup lines, ‘I'm going to sail around the world someday' became mine. Boys eat that shit up." As did Graeme, the college sweetheart she eventually married and convinced to accompany her on her ambitious voyage. Onboard the Dragonfly a fight presented the perfect opportunity to explore the ten hard years that separated the couple's first meeting and this voyage, their honeymoon cruise. As their story unfolds chronologically in a series of small events, the author reflects on their time apart and ultimate reunion. But she glosses over many details, including what Graeme did for a living, and her tendency to substitute "blah blah blah" over dialogue, while occasionally humorous, may cause readers to question the focus of her attention. "The Green Box of Love" makes regular reference to the metaphoric significance of a gift box she's brought on the journey, but the author never reveals the container's actual contents. Throughout, the big question looms—can this couple make it? Fortunately, two years of cruising around the world offered a wealth of intriguing experiences, and Esarey ably brings to life remote isles and customs—particularly those in the South Pacific—most readers will never see. Her ruminations on these experiences, however, are mostly banal. Describing a beauty pageant for transgendered women in Samoa, she writes, "clapping wildly for those ballsy women carved out more space in my brain for words like beautiful and woman and normal." An uneven journey across the chartered waters of a romantic relationship.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. The book opens with the author thinking her husband is an asshole, but after they survive a small calamity together, she says she's never felt so in love. When have you experienced this sort of flip-flop of emotions about a loved one? Throughout the story, how does Janna reveal both the positive and negative aspects of marriage? Of her husband? Of herself?

2. When looking at the mint color of the walls in her foyer, Janna says, "those little color squares are cruel jokes; they trick you into thinking you know what you're getting when really you never can tell." Is this an apt metaphor for choosing a life partner? Why or why not? What can prepare us to make this monumental decision? How does one choose the One?

3. Throughout the book Janna demonstrates that she finds it difficult to be on time or do tasks in a timely manner—she is a "Pokey Person." Graeme, on the other hand, is "one of those super-efficient so-called humans who gets twice as much done in half as much time." What are the pluses and minuses of these approaches to time? What kind of person are you when it comes to time, and how does this affect your relationships?

4. The pink and blue division of labor challenges Janna’s sense of worth aboard Dragonfly and raises questions about her new role as wife. How do the pink and blue play out in your own life? Do these divisions impact your sense of worth as they did Janna’s, or do you instead identify with the attitudes of Janna’s cruising girlfriends? Explain.

5.At the outset of their trip, Janna wonders if marriage is about agreeing to drink only from the relationship’s cup and being satisfied with whatever sustenance it offers. By the end of the voyage, however, she argues for a couple’s need for otherness in order to thrive in their togetherness. Do you agree with this? Why or why not? How does a couple build otherness while staying close and committed?

6. What does Janna mean when she says, “It’s the space between, the getting from point A to point B, that terrifies and teaches us the most”? How is this sentiment borne out in both the actual and figurative crossings that Graeme and Janna experience on their journey? What do they learn about themselves and their relationship in these spaces between? Identify some of your own crossings from one stage of life to another and how you met the challenges of the space between—whether it be between a new and old self, or between you and a loved one.

7. Back at home in Seattle, Janna says that what matters is "not the what but the how"—that one can have an extraordinary existence no matter how ordinary one's life appears. How is this philosophy true or false? What is your own big, hairy, audacious goal? What have you done or might you do to pursue it?

8. On the crossing, when sea and sky are ever constant yet always changing, Janna observes that “there’s also a monotony in marriage that’s equally delightful and dangerous.” What does she mean by this phrase? What were some of the dangerous and delightful moments for Graeme and Janna while at sea? Were they able to make peace with this tension between extremes? Why or why not? How do you think this idea of staying attentive despite—or because of—monotony can help you to re-envision the moments in your own life?

9. Once in French Polynesia, Janna and Graeme "mark the passage" by getting tattoos together. How does this help them make sense of their ocean crossing and their first year as a married couple? Are anniversaries (birthdays, weddings, new years) important to you as a way to reflect on or celebrate the passage of time? Why or why not? What sorts of ceremonies or events help you mark your own passage through life?

10. Graeme and Janna’s reactions to their engagement, approaches to sailing, and experiences along the way reveal that they often hold completely different views of the exact same event. How do these diverging perspectives strain and/or enhance their relationship? When has your experience of an event totally diverged from someone else’s? How did you react when you realized you weren’t on the same wavelength? What did you take away from the interaction?

11. Janna believes that their sailing honeymoon is a test of their boat, their seamanship, and their relationship. Do you think that Graeme would agree with this assessment? Why or why not? How else might Janna have viewed their honeymoon and the challenges they encountered along the way? If their journey is a test, how would you evaluate their success and/or failure?

12. Discuss the pros and cons of Janna’s notion of the One, Graeme’s anti-One thesis, and Frits’s Green Box Theory of Love. Whose idea of love is most in line with your view? Why? Do you have your own personal theory of love? If yes, what is it and how have you developed this theory?
(Questions issued by publishers.)

top of page

Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World
Tracy Kidder, 2003
Random House
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812973013

Summary
Tracy Kidder is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the author of the bestsellers The Soul of a New Machine, House, Among Schoolchildren, and Home Town. He has been described by the Baltimore Sun as the "master of the non-fiction narrative." This powerful and inspiring new book shows how one person can make a difference, as Kidder tells the true story of a gifted man who is in love with the world and has set out to do all he can to cure it.

At the center of Mountains Beyond Mountains stands Paul Farmer. Doctor, Harvard professor, renowned infectious-disease specialist, anthropologist, the recipient of a MacArthur "genius" grant, world-class Robin Hood, Farmer was brought up in a bus and on a boat, and in medical school found his life's calling: to diagnose and cure infectious diseases and to bring the lifesaving tools of modern medicine to those who need them most. This magnificent book shows how radical change can be fostered in situations that seem insurmountable, and it also shows how a meaningful life can be created, as Farmer—brilliant, charismatic, charming, both a leader in international health and a doctor who finds time to make house calls in Boston and the mountains of Haiti—blasts through convention to get results.

Mountains Beyond Mountains takes us from Harvard to Haiti, Peru, Cuba, and Russia as Farmer changes minds and practices through his dedication to the philosophy that "the only real nation is humanity"—a philosophy that is embodied in the small public charity he founded, Partners In Health. He enlists the help of the Gates Foundation, George Soros, the U.N.'s World Health Organization,and others in his quest to cure the world. At the heart of this book is the example of a life based on hope, and on an understanding of the truth of the Haitian proverb "Beyond mountains there are mountains": as you solve one problem, another problem presents itself, and so you go on and try to solve that one too.

"Mountains Beyond Mountains unfolds with the force of a gathering revelation," says Annie Dillard, and Jonathan Harr says, "[Farmer] wants to change the world. Certainly this luminous and powerful book will change the way you see it."

Author Bio
• Birth—November 12, 1945
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Harvard; M.A., University of Iowa, Writers'
Workshop
• Awards—Pulitizer Prize and American Book Award, 1992
• Currently—lives in Massachusettes and Maine

Tracy Kidder has won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Robert F. Kennedy Award, among other literary prizes. The author of Strength in What Remains, The Soul of a New Machine, House, Among Schoolchildren, Old Friends, and Home Town, Kidder lives in Massachusetts and Maine.

More
Tracy Kidder is an American author and Vietnam War veteran. Kidder may be best known, especially within the computing community, for his Pulitzer Prize-winning The Soul of a New Machine, an account of the development of Data General's Eclipse/MV minicomputer. The book typifies his distinctive style of research. He began following the project at its inception and, in addition to interviews, spent considerable time observing the engineers at work and outside of it. Using this perspective he was able to produce a more textured portrait of the development process than a purely retrospective study might.

Kidder followed up with House, in which he chronicles the design and construction of the award-winning Souweine House in Amherst, Massachusetts. House reads like a novel, but it is based on many hours of research with the architect, builders, clients, in-laws, and other interested parties

In 2003, Kidder published Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure The World after a chance encounter with Paul Farmer. The book was held to wide critical acclaim and became a New York Times bestseller.

A number of colleges and universities have used Mountains Beyond Mountains as their common reading book: University of Florida; Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota;, Carleton College; Illinois Wesleyan University; Pellissippi State Technical Community College in Knoxville, Tennessee; and Case Western Reserve University.

Mr. Kidder published Strength in What Remains in 2009. (From Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
If you've never read anything by Tracy Kidder, this is book a good place to start—but don't stop here. Kidder is one of the finest non-fiction authors today.
A LitLovers Litpick (April '07)

Dr. Farmer does not have anywhere near the name recognition of, say, Albert Schweitzer or Mother Teresa. But if any one person can be given credit for transforming the medical establishment's thinking about health care for the destitute, it is Paul Farmer.

So readers are lucky that Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World has been published, not only because the extraordinary Dr. Farmer deserves the attention, but also because a sensitive and graceful writer like Tracy Kidder has chosen to tell his story. The result is a tale that inspires, discomforts and provokes.
Patricia Cohen - The New York Times

Mountains Beyond Mountains is inspiring, disturbing, daring and completely absorbing. It will rattle our complacency; it will prick our conscience. One senses that Farmer's life and work has affected Kidder, and it is a measure of Kidder's honesty that he is willing to reveal this to the reader.
Abraham Verghese - The New York Times Book Review

Two other things I like about this book: First, it's full of suspense, in an odd way. On every page, I wondered whether Farmer was going to be meek and gentle, as he often is with his patients, or whether he was going to turn his wrath on me, the reader. To the very end, Farmer made me nervous.... Second, it's a great Washington, D.C. public policy book. It's an elegant argument about why everything you learn at the Kennedy School of Government or World Bank is wrong.
Thomas Geoghegan - The Washintgon Post

Kidder, author of Among Schoolchildren, focuses on many aspects of Farmer's life. As a renowned journalist, he examines the dedication that pushes Farmer to success. He traveled with Farmer for six years, interviewing his friends and family and creating a compelling bond with the man. In this masterpiece, Kidder will take you so deep into their journeys that you can almost feel the oppressive Haitian heat.
Nicholas Thomas - USA Today

In this excellent work, Pulitzer Prize-winner Kidder (The Soul of a New Machine) immerses himself in and beautifully explores the rich drama that exists in the life of Dr. Paul Farmer. A Massachusetts native who has been working in Haiti since 1982, Farmer founded Zanmi Lasante (Creole for Partners in Health), a nongovernmental organization that is the only health-care provider for hundreds of thousands of peasant farmers in the Plateau Central. He did this while juggling work in Haiti and study at the Harvard Medical School. (Farmer received his M.D. and a Ph.D. in anthropology simultaneously in 1990.) During his work in Haiti, Farmer pioneered a community-based treatment method for patients with tuberculosis that, Kidder explains, has had better clinical outcomes than those in U.S. inner cities. For this work, Farmer was recognized in 1993 with a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant," all of which he donated to Zanmi Lasante. Using interviews with family members and various friends and associates, Kidder provides a sympathetic account of Farmer's early life, from his idiosyncratic family to his early days in Haiti. Kidder also recounts his time with Farmer as he travels to Moscow; Lima, Peru; Boston; and other cities where Farmer relentlessly seeks funding and educates people about the hard conditions in Haiti. Throughout, Kidder captures the almost saintly effect Farmer has on those whom he treats.
Publishers Weekly

In his latest work, Pulitzer Prize winner Kidder (Among Schoolchildren; The Soul of a New Machine) turns his documentarian gaze on the life and work of Paul Farmer, a medical anthropologist and physician who has spent much of the past 20 years transforming healthcare in the impoverished central plateau of Haiti. Part biography, part public health text, and part travelog, his book follows Farmer from his childhood in Florida and Harvard medical education to his establishment of the Haitian clinic Zanmi Lasante and current status as an international expert in treating communicable diseases, such as AIDS and tuberculosis. Farmer's work is fascinating-as is the author's compassionate portrayal of the lives of the Haitians with whom his subject lives and works; if the book has a flaw, it is that it attempts to cover too much territory. Instead of trying to cram three books into one, Kidder could have taken any one of the three approaches that he used and made a complete and captivating study. However, he does include an excellent annotated bibliography for readers who desire more information on any of the themes covered in the book. Recommended for public libraries and public health collections. —Eris Weaver, Redwood Health Lib., Petaluma, CA
Library Journal

Full-immersion journalist Kidder (Home Town, 1999, etc.) tries valiantly to keep up with a front-line, muddy-and-bloody general in the war against infectious disease in Haiti and elsewhere. The author occasionally confesses to weariness in this gripping account—and why not? Paul Farmer, who has an M.D. and a Ph.D. from Harvard, appears to be almost preternaturally intelligent, productive, energetic, and devoted to his causes. So trotting alongside him up Haitian hills, through international airports and Siberian prisons and Cuban clinics, may be beyond the capacity of a mere mortal. Kidder begins with a swift account of his first meeting with Farmer in Haiti while working on a story about American soldiers, then describes his initial visit to the doctor’s clinic, where the journalist felt he’d "encountered a miracle." Employing guile, grit, grins, and gifts from generous donors (especially Boston contractor Tom White), Farmer has created an oasis in Haiti where TB and AIDS meet their Waterloos. The doctor has an astonishing rapport with his patients and often travels by foot for hours over difficult terrain to treat them in their dwellings ("houses" would be far too grand a word). Kidder pauses to fill in Farmer’s amazing biography: his childhood in an eccentric family sounds like something from The Mosquito Coast; a love affair with Roald Dahl’s daughter ended amicably; his marriage to a Haitian anthropologist produced a daughter whom he sees infrequently thanks to his frenetic schedule. While studying at Duke and Harvard, Kidder writes, Farmer became obsessed with public health issues; even before he’d finished his degrees he was spending much of his time in Haiti establishing the clinic that would give him both immense personal satisfaction and unsurpassed credibility in the medical worlds he hopes to influence. Skilled and graceful exploration of the soul of an astonishing human being.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Paul Farmer finds ways of connecting with people whose backgrounds are vastly different from his own. How does he do this? Are his methods something to which we can all aspire?

2. Paul Farmer believes that "if you're making sacrifices...you're trying to lessen some psychic discomfort" (24). Do you agree with the way that Farmer makes personal sacrifices? For what kinds of things do you make sacrifices, and when do you expect others to make them?

3. Kidder points out that Farmer is dissatisfied with the current distribution of money and medicine in the world. What is your opinion of the distribution of these forms of wealth? What would you change, if you could?

4. Farmer designed a study to find out whether there was a correlation between his Haitian patients' belief in in sorcery as the cause of TB and their recovery from that disease through medical treatment. What did he discover about the relative importance of cultural beliefs among his impoverished patients and their material circumstances? Do you think that this discovery might have borad application—for instance, to situations in the United States?

5. The title of the book comes from the Haitian proverb, "Beyond mountains there are mountains." What does the saying mean in the context of the culture it comes from, and what does it mean in relation to Farmer's work? Can you think of other situations—personal or societal—for which this proverb might be apt?

6. Paul Farmer had an eccentric childhood and his accomplishments have been unique. Do you see a correlation between the way Farmer was raised and how he's chosen to live his life? How has your own background influenced your life and your decisions?

7. Compare Zanmi Lasante to the Socios en Salud project in Carabayllo. Consider how the projects got started, the relationships between doctors and patients, and also the involvement of the international community.

8. Kidder explains that Farmer and his colleagues at PIH were asked by some academics, "Why do you call your patients poor people? They don't call themselves poor people." How do Farmer and Jim Kim confront the issue of how to speak honestly about the people they work to help? How do they learn to speak honestly with each other, and what is the importance of the code words and acronyms that they share (for example, AMC's, or Areas of Moral Clarity)?

9. Ophelia Dahl and Tom White both play critical roles in this book and in the story Partners in Health . How are their acts of compassion different from Farmer's?

10. Tracy Kidder has written elsewhere that the choice of point of view is the most important an author makes in constructing a work of narrative non-fiction. He has also written that finding a point of view that works is a matter of making a choice among tools, and that the choice should be determined, not by theory, but by an author's immersion in the materials of the story itself. Kidder has never before written a book in which he made himself a character. Can you think of some of the reasons he might have had for doing this in Mountains Beyond Mountains?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

top of page (summary)

Murder in the High Himalaya: Loyalty, Tragedy, and Escape from Tibet
Jonathan Green, 2010
Public Affairs
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781586489595

Summary
Murder in the High Himalaya is the incredible true story of two teenage girls, best friends, from rural Tibet who decided to risk everything for a dream they nursed since childhood to meet the Dalai Lama.

To do so they would cross three countries away in a highly perilous journey that would take them over the passes of the mighty and brutal High Himalaya in defiance of the China’s mighty military machine. It’s the story of those who give everything for freedom and those still, who sacrifice everything to tell the truth.

Cho Oyu Mountain lies 19 miles east of Mount Everest on the border between Tibet and Nepal. To the elite mountaineering community, it’s known as the sixth highest mountain in the world. To Tibetans, Cho Oyu represents a gateway to freedom through a secret glacial path: the Nangpa La.

On September 30, 2006, gunfire echoed through the thin air near Advance Base Camp on Cho Oyu and climbers preparing to summit watched in horror as Chinese border guards fired at a group of Tibetans fleeing to India, via Nepal.

Murder in the Himalaya is the unforgettable account of the brutal killing of Kelsang Namtso—a seventeen-year-old Tibetan nun fleeing with the group to Dharamsala to escape religious persecution. Kelsang’s death is a painful example of Tibet’s oppression by China, but this time a human rights atrocity was witnessed and documented by dozens of Western climbers. Their moral dilemma was plain—would they tell the world what they had seen, risking their chance to climb in China again, or would they pass on by?

At the center of the story is a young, Tibetan girl who has sacrificed her right to return to Tibet by bearing witness to the murder of her best friend to the western media. She risked her future to expose the abuses of China in Tibet and paid the price.

For the last three years, award-winning investigative reporter Jonathan Green, funded partially by the Fund for Investigative Journalism and Investigative Reporters and Editors, has travelled the remote parts of the Himalaya researching this amazing story. He introduces us to the disparate band of adventurers and survivors who were at the “rooftop of the world” that fateful morning, as he seeks an answer for one woman’s life.

In this probing investigation, an affecting portrait of modern Tibet emerges—one which raises enduring questions about morality, and how far one will go to achieve freedom.   (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, UK
• Education—St. Joseph's College (Ipswich)
• Awards—see below
• Currently—lives in the state of Massachusetts, USA

Jonathan Green is an award-winning author and investigative journalist specializing in narrative non-fiction. He has reported from Sudan on jihadist militias, the guerilla-controlled jungles of Colombia on the cocaine trade, corruption in oil-rich Kazakhstan, the destruction of the rainforest in Borneo, undercover in the Himalayan mountains in Tibet and Nepal tracking refugee routes, down an illegal gold mine in Africa while investigating human rights abuses along with the gang-controlled favelas of Brazil, the townships of Johannesburg and the garrisons of Jamaica among many other demanding assignments around the globe.

Recognition
His first book, the critically acclaimed Murder in the High Himalaya won the coveted Banff Mountain Book Competition in the Mountain and Wilderness Category in 2011. It also won the American Society of Journalists and Authors Outstanding Non Fiction Book of the Year in 2011. The book is endorsed by the Dalai Lama and actor Richard Gere.

Green has been the recipient of the Amnesty International Media Award for Excellence in Human Rights Journalism, the American Society of Journalists and Authors award for reporting on a significant topic, Environment story of the year at the Foreign Press Association, the North American Travel Journalists Association for Sports in Conjunction with Travel and Feature Writer of the Year in the Press Gazette Magazine and Design Awards. His work has been anthologized in the Best American Crime Writing. On winning Exclusive of the Year at the Magazine Design and Journalism Awards the judges said, “It shows Green’s painstaking research and dogged determination and belief that a story must be followed to the bitter end.”

Journalism
Jonathan has written for hundreds of clients around the world and his work has been translated into at least twenty languages. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Men’s Journal, The Sunday Times Magazine, Men’s Health, Esquire (UK), Fast Company, GQ (UK), The Guardian, Best Life, The Observer Magazine, Hemispheres, Daily Telegraph Magazine, Marie Claire, The Scotsman Magazine, Car, South China Morning Post Magazine, The Australian, Mail on Sunday’s Live Magazine, Bike, Readers Digest, The Financial Times, The Times Magazine, and Worth, among many others.

Jonathan has been interviewed about his work on CNN, the BBC, radio and television, and NPR among others. He has done scores of speaking engagements at universities, colleges and companies about his work, investigative journalism, human and environmental issues and his latest book, Murder in the High Himalaya.

Adventure
Jonathan has a love of adventure. He has skydived from 30,000ft with Special Forces Soldiers in a HALO (High Altitude Low Opening) parachute jump, scuba dived under ice, ridden a bull in a rodeo school, speared fish with soldiers at 90ft under the ocean off Guantanamo Bay, raced in a Dodge Viper at 215mph before having a blow out in the Nevada desert, paraglided with eagles in the high Himalaya in Nepal, flown in aerial dogfights pulling 7 g’s, ridden a jet ski the entire length of the Mississippi, been to 2000ft under the ocean in a homemade submarine and snowkited Alaska’s mythical Bagley Icefield in -30 temperatures. He was once beaten up by skinheads in a London pub while investigating the far right in Britain. He has interviewed murderers, rapists, terrorists, car thieves, gangsters’ molls, gangsters, Aryan supremacists and street gang members.

He is a keen motorcyclist, fencer, cyclist, shooter and scuba diver—and lives in Massachusetts. (Adapted from the author's website.)

