Quite Elementary

You’ve seen the movies and shows. The haunting, but jaunty, violin music that follows Benedict Cumberbatch all over modern London. The signature intense cuts of Guy Ritchie. The unforgettable stained glass knight. Joan Watson.

If you’re feeling a bit sated by the sweet holiday movie/book offerings, here are a few Sherlock  spinoffs suitable for cold winter nights.

Julian Barnes sets the stage around Sherlock’s creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in Arthur and George as he sets off to solve a mystery in “real” life. 

Anthony Horowitz sends Sherlock and Watson on a new case in The House of Silk. He follows it up with Moriarty which explores what happened to Sherlock and Moriarty at Reichenbach Falls. Although it’s more graphic (ummm much more graphic) than the original mysteries, the suspense is just as thrilling.

Laurie R. King focuses the plot around Holmes’ wife Mary Russell. King explains how they met with The Beekeeper’s Apprentice. If you find yourself hooked, find the complete series list (in order) here. The star in these books is the exotic locale which varies in each book.

Nancy Springer puts the spotlight on Sherlock’s younger sister, Enola Holmes, in this series of nine books written for the YA set.

"best day ever"

Does anyone else have July 21 marked on their calendar? In honor of the big event, I'm reposting something I wrote in 2017. 

Growing up, I had one Barbie doll. She wore roller skates and a neon yellow sports outfit. However, she was often relegated to the back of the closet since I much preferred playing with “My Friend” dolls.  

When my daughter was in kindergarten, she began asking for Barbies. Most were modeled after the Disney princess characters, but she also favored Barbies who were going to the beach. When we packed up to move last year, she gave the whole collection away. She has held on to her generation’s 18” doll.  

So I was curious, but not invested in, the story of Ruth Handler, the brains behind Barbie. Barbie and Ruth: The Story of the World's Most Famous Doll and the Woman Who Created Her by Robin Gerber opens with Ruth Handler in court. Her company, Mattel, is being accused of shady financial practices.

This dramatic opening sets the stage for Handler’s life. Gerber rewinds from the 1970s to Handler’s early years in retail. We learn how her business acumen, along with the creativity of her husband Elliot, launches her into business.

After a few years in the toy business, Ruth decides to create a doll that allowed girls to “project their dreams of their own futures as adult women.” As Gerber says, “Boys and girls did not just play with different toys; they grew up to be men and women [like Handler] who created different toys.”

Just as fascinating as reading about Barbie’s birth, was learning the story of how toys grew from being a Christmas commodity to one that is sold year-round. Television played a big role in making this shift as it changed the timing of the sales and manufacturing of toys. Designers also had to take into consideration how a toy would look on television.

After leaving Mattel and struggling with breast cancer, Handler created her second business. She developed and sold a product called “Nearly Me” - a silicon breast prostheses.

Whatever your opinion on Barbie’s suitableness as a role-model, it’s hard to disagree with Handler’s. Despite her later legal troubles, she became a leader in a male-dominated field and created an iconic toy that has made it onto kids’ Christmas (and Birthday and Tooth Fairy and Last Day of School) lists for generations.  

"All My Puny Sorrows"

With the release of the movie Women Talking, you may be curious about the book from which it's based. You could read the book or (about its author here or here), but I also recommend reading one of her earlier works, All My Puny Sorrows. This is a repost from 2015.  

“Our house was taken away on the back of a truck one afternoon let in the summer of 1979.” So begins the novel All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews. In it, Yoli’s family can’t seem to catch a break. In childhood, it’s because her family balks against the rules of their conservative Mennonite village in Canada. They harbor a forbidden piano to foster her sister Elfrieda’s musical talents. When not at the piano, Elf spray paints the letters AMPS (“all my puny sorrows”) around the village in further rebellion.

In Yoli and Elf's adult years, the family suffers from Elf’s unhappiness. Elf’s career as a concert pianist is overshadowed by her multiple suicide attempts.Yoli has been traveling back and forth from Toronto to support her mother and brother-in-law and sit at her sister’s bedside. When not at the hospital, Yoli can be found sitting on her friend Julie’s porch. It is here the novel provides cathartic humor to balance the sadness of the rest of Yoli’s day. 

