August 2020 Bookclub News

 

The August Zoom

 

 

 

Dear Bookclub,

Lidian Jackson Emerson, imagined by Amy Belding Brown in "Mr. Emerson's Wife", brought forth a variety of bookclub observations. Being married to Ralph Waldo Emerson jettisoned Lidian into our imaginations as a woman to be admired and studied, yet the reality of 19th century life in Massachusetts dragged her into the trenches of drudgery, popping our happy, little thought-bubbles. Val commented on the pace slowed with the detail, yet the writing, very good. The pace and detail may accentuate the mundane in daily existence illustrating the obstacles for travel, exchanges, growth and development.  As Trudy noted, Lidian, being an activist for abolitionism, was also enslaved(not equating of course!)* in household management which allowed for Mr. Emerson to do his work along with hosting colleagues in their home. We really wondered how much was true, noting that Brown did strongly state that this is a work of fiction. At the forefront of that wonder, was Lidian's relationship with Henry David Thoreau. Much is illuminated on that topic in the article from Terrie below.

 

 

Lidian Emerson with son Edward, circa 1847

 

This is an excellent history although strangely, found on a blog "History of American Women" with 

Lidian being a 'famous wife', it ends up mostly being about Ralph Waldo Emerson. Note in the first paragraph: *'She opposed slavery, supported women’s rights, and considered marriage to an unfit mate to be tantamount to slavery.'

 

Please enjoy:

https://www.womenhistoryblog.com/2012/01/lydian-emerson.html 

 

 

 The link below to the home of Ralph Waldo Emerson just makes me long to go to Concord! Click on the link, 'People' ..'who lived here'.... to see some great pix of the cast of characters.

 

 

Bush

 

https://www.ralphwaldoemersonhouse.org/ 

 

 

Lidian

 

Terrie shared a New York Times article from November 1987 reviewing Delores Bird Carpenter's "The Selected Letters of Lidian Jackson Emerson", the book Brown encouraged readers to explore in her Acknowledgements:

 

https://www.nytimes.com/1987/11/29/books/dear-mr-emerson.html 

I weakened and bought the book! I love it of course. The letters do provide a much deeper understanding of Lidian for me, her letters portraying scenes, many familiar, others an enhancement to Brown's telling. Layering these letters with our book does Lidian's charm and intelligence much justice. 

 

Check out this dear picture of Waldo, placed by Lidia's letter to her sister Lucy, the first after Waldo's death. Just a week after he died of scarlet fever, the letter is heartbreaking to read.

 

 

 

 

Trudy's suggestions for an upcoming read:

 

“Women Rowing North”  Mary Pipher

“The Splendid and The Vile” Erik Larson

“Things We Cannot Say” Kelly Rimmer *chosen

Please note that our next book was to be Aja Raden's "Stoned" coordinated with a visit to the GIA. Wanda suggested three more selections to replace that choice until the GIA reopens:

  

"The Yellow House" by Sarah Bloom *chosen

"Overstory" Richard Powers

"The Vanishing Half" Brit Bennett

 

Val off to her coif

 

 

 

Up next:

 

 

 

Happy reading,

LK

PS My sleuthing found this interesting long ago lecture (well March 2015 - not 1895) about Ellen and Edith Emerson entitled:

"For the Love of Your Sister’: Ellen Tucker Emerson, Edith Emerson Forbes, and the Emerson Legacy”

 

Edith and Ellen

 

https://historyprogram.commons.gc.cuny.edu/wwwl-dorothy-o-helly-works-in-progress-lecture-for-the-love-of-your-sister-ellen-tucker-emerson-edith-emerson-forbes-and-the-emerson-legacy/

We are endeared to sisters! Kate Culkin's book is still forthcoming.

July 2020 Bookclub News

Plains Leopard Frog
Yum!

Dear Bookclub,

Zooming "The Gifted School", with a side of anxiety thanks to Holsinger's back-stabbing, overly competitive, lying, cheating, despicable cast of characters in a setting of fine child rearing, we picked our way through the web of names and relationships and came out the other side where we could talk about 'funner' things. Trying to appreciate Holsinger's motivation and diversion from his usual scholarly medieval work, (we had read "A Burnable Book"), it was easy to imagine an axe to grind from personal experience. In his 'Acknowledgments', Holsinger stated the book was conceived 15 years earlier, drafting sections while living in Boulder, CO. Personal experiences would start there. While trying to figure out if his wife had any direct influence, I noticed a thank you to Carol Holsinger in the acknowledgements.

