Happy Father's Day *Tomorrow* to all the great dads out there, including my husband Jim and my own father, who has passed "beyond the rim" as they say on Babylon 5, two years ago, from Lewy Body Dementia. It's hard work being a father, supporting your family and teaching your children and taking responsibility for making it all work. Thank you, dads, for all that you do to make a family a family. Meanwhile, I've got 4 books to review and a lot of tidbits to share. I hope you are all enjoying the sunshine!
Having actually taken a stand up comedy class and killed it at my final 10 minutes of stand up to graduate, I've always had an appreciation of the comedian as an entertainer and performer. I also always enjoyed the funnier shows when I was working on my theater degree back at Clarke College in the early 80s. So this is a book that I'd certainly like to read, if nothing else for the anecdotes and view to the history of comedy.
Book Review: Inside Comedy: The Soul, Wit, and Bite of Comedy and Comedians of the Last Five Decades
Inside Comedy: The Soul, Wit, and Bite of Comedy and Comedians of the Last Five Decades is unpolished, repetitive, digressive and occasionally braggadocious. This is arguably a felicitous approach to stand-up legend David Steinberg's splendid subject: the unpredictable, ego-driven, and literally and figuratively improvisational world of comedy in the latter half of the 20th century.
Steinberg (The Book of David), who grew up in Winnipeg in the 1940s, can offer valuable generational perspective on his chosen field: "I lived through a time when stand-up comedy was a poor relation to other forms of entertainment," he writes early on in Inside Comedy. "But I think I was one of a group of people--along with Steve Martin, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, and a few others--who pushed stand-up forward as an art form and made comedy an important part of the culture." Inside Comedy proceeds as a memoir/love letter/victory lap hybrid.
While attending the University of Chicago, Steinberg saw legendary comic Lenny Bruce perform, and it altered his destiny. Steinberg scrapped his plan to follow a religious path, although his yeshiva days would inform his comedy act. During his six years with the Chicago improv comedy group Second City, Steinberg became known for doing mock sermons that would make him a reliable comedy-club and TV fixture in the late 1960s. That these mock sermons would play a part in the 1969 cancellation of the censor-testing Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour comes across as a source of pride for Steinberg, second only to his collected 140 invitations to appear on or guest host Johnny Carson's Tonight Show.
Steinberg stayed the showbiz course--he turned to directing sitcoms in the 1980s; his name is attached to everything from The Golden Girls to Curb Your Enthusiasm--and the famous funny friends he racked up along the way, among them Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Martin Mull and Wanda Sykes, are spotlighted in the book's lengthy concluding chapter. But Inside Comedy's calling card is Steinberg's historically attuned firsthand accounts, as of the rise and fall of the Smothers Brothers, Richard Pryor's notorious onstage freak-out at a Human Rights Campaign event in 1977, and the marvel that was Carson's Tonight Show. "If you are looking for any scandalous or critical anecdotes about Johnny from me," Steinberg writes, "you are not going to get them." Fortunately for readers, he is only too happy to let Bea Arthur have it. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer
Believe it or not, I used to have a portable manual typewriter that was a pretty aqua color when I was a teenager. I didn't get an electric typewriter until I had graduated from college and was in my graduate program in Cambridge, Mass. I still miss the sound that the manual Corona used to make, and how easy it was to work on (but it was hard to correct mistakes). When I first entered Island Books on Mercer Island, WA, I was thrilled to see all the old vintage typewriters lining the walls atop the bookcases. It doesn't surprise me that they're back in style again, because they're beautiful machines, from an artistic design standpoint.
Wanted: Vintage Typewriters
Even old typewriters are in short supply.
RiverRun Bookstore http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz48827192, Portsmouth, N.H., which has long sold vintage typewriters as a sideline, said recently that it needs more typewriters to sell: "We are all out!" RiverRun is seeking manual typewriters (no electrics).
RiverRun has sold manual typewriters for about eight years, and owner Tom Holbrook, who does repairs himself, has said that while they account for a small percentage of sales, the display draws people inside.
Oooh, Edgar Allan Poe comes to life on the small screen! I can hardly wait for this to hit Netflix!
Movies: The Pale Blue Eye
Harry Melling (Queen's Gambit, Harry Potter franchise) will play a young Edgar Allan Poe in the Netflix and Scott Cooper murder mystery The Pale Blue Eye http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz48827204, based on the novel by Louis Bayard. Deadline reported that the film "is a passion project of Cooper, who has tried making it for more than a decade." The movie also stars Christian Bale.
