News from Nan

Recently read:

Beautiful Boy A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction by David Sheff

Payment in Blood by Elizabeth George

Little Heathens Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression by Mildred Armstrong Kalish

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

Currently reading:

The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold

The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby

A Traitor to Memory by Elizabeth George

As you can see, if I read something by an author I like, I read something else by them right away. Sometimes I keep reading until I’ve read everything written by that author. Then I move on…

Elizabeth George’s mysteries are modern and non-formulaic. I also love Ruth Rendell’s “Inspector Wexford” mysteries.

I heard Alice Sebold on the radio talking about The Almost Moon when it was first published. Because it wasn’t available yet at the library, I read The Lovely Bones instead. I loved it! I think Jackie would like it, too, if she could get through the violent part. I think it is very much a teenager’s book. I'll keep you posted on The Almost Moon.

I also heard the father & son of Beautiful Boy on the radio (I listen to a lot of radio) and was not that impressed, but I though I’d read the book since some of their experiences mirrored my family’s. I did take some comfort in knowing I was not alone, but mostly I came away with the feeling that even an over educated well-off journalist couldn’t access effective mental health services for his son.

Little Heathens Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression by Mildred Armstrong Kalish was something I stumbled across in the news paper.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/07/DD74VE73D.DTL.
The author (as is the author of Beautiful Boy) is from the San Francisco Bay Area. The book is not perfectly written, but contains many “read aloud” passages I enjoyed sharing with whomever happened to be around at the moment, including some great recipes. Mildred is 85 years old and this is her first book! She has an open mindedness about her that is surprising and appealing.

I am about half way through The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby. This is my stab at non-fiction – really just a loooooong magazine type of political essay. It makes me feel like I’m back in school. I did enjoy the part about “middlebrow” culture in the United States. H.G. Wells, author of The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds, also wrote The Outline of History in 1920, and was a strong believer in Darwinian evolution.

Susan Jacoby, “can only wish that book would be available today to the 25 percent of American high school biology teachers who told University of Texas researchers that dinosaurs and humans inhabited the earth simultaneously.”

We’ll that’s all for now. I’ll keep reading & try to post more often!

- Nan