Spare

I started listening to Prince Henry reading his memoir Spare back in April. It's a long audiobook, nearly 16 hours, and a popular one, and I wasn't able to finish listening within the 3-week loan period from the library. As luck would have it, the day after I finished listening to Eternal, this one popped back up as being available and I nabbed it. I was about halfway in and I wasn't sure if this one would grab my husband as much as Eternal did. But I figured it would be perfect to save for the return drive of our road trip.

Both of us found Prince Harry's story compelling and pretty tragic although it wasn't like Eternal where we couldn't wait to listen to after each break.
 

I can't say that I'm one of those people who is intrigued by everything and anything related to the British royals. I'm not that person. Obviously Queen Elizabeth was the queen of England when I was a child, but she was just there, not anything I ever paid attention to. I do recall, though, when I was in college in the 1970s that Prince Charles came to the United States, the tour having something to do with the fact that he was getting on in years and it was time for him to marry. That's probably the first time I ever paid attention to anything royal. And who wasn't taken by Diana Spencer. I remember watching that royal wedding and definitely paid a little more attention to the royal family once she joined it. 

Ironically, Lady Di and Prince Charles got married months before I got married and their divorce was final just a few months before my divorce from my first husband was finalized. Wow, we had so much in common!

Fast forward to May 2018. I was in New York visiting family. Diana's younger son, Prince Harry, was marrying American TV star Meghan Markle at Windsor Castle. The family we were with wanted to watch the wedding so we watched the wedding and hours of additional coverage about the royal family, about Meghan Markle. You name it, we watched it.

A person would have to be living in a cave to not hear at least some of the dirt about Prince Harry and Meghan. And when I say dirt, I mean dirt! Yes, they're public figures so what should they expect? But really, doesn't anyone need to be dragged through the mud the way that they have? They had to have some pretty good reasons for "quitting" as royals and moving to the United States.

Spare is Prince Harry's opportunity to tell their story. We get Harry's recollections of happy times with his mother. We get insight into the relationship that Harry has with his father, King Charles, and how that has evolved over time. We get to hear about the deterioration of Harry's relationship with his brother, William. And we get to hear about him falling in love with Meghan and the start of their life together.

Harry's story is tragic. When I said that to my daughter, she said she could have no sympathy for them. They're rich and as much as they do for society in the way of charities, they should be doing more. No one should have that much money and why does England even need royals? Okay, I get that. But that doesn't diminish in my eyes that no one should have to live the life that Prince Harry had lived. I bet he would have traded anything, any material object, to have his mother around, to not having the feeling like he was the "unnecessary" son, the "spare," and to have the freedom that my children had to make the choices they have made, whether good or bad.

I can give this a conditional recommendation. If you're at all interested in Harry and Meghan's story, I would suggest you listen to Spare read by the author.

 

I'm Glad My Mom Died

I am not sure how I'm Glad My Mom Died ended up my "to be read" list or why I thought I might enjoy it. I had no idea who Jennette McCurdy is or why I'd want to read her memoir. But seeing the great reviews and all the recommendations on Renee's Reading Club, I requested the audiobook from the library and waited. At this point, I have a true preference for memoirs on audio read by the author.

I was quickly able to realize that Jennette McCurdy was a child star on Nickelodeon probably at a time when my kids might have just stopped watching Nickelodeon, but I had definitely heard of  iCarly, even if I'd never watched it.

Jennette McCurdy's mother wanted to be an actress but her parents forbade it. Instead, when Jennette is 6-years old, the mother puts literally all her energy into getting Jennette into acting. If she can't be a star, she wants her daughter to be a star. Talk about a stage mom!

And that's what this memoir is about. Jennette's difficult relationship with her mother. You know things are bad when at the very start of the memoir, the mother is on her deathbed and Jennette thinks she'll be able to spark some reaction from her mom when she tells her that she's at her mom's goal weight for her, 89 pounds. As an adult. Yikes!

I don't know that I would have had the patience to read this memoir, but it was captivating to listen to the author tell her story. The love she had for her mother is obvious, but the abuse piled upon her by this same mother is quite evident. Readers get it immediately. It took McCurdy a little bit longer to come to the realization herself.

I'd recommend this one conditionally. I would suggest, though, that if you're going to read it, listen to it instead.