Toews brightens the pages of this devastatingly sad novel with Czech violinists, Italian agents, huffy nurses, and eccentric aunts. The brightest character, however, is Yoli. Her struggles to see her sister’s point of view, her texts with her teenage children, her endless to-do-lists, her trysts with mechanics and violinists, and her sometimes flinching optimism all carry the reader onward - even when the Kleenex box is empty.

"Hey! Unto you a child is born!"

Someone at work the other day was reminiscing about the first musical theater production our church put on: The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. Although I’ve never seen the play, I’ve read and reread the book and (apparently wrote about it in 2016).

The Herdmans are notorious for smoking cigars, setting things on fire, and having a pet that requires a “Beware of Cat” sign. As the narrator says in Barbara Robinson’s The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, “We figured they were headed straight for hell by way of the state penitentiary…until they got themselves mixed up with the church, and my mother, and our Christmas pageant.”

Lured to church by the promise of free refreshments, the six Herdman siblings show up at the first rehearsal for the Christmas pageant. Before anyone realizes it, all of the starring roles have been assigned to the various Herdmans. “And there they sat. The closest thing to criminals that we knew about, and they were going to represent the best and most beautiful.”

There’s only one problem. They’ve never heard the Christmas story before. As the pageant director patiently tells the story, the siblings interrupt asking her to explain manger, swaddling clothes, Wise Men, and myrrh.

“’And, lo, the Angel of the Lord came upon them,’ Mother went on, ‘and the glory of the Lord shone round them, and ---‘

‘Shazam!’ Gladys yelled, flinging her arms out and smacking the kid next to her.”

Eventually they make it to the dress rehearsal but fail to run through the whole play. On the night of the pageant, the whole town shows up to see just what the Herdmans are going to do. When Joseph and Mary are late for their cue, everyone figures they forgot. However, a few minutes later the disheveled couple show up in the doorway. Mary pauses to burp the baby and they make their way up the aisle. Some are appalled that Jesus gets burped, but the narrator comes to some realizations that will change her perception of the Holy Family forever.  Jesus could have been a colicky baby. After all he “was born and lived…a real person.” And Mary “is always going to look a lot like Imogene Herdman – sort of nervous and bewildered, but ready to clobber anyone who laid a hand on her baby.”

The story is not about a peaceful scene you might find on a Christmas card, but it’s “about a new baby, and his mother and father who were in a lot of trouble - no money, no place to go, no doctor, nobody they knew."

And long after your daughter has finished the book, she’ll randomly, gleefully yell out the Angel of the Lord Gladys’ immortal words,” Hey! Unto you a child is born!”

Murder She Wrote

Reading this remembrance of Angela Lansbury this week took me back to my grandparents’ house in Arkansas where the tv always seemed to be loudly playing Murder She Wrote. It was also at my grandmother’s house that I first discovered Agatha Christie. I still love a good mystery, and if it’s a little quirky, so much the better. Today’s repost reminds me of an author I need to revisit, Emily Arsenault.

Not since reading the Flavia de Luce mysteries, have I been so intrigued by the amateur sleuths that crop up in Emily Arsenault's books.

 In What Strange Creatures, Theresa Battle writes copy for a candle company catalog by day and procrastinates writing her dissertation by night. When her brother is arrested for the murder of his girlfriend, she tries to prove his innocence.  By seeking out the girlfriend’s current and former acquaintances she often draws inspiration from her dissertation subject, Margery Kempe. Weaving Kempe’s story with Theresa’s, Arsenault ventures to ask us to examine our own vocations.

 Miss Me When I’m Gone centers around Gretchen Waters, the author of Tammyland, a memoir of the author’s love of female country music stars. When Gretchen turns up dead after a reading, everyone is shocked, including Jamie, her best friend from college. Gretchen’s mother asks Jamie to be her literary executor and turns over the journals, files, and notes Gretchen was working from for her second book. Originally intended to be a book about the men of country music, Jamie discovers that this second book is actually Gretchen’s attempt to find out more about the identity of her father. As Jamie pieces together the notes left behind, she travels into Gretchen’s past and finds out more than the murderer bargained for.

