Sunday Salon: Vacation books

It's the 4th of July here in the US and for many people that means summer vacation. This is definitely true for us (well, not for my long-suffering husband but sheesh, someone has to keep working so the kids and I can continue along in the manner to which we've become accustomed--okay, don't feel too badly for him as we'll vacation later as a whole family so he's not entirely missing out). And what does vacation mean? It means packing. And not just clothes and swim suits and all the assorted things my mother calls and asks for last minute either. It means packing books. And that means going through the stacks and seeing which books make the cut for the trip and which don't. It's the summer book lover's version of the draft.

Since I am going for a week and then returning only for a brief time before being gone again for quite a while, I have to pack a lot of books. You just never know what you'll be in the mood to read at any given moment on vacation, right? Some books are a no brainer. Anything with a bookmark in it is guaranteed a spot in my luggage. But after that, the field opens a bit wider. I take any upcoming review books--and sometimes those that I didn't get to in time (better late than never, right?). And being an inveterate list maker, I also take all the books I have listed that I intend to read for the month (and maybe a few of next month's as well given how contrariwise my reading mood can be). At this point, my vacation book list is up well into the 50's so it's a darn good thing we drive. Those extra baggage fees (plus the over 50 lbs. fee) might make it financially out of reach for me to go on vacation overbooked like this!

I know I am completely and totally alone in taking so very many books along with me (and now you understand why I managed to destroy somewhere in the neighborhood of 70-80 books when the boat sank last summer. But I'm sure all readers face the vacation book dilemma. So how do you determine what you take with you or do you rely on local bookstores and the airport gift shop to supply your vacation reading?

This week I spent time in Tsarist Russia watching as first a young woman fell in love and was spurned and then once available, the object of her affection finally realized what he had missed out on, falling hopelessly for her. I also helped rescue dogs from a shelter as one of the vet techs there finally opened herself up to happiness and love, emerging from the shadow of her selfish but charming ex-husband. Bookmarks continue to work their way through a variety of other books as well.

Review: Street Gang by Michael Davis

Not much of a tv watcher as a child (at least as compared to my sister who would willingly watch the test pattern on Saturday mornings while waiting for the cartoons to start), I still logged quite a bit of time watching the marvelous and entertaining Sesame Street. As a college student, I was thrilled to find a program to download on my bright and shiny, new computer that made Oscar the Grouch pop up and sing "I Love Trash" each and every time you dumped something into your system trash can. I can't even begin to explain how often I created a blank document just to have something to throw away. I knew the world had lost a big soul when Jim Henson died (and a memorial to him found its way onto my dorm door). I watched Sesame Street with my own children. The Sesame Street puppets are a major part of my cultural history and so when I heard about this complete history of Sesame Street, I was thrilled. I even helped railroad my book club into reading it. So nothing could have been more disappointing than to find the book dry and dull and unwonderful.

Starting with the spark that eventually became the origin of Sesame Street, Davis traces the history of children's television in the 60's and the life stories of the major players in the development of the idea that became the Children's Television Workshop. Eventually he tackles the rise of the show itself, detailing the thinking behind the set design, the multi-cultural cast, and even the title of the show itself. There are political and business moves laid bare here and a quick skim through the post-Jim Henson Sesame Street.

Unfortunately, Davis' pre-show tracings consume well over 100 pages of the book and are packed to the brim with inconsequential minutia about other tv shows and the childhoods of the show's developers. It is almost as if he felt that leaving out any of his research would invalidate the time he spent on it. Instead, it made for a deadly boring read. There was little on the personal aspect of the show. None of the interesting tidbits that I hoped to learn. For instance, while mentioning that Oscar was orange in season one, he never tells the reader why a color change was made to this iconic puppet. He does cover some of the bigger strides made on the show, such as the emotional Farewell Mr. Hooper episode following actor Will Lee's death but he ignores other major parts, such as the use of famous guest hosts. The other big omission is that of more recent Sesame stuff. Once Jim Henson died, the book clicked into warp speed, racing toward the end with little commentary on the state of the Street these days and the innovations the CTW is playing with now.