Cooper will direct and adapt the screenplay. Bale will produce with Cooper, John Lesher and Tyler Thompson of Cross Creek Pictures. Bale and Cooper previously worked together on Out of the Furnace and Hostiles.
If you've read the New Yorker in the past several decades, you likely read one of Janet Malcolm's articles, which always displayed the deepest critical thinking skills combined with the scathing wit of Voltaire.She was merciless and amazing, and her like will never be seen again. RIP, Ms Malcolm.
Obituary Note: Janet Malcolm
Janet Malcolm, "a longtime writer for the New Yorker who was known for her piercing judgments, her novel-like nonfiction and a provocative moral certainty that cast a cold eye on journalism and its practitioners," died June 16,the New York Times reported. She was 86. Malcolm "produced an avalanche of deeply reported, exquisitely crafted articles, essays and books, most devoted to her special interests in literature, biography, photography, psychoanalysis and true crime. Her writing was precise and analytical; her unflinching gaze missed nothing."
One of her best known works was The Journalist and the Murderer, a forensic examination of the relationship between author Joe McGinniss and convicted murderer Jeffrey MacDonald, which was published as a two-part essay in the New Yorker in 1989 and as a book the following year. The Times noted: "One of the through lines in her work was a merciless view of journalism, never mind that she was one of its most prominent practitioners."
Malcolm's books include Diana & Nikon: Essays on the Aesthetic of Photography; The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath & Ted Hughes; Reading Chekhov: A Critical Journey; Iphigenia in Forest Hills: Anatomy of a Murder Trial; The Purloined Clinic: Selected Writings; and Nobody's Looking at You: Essays. Among her honors are the 2008 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography for Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice; and the 2013 National Book Critics Circle Award (Criticism) shortlist for Forty-One False Starts.
Describing Malcolm as "a dear friend," New Yorker editor David Remnick wrote http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz48872306 in a tribute: "From her early pieces on the world of psychoanalysis to her most recent Profiles, her reputation often seemed to rest as much on her razor-sharp acuity as on the enormous intelligence of her prose. And yet she was immensely kind, full of scrupulous self-questioning about all acts of definitive judgment. Tilting her head slightly, her eyes narrowing, she seemed, catlike, to take everything in. And, when she sat down to write, the instrument of her prose was equal to the intelligence and range of her mind.... "In the coming days, you'll be able to read many obituaries and appreciations of Janet's work here and elsewhere. But, in the immediate hours and days after her death, we hope that you'll read her work.... Her sentences, clear as gin, spare as arrows, are like no one else's. And her considerations--of psychoanalysis, of biography, and of journalism itself--are all examples of a rare and utterly free mind at work."
New Yorker writer Alec Wilkinson observed:"A person as exceptional as Malcolm was something like an archive of sensibility and thought, one that is irreplaceable, and when such a person dies it is, as John Updike said, of William Maxwell, as if a library has burned. People such as Malcolm, who appear to be so much themselves, are rare and inspiring, and the loss of such a person is an impoverishment."
"We are each of us an endangered species http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz48872309," Malcolm wrote in a 2018 New Yorker piece. "When we die, our species disappears with us. Nobody like us will ever exist again."
Lizzie and Dante by Mary Bly has been on the NYT Bestseller list for months now, and it has gotten more good press than most books see in a year. I was encouraged to read it by several friend and two different publisher's e-newsletters, so I decided to go all in and buy the hardback book. First things first, the prose is lush and evocative, so much so that you really feel like you're in Italy, looking out at the bright coastal waters and eating the fabulous local cuisine. The plot is beautifully rendered, smooth and engaging enough to keep you turning pages long after bedtime. The protagonists, Lizzie and Dante are interesting and dimensional, but Dante's daughter Etta is the snottiest, annoying and most interfering 12 year old on the planet. She nearly ruined the book for me, as she was rude and crude and aggressively obnoxious, not in a cute way, and I found the fact that no one, not her father or any other adult, took her to task for being such a spoiled brat. WHY was no one able to discipline Etta? My parents would never have allowed such vile behavior from their daughter, especially. I don't think 12 year olds with no manners or courtesy are cute, and I became more frustrated with her as the story unfolded. Yes, I know she was looking for a mother figure, but still, latching onto Lizzie and trying to force her father into marrying Lizzie so that she can have a mother is ridiculously machiavellian for someone who isn't even a teenager yet. Here's the blurb: What if falling in love means breaking someone’s heart?
