Alice B. Toklas

Dragon Mood? -- vindicated

Check. Another book completed: The Biography of Alice B. Toklas by Linda Simon.

I've always been curious about Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. Having read this biography, Toklas comes off as an incredibly loyal (most especially to Gertrude), but oddly discomforting person, given to jealousy and cutting off friendships. Gertrude sounds like she was a much more approachable and genial person. While Gertrude worked to secure her reputation as a 'genius' writer, her writing sounds rather repetitive, stream-of-consciousness-like and to my ears, a bit odd (the biographer offers samples in an appendix). What made Toklas and Stein truly interesting (to me) was the company they kept:  Matisse, Picasso, Thornton Wilder and many others.

Because these two women were more of the Victorian era than a 20th-century mindset, they led very circumspect lives. I wish the biographer had had more to work with relative to their relationship as 'modern day' lesbians. I kept finding myself wanting to know more.

I did learn that the phrase, "a rose is a rose is a rose" originated with Gertrude Stein. I feel curiously happy at that and vindicated that I spent the time reading the book.

Goodreads

Dragon Mood? -- pleased

Housekeeping note. I just added a widget for Goodreads, a web app that enables you to catalog the books you've read, are reading and hope to read. Then, it prompts you to share those with others. I LIKE it!

Mary's bookshelf: read




More of Mary's books »

Reading

Dragon Mood? -- antsy to read

Just a quick, housekeeping note that I added a list, "Books I'd LIKE to Read," to the column on the right. My to-do reading list is GROWING! I need to get at it!

The Way We're Working isn't Working

Dragon Mood? -- a sense of 'my' truth being spoken?

From Wall Street, to the lagging economy, to Greece and the "euro zone," to our broken regulatory system, to the high-speed computer trading system that might have played a role in last week's mini-meltdown in the stock market, to those two wars we're still in a decade later, it's clear that something is wrong. End of quote.

This quote, from a Huffington Post article, promotes the book, The Way We're Working Isn't Working. It's written by Tony Schwartz and Jean Gomes.

Here's what caught my eye about the book: our society, our world is operating under the myth that "human beings operate most productively in the same one-dimensional way computers do: continuously, at high speeds, for long periods of time, running multiple programs at the same time." That's a MYTH, not a statement of prescription.

Schwartz and Gomes go on to say however, that our basic survival instincts are to renew our energy. We're good at spending it and not so good at renewing it.

So, our culture tells us to go faster and faster, work 24/7, always be connected, checking emails, blah-blah-blah. Meanwhile, what we REALLY need is downtime. Time to renew our energy. Time to recharge.

Is it any wonder that things feel so accelerated? Everybody on information overload? Everybody working crazy long hours?

And for me, personally, is it any wonder that this is yet ANOTHER brick in the wall barring me from employment? I'm in my late 50s. I don't have the energy of a 30-something, nor do I want it. I'm happy being who I am. Yet, corporate culture doesn't appear to have room or make room for a slower pace, for renewal, for recharging. NO ROOM.

Am I simply spewing sour grapes? Am I trying to justify my inability to get a job with some authors' hypotheses? Just between you and me, I don't think so.

Adding to my book pile

Dragon Mood? -- excited

Taking myself out for a BIG adventure today, I went to the local used bookstore. It's a bookstore right out of a movie, long and narrow, bookshelves to the ceiling, books piled up everywhere. The lone person in the store, a slight, professorial-looking man, greeted me, my book list in hand.

"Do you have your books on a computerized list," I asked.

He replied by tapping the side of his head.

"Wow!" I sighed.

He took my list and turned on his heel. I followed behind. He led me from one book to the next, pulling them off packed shelves with surprising speed.

Here are my NEW used books:

• The Biography of Alice B. Toklas by Linda Simon
• Genius, The Life and Science of Richard Feynman by James Gleick
• A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
• Amazing Grace, A Vocabulary of Faith by Kathleen Norris

And now, I have a confession to make.  As I write this post, copying Amazon links to the books, I suddenly realize that the Alice B. Toklas biography I bought is not the autobiography by Gertrude Stein.  Uh-oh!  That's what I thought I was buying.  Silly me.  Well, I suspect I'll still enjoy reading it.