The Broken Teaglass follows two young dictionary editors as they start finding random citations from a  mysteriously quirky story called The Broken Teaglass.  As the excerpts turn up out of order, they intriguingly reveal a corpse, a guilty conscience, and a love affair all set in the very dictionary offices from which they are working. What could be better than a novel that combines unrequited love, murder, and words? Arsenault builds up the suspense with each excerpt, and helpfully puts them all in order in the later chapters revealing that context matters.

 

 

Gritty

This week's PNW heat wave (temps reached into the 90s) has me feeling a bit gritty. Hence this repost from 2009.

Hearing Richard Price extolled again and again on Fresh Air for his mastery of dialogue, I decided to venture into the section of the library where many of the dust jacket blurbs proclaim “gritty.” I begrudgingly picked up Samaritan and rushed back two days later for Lush Life. 

Samaritan proves you can go home again but may get a severe concussion as a result. Ray Mitchell returns to his home town after a stint as a Hollywood writer and soon ends up in the ICU after being attacked in his apartment. He refuses to name his attacker but a childhood friend, now detective, Nerese Ammons is determined to make an arrest regardless. 

Lush Life takes place on the Lower East Side, where every bartender has a screenplay under the bar and every waiter has a casting call after work. When a mugging goes awry leaving one up and comer dead, detectives aren’t sure who’s telling the real story and who’s just acting the part. 

Can’t afford to go see the latest summer blockbuster? Price provides an action-packed thrill with dialogue you’ll probably be hearing in next summer’s box office hit.

Ruminating on Aging...and Hoarding

Taking the day off for my birthday, so I present a repost from 2015...

Koozies from a third-cousin’s wedding. A shoebox full of novelty pencils with inefficient erasers collected from birthday party treat bags and church carnivals. Yellowed copies of newspaper clippings of University News features articles, circa 1997. The Christmas wreath painting made with a three-year-old's footprints.

These are the possessions that keep me up at night, fueling my fears I am on my way to becoming a hoarder.

Enter the cautionary tale. The House We Grew Up In by Lisa Jewell centers around the home of Lorelei Bird. Lorelei loves Easter, her four children, and every scrap of shiny paper produced by either. As each child moves away, his or her room becomes not only a shrine but a room-sized storage bin for thrift store finds and bulk items bought on sale. Eventually, as she ages, her piles and stacks grow, leaving only a small space for a laptop and an armchair. 

After she dies, her daughter Meg arrives to sort through the mess. Hidden beneath the kindergarten paintings and Easter candy wrappers are the various threads of the story that pulled the family apart. Slowly, through this process of purging, Meg is able to reconnect with the estranged members of her family. Together, they not only clean out the house, but air its dusty corners. 

So will the koozies make the cut in our upcoming move? Ask my daughter in forty years.

Lent

A repost from 2010..

This is not about giving up chocolate. It's about sacrifice, mourning, and forgiveness. And a cello.

Jeffrey Lent's After You've Gone tells the story of Henry and Olivia. And Henry and Lydia. And Henry and his cello. Henry takes us from his childhood in Nova Scotia, to his marriage and professional career in New York, and finally to a sabbatical in Amsterdam. But not in that particular order.

Having read Lent's works A Peculiar Grace and Lost Nation (in that order), I braced myself for tragic clashes, piercing descriptions of setting, and even bloodshed or rape. However, this story seems mellower, though it does contain its fair share of heartache. Before reading this novel, I've never had a particular desire to travel to Amsterdam. If anything remains of Lent's account of its 1920s beauty, I probably should add it to my list.

I'm still mulling over the ending. Not to give anything away, I'll just say it was all wine and roses - and even chocolate- in none of the right places. But since it's Lent, all is forgiven.

Will you be mine?

A repost from 2020...

You know that feeling? Butterflies in the gut excited feeling. Counting down the minutes until the next meeting feeling. Time stopping in the moment when you are together feeling. That staying up until all hours of the night replaying key moments feeling.

Even though it’s Valentine’s Day, I’m not talking about that feeling. In this case, it's the feeling of discovering a new author.  

A few weeks ago, I stumbled across a book called 26a by Diana Evans when I was scrolling through Libby looking for that little sticker they put on the covers of award winning books.