On
the heels of a difficult break-up and a devastating diagnosis,
Shakespeare scholar Lizzie Delford decides to take one last lavish
vacation on Elba, the sun-kissed island off the Italian coast, with her
best friend and his movie-star boyfriend. Once settled into a luxurious
seaside resort, Lizzie has to make big decisions about her future, and
she needs the one thing she may be running out of: time.
She
leaves the yacht owners and celebrities behind and sneaks off to the
public beach, where she meets a sardonic chef named Dante, his battered
dog, Lily, and his wry daughter, Etta, a twelve-year-old desperate for a
mother. While Dante shows Lizzie the island’s secrets, and Etta dazzles
with her irreverent humor, Lizzie is confronted with a dilemma. Is it
right to fall in love if time is short? Is it better to find a mother
briefly, or to have no mother at all? And most pressingly, are the
delicacies of life worth tasting, even if you will get to savor them
only for a short while?
A luscious story of love, courage, and Italian wine, Lizzie & Dante demands to know how far we should travel to find a future worth fighting for.
I also found her one-time boyfriend, the gay Grey, being so super-possessive of her that he nearly comes to blows with Dante to also be ridiculous. He is supposedly her best friend and someone who loves her...so why wouldn't he want her to be happy for the last part of her life? SPOILER, Lizzie "fighting" her cancer and being deathly ill and in pain for at least a couple of her last 5 years of life, just so Dante and Etta can be happy, seemed to me to be a bridge too far. It made Lizzie into the typical female martyr, who gives everything of herself for others. Again, this seems supremely selfish of Dante and Etta, who claim to love her. Still, this was a well written book that I did enjoy reading, for the most part (I do wish someone would have given that nasty 12 year old a swat on the ass and some disciplinary talking-to, though). I'd give the book a B+, and recommend it to anyone who likes books about last chance romances.
A Rogue's Company by Allison Montclair is book 3 of her Sparks & Bainbridge mystery series. This is one of those rare mystery series that I keep enjoying not only because of the female protagonists, but because of the clearly and delightfully-drawn side characters that Montclair seeds throughout her books that stick with the reader because they're just so fascinating and fun to spend time with. From Archie the underground mobster to Sally the giant with the squishy soft heart (who has a crush on Gwendolyn), this is a cast of characters that have such delicious backstories that you will find yourself impatient for the next installment of this series, just to see what they're up to now. Here's the blurb: In Allison Montclair's A Rogue's Company, business becomes
personal for the Right Sort Marriage Bureau when a new client, a brutal
murder, two kidnappings, and the recently returned from Africa Lord
Bainbridge threatens everything that one of the principals holds dear.
In
London, 1946, the Right Sort Marriage Bureau is getting on its feet and
expanding. Miss Iris Sparks and Mrs. Gwendolyn Bainbridge are making a
go of it. That is until Lord Bainbridge—the widowed Gwen's father-in-law
and legal guardian—returns from a business trip to Africa and threatens
to undo everything important to her, even sending her six-year-old son
away to a boarding school.
But there's more going on than that. A
new client shows up at the agency, one whom Sparks and Bainbridge begin
to suspect really has a secret agenda, somehow involving the Bainbridge
family. A murder and a subsequent kidnapping sends Sparks to seek help
from a dangerous quarter—and now their very survival is at stake.
I knew that Lord Bainbridge was going to be complicit well before he was kidnapped, and I was glad that he was brought low, because he was such a scumbag. Now that I'm invested in the characters, I am hoping that Gwendolyn will finally get full custody of her son and be able to move forward with her life. Montclair's prose is golden, clean and crisp and delightful. Her plots move forward swiftly and with confidence. I'd give this book an A, and recommend it to anyone else who has read a Bainbridge and Sparks mystery, and wants to know more about how Iris, Gwen and their assorted friends and lovers fair.
The Second Chance Boutique: a Love Story by Louisa Leaman is an odd little romance book that I thought was going to be magical realism or fantasy combined with romance, but which turned out to be more of a regular romance with a dash of the paranormal thrown in and then explained away. Though the prose was decent, the plot meandered and took a few twists that were weird. Here's the blurb:
A heartwarming story about the power of the perfect dress―and the perfect love―to change your life.
