Wonderful, readable books are being published right now – it has been a very good year. Many of them are great solutions for Christmas giving, especially for those people who are hard to shop for.
By Whitney Clark
Wonderful, readable books are being published right now – it has been a very good year. Many of them are great solutions for Christmas giving, especially for those people who are hard to shop for.
The recent winner of the Man Booker Prize in England for fiction is “The Sense of an Ending” by Julian Barnes. Barnes’ work has been well received for years, but his latest is more accessible and fast moving than some of the others. It can be read in one or two sittings. The story describes a love relationship that becomes muddled and toxic, then clears up when the protagonists meet again in later years. Beautifully written, the novel pulls us along from the early heat of youthful love to reconciliation and resolution. Only a masterful writer could pull this off so simply.
Another fine novel, “The Paris Wife” by Paula McClain, examines the courtship and marriage of Ernest Hemingway and his first wife, Hadley. They meet and marry in the Midwest, then move to Paris. Their romance and early-married life are often exciting and challenging as they struggle to make ends meet and adapt to French culture. He is establishing his work and credentials in Paris, often in the company of glamorous people. She is more often at home with the baby in a picturesque but Spartan apartment. They work hard, travel, hike and ski, but slowly the marriage staggers and fails. Hadley is portrayed as patient and understanding, rising nicely to every occasion. Hemingway is an ignoble savage, too rambunctious and self-absorbed to hold still. It’s a very good read.
Sue Grafton has written 22 mysteries, whose titles begin with letters of the alphabet. She is now on “V is for Vengeance”, and her writing is getting better with each book. If you enjoy series, especially starring a young female detective, Kinsey Milhone, this is a good one. The plot has several intriguing strands that soon twist together to hold your interest, and provide the requisite tension and unpredictability. I hope Grafton and I both get to “Z”. Kinsey Milhone stays 38, but Grafton and I are not getting any younger.
A perfect choice in nonfiction is “The Swerve” by Stephen Greenblatt, which has just won the National Book Award in that category. It is the fascinating story of the re-discovery of the writings of Lucretius (50 B.C.) by a 15th-century book collector. Since the earliest books were often inscribed in papyrus or sheepskin, which easily rotted, it became a lucrative pastime to seek out old manuscripts to enjoy or sell to other scholars or collectors. How wonderful to consider ancient bibliophiles and their arduous journeys to find treasures tucked away in isolated monasteries, where books were usually safe from barbaric marauders. One treasure seeker traveled into the mountains of Germany and uncovered the poem by Lucretius, “On the Nature of Things.” The ancient poet theorized about the quite radical concept of life where matter was made up of atoms, gods and the afterlife were irrelevant in the real world, and pleasure was based on living life prudently and honorably. This philosophical “swerve” brought humanity to the beginning of modern times. Art, literature, and science reflected this swerve, gradually stepping away from the bonds of superstition.
“The Journals of Spalding Gray” have just been published, edited by Nell Casey. Mr. Gray was a writer and actor famous for performing monologues on an open stage, sitting on a chair behind an empty desk. He was always dramatic, often hilarious, constantly self-absorbed, and too revealing about his own adventures. A fabulous storyteller, Gray was often enormously depressed, extremely insightful, and truly neurotic, as can be observed in his journal entries. He had a raw emotional talent that made his monologue, “Swimming to Cambodia,” among other amazing theatre pieces, so entertaining. You can rent it and “Monster in a Box” from Netflix and see other Gray performances on YouTube. The end of his life was tragic, but understandable now that his journals are available.
“The Story of Charlotte’s Web” by Michael Sims is a charming and well-written history of the life and times of E.B.White, also the author of “Stuart Little”. Mr. Sims takes us through White’s childhood in Mount Vernon, N.Y., on to his days at Cornell and early career in advertising. Always a writer, he was hired by The New Yorker and wrote for them ever after. Happily married to a fellow New Yorker editor, he re-established his early love of the country, barns, and nature by buying a farm in Maine. Whereas Stuart Little was something of a city mouse, the story of Charlotte and her barnyard friends was inspired by White’s own barn and its inhabitants. The book gives excellent perspective to White’s body of work and life, rounding out the reading of his letters and columns and background pieces he did for The New Yorker.
For those curious about the elusive author of “The Catcher in the Rye” and other fiction and New Yorker short stories, Kenneth Slawinski has written a definitive biography, “J.D. Salinger: A Life”. Although we know that Salinger was difficult and reclusive during his life, it is interesting to know that he had love and a family and a talent that he hoarded all too closely. The dimensions of his life were severely impacted by terrible experiences during four years in World War II, including the Battle of the Bulge. The town where he lived in New Hampshire treated him with respect and guarded his privacy for years. He continued to write all his life, but was too secretive to publish his later work. The biography can help us understand what drove him to write as he did and why he contained his life in such a small box.
David McCullough has written another wonderful historical book, this one based on the Paris of 1830 to 1900, “The Greater Journey – Americans in Paris”. Paris, then as now, was a magnet drawing Americans to cross the ocean and discover the continental life and a whole new world. Artists, writers, inventors, and statesmen came in droves to see the old world and discover themselves. Every person McCullough writes about arrived in Paris and expanded his life exponentially. Many came as tourists and students; some stayed for years, studying and increasing their skills in art or writing or philosophy. Paris gave them a scope and worldview they could not find at home. McCullough details the adventures of many well-known Americans of that era: Harriet Beecher Stowe, James Fenimore Cooper, John Singer Sargent, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Winslow Homer and Mary Cassatt, among many others equally interesting but less well known today. The story of Samuel F.B. Morse is amazing: he was a superb artist who later evolved into the great inventor. Augustus Saint-Gaudens was in Paris for many years, creating his sculptures until commissioned to do some in America. The creative atmosphere of Paris instilled a lifelong inspiration for these Americans, for which we can long be grateful.
Merry Bookmas and don’t forget “Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson, “Catherine the Great” by Robert K. Massie, and the gorgeous coffee table book of Alexander McQueen and his stunningly artistic fashion design.
All of these books can be bought at Arcade Booksellers on Purchase Street.
