Letters from Yellowstone by Diane Smith

August 10, 2014 in Fiction, Montana | Tags: | by | 2 comments

A case of mistaken identity — or, rather fanciful wishing on the part of Professor Howard Merriam and the use of initials on the part of Alexandria Bartram — allows a young woman who dreams of becoming accomplished in the field of botany to join a field study in Yellowstone National Park during the summer of 1989. Displeased that find a woman on their team, Professor Merriam and the rest of his hodgepodge team of scientists attempt to persuade her to return home, but Alex is determined to stay and explore the yet undocumented wonders of the Nation’s Park before the visitors — including a foreign count who calls hunting “science” — had a chance to destroy its beauty.

I once took a class at the university where many of Smith’s characters hail; there’s no Hill Hall but there is a building dedicated to the study of botany so Professor Merriam got his wish. And, having spent several summers and winters exploring Yellowstone Park, it was fun to revisit the park and consider how the first national park has changed and yet remained the same in the last 116 years. Captain Craighead may be a fictional character but I am thankful there were members of the U.S. Calvary, people in government and academia, and common citizens who refused to allow the park to be siphoned off into a series of private enterprises or for the railroad to build an electric rail through the park to carry visitors in and gold or ore out. Alex’s experiences are not entirely unlike my own — the excitement of seeing a bison for the first time, the wonderment over the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, the hope you will see a bear in the wild — and it was wonderful to revisit those experiences in my mind as I read about Alex.

The title of Smith’s book led me to mistakenly believe it was a nonfictional book and while it quickly became clear that was not the case, the book does live up to its title in the format in which it is written. Rather than relying upon a more traditional narrative, Smith presents the story in a series of letters and telegrams sent to family and friends outside the park’s boundary allowing the reader to be privy to thoughts and feelings that might not have been readily presented in another format. The letters did not always convey the time period in which they were supposed to be written. Some of the thoughts appears to modern, although that may be because I often have the same thoughts whilst visiting Yellowstone. Even so, I enjoyed this deviation in narrative styles enough to hope Smith finishes the other novel she mentions in the interview at the end.

Book Mentioned:

  • Smith, Diane. Letters from Yellowstone. New York: Penguin, 2000. Print. 256 pgs. ISBN: 9780140291810. Source: Purchased.
Book Cover © Penguin. Retrieved: August 10, 2014.

The Silver Star by Jeannette Walls

August 8, 2014 in Fiction | Tags: | by | Leave a comment

Precocious Jean ‘Bean’ Holliday lives with her gifted fifteen-year-old sister, Liz, and their flighty mother, Charlotte, who is determined to make it in the music industry as she relocates her daughters around California in the 1970s. When Charlotte’s latest fantasy backfires, she takes off to discover herself leaving her daughters enough money to indulge in frozen pot pies while she’s away for a month or two.

But the man who owns the grocery store becomes suspicious of Bean and Liz purchasing groceries for themselves week after week, the police are dispatched to investigate and Liz and Bean take off via bus to Virginia. There, in the hometown their mother fled soon after Bean’s birth, the Holliday sisters meet their Uncle Tinsley, discover who their fathers are, and learn why their mother left.

With no word from their mother and concerned they are putting undue economic strain on their uncle, the girls begin babysitting and doing office work for Jerry Maddox, foreman of the town mill that was once owned by the Holliday family. Maddox shames his wife for her sexual behavior before their marriage and takes her clothes away in order to keep her under her thumb. And the town members turn a blind eye because the mill is only employment in town agreeing to whip boys whom Maddox hates and changing their testimony in a case that threatens to unravel the life of the Holliday girls.

At one point in Walls’ novel, her narrator begins to discuss the plot of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and the familiarity of Walls’ novel began to make sense: a precocious narrator with a nickname who serves as the moral compass, a Southern town that turns a blind eye to injustices, an older sibling who provides wisdom and guidance for their younger sibling, a father who must make a choice about the morally right thing to do. It’s not the same and yet it is. Because while Walls’ novel addresses another scourge of this world, she relies upon an all too familiar narrator to tell it.

With that said, the beginning of the novel is very strong. I was pulled into the setting and the story wanting to know more about Bean but, most especially, her older sister who seemed wised beyond her years. Unfortunately, Liz becomes a victim to a prioritization of Bean as the character to root for, as the character who serves as the voice of morality for the story. It rubbed me the wrong way to read about Bean pushing for what her sister should do rather than allowed Liz to have the space to make such a decision for herself.