Book Reviews
At the heart of Jonathan Green's new book is an ugly encounter that underscores both China's barbarous treatment of Tibetans and the West's confused, thin-blooded response to it. In September 2006 Chinese border guards shot dead a 17-year old nun, Kelsang Namtso, in front of dozens of international mountaineers on a pass between Nepal and Tibet. A Romanian climber filmed the killing, which was broadcast around the world.... "They are shooting them like dogs," said the Romanian, as he filmed. Namtso's murder presented the mountaineers with a problem. Some guides wanted to prevent news of the incident from leaving camp as they feared the Chinese would retaliate by banning them from the mountain. Against heated squabbling, though, several climbers contacted the media and the murder made international headlines. By personalising Namtso's life and death, Mr Green has conjured in the flesh an otherwise anonymous figure from Tibet's shadows.
Economist (June 2010)

A word is missing from the subtitle of Jonathan Green's shocking exposé: cowardice. It shines out of his story of the murder of the 17-year-old Tibetan nun, Kelsang Namtso.... At least 100 foreign climbers and their Western guides saw the entire event. Almost all of them, including the guides, ignored Kelsang lying in the snow, and the wounded Tibetans begging for help, and either continued their climbs or came down from the base camp, determined to keep silent about what they had witnessed. Entrepreneurs were terrified that the Chinese would shut down the lucrative climbing business. Although the author includes information about Tibet past and present that many readers will find useful, the core of this book is Kelsang's murder and its implications, which Green, an experienced journalist, recounts vividly and with scrupulous attention to evidence.... The Chinese might have got away with this lie. But a Romanian journalist climber, Sergiu Matei, had risked filming the murder of Kelsang. His footage was shown on Romanian television, and soon BBC and CNN were broadcasting it internationally.... [Green] shows himself to be a first-class reporter who managed to speak to Tibetan survivors of the ill- fated trip as well as to Western witnesses. He reserves his greatest admiration for the two best friends, Dolma, who survived and spoke to Green, and Kelsang, who died alone in the snow. The girls were determined to escape from Tibet at all costs, meet the Dalai Lama, and "untainted by the great evil of our age, cynicism," which afflicts so many doing business with China, tell the world what they knew.
Spectator (July 2010)

Getting the Dalai Lama to write the foreword to your book won't do it any harm, but then the story contained within Jonathan Green's Murder in the High Himalaya deserves all the attention it can get. In 2006, a young Tibetan nun was shot dead by Chinese border guards near Mount Everest as she was fleeing persecution along with a group of fellow countrymen and women. In this lucid and penetrating account, investigative journalist Jonathan Green delves into the background of the story and the events leading up to it, exposing the terrible persecution endemic in the so-called 'roof of the world.' Rich in detail yet precise and clear-eyed, it is a formidable piece of social reporting.
The Big Issue

On September 30, 2006, a 17-year-old nun named Kelsang Namtso was murdered by Chinese border guards as she tried to escape Chinese-occupied Tibet. The torture and outright slaughter of Tibetans by the Chinese has been well-documented by various human-rights organizations, but this time...dozens of Western climbers witnessed the act. Their moral dilemma was patent—tell the world and risk being banned from Tibet, or keep quite. Incredibly, in an age where every basecamp has e-mail, most climbers remained silent. Jonathan Green, whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Men's Journal and Esquire, deftly recounts the stories of American climbing guide Luis Benitez (the first climber to speak out about the murder) and Namtso's best friend, Dolma, as they wrestle with their consciences, decide to bear witness and pay a great price. Some in the community of high-altitude guides ostracized Benitez, claiming he was placing a desire for fame above his responsibility to his clients. Subsequently, Benitez lost his income, profession and second family. Dolma could be exiled from her homeland for life. Green's accounts of the politics of high-altitude guiding are meticulously researched, balanced and riveting, and offer climbers a rare view of the booming business and internecine struggles at the top of the world. If you care about the ethics of mountaineering in the 21st century and the incredibly rich, threatened culture of Tibet, you simply must read this book.
Rock and Ice (May 2010)

Jonathan Green has meticulously reconstructed events surrounding Kelsang’s life and death. His well-written account will hook readers from the first page... Despite the obstacles he encountered, Green has written an absorbing adventure story about a forbidding mountain range and a band of refugees who risked everything to reach the Dalai Lama, who continues to lead a campaign to publicize the plight of the Tibetan people.
Palm Beach Arts Paper (September 2010)

Jonathan Green's descriptions of the scenery of the High Plateau are breathtaking, even on the page—a region of 46,000 glaciers, "the biggest ice fields outside of the Arctic and Antarctic"; "forests of juniper, oak, ash, spruce, cypress, and jungles of rhododendron"; a "vast wilderness" full of snow leopards and Tibetan Blue Bear, monkeys and red pandas, giant griffon vultures and golden eagles. In this landscape the bullets of the Chinese soldiers reverberate. "The bright snow mushroomed into a brilliant red stain around her body," Green writes of the shooting. "She was minutes from the border."
Los Angeles Times (July 2010)

A thrilling investigation into the 2006 murder of a Tibetan nun who tried to flee to India, witnessed by her best friend. Investigative journalist Jonathan Green spent three years tracking down what happened to 17-year-old Kelsang Namtso, a Tibetan nun who was killed by Chinese border guards while she attempted to flee to India, and the result of his findings are brilliantly told in Murder in the High Himalaya: Loyalty, Tragedy and Escape From Tibet. This captivating account follows Namtso on her journey with her best friend through a secret glacial path that is well-known to elite mountaineers, but forbidden for refugees fleeing China. Her murder by the Chinese border guards was caught on film by Western climbers, but they were faced with the question: Should they report the murder and never be allowed to climb in China again? Some risked talking to Green, who was partially funded by the Fund for Investigative Journalism and Investigative Reporters and Editors.
Daily Beast (June 2010)

On Sept. 30, 2006, Chinese border troops opened fire on a group of Tibetans trying to escape their occupied land over the icy Nangpa La pass at Cho Oyu Mountain, the world’s sixth-tallest peak. One refugee was killed, a 17-year-old Buddhist nun named Kelsang Namtso, shot in the back only moments away from the top of the pass and safety in Nepal. There are about 30 shooting incidents a year, barely noticed in the West, at the border. But there was something different about this one: it took place in full view of dozens of Western mountain climbers, some of whom captured it on film.... And thereby hangs a tale, spun wonderfully in Green’s morally ambiguous account.... Despite their satellite connections, at first no news leaked out from the climbers. They had a lot at stake: money, ego, safety and, for some—but not all—their souls.... Who spoke out and who did not, and why, is at the heart of one of the most unsettling books of recent years.
McCleans

On September 30, 2006, near Cho Oyu mountain in the high Himalaya, Chinese border guards opened fire on a group of Tibetans attempting to flee to Nepal via the Nanga La, a mountain path popular as an escape route. Many of those in the group died.... [Green interviewed] a large number of surviving witnesses, including Tibetan refugees, sherpas, Western mountaineers and a Romanian documentary maker who captured the horrifying incident on film.... At the center of Green's gripping story stand Dolma Palkyi and Dolkar Tsomo and their determination to journey to Dharamsala to meet the exiled Dalai Lama. Off to one side are the mountaineers who witness atrocities but remain stonily silent (Green asserts that many don't want to endanger future access to the mountains by alienating Chinese authorities). In the end, distressing moral dilemmas of our time emerge from this tale of religious pilgrims gunned down on an icy mountain path within view of self-absorbed climbers thinking only of their next summit.
John McFarland - Shelf Awareness

A shattering tale that will appeal to readers of all things about Tibet, mountaineering, human rights and the preservation of cultural integrity.
Shelf Awareness

A gripping take of routine murder that would have gone unreported but for the fact that a group of Western climbers were silent witnesses to the killing of a young Tibetan woman attempting to cross the border into India. Jonathan Green has travelled to the region to research the story, he’s interviewed witnesses, other refugees and even the Dalai Lama to tell this shocking and complicated story of how Chinese border guards, instructed to protect the border at any cost, will shoot to kill.
Bookseller - Ones to Watch (April 2010)

The cold-blooded slaying of a runaway Tibetan teenager ignites worldwide concern about the violent oppression at “the roof of the world. For three years, American journalist Green travelled to remote sections of [the Himalaya] to investigate the murder of a young nun who died at the hands of Chinese border officials.... As a spiritual exile from communism, Kelsang [Namtso] realized she was now a target of the aggressive Chinese government and must flee for her life. Green injects Kelsang and Dolma [Palkyi]’s great escape with anxious tension.... “Minutes from the border,” Kelsang was mercilessly shot by patrol guards, and the scene was observed by senior Everest mountaineer Luis Benitez, who was concurrently guiding a group nearby. China’s relentless campaign of obfuscation and blamelessness ensued, and Tibetans continued to flee, unabated by the violence. Green’s steely, factually dense analysis of this unlawful conspiracy sheds light on a perennial human-rights crisis.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. What would you have done if you had witnessed a murder?

2. What's more important: financial well being or human rights?

3. Is China a friendly or a hostle power in the world today?

4. What is the religious theme of this story?

5. Which character was the most changed by the events that took place on Choy Oyu in 2006?

(Questions courtesy of the author.)

top of page (summary)

A Murder in Virginia: Southern Justice on Trial
Suzanne Lebsock, 2003
W.W. Norton & Company
442 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780393326062

Summary
It is 1895 in rural Virginia and a white woman lies in her farmyard, hacked to death with a meat ax. Suspicion soon falls on a young black laborer, who tries to flee the county.

He, in turn, accuses three local black women of plotting the murder and wielding the ax.

Through vivid courtroom scenes and gripping personal stories, Bancroft Prize-winning historian Suzanne Lebsock takes us deep into this world when Reconstruction is slowly fading and Jim Crow is on the rise. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1949
• Awards—MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowships;
Bancroft Prize in History; Francis Parkman Prize
• Currently—lives in New Brunswick, New Jersey

Suzanne Lebsock is a recipient of a MacArthur fellowship and professor of history at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Her work The Free Women of Petersburg received the Bancroft Prize. She lives in New Brunswick, New Jersey. (From the publisher and Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
Suzanne Lebsock...has documented what happened in a case that rivaled O. J. Simpson's for fame in its day, but that then faded into oblivion.... Honest-to-goodness, 100 percent-genuine facts in an age of docudramas and fictionalized histories. With nearly 80 pages of footnotes, Ms. Lebsock has done an impressive job of historical re-creation. Unfortunately, what is an impressive achievement of historical reconstruction that might dazzle a dissertation committee makes for a less compelling work for the general reader. What's lacking is the sweep and analysis that would knit this unusual case to the larger historical tapestry. That doesn't mean making it up, but it does mean stepping back.
Patricia Cohen - New York Times

Lebsock—a professor of history at the University of Washington at Seattle—is right to insist that it deserves at least a footnote in history, and she has provided just that in A Murder in Virginia.
Jonathan Yardley - Washington Post

[Makes] history, with all its messiness, ugliness, and even humanity, come vividly alive.
Dallas Morning News

So much happens—and so much of it is unexpected—in Suzanne Lebsock's gripping study of the sensational ax murder of Lucy Jane Pollard...that we can only urge readers to read for themselves the acclaimed author's brilliant descriptions of racial politics (four African Americans were accused), the constant threat of lynching, the vicious court battles and how it all ended.
Dallas Morning News

In recounting a 1895 murder investigation and trial in Lunenberg County, Va., Lebsock (The Free Women of Petersburg) meticulously brings to life a lost episode of a small, segregated Southern town and frames it against the backdrop of racial strife in the country as a whole. When the wife of a prominent Lunenberg man is murdered with an ax, a black farmhand, Solomon Marable, is immediately arrested. He shocks everyone by accusing three black women of the crime, and a dramatic set of trials ensues. Lebsock recounts the improbable roles of lawyers, judges, politicians, the black community and the defendants themselves in the case, thanking "the archivists, librarians, county clerks, the clerks' clerks, and packrats of all descriptions," who allowed her to recreate the investigations and five trials in astonishing detail. Mary Abernathy (tried twice), Mary Barnes and her daughter Pokey Barnes were eventually exonerated, to the relief of many. Marable paid for the crime with his life, but Lebsock, a professor of history at the University of Washington, is not sure he did it; she presents the case from both sides, allowing readers to draw their own conclusions. Throughout, Lebsock employs a clear, precise prose, and packs the book with the sort of detail that will satisfy procedural junkies. For history buffs, the book provides a fascinating, microcosmic glimpse into the politics and law of late Reconstruction, at a moment when the U.S. was poised on the brink of the 20th century. Moreover, Lebsock perfectly captures the manner in which the town mobilized to give the women (if not Marable) a fair trial, and the ways in which individual personalities influenced that process, lending this book a human interest beyond its time and place.
Publishers Weekly

On a warm afternoon in June 1895, a 56-year-old white woman was brutally murdered in Lunenburg County, VA. Despite the absence of any truly incriminating eye-witness testimony or physical evidence, four blacks-three women and one man-were arrested and tried for the murder. Lebsock (history, Univ. of Washington, Seattle), author of the Bancroft Prize-winning The Free Women of Petersburg: Status and Culture in a Southern Town, 1784-1860), re-creates the subsequent trials, introducing the defendants, their prosecutors, and the witnesses and placing the proceedings within the context of the black and white communities and deteriorating conditions for African Americans in the post-Reconstruction South. Here historical narrative is every bit as intriguing as fictional mystery but more edifying for the information it gives its readers concerning race relations and criminal justice in the latter part of the 19th century. As readable and riveting as John Berendt's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil; recommended for public and academic libraries of all sizes. —Theresa R. McDevitt, Indiana Univ. of Pennsylvania.
Library Journal

Lebsock is particularly adept at portraying the individuals and interests involved: the accused murderers, the unsympathetic widower, the crusaders, the vested interests of those who supported the lynchers, and the fierce newspaper rivalries fueled by the trial. She also explores the social and racial undercurrents in the small town, which signified the changed relationship between blacks and whites in the post-Civil War era.
Booklist

Bancroft Prize-winner Lebsock (The Free Women of Petersburg, 1984) takes us to a sweltering Dixie courtroom where African-Americans stand accused of murdering a white woman. It would be a cliché as fiction, but this case really happened. More than a century ago, in 1895, when slavery had been dead only one generation, deep in Virginia tobacco country in a place no longer on any map, a farmer’s wife was struck down with several brutal blows of an ax. The farmer, it should be noted, had a hoard of $800 in $20 bills. Soon Solomon, a black mill worker caught spending a couple of $20 bills, was arrested. He promptly implicated three black women: Mary, a mother of nine who "looked a lot more like a mammy than a murderer"; another Mary, also a mother of nine; and her quick-witted daughter Pokey. They had planned the whole thing, he claimed, but every time Solomon told the tale, it changed. His only consistency concerned a lone white man who had forcibly enlisted him in the grisly murder and robbery, but if that man existed he certainly never went on trial. The four unlettered blacks did, surrounded by an armed militia; they were quickly convicted with scarce, tainted evidence and without counsel. The inevitable verdicts were just the beginning of this narrative, which also covers the women’s eventual release, Solomon’s execution, and the bizarre journey of his remains. Retrials in a racially divided courtroom with speechifying southern lawyers waxing rhetorical as only they could, feuding sheriffs, eager reporters, and a stalwart governor all play integral roles in this deeply researched chronicle. Lebsock (History/Univ. of Washington, Seattle) reconstructs the story of an admirable African-American newspaper publisher and depicts the personalities of all the other important players with considerable understanding and intelligence. Finally, she offers a reasoned argument regarding the identity of the most likely perp. True-crime with continued resonance, given America’s troubled racial history.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for A Murder in Virginia:

1. Lebsock's book is much more than an historical recounting of a murder: it is an exploration into race and class. While white Virginians at the time were rushing to segregate "everything that wasn't already segregated," color lines in Lunenburg County, scene of the murder, were not so sharply drawn. Discuss the complicated nature of the interrelationships between black and white southerners that A Murder in Virginia reveals. What was surprising, for instance, about Mary Abernathy's relationship with Lucy Pollard? Consider, too, how Richmond Planet editor, John Mitchell, played up the mammy stereotypes for Mary's benefit.

2. Speaking of the press, talk about the role it played in this murder case. In what way did newspapers function, in Lebsock's words, as the "thirteenth juror"? Compare the press's influence then to that of the media today.

3. Discuss the court room events of the first trial and the degree to which the deck was stacked against the defendants. What was the surprising twist that allowed the accused to be granted new trials in Farmville?

4. In what ways did the second trial differ from the first—consider the jury, lawyers, and testimony. How did the testimonies of two "unlettered" black women, especially Pokey Barnes, impact the case—and how did the two overturn expectations of race, class and gender?

5. There are surprising real-life heroes in this account—those who stood up boldly for justice. Talk about the roles played by Governor O'Ferrall, John Mitchell, Jr., and Rosa Dixon Bowser. Are there others?

6. Although the mystery of Lucy Pollack's death remains unsolved, do you have any theories? Is Solomon Marable's last minute deathbed-of-sorts confession believable?

7. Talk about the practice of lynching, the subject of which—the hows and whys—is woven throughout this work. Also, what does Lebsock say about the myth that lynching was perpetrated only in the deep southern states, not Virginia?

8. At the time of Lucy Pollack's murder, the trials dominated local news—a media spectacle comparable to the attention given to the O.J. Simpson trial 100 years later. Since then the event has sunk into obscurity—almost all memory of it erased. What does Lebsock see as the reason for its erasure?

9. Extend to the present day this book's revelations about the legal system and racism at the end of the 19th century. To what degree has the situation changed in the 21st century? Is justice still race-based?

10. This is an historical work complete with footnotes. Yet Lebsock has attempted to make it as engrossing as a work of fiction. Was she successful...is her narrative compelling...did she sustain your interest? Consider the qualities that go into making a work of fiction: colorful description, evocative settings, strong characters, and page-turning suspense. Which, if any, of these qualities are present in A Murder in Virginia?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

top of page

My Beloved World
Sonia Sotomayor, 2013
Knopf Doubleday
432 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345804839

Summary
The first Hispanic and third woman appointed to the United States Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor has become an instant American icon.

Now, with a candor and intimacy never undertaken by a sitting Justice, she recounts her life from a Bronx housing project to the federal bench, a journey that offers an inspiring testament to her own extraordinary determination and the power of believing in oneself.

Here is the story of a precarious childhood, with an alcoholic father (who would die when she was nine) and a devoted but overburdened mother, and of the refuge a little girl took from the turmoil at home with her passionately spirited paternal grandmother.

But it was when she was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes that the precocious Sonia recognized she must ultimately depend on herself. She would learn to give herself the insulin shots she needed to survive and soon imagined a path to a different life.

With only television characters for her professional role models, and little understanding of what was involved, she determined to become a lawyer, a dream that would sustain her on an unlikely course, from valedictorian of her high school class to the highest honors at Princeton, Yale Law School, the New York County District Attorney’s office, private practice, and appointment to the Federal District Court before the age of forty.

Along the way we see how she was shaped by her invaluable mentors, a failed marriage, and the modern version of extended family she has created from cherished friends and their children.

Through her still-astonished eyes, America’s infinite possibilities are envisioned anew in this warm and honest book, destined to become a classic of self-invention and self-discovery. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—June 25, 1954
• Where—Bronx, New York City, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Princeton University; J.D., Yale
University
• Currently—lives in Washington, D.C.

Sonia Maria Sotomayor is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, serving since 2009. Sotomayor is the Court's 111th justice, its first Hispanic justice, and its third female justice.

Short Bio
Sotomayor was born in The Bronx, New York City and is of Puerto Rican descent. Her father died when she was nine, and she was subsequently raised by her mother. Sotomayor graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1976 and received her J.D. from Yale Law School in 1979, where she was an editor at the Yale Law Journal.

She was an advocate for the hiring of Latino faculty at both schools. She worked as an assistant district attorney in New York for four and a half years before entering private practice in 1984. She played an active role on the boards of directors for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, the State of New York Mortgage Agency, and the New York City Campaign Finance Board.

Sotomayor was nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by President George H. W. Bush in 1991, and her nomination was confirmed in 1992. In 1997, she was nominated by President Bill Clinton to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Her nomination was slowed by the Republican majority in the United States Senate, but she was eventually confirmed in 1998. On the Second Circuit, Sotomayor heard appeals in more than 3,000 cases and wrote about 380 opinions. Sotomayor has taught at the New York University School of Law and Columbia Law School.

In May 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Sotomayor to the Supreme Court to replace retired Justice David Souter. Her nomination was confirmed by the Senate in August 2009 by a vote of 68–31. On the court, Sotomayor has been a reliable member of the liberal bloc when the justices divide along the commonly perceived ideological lines.

Federal District Court
Sotomayor generally kept a low public profile as a district court judge. She showed a willingness to take anti-government positions in a number of cases, and during her first year in the seat, she received high ratings from liberal public-interest groups. Other sources and organizations regarded her as a centrist during this period. In criminal cases, she gained a reputation for tough sentencing and was not viewed as a pro-defense judge. A Syracuse University study found that in such cases, Sotomayor generally handed out longer sentences than her colleagues, especially when white-collar crime was involved. Fellow district judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum was an influence on Sotomayor in adopting a narrow, "just the facts" approach to judicial decision-making.

As a trial judge, she garnered a reputation for being well-prepared in advance of a case and moving cases along a tight schedule. Lawyers before her court viewed her as plain-spoken, intelligent, demanding, and sometimes somewhat unforgiving; one said, "She does not have much patience for people trying to snow her. You can't do it."

Court of Appeals
Over her ten years on the Second Circuit, Sotomayor heard appeals in more than 3,000 cases and wrote about 380 opinions where she was in the majority. The Supreme Court reviewed five of those, reversing three and affirming two—not high numbers for an appellate judge of that many years and a typical percentage of reversals.

Sotomayor's circuit court rulings led to her being considered a political centrist by the ABA Journal and other sources and organizations. A Congressional Research Service analysis found that Sotomayor's rulings defied easy ideological categorization, but did show an adherence to precedent, an emphasis on the facts of a case, and an avoidance of overstepping the circuit court's judicial role.

In the Court of Appeals seat, Sotomayor gained a reputation for vigorous and blunt behavior toward lawyers appealing before her, sometimes to the point of brusque and curt treatment or testy interruptions. She was known for extensive preparation for oral arguments and for running a "hot bench", where judges ask lawyers plenty of questions.

Supreme Court
Sotomayor cast her first vote as an associate Supreme Court justice on August 17, 2009, in a stay of execution case. Sotomayor heard arguments in her first case on September 9 during a special session. The case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, involved the First Amendment rights of corporations in campaign finance and became one of the most controversial and consequential decisions in a number of years, and one in which Sotomayor dissented.

As her first year neared completion, Sotomayor said it had been exciting, challenging and a little scary; she told friends she felt swamped by the intensity and heavy workload of the job. In succeeding Justice Souter, Sotomayor had done little to change the philosophical balance of the Court. Sotomayor voted with Justices Ginsburg and Breyer 90 percent of the time, one of the highest agreement rates on the Court.

On January 20 and 21, 2013, she administered the oath to Vice President Joe Biden for the inauguration of his second term. Sotomayor became the first Hispanic and fourth woman to administer the oath to a president or vice president. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/19/13.)

Book Reviews
[I]f the outlines of Justice Sotomayor's life are well known by now, her searching and emotionally intimate memoir…nonetheless has the power to surprise and move the reader…this account of her life is revealing, keenly observed and deeply felt. The book sheds little new light on how she views issues that might come before the Supreme Court…but it stands very much on its own—not unlike Barack Obama's first book, Dreams From My Father—as a compelling and powerfully written memoir about identity and coming of age…It's an eloquent and affecting testament to the triumph of brains and hard work over circumstance, of a childhood dream realized through extraordinary will and dedication
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times

I've spent my whole life learning how to do things that were hard for me," Sotomayor tells an acquaintance…when he asks whether becoming a judge will be difficult for her. Yes, she has. And by the time you close My Beloved World, you understand how she has mastered judging, too…this book delivers on its promise of intimacy in its depictions of Sotomayor's family, the corner of Puerto Rican immigrant New York where she was raised and the link she feels to the island where she spent childhood summers eating her fill of mangoes…This is a woman who knows where she comes from and has the force to bring you there.
Emily Bazelon - New York Times Book Review

Sotomayor turns out to be a writer of depth and literary flair…My Beloved World is steeped in vivid memories of New York City, and it is an exceptionally frank account of the challenges that she faced during her ascent from a public housing project to the court's marble palace on First Street.
Adam Liptak - New York Times

My Beloved World” is filled with inspiring, and surprisingly candid, stories about how the Supreme Court’s first Hispanic justice overcame a troubled childhood to attend Princeton and Yale Law School, eventually earning a seat on the nation’s highest court.
Carla Main - Wall Street Journal

Big-hearted…A powerful defense of empathy…She has spent her life imagining her way into the hearts of everyone around her…Anyone wondering how a child raised in public housing, without speaking English, by an alcoholic father and a largely absent mother could become the first Latina on the Supreme Court will find the answer in these pages. It didn't take just a village: It took a country.
Dahlia Lithwick - Washington Post

With buoyant humor and thoughtful candor, she recounts her rise from a crime-infested neighborhood in the South Bronx to the nation's highest court. 'I will be judged as a human being by what readers find here,' Sotomayor writes. We, the jury in this case, find her irresistible.
John Wilwol - Washingtonian

In a refreshing conversational style, Sotomayor tells her fascinating life story with the hope of providing “comfort, perhaps even inspiration” to others, particularly children, who face hard times. “People who live in difficult circumstances,” Sotomayor writes in her preface, “need to know that happy endings are possible.
Jay Wexler - Boston Globe

You'll see in Sotomayor a surprising wealth of candor, wit, and affection. No topic is off limits, not her diabetes, her father's death, her divorce, or her cousin's death from AIDS. Put the kettle on, reader, it's time for some real talk with Titi Sonia…The author shines in her passages on childhood, family, and self-discovery. Her magical portraits of loved ones bring to mind Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street; both authors bring a sense of childlike wonder and empathy to a world rarely seen in books, a Latin-American and womancentric world.
Grace Bello - Christian Science Monitor

This is a page-turner, beautifully written and novelistic in its tale of family, love and triumph. It hums with hope and exhilaration. This is a story of human triumph.
Nina Totenberg - NPR

Classic Sotomayor: intelligent, gregarious and at times disarmingly personal…A portrait of an underprivileged but brilliant young woman who makes her way into the American elite and does her best to reform it from the inside…I certainly hope My Beloved World inspires readers to chase their dreams.
Jason Farago - NPR

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor, born poor in the South Bronx and appointed to the federal bench as its first Hispanic justice, recounts numerous obstacles and remarkable achievements in this personal and inspiring autobiography..... Sotomayor is clear-eyed about the factors and people that helped her succeed, and she is open about her personal failures.... [R]eaders across the board will be moved by this intimate look at the life of a justice.
Publishers Weekly

(Starred review.) In this revealing memoir, Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor candidly and gracefully recounts her formative years growing up in the South Bronx in "a tiny microcosm of Hispanic New York City," among an extended family of Puerto Rican immigrants. Her descriptions of the neighborhoods, relatives, and routines of those years are vital, loving, and incisive, as she traces her growth into adulthood, and examines both strengths and failings.... [H]er memoir shows both her continued self-reliance and her passion for community. —Margaret Heilbrun
Library Journal

Graceful, authoritative memoir from the country 's first Hispanic Supreme Court justice. As a child in South Bronx public housing, Sotomayor was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes. Her Puerto Rican parents' struggles included a father's battle with alcoholism that would claim his life when Sotomayor was 9, leaving her mother, a former Women's Army Corps soldier turned nurse, to raise her.... Mature, life-affirmative musings from a venerable life shaped by tenacity and pride.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. What do Sotomayor’s descriptions of her childhood convey about Spanish-speaking communities in New York? In what ways are the hardships in her household—the lack of financial resources, her father’s alcoholism, and the tension between her parents—exacerbated by the strains of living in a marginalized society? What family or cultural traditions help mitigate the difficulties she and her family face? Are there traditions in other cultures including your own that serve the same function?