From the first pages, I was hooked. Not only on the story of growing up in eighties England, but on Evans’ style. The description of twins Georgia and Bessi’s birth likened to roadkill (as weird as that may sound) is gorgeously brutal. The trauma of this beginning foreshadows later moments of darkness. Unfortunately, it’s a darkness that in the end proves unbearable for at least one of the characters. And more poignant when you learn some of Evans’ own story.

I’ve just picked up Evans’ 2018 work – Ordinary People. And haven’t yet been disappointed. Where the focus of 26a was from the perspective of the kids, this novel looks at life from the standpoint of the parents. In chapter two, a wife asks her husband if he’s seen a purple fitted sheet. This seemingly mundane exchange manages to capture perfectly the dissatisfaction both partners are feeling in their relationship. 

Forget chocolate and roses. My heart rests in the pages of a decadently written book. 

Callithumpian Activities

Dusted off this post from December 2018 because, well, keep reading. 

Pick up any women’s magazine this month and chances are there’s an article about how to handle the stress of Christmas. I always assumed this to be a modern phenomenon until I picked up The Battle for Christmas by Stephen Nissenbaum.

 In it he writes, “The Ladies’ Home Journal actually published an article in 1897 that acknowledged [women experiencing stress at Christmas] as a cultural problem.” Although I couldn’t find the actual article, I did come across this gem that reminded me the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Throughout the book, Nissenbaum also makes the case that a commercial Christmas is also not a product of modernity, but was an integral part of the transformation of Christmas from a rowdy, drunken celebration of the annual slaughter to a more domesticated affair that included women and children. As he writes, “there never was a time when Christmas existed as an unsullied domestic idyll, immune to the taint of commercialism…indeed, the domestic Christmas was itself a force in the spread of consumer capitalism.”

If you’re curious to read more about the origins of American Christmas traditions - Santa Claus, Christmas trees, and “personalized” mass-produced presents - add The Battle for Christmas to your list. You know you have one.

Bookmobiles

The other day I came across a notice that our local library has an outreach service to deliver books to the homebound. This reminded me of a previous post from 2018 about other librarians going to great lengths to ensure their neighbors have books to read. 

Way back in September, this story caught my ear. It was about a group of librarians who ventured into the mountains of Kentucky to deliver books to families on horseback during the 1930s.  

Wanting to read more, I went to my local library (by car) and found three informative picture books, not only about those librarians in Kentucky, but about people all over the world dedicated to delivering books to those without easy access to a library.

My Librarian is a Camel: How Books are Brought to Children Around the World by Margriet Ruurs

From Australia to Zimbabwe, this 2005 book pairs photographs and maps with descriptions of books being delivered by boat, mail, bicycle, and elephant to remote areas.

That Book Woman by Heather Henson, pictures by David Small

Told from the perspective of an Appalachian teenager, this book shows how his attitude changes from cynical bemusement to gratitude for the passel of books the book lady brings.  

Waiting for the Biblioburro by Monica Brown, illustrations by John Parra

Also based on a true story, this book magically captures one little girl’s excitement when she sees two burros carrying “so many cuentos!” to her isolated village.

Story Worthy

For Father’s Day this year, I gave my dad a subscription to StoryWorth. Each week he’ll receive a writing prompt to inspire him to write down stories from his life. At the end of the year, all the stories will be printed in book form. This week I learned that since his family never went on long vacations as a child, he wanted to make sure that his own kids experienced that. And we did. Annual camping trips to New Mexico and road trips to both coasts, including Disneyland, were a big part of my childhood summers. We also took trips, like he did, to see family, most notably our trips to Arkansas to visit my grandparents. Here’s a repost from 2011 inspired by those trips.

 When my grandparents lived in Arkansas, we used to make the six hour road trip to visit two or three times a year. Our rewards for that much time in a car were afternoons spent listening to my grandmother's stories, a bag of Snickers in the produce drawer, and a coffee table stacked with magazines. My mom and I would settle in on the sofas catching up on Hollywood gossip and the latest his side/her side drama of the advice columns.