And the ending? I won’t spoil it for those who still want to read the novel, but I am curious as to how my book group’s discussion of this novel will go. Personally, I felt like the ending was a cop-out a la Jodi Picoult, and I was disappointed that Maddox’s other crimes were allowed to slide in that Bean never called him out for hurting his wife, children, or others in the community. I couldn’t not ascertain exactly what Walls was trying to say with her ending and I think I would have preferred to be left with the uncertainty of injustice than the ending Walls provided.

 Books Mentioned:

  • Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. New York: Grand Central, 1988. Originally Published 1960. Print. 281 pgs. ISBN: 9780446310789. Source: Purchased.
  • Walls, Jeannette. The Silver Star. New York: Scribner, 2013. Print. 267 pgs. ISBN: 9781451661507. Source: Library.
Book Cover © Scribner. Retrieved: August 8, 2014.

Library Loot: July 30 to August 5

August 6, 2014 in Library Loot | by | Leave a comment

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Has it really been over two years since I posted my loot from the library. Eek! I can assure you that I haven’t been neglecting the library in that time. In fact, I picked up my public library card the day after I moved to my new city, and I have been liberally using it ever since. I forgot to photograph all the cookbooks I’ve checked out from the library, but I do have a mixture of fiction and nonfiction titles to share with you.

The Silver Star (Jeannette Walls): This is my book club’s selection for August’s meeting. I’ve heard several people call Walls’ memoir, The Glass Castle, a classic so I’m excited to read her first novel.

The Leftovers (Tom Perrotta): I read Perrotta’s The Abstinence Teacher back in 2009 and, unfortunately, didn’t love it. However, this book has been receiving a lot of attention as of late and I’m intrigued by the premise. I originally picked it up because a book club I wanted to join was reading it for August, but my membership was never confirmed on Meetup so I don’t think I’ll have the opportunity to discuss it anywhere but here should I decide to read it.

The Amish (Donald B. Kraybill, Karen M. Johnson-Weiner, and Steven M. Nolt): Long time readers of this book blog know I can’t resist any book about the Amish be it fiction or non-fiction. The later is my preference, though, and I was thrilled to spy it on the new nonfiction shelf during one of my lunch break strolls through the library.

Love Anthony (Lisa Genova): Yet another book club selection. This is actually the September selection for the book club reading Walls’ novel in August but when I looked up the book in the library catalog, there was about fifteen or so people already on the wait list. I added myself thinking I’d end up having to source the book somewhere else so imagine my surprise when it showed up on the hold shelf for me. I read Genova’s Left Neglected back in 2011 and thought it was okay so hopefully this book will be a more enjoyable read.

Bunker Hill (Nathaniel Philbrick): I believe my dad and I heard about this book during our recent visit to the Bunker Hill monument and museum. Or, maybe it was referenced in another nonfiction book he has read about the American Revolution? Either way, I was very pleased to find this available at the public library. I’m hoping he can get a copy so we can discuss together.

The Crooked Mirror (Louise Steinman): This nonfiction book looks at the complex history of the Polish-Jewish relationship and the question of victim and persecutor under the guise of the author addressing her own feelings towards the Poles knowing the treatment of her mother and extended family during the Holocaust whilst attending a conference on bearing witness to the Holocaust in Poland.

Library Loot:

A weekly event, Library Loot encourages bloggers to share the books that followed them home from their local library in the past week. If you’d like to participate, write up your post — feel free to steal the button — and any time during the week and post the link on the blog of the host for that week. The event is hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Linda from Silly Little Mischief.

Recent Acquisitions

August 4, 2014 in Bookish Notes | by | 4 comments

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Over the weekend, I walked over to the public library — yes, I finally realized my dream of living within walking distance of a library! — with a friend who was visiting for the day and pursued the used book sale. We arrived right as the sale opened, and there was already large crowd assembled picking through the boxes of books on the tables and the bookshelves lining the walls.

Despite missing out on a copy of Little Bee by Chris Cleave, I was able to pick up seven books I’ve wanted to read for awhile now at a dollar a piece thus expanding my personal library from a pitiful collection of one nonfiction book and two guidebooks to my new city. (Due to relocation costs, I left my entire book collection — read and unread — back at my parents’ home.) And, better yet, my friend was able to purchase two beautiful art books for her grandfather, whose birthday party she was headed to later that day, at a total of $15.