2. When she learns she has diabetes, Sotomayor thinks, “I probably wasn’t going to live as long as most people…So I couldn’t afford to waste time” [p. 99]. What does her reaction reveal about the way Sotomayor views herself and the possibilities available to her? In what ways does it establish a pattern for her behavior throughout her life? What other life events, like Sotomayor’s chronic illness, can alter a person’s outlook?

3. Sotomayor writes, “My father’s neglect made me sad; but I intuitively understood that he could not help himself; my mother’s neglect made me angry” [p. 16]. This is a child’s perspective of her life at the time. Is it fair? If so, in which ways and if not, what nuances of addiction and family’s responses are missing?

4. How do her visits to Puerto Rico enrich Sotomayor’s appreciation of her background? What aspects of her time there give her a sense of pride? Why does the island’s physical beauty, the museum she visits, and the warm connections among her relatives affect her so deeply [pp. 40-48]? Compare her impressions as a child to her perspective as an adult [pp. 191-192]. Do visits, traditions, or other events evoke an appreciation of your own background?

5. In describing the visit to her maternal grandfather, Sotomayor writes, “I have carried the memory of that day as a grave caution” [p. 49]. Why do you think her mother never spoke to Sotomayor about being abandoned as a child? Are there good reasons for keeping an unhappy past from one’s own children? Do you agree that “without acknowledgment and communication, forgiveness is beyond reach” or do you think that it is possible to forgive someone who is unable or unwilling to acknowledge their impact on your life?

6. Sotomayor comes to understand her parents’ relationship as an adult when she learns the details of their backgrounds, courtship, and marriage [chapter seven]. Did aspects of her mother’s story surprise you? What insights did it give you into her character? Does her parents’ history give you a new perspective on Sotomayor’s strengths and ambitions? Does her parents’ history give you a new perspective on your own parents?

7. When Sotomayor arrives at Princeton she finds “that many of my classmates seemed to come from another planet and that that impression was reciprocated” [p. 160]. What role does gender and ethnicity play in her sense of isolation and insecurity? What helps her adjust to the unfamiliar, often unfriendly, atmosphere of Princeton? Are there other means that she might have tried?

8. In addition to the barriers women and minorities faced at traditionally male, white universities, students of Sotomayor’s generation faced the polarizing effects of affirmative action: “The Daily Princetonian routinely published letters to the editor lamenting the presence of ‘affirmative action students’” [p. 183 What arguments can be made on either side for supporting or opposing affirmative action programs? Did the book assist you in understanding the debate better?

9. In reviewing the repercussions of affirmative action, Sotomayor writes, “Much has changed in the thinking about affirmative action since those early days when it opened doors in my life and Junior’s. But one thing has not changed: to doubt the worth of minority students’ achievement when they succeed is only to present another face of the prejudice that would deny them a chance even to try” [p. 245]. Have the prejudices Sotomayor encountered changed over the ensuing decades? Are things better, worse, or the same?

10. At Yale Law School Sotomayor met José Cabranes, whom she calls “the first person I can describe as a true mentor” [p. 224]. What does Cabranes represent to her? How do the mentors she meets at various stages of her life shape her approach to her role as a model for others? Do you have mentors in your life who have provided or now provide support in different ways?

11. What does she learn at Yale and later as an Assistant DA in New York City and as a lawyer in private practice about the assumptions made about her based on her gender and ethnicity? In what ways do her experiences in both the public and private sectors defy her assumptions? What assumptions about yourself do you regularly encounter and how do you deal with them?

12. Sotomayor describes several of the cases she took on at the District Attorney’s office and at Pavia & Harcourt. What do these descriptions contribute to the memoir? What insights do they offer into the workings of the legal profession as well as Sotomayor’s personal approach to the practice of law?

13. Sotomayor writes candidly about her divorce [p. 280-285]. Are the difficulties she and Kevin faced common in relationships that begin during the teenage years or in situations where the wife is more successful than the husband? Discuss the regrets and self-criticism Sotomayor offers in describing the reasons for her failed marriage. Do you think she and Kevin could have had a successful marriage given their circumstances?

14. How have Sotomayor’s strong attachments to her community, family, and friends shaped her personality and unique perspective? How do they reflect the attitudes she acquired growing up in a Puerto Rican culture? Are these attitudes that can be acquired in different ways?

15. What different groups does Sotomayor identify with in the course of her narrative? How does her self-image change as she pursues her education and career? How does she define herself at the memoir’s end? How do you define yourself and your life?

16. How would you describe the tone of My Beloved World? Talk about the effects of her touches of humor (including self-mockery); frank appraisals of herself and others; and informal style on your appreciation of her story. Are there aspects of her life you think she should have explored more fully?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

top of page (summary)

My Fluorescent God
Joe Guppy, 2014
Booktrope Editions
202 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781620154410

Summary
In 1979, the 23-year-old Guppy was dealing with a bad breakup and existential angst, but it was a few stomach pills he took in Mexico that pushed him over the edge into paranoid psychosis… and straight into the mental ward of Seattle’s Providence Hospital.

Once Guppy recovered, he put his journals and medical records in a cardboard box, marked the box “Crazy Period,” and didn’t open it until 30 years later when he decided to write My Fluorescent God.

In this raw, often wryly comic memoir, Guppy battles his personal demons, jumps out a second-story window, and encounters God in a fluorescent light fixture. He was barraged with psychotropic drugs and rigid cognitive-behavioral therapy, and threatened with shock treatment, but what helped him was the traditional "talking cure."

The story of Guppy’s struggle to rebuild his sanity is not only a gripping spiritual and psychological adventure, but one he hopes will speak to those whose lives have been touched by mental illness. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1955
• Where—Seattle, Washington, USA
• Education—M.A., Washington University
• Currently—Seattle, Washington

Seattle native Joe Guppy, an award-winning writer and performer, worked in theater and television from 1980 to 1995. In 1996, he switched careers and trained to be a psychotherapist at Seattle University’s existential-phenomenological master’s program. He was a community mental health counselor for seven years and currently has a private practice in Seattle where he sees clients for such issues as anxiety, depression, and compulsive behaviors. (From the author.)

Visit the author's website
Follow Joe on Facebook.

Book Reviews
Riveting. Captures the world of mental illness and made me feel like I was right there in it. All of the tension, anguish, frustration is brought to life on the page, as well as the moments of hopefulness, humor, and eventual triumph.
Bob Nelson, Oscar-nominated screenwriter of Alexander Payne’s Nebraska

Joe Guppy’s My Fluorescent God is a moving and poignant examination of madness and redemption.
Charles R. Cross, New York Times best-selling author of Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain

Joe Guppy describes the isolated experience of insanity with such insight, brilliance, and intensity, I found myself thinking, "Oh my god, this is exactly the hell of mental illness. I get it. I get it." Plus, it’s often FUNNY. Not an easy task.
Lauren Weedman, author of  A Woman Trapped in a Woman’s Body

Discussion Questions
1. The 23-year-old Joe Guppy was clearly in an unstable state even before the prescribed stomach medications triggered his toxic psychosis. Has there ever been a moment or period in time when you felt like you were losing your mind? If so, what brought you back?

2. A friend of Joe Guppy's once pointed out to him that he (Joe) was convinced his perceptions of Dr. Hardaway as Satan and his fear of demons were delusions… but that Joe considered his mystical encounter with God as real. Joe addresses this question on page 196 of My Fluorescent God, but how might you explain it?

3. Does it surprise you that the author is an award-winning comedy writer? Were there parts of the book that you found funny? If so, which scenes, and why?

4. When Joe was in the high-security room, he describes the walls—and even the floor—as being covered in dark red medium-pile carpet. When you read that, did you think this was just part of Joe’s hallucination of Hell? Were you surprised to find out in the Dialogues in Part III that this was real—an actual soundproofing attempt? Was there anything else about the conversations in the Dialogues that informed or enhanced your reading of Joe’s story?

5. Part of the reason Joe Guppy was motivated to write My Fluorescent God was to express how important the "talking cure" was in his struggle to regain his sanity…not shock treatment, not drugs, but talking with professionals who connected with him and who cared about him. Has there ever been a time of crisis for you that talking with others helped you get through?
(Questions courtesy of the author.)

top of page (summary)

My Horizontal Life
Chelsea Handler, 2005
Bloomsbury USA
213 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781582346182

Summary
In this raucous collection of true-life stories, actress and comedian Chelsea Handler recounts her time spent in the social trenches with that wild, strange, irresistible, and often gratifying beast: the one-night stand.

More
You've either done it or know someone who has: the one-night stand, the familiar outcome of a night spent at a bar, sometimes the sole payoff for your friend's irritating wedding, or the only relief from a disastrous vacation. Often embarrassing and uncomfortable, occasionally outlandish, but most times just a necessary and irresistible evil, the one-night stand is a social rite as old as sex itself and as common as a bar stool.

Enter Chelsea Handler. Gorgeous, sharp, and anything but shy, Chelsea loves men and lots of them. My Horizontal Life chronicles her romp through the different bedrooms of a variety of suitors, a no-holds-barred account of what can happen between a man and a sometimes very intoxicated, outgoing woman during one night of passion. From her short fling with a Vegas stripper to her even shorter dalliance with a well-endowed little person, from her uncomfortable tryst with a cruise ship performer to her misguided rebound with a man who likes to play leather dress-up, Chelsea recalls the highs and lows of her one-night stands with hilarious honesty. Encouraged by her motley collection of friends (aka: her partners in crime) but challenged by her family members (who at times find themselves a surprise part of the encounter), Chelsea hits bottom and bounces back, unafraid to share the gritty details. My Horizontal Life is one guilty pleasure you won't be ashamed to talk about in the morning. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—February 25, 1975
• Where—Livingston, New Jersey
• Currently—Los Angeles, California

Chelsea Handler is an accomplished stand-up comic and actress, as well as the bestselling author of My Horizontal Life. She is the star of her own late-night show on E!, Chelsea Lately; was one of the stars of Girls Behaving Badly; has appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Late Night with David Letterman; and has starred in her own half-hour Comedy Central special. Chelsea makes regular appearances in comedy clubs across America and lives in Los Angeles. (From the publisher.)

More
Chelsea Handler is an American stand-up comedienne, humorist, television host, actress, and best-selling author. She currently has her own late-night talk show, Chelsea Lately, on the E! Cable Television Network. In 2009, she won a Bravo A-List Award. She also has her own column in the UK celebrity magazine Now.

Handler was born in the suburban town of Livingston, New Jersey to Rita and Seymour Handler. The youngest of six children, she was raised Jewish by her Mormon mother and Jewish father. Handler has said that while growing up, she felt like an outsider, telling a reporter, "We lived in this nice Jewish neighborhood.... Everyone had Mercedes and Jaguars, and I was going to school in a Pinto." Her mother died of cancer.

Handler has performed nationwide as a stand-up comedian, appeared as a regular on the Oxygen Network series Girls Behaving Badly and on other shows, including Weekends at the D.L., The Bernie Mac Show and The Practice. She is a regular commentator on E! and Scarborough Country as well as a correspondent on The Tonight Show. She hosted the first episode of the reality TV show On the Lot, but quit before the second one was aired, as she later said, "because I smelled the disaster happening before it did." Chelsea Handler hosted The Chelsea Handler Show in April 2006, which lasted two seasons. She was a guest on Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld and The View; she co-hosted The View on August 2, 2007, and again on September 5, 2008. On January 25, 2009, Handler was on the CBS gameshow Million Dollar Password as one of the celebrity players. On April 15, 2009, Handler won the 2009 Bravo A-List Award for "A-List Funny."

Handler has authored two books on the New York Times Best Seller List. Handler wrote My Horizontal Life as her memoir. Handler also wrote Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea, a collection of humorous essays. Are You There, Vodka hit the New York Times non-fiction best seller list on May 11, 2008; it has already had a print run of over 350,000. She released her third book titled Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang in March of 2010.

In 2007, Handler performed with the Hour Stand-Up Comedy Tour across the U.S.. Her stand-up has been televised on Vh1's Love Lounge, Comedy Central's Premium Blend, and HBO's broadcast of the Aspen Comedy Festival. Chelsea Handler was the host of the Fox show On The Lot. The show, produced by Steven Spielberg and Mark Burnett, is a competition for aspiring filmmakers who are vying for a chance at stardom. She was replaced after one episode by former Robin & Company entertainment anchor, Adrianna Costa.

In July 2007, Handler began starring on her own half-hour late-night comedy series on E! titled Chelsea Lately. This series places Handler against a slew of male-dominated talk shows, and adding a considerable amount of sarcasm and ridicule to the format. On the show's 100th episode, Chelsea revealed to viewers that E! had picked up Chelsea Lately for another 150 episodes. The show has proved a hit and averaged more than a half-million viewers since its premiere (much more than the average for a late night cable program) and has clips on Youtube with more than a million views. All this success is despite the fact that Handler's guests often are not A-list celebrities. In a 2008 interview Handler said, "The worse the guests are, the more pathetic they are, the funnier the show is.” The New York Times reported that Chelsea Lately has been renewed by E! to run until December 2009; Handler received another contract extension in March 2009 to keep Chelsea Lately on the air through 2012.

Since 2007, Handler has appeared in the Internet based program In the Motherhood with Leah Remini and (since January 2008) Jenny McCarthy. The comedic series is "about moms, by moms and for moms". On September 8, 2008, it was announced ABC would be turning In The Motherhood into a series starring Jessica St. Clair, Megan Mullaly, and Cheryl Hines. Handler decided to drop out of the project due to her scheduling commitments to her show Chelsea Lately. (From Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
Where have I been all of Chelsea Handler's life? I had no idea how funny, how brilliant she is. She is too clever for words.
Liz Smith - New York Post

Chelsea just might be funnier than David Sedaris.
Dallas Observer

Opening with a cute story from when she was seven and photographed her parents having sex, stand-up comedian Handler goes on to discuss the virtues of the one-night stand, which amount to having sex early enough so you're not months into a relationship before you discover he's into "anal beads and duct tape." She discusses her quest for sex with a "black man," which doesn't work out because the date she finds on ChocolateSingles.com has a penis so large, she "would have had to be the size of the Lincoln Tunnel to accommodate that thing." After him, there's a "little midget," but she sobers up before sleeping with him. Next come a number of would-be partners with penises too small to consider. Finally, there's a guy Handler does sleep with, only an embarrassing incident involving a "giant skid mark" prevents her from seeing him again. By the end, Handler considers settling down with one man, which might actually net her more sex than these mostly unconsummated one-night stands. Anyone who laughs at the mere mention of vaginas and penises may find Handler's book almost as much fun as getting drunk and waking up in some stranger's bed.
Publishers Weekly

Handler, a stand-up comedienne and featured prankster on the television show Girls Behaving Badly, now adds author to her resume. Chronicling her often wild sex life, this collection of offbeat and laugh-out-loud-funny essays includes a tale of waking up naked with a midget and a narrative of an affair with a Vegas stripper. Though the book seems to rely on the humor of the actual one-night stand, the standout pieces occur near the end, as Handler's attempts at casual sex become less successful and she begins to consider adopting a slightly more conservative lifestyle. In fact, the most entertaining essay concerns not sex but her substance-abusing gay friend's antics at her sister's wedding. Drawing on a supporting cast of hilariously well-drawn family members and friends, Handler succeeds in penning a smart, funny, and quick read. The booze-fueled tales of sex, however, are most likely inappropriate for school and academic libraries or more conservative communities. Recommended for the Sex and the City crowd in public libraries.—Amanda Glasbrenner, New York
Library Journal

Disjointed, lackluster musings on her promiscuous social life, by directionless if cheerful Handler. The L.A.-based standup comic here relates the meandering story of her many sexual misadventures. She starts with a not-very-amusing incident: at six years old, she was persuaded by her sister to take a picture of her parents having sex. (Dad was pissed: imagine that.) Moving on to her teenaged adventures at the Jersey shore, Handler invites us to find it hilarious that she picked up a good-looking man, had sex with him immediately, and dated him for months despite the fact that she couldn't stand talking to him. The joke in the next section is that while her father was a racist, she personally dated a wonderful black man, and it inspired her to want to sleep with many more of them. Next comes what's supposed to be an entertaining misunderstanding involving her sisters and the fact that Handler did not in fact have sex with the naked midget they found in her hotel room. In one genuinely funny moment, the author was dismayed to find that the handsome stripper she picked up wanted to tell her his real name and discuss the fact that what he really wanted to do was act—it figures that she would get stuck with the guy who wanted a real relationship. There is more: the one-night stand who showed up at the restaurant where she worked and was seated in her section, with his girlfriend (Handler pretends she is her own identical twin and has never seen him before); the friend who plays a practical joke on her by telling Handler's date that she has a terminal disease and just wants to cuddle; the gay friend invited to be her date for a wedding who terrorized her family. It might work as standup, but when transferred to the page this shtick is a groaner.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for My Horizontal Life:

1. Start with Chelsea Handler herself. Why does she pursue her quest for one-night-stands? What is she looking for? What does sex mean to her—or what do the encounters mean to her? In fact, do they have meaning?

2. Consider your reactions to Chelsea. Do you find her open approach to sex funny...appealing...depraved...misguided...or do you see her as a woman who has taken charge of her own sexuality? Do you approve or disapprove of what she's up to? Or do you take a neutral stance, believing it's not for readers to pass judgment?

3. Some readers have complained about Chelsea's lack of compassion or shallow hedonism. Others have found her refreshingly frank. What do you think? (Basically, the same as question #2, just worded differently.)

4. Do you have any favorite encounters in the book? Which do you find most humorous? Which episodes are the least appealing or most disturbing? What do you think of the various men she attempts to have sex with—any favorites...least favorite?

5. Talk about Chelsea's myriad friends and family members, and their reaction to or even participation in Chelsea's exploits.

5. Does My Horizontal Life play into stereotypes in terms of African-American and gay men or midgets?

7. Does Chelsea undergo personal reflection or growth throughout the book? What eventually makes her decide to pursue a more conservative lifestyle, perhaps to settle down with one man? Is there an inner life that Chelsea reveals so that you come to know her as a rich, complex character?

8. Some have compared Handler's book to Sex and the City. If you've seen either the TV show or movie, how does My Horizontal Life compare? Is there a particular character in SATC that Chelsea reminds you of?

9. Does My Horizontal Life deliver or disappoint?

10. Okay, readers: time for some personal revelations on your part. Anything in Chelsea's life similar to your own?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

top of page (summary)

My Life in France
Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme, 2006
Publisher
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 0307474852

Summary
Julia Child single handedly awakened America to the pleasures of good cooking with her cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking and her television show The French Chef, but as she reveals in this bestselling memoir, she didn't know the first thing about cooking when she landed in France.

Indeed, when she first arrived in 1948 with her husband, Paul, she spoke no French and knew nothing about the country itself. But as she dove into French culture, buying food at local markets and taking classes at the Cordon Bleu, her life changed forever. Julia's unforgettable story unfolds with the spirit so key to her success as as a cook and teacher and writer, brilliantly capturing one of the most endearing American personalities of the last fifty years. (From the publisher.)

The film version of this memoir has been combined with Julie and Julia by writer/director Nora Ephron.

Author Bio
• Birth—August 5, 1912
• Where—Pasadena, California, USA
• Death—August 12, 2004
• Where—Santa Barbara, California
• Education—B.A., Smith College; Le Cordon Bleu
• Awards—Emmy Awards, 1965, 1996 and 1997; George
Foster Peabody Award, 1965; Ordre de Mérite Agricole,
1967; Ordre de Mérite National, 1976; Chevalier of the
Légion d'Honneur, 2000

If leeks, shallots, and sea salt are available at your local supermarket, you probably have Julia Child to thank for it. At a time when many home cooks had nothing more ambitious in their repertoires than Jell-O salad, Child revolutionized the American kitchen, demonstrating that with good ingredients and a few French techniques, even the novice chef could turn out bistro-worthy dinners of boeuf bourguignon and tarte Tatin.

Child's interest in teaching techniques, rather than simply listing fancy recipes, was evident from her first cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which took years of collaboration (with Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle) and experimentation to write. Craig Claiborne, reviewing the book for the New York Times in 1961, wrote: "Probably the most comprehensive, laudable, and monumental work on [French cuisine] was published this week, and it will probably remain the definitive work for nonprofessionals." He was right—it's been a top seller ever since.

To promote the book, the Cordon Bleu–trained Child made an appearance on WGBH in Boston. Not content merely to talk about cooking, she brought along eggs, a hot plate, and a whisk, and demonstrated the proper way to make an omelette. The station producers recognized a potential star, and Child's first television show, The French Chef, was born. Soon thousands of viewers were tuning in to watch Julia flip crepes, blanch beans, and sear steaks. Each show ended with her signature sign-off: "Bon appétit!"

Since then, Child has hosted hundreds of television episodes, and her cookbooks have continued to be both inspiring and practical. Volume two of Mastering the Art of French Cooking was followed by titles like The Way to Cook, Cooking with Master Chefs and Julia's Kitchen Wisdom. Child also co-founded the American Institute of Wine and Food, an educational organization devoted to gastronomy. Many top-flight professional and celebrity chefs—including Alice Waters, Emeril Lagasse, and Thomas Keller—have cited Julia Child as an inspiration. "My own copy of volume one [of French Cooking] is so worn that the duct tape holding it together looks natural," chef Jasper White once noted.

Still, Child remains best known for bringing good food into the home, where she championed "food as an art form, as a delightful part of civilized life." And though she's expanded her range to include American, Mediterranean, and Asian cuisines, she hasn't been influenced by fad diets or fat phobias. She still cooks with butter and cream. As she told Nightline, "Small helpings, no seconds, a little bit of everything, no snacking and have a good time. I think if you follow that, you're going to be healthy, wealthy and wise."

Extras
• During World War II, Julia McWilliams served in the Office of Strategic Services—the forerunner of the CIA—in Ceylon and China, where she met Paul Child. After the war, the two married and moved to Paris, where Julia Child fell in love with French food. Years later, she could still recount her first meal in Paris, which included oysters, scallops in cream sauce, and duck.

• After Child moved from her Cambridge, Massachusetts, house to a retirement community in California, she donated her famous kitchen—where three of her television series were taped—to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

• Child stood tall at a statuesque 6' 2". (From Barnes & Noble.)