There's very little of the quirky, human interest stuff that makes histories come alive. As a result, this history of Sesame Street takes on the droning tone of a textbook, detailing the uninteresting and missing out on those tidbits that would draw a reading audience, weaned on Sesame Street, in. Personally I would have loved information behind the development of the characters and the puppets. I know the show itself is a trail blazer and has had an immeasurable impact on children's educational programming but reading this "complete history" will make the reader think that it was a quaint idea of its time but something that is no longer relevant (and frankly uninteresting to read about). I just know there's a warm and wonderful Sesame Street story out there. This just didn't tell it.

Review: How to Tame a Modern Rogue by Diana Holquist

What a great premise for a book! Ally's aristocratic, addled grandmother thinks she's living in a Regency romance novel, one of her favorite reading genres and Ally, who is moving out of state shortly, has no desire to disabuse her grandmother of this, aside from the fact that this means Granny Donny is determined to marry Ally off to a Duke. As they live in New York City, Dukes are in short supply but one roguish English ex-pat literally jumps into the masquerade as he's trying to sneak off undetected by an irate ex. Sam Carson is indeed the modern incarnation of a rogue but he's also a good enough guy that he helps Ally play along with her grandmother's delusion. So when Granny Donny insists that her horse and carriage (hired from Central Park) must take them to the country estate (no matter what NYC law says about horses on bridges), Sam smooths the way, staying in character and allowing Ally to maintain the charade for Granny Donny, even as Ally allows herself to hope against all evidence to the contrary that perhaps her long missing parents are waiting for her at the "country house." What might be waiting is a changed Sam, one willing to be a reformed rogue.

This was a cute book, playing on the conventions of both historical and contemporary romances. It was funny and sweet and clever. The characters, especially Granny Donny and Ally, were charming. Sam was more stereotypical in presentation but his conversion from playboy to solid, dependable, likable to grannies guy was natural if a little easy. Fans of both historical and contemporary romances will definitely enjoy this dip into each others' swimming pools.

Saturday Shout-Out

On my travels through the blogging world, I find many books that pique my interest. I always add them to my wish list immediately but I tend to forget who deserves the blame credit for inspiring me to add them to my list (and to whom my husband would like to send the bill when I get around to actually buying them). So each Saturday I'm going to try and keep better track, link to my fellow book ferreter-outers (I know, not a word but useful nonetheless), and hopefully add to some of your wish lists too.

Living Among Headstones by Shannon Applegate was mentioned on Kittling: Books.

Elegies for the Broken Hearted by Christie Hodgen was mentioned on Bibliophile by the Sea.

What goodies have you added to your wish lists recently? Make your own list and leave a comment here so we can all see who has been a terrible influence inspiring you lately.

Review: Nothing But Ghosts by Beth Kephart

I have read several of Kephart's non-fiction offerings lately but I had never read one of her YA books until I picked this one up. It was getting a lot of pre-publication buzz in the blogging world and I didn't want to miss the boat, nevermind that YA is not my usual bailiwick.

Katie's mother recently died of cancer, leaving her alone to grieve with her father, an art restorer. His method of grieving includes locking himself away with the latest painting he has to work on, leaving his daughter adrift and mourning by herself. Not wanting to be surrounded by people either, Katie has taken a summer job working on the gardening crew of a local estate, the owner of which is an elderly woman who has locked herself away from the world for years. As Katie tries to come to terms with the new normal of life without her mother, she works to uncover the mystery of why Miss Martine, who was once a debutante, has voluntarily locked herself away from the world for so many years. Her father's latest restoration project, two brothers on the gardening crew, and a glamourous librarian all help Katie in her quest for answers and also in healing her heart a little.

The writing here is quite lyrical, making obvious the fact that Kephart is first and foremost a poet. Her descriptors and phrasing are not of the common sort and she definitely draws pictures in the readers' minds. The characters are believable and sympathetic. Katie is always age appropriate and her reaction to the continued loss of her mother will tug at your heartstrings. Ultimately though, there's very little that occurs in this novel and I had to skim back through it in order to write this review. Some of this is because I read it so long ago and didn't write a review immediately but some of it is because the story just didn't stay with me, offering me no little moments that punched their way into the permanence of my brain. That's not to say this isn't a good book because it is and I think that YA readers, both young and old, will appreciate it. It's just that it lacked that little something more for me. Maybe one of you will find it in there instead though.