  • Let the Great World Spin (Colum McCann) — It is August 1974, and a mysterious tightrope walker is running, dancing, leaping between the Twin Towers, suspended a quarter mile above the ground. Sounds interesting, no? I think I tried to read this book once before because the title sounds so familiar, but the plethora of reviews I’ve seen over the years for McCann’s novel might be why it sounds so familiar to me.
  • Shantram (Gregory David Roberts) — Narrated by Lin, an escaped convict with a false passport who flees maximum security prison in Australia for the teeming streets of a city where he can disappear, Roberts’ novel introduces readers to Bombay’s hidden society of beggars and gangsters, prostitutes and holy men, soldiers and actors, and Indians and exiles from other countries. I picked up a copy because I remembered Erin of Erin Reads’ review. Looking over her review now, however, I see that her praise was for the audiobook not the print edition. Whoops.
  • Memoirs of a Gesha (Arthur Golden) — Written as a fictional memoir, Golden’s tells the story of one woman’s life as a geisha over a twenty year period in the 1930s. I saw the movie adaptation of this film over two years ago and really enjoyed it.
  • Snow Falling on the Cedars (David Guterson) – In 1954 a fisherman is found dead and a local Japanese-American man is charged with his murder. In the course of his trial, it becomes clear that more is at stake than one man’s guilt. For San Piedro is haunted by memories: of a past love affair between a white boy and a Japanese girl; of land desired, paid for and lost; and of what happened during World War II when its Japanese residents were sent into exile while their neighbors watched. This the one book that I picked up merely on a whim.
  • In the Shadow of Gotham (Stefanie Pintoff) — Young Sarah Wingate has been brutally murdered in her own bedroom in the middle of an otherwise calm and quiet winter afternoon. After just one day of investigation, Detective Simon Ziele is contacted by Columbia University’s noted criminologist Alistair Sinclair, who offers a startling claim about one of his patients, Michael Fromley—that the facts of the murder bear an uncanny resemblance to Fromley’s deranged mutterings. Another book I’ve seen several reviews for in the past.
  • The Invisible Bridge (Julie Orringer) — Andras Lévi, a Hungarian Jewish architecture student, arrives from Budapest with a scholarship, a single suitcase, and a mysterious letter he has promised to deliver to C. Morgenstern on the rue de Sévigné. This book was published right about the time I visited Hungary, and I have wanted to read it ever since. The photograph on the cover is of the bombed out bridges connecting Buda with Pest to form the city of Budapest.
  • The Tiger’s Wife (Téa Obreht) — In a Balkan country mending from years of conflict, Natalia, a young doctor, arrives on a mission of mercy at an orphanage by the sea. By the time she and her lifelong friend Zóra begin to inoculate the children there, she feels age-old superstitions and secrets gathering everywhere around her. Again, another book I’ve seen several reviews for since its publication.

Also pictured is the book I picked up at my new book club’s recent meeting. I traded in my copy of Out Stealing Horses by Per Patterson as I have tried to read the book multiple times with little success for a copy of The Marriage Plot by Jeffery Eugenides since I loved his other novel Middlesex. I know The Marriage Plot has not been as widely loved as Middlesex but given the other choices, it was the only one that caught my attention. I hope I’ll have better luck with it than others have before me.

Just Married and Cooking by Brooke Parkhurst and Jamie Briscione

August 2, 2014 in Cookbook, Food, Nonfiction | Tags: , | by | 9 comments

I was toying with the idea of sharing my thoughts on cookbooks here for the past few days (I had been taking pictures to send friends and family), but I figured few — if any — people would be interested until I opened up my feed reader and saw several posts contributing to the Cook It Up! Challenge hosted by Trish of Love, Laughter and a Touch of Insanity.

I don’t technically own any cookbooks that need to be dusted off, which the whole point of the challenge, but after a whole week of eating spaghetti with either chicken or ground beef for dinner almost every night and the leftovers for lunch, I checked out seven cookbooks covering varying types of food from my local library and dived right in.

I spent most of July trying the recipes from Just Married and Cooking by Brooke Parkhurst and Jamie Briscione, which I selected not because I just got married but because I was on the hunt for the ever elusive cooking for one cookbook. I thought this would be a compromise since “just married” lends itself to the idea that the recipes would be for two people, but apparently I didn’t read the subtitle close enough because the vast majority of the recipes are for eight people. Apparently, married couples are supposed to entertain. A lot.