Book Reviews
The result is a delight. On one level, it's the story of how a "6-foot-2-inch, 36-year-old, rather loud and unserious Californian"—her words —discovered the fullness of life in France. On another, it recounts the making of "Julia Child," America's grande dame of French cooking. Inevitably, the stories overlap.
Alan Riding - New York Times

Famed chef Child, who died in 2004, recounts her life in France, beginning with her early days at the Cordon Bleu after WWII. Greenberg, an actress for radio and commercials, does a fine job capturing Child's joie de vivre and unmatched skill as a culinary animateur. We hear Child's delight and excitement when she discovers her calling as a writer and hands-on teacher of haute cuisine; her exasperation as yet another publishing house rejects her ever-growing monster of a manuscript; and her joy at its publication and acclaimed reception after more than a decade of work. Child's opinionated exuberance translates remarkably well to audio, from her initial Brahmin-like dismissal of the new medium of television (why would Americans want to waste a perfectly good evening staring into a box, she wondered?) and frustration at her diplomat husband being investigated in the McCarthy-driven 1950s to her ecstasy about roast chicken and mulish insistence on the one correct method to make French bread at home. The seamless abridgment has no jarring gaps or abrupt transitions to mar the listener's enjoyment. Potential listeners should beware, however: this is not a book to hear on an empty stomach.
Publishers Weekly

Lovingly cumulated from letters written by Child and her diplomat husband, Paul, as well as interviews with the author in her later years, My Life in France recounts the formative years of her development into a world-renowned chef. The book captures her unique voice in its elaborate descriptions of the sights and sounds of postwar France and its sumptuous and memorable meals. The title is deceptive, however; this recollection is much more than the story of Child's years in France and her time at Le Cordon Bleu culinary school. Much of this memoir is dedicated to the years that followed, her experiences as she moved about Europe and finally settled in Cambridge, MA. One significant episode is Child's work with Simon Beck and Louisette Bertholle and their numerous failures and ultimate success at writing a French cookbook for an American audience, the critically acclaimed and classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Recommended for general audiobook collections. —Dawn Eckenrode, Daniel A. Reed Lib., SUNY at Fredonia
Library Journal

In seamlessly flowing prose, the text follows Child's growth as a cook into one of the best and most influential teachers of the twentieth century. Like Child herself, this memoir is earnest but never pedantic. Her eye for the ironic, her sense of humor, and her sharp sensitivity to the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and colors that surround her make lucid, lively reading.
Booklist

"Ooh, those lovely roasted, buttery French chickens, they were so good and chickeny!" Anyone who remembers the iconic, deceased Julia Child (1912-2004)—or perhaps Dan Aykroyd's affectionate imitation of her—will recognize the singular voice. It's employed in this memoir to full advantage, and to the reader's great pleasure. As relative and writer Prud'homme recalls, at the end of her long life, Child was busily recording her years as a budding chef. In 1948, newly wed, she moved to Paris with her diplomat husband Paul, whom she had met while on wartime duty for the OSS (now there would be a story) in Asia. The first meal she cooked for him, she recalls, was "a disaster," and she arrived in France "a six-foot-two-inch, thirty-six-year-old, rather loud and unserious Californian," but in every aspect of her life, she was determined to do better. With self-effacing humor, Child recalls her efforts at learning French, finding an apartment and coping with life in a different culture. No matter how embarrassing or baffling the course of her learning curve, Child's francophilia and zest for life shine through, and nowhere more than in the pages devoted to her sentimental education at the Cordon Bleu, the world-renowned culinary institute, in whose cramped basement she "learned how to glaze carrots and onions at the same time as roasting a pigeon, and how to use the concentrated vegetable juices to fortify the pigeon flavor, and vice versa," among other talents. Matching her growing skills with a formidable armada of kitchen gadgets that will make cookery-loving readers swoon, she then recounts the difficult conception and extremely difficult birth of her book Mastering the Art of French Cooking,which brought her fame. Charming, idiosyncratic and much fun—just like its author, who is very much alive in these pages. A blessing for lovers of France, food and fine writing.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for My Life in France:

1. Julia Child was an exuberant personality. How does that exuberance reveal itself when she first moves to France with husband Paul, a country many Americans have found unwelcoming? Why was Julia's experience so different?

2. Talk about Julia's ability to overcome self-doubt and rejection as she pursues her career...both as chef and later as writer.

3. What role does Paul play in Julia's development? How would you describe the quality of their marriage?

4. Trace the process of how Julia comes to fall in love with French food—the fact that it was not just to be eaten but to be experienced. Talk about that first meal in France where she had her epiphany? Anything similar in your own life?

5. Discuss some of the interesting side stories: Julia's relationship with her father, McCarthyism and Paul's subsequent disillusionment with the U.S. government.

6. Consider, too, some of the ironic or humorous moments: language missteps or Julia's initial thoughts about TV.

7. How important was Julia Child's role in introducing America to French food and classical cooking? Has her influence lasted, given the culture's affection for (or addiction to) fast food and convenience cooking, as well as our emphasis on low-fat diets?

8. If you have visited France (or live there), how do Julia's reminisces compare to life in France today? What has changed...and what has remained the same?

9. If you have cooked with any of Julia Child's cookbooks, especially her most famous, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, what were your experiences with her recipes? Difficult? Easy? Delicious? Too rich? Which are your favorite recipes of hers? Do you, in fact, enjoy French cuisine?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution.)

top of page (summary)

My Life in Middlemarch
Rebecca Mead, 2014
Crown Publisher
578 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307984760

Summary
A New Yorker writer revisits the seminal book of her youth—Middlemarch— and fashions a singular, involving story of how a passionate attachment to a great work of literature can shape our lives and help us to read our own histories.

Rebecca Mead was a young woman in an English coastal town when she first read George Eliot's Middlemarch, regarded by many as the greatest English novel. After gaining admission to Oxford, and moving to the United States to become a journalist, through several love affairs, then marriage and family, Mead read and reread Middlemarch. The novel, which Virginia Woolf famously described as "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people," offered Mead something that modern life and literature did not.

In this wise and revealing work of biography, reporting, and memoir, Rebecca Mead leads us into the life that the book made for her, as well as the many lives the novel has led since it was written. Employing a structure that deftly mirrors that of the novel, My Life in Middlemarch takes the themes of Eliot's masterpiece—the complexity of love, the meaning of marriage, the foundations of morality, and the drama of aspiration and failure—and brings them into our world.

Offering both a fascinating reading of Eliot's biography and an exploration of the way aspects of Mead's life uncannily echo that of Eliot herself, My Life in Middlemarch is for every ardent lover of literature who cares about why we read books, and how they read us. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1974 (?)
• Where—London, England, UK
• Raised—Southwest England
• Education—Oxford University; New York University
• Curently—lives in New York, New York, USA

Rebecca Mead has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1997. Born in England, she migrated to New York in her twenties where she attended New York University. She began her career as a fact-checker at New York Magazine and later became a contributing editor.

She has also contributed to many newspapers and magazines, including the Sunday Times of London, New York Times Book Review, and London Review of Books. In 2007 she published her first took, One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding (2007), and in 2014 came out with her second, My Life in Middlemarch (2014). Mead lives in Brooklyn, New York City. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
Rarely attempted, and still more rarely successful, is the bibliomemoir—a subspecies of literature combining criticism and biography with the intimate, confessional tone of autobiography.... My Life in Middlemarch is a poignant testimony to the abiding power of fiction.... [Yet] admirable and endearing as [it] is, there are virtually no surprises here that have not been uncovered by Eliot biographers.
Joyce Carol Oates - New York Times Book Review

Mead explores how the broad themes of George Eliot’s Middlemarch—the quest for meaning, the nature of love, the power of home, and how to square great ambition with the realities of being a woman—resonate in her own life and remain relevant for modern readers.... [Mead] invites readers to consider this imperative through their relationships with influential books and in their own lives. In this way, she invites empathy, an exercise of which George Eliot would be unmistakably proud.
Emily Rapp - Boston Globe

Mead’s middle-aged rediscovery of Middlemarch—and her insights into Eliot’s rich middle age—is not to be missed.
Atlantic

(Starred review.) [D]eeply satisfying hybrid work of literary criticism, biography, and memoir.... [Mead] brings to vivid life the profound engagement that she and all devoted readers experience with a favorite novel over a lifetime.... As Mead writes: “There are books that seem to comprehend us just as much as we understand them… books that grow with the reader as the reader grows.”
Publishers Weekly

(Starred review.) Mead demonstrates through her own story how literature can change and transform lives. For this reason, even the reader who has never heard of George Eliot will find Mead's crisp, exacting prose absorbing and thought-provoking.
Library Journal

Mead beautifully conveys the excitement of living in a novel, of knowing its characters as if they breathed, of revisiting them over time and seeing them differently. She conveys, too, not at all heavy-handedly, the particular relationship one develops with an author whose work one loves….There is a meticulous underlying order to the book, structured to mirror Middlemarch itself, but as in a letter, the effect is of spontaneous movement, the particular thrill of following a mind untrammeled.
Clair Messud - Bookforum

(Starred review.) [Mead] performs an exhilarating, often surprising close reading of the novel, which Eliot began writing at age 51 in 1870. And she....injects just enough of her own life story to take measure of the profound resonance of Eliot’s progressive, humanistic viewpoint, recognition of the heroism of ordinary lives, and crucial central theme, a young woman’s desire for a substantial, rewarding, meaningful life.
Booklist

(Starred review.) Mead was wise not to omit herself from this story, as her feelings about the great work and its themes of women's roles, relationships and self-delusion are far more insightful than a barrage of facts would have bee ... A rare and remarkable fusion of techniques that draws two women together across time and space.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Explore the parallels between George Eliot’s life and Rebecca Mead’s. In their relationships and in their careers as writers, do they share a common approach to the human experience? Did the social constraints of Eliot’s gender put her at a disadvantage compared to contemporary writers, or did the constraints enhance her imaginative powers?

2. Discuss your own experience with Middlemarch, whether you’ve been a lifelong devotee or have only glimpsed it through Mead’s lens. Which storylines and relationships resonate the most with you? Which characters are the most intriguing to you?

3. What motivates Mead to retrace Eliot’s life? How does her research reshape her view of Eliot’s imaginary communities?

4. Browse the memoir’s chapter titles (which mirror the titles of the eight books in Middlemarch) as well as the epigraphs. What makes these lines equally appropriate for Mead’s modern world? Which epigraph could make an apt motto for your life?

5. What came to mind when you read Virginia Woolf’s characterization of Middlemarch as “one of the few English novels written for grown-up people”? Are happy endings and the marriage plot the stuff of childish fantasy? How does Eliot rank against Jane Austen, the Brontes, and Woolf as English women writers who contributed to your growth?

6. How do the various locales featured in My Life in Middlemarch—from New Haven and New York to Coventry, Oxford, and London—reflect the inner worlds described in their corresponding scenes? For Eliot and Mead, where is home?

7. As you read Mead’s exploration of Dorothea Brooke Casaubon, who wrestles with the yearnings of youth and must eventually confront the passionless marriage that marks her adulthood, how did these scenes compare to your own transformation, during and well beyond adolescence? Which books helped you find your way?

8. What freedoms and limitations did Eliot experience because of her unconventional relationship with George Henry Lewes? In your opinion, how did he and his sons (biological or not) affect Eliot’s approach to writing about male characters? From the duped scientist Tertius Lydgate to the feckless Fred Vincy, what broad observations can we make about the men who populate Middlemarch?

9. What does Mead’s memoir help us understand about motherhood in its many forms (including Eliot’s experience as a quasi-stepmother)? Is Eliot’s portrayal of motherhood in Middlemarch realistic or overly pessimistic?

10. Mead describes her pilgrimages to the archives that hold Eliot’s journals, manuscripts, and other documents, including Yale’s Beinecke Library, the New York Public Library, and the British Library. In addition to fact-gathering, what does Mead gain by spending time with pages that were touched by Eliot’s own hand? Does the digital age spell the end of that experience?

11. Mead raises the question of Eliot’s spirituality after she left the church. If her characters are a guide to us, how does Eliot seem to have approached the role of fate versus free will in shaping our destinies?

12. The eight books of Middlemarch were released by Blackwood as a series. How does reading those elaborate plots compare to watching a wildly popular television series? What special benefits does the written word provide?

13. After her dashed hopes with Herbert Spencer and the impossibility of marrying Lewes, was Eliot’s marriage to John Walter Cross a sort of victory?

14. Consider Middlemarch’s renowned closing line, which appears in the first paragraph of “Finale.” Which unhistoric acts, hidden lives, and unvisited tombs did you think of as you read those words?
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)

top of page (summary)

My Own Country: A Doctor's Story
Abraham Verghese, 1994
Knopf Doubleday
448 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780679752929

Summary
Nestled in the Smoky Mountains of eastern Tennessee, the town of Johnson City had always seemed exempt from the anxieties of modern American life. But on August 11, 1985, the local hospital treated its first AIDS patient, and, before long, a crisis that had once seemed an "urban problem" had arrived in the town to stay.

Working in Johnson City was Abraham Verghese, a young Indian doctor specializing in infectious diseases. Of necessity, he became the local AIDS expert, soon besieged by a shocking number of male and female patients whose stories come to occupy his mind, and even take over his life. Verghese brought a singular perspective to Johnson City: as a doctor unique in his abilities; as an outsider who could talk to people suspicious of local practitioners; above all, as a writer of grace and compassion who saw that what was happening in this conservative community was both a medical and a spiritual emergency.

Out of his experience comes a startling but ultimately uplifting portrait of the American heartland as it confronts—and surmounts—its deepest prejudices and fears. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
Abraham Verghese is Professor and Senior Associate Chair for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He was the founding director of the Center for Medical Humanities & Ethics at the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, where he is now an adjunct professor. He is the author, most recently, of Cutting for Stone (2009), as well as The Tennis Partner, a New York Times Notable Book. My Own Country was a 1994 NBCC Finalist and a Time Best Book of the Year, A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, he has published essays and short stories that have appeared in The New Yorker, the New York Times, the Atlantic Monthly, and Granta. He lives in Palo Alto, California. (From the publisher.)

More
is the Professor for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Senior Associate Chair of the Department of Internal Medicine. He was born in Ethiopia to parents from Kerala in south India who, along with hundreds of Keralites, worked as teachers.

Dr. Verghese began his medical training in Ethiopia, but his education was interrupted during the civil unrest there when the Emperor Haile Selassie was deposed and a military government took over. He came to America with his parents and two brothers (his elder brother George Verghese is now an engineering professor at MIT) and worked as an orderly for a year before going to India where he completed his medical studies at Madras Medical College in Madras, now Chennai.

In his written work, he refers to his time working as an orderly in a hospital in America as an experience that confirmed his desire to finish his medical training; the experience had given him a first-hand view of patients' experience in the hospital with its varying levels of treatment and care. He has said the insights he gained from this work helped him "imagine the suffering of patients," which became a motto for some of his later work.

After finishing his medical degree from Madras University in 1979, he came to the U.S. as one of hundreds of foreign medical graduates, or FMGs, from India seeking open residency positions here. As he described it in a New Yorker article, "The Cowpath to America," many FMGs often had to work in the less popular hospitals and communities, and frequently in inner cities. He opted for a residency in a brand-new program in Johnson City, Tennessee affiliated with East Tennessee State University. He was a resident there from 1980 to 1983, and then secured a coveted fellowship at Boston University School of Medicine in 1983, where he worked for two years at Boston City Hospital and where he saw the early signs of the urban epidemic of HIV in that city.

Returning to Johnson City in 1985 as assistant professor of medicine (he later became a tenured associate professor there), he encountered the first signs of a second epidemic, that of rural AIDS. His work with the patients he cared for and his insights into his personal transformation from being "homoignorant," as he describes it, to having a understanding of his patients resulted a few years later in his first book.

Exhausted from the strain of his work with his patients, with his first marriage under strain and having by then begun to write seriously, he decided to take a break and applied to and was accepted to the prestigious Iowa Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa, where he earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1991. He had cashed in his retirement plan and his tenured position to go to Iowa City with his young family.

After Iowa, he accepted a position as Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Texas Tech Health Sciences Center in El Paso, Texas, where he lived for the next 11 years. Despite his title, he was the sole infectious disease physician for a busy county hospital—Thomason Hospital—for many years. His skills and commitment to patient care resulted in his being awarded the Grover E. Murray Distinguished Professorship of Medicine at the Texas Tech School of Medicine.

During these years in El Paso, he also wrote and published his first bestselling book, My Own Country: A Doctor's Story, about his experiences in East Tennessee, but also pondering themes of displacement, Diaspora, responses to foreignness and the many individuals and families affected by the AIDS epidemic. This book was one of five chosen as Best Book of the Year by Time magazine and it was later made into a movie by Mira Nair with TV Lost series star Naveen Andrews playing his role.

His second book, The Tennis Partner: A Story of Friendship and Loss, also written during his time in El Paso, is another eloquently written personal story, this time about his friend and tennis partner, a medical resident in recovery from drug addiction. The story deals with the ultimate death of his friend and explores the issue and prevalence of physician drug abuse. It also concludes the account of the breakdown of his first marriage, an integral part of the narrative in both My Own Country and The Tennis Partner.

In 2002, Dr. Verghese went to San Antonio, Texas as founding Director of the Center for Medical Humanities & Ethics at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, where he focused on medical humanities as a way to preserve the innate empathy and sensitivity that brings students to medical school but which is frequently repressed through the rigors of their training. In San Antonio, besides developing a formal humanities and ethics curriculum that was integrated into in all four years of study, he invited medical students to accompany him on bedside rounds as a way of demonstrating his conviction about the value of the physical examination in diagnosing patients and in developing a caring, two-way patient-doctor relationship that provides benefits not only to patients and their families but to the physician, as well. At San Antonio, he held the Joaquin Cigarroa Chair and the Marvin Forland Distinguished Professorship.

His deep interest in bedside medicine and his reputation as a clinician, teacher and writer led to his being recruited to Stanford University in 2007 as a tenured professor.

In 2009, Dr. Verghese published his first novel, Cutting for Stone.

His writing and work continue to explore the importance of bedside medicine, the ritual of the physical examination in the era of advanced technology, where as he notes frequently in his writing, the patient in the bed is often ignored in favor of the patient data in the computer. He is renowned at Stanford for his weekly bedside rounds, where he insists on examining patients without knowledge of their diagnosis to demonstrate the wealth of information available from the physical exam.

Dr. Verghese has three children, two grown sons by his first marriage and a third by his second marriage. (From Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
The greatest strength of this eloquently written book is its ability to weave together all those separate strands. It is at once a previously untold story of AIDS in America, a story of the South, a story of the modern-day immigrant experience in America and a story of a personal journey within the medical profession. Dr. Verghese illumines a number of landscapes here, and does it with more than a touch of the poet. He writes, for example, about the life inside the hospital—but not just any hospital. His greatest affection is reserved for the patients and staff of the Veteran's Administration Hospital, that perennial poor relation of the medical system; perhaps never has a V.A. hospital been written about with such glowing lyricism.
Perri Klass - New York Times Book Review

This extraordinary book is ostensibly "about" a doctor caring for persons with HIV/AIDS. That it is, but it is also a book containing multiple texts. It is a doctor's personal journey toward understanding the multiple meanings of HIV/AIDS for those who have it and those who care for them. It is the story of a physician, an Indian, born in Ethiopia to Christian expatriate teachers, [who has been] in America since 1980... trying to determine the meaning of "home." It is, at the same time, a glorious pastoral account of practicing medicine in Tennessee—here making a house call to Vicki and Clyde, whose trailer is perched on the side of a mountain, now traveling through the Cumberland Gap to a cinder-block house to see Gordon, another native son who has come home to die. On still another level it is the story of a man trying to understand what it is like to be gay; a man trying to integrate his passion for his work with his life at home; a man trying to explain to his wife (and sadly, even some of his peers) his commitment to caring for persons infected with the virus.
Literature, Arts and Medicine Database

When infectious-disease specialist Verghese, the Ethiopian-born son of Indian schoolteachers, emigrated to the U.S. and settled in Johnson City, Tenn., in the mid-1980s, he finally felt at peace "in my own country'' at last. But his work at the Johnson City Medical Center soon led him into a shadow world of Bible-belt AIDS, often without the support of his colleagues. Verghese discovered a local gay community that was then untested for the HIV virus. If revealed, these people's closeted relationships would have, writes Verghese, made them stand out "like Martians.'' The author tells the stories of several patients, including the gay man who must reconcile with his father and the "innocent'' man who has contracted AIDS through a contaminated blood transfusion but who, concerned about society's response to his plight, keeps his disease a secret even though he believes that "this thing, this virus, is from hell, from the devil himself.'' Verghese reveals his own confusions about homosexuality, immigrant identity and his wife's fears about his health. Writing with an outsider's empathy and insight, casting his chronicle in graceful prose, he offers a memorable tale that both captures and transcends time and place.
Publishers Weekly

In fall 1985 Verghese—who was born in Ethiopia of Indian parents—returned with his wife and newborn son to Johnson City, Tennessee, where he had done his internship and residence. As he watched AIDS infect the small town, he and the community learned many things from one another, including the power of compassion. An AIDS expert who initially had no patients, Verghese describes meeting gay men and then eventually others struggling with this new disease. Verghese's patients include a factory worker confronting her husband's AIDS, bisexuality, and her own HIV status and a religious couple infected via a blood transfusion attempting to keep their disease secret from their church and their children. This novelistic account, occasionally overly detailed, provides a heartfelt perspective on the American response to the spread of AIDS. —James E. Van Buskirk, San Francisco P . L .
Library Journal

Discussion Questions
1. Verghese describes the early eighties, before AIDS had spun out of control, as "a time of unreal and unparalleled confidence, bordering on conceit, in the Western medical world, " [p. 24] in which doctors felt they had achieved "mastery over the human body"[p. 25]. How does the reality of AIDS undermine this ultra-modern, technological ideal of medicine? How does Verghese's idea of the doctor's role change during the course of the narrative? Do you believe that his turning back toward the older ideal of treating the whole patient, body and soul, might be a harbinger of a general medical trend?

2. When Verghese arrives in Johnson City, he says, "I knew no openly gay men. I only knew the stereotype" [p. 23]. What changes does his attitude toward homosexual men undergo during his years at the Miracle Center? How does Verghese's initial perception of himself as an outsider in Johnson City make him especially sensitive to his patients' problems with their families and community?

3. Johnson City in the mid-eighties is "a place where Jerry Falwell's pronouncement that homosexuals would 'one day be utterly annihilated and there will be a celebration in heaven' was taken as a self-evident truth" [p. 56]. Yet when AIDS strikes people they love, many inhabitants of Johnson City prove remarkably supportive. How does their personal contact with the disease work to falsify the "gay" stereotype they previously held? Does Verghese, simultaneously, succeed in breaking stereotypes about "Falwell country" that readers themselves might hold? What other stereotypes does Verghese undermine in his story?

4. Verghese's story indicates that to feel part of a group is vitalto human survival and well-being. How do the various groups Verghese describes—the gay community, the TAP support group, the church, the medical fraternity, the expatriate Indian community—nourish and strengthen their members? Are they always nurturing, or do they also put up barriers between their members and the outside world? Is Verghese himself fully a member of, fully at home in, any of these groups?

5. How do the different members of Gordon's family react to his homosexuality and illness? How does each, in his or her different way, cope with Gordon's condition? In what way does Gordon typify the "generation of young men, raised to self-hatred" and their collective "voyage, the breakaway, the attempt to create places where they could live with pride" [pp. 402-403]?

6. "I heard different but strangely similar versions of this story from families of gay men: There was always the God-given talent that accompanied their God-given sexuality, always the special creativity and humor" [p. 92]. Verghese speculates on two possibilities: these qualities might be as biologically determined as sexuality, or they might be developed to compensate for the men's essential difference. What do you think of these ideas?

7. What is Verghese's reaction to Gordon's and Will's visions of Jesus? How does religion affect the way these patients deal with their disease? Does it help them to fight? Does it help them to come to terms with defeat? Does it ever hinder them from facing their problems truthfully?

8. Verghese comes to see AIDS "as the litmus test for nurses and physicians, a means of identifying who would and who wouldn't" [p. 105] provide treatment and, in so doing, risk their own health. Is there an excuse for the hostile attitude of nurses who don't want to treat AIDS patients? Should people who have committed themselves to careers as doctors or nurses be morally obligated to treat any and every patient? In Johnson City, just how deeply does the hospital staff's attitude towards AIDS change over the course of the four years Verghese describes?

9. When Ethan Nidiffer explains why he didn't alert his dentist to the fact that he was HIV-positive, Verghese admits that he "could certainly see his point of view" [p. 306]. What is your point of view on this issue? How much responsibility lies with the patient, and how much with the dentist? Should patients always be obliged to inform their doctors that they are HIV-positive, even if that means they may not find treatment?

10. How do Gordon, Fred, Ethan, and Raleigh differ in their visions of themselves as gay men and as part of a larger gay community? Can you see any parallels with Verghese and his own search for a community, a home?

11. Will and Bess Johnson see themselves as "innocent victims" of the disease—as opposed, by implication, to the gay men who also suffer from it. How might you explain Verghese's complex reaction to this notion? Do the Johnsons strike you as essentially more "innocent" than the gay men in the narrative? This issue relates to the way the cancer patients at the VA hospital are perceived as dying with honor, while so many HIV patients harbor feelings of shame. How are the concepts of honor and shame, innocence and guilt, addressed by the TAP members? By the Johnsons? By Rajani? By Verghese himself? Do these attitudes reflect those of the larger American culture?

12. Do you agree with Bess and Will's decision that secrecy about their HIV infection was vital? Why were they so overwhelmingly concerned with secrecy? What makes them able to draw comfort from their church even while assuming that their fellow church-goers would not stand by them in their illness? Do you blame Bess and Will for not speaking out and trying to help others who suffer from the disease, or do you think that they had every right to their privacy?

13. Because of his work, Verghese comes to believe that "our moments of true safety are rare." Is such a knowledge a handicap, or can it bring increased strength? How does the enormous change in Vickie McCray's life and character relate to this knowledge?

14. Do you believe that the situation Verghese describes in Johnson City accurately represents the situation for AIDS sufferers in the United States as a whole? If you have any experience with the disease, do you find that patients feel isolated, feel the need to keep their condition a secret? In your own community, does compassion outweigh prejudice? Are there adequate support resources for the HIV-positive? How do different members of the local and national government treat this volatile issue?