Carol Holsinger

But her profile was not befitting of an academic (Carol had commented on a tweet by Bruce about a dog; she is an author of a kickstarter comic named 'Bar Dog'). A more appropriate match appeared:

Anna Brickhouse
https://english.as.virginia.edu/people/profile/acb2hf

A Campbell Brickhouse is listed on the William and Mary soccer team son of  Bruce Holsinger and Anna Brickhouse. Hmmmmm... interesting; Campbell has his mother's last name. Carol is his aunt, listed as a William and Mary alum. Would this make Bruce Beck? Anna Azra? Campbell Charlie/Aidan?

Draw your own conclusions....

Campbell Brickhouse
 

https://tribeathletics.com/sports/mens-soccer/roster/campbell-brickhouse/11470

and Campbell's advice for other athletes:

https://chsktr.com/879/sports/campbell-brickhouse-future/

Malcolm Brickhouse

But wait! There's more! Brother Malcolm Brickhouse wrote this article for the Charlottesville High School News and he himself has committed to UVa's soccer team.... so Campbell/Malcolm Charlie/Aiden?

Circling back to the acknowledgements, Holsinger does thank Anna Brickhouse for 'inestimable gifts of attention and insight' and thanks Campbell and Malcolm Brickhouse for their 'soccer pointers and play-by-play suggestions'. It was there all along but those names can be tricky.

Away from the book a bit.... Admiring this family, each with their own 'gifts', I also discovered that Bruce has started a hashtag to reveal a riotous collection of examples of male authors 'thanking' their wives for typing manuscripts in acknowledgments but failing to name them! Awesome.... please check out link below and enjoy the examples laid bare.

-wikipedia

This is very good:

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ishmaeldaro/thanks-for-typing-with-your-two-aching-fingers

And I am sure Anna did not type any of Bruce's work - we've come a long way baby.

The Zoom did get funner as we moved on to catching up and laughing away the covid-cobwebs.

a full house and a wild card!

Terry's suggestions for an upcoming read:

"The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration" Isabel Wilkerson

"Hamnet" Maggie O'Farrell

"Rodham" Curtis Sittenfeld *chosen

Up next:

hardcover... or if you prefer, for just a bit over a dollar more, a racier cover on the paperback:

"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Happy reading,

LK

PS "The Gifted School" is in development as a TV series with NBC/Universal Television ..starring Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman?

PPS No DNA tests were done for this piece.

PPPS Which sounds like a more gifted athlete: Brickhouse or Holsinger?

June 2020 Bookclub News

A social-distanced meeting

Dear Bookclub,

Gloriously released into the cultivated heaven on Oak Creek Trail, that is Val's domain, we leisurely nibbled sack lunches, dissolved meringue cookies on our tongues, and chatted away hours. "The Wives of Los Alamos" set us in many directions, imagining life in a secret setting while husbands, (and some women), created an atomic bomb. Feeling frustrated by TaraShea Nesbit's narrative approach that muddled individuality, we became accustomed to the writing and found the journey ultimately imaginatively informative. Reading, that provokes new thought or as I realize, provokes endless googling, remains memorable as an entrance into an historic event, a foreign environment, a different mindset. "Wives" won in that arena.

Aerial view of Los Alamos National Laboratory, "1995 aerial TA-3 south to north"

So much more available through digging online... have at it!

Intrigued by the black pottery plates 'the help' made and the women collected, (although 'the help' had regular dishes in their own homes), I discovered Maria Martinez, world renowned potter:

Photo by Susan Peterson, courtesy of the Heard Museum, Phoenix, AZ, USA, © Susan Peterson

From the website (click below), the description:

"Of Tewa heritage of the San Ildefonso Pueblo in the Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico, Maria Martinez became world-renowned for her black-on-black pottery. 