My fascination, some might say morbid curiosity, with marriage (troubled or not) led me to pick up a new novel by Carol Edgarian. In Three Stages of Amazement, we are thrown into the marriage of Lena and Charlie. And from the first paragraph, we are almost certain this marriage can't be saved. His failing startup, a baby with medical issues, and an ex-boyfriend (Italian ex-boyfriend) are but some of the factors pulling their relationship asunder.

The others? Well, you'd be amazed. And you might need a Snickers to get you through it all.

Sonic Youth

The heat wave in Washington this week (it got up to 84, y’all), reminded me of this post from 2009. It makes me nostalgic, not only for air conditioning, but also because that three year old can now drive herself to Sonic.

The air conditioner in my apartment sucks. This is June in Texas after all. So I pile the kids in the station wagon and drive down the block to Sonic. Rolling down the windows lets in a light breeze tinged with the smell of the afternoon’s tater tots. Moments later our drinks arrive. I unwrap the extra straw to keep the nine-month-old occupied, hand back the strawberry shake to my daughter, and open The Red Convertible.

Louise Erdrich’s collection of short stories is part tart, part sweet, just like the cherry limeade in the cup holder. And I even manage to finish a couple of the stories before my three-year-old pokes a hole in the Styrofoam cup, and we find a use for all those extra napkins.

Looking for more summer reads? Try this list for 2021.

 

good friday

To provide context for today’s (re)post I invite you to listen to this excerpt from This American Life.

Through collage and watercolor illustrations by Bryan Collier, Martin’s Big Words tells the story of Martin Luther King, Jr. Stained glass windows, church steeples, and the American flag illustrate Martin’s message that “everyone can be great.” We read of bus boycotts, marches, bomb threats, accolades, and finally the assassination. A concise history of the great man’s life and work that will have you flipping back through the pages even after your listener has drifted off to sleep.

Martin’s Big Words Words by Doreen Rappaport and Pictures by Bryan Collier

Julie and Julia - Reread

Reorganizing the bookshelves, as one is wont to do in times of crisis, I came across Julie and Julia. It's just the thing for vicarious cooking (and cleaning up), especially when the stores are still out of flour. Haven't checked on the whole marrow bone thing.

The following is a repost from 2009.

“Sometimes I just made stuff up.” Despite the disclaimer on page one, Julie Powell serves up a humorous account of her attempt to follow all the recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child. Faced with conception complications at home and the endless files to be copied at work, she began the cooking project (and blog documenting the project) in August of 2002. Interspersed throughout the book version are imaginary scenes between Julia and Paul Child. I skimmed these for the most part to get back to the meatier narrative.

Powell recounts her successes – skinning a duck and flipping a flawless crepe - but more entertaining are her mess ups – one memorable description likens her homemade ladyfingers to “so many sunk mastodons” in a “tar pit” of caramelized sugar. She also relates how she connected with her blog readers with proficient swearing and as ifs which resulted in donations of funds and jars of her favorite salsa. You might recoil with her in the discovery of a maggot colony under the drainer, but you’ll marvel at her chutzpah at leaving an offering of butter at the Julia Child exhibit at the Smithsonian.

 If you missed the blog, then read the book. If you missed the book, there’s always the Nora Ephron movie.

The book by Julie Powell is called Julie and Julia: 365 days, 524 recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen: How One Girl Risked Her Marriage, Her Job, and Her Sanity to Master the Art of Living.

"Chihulys are the pigeons of Seattle"

In honor of the movie that was recently released, I dusted off a review I originally posted in 2012.

A case of the blue meanies has interrupted these posts of late. Perhaps you've turned to other blogs in the meantime, but I hope you'll check back because a book called Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple has inspired me to start posting again.

Bee Branch, a Seattle eighth grader convinces her parents to take her on a cruise to Antarctica to celebrate her straight As. She is flummoxed, however, when her mother goes missing the day before the trip. When her mother doesn't return, her father, a Microsoft workaholic, decides to send Bee to boarding school a semester early. While at school, Bee receives an envelope filled with emails, magazine articles, and other documents leading up to her mother's disappearance. She immediately sits down at her PC (mocked by her Apple loving classmates) and begins writing her book. The book we've been reading.

I second Jonathan Franzen when he says on the front cover, "I tore through this book with heedless pleasure." A feeling I sort of vaguely remembered but welcomed anyway.