15. At the end of the book, Verghese states that AIDS work will always be his vocation. How does Verghese's powerful sense of mission and his unselfish giving of himself affect his family life? Is the sort of schedule he has undertaken necessarily incompatible with a full family life? How might a busy doctor's wife and children share in his professional life?

16. When Verghese arrives in Johnson City, he feels he has found a home, his "own country" [p. 46]. Does he still see it in this way at the end of the book? If so, why does he leave? How does the Malcolm Cowley poem placed at the beginning of the narrative apply to Verghese's personal quest?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

top of page

My Seductive Cuba: A Unique Travel Guide
Chen Lizra, 2011
Latidos Productions
328 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780986891007

Summary
Enough books have been written about Cuba to fill an entire library, but few take the approach Chen Lizra does with My Seductive Cuba. Deeply personal and always engaging, Lizra—an Israeli-born dancer and entrepreneur now living in Canada—fuses history and politics with her real-life experiences among the people of this often-visited but little-understood island.

The result is a moving portrayal of Cuba on the verge of historic change. Packed with practical information on where to go in Cuba, what to pack and the best ways to get there, My Seductive Cuba also helps readers ferret out persistent opportunists while finding Havana's best reggaeton, flamenco, jazz and salsa clubs. A glossary of Cuban slang and a description of the Santeria religion—along with a vivid chapter titled "Getting Possessed"—makes Lizra's humorous travel guide even more compelling. This is one book you won't want to be without, even if you don't plan on going anywhere!

My Seductive Cuba changes the way we approach travel guides from an index book to a book that people fall in love with even if they are not planning on visiting. In fact any person reading it ends up wanting to visit Cuba if they haven't yet. The book also includes QR codes that lead to online videos and transport you to Cuba through visuals and sounds. If you plan on traveling to Cuba you will arrive knowing the mentality and how to move around.

The website—www.myseductivecuba.com—is full of updates from Cuba always keeping you update on the latest news and serving as an extension of the book and the Cuban lifestyle. (From the author.)

Author Bio
• Birth—
• Where—
• Education—
• Awards—
• Currently—

With nearly a decade of experience in the animation industry, working on projects for MTV, TVA, Alliance Atlantis, Mainframe Entertainment and Radical Entertainment, Chen Lizra’s intellect, imagination and creative thinking evolved her into a branding expert. What makes her truly stand out is her ability to mix her creative ideas with solid business understanding. A BBA with focus on international business and marketing, seduction training with the best professional dancers in Cuba, sixteen years in the international business arena, and a TED Talk under her belt, make Chen a dynamic entrepreneur and public speaker.

In 2009 & 2012 Chen was nominated as one of the “YWCA Women of Distinction in Vancouver,” and was honored by the Australian government with a Distinguished Talent Permanent Visa for her international achievements in the arts. As the international best-selling author of My Seductive Cuba: A Unique Travel Guide, Chen has won two awards in the US, including the prestigious IPPY Book Award. Chen was featured in the Vancouver Sun, Globe & Mail, The Province, Global TV, CityTV, CBC, and many other media outlets. With a passion for dance and creative movement, Lizra offers students seduction workshops and focused lectures and seminars about the art of seduction in our everyday lives and its practical uses.

You can see what other projects Chen is involved with on her site - www.lizraconsulting.com. She has just signed with Bettie Youngs for a second book called Seducing Happiness and another book is in the plan for 2013. (From the author.)

Book Reviews
What makes My Seductive Cuba an exceptional travel guide is its mix of handy and useful travel guide tips, with personal anecdotes from Lizra's own experiences. Lizra discovered the Cuba she loves through dance. A profession-al dancer, originally from Israel, now living in Vancouver, she travelled to Cuba to study. She came away with not only dance skills, but a new understanding of the people who taught her, danced with her, ate with her, and allowed her to embrace their culture. She returned again and again, first as an arts tourist and dancer, and eventually as a travel guide. It's a book filled with stories of passion—including seduction—and real-life experiences, making it both a practical and adventurous travel guide. Lizra shares where the locals eat and what they eat, as well as where they dance. She describes extraordinary locations on the island, untouched by commercial tourism, and discovers how to have a relationship of respect with the Cuban people. QR codes are used in the hard copy of the book and some are linked to videos on YouTube, enhancing the whole cultural experience. The eBook allows travellers the ability to take the book with them electronically. For those who know Cuba, My Seductive Cuba will make them want to return, and for those who have never been to Cuba, this book will draw them there..
The Province (Canada)

Lizra's well-illustrated and structured book is a by-product of her motivation to visit the island in the first place: her passion for Latin dance. Users can get ultimate use out of this book by scanning the QR barcodes found throughout. That gives readers access to online resources that provide further information on a specific topic or destination. A big part of My Seductive Cuba is devoted to the island's rich dance and musical traditions, rooted in that country's African heritage. No surprise, given Lizra's intensive training with the National Folklore Group of Cuba, the National School of Art and the National Cabaret. But Lizra didn't limit her research to Havana and its environs; she also investigated trends throughout other major Cuban cities and historic sites. One chapter, "Getting Possessed," details Lizra's attendance at a ceremony at which spirits took over the bodies of practitioners. Lizra also delves into an area few other Cuba travel books touch: romance with locals. "Seduction is part of the place," she explains. "When you go to Cuba, you experience the charm and the seduction, and always find a reason to come back." That kind of advice, generated from firsthand knowledge of the country's culture and informal way of doing things, is what will help any visitor become a Cubanaut—ready to blast off for a return visit to the island. "In Cuba, everything turns into an adventure," she says, "and the things that happen along the way—which you don't plan for—are what makes it exciting.
Vito Echeverria - Cuba News

[Y]ou tell it like it is, in terms of inter-personal dynamics. So it's terrific for its introduction to manners. For that alone, I would recommend it. I like the style of writing. Breezy but informational. Congratulations on a fine and spirited book
BC Book World (Canada)

And, as she proves in My Seductive Cuba, she is one of the best tour guides this Caribbean island could ever want to have. This travel guide not only tells you some of the best places to eat and visit in Cuba, but she transforms it from an all-inclusive tourist destination into a country that pulses with history and culture. The book answers all the most practical question a visitor could ask but then she asks you to understand why Cuba is the way it is so you can appreciate its nuances as much as she does.
Martha Perkins - We (Vancouver)

Discussion Questions
1. What makes Cuba seductive? What did the book teach you about seduction in Cuba?

2. In Cuba people can get possessed by deities and dead spirits? What would you have done instead of Chen when she was asked the most personal questions about her life in front of everyone? How would you have handled it differently?

3. Taking things for granted in life is one of the strongest messages that My Seductive Cuba delivers? Do you take things for granted in your own life? What makes you notice that you do and makes you value what you have again?

4. Chen comes across as adventurous going with the flow and trying things in order to understand the culture better? Can this attitude backfire? Do you find yourself more liberal or conservative in your approach? Have you learned something from her by reading this book?

5. What prevented Chen from running away from Cuba the first time she went? What made her want to run away in the first place? Did it pay off to stay? if you were faced with the same situation, would you have gone back or stayed?

6. Seduction can be quite luring and tempting waking up the desire in us making us want things. Chen handles seduction quite well in Cuba. Do you think that you would have been able to handle it the same or would it have terrified you? Do you ever fear losing control and being manipulated into things you don't want? And how would you react to it if you did?

7. Do you know the Cuban dance styles that Chen talked about in the book? Have you tried the QR codes to watch the videos online? Did their description take you deeper into the culture and if so what have you learned about their norms of behaviours? Do you feel at ease with it or does it make you nervous?

8. A lot of people have misconceptions about food in Cuba. They think that food is horrible. But Chen clearly shows you how great food can be in Cuba if you know how to do it. What did you learn from the food chapter about how Cubans think and behave?

9. How did you like in the 5th section of the book the photos and descriptions that took you into cultural experienced you will run into in Cuba? Did it make you feel closer to the culture? How did it compare to the culture you come from? is it very different? Is it similar?

10. Cuba's history and the embargo tint many people's view of what this little-understood island is all about. The tendency is to think of Cuba as a repressive country with human right violations. Did the book show you a new take on this culture? Did you learn something new? If you did—what was it?
(Questions provided by author.)

top of page (summary)

My Story
Elizabeth Smart and Chris Smart, 2013
St. Martin's Press
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250040152

Summary
For the first time, ten years after her abduction from her Salt Lake City bedroom, Elizabeth Smart reveals how she survived and the secret to forging a new life in the wake of a brutal crime

On June 5, 2002, fourteen-year-old Elizabeth Smart, the daughter of a close-knit Mormon family, was taken from her home in the middle of the night by religious fanatic, Brian David Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee. She was kept chained, dressed in disguise, repeatedly raped, and told she and her family would be killed if she tried to escape. After her rescue on March 12, 2003, she rejoined her family and worked to pick up the pieces of her life.

Now for the first time, in her memoir My Story, she tells of the constant fear she endured every hour, her courageous determination to maintain hope, and how she devised a plan to manipulate her captors and convinced them to return to Utah, where she was rescued minutes after arriving. Smart explains how her faith helped her stay sane in the midst of a nightmare and how she found the strength to confront her captors at their trial and see that justice was served.

In the nine years after her rescue, Smart transformed from victim to advocate, traveling the country and working to educate, inspire and foster change. She has created a foundation to help prevent crimes against children and is a frequent public speaker. In 2012, she married Matthew Gilmour, whom she met doing mission work in Paris for her church, in a fairy tale wedding that made the cover of People magazine. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—November 3, 1987
• Where—Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
• Education—Brigham Young University (currently enrolled)
• Currently—living in Park City, Utah

Elizabeth Ann Smart-Gilmour is an American activist and contributor for ABC News. She first gained widespread attention at the age of 14 when she was kidnapped from her home and rescued nine months later.

Smart was abducted from her bedroom in her family's Salt Lake City home on June 5, 2002 at the age of 14. She was found nine months later on March 12, 2003, in Sandy, Utah, 18 miles from her home, in the company of Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Ileen Barzee. Her abduction and rescue were widely reported and were the subject of a made-for-TV movie and non-fiction book.

On October 1, 2009, Smart testified to being threatened, tied, and raped daily while she was held captive.

On November 16, 2009, Barzee announced she would plead guilty to assisting in the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart, as part of an agreement with prosecutors. On May 19, 2010, Barzee was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison. As part of a plea deal between the defense and federal prosecutors, federal Judge Dale A. Kimball gave Barzee credit for seven years that she already has served.

On March 1, 2010, Mitchell was found competent to stand trial for the kidnapping and sexual assault charges in federal court by judge Kimball; his trial began on November 8, 2010, and on December 10, 2010, the jury found Mitchell guilty on both counts. On May 25, 2011, Mitchell was sentenced to two life-terms in federal prison.

Activism and journalism
On March 8, 2006, Smart went to Congress to support sexual predator legislation and the AMBER Alert system, and on July 26, 2006, she spoke after the signing of the Adam Walsh Act. In May 2008, she traveled to Washington, D.C., where she helped present a book, You're Not Alone, published by the U.S. Department of Justice, which has entries written by her as well as four other recovered young adults.

In 2009, Smart commented on the kidnapping of Jaycee Lee Dugard, stressing that dwelling upon the past is unproductive. On October 27, 2009 Elizabeth spoke at the 2009 Women's Conference in California hosted by Maria Shriver, on overcoming obstacles in life.

In 2011, Smart founded the Elizabeth Smart Foundation, which aims to support the Internet Crimes Against Children task force and to educate children about violent and sexual crime.

On July 7, 2011 it was announced that she would be a commentator for ABC News, mainly focusing on missing persons.

On May 1, 2013 in a speech at a human trafficking conference at Johns Hopkins University Smart discussed the need to emphasize individual self-worth in fighting human trafficking.

I thought,"Oh, my gosh, I’m that chewed up piece of gum, nobody re-chews a piece of gum, you throw it away." And that’s how easy it is to feel like you no longer have worth, you no longer have value. Why would it even be worth screaming out? Why would it even make a difference if you are rescued? Your life still has no value.

Smart went on to ask that listeners teach children how to gain self-worth and avoid becoming a victim.

Personal life
Elizabeth Ann Smart was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, to Edward and Lois Smart. She has four brothers and a sister and is the second-oldest child in her family. Smart attended Brigham Young University (BYU), studying music as a harp performance major.

On November 11, 2009, Smart left to serve a Mormon mission in Paris. Smart returned temporarily from her mission in November 2010 to serve as the chief witness in the federal trial of Brian David Mitchell. After the end of the trial she returned to France to finish her mission, coming home to Utah in the spring of 2011.

In January 2012, Smart became engaged to Matthew Gilmour, a native of Scotand, after a courtship of one year. The couple met while serving as missionaries in the France Paris Mission. They married on February 18, 2012, in a private ceremony in the Laie Hawaii Temple.

Memoir
Elizabeth published a memoir of her experience. Co-authored with Chris Stewart, the book details both Smart's kidnapping and the formation of the Elizabeth Smart Foundation, which works to promote awareness about abduction. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 10/09/2013.)

Book Reviews
Smart’s memoir is as compelling as it is disturbing. Her stoic Mormon faith, moreover, will both inspire and mystify readers.... What many readers will not easily grasp is how she retained her hope. My Story might have better answered those questions had Smart continued with the narrative of her life beyond 2003 and discussed her education, her mission, and her marriage. Still, even had Smart fleshed out her past 10 years, her resilience likely would remain a mystery of faith, a final tender mercy in her story of suffering and survival
John G. Turner - Boston Globe

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for My Story:

1. Describe Elizabeth's kidnapper, Brian David Mitchell. Smart herself calls him a “manipulative, antisocial and narcissistic pedophile.” Is there anything in his background to suggest he would end up as a kidnapper and serial raper? Is someone like Mitchell evil? Or is he sick, mentally deranged?

2. What about Mitchell's partner, Wanda Ileen Barzee? She herself is a mother; one wonders what would prompt her to maltreat a child like Elizabeth. Brazee receieved a sentence of 15 years, seven of which the judge said she had already served. How do you feel about that?

3. One of the most remarkable aspects of Elizabeth's experience is how she used her faith to maintain hope. Would you have been able to hold onto your beliefs in light of relenting cruelty and fear?

4. In addition to her faith, what else inspired in her the will to live?

5. Elizabeth speaks of near-rescues, in particular, one in the library when a detective questioned Mitchell. Why didn't she cry out?

6. Why did it take six years for the courts to finally try and convict Mitchell. What was holding up the system?

7. What can be done about child abducters? How can society protect its young children from predatators like Mitchell?

8. Elizabeth Smart has said that it does no good to look back. Yet in her many public appearances and her work with her foundation, is she not doing just that? Wouldn't it be too painful? Or is her work precisely what helps to heal those wounds?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

top of page (summary)

The Naked Truth: Young, Beautiful and (HIV) Postive
Marvelyn Brown, Courtney Martin, 2008
HarperCollins
240 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780061562396

Summsry
The surprisingly hopeful story of how a straight, nonpromiscuous, everyday girl contracted HIV and how she manages to stay upbeat, inspired, and more positive about life than ever before

At nineteen years of age, Marvelyn Brown was lying in a stark white hospital bed at Tennessee Christian Medical Center, feeling hopeless. A former top track and basketball athlete, she was in the best shape of her life, but she was battling a sudden illness in the intensive care unit. Doctors had no idea what was going on. It never occurred to Brown that she might be HIV positive.

Having unprotected sex with her Prince Charming had set into swift motion a set of circumstances that not only landed her in the fight of her life, but also alienated her from her community. Rather than give up, however, Brown found a reason to fight and a reason to live.

The Naked Truth is an inspirational memoir that shares how an everyday teen refused to give up on herself, even as others would forsake her. More, it's a cautionary tale that every parent, guidance counselor, and young adult should read. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—May 7, 1984
• Where—Nashville, Tennessee, USA
• Awards—Emmy Award
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York, New York

More
Marvelyn Brown is an African American author and AIDS activist whose autobiographical book (The Naked Truth: Young, Beautiful and (HIV) Positive) tells her story as a young heterosexual women contracting HIV/AIDS at the young age of 19. A former top track and basketball athlete, she was in the best shape of her life, but found herself suddenly battling an unknown illness in an intensive care unit. Doctors had no idea what was going on, and it never occurred to Brown that she might be HIV positive.

Brown’s tale has had quite an impact on the AIDS community, and the world, as she travels telling her story trying to make more people aware of the continuing growth of the AIDS pandemic.

Her book and work as an HIV/AIDS activist has resulted in Brown having had extensive radio and television appearances. Marvelyn Brown has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, America's Next Top Model, CNN, MTV, BET, and The Tavis Smiley Show. She has also appeared in Newsweek, Ebony Magazine, and Real Health magazines. Her public-service announcement for Think MTV won an Emmy Award. Marvelyn Brown continues to write and has dedicated her life to HIV/AIDS awareness. Brown was names one of the Top 25 Heroes of the past twenty-five years of the AIDS epidemic (other noted AIDS activist included on this list are Alicia Keys, Magic Johnson and Phill Wilson). (From Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
(Some books have few mainstream press reviews online. See Amazon and Barnes & Noble for helpful customer reviews.)

Make a note to add The Naked Truth; Young, Beautiful, and (HIV) Positive by Marvelyn Brown to your bookshelf. In this poignant account, Brown 24, provides a cautionary tale about how she became HIV-positive at 19.
Essence

Be inspired by this true story of a 19-year old who contracted the HIV virus from her longtime monogamous boyfriend and became an Emmy Award winning advocate for HIV awareness.
Upscale

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for The Naked Truth:

1. Should this book be required reading for teens?

2. Do you think there is still a lot of misinformation in this country—ignorance, superstition or naivete—when it comes to AIDS? Are there things you learned about AIDS from reading Brown's book? Did anything in this book surprise you?

3. Did this book inspire you to become involved the fight against the spread of AIDS. What can you, or any individual, do—on a large or small scale?

4. What is the impact that Brown says her father's suicide has had on her life? We talk a great deal about the absence of a father figure for young males, but what about young females? What light does Brown's book shed on losing a father for a young girl?

5. What ultimate message about being HIV-positive does Brown convey in her both her book and her many public appearances?

6. What kind of a person is Marvelyn Brown?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

top of page

Napoleon: A Life
Andrew Roberts, 2014
Viking Adult
976 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780670025329

Summary
The definitive biography of the great soldier-statesman...

Austerlitz, Borodino, Waterloo: his battles are among the greatest in history, but Napoleon Bonaparte was far more than a military genius and astute leader of men. Like George Washington and his own hero Julius Caesar, he was one of the greatest soldier-statesmen of all times.

Andrew Roberts’s Napoleon is the first one-volume biography to take advantage of the recent publication of Napoleon’s thirty-three thousand letters, which radically transform our understanding of his character and motivation. At last we see him as he was: protean multitasker, decisive, surprisingly willing to forgive his enemies and his errant wife Josephine. Like Churchill, he understood the strategic importance of telling his own story, and his memoirs, dictated from exile on St. Helena, became the single bestselling book of the nineteenth century.

An award-winning historian, Roberts traveled to fifty-three of Napoleon’s sixty battle sites, discovered crucial new documents in archives, and even made the long trip by boat to St. Helena. He is as acute in his understanding of politics as he is of military history. Here at last is a biography worthy of its subject: magisterial, insightful, beautifully written, by one of our foremost historians. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—January 13, 1963
• Where—London, England, UK
• Education—B. A., Ph.D., Cambridge University
• Awards—Wolfson History Prize; James Stern Silver Pen Award
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York, USA

Andrew Roberts is a British historian and journalist, who was born in London, England, the son of Simon (a business executive) from Cobham, Surrey, and Katie Roberts. Simon Roberts inherited Job's Dairy milk business and owned the United Kingdom contingent of Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants.

He attended Cranleigh School until he was expelled for a variety of misdemeanours. He later attained a first class honours BA degree in Modern History at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, in 1985, where he is an honorary senior scholar and PhD. Dr Roberts began his post-graduate career in corporate finance as an investment banker and private company director with the London merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co., where he worked from 1985 to 1988.

He is divorced from his first wife with whom he had two children, Henry and Cassia, who live in Edinburgh. Roberts is married to Susan Gilchrist, CEO of the corporate communications firm Brunswick Group LLP and a Governor of the South Bank Centre. They live in New York City.

Support for the Iraq War
During the buildup to the Iraq War Roberts supported the proposed invasion, arguing that anything less would be tantamount to appeasement. For English speaking people, the Iraq War was "an existential war for the survival of their way of life" against Islamofascism. He strongly supported Tony Blair's foreign policy, comparing him to Winston Churchill: he wrote (in 2003) that apotheosis for Churchill came in 1940; for Tony Blair, it would come when Iraq was successfully invaded and hundreds of weapons of mass destruction were unearthed.

When no weapons of mass destruction were ever found, however, he made no comment . Nor did he comment on the hundreds of thousands of Afghans and Iraqis killed since the invasion, although he did note that Britain had "lost fewer soldiers than on a normal weekend on the Western Front." Both the "overthrow of the Taliban in 2001 and the victory over Saddam Hussein two years later were won at an incredibly low cost in historical terms."

Books
Robert's first book The Holy Fox (1991) is a biography of Edward Wood, both Neville Chamberlain's and Winston Churchill's foreign secretary. Halifax has been charged with appeasement, along with Chamberlain, but Roberts asserts that Halifax in fact began to move his government away from that policy following the 1938 Munich Crisis.

His second book Eminent Churchillians (1994) is a collection of essays about friends and enemies of Churchill and includes an attack on Admiral of the Fleet Louis Mountbatten.

Salisbury: Victorian Titan (1999), is the authorised biography of the Victorian prime minister Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, which won the Wolfson History Prize and the James Stern Silver Pen Award for Non-Fiction.

In Napoleon and Wellington (2001), Roberts investigates the relationship between the two generals. It became the subject of the lead review in all but one of Britain's national newspapers.

Hitler and Churchill: Secrets of Leadership (2003), coincided with Roberts's four-part BBC 2 history series. In the book, which addresses the leadership techniques of Hitler and Churchill, he delivered a rebuttal to many of the assertions made by Clive Ponting and Christopher Hitchens concerning Churchill.

His Waterloo: Napoleon's Last Gamble (2005) was published in America as Waterloo: The Battle for Modern Europe.

A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900 (2006) is a sequel to his four volumes on Churchill and won the Intercollegiate Studies Institute Book Award.

Masters and Commanders (2008) describes how four figures shaped the strategy of the West during the Second World War.

Roberts served as general editor with a team of historians for The Art of War (2008, 2009), a two-volume chronological survey of the greatest military commanders in history.

The Storm of War (2009), Roberts best-selling title to date, reached number two in the (London) Sunday Times bestseller list. The book was awarded British Army Military Book of the Year 2010.

Napoleon: A Life (2014) has been referred to as the definitive biography of Bonaparte. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 10/13/2014.)

Book Reviews
Is another long life of Napoleon really necessary? On three counts, the answer given by Andrew Roberts’s impressive book is an emphatic yes. The most important is that this is the first single-volume general biography to make full use of the treasure trove of Napoleon’s 33,000-odd letters, which began being published in Paris only in 2004. Second, Roberts, who has previously written on Napoleon and Wellington, is a masterly analyst of the French emperor’s many battles. Third, his book is beautifully written and a pleasure to read.
Economist

[E]xamines Napoleon Bonaparte’s life and times in excruciating detail, leaving out little.... Roberts writes, describing his coronation as Emperor of France as “a defining moment” of the Enlightenment.... This is a definitive account that dispels many of the myths that surrounded Napoleon from his lifetime to the present day.
Publishers Weekly

(Starred review.) The author doesn't apologize for Napoleon's errors but the tone of his study is positive: Napoleon "personified the best parts of the French Revolution." ... Verdict: This voluminous work is likely to set the standard for subsequent accounts of Napoleon's life. It should appeal widely to readers of all types. —David Keymer, Modesto, CA
Library Journal

top of page (summary)

Neanderthal Man: In Search of Lost Genomes
Svante Paabo, 2014
Basic Books
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780465020836

Summary
What can we learn from the genomes of our closest evolutionary relatives?

Neanderthal Man tells the story of geneticist Svante Paabo’s mission to answer this question, and recounts his ultimately successful efforts to genetically define what makes us different from our Neanderthal cousins. Beginning with the study of DNA in Egyptian mummies in the early 1980s and culminating in the sequencing of the Neanderthal genome in 2010, Neanderthal Man describes the events, intrigues, failures, and triumphs of these scientifically rich years through the lens of the pioneer and inventor of the field of ancient DNA.