Learning to make pots as a child from her aunt, Tia Nicolasa, and beginning with clay dishes she made for her playhouse, Maria was  known as a potter among her peers.  In 1908, Dr. Edgar Hewett,  New Mexico archaeologist and director of the Laboratory of Anthropology in Santa Fe, had excavated some 17th century black pottery shards  and, seeking to revive this type of pottery, Hewett was led to Maria. Through trial and error, Maria rediscovered the art of making black pottery. She found that smothering a cool fire with dried cow manure trapped the smoke, and that by using a special type of paint on top of a burnished surface, in combination with trapping the smoke and the low temperature of the fire resulted in turning a red-clay-pot black."

https://www.mariamartinezpottery.com/about-maria-martinez.html

Val's suggestions for an upcoming read:

"The Tangled Tree" David Quammen *chosen

"The Shape of Family" Shilpi Somaya Gowda

"What you Have Heard is True" Carolyn Forché

Up next:

Studious reading,

LK

PS

Matching game:  

A) J. Robert Oppenheimer

B) Billy Collins

C) Bruce Holsinger

#1

#2

#3

PPS

In case you forget:

this is also very good:

PPPS

#1 - C

#2 - A

#3 - B

May 2020 Bookclub News

extra window for Wanda's plumber

Dear Bookclub,
Another Zoomy meeting, as the pandemic keeps us from lunching together but rewards us with Ginger's 'presence', (not to mention no-conflict calendars), was enjoyed for our May gathering. Discussing Jeanine Cummins' "American Dirt", we appreciated a page-turner, noting the imperfections of the story, but going with it. The migrant journey as told in this tale,  further illuminated our previous understandings of experiences we'd read about in "Tortilla Curtain" and "Into the Beautiful North". But most notable in our discussion was the sharing about the controversy stirred by the book's publication and Oprah promotion. Unfortunate as any inequity may be, we gave the author a pass deeming it hardly her fault and something she knowingly risked in writing 'not-her-story'. That controversy sure got us all researching!

Las Brisas Resort

Lunch for the Terry and Lulu

Another interesting aside was Terry's tale of living in Acapulco at Las Brisas Resort when she was a young girl. Terry and Lulu may be lurking just out of the shot, sporting their daisy bathing suits in the pool, pictured here in 1971:

 More about this picture in the cheesy (but interesting) piece below (c'mon.... "The Rake"???):

https://therake.com/stories/code/acapulco-gold/


Back to the book, I'd meant to bring up the two titles of the books Lydia sold to Javier - the two books that were her absolute favorites ever ...and just coincidentally(gag) purchased by Javier.  Have you ever read either? I'd not heard of them so here is my fabulous one-click sleuthing on Amazon:

out of print and really???!!!

highly available and affordable

Finally, Cummins' mention of the Mexico City Library that Lydia and Luca visit, Biblioteca Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, sent me searching for more as I adore libraries. Check this out .... very cool and fascinating history!

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/biblioteca-miguel-lerdo-de-tejada

Biblioteca Miguel Lerdo de Tejada

Wanda's selections for an upcoming read, based on a plan to visit the GIA Museum in Carlsbad, (which we will eventually do!):

"Stoned" Aja Raden *chosen
"Precious Objects" Alicia Oltuski

GIA Museum in Carlsbad

https://www.gia.edu/gia-museum



 Up next:

Safe reading,
LK

April 2020 Bookclub News

Dear Bookclub,
Transported to the Arkansas Delta by Michelle Kuo's "Reading with Patrick", our group zoomed and parsed the tragic, complicated education shared by both Michelle and Patrick. Michelle's journey, began predictably and as the side track, not unbelievable yet absolutely heartbreaking, traveled through an impressive literary path chosen by Michelle and grasped by Patrick, the end result heightens the need to illuminate out country's deeply rooted inequities in both education and justice.

Patrick reading his poem, "I taught myself to feel free"

Hear Patrick read his poem:
 https://www.teachforamerica.org/stories/an-urgent-call-from-the-delta-years-later

Patrick's poetic talent, that fell away so quickly when not tapped, coupled with his sensitivity towards his daughter, family and even Marcus' mother broke our hearts. Michelle's desire to make a difference seemed dwarfed by the reality, yet her continued sacrifice was head-scratching. Wanda made the observation that perhaps, the sacrifices Kuo's Taiwanese immigrant parents had made for her set the stage, as Michelle ultimately emulated their actions with her dutiful battle for Patrick through much personal cost, especially as perceived by her parents.