And before diving into any of them, the one I'm most looking forward to is the Kathleen Norris book.

But first, I will finish The Known World by Leonard P. Jones.  I only started it a couple of nights ago and I still have most of the novel to read.  It's an interesting book about a black man who owned slaves in Virginia of the 1850s.  I am enjoying reading his prose.

Sore throat to cough

Dragon Mood? -- sick of being sick

Yes, I'm a bit chagrined to admit that I stayed home yet another day feeling ill. Tuesday night, my extremely sore throat segued into a very annoying persistent cough that kept me up too much of last night. Chest feels tight. Massive headache. I felt extremely crummy this morning.

I finished a book today: Jayber Crow, a novel by Wendell Berry. I bought it last week at a used bookstore right here in our little Motown village. It was one of three that I bought as part of my summer plan to read, read, read and NOT watch TV. I got this hardback for a whole $6. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Which is why I sort of consumed it. And now I have TWO books for the rest of the summer. NNNNOT!

Actually, Ruth brought me (at my request) the John Adams' biography that we gave Paul about six or seven Christmases ago. I'm looking forward to reading that too.

Recent reads

Dragon Mood? -- LOVE to read!

Here's what I've been reading this summer ....

• Seventh Son by Orson Scott Card


• Red Prophet by Orson Scott Card


• Prentice Alvin again by Orson Scott Card


• and -- what else? -- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling

I must say ... I'm enjoying reading all this fantastical, magical literature. I plan on buying the rest of the Alvin Maker series by OSC. Nice website here.

Apocalyptic reading

Dragon Mood? -- remembering

While awaiting a much-anticipated phone call, I watched Oprah today. She interviewed Cormac McCarthy, a well-known and respected American author who is intensely private. He has just written a book called The Road, described as a post-apocalyptic novel. My ears immediately perked up.

When I was either a senior in high school or maybe a freshman in college, I read another post-apocalyptic book called A Canticle for Liebowitz. Here's a synopsis of it:

Walter M. Miller's acclaimed SF classic A Canticle for Leibowitz opens with the accidental excavation of a holy artifact: a creased, brittle memo scrawled by the hand of the blessed Saint Leibowitz, that reads: "Pound pastrami, can kraut, six bagels--bring home for Emma." To the Brothers of Saint Leibowitz, this sacred shopping list penned by an obscure, 20th-century engineer is a symbol of hope from the distant past, from before the Simplification, the fiery atomic holocaust that plunged the earth into darkness and ignorance. As 1984 cautioned against Stalinism, so 1959's A Canticle for Leibowitz warns of the threat and implications of nuclear annihilation. Following a cloister of monks in their Utah abbey over some six or seven hundred years, the funny but bleak Canticle tackles the sociological and religious implications of the cyclical rise and fall of civilization, questioning whether humanity can hope for more than repeating its own history. Divided into three sections--Fiat Homo (Let There Be Man), Fiat Lux (Let There Be Light), and Fiat Voluntas Tua (Thy Will Be Done)--Canticle is steeped in Catholicism and Latin, exploring the fascinating, seemingly capricious process of how and why a person is canonized. --Paul Hughes

For whatever reason, that book has always stuck with me. It left a deep and abiding impression on me. It was dark and depressing, but I felt compelled to read it to the end. Even the ending was dark and depressing. Ohh!

Now, I'm debating on whether I want to read McCarthy's book or not. I think so.

New reading

Dragon Mood? -- dubious dragon-y perplexity

While I'm traveling and enjoying the complete, familial insanity of March Madness, I'm also reading a new book, rather a book new to me called The Way the Crow Flies: A Novel by Anne-Marie MacDonald. I'm totally engrossed in it and now facing the perplexing dilemma of wanting to read it as quickly as I can while also wanting to stretch it out at least through my travels. Yikes!

The Faith Club

What to read a captivating book?

Check out The Faith Club: A Muslim, A Christian, A Jew-- Three Women Search for Understanding.

I heard a fascinating interview of these three authors on The Diane Rehm Show on NPR today.

Seldom does a book ask so much of its readers: open your mind, open your heart, examine your prejudices, purge yourself of them, become a better person, and then become an agent of change for good in the world. A modest proposal!

I'm hoping that Santa may bring me a copy for Christmas!