Review: Cheap Cabernet by Cathie Beck

This is billed as a memoir about a friendship, the one of a kind friendship that so few people ever find in their lives but I'd argue that this is not what this is ultimately. Instead, it is a memoir about Cathie Beck, who overcame poverty and loneliness to raise her children, keep her self-respect, and ultimately came through to start a new life. Two narrative lines run through the memoir: that of Beck as a scared 21 year old mother of two whose husband has taken all their money and their car and taken off, permanently, and of Beck in her thirties after her children are launched into their own adult lives, looking for friendship and experiencing the rites of passage she missed on her trip through her twenties.

As a memoir about Beck, I think this was successful. As a memoir about friendship, I think it was less so. I didn't feel like we ever got a great sense of Cathie and Denise's friendship, jumping from them making a connection on the phone before the WOW (Women on the Way) meeting that Beck instituted in order to meet people to all of a sudden being so close they cut out the other women. Perhaps it is tough to verbalize the alchemy that makes a dear friendship but I just didn't feel as privy to what I had expected as I wanted to be. Denise was sort of a shadow throughout the book with her most salient feature being that she had MS. Being as unknowable to the reader as Denise was, that made it hard to believe that Cathie and Denise's was an enchanted, once in a lifetime friendship and certainly their eventual estrangement argues more for a friendship of a time and place, necessary for all that but not the thing that forever is made of.

Some of the transitions from Beck's life as a broke single mother to Beck as a woman wanting the friendship of other women are a bit choppy. But then again, life isn't seamless either. Those interested in the nature of friendship, starting over as an adult, and the demands of terminal illness will enjoy this book, even if these issues oftentimes are skated over a tad superficially.

Thanks to Hyperion Books for sending me a review copy of this book.

Review: On Folly Beach by Karen White

Even though I am now a Southerner (well, a Yankee transplant if we're being 100 percent accurate), I am not terribly familiar with southern beaches or islands. Life just conspires to keep me in my inland bubble. But that doesn't mean I don't think about the appeal of these places now well within driving distance of my house. So when I saw the premise of Karen White's On Folly Beach, I was definitely intrigued. That there were parallel story lines, one current and one set during World War II, made it that much more attractive.

Opening in Indiana in 2009 with Emmy unable to sleep, certain down to the marrow of her bones that her beloved husband Ben has been killed in Afghanistan, the book then moves back in time to 1942 and Folly Beach. Both threads of the novel deal with loss and acceptance and eventually come together nicely.

Emmy's mother, who hails from Folly Beach, SC pushes Emmy to buy the small bookstore on the island as a way of encouraging her to accept Ben's life and to move on. What convinces Emmy to do what her mother wants is the mystery she discovers in a box of books sent from the bookstore. There are books with notes written in them, some from a woman and some from a man but Emmy knows that she doesn't have the entirety of the correspondence and she is intrigued by the clandestine nature of the jottings, getting a frisson up her spine whenever she finds another one. And so her life as the proprieter of Folly's Finds commences with the stipulation that Lulu, the aunt-in-law of the current owner, be allowed to continue her bottle tree business out of the backyard of the bookstore.

Alternating chapters with Emmy's eventual reawakening to life is the story of Cat, Maggie, Lulu, and Peter during World War II. Cat, newly widowed, is eager to meeting new men, dancing with all the soldiers on Folly Beach who are waiting to be sent overseas. Her cousin Maggie is the quiet voice of reason who feels compelled to help Cat maintain a more decorous air if possible even while she is also responsible for younger sister, the eagle-eyed and observant Lulu. So when Peter comes into Folly's Finds, the small general store and bookstore that Maggie runs, and seems to have eyes only for Maggie, it seems as if happiness will finally come for Maggie.

As Emmy, in the present day, uncovers more and more about the people writing the notes in the old books, the WWII storyline comes closer and closer to its conclusion. The amazing thing about this book is that both storylines are equally weighted and well done. The characters in each part of the book are distinct and interesting. And as the narrative tension builds in one section, it is mirrored in the other, giving a cohesive feel to the book as a whole. Also included very organically is some interesting and seemingly little known WWII information that becomes an integral piece in the ultimate denouement of the historic portion of the story. White has created an engrossing read, one that not only offers up interesting new historical fact but is also right at home on the beach. Family, love, a 50 year old mystery coded in books, and the theme of renewal, what more can a reader ask for?

Thanks to Joy at Joan Schulhafer Publishing and Media Consulting for sending me a copy of the book to review.