Francesca Delaney has a knack for matching a bride-to-be with the wedding dress of her dreams. Her shop, The Whispering Dress, is no ordinary bridal boutique. Every gown is vintage, and the wedding dresses seem to share their stories with Francesca, pointing to which woman needs them next.
Fran credits her success to two rules: never covet a dress and never sell a dress that led to a doomed marriage. But then she finds a beautiful 1950s couture floor-length gown, and her obsession threatens win out. The owner, however, would quite like the dark past of the dress to remain hidden forever...
The Second Chance Boutique is a beach read perfect for fans of Danielle Steel and Josie Silver, promising that the romance of a wedding day can provide a second chance stronger than any dark past.
There was just way too much anguish from the male and female protagonists in this story, with everyone mooning over their damaged childhoods and damaging relationships over and over, until I was ready to tear my hair out. Just get a therapist already, people! Though I did like the fact that Francesca was able to match brides with the wedding dress that they needed to feel happy and confident in their marriages, I was taken aback by her childish belief that everyone else should understand and appreciate her "knack," instead of thinking she's crazy and strange. She comes off as much too innocent and gullible to be an adult and business owner. Raf, the guy she falls for, is even more of a mess, cruel and antagonistic at every turn. I couldn't imagine what she saw in such an asshat, as he treated her terribly, and was vicious about his mother and her wedding dress, though it was his rapist father he should have been mad at, instead of his poor traumatized mom. Then there's his evil druggie/alcoholic sister, who should be locked up in jail and never spoken to again, who literally rips Fran's entire boutique apart, destroying her business and only way to make a living, and she never takes responsibility for it! Nor does her brother, who promises to pay for the damage, ever do so or take his sister to jail and force her to act like an adult and get her damned act together. He just indulges her and bails her out at every turn. I don't care how wealthy or aristocratic they are, SHAME on them both. I think Fran could have done much better, and I think she should have sued them for damages. Yet somehow all is forgiven. I call BS on that. So I'd give this book a C+, and recommend it to anyone who likes stupidly gullible and overly romantic female protagonists who are somewhat of a doormat.
Song of the Forever Rains by E. J. Mellow is a high fantasy/romance/adventure novel that delivers on all fronts. The prose sparkles and shimmers along the ornate plot that moves surprisingly fast for it's weight. I was engaged in the story and characters almost from the first page on, and I couldn't put it down until the final chapter was read. Here's the blurb:
From the award-winning author of the Dreamland series comes a new dark romantic fantasy about a young woman finding hope in her powers of destruction.
The Thief Kingdom is a place hidden within the world of Aadilor. Many whisper of its existence, but few have found this place, where magic and pleasure abound. There, the mysterious Thief King reigns supreme with the help of the Mousai, a trio of revered and feared sorceresses.
Larkyra Bassette may be the youngest of the Mousai, but when she sings her voice has the power to slay monsters. When it’s discovered the Duke of Lachlan is siphoning a poisonous drug from the Thief Kingdom and using it to abuse his tenants, Larkyra is offered her first solo mission to stop the duke. Eager to prove herself, Larkyra accepts by posing as the duke’s potential bride. But her plans grow complicated when she finds herself drawn to Lord Darius Mekenna, Lachlan’s rightful heir. Soon she suspects Darius has his own motivations for ridding Lachlan of the corrupt duke. Larkyra and Darius must learn to trust each other if there is to be any hope of saving the people of Lachlan—and themselves.
Welcome to the world of Aadilor, where lords and ladies can be murderers and thieves, and the most alluring notes are often the deadliest. Dare to listen?
Lark and her sisters, who make up the Mousai, a trio of entertainers who literally enchant their audiences, are the bomb. I felt as if I could hear their songs, see the dancing and watch the crowd lose themselves in the beautiful/strange performances. While Lark was beautiful and fascinating, Darius seemed like an idiot, making too many assumptions and always so mean and defensive, when Lark and her family did nothing but help and heal him. Darius also came across as weak and wimpy for not ridding his land of his evil, despotic, drug addicted father who abused him so viciously for years. Why would anyone have mercy on such a vile person, when he had not an ounce of mercy or kindness for anyone else, even his son? This book reminded me of the dreamlike lushness that was The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. Therefore I'd give it an A-, and recommend it to anyone who loves dark, beautiful and strange fairy tales.
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