We learn that Neanderthal genes offer a unique window into the lives of our hominin relatives and may hold the key to unlocking the mystery of why humans survived while Neanderthals went extinct. Drawing on genetic and fossil clues, Paabo explores what is known about the origin of modern humans and their relationship to the Neanderthals and describes the fierce debate surrounding the nature of the two species’ interactions. His findings have not only redrawn our family tree, but recast the fundamentals of human history—the biological beginnings of fully modern Homo sapiens, the direct ancestors of all people alive today.

A riveting story about a visionary researcher and the nature of scientific inquiry, Neanderthal Man offers rich insight into the fundamental question of who we are. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth— April 20, 1955
• Where—Stockholm, Sweden
• Education—Ph.D., Uppsala University
• Awards—numerous scientific prizes (below)
• Currently—lives in Leipzig, Germany

Svante Paabo is a Swedish biologist specializing in evolutionary genetics. He was born in 1955 in Stockholm to Sune Bergström, who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Bengt I. Samuelsson and John R. Vane in 1982, and his mother, Estonian chemist Karin Paabo.

He earned his PhD from Uppsala University in 1986. Since 1997, he has been director of the
Department of Genetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig,
Germany.

Career
In August 2002, Paabo's department published findings about the "language gene", FOXP2, which is lacking or damaged in some individuals with language disabilities.

Paabo is considered one of the founders of paleogenetics, a discipline that uses the methods of genetics to study early humans and other ancient populations. In 2006, he announced a plan to reconstruct the entire genome of Neanderthals. In 2007, Paabo was named one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people of the year.

In 2009, at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), it was announced that the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology had completed the first draft version of the Neanderthal genome. Over 3 billion base pairs were sequenced in collaboration with the 454 Life Sciences Corporation. This project, led by Paabo, will shed new light on the recent evolutionary history of modern humans.

In March 2010, Paabo and his coworkers published a report about the DNA analysis of a finger bone found in the Denisova Cave in Siberia; the results suggest that the bone belonged to an extinct member of the genus Homo that had not yet been recognized, the Denisova hominin.

In May 2010, Paabo and his colleagues published a draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome in the journal Science. He and his team also concluded that there was probably interbreeding between Neanderthals and Eurasian (but not African) humans. There is growing support in the scientific community for this theory of admixture between archaic and anatomically-modern humans.

Awards and recognitions
1992 - Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft*
2000 - Elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
2009 - Kistler Prize of the Foundation For the Future for his work on ancient DNA
2010 - Theodor Bücher Medal of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies
2013 -Gruber Prize in Genetics for ground breaking research in evolutionary genetics.

* The highest honour awarded in German research. (Author bio adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/20/2014.)

Book Reviews
If there is one name associated with ancient DNA, it is Svante Paabo.... Paabo pioneered and has largely led the field for the past three decades. His book, Neanderthal Man, is perfectly timed, beautifully written and required reading—it is a window onto the genesis of a whole new way of thinking.
Nature

In Neanderthal Man, Svante Paabo offers readers a front-row seat to the still-unfolding understanding of this enigmatic human ancestor by recounting his own years of work.... Paabo quite candidly relays the doubts and challenges that accompanied more than a decade of discovery—a labor that elevated Neanderthals from troglodyte brutes inhabiting a dead-end branch of the human family tree to a complex species that interbred with other hominins, including Homo sapiens. Never one to shy away from provocative statements or even-more-provocative research, Paabo gives what appears to be an honest and open account of his pioneering studies of Neanderthal genetics.
Scientist

(Starred review.) Paabo passionately chronicles his personal story...of the Neanderthal project...and the scientific implications of this exciting research.... In accessible prose, Paabo presents the science so that laypersons will understand the nature and import of his work. But it’s his discussion of the scientific process that steals the show.... He discusses what it took to build a case tight enough to convince even the most skeptical of colleagues and he goes on to demonstrate that scientific knowledge is cumulative and ever-evolving.
Publishers Weekly

Paabo (director, dept. of genetics, Max Planck Inst. for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig) presents a scientific memoir of his—and his colleagues'—work in paleogenetics as they seek to learn more about those humans who populated the Northern Hemispheres before we did.... Some readers may be forgiven if they skip ahead to the final two chapters, where the drama of Denisovan discoveries is palpable.[T]his is a go-to volume on the subject for serious readers. —Margaret Heilbrun
Library Journal

The tale Paabo tells is largely one of technological improvement enabling the elimination of contamination and speeding up the sequencing process. Secondarily, it’s about creating scientific foundations and multinational scientific cooperation to pursue the promises of research into ancient DNA, including that of nonhuman species as well as hominins.
Booklist

[A] revealing glimpse into the inner workings of scientific research.... Since Neanderthals are our closest evolutionary relatives, the author’s work in decoding Neanderthal DNA gives scientists a way to understand how we differ genetically from them and offers the opportunity to learn what genetic changes have made humans unique on this planet.
Kirkus Reviews

top of page (summary)

The Neuroscientist Who Lost Her Mind: My Tale of Madness and Recovery
Barbara K. Lipski, Elaine McArdle, 2018
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
208 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781328787309

Summary
As a deadly cancer spread inside her brain, leading neuroscientist Barbara Lipska was plunged into madness—only to miraculously survive with her memories intact.

In the tradition of My Stroke of Insight and Brain on Fire, this powerful memoir recounts Lipska's ordeal and explains its unforgettable lessons about the brain and mind.

In January 2015, Lipska—a leading expert on the neuroscience of mental illness—was diagnosed with melanoma that had spread to her brain. Within months, her frontal lobe, the seat of cognition, began shutting down. She descended into madness, exhibiting dementia- and schizophrenia-like symptoms that terrified her family and coworkers.

But miraculously, just as her doctors figured out what was happening, the immunotherapy they had prescribed began to work. Just eight weeks after her nightmare began, Lipska returned to normal. With one difference: she remembered her brush with madness with exquisite clarity.

In The Neuroscientist Who Lost Her Mind, Lipska describes her extraordinary ordeal and its lessons about the mind and brain. She explains how mental illness, brain injury, and age can change our behavior, personality, cognition, and memory.

She tells what it is like to experience these changes firsthand. And she reveals what parts of us remain, even when so much else is gone. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—August 7, 1951
• Where—Warsaw, Poland
• Education—MSci., University of Warsaw; Ph.D., Medical Academy of Warsaw
• Currently—lives in Annandale, Virginia, USA

Barbara K. Lipska, Ph.D. is director of the Human Brain Collection Core at the National Institute of Mental Health, where she studies mental illness and human brain development.

A native of Poland, she holds a Ph.D. in medical sciences from the Medical School of Warsaw, and is an internationally recognized leader in human postmortem research and animal modeling of schizophrenia.

Before emigrating from Poland to the United States, Dr. Lipska was a researcher at the Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology in Warsaw. She has been at NIMH since 1989 and has published over 120 papers in peer-reviewed journals.

A marathon runner and a triathlete, she lives with her husband, Mirek Gorski, in Virginia. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
Barbara Lipska is the director of the Human Brain Collection Core at the National Institute of Mental Health in Virginia. Over the course of two months in 2015, she found herself on the strangest journey of her life. She was diagnosed with Stage 4 melanoma that had metastasized to her brain, a seemingly terminal condition that mimicked the symptoms of dementia and schizophrenia. Remarkably, her immunotherapy regimen was successful; equally remarkable, she has recreated that period of mental illness and cognitive trauma on the pages of this unusual memoir.
Toronto Globe & Mail

It’s not often a research scientist, especially one who studies mental illness and the brain, experiences their specialty first hand, and it’s even more rare with this sort of mental break, medical or behavioral. If you enjoyed My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor or Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan, this is the memoir you want to read in 2018.
KXSU Seattle

Lipska’s evolution as scientist, patient, and person explores the physiological basis of mental illness, while uplifting the importance of personal identity…. Lipska’s prose soars when narrating her experiences… her story is evidence that rich personal narratives offer value to an empirical pursuit of neuroscientific investigation.
Science Magazine

This is the story, harrowing yet redemptive, of Barbara Lipska, stricken at 63 with a form of brain cancer. The Neuroscientist Who Lost Her Mind, cowritten with Elaine McArdle, is the tale she lived to tell...If Lipska’s book is about "what it’s actually like to lose your mind and then recover it," it’s also about a new frontier in cancer care and the vertiginous trajectories for recovery being opened up...Imbued with scientific insight.… Pondering the term "survivor," Lipska finds the dictionary definition—someone who perseveres and "remains functional and usable"—resonant. Her mind and body battered, she wonders if she meets this standard. If this memoir is any guide, she more than measures up to it.
Weekly Standard

Lipska shares excruciating details of the drug therapies and other treatments she underwent…. Her exhilarating memoir reveals the frustrations of slow recovery, and that even with the best medical care there are no guarantees for good health.
Publishers Weekly

Most patients with similar brain cancers rarely survive to describe their ordeal. Lipska's memoir, coauthored with journalist McArdle, shows that strength and courage but also a encouraging support network are vital to recovery. —Lucille M. Boone, San Jose P.L., CA
Library Journal

Lipska knew a thing or two about mental illness. But she knew considerably more after she exhibited signs of the disease and came back from the brink with amazing insights.… Her story conveys deep understanding about the brain and how disease…can change our very selves.
Booklist

A vibrant mental health expert's bout with brain cancer and the revolutionary treatments that saved her life.… A harrowing, intimately candid survivor's journey through the minefields of cancer treatment.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for THE NEUROSCIENTIST WHO LOST HER MIND … then take off on your own:

1. When Barbara Lipska's symptoms began with the day her right hand disappeared at the keyboard and her colleagues' faces disappeared in a staff meeting, how do you think her intimate knowledge of the brain as a neuroscientist affected her respons?

2. Talk about the many ways in which Lipska's disease caused changes in her behavior. Why did it take so long for her to recognize the alteration in her personality?

3. How did Lipska's illness affect her family? If you were a friend, or especially a family member, how would you have responded to those new, unpleasant traits?

4. Lipska has residual guilt about her insensitive behavior. Do you think it possible that she will ever come to terms with that guilt? What would you say to her?

5. Has reading this memoir given you new knowledge or insights into the workings of the human brain, especially the frontal and parietal cortex? What do you find most interesting about our brains in terms of how they work—and at times don't work?

6. Lipska says that mental illness is a brain disease, not a matter of weakness or lack of will power. What is the state of scientific knowledge about the causes and effects of mental illness? How much remains unknown?

7. Have you had personal experience with mental illness—either someone in your family or a close friend?

8. Lipska wonders whether or not she is a "survivor." Why does she question the degree with which she meets the definition? Do you think she's a survivor?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)

top of page (summary)

A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose
Eckhart Tolle, 2005
Penguin Group USA
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780452289963

Summary
Building on the astonishing success of The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle presents readers with an honest look at the current state of humanity: He implores us to see and accept that this state, which is based on an erroneous identification with the egoic mind, is one of dangerous insanity.

Tolle tells us there is good news, however. There is an alternative to this potentially dire situation. Humanity now, perhaps more than in any previous time, has an opportunity to create a new, saner, more loving world. This will involve a radical inner leap from the current egoic consciousness to an entirely new one.

In illuminating the nature of this shift in consciousness, Tolle describes in detail how our current ego-based state of consciousness operates. Then gently, and in very practical terms, he leads us into this new consciousness. We will come to experience who we truly are—which is something infinitely greater than anything we currently think we are—and learn to live and breathe freely. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1948
• Where—Germany
• Education—Universities of London and Cambridge
• Currently—lives in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Eckhart Tolle was born in Germany in 1948. He spent his teenage years living with his father in Spain, then moved in his early 20s to England where he attended the Universities of London and Cambridge. Following a period of intense personal crisis, he underwent a profound spiritual awakening at the age of 29. He embarked on a long, transformative inner journey that effectively dissolved his old identity and changed the course of his life. Today he is recognized as a great spiritual counselor and an author of inspirational self-help guides. He remains unaffiliated with any organized religion or specific philosophical tradition.

In his first book, The Power of Now (1999), Tolle stressed the importance of living, fully present, in the moment. His powerful message of active self-awareness resonated with millions of readers—including kingmaker Oprah Winfrey—and launched a range of related literature and teaching materials. In 2008, Winfrey selected another Tolle title, A New Earth, for her influential Book Club, joining the author for an online workshop. A sought-after public speaker, Tolle travels extensively, taking his teachings throughout the world. (From Barnes & Noble.)

Book Reviews
(Some books have few mainstream press reviews online. See Amazon and Barnes & Noble for helpful customer reviews.)

According to Tolle, who assumes the role of narrator as well, humans are on the verge of creating a new world by a personal transformation that shifts our attention away from our ever-expanding egos. This idea is well realized through Tolle's remarkably well-paced narration. Naturally, the author understands his material so thoroughly that he is able to convey it in an enjoyable manner, but Tolle's gentle tone and dialect begs his audience's attention simply through its straightforward approach. Something about this reading just seems profoundly important, whether one agrees with the material or not, and listeners' attention is sure to be captured within seconds of listening to Tolle's take on the universe in which we live. Originally released in 2005, both book and audiobook were reissued when Oprah Winfrey chose the title for her book club.
Publishers Weekly

Discussion Questions
1. In Chapter One, Tolle discusses the reasons for reading A New Earth, and what leads people towards awakening. He writes: "For some, it may have begun through loss or suffering; for others, through coming into contact with a spiritual teacher or teaching, through reading The Power of Now or some other spiritually alive and therefore transformational book." Discuss why you decided to read this book and seek spiritual awakening. What led you to want it? Do you think you were already on the path when you began reading A New Earth? How did the book help you with your enlightenment?

2. Discuss the following passage: "If the structures of the human mind remain unchanged, we will always end up re-creating fundamentally the same world, the same evils, the same dysfunction" (p. 22). Do you agree with this statement? What changes does Tolle argue for? What can humans do as a people to make change happen? What can you do as an individual?

3. Why does Tolle tell the story of "The Lost Ring" in Chapter Two? Have you ever felt as the woman in the story feels? Why does Tolle teach the importance of disassociating ourselves with our physical possessions? Why do you think people are so quick to identify so closely with their possessions? How can we stop? Why should we stop?

4. On page 52, Tolle discusses the importance of feeling the inner body. He says we should "Make a habit of feeling the inner body as often as you can." Why is this so important to do? How is your inner body different than your outer body? What can we learn from our inner bodies?

5. In Chapter Three, Tolle delves into "Reactivity and Grievances." Discuss a grievance you've had with someone. Have you let go of it? How or why not? Why is it so important to let go of grievances? How does holding on to grievances damage your ego?

6. In what outward behaviors does your ego manifest itself? Pride? Superiority? Criticism? Examine the outward face of your ego. How can you conquer these issues and let go of them? Now consider the internal manifestations of your ego. What are you holding on to? How can you try to let go? Discuss.

7. "In Zen they say: ‘Don't seek the truth. Just cease to cherish opinions'"(p. 121). What does this statement mean to you? How can you practice this in your own life? What other sayings or thoughts help you to see beyond your own mind to get beyond your ego?

8. What unconscious assumptions (ie. "Nobody respects me" or "I don't deserve love") have you had to fight against? Have you been able to conquer these assumptions? How? Are there any you are still trying to conquer? Why are some harder than others? Why is it so important to get unconscious assumptions out of our minds?

9. Discuss the parable of "Carrying the Past" on page 139. What does the story mean? How does it relate to the larger themes in this book? Are you carrying baggage from your past? How can you unload it? If you have unloaded past baggage, explain to the group how you managed it.

10. What is Tolle saying when he writes about the pain-body? How does the pain-body manifest itself in you? How can you break free from it? How is the pain-body stilting to spiritual growth and awakening?

11. How have the lessons in this book helped you to identify who you truly are? How can you expunge negativity and unhappiness to find your true self? What techniques have you tried? What has worked and what hasn't? Discuss with the group.

12. How is your true identity different than your inner purpose? How can you find your inner purpose? What in this book has helped you to uncover it? Do you feel that you have reached an awakening? What more do you have to work on? Discuss ways to help one another to reach the awakening you seek.

13. How can you help other towards enlightenment? Do you think "The New Earth" that Tolle writes about is possible to achieve? How can the human race a whole be helped by his teachings?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

top of page

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
Barbara Ehrenreich, 2001
Henry Holt & Company
240 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780805088380

Summary
Millions of Americans work for poverty-level wages, and one day Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that any job equals a better life. But how can anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 to $7 an hour?

To find out, Ehrenreich moved from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, taking the cheapest lodgings available and accepting work as a waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner, nursing-home aide, and Wal-Mart salesperson. She soon discovered that even the "lowliest" occupations require exhausting mental and physical efforts. And one job is not enough; you need at least two if you intend to live indoors.

Nickel and Dimed reveals low-wage America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity—a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate strategies for survival. Instantly acclaimed for its insight, humor, and passion, this book is changing the way America perceives its working poor. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—August 26, 1941
• Where—Butte, Montana, USA
• Education—B.A., Reed College; Ph.D., Rockefeller University
• Currently—lives in Alexandra, Virginia

Barbara Ehrenreich an American author best known for Nickle and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (2001). She is also the author of Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream (2005), This Land Is Their Land: Reports From a Divided Nation (2008), Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth about Everything (2014) and numerous other books. A frequent contributer to Time, Harper's, Esquire, The New Republic, Mirabella, Nation, and New York Times Magazine, she lives near Key West, Florida.

More
Ehrenreich was born Barbara Alexander to Isabelle Oxley and Ben Alexander. Her father was a copper miner who went on to study at Carnegie Mellon University and who eventually became an executive at the Gillette Corporation. Ehrenreich studied physics at Reed College, graduating in 1963. Her senior thesis was entitled Electrochemical oscillations of the silicon anode. In 1968, she received a Ph.D in cellular biology from Rockefeller University.

Citing her interest in social change, she opted for political activism instead of pursuing a scientific career. She met her first husband, John Ehrenreich, during an anti-war activism campaign in New York City.

In 1970, her first child, Rosa (now Rosa Brooks), was born. Her second child, Benjamin, was born in 1972. Barbara and John divorced and in 1983 she married Gary Stevenson, a warehouse employee who later became a union organizer. She divorced Stevenson in the early 1990s.

From 1991 to 1997, Ehrenreich was a regular columnist for Time magazine. Currently, she contributes regularly to The Progressive and has also written for the New York Times, Mother Jones, The Atlantic Monthly, Ms, The New Republic, Z Magazine, In These Times, Salon.com, and other publications.

In 1998, the American Humanist Association named her the Humanist of the Year.

In 1998 and 2000, she taught essay writing at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley.

In 2004, Ehrenreich wrote a month-long guest column for the New York Times while regular columnist Thomas Friedman was on leave and she was invited to stay on as a columnist. She declined, saying that she preferred to spend her time more on long-term activities, such as book-writing.

Ehrenreich was diagnosed with breast cancer shortly after the release of her book, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. In her article "Welcome to Cancerland," published in the November 2001 issue of Harper's Magazine, she describes her breast cancer experience and debates the medical industry's problems with the issue of breast cancer.

In 2006, Ehrenreich founded United Professionals, an organization described as "a nonprofit, non-partisan membership organization for white-collar workers, regardless of profession or employment status. We reach out to all unemployed, underemployed, and anxiously employed workers—people who bought the American dream that education and credentials could lead to a secure middle class life, but now find their lives disrupted by forces beyond their control."

Ehrenreich is currently an honorary co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America. She also serves on the NORML Board of Directors and The Nation's Editorial Board. ("More" from Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
We have Barbara Ehrenreich to thank for bringing us the news of America's working poor so clearly and directly, and conveying with it a deep moral outrage and a finely textured sense of lives as lived. As Michael Harrington was, she is now our premier reporter of the underside of capitalism.
Dorothy Gallagher - The New York Times Book Review

Ehrenreich is passionate, public, hotly lucid, and politically engaged.
Chicago Tribune

Nickel and Dimed is an important book that should be read by anyone who has been lulled into middle-class complacency.
Vivien Labaton - Ms. Magazine

In contrast to recent books by Michael Lewis and Dinesh D'Souza that explore the lives and psyches of the New Economy's millionares, Ehrenreich (Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class) turns her gimlet eye on the view from the workforce's bottom rung. Determined to find out how anyone could make ends meet on $7 an hour, she left behind her middle class life as a journalist—except for $1000 in start-up funds, a car and her laptop computer—to try to sustain herself as a low-skilled worker for a month at a time. In 1999 and 2000, Ehrenreich worked as a waitress in Key West, Fla., as a cleaning woman and a nursing home aide in Portland, Maine, and in a Wal-Mart in Minneapolis, Minn. During the application process, she faced routine drug tests and spurious "personality tests"; once on the job, she endured constant surveillance and numbing harangues over infractions like serving a second roll and butter. Beset by transportation costs and high rents, she learned the tricks of the trade from her co-workers, some of whom sleep in their cars, and many of whom work when they're vexed by arthritis, back pain or worse, yet still manage small gestures of kindness. Despite the advantages of her race, education, good health and lack of children, Ehrenreich's income barely covered her month's expenses in only one instance, when she worked seven days a week at two jobs (one of which provided free meals) during the off-season in a vacation town. Delivering a fast read that's both sobering and sassy, she gives readers pause about those caught in the economy's undertow, even in good times.
Publishers Weekly

A close observer and astute analyzer of American life (The Worst Years of Our Life and The Fear of Falling), Ehrenreich turns her attention to what it is like trying to subsist while working in low-paying jobs. Inspired to see what boom times looked like from the bottom, she hides her real identity and attempts to make a life on a salary of just over $300 per week after taxes. She is often forced to work at two jobs, leaving her time and energy for little else than sleeping and working. Ehrenreich vividly describes her experiences living in isolated trailers and dilapidated motels while working as a nursing-home aide, a Wal-Mart "sales associate," a cleaning woman, a waitress, and a hotel maid in three states: Florida, Maine, and Minnesota. Her narrative is candid, often moving, and very revealing. Looking back on her experiences, Ehrenreich claims that the hardest thing for her to accept is the "invisibility of the poor"; one sees them daily in restaurants, hotels, discount stores, and fast-food chains but one doesn't recognize them as "poor" because, after all, they have jobs. No real answers to the problem but a compelling sketch of its reality and pervasiveness. —Jack Forman, San Diego Mesa Coll. Lib.
Library Journal

Discussion Questions
1. In the wake of recent welfare reform measures, millions of women entering the workforce can expect to face struggles like the ones Ehrenreich confronted in Nickel and Dimed.

Have you ever been homeless, unemployed, without health insurance, or held down two jobs? What is the lowest-paying job you ever held and what kind of help—if any—did you need to improve your situation?

2. Were your perceptions of blue-collar Americans transformed or reinforced by Nickel and Dimed? Have your notions of poverty and prosperity changed since reading the book? What about your own treatment of waiters, maids, and sales-people?

3. How do booming national and international chains—restaurants, hotels, retail outlets, cleaning services, and elder-care facilities—affect the treatment and aspirations of low-wage workers? Consider how market competition and the push for profits drive the nickel-and-diming of America's lowest-paid.

4. Housing costs pose the greatest obstacle for low-wage workers. Why does our society seem to resist rectifying this situation? Do you believe that there are realistic solutions to the lack of affordable housing?

5. While working for The Maids, Ehrenreich hears Ted claim that he's "not a bad guy...and cares a lot about his girls." How do the assumptions of supervisors such as Ted affect their employees? How does Ted compare to Ehrenreich's other bosses? To yours?

6. Ehrenreich is white and middle class. She asserts that her experience would have been radically different had she been a person of color or a single parent. Do you think discrimination shaped Ehrenreich's story? In what ways?

7. Ehrenreich found that she could not survive on $7.00 per hour—not if she wanted to live indoors. Consider how her experiment would have played out in your community: limiting yourself to $7.00 per hour earnings, create a hypothetical monthly budget for your part of the country.

8. Ehrenreich experienced remarkable goodwill, generosity, and solidarity among her colleagues. Does this surprise you? How do you think your own colleagues measure up?

9. Why do you think low-wage workers are reluctant to form labor organizations as Ehrenreich discovered at Wal-Mart? How do you think employees should lobby to improve working conditions?

10. Many campus and advocacy groups are currently involved in struggles for a "living wage." How do you think a living wage should be calculated?

11. Were you surprised by the casual reactions of Ehrenreich's coworkers when she revealed herself as an undercover writer? Were you surprised that she wasn't suspected of being "different" or out-of-place despite her graduate-level education and usually comfortable lifestyle?

