October 2020 Bookclub Nesw

 

 

a 'pumpkin'

Dear Bookclub,

Welcoming a socially-distanced afternoon, we gathered on my back porch to discuss David Quammen's "The Tangled Tree". Val promptly declared her enchantment with Quammen's 'radical new history of life' and the scientists in our group revealed and reveled right along. With the concept of genes passing vertically across species, our minds went vertical, horizontal and around the block. Interspersing the story of advancing ideas in biology of archaea, phylogenetics and horizontal gene transfer with the stories of the biologists involved, Quammen's book held our interest. We seemed especially intrigued by Lynn Margulis ... honoring her contributions to evolutionary science and her challenges as a woman. Her declaration that she could not be a good mother and a good scientist and a good wife will long stay with me. Carl Sagan indeed!

Lynn & Carl Sagan

Lynn Margulis

 

Please read more about Margulis:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Margulis

Carl Woese holds a model of an RNA molecule at General Electric Research Lab in Schenectady, N.Y., in May 1961. Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS

The very next day after our meeting, Val alerted us:

Crisper news
Scientists win historic Nobel chemistry prize for “genetic scissors”
Two women have shared the prize for the first time, winning for their work on genome editing.

Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna

<Getty Images>

 

Read in BBC News: https://apple.news/AhV3i3KoeR5SyK9LMjH-8Zg

 and ......

a Spotify podcast with a terrific synopsis of the book

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2Lo92NRsWXmf7vTve7RaVX

Thank you Val!

 

Meanwhile, back on the porch, graced with Ginger being present, we were missing Terry, as she was coping with a precarious maternity situation. Our heavy hearts were lightened to learn of Lucy's safe arrival a few days later on Friday, October 9th.

 

Lucy Jean Filice

Ahhhhhhhh!!!!!!

Terrie's suggestions for a Christmas read:

"You Better Not Cry" Augusten Burroughs* (chosen) 

"A Redbird Christmas" Fannie Flagg

"The Paper Bag Christmas" Kevin Alan Milne

My suggestions for our March selection:

"Hamnet" Maggie O'Farrell* (chosen)

"The Divine Miss Marble" Robert Weintraub

"Why Fish Don't Exist" Lulu Miller

"Owls of the Eastern Ice" Jonathan C. Slaght

Up next:

Happy reading,

LK

September 2020 Bookclub News

 

 

Here we zoom again....

 

Dear Bookclub,
Sarah M. Broom's "The Yellow House" had us clamoring for more on Katrina, reminiscing about our family houses, and appreciating the depth and complication of place, identity, race and inequality. The memoir's heroine, in our admiration, Sarah's mother, Ivory Mae, was a wonder. The heartbreak, resilience, tenacity, and radiance of New Orleans East beamed hard-core. Broom's task to inform the reader of an existence beyond our bubbled recognition loomed large. At times, we considered it too long and cumbersome. But the affection and love for the house was the thread, even when the house no longer existed. Sharing a vast variety of emotion, affection and otherwise, of our homes, past and present, proved a curious exercise. Returning to the day to day struggle Broom reported, the tedium necessary, left an exasperation for a solution:

"In 1970, the mostly white teachers still called students niggers. Things like this still happened: Michael, ten and in fifth grade, scored a perfect grade on a math test. "They put a big old zero on the thing," he said. "And so I'm checkin' it, going ... I don't know what's wrong. It wasn't nothing but adding and subtracting. So I'm saying, this supposed to be right. I said something must be wrong with my brain that this look right to me..... They gave me a zero so it have to be wrong? But everything was right." The white girl sitting in front of him - teacher's pet- turned around to look. "I was embarrassed for her to see my paper. I kept on checkin' it. I couldn't believe it. She said, loud-like, 'Gimme that paper nigger'" and snatched the test from Michael's hand." 

And then he stabbed her with his pencil, damning his future. How can that be forgotten? Chef Menteur Highway; cutting the lawn for a house not there; an enlisted man named Edward Webb, seemingly murdered, characterized as a 'hit and run'; the Road Home Program; and on and on.

New Orleans

 

 

 

Images from my photos:

 

 

 

 

 

I love this place.

 

 

The levees cannot go unmentioned. Please check out the recent NPR piece, "The Legacy of Hurricane Katrina 15 Years Later":

https://www.npr.org/2020/08/20/904292994/the-legacy-of-hurricane-katrina-15-years-later

 

Activist and author, founder of the levees.org website, Sandy Rosenthal, pictured here with "Treme" star and Garden District resident, John Goodman:

 

https://levees.org/ 

 

 

 

Terrie's suggestions for an upcoming read:

 

"Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents" Isabel Wilkerson

 

"A Woman is No Man: A Novel" Etaf Rum *chosen

"The Girl with Louding Voice: A Novel" Abi Dare

 

 

Up next:

 

Short listen- review of "The Tangled Tree":

https://radio.wpsu.org/post/bookmark-tangled-tree-radical-new-history-life-david-quammen

 

Happy reading,

LK

 

 

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