We are not usually this serious... seriously!

 My suggestions for an upcoming read:

"Furious Hours" Casey Cep
 "Mr. Emerson's Wife" Amy Belding Brown *chosen 
"Washington Black" Esi Edugyan







Up next:

Check out Jeanine Cummins' pre-COVID-19 manicure from her Twitter feed. Remember these days?

Safe reading,

LK

 

March 2020 Bookclub News

Colvin in Chechnya in 1999. Photograph: Dmitri Beliakov/Rex

Dear Bookclub,
Unable to attend our March discussion of Lindsey Hilsum's "In Extremis: The Life and Death of the War Correspondent Marie Colvin", I can only relay what was reported:everyone really liked the book and discussion was excellent.

In prepraration for our meeting, Terrie had shared an 8 minute NPR(fabulous) interview of the author with Lulu Garcia Navarro:
https://www.npr.org/2018/11/04/663571722/a-new-biography-of-marie-colvin-eyewitness-to-war
 
And shared by Wanda, the movie, "A Private War" on Amazon Prime. There is also a 2018 documentary, "Under the Wire":
https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/2019/02/223656/marie-colvin-under-the-wire-bbc-4



Not a tragic accident, Marie's death was ruled to be murder in 2019. A civil suit brought about by Marie's sister, Catherine, is reported on by none other than Lindsey Hilsum in the following "Guardian" article:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/feb/03/marie-colvin-murder-verdict--risks-journalists-lindsey-hilsum

Marie Colvin and Lindsey Hilsum in Jenin, Palestine, in 2002. Picture: Paul Moorcraft

Hilsum,  after 114 interviews and reading 300 of Colvin’s notebooks and diaries, said the hardest part was knowing when to stop researching and start writing. “It’s a very strange thing to get to know your friend better in death than in life, but that’s what happened, because if she had lived I would never have read her teenage diaries." For more about Hilsum's experience writing the book, please enjoy this "Press Gazaette" interview during her 2018 book launch days:

https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/lindsey-hilsum-anxious-of-adding-to-myth-of-killed-sunday-times-war-reporter-marie-colvin-through-new-book-on-her-life/


Suggestions from Terrie for an upcoming selection:

"When All is Said" Anne Griffin
"The Gifted School" Bruce Holsinger *chosen
"The Mercies" Brian Millwood Hargrave


Up next:

Michele and her parents

Please enjoy this eclectic list of Michele's other writings (many with her husband, Albert Wu) from her website:

https://www.michellekuo.net/other-writings

Safe reading,
LK

February 2020 Bookclub News

Dear Bookclub,
Tiring of our current read and feeling sheepish about that, I decided to do a little research into the book. The first google swipe landed me on Jacqueline Woodson's website:

https://www.jacquelinewoodson.com/

(Please, please click on it.)

Back to my lament; "Aha... "brown girl dreaming"! This is a book that has intrigued me for quite some time, given the aclaim. I found it in my library and began a new appreciation for Jacqueline Woodson. She is really one cool writer.

Florence Chadwick

Speaking of cool, The Florence, chosen by Val was a great surprise venue for our February discussion of Jacqueline Woodson's "Red at the Bone". Our new discussion technique was in full force as we rated the novel and gave declarative statements. A great surprise in that Val highly rated the work, keeping us always amazed and guessing at whatever-will-she-come-up-with-next. And she did not disappoint, sharing more incredible stories of her own, validating her vision of appreciation of all the varied characters in Woodson's book. The rest of us, mundane in our experiences and relishing Val's, steadied at a rating of '6', eager for a change of genre.

Val's suggestions for an upcoming read:

"Just Mercy" Bryan Stevenson
"Remembering Shanghai" Isabel Sun Chao and Claire Chao
"The Wives of Los Alamos" Tarashea Nesbit *chosen

Up next:

Enjoy your reading,
LK