But I have a freezer and the ability to do basic division so I went through the book and flagged the recipes that sounded most appetizing to me: Beefy Southwestern Chili, Chicken and Mushroom Burgers, Grilled Chicken Panzanella, and Popovers.

Beefy Southwestern Chili

The city I live in experience a bout of cooler days in mid-July, and I was craving some comfort food as I deal with a bout of homesickness. Although I managed to catch the detail about letting the black beans soak overnight, which wasn’t actually listed a step in the recipe, it didn’t click as I read the authors’ introduction about how the key to good chili is making sure to season the beef at the beginning when it’s raw not after it has been simmering for an hour that I would actually end up having to cook the chili for an hour. I ate a bowl of ice cream while I waited and laughed about how I’m such a rookie chef, but the wait was well worth it. I loved this chili and was so glad I made enough to freeze for a few days.

I’ve actually never had chili with beans in it before since my mom won’t eat beans, and I think they needed to soak much longer than Parkhurst and Briscione suggest. I dumped mine in a bowl with water during my lunch break the day before I made this recipe and they still came out kind of chewy rather than tender, but cooking time issues seem to be a common problem with this cookbook. I also thought it was odd that the authors put corn on the cob in their ingredients list when you were just going to cut it off the corn. I understand it would be fresher than frozen corn, but why put in all that effort?

Chicken and Mushroom Burgers

Personally, I prefer beef hamburgers over those made with ground chicken, but the idea of mixing mushrooms into the patty was too tempting to pass-up. It was surprisingly delicious; on par with anything I could buy at a local burger restaurant. Parkhurst and Briscione say you can use chicken stock or white wine when making this recipe. I used chicken stock since I had some leftover from making the chili (above), but I think white wine would make it more flavorful. Certainly the way I’d go when I make this recipe again.

The recipe also says those without a grill should bake them for about twelve minutes in a 425-degree oven. No dice. Underdone, I switched the oven from bake to high broil (my oven only has a low or high broil setting) and cooked the burgers for another fifteen minutes. Thankfully, the burgers weren’t too overcooked and dry this way. Yet another example of how questionable the cooking instructions are for this book.

Chicken Panzanella

I made the grilled chicken panzanella right before my book club meeting thinking it would be a nice summery salad and ended up showing up to the meeting smelling like semi-burnt chicken because the stove-top cooking instructions were not exactly accurate. The recipe also says that the onions should marinate in vinegar for at least fifteen minutes before mixing in the bread chunks and tomatoes. Admittedly, I was in a rush to get out the door, but everything was pretty bland when I sat down to eat dinner.

That said, I had enough for leftovers and after sitting in my fridge for a day or two, I could really taste the olive oil, garlic, and basil and the onions were very tender. If I was to make this again, I’d make it in the morning and then having for dinner that night in order to really get all the taste it is supposed to have.

Popovers

I don’t have a popover pan, probably because I haven’t had a wedding registry, so I made mine in a muffin pan and they weren’t very tall or impressive looking, which the book said would be the case. But they still tasted pretty good. I used a cup of Colby Jack cheese instead of Monterey Jack or Gruyére since I already had it on hand, and I think I needed to do a better job of mixing it into the batter. The popovers were cheesy on top but doughy on the bottom so it’s a good thing I skipped adding the Parmesan cheese on top. This is the only recipe I tried where the baking time was exactly right.

Besides the issue with the cook times, the other odd thing about this cookbook is that it has no pictures other than an insert like you would find in biographies with colorful photographs of sixteen of their 200 recipes (none of which I made). This actually really bugged me at first because I wanted to know what I was making; food is more enticing when I see pictures of it. But as I went through the recipes and had a few mishaps here and there, I actually appreciated not knowing how my food should look. It was what it was and, most importantly, it was delicious.

Book Mentioned:

  • Parkhurst, Brooke and James Briscione. Just Married and Cooking: 200 Recipes for Living, Eating, and Entertaining Together. New York: Scribner, 2011. Print. 323 pgs. ISBN: 9781439169988. Source: Library.

Cook It Up!

I read this book for the Cook It Up! Challenge hosted by Trish of Love, Laughter and a Touch of Insanity, which encourages participants to dust off their cookbooks and put them to us. Participants make their own rules as to how they have “completed” a cookbook — I try to cook at least four or five recipes in a month — and post about their progress on the first Saturday of each month, if they choose to do so.

 
Book Cover © Scribner. Retrieved: August 2, 2014. Photographs © Ardent Reader.
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