12. How does managers' scrutiny—"time theft" crackdowns and drug testing—affect workers' morale? How can American companies make the workplace environment safe and efficient without treating employees like suspected criminals?

13. Ehrenreich concluded that had her working life been spent in a Wal-Mart—like environment, she would have emerged a different person— meaner, pettier, "Barb" instead of "Barbara." How would your personality change if you were placed in working conditions very different from the ones you are in now?

14. The workers in Nickel and Dimed receive almost no benefits—no overtime pay, no retirement funds, and no health insurance. Is this fair? Do you think an increase in salary would redress the lack of benefits, or is this a completely separate problem?

15. Many of Ehrenreich's colleagues relied heavily on family—for housing and help with child-care, by sharing appliances and dividing up the cooking, shopping, and cleaning. Do you think Americans make excessive demands on the family unit rather than calling for the government to help those in need?

16. Nickel and Dimed takes place in 1998-2000, a time of unprecedented prosperity in America. Do you think Ehrenreich's experience would be different in today's economy? How so?

17. After reading Nickel and Dimed, do you think that having a job—any job—is better than no job at all? Did this book make you feel angry? Better informed? Relieved that someone has finally described your experience? Galvanized to do something?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

top of page (summary)

Night
Eli Wiesel, 1958
Farrar, Straus & Giroux
120 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780374500016

Summary
Night is Elie Wiesel’s masterpiece, a candid, horrific, and deeply poignant autobiographical account of his survival as a teenager in the Nazi death camps. This new translation by Marion Wiesel, Elie’s wife and frequent translator, presents this seminal memoir in the language and spirit truest to the author’s original intent. And in a substantive new preface, Elie reflects on the enduring importance of Night and his lifelong, passionate dedication to ensuring that the world never forgets man’s capacity for inhumanity to man.

Night offers much more than a litany of the daily terrors, everyday perversions, and rampant sadism at Auschwitz and Buchenwald; it also eloquently addresses many of the philosophical as well as personal questions implicit in any serious consideration of what the Holocaust was, what it meant, and what its legacy is and will be

Author Bio: Elie Wiesel is the internationally celebrated author, Nobel laureate, and spokesperson for humanity whose decision to dedicate his life to bearing witness for the Holocaust's martyrs and survivors found its earliest and most enduring voice in Night, his penetrating and profound account of the Nazi death camps. Born in the town of Sighet, Transylvania, he was a teenager when he and his family were taken from their home in 1944 to the Auschwitz concentration camp, and then to Buchenwald. Night is the terrifying record of Elie Wiesel's memories of the death of his family, the death of his own innocence, and his despair as a deeply observant Jew confronting the absolute evil of man. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—September 30, 1928
• Where—Sighet, Romania
• Education—La Sorbonne
• Awards—Congressional Gold Medal of Achievement, 1985;
Nobel Peace Prize, 1986; Ellis Island Medal of Honor, 1992
• Currently—lives in New York, New York

Elie Wiesel, the author of some forty books, is Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University. Mr. Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986"Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky." Since the publication of this passage in Night, Elie Wiesel has devoted his life to ensuring that the world never forgets the horrors of the Holocaust, and to fostering the hope that they never happen again.

More
Wiesel was 15 years old when the Nazis invaded his hometown of Sighet, Romania. He and his family were taken to Auschwitz, where his mother and the youngest of his three sisters died. He and his father were later transported to Buchenwald, where his father died shortly before Allied forces liberated the camp in 1945. After the war, Wiesel attended the Sorbonne in Paris and worked for a while as a journalist. He met the Nobel Prize-winning writer Francois Mauriac, who helped persuade Wiesel to break his private vow never to speak of his experiences in the death camps.

During a long recuperation from a car accident in New York City in 1956, Wiesel decided to make his home in the United States. His memoir Night, which appeared two years later (compressed from an earlier, longer work, And the World Remained Silent), was initially met with skepticism. "The Holocaust was not something people wanted to know about in those days," Wiesel later said in a Time magazine interview.

But eventually the book drew recognition and readers. "A slim volume of terrifying power" (New York Times), Night remains one of the most widely read works on the Holocaust. It was followed by over 40 more books, including novels, essay collections and plays. Wiesel's writings often explore the paradoxes raised by his memories: he finds it impossible to speak about the Holocaust, yet impossible to remain silent; impossible to believe in God, yet impossible not to believe.

Wiesel has also worked to bring attention to the plight of oppressed people around the world. "When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant," he said in his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. "Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must —at that moment—become the center of the universe."

Though lauded by many as a crusader for justice, Wiesel has also been criticized for his part in what some see as the commercialization of the Holocaust. In his 2000 memoir And the Sea Is Never Full, Wiesel shares some of his own qualms about fame and politics, but reiterates what he sees as his duty as a survivor and witness.

''The one among us who would survive would testify for all of us. He would speak and demand justice on our behalf; as our spokesman he would make certain that our memory would penetrate that of humanity. He would do nothing else.''

Extras
• Use of the term "Holocaust" to describe the extermination of six million Jews and millions of other civilians by the Nazis is widely thought to have originated in Night.

• Two of Wiesel's subsequent works, Dawn and The Accident, form a kind of trilogy with Night. "These stories live deeply in all that I have written and all that I am ever going to write," the author has said.

• President Jimmy Carter appointed Wiesel to be chairman of the President's Commission on the Holocaust in 1978. In 1980, Wiesel became founding chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. He is also the founding president of the Paris-based Universal Academy of Cultures and cofounder of the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity.

• Since 1969, Marion Wiesel has translated her husband Elie's books from French into English. They live in New York City and have one son. (From Barnes and Noble.)

Book Reviews
(Older books have few mainstream press reviews online. See Amazon and Barnes & Noble for helpful customer reviews.)

[Elie Wiesel's] slim volume of terrifying power is the documentary of a boy—himself—who survived the "night" that desgroyed his parents and baby sister, but lost his God.... A remarkable close-up of one boy's tragedy.
New York Times Book Review (11/13/1960)

Wiesel has taken his own anguish and imaginatively metamorphosed it into art.
Curt Leviant - Saturday Review

I gain courage from his courage.
Oprah Winfrey

Discussion Questions
1. Compare Wiesel’s preface to the memoir itself. Has his perspective shifted in any way over the years?

2. In his Nobel lecture, presented in 1986, Wiesel writes of the power of memory, including the notion that the memory of death can serve as a shield against death. He mentions several sources of injustice that reached a boiling point in the 1980s, such as Apartheid and the suppression of Lech Walesa, as well as fears that are still with us, such as terrorism and the threat of nuclear war. Will twenty-first-century society be marked by remembrance, or by forgetting?

3. How does the author characterize himself in Night? What does young Eliezer tell us about the town, community, and home that defined his childhood? How would you describe his storytelling tone?

4. Why doesn’t anyone believe Moishe the Beadle? In what way did other citizens around the world share in Sighet’s naïveté? Would you have heeded Moishe’s warnings, or would his stories have seemed too atrocious to be true? Has modern journalism solved the problem of complacency, or are Cassandras more prevalent than ever?

5. As Eliezer’s family and neighbors are confined to a large ghetto and then expelled to a smaller, ghostlier one whose residents have already been deported, what do you learn about the process by which Hitler implemented doom? How are you affected by the uncertainty endured by Sighet’s Jews on their prolonged journey to the concentration camps?

6. With the words “Women to the right!” Eliezer has a final glimpse of his mother and of his sister, Tzipora. His father later wonders whether he should have presented his son as a younger boy, so that Eliezer could have joined the women. What turning point is represented by that moment, when their family is split and the gravity of every choice is made clear?

7. At Birkenau, Eliezer considers ending his life by running into the electric fence. His father tells him to remember Mrs. Schächter, who had become delusional on the train. What might account for the fact that Eliezer and his father were able to keep their wits about them while others slipped into madness?

8. Eliezer observes the now-infamous inscription above the entrance to Auschwitz, equating work with liberty. How does that inscription come to embody the deceit and bitter irony of the Nazi camps? What was the “work” of the prisoners? Were any of the Auschwitz survivors ever liberated emotionally?

9. Eliezer’s gold crown makes him a target for spurious bargaining, concluding in a lavatory with Franek, the foreman, and a dentist from Warsaw. Discuss the hierarchies in place at Auschwitz. How was a prisoner’s value determined? Which prisoners were chosen for supervisory roles? Which ones were more likely to face bullying, or execution?

10. Eliezer expresses sympathy for Job, the biblical figure who experienced horrendous loss and illness as Satan and God engaged in a debate over Job’s faithfulness. After watching the lynching and slow death of a young boy, Eliezer tells himself that God is hanging from the gallows as well. In his Nobel lecture, Wiesel describes the Holocaust as “a universe where God, betrayed by His creatures, covered His face in order not to see.” How does Wiesel’s understanding of God change throughout the book? How did the prisoners in Night, including rabbis, reconcile their agony with their faith?

11. After the surgery on Eliezer’s foot, he and his father must face being marched to a more remote camp or staying behind to face possible eleventh-hour execution amid rumors of approaching Red Army troops. Observing that Hitler’s deadliness is the only reliable aspect of their lives, Wiesel’s father decides that he and his son should leave the camp. The memoir is filled with such crossroads, the painful outcomes
of which can be known only in retrospect. How does Wiesel respond to such outcomes? Do you believe these outcomes are driven by destiny, or do they simply reflect the reality of decision-making?

12. In his final scenes with his father, Eliezer must switch roles with him, becoming the provider and comforter, despite advice from others to abandon the dying man. What accounts for the tender, unbreakable bond between Eliezer and his father long after other men in their camp begin fending for themselves? How does their bond compare to those in your family?

13. What is the significance of the book’s final image, Wiesel’s face, reflected in a mirror? He writes that a corpse gazed back at him, with a look that has never left him. What aspects of him died during his ordeal? What aspects were born in their place? What do you make of his observation that among the men liberated with him, not one sought revenge?

14. Wiesel faced constant rejection when he first tried to publish Night; numerous major publishing houses in France and the United States closed their doors to him. His memoir is now a classic that has inspired many other historians and Holocaust survivors to write important contributions to this genre of remembrance. What is unique about Wiesel’s story? How does his approach compare to that of other memoirists
whose work you have read?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

top of page (summary)

Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans
Dan Baum, 2009
Spiegel & Gau
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385523202

Summary
After Hurricane Katrina, Dan Baum moved to New Orleans to write about the city’s response to the disaster for The New Yorker. He quickly realized that Katrina was not the most interesting thing about New Orleans, not by a long shot. The most interesting question, which struck him as he watched residents struggling to return, was this: Why are New Orleanians—along with people from all over the world who continue to flock there—so devoted to a place that was, even before the storm, the most corrupt, impoverished, and violent corner of America?

Here’s the answer. Nine Lives is a multivoiced biography of this dazzling, surreal, and imperiled city through the lives of nine characters over forty years and bracketed by two epic storms: Hurricane Betsy, which transformed the city in the 1960’s, and Katrina, which nearly destroyed it. These nine lives are windows into every strata of one of the most complex and fascinating cities in the world. From outsider artists and Mardi Gras Kings to jazz-playing coroners and transsexual barkeeps, these lives are possible only in New Orleans, but the city that nurtures them is also, from the beginning, a city haunted by the possibility of disaster. All their stories converge in the storm, where some characters rise to acts of heroism and others sink to the bottom. But it is New Orleans herself—perpetually whistling past the grave yard—that is the story’s real heroine.

Nine Lives is narrated from the points of view of some of New Orleans’s most charismatic characters, but underpinning the voices of the city is an extraordinary feat of reporting that allows Baum to bring this kaleidoscopic portrait to life with brilliant color and crystalline detail. Readers will find themselves wrapped up in each of these individual dramas and delightfully immersed in the life of one of this country’s last unique places, even as its ultimate devastation looms ever closer. By resurrecting this beautiful and tragic place and portraying the extraordinary lives that could have taken root only there, Nine Lives shows us what was lost in the storm and what remains to be saved. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
Dan Baum has been a staff writer for The New Yorker, as well as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, the Asian Wall Street Journal, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

He is the author of Citizen Coors: An American Dynasty and Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure. He has written numerous articles for such national magazines as The New York Times Magazine, Playboy, Rolling Stone, and Wired. While living in New Orleans to research Nine Lives, Dan wrote a daily online column for The New Yorker. (From the author's website.)

Book Reviews
At about page 65, something very real clicks in Nine Lives. The small, stray, unobtrusive details that Mr. Baum has been planting along the way begin coming together and paying off, like a slot machine that's begun to glow and vibrate. By the final third of Nine Lives, as the water begins pouring into the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, I was weeping like an idiot in the coffee shop where I was reading.... Nine Lives may be this young year's most artful and emotionally resonating nonfiction book so far, and for that, to Mr. Baum, a belated New Year's toast.
Dwight Garner - New York Times

Aware of journalism's failure to reimagine New Orleans as it had been before the hurricane, Baum has written a splendid book that is two-thirds prologue. The winds and waters of Katrina don't begin battering the nine lives he puts on display until the reader is past Page 200, by which time his characters and their city have been realized in all their generosity and folly.
Thomas Mallon - New York Times Book Review

A spiritual saga strikingly different from [Baum's] magazine reporting. He says little about the political dynamics of Katrina and submerges his own voice as he weaves the experiences of nine New Orleans residents into a sinuous narrative. His technique brings to mind Robert Altman's film "Nashville," cutting between short scenes and longer vignettes from the lives of people who rarely intersect.... I applaud Baum's shimmering portrait of the city. He adroitly moves his subjects through parades, prison, divorces, sex changes, fancy balls and gun brawls—yes, the stuff of life here—showing New Orleans as a magnetic, enduring force.
Jason Berry - Washington Post

Baum’s reporting, which focuses on nine longtime New Orleans residents, is superb. So is his writing.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution

What makes these people so compelling is not where they live, nor that you know what lies ahead for them. It's about skill and craft.
Dallas Morning News

Brilliantly reported.... Compassionate and clear-eyed, Nine Lives brings you into the heart of an American tragedy.
People Magazine

Reporter Baum (Citizen Coors) arrived in New Orleans two days after the levees broke after Hurricane Katrina. He admits his initial accounts of the disaster were flawed, but with this captivating collection of nine linked profiles, Baum has rectified what he claims was his narrow interpretation of events. "While covering Katrina and its aftermath for The New Yorker, I noticed that most of the coverage, my own included, was so focused on the disaster that it missed the essentially weird nature of the place where it happened." Baum begins the narrative with the 1965 battering of the Ninth Ward by Hurricane Betsy and concludes in 2007. He captures the essence of the city "through the lives of nine characters over 40 years, bracketed by two epic hurricanes," people such as Billy Grace, the king of Carnival and member of New Orleans' elite; Tim Bruneau, the city cop haunted by images of Katrina's destruction; and transsexual JoAnn Guidos, who finds a home and, following Katrina, a sense of purpose. Baum, an empathetic storyteller, has nearly perfectly distilled the events, providing readers with a sensuous portrait of a place that can be better understood as "the best organized city in the Caribbean rather than the "worst organized city in the United States." Baum's chronicle leaves readers with a bittersweet understanding of what Americans lost during Hurricane Katrina.
Publishers Weekly

(Starred review.) What gives this collection of stories its added punch is the way Baum uses the fictional techniques of literary journalism.... The underpinning of solid reporting makes all this believable and powerful.
Booklist

One of those rare occasions when journalism crosses the threshold of art.

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Nine Lives:

1. Which of Baum's nine characters do you most relate to...and least relate to? What does each character reveal about the city of New Orleans—in terms of its culture and socio-economics?

2. How would you describe New Orleans? What is the portrait of the city—before Katrina—that comes through in Baum's book? His coverage goes back to 1965: how did the city change over those 40 years (up to and before Katrina)? What part of New Orleans and its history do you find most appealing...fascinating...or disturbing?

3. If you've ever traveled to New Orleans...or lived there...or still live there, talk about your experiences—about the city you know and love...or know and hate!

4. Talk about the ways in which each of the nine characters experienced—and was changed by—Katrina. How did Katrina reveal the inner strengths and/or weaknesses of the nine lives?

5. Baum covered New Orleans as a journalist during and post Katrina. Why did he depart from his journalism and decide to write this book? What did he believe a book could reveal that his articles and essays could not?

6. What were your reactions reading this book? What most horrified you about Katrina? What surprised you? And what have you learned from Nine Lives?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

top of page

Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women
Geraldine Brooks, 1994
Knopf Doubleday
255 pp.
ISBN-13 9780385475778

Summary
Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women is the story of Brook's intrepid journey toward an understanding of the women behind the veils, and of the often contradictory political, religious, and cultural forces that shape their lives.

In fundamentalist Iran, Brooks finagles an invitation to tea with the ayatollah's widow—and discovers that Mrs. Khomeini dyes her hair. In Saudi Arabia, she eludes the severe segregation of the sexes and attends a bacchanal, laying bare the hypocrisy of this austere, male-dominated society. In war-torn Ethiopia, she watches as a female gynecologist repairs women who have undergone genital mutilation justified by a distorted interpretation of Islam.

In villages and capitals throughout the Middle East, she finds that a feminism of sorts has flowered under the forbidding shroud of the chador as she makes other startling discoveries that defy our stereotypes about the Muslim world.

Nine Parts of Desire is much more than a captivating work of firsthand reportage; it is also an acute analysis of the world's fastest-growing religion, deftly illustrating how Islam's holiest texts have been misused to justify the repression of women. It was, after all, the Shiite leader Ali who proclaimed that "God created sexual desire in ten parts, then gave nine parts to women. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—September 14, 1955
• Raised—Ashfield, New South Wales, Australia
• Education—B.A., Sydney University; M.A. Columbia University (USA)
• Awards—Pulitzer Prize
• Currently—lives in Virginia, USA

Geraldine Brooks s an Australian American journalist and author whose 2005 novel, March, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. While retaining her Australian passport, she became an United States citizen in 2002.

Early life
A native of Sydney, Geraldine Brooks grew up in its inner-west suburb of Ashfield, where she attended Bethlehem College, a secondary school for girls, and the University of Sydney.

Following graduation, she became a rookie reporter for the Sydney Morning Herald and, after winning a Greg Shackleton Memorial Scholarship, moved to New York City in the United States, completing a Master's at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1983. The following year, she married American journalist Tony Horwitz in the Southern France village of Tourrettes-sur-Loup and converted to his religion, Judaism.

Career
As a foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, she covered crises in Africa, the Balkans, and the Middle East, with the stories from the Persian Gulf which she and her husband reported in 1990, receiving the Overseas Press Club's Hal Boyle Award for "Best Newspaper or Wire Service Reporting from Abroad." In 2006, she was awarded a fellowship at Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

Brooks's first book, Nine Parts of Desire (1994), based on her experiences among Muslim women in the Middle East, was an international bestseller, translated into 17 languages. Foreign Correspondence: A Pen Pal's Journey from Down Under to All Over (1997), which won the Nita Kibble Literary Award for women's writing, was a memoir and travel adventure about a childhood enriched by penpals from around the world, and her adult quest to find them.

Her first novel, Year of Wonders, published in 2001, became an international bestseller. Set in 1666, the story depicts a young woman's battle to save fellow villagers as well as her own soul when the bubonic plague suddenly strikes her small Derbyshire village of Eyam.

Her next novel, March (2005), was inspired by her fondness for Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, which her mother had given her. To connect that memorable reading experience to her new status in 2002 as an American citizen, she researched the Civil War historical setting of Little Women and decided to create a chronicle of wartime service for the "absent father" of the March girls.

Some aspects of this chronicle were informed by the life and philosophical writings of the Alcott family patriarch, Amos Bronson Alcott, whom she profiled under the title "Orpheus at the Plow", in the 10 January 2005 issue of The New Yorker, a month before March was published. The parallel novel was generally well received by the critics. It was selected in December 2005 selection by the Washington Post as one of the five best fiction works published that year. In April 2006, it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

In her next novel, People of the Book (2008), Brooks explored a fictionalized history of the Sarajevo Haggadah. This novel was inspired by her reporting (for The New Yorker) of human interest stories emerging in the aftermath of the 1991–95 breakup of Yugoslavia. The novel won both the Australian Book of the Year Award and the Australian Literary Fiction Award in 2008.

Her 2011 novel Caleb's Crossing is inspired by the life of Caleb Cheeshahteaumauk, a Wampanoag convert to Christianity who was the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College, an achievement of the seventeenth century.

Her next work, The Secret Chord (2015) is a historical novel based on the life of the biblical King David in the period of the Second Iron Age.

Awards
2006 - Pulitzer Prize for March
2008 - Australian Publishers Association's Fiction Book of the Year for People of the Book
2009 - Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award
2010 - Dayton Literary Peace Prize Lifetime Achievement Award
(From Wikipedia. Retrieved 10/14/2015.)

Book Reviews
(Pre-internet works have few mainstream press reviews online. See Amazon and Barnes & Noble for helpful customer reviews.)

Geraldine Brooks has drawn on her wide experience and first hand knowledge of Islam and the Middle East to contribute a number of commentaries on current events in the region.
Salon

Having spent six years covering the Middle East for the Wall Street Journal, Brooks presents an exploration of the daily life of Muslim women and the often contradictory forces that shape their lives.
Publishers Weekly.
Publishers Weekly

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

top of page (summary)

Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret
Craig Brown, 2017 (2018, U.S.)
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
432 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780374906047

Summary
Winner, 2018 James Tait Black Memorial Prize-biography

A witty and profound portrait of the most talked-about English royal

She made John Lennon blush and Marlon Brando tongue-tied. She iced out Princess Diana and humiliated Elizabeth Taylor. Andy Warhol photographed her. Jack Nicholson offered her cocaine. Gore Vidal revered her. Francis Bacon heckled her. Peter Sellers was madly in love with her. For Pablo Picasso, she was the object of sexual fantasy.

Princess Margaret aroused passion and indignation in equal measures.

To her friends, she was witty and regal. To her enemies, she was rude and demanding.

In her 1950s heyday, she was seen as one of the most glamorous and desirable women in the world. By the time of her death in 2002, she had come to personify disappointment. One friend said he had never known an unhappier woman.

The tale of Princess Margaret is Cinderella in reverse: hope dashed, happiness mislaid, life mishandled. Such an enigmatic and divisive figure demands a reckoning that is far from the usual fare.

Combining interviews, parodies, dreams, parallel lives, diaries, announcements, lists, catalogues, and essays, Craig Brown’s Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret is a kaleidoscopic experiment in biography and a witty meditation on fame and art, snobbery and deference, bohemia and high society. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—May 23, 1957
• Where—England, UK
• Education—B.A., Bristol University
• Awards—James Tait Black Memorial Prize
• Currently—lives in London, England

Craig Edward Moncrieff Brown is an author, biographer, an English critic and satirist. He is the only person ever to have won three different Press Awards―for best humorist, columnist, and critic―in the same year.

Brown was educated at Eton and Bristol University and then became a freelance journalist in London, contributing to the Tatler, Spectator, Times Literary Supplement, Literary Review, Evening Standard (as a regular columnist), Times (UK: notably as parliamentary sketchwriter; these columns were compiled into a book called A Life Inside) and the Sunday Times (as TV and restaurant critic).

He later continued his restaurant column in the Sunday Telegraph and has contributed a weekly book review to the Mail on Sunday. He created the characters of "Bel Littlejohn," an ultra-trendy New Labour type, in the Guardian, and "Wallace Arnold," an extremely reactionary conservative, in the Independent on Sunday.

Brown has been writing his parodic diary in Private Eye since 1989. In 2001, he took over Auberon Waugh's "Way of the World" in the Daily Telegraph following Waugh's death but lost that column in December 2008. He also has a column in the Daily Mail.

Brown also writes comedy shows such as Norman Ormal for TV (in which he appeared as a returning officer). His radio show This Is Craig Brown was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2004; it featured comics Rory Bremner and Harry Enfield and other media personalities. He has appeared on television as a critic on BBC Two's Late Review as well as in documentaries such a Russell Davies's life of Ronald Searle.

His book 1966 and All That takes its title, and some other elements, from 1066 and All That, extending its history of Britain through to the beginning of the 21st century. A BBC Radio 4 adaptation followed in September 2006, in similar vein to This Is Craig Brown. The Tony Years is a comic overview of the years of Tony Blair's government, published in paperback by Ebury Press in June 2007.

Brown's predominantly factual biography of Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, Ma’am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret, was published in 2017 (2018 in the U.S.) and won the 2018 James Tait Black Memorial Prize in the biography category.

