Category: Books

Lincoln: The Presidential Archives.

Blogging leads to serendipity. I had to look up the word serendipity to make sure I had the usage right. According to my Merriam-Webster Dictionary serendipity is the gift of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for. In my case the agreeable thing not sought for was a free book.

A couple of weeks ago I received an email from Carroll an Assistant Manager of Online Marketing at DK Publishing offering me a review copy of a new book, Lincoln: The Presidential Archives. The book arrived the first of this week and I have been reading it ever since. I am enjoying it. If you have ever read any of the DK Eyewitness Travel Guides you will remember the wonderful pictures, illustrations and maps that make them such sumptuous books. Lincoln: The Presidential Archives does for history what the DK travel guides do for travel. The book contains many wonderful pictures but even better are the eight pockets containing reproduced, removable documents. Being able to hold and read even a reproduction of the Emancipation Proclamation or a letter from Mary Todd Lincoln immeasurably adds to the impact of this book.

The author, Chuck Wills, has written a very readable summary of Lincoln’s life. This is the third book I’ve read about Lincoln this year and it has substantially augmented what I knew and/or remembered about Lincoln and his life. I especially like the background chapters about Lincoln’s pre-presidential years.

I recommend Lincoln: The Presidential Archives. Even for someone who is not as enthralled by Presidential history as I am it is a fascinating book. I think its appeal for me is how real it makes Lincoln and his life.

As I said at the beginning of this post I received my copy of  Lincoln: The Presidential Archives from the DK Publishing. In her email Carroll also offered to give me a second copy of the book  to use for a give away contest on my blog. So, to the first person who comments on this blog entry and emails their address to me I will send you a free copy of Lincoln: The Presidential Archives. How’s that for serendipity!

Caveat: I guess it wouldn’t be fair for any member of my family to win the book. If they want a copy they will have to put it on their Christmas list. 

Thomas Jefferson by R. B. Bernstein

I just finished reading Thomas Jefferson by R.B. Bernstein. As you may remember I also recently read His Excellency – George Washington by Joseph J. Ellis  and John Adams by David McCullough. Jefferson was American president number three, Adams was number two and of course Washington was number one. The Jefferson book was considerably shorter and also much more of an overview than the other two books. I found it engaging and interesting although I missed a lot of the in depth stories and quotations that the longer books included.

I have started a project to read at least one book about each of our presidents. When I was looking at reviews to help me decide which Jefferson book to read there were a lot of  comments about what a complex person Jefferson was. Before reading this book I really knew very little other than the basics about Jefferson. Bernstein’s book gave me a very balanced non judgmental perspective. I like it that in the epilogue Bernstein discusses the different historical stages that Jefferson’s reputation has gone through. Apparently over the years historians have had problems with how Jefferson’s actions often differed from his words and how he often said different things to different people about an issue. Examples of this include the fact that Jefferson hated slavery but owned slaves, Jefferson believed that the federal government only had the powers explicitly granted in the constitution but yet he purchased the Louisiana purchase, and he believed strongly in equality but yet was strongly against women in government. Jefferson was a consummate politician in the best sense of the word. I have always liked people who are able to see two sides of an issue and who are able to work with a diverse group of people. It seems to me that this is what makes Jefferson very likable to me.

I am finding that reading biographies is a great way to learn about history. Instead of reading about events I am reading about people’s reactions to the events and in fact am often reading more than one perspective. In essence it allows me to triangulate history.

Now I am on to President number four, Madison. If you have any suggestions for future books I should read let me know.

The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

I’m in the Bay Area tonight for my book club meeting. We discussed The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai.

I’ve decided I need to change the way I evaluate books. Books as art is my new paradigm. I can appreciate a Jackson Pollock painting without needing to know what it is. So I should be able to appreciate a book without it telling a story or having a plot. I tried to look at The Inheritance of Loss as a work of art.

There is no doubt that Kiran Desai is an extraordinarily talented writer. Her writing is lyrical. Her vignettes are memorable, sometimes funny, sometimes terribly sad. Perhaps that is what makes this such a depressing book. Inheritance of loss is about how life is unending loss and there is no hope. Desai is so talented that her depiction of life as loss is arresting. But the total lack of hope in this book was too much for me.

Of course life is loss, that is the easy part. The important part is hope. But there is no hope in this book. I admire people who in spite of overwhelming loss still strive to look forward with hope. So, if I measure Inheritance of Loss as art I can appreciate Desai’s talent but I don’t like the book much.

During the book club discussion the review of The Inheritance of Loss in the  NY Times by Pankaj Mishra was quoted. I just read the review. It does a much better job than I have of summing up this book. To Mishra the theme of The Inheritance of Loss is the "common experience of impotence and humiliation" shared by all of the characters in the book. Mishra says:

"Desai offers her characters no possibility of growth or redemption.
Though relieved by much humor, "The Inheritance of Loss" may strike
many readers as offering an unrelentingly bitter view. But then, as
Orhan Pamuk wrote soon after 9/11, people in the West are "scarcely
aware of this overwhelming feeling of humiliation that is experienced
by most of the world’s population," which "neither magical realistic
novels that endow poverty and foolishness with charm nor the exoticism
of popular travel literature manages to fathom." This is the invisible
emotional reality Desai uncovers as she describes the lives of people
fated to experience modern life as a continuous affront to their
notions of order, dignity and justice. We do not need to agree with
this vision in order to marvel at Desai’s artistic power in expressing
it."