Personal life
Brown's wife is the author Frances Welch. They have two children. Frances Welch's niece is Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine. (Adapted from the publisher and Wikipedia. Retrieved 8/26/2018.)

Book Reviews

Brown ignores all the starchy obligations of biography and adopts a form of his own to trap the past and ensnare the reader—even this reader, so determinedly indifferent to the royals. I ripped through the book with the avidity of Margaret attacking her morning vodka and orange juice…[Brown] swoops at his subject from unexpected angles—it's a Cubist portrait of the lady…As a subject, the princess proves to be something she never was in life: obliging. Beautiful, bad-tempered, scandal-prone, she makes for unfailingly good copy, and heaps of it.…The wisdom of the book, and the artistry, is in how Brown subtly expands his lens from Margaret's misbehavior…to those who gawked at her, who huddled around her, pens poised over their diaries, hoping for the show she never denied them. History isn't written by the victors, he reminds us, it's written by the writers, and this study becomes a scathing group portrait of a generation of carnivorous royal watchers…Without ever explicitly positioning Margaret for our pity, Brown reveals how we elevate in order to destroy. Who or what, in the final reckoning, is the true grotesque—the absurd, unhappy princess, those desperate to get close to her, or the system propping them all up?
Parul Sehgal - New York Times

Brown, a longtime contributor to Private Eye magazine, is capable of witty concision.… His “Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret,” …are mostly fast and entertaining. But more than a few could have been a single sentence, and a handful of counterfactual fantasies …never gain altitude. Too much of the book, like so much of its subject’s life, is extraneous … [and here and there a reader may wish the author had given Margaret a smidgen more credit.
Thomas Mallon - New York Times Book Review

Craig Brown’s delectable Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret is not a novel, though its subject seems like a sublime work of fiction, too imperious to be true.… Brown has done something astonishing: He makes the reader care, even sympathize, with perhaps the last subject worthy of such affection.… His book is big fun, equal measures insightful and hysterical.
Karen Heller - Washington Post

An original, memorable and substantial achievement.
Times Literary Supplement

A biography teeming with the joyous, the ghastly and clinically fascinating.
Times (UK)

Chatty, catty, and intelligent… Brown’s entertaining vignettes form a collage portrait of a rebellious anti-Cinderella.
Publishers Weekly

In this biography from noted satirist Brown, one expects and gets an effective skewering of both its subject …and the entire royal industry and its hangers-on, yet a small balm of sympathy for Margaret is added to the mix. —Kathleen McCallister, Tulane Univ., New Orleans
Library Journal

[A]n an acerbic biography of the star-crossed princess, one that is hilarious and bittersweet in turns.… Brown’s book is highly recommended for all American royal-watchers.
Booklist

Sensationalistic snippets from the life of a royal princess.… While savory overall, the onslaught of dishy details bends beneath its own weight in the book's final third.… [Still, an] endlessly provocative and deliciously scandalous book for royal watchers.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers Talking Points to help start a discussion for NINETY-NINE GLIMPSES OF PRINCESS MARGARET … then take off on your own:

1. How does Craig Brown present Princess Margaret in this biography? Describe her: the kind of person was she in the public's eye … and the kind of person in private. Does she seem to change during the course of her life? Do you find her sympathetic?

2. In what way do you think Margaret's childhood, as the younger sister to then Princess Elizabeth, might have shaped her personality and how she lived her adult life?

3. Talk about Margaret's disappointments surrounding marriage, starting with Peter Townsend and later Anthony Armstrong-Jones. What do you think of her husband and the deterioration of their relationship?

4. Do you feel Ninety-Nine Glimpses is a fair assessment of Margaret—her life and character? Does the author present her in a balanced light, or do you feel his material is sensationalized, a little too "dishy"? Perhaps, it's both?

5. How does the author characterize the institution of royalty, as well as the people who occupy it (the Queen Mother, in particular)?

6. What do you make of the people the princess socialized with—the celebrities and 1960's "in crowd?" To what extent were they genuine in their friendship? Or were they primarily hangers-on, attracted to her status as royalty? (Consider how many of them recorded their comings and goings with the princess.) How did those friends/acquaintances treat her … and vice versa?

7. Follow-up to Question 6: She had a powerful affect on people who met and befriended her. Why do you you think? Was it her personality, her charm, her intelligence … or her status as royalty?

8. Do you envy—a lot, a little, or not at all—the life of Princess Margaret?

9. How familiar were you with Margaret's story before reading this book? Have you, for instance, watched the film series, The Queen? Has your view of her altered after reading Brown's Ninety-Nine Glimpses?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)

top of page (summary)

No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden
Mark Owen, 2012
Penguin Group USA
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780525953722

Summary
For the first time anywhere, the first-person account of the planning and execution of the Bin Laden raid from a Navy Seal who confronted the terrorist mastermind and witnessed his final moment

From the streets of Iraq to the rescue of Captain Richard Phillips in the Indian Ocean, and from the mountaintops of Afghanistan to the third floor of Osama Bin Laden’s compound, operator Mark Owen of the U.S. Naval Special Warfare Development Group—commonly known as SEAL Team Six—has been a part of some of the most memorable special operations in history, as well as countless missions that never made headlines.

No Easy Day puts readers alongside Owen and the other handpicked members of the twenty-four-man team as they train for the biggest mission of their lives. The blow-by-blow narrative of the assault, beginning with the helicopter crash that could have ended Owen’s life straight through to the radio call confirming Bin Laden’s death, is an essential piece of modern history.

In No Easy Day, Owen also takes readers onto the field of battle in America’s ongoing War on Terror and details the selection and training process for one of the most elite units in the military. Owen’s story draws on his youth in Alaska and describes the SEALs’ quest to challenge themselves at the highest levels of physical and mental endurance. With boots-on-the-ground detail, Owen describes numerous previously unreported missions that illustrate the life and work of a SEAL and the evolution of the team after the events of September 11.

In telling the true story of the SEALs whose talents, skills, experiences, and exceptional sacrifices led to one of the greatest victories in the War on Terror, Mark Owen honors the men who risk everything for our country, and he leaves readers with a deep understanding of the warriors who keep America safe. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
Mark Owen is a former member of the US Naval Special Warfare Development Group, commonly known as SEAL Team Six. In his many years as a Navy SEAL, he has participated in hundreds of missions around the globe, including the rescue of Captain Richard Phillips in the Indian Ocean in 2009.

Owen was a team leader on Operation Neptune Spear in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on 1 May 2011, which resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden. Owen was one of the first men through the door on the third floor of the terrorist mastermind's hideout, where he witnessed bin Laden's death. Mark Owen's name and the names of the other SEALs mentioned in this book have been changed for their security. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
The emphasis of...No Easy Day....is not on spilling secrets. It is on explaining a SEAL's rigorous mind-set and showing how that toughness is created. The bin Laden story is the marquee event in No Easy Day, of course. But the formative steps in the author's own story are just as gripping.... Mr. Owen's new information about the Abbottabad attack adds a human element to much of what has been previously reported. Even reporting like Peter L. Bergen's in his meticulous book Manhunt does not have this new book's perspective. Mr. Bergen knew what the men had done, but this author knows what at least one of them was thinking.
Janet Maslin - New York Times

The writing is fast-paced, and Owen and Maurer tell some good yarns in a conversational style. They also neatly capture the camaraderie, the pranks, the constant training and the evident love that the men of SEAL Team 6 have for their jobs.
Washington Post

Make no mistake: No Easy Day is an important historic document. Think if we had a first-person account of the last minutes of Hitler in his bunker. No Easy Day is brisk and compelling in its telling of the training, execution and immediate aftermath of the Bin Laden mission by the elite Seal Team Six.
Los Angeles Times

A cast of characters, including Owen himself, artfully drawn, yet painfully human, passionate descriptions of a lifestyle that few are privy to, as well as its breathlessly paced, inexorable march toward an inevitable ending.... [I]t's a remarkably intimate glimpse into what motivates men striving to join an elite fighting force like the SEALS—and what keeps them there.
Associated Press

The book is a stomach-twisting close-up look at that historic mission in Abbottabad, told from the point of view of a super-elite member of SEAL Team Six who fired a bullet into bin Laden and helped carry away the corpse. Written in clean, polished prose... No Easy Day often reads like a gripping novel as the author recounts remarkably vivid details... No Easy Day puts you right there for every tense moment.
Entertainment Weekly

[Mark Owen] has given us a brave retelling of one of the most important events in U.S. military history.
People

The arch-terrorist's death was "just another job," according to this gung-ho memoir by a member of the U.S. Navy SEAL Team Six that dispatched him. The pseudonymous Owen's (revealed by Fox News to be Matt Bissonnette) story is “generalized" and scrubbed of “classified information" but authentic enough to provoke Pentagon legal threats and convey a compelling realism. His meticulous narrative of the raid adds new wrinkles to the conventional account—he insists that Bin Laden did not try to fight or hide behind his wives before he was shot, unarmed, while peeking through a doorway (Owen sneers at his unpreparedness)—along with atmospheric details, from the terror of an initial helicopter crash to his cleaning of blood from Bin Laden's face for identifying photos. The raid caps Owen's well-observed memoir of training ordeals, awesome gear, bonding and banter, and special ops in Iraq and Afghanistan; co-author Maurer shapes these missions into tense scenes of strategizing, stealth and action. This is not a reflective book; the righteousness of post-9/11 military adventures is self-evident to Owen, and he worries only about measuring up to the SEAL standard of lethal teamwork. Still, it paints an absorbing portrait of the work-a-day soldierly professionalism that proved Bin Laden's nemesis. Photos.
Publishers Weekly

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for No Easy Day:

1. Why has "Mark Owen" written this book—what was his purpose? Is this a "tell-all" account...or something else?

2. Talk about the Navy SEALs—their mindset and toughness. What makes them different from other branches of the military? In fact, how does Team 6 differ from the other SEAL teams? Why was this particular team chosen for the attack on bin Laden's compound?

3. How does one become a SEAL—what qualities are looked for in a potential SEAL?

4. Talk about the training, physical and mental, that prepares SEALs for the road ahead.

5. What about the book's title, "No easy day"? It refers to a SEAL saying that "the only easy day was yesterday." Talk about the meaning of that sentence—what does it suggest about the SEALs?

6. How did Owen's own background shape his career? What was it about the book, Men in Green Faces, that inspired Owen?

7. Talk about the men's camaraderie among the men in SEAL Team 6. What causes the tight bonds? Do other military services have the same personal ties?

8. How does the information in this book either jibe with or differ from other accounts of the Abbottabad attack that you've either read or heard?

9. Talk about the intelligence, or lack of intelligence, regarding the Abbottabad hideout. Although CIA analysist Jen says she is "one hundred percent" certain that bin Laden was hiding there, could she be truly sure? Why...or why not?

10. What is Owen's reaction when he finds that bin Laden's guns were not loaded? He says "There is no honor in sending people to die for something you won't even fight for yourself." Do you find that an accurate, true, or distorted statement of bin Laden...or, indeed, of any leader?

11. During a rehearsal of the attack, a lawyer tells the SEALs that if bin Laden "is naked with his hands up, you're not going to engage him.... You will detain him." Why was that procedure not followed. Should it have been? What might have happened had bin Laden been captured alive?

12. Were you shocked by the men's (including Owen's) handling, of the "dead weight" of bin Laden's body? Do bin Laden's remains deserve respectful treatment...or not? What does their handling of the body suggest about the SEAL's attitude toward bin Laden and toward their jobs in general?

13. After the attack, how did the SEALs react to the President's press conference? What were they concerned might happen during the announcement? Why did the announcement feel anticlimactic?

14. What have you learned—about the SEALS, the operation, or the actual attack—that you did't know before reading No Easy Day.

15. Does this book live up to expectations? Even knowing the outcome, did you find it suspenseful? How so...or why not?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, onlne or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

top of page (summary)

No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State
Glenn Greenwald, 2014
Henry Holt & Company
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781627790734

Summary
In May 2013, Glenn Greenwald set out for Hong Kong to meet an anonymous source who claimed to have astonishing evidence of pervasive government spying and insisted on communicating only through heavily encrypted channels.

That source turned out to be the 29-year-old NSA contractor Edward Snowden, and his revelations about the agency’s widespread, systemic overreach proved to be some of the most explosive and consequential news in recent history, triggering a fierce debate over national security and information privacy. As the arguments rage on and the government considers various proposals for reform, it is clear that we have yet to see the full impact of Snowden’s disclosures.

Now for the first time, Greenwald fits all the pieces together, recounting his high-intensity eleven-day trip to Hong Kong, examining the broader implications of the surveillance detailed in his reporting for The Guardian, and revealing fresh information on the NSA’s unprecedented abuse of power with never-before-seen documents entrusted to him by Snowden himself.

Going beyond NSA specifics, Greenwald also takes on the establishment media, excoriating their habitual avoidance of adversarial reporting on the government and their failure to serve the interests of the people. Finally, he asks what it means both for individuals and for a nation’s political health when a government pries so invasively into the private lives of its citizens—and considers what safeguards and forms of oversight are necessary to protect democracy in the digital age.

Coming at a landmark moment in American history, No Place to Hide is a fearless, incisive, and essential contribution to our understanding of the U.S. surveillance state. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—March 6, 1967
• Where—New York City, New York, USA
• Raised—Lauderdale Lakes, Florida
• Education—B.A., George Washington University; J.D., New York
University
• Awards—Izzy Award; Pulitzer Prize for Public Service
• Currently—lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Glenn Greenwald is an American political journalist, lawyer, columnist, blogger, and author. He was born in New York City to Arlene and Daniel Greenwald; shortly after his birth, his family to moved Lauderdale Lakes, Florida. While a senior in high school, at 17, he ran unsuccessfully for the city council. He earned a B.A. at George Washington University in 1990 and a J.D. at New York University School of Law in 1994.

Litigation attorney
Greenwald practiced law in the Litigation Department at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz (1994–1995); in 1996 he co-founded his own litigation firm, called Greenwald Christoph & Holland (later renamed Greenwald Christoph PC), where he litigated cases concerning issues of U.S. constitutional law and civil rights. One of his higher-profile cases was the pro bono representation of white supremacist Matthew F. Hale, in a series of First Amendment speech cases. About that work, Greenwald told Rolling Stone...

To me, it's a heroic attribute to be so committed to a principle that you apply it not when it's easy...not when it supports your position, not when it protects people you like, but when it defends and protects people that you hate.

Later, according to Greenwald,

I decided voluntarily to wind down my practice in 2005 because I could, and because, after ten years, I was bored with litigating full-time and wanted to do other things which I thought were more engaging and could make more of an impact, including political writing.

Journalism
He was a columnist for Guardian US from August 2012 to October 2013. He was a columnist for Salon.com from 2007 to 2012, and an occasional contributor to The Guardian. Greenwald worked as a constitutional and civil rights litigator. At Salon he contributed as a columnist and blogger, focusing on political and legal topics. He has also contributed to other newspapers and political news magazines, including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, American Conservative, National Interest, and In These Times.

Greenwald was named by Foreign Policy Magazine as one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers of 2013. Three of the four books he authored have been New York Times bestsellers. Greenwald is a frequent speaker on college campuses, including Harvard Law School, Yale Law School, the University of Pennsylvania, Brown University, UCLA School of Law, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of Maryland. He frequently appears on various radio and television programs.

Books
• 2014 - No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State
• 2011 - With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful
• 2008 - Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics
• 2007 - A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency
• 2006 - How Would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values From A President Run Amok

Awards
He has won numerous awards for his NSA reporting, including the 2013 Polk Award for national security reporting, the top 2013 investigative journalism award from the Online News Association, the Esso Award for Excellence in Reporting (the Brazilian equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize), and the 2013 Pioneer Award from Electronic Frontier Foundation. He also received the first annual I. F. Stone Award for Independent Journalism in 2009 and a 2010 Online Journalism Award for his investigative work on the arrest and detention of Chelsea Manning. In 2013, Greenwald led the Guardian reporting that was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for public service.

Personal
Greenwald lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the hometown of his partner, David Michael Miranda. Greenwald has said his residence in Brazil is the result of an American law, the Defense of Marriage Act, barring federal recognition of same-sex marriages, which prevented his partner from receiving a visa to reside in the United States with him. The pertinent section of the law was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013, in U.S. v. Windsor. (Adapted from the publisher and Wikipedia. Retrieved 5/06/2014.)

Book Reviews
The author of three New York Times best sellers, winner of the 2009 I.F. Stone Award for Independent Journalism, and among 25 journalists cited as the most influential by the Atlantic, Guardian columnist Greenwald expands on his coverage of the NSA surveillance scandal, a story he broke. More documentation here from whistle-blower Edward Snowden
Library Journal

top of page (summary)

The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death
Colson Whitehead, 2014
Knopf Doubleday
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385537056

Summary
I have a good poker face because I am half dead inside.

So begins the hilarious and unexpectedly moving adventures of an amateur player who lucked into a seat at the biggest card game in town—the World Series of Poker.

In 2011 Grantland magazine sent award-winning novelist Colson Whitehead to brave the harrowing, seven-day gauntlet of the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. It was the assignment of a lifetime, except for one hitch—he’d never played in a casino tournament before.

With just six weeks to train, our humble narrator plunged into the gritty subculture of high-stakes Texas Hold'em. There’s poker here, sure, which means joy and heartbreak, grizzled cowboys from the game’s golden age, and teenage hotshots weaned on internet gambling. Not to mention the overlooked problem of coordinating Atlantic City bus schedules with your kid’s drop-off and pick-up at school.

And then there’s Vegas.

In a world full of long shots and short odds, The Noble Hustle is a sure bet, a raucously funny social satire whose main target is the author himself. Whether you’ve been playing cards your whole life or have never picked up a hand, you’re sure to agree that this book contains some of the best writing about beef jerky ever put to paper. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—November 1969
• Where—New York, New York (USA)
• Education—B.A., Harvard University
• Awards—PEN/Oakland Award; Whiting Writers Award
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York

Born in 1969 and raised in Manhattan, Colson Whitehead received his undergraduate degree from Harvard. After graduation, he went to work for the Village Voice as a book , television, and music reviewer.

Whitehead's first novel, The Intuitionist, was published in 1999 and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway and a winner of the Quality Paperback Book Club's New Voices Award. In 2001, he published John Henry Days, a startlingly original retelling of the famous story from American folklore. The novel received several honors and was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize. In 2003, a collection of his essays, The Colossus of New York, was named a New York Times Notable Book of the year.

Whitehead's writing continues to attract awards, rave reviews, and a devoted, avid readership. In between books, he produces reviews, essays, short stories, and cultural commentary for a number of distinguished publications, including the New York Times, The New Yorker, Harper's, and Granta. He is the recipient of a coveted MacArthur Fellowship (dubbed the "genius grant") , a Whiting Writers Award, and a fellowship at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers.

Extras
From a 2009 Barnes & Noble interview:

• Where do I get my ideas? Usually I come across some strange fact in a book, or article, or tv show and think, That's weird, wouldn't it be kooky if...?

• I like to write in the nude—I find the gentle breezes tickle the fine hairs of creativity.

• Here are some of the things I like: staying in the house all day, screening phone calls, keeping the shades drawn. Deglazing. Oh, how I love to deglaze.

• Here's what I dislike: performance art, people who walk slowly in front of me, romantic comedies, panel discussions.

• When asked what book most influenced his career as a writer, here is his response:

There are many books, obviously. Today I'll go with Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon, because I'm feeling nostalgic for a good, long read. I have fond memories of reading it at age 19, while flat broke, in a crappy apartment, with nothing to do but watch Quincy, cook up some cheap halibut, and read GR. I remember getting to the last 100 pages and thinking, "He's not going to end this the way I think he's going to end it, is he? It would be crazy if he did that!" And he did. The lesson being, no idea is too weird—as long as you can pull it off. (Author bio and interview from Barnes & Noble.)

Book Reviews
(Starred review.) The eternal tension between good luck and remorseless odds animates this loose-limbed jaunt through the world of high-stakes poker.... [A]n engrossing mix of casual yet astute reportage and hang-dog philosophizing showing us that verything still hangs on the turn of a card.
Publishers Weekly

The author's satirical descriptions and observations...and his interactions with the people who haunt the casinos there are only prolog for the grand finale of the Leisure-Industrial Complex (LIC) of Vegas. Verdict: Entertaining and absorbing. —Mark Manivong, Lib. of Congress, Washington, DC
Library Journal

As a novelist of considerable range, Whitehead consistently writes about more than he’s ostensibly writing about,... here writing a poker book that should strike a responsive literary chord with some who know nothing about [poker].... A minor work by a major novelist, a busman’s holiday, but engaging in its color and character.
Kirkus Reviews

top of page (summary)

Nobody Will Tell You This But Me: A true (as told to me) story
Bess Kalb, 2020
Knopf Doubleday Publishing
224 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780525654711

Summary
Bess Kalb, Emmy-nominated TV writer and New Yorker contributor, saved every voicemail her grandmother Bobby Bell ever left her. Bobby was a force—irrepressible, glamorous, unapologetically opinionated. Bobby doted on Bess; Bess adored Bobby.

Then, at ninety, Bobby died. But in this debut memoir, Bobby is speaking to Bess once more, in a voice as passionate as it ever was in life.

Recounting both family lore and family secrets, Bobby brings us four generations of indomitable women and the men who loved them. There's Bobby's mother, who traveled solo from Belarus to America in the 1880s to escape the pogroms, and Bess's mother, a 1970s rebel who always fought against convention.

Then there's Bess, who grew up in New York and entered the rough-and-tumble world of L.A. television. Her grandma Bobby was with her all the way—she was the light of Bess's childhood and her fiercest supporter, giving Bess unequivocal love, even if sometimes of the toughest kind.

In Nobody Will Tell You This But Me, Bobby reminds Bess of the experiences they shared, and she delivers—in phone calls, texts, and unforgettable heart-to-hearts brought vividly to the page—her signature wisdom:

If the earth is cracking behind you, you put one foot in front of the other.
Never. Buy. Fake. Anything.
I swear on your life every word of this is true.

With humor and poignancy, Bess Kalb gives us proof of the special bond that can skip a generation and endure beyond death. This book is a feat of extraordinary ventriloquism and imagination by a remarkably talented writer. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
Bess Kalb is an Emmy-nominated writer for Jimmy Kimmel Live. Her writing for the show earned her a Writer's Guild Award in 2016. She has also written for the Oscars and the Emmys.

A regular contributor to The New Yorker's "Daily Shouts," her work has been published in The New Republic, Grantland, Salon.com, Wired, The Nation, and elsewhere. She lives in Los Angeles (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
If the second half of Kalb’s narrative is less affecting than the first, perhaps that is simply because everything after escape from a probable pogrom must be…. The author’s hints at her grandmother’s failings make Bobby more character and less caricature, but one longs for a still more fully rounded portrait. Some moments of neglect and even cruelty sit uneasily alongside Bobby’s quips and potted family histories.
New York Times Book Revew

Written from the sometimes acerbic, sometimes sweet and always laser-sharp perspective of Bell…. In between are Kalb’s loving recollections of their relationship, including snippets of conversations and voicemails and a steady supply of life advice…. In Kalb’s hands, the resulting stew is reliably funny and occasionally poignant on the aftermath of loss.
Los Angeles Times

[A] charming memoir to enjoy for a quick beach read, or lately, when quarantined at home.
New York Journal of Books

A funny, touching and timely reminder of the solace to be found in kindred spirits.
People

Kalb does a great job of capturing the voice of an opinionated, chronically concerned grandmother who’s convinced that she knows best.… This is a fun, touching tribute to family, and the perfect book for anyone who treasures their domineering, spirited grandmother.
Publishers Weekly

Kalb channels the voice of her recently deceased grandmother Bobby Bell… Striking a perfect balance between levity and poignancy, this is a standout debut. Readers looking for memoirs featuring strong family relationships with much love and laughter will be highly satisfied. —Anitra Gates, Erie Cty. P.L., PA
Library Journal

Bobby is the charming, hilarious, and ever-quotable star of her own one-woman show…. Mixing in day-to-day practicalities,… family tales, and oft-repeated lines, Kalb-as-Bobby crafts an uncanny rendering of two whole, wholly connected women and their unshakable bond.
Booklist

(Starred review) An endearing, bittersweet, entertainingly fresh take on the family memoir.… As the book progresses, the story becomes both sad and poignant… [making] for sometimes heartbreaking reading, honoring a beloved grandmother’s legacy.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers Book Club Resources. They can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

(Resources by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)

top of page (summary)

Page 9 of 15

GetLit

LitClub

LitResources

LitBlog

LitFood

LitCourse