A Wonderful Book Find – Sheetrock & Shellac – A Thinking Person’s Guide to the Art and Science of Home Improvement

Every once in a while I discover a book that I just love. Finding a new book that I can add to my list of books I love is always an unexpected treat. I savor reading my new find and I don’t want the book to end. It is such a delicious pleasure.

We just got back from  a trip to the Bay Area then to LA and then back to the Bay Area and then back to Reno. Last Monday we took a truck load of stuff from Union City to LA where one of Duke’s daughter’s is going back to school. We helped her find an apartment and move in. On Thursday we drove back to the Bay Area. We loaded up another truck load of our stuff, got rid of our storage locker and headed back to Reno. We are going to be here in Reno in our new house for a while now. It is exciting to finally be settling in.

But back to my wonderful book. I read the whole book on our trip and I loved it. The book is Sheetrock & Shellac – A Thinking Person’s Guide to the Art and Science of Home Improvement by David Owen. The title does a good job of describing the book but it didn’t prepare me for the laugh out loud humor or for how many interesting things I learned by reading it. I love David Owen’s wonderful ability to make everything from the history of the history of the toilet to all about backhoes fascinating. His skill with the English language reminded me of William F. Buckley’s books about sailing. Buckley wrote three sailing books; Airborne, Atlantic High, and Racing through Paradise. Whether or not you know anything about sailing they are a joy to read. Sheetrock & Shellac is the same. I have done very little home improvement but I don’t think it would matter if I had  never held a hammer. I think I still would have loved this book.

Sheetrock and Shellac is based on the authors experiences renovating his house and building a cabin. It contains a lot of his own story. For example:

"I built myself an office, in the master bedroom of the former apartment on the third floor…… I vividly remember the moment when I started the project. It was late at night and I was watching TV. Suddenly, my desire to build something serious became overpowering….. I put down my drink, loaded my tools into a canvas bag, carried the bag up to the third floor, and began, very quietly, to demolish an old plaster wall, in which deep cracks shaped like cartoon lightening bolts stretched from the ceiling to the floor. Carefully, I wedged the claw end of the hammer into one of the cracks; carefully, I pried off a piece of plaster the size of a chocolate chip cookie; carefully I caught the plaster cookie in my other hand, so that it wouldn’t ht the floor. I was trying very hard not to make too much noise because my kids were asleep one floor below. Yet I was so excited about building my office that before beginning I hadn’t bothered to cover the room’s freshly made bed or to remove some recently dry-cleaned clothes that were hanging in the closet. ( I did take a moment to close the closet door.)"

Sheetrock and Shellac also contains a lot of fascinating information about a lot of diverse things, hence the name. Here is an example from the section on shellac:

"Shellac is made from a natural resin, called lac, which is the only commercially valuable resin that is produced by an animal. (All other natural resins – rosin, amber, mastic, and dammar among them – are produced by plants; most synthetic resins, including the ones in  most plastics, are derived from petroleum."

I guess you can tell that I highly recommend this book. According to the dust jacket Owen is a staff writer for The New Yorker and has written a dozen previous books. I think I’ll go find another one of his books to read next.

 

A Presidential reading project and His Excellency – George Washington

As I mentioned a few days ago I have started working on a goal of reading at least one book about each of our presidents. I enjoy biographies because of the personal perspective on history that they provide. If anyone reading this has suggestions of other good presidential books to read I would love to hear your suggestions.

I just finished reading His Excellency – George Washington by Joseph J. Ellis. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It gives what appears to be a very balanced view of Washington’s life. In reading it I came to appreciate what an extraordinary man he was. He certainly earned the title Father of our Country.  Both John Adams by David McCullough and this Ellis book talk about what a pragmatist and realist Washington was and how valuable that trait was both during the war of independence and then later as president.

The book goes into some depth about Washington’s attitudes and actions towards slaves
and American Indians. In both cases his practical and realistic view of the issues seem admirable for the time.

One of the things that has surprised me about this time period is how partisan and vicious the press were. Both McCullough and Ellis discuss this. I thought that commentators like Rush Limbaugh and Maureen Dowd and their slanted, one sided, mean views of the world were a new phenomenon but apparently the press in the late 1700s may even have been worse if that is possible.

Washington’s concern about how he would be viewed by history surprised me. He not only worried about it but he also tried to shape it.

The fact that Washington retired after two terms and allowed the democratic process to work is something we take for granted. Ellis points out that it was an extraordinary act. How many revolutionary leaders from other countries can you think of who have done the same?

I am excited about my presidential reading project. I have always loved books and reading and I am finding that one of the best things about retirement is having the time to read. I love these quotes from the McCullough book about John Adams our second president.

“Adams library numbered 3,200 volumes”

“Unable to sleep as long as Abigail he would be out of bed and reading by candlelight at 5 in the morning and later would read well into the night.”

“Your father’s zeal for books will be one of the last desires which will quit him.” Abigail observed to John Quincy in the spring of 1816 as the 81 year old Adams eagerly embarked on a sixteen volume French history.