 

A Life Inherited: Unraveling the Trauma of a Second-Generation Holocaust Survivor

A few weeks ago, Rena Lipiner Katz's husband, Ron, posted about his wife's book in Renee's Reading Club on Facebook. I was intrigued by the subtitle - Unraveling the Trauma of a Second-Generation Holocaust Survivor. My ex-husband is a second-generation Holocaust survivor, ex being the key part of that sentence. Once he and I got divorced, I scoured the bookshelves of libraries and book stores, looking for anything I could read about inherited trauma. I'm not sure how my ex-husband behaves now, but at the time of our divorce, he acted more like a survivor than some of the survivors that I knew. I thought Katz's book would give me further insight. She started out so strong and I anticipated lots of ah-ha moments as I'd read through her memoir.

With the advent of improved diagnostic tools, research has shown that children of Holocaust survivors may have more intense stress responses than are found in the general population.

...

Perverse at it was, I felt I did not deserve to live in peace or know joy, and grief was my unconscious driver. 

While her story was well-crafted, it didn't give me enough of what I was looking for. The bulk of this memoir is about her first bad marriage and the toll that marriage took on her children and on her relationship with them. I wish she would have delved a little deeper into why she thought it was a good idea to marry a non-Jewish man who showed tendencies to be cruel even prior to their marriage. She addressed it, but too briefly for me.

He seemed to inhabit a world dominated by the ethos of those who knew no fear, and I needed to belong to them, not to my own. To be a member of this insular "Gentleman's Agreement" crowd - a synthesis of everything that had been written in the books of my childhood and vividly illustrated in my mind - was the antithesis of the Holocaust.

My former husband and his family called me "a Yankee" so perhaps something similar was going on and I wanted to know more. In Katz's case, at least from what she's shared, it seems as though her first husband was much more damaged than she was due to their respective upbringings.

Lots of the details of her divorce were pretty similar to mine even though in my case, the father of my children was the child of Holocaust survivors.

She mentioned a diagnosis of obsessive-compulsive disorder towards the end of the memoir "though obsessing about what I could not control was a useless, brutal exercise, it may have been protective, helping to shield me from feeling too close to the pain of my parents' history as survivors." And perhaps as a way to control things in what felt like an out-of-control life? That was my one ah-ha moment. Again, I wish Katz had given more examples of how this played out in her life.

I'm glad I read the book. I found it very interesting. It seems like Katz is in a very good place now. A Life Inherited just wasn't what I wanted or needed to be reading about. I've contacted Katz's husband and perhaps she will correspond with me so I can dig a little deeper.

 

Bookends: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Literature

Perhaps if I was familiar with Zibby Owens' podcasts, I might have appreciated Bookends: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Literature a little bit more than I did.

I thought this was going to be a story about how books helped "save" Zibby during times of turmoil in her life. That wasn't the case. She'd write about a difficult time and would sprinkle in the titles of the books she'd read at the time. So was it the act of keeping distracted by reading that helped her out? She never really said. I know that's true for me.

Owens has lived a very entitled life and while she did express appreciation for all that she is, I found it irritating that her podcast and other essays are framed as "Moms Don't Have Time to..."™️ What does she really know about the struggle that moms who don't come from rich parents... or don't have a good education allowing them to have many choices... or don't have full-time help... or don't have a mother with her own full-time help living nearby... or... I can go on and on.

I also understand that Owens wishes to maintain the privacy of her ex-husband and her children, but it's like her four kids came to be through immaculate conception. She briefly noted, while talking about a difficult time, that "in the meantime I'd gotten married" but no mention after that of her marrriage. At all. Then, all of a sudden she's lusting after her tennis pro. It took a while for me to understand that she was no longer married. She also only briefly mentioned the agony of shared custody. Clearly, though, her ex-husband (or someone) had the kids quite regularly and for longer than a quick overnight since she and her new husband, Kyle, were able to jet off to Los Angeles or Europe or wherever it was they were jetting off to. 

I was a single mother. I know what that's like. Yet my single mother story was nothing like hers. And I truly didn't have time to read for the time period when I was working full-time, going to school at night, and doing most of the parenting on my own. After that, once I started reading again, I was the person friends would come to when they wanted book recommendations. I was still working full-time, still doing the bulk of parenting on my own, and no way would I have had time to become an influencer. Not that that was really a thing in the late 90s.

Her losses were pretty tragic and that's why I hold back on criticizing the book too much. I can't even imagine walking in her shoes as she lost friend after friend to tragic deaths. At one point, shortly after she lost a very close friend on 9/11, she drafted a novel about losing a friend on 9/11. An agent told her it was too soon for people to read novels about 9/11. Couldn't she switch up the story so her friend died in a car crash? Because I am a person who tries to make sense of things through reading, I would have appreciated a 9/11 book shortly after 9/11. I'm sorry she never wrote that book.

What I did like was Owens conversational tone. No doubt it works quite well for essays and on her podcast. I also enjoyed reading about Owens experience with Weight Watchers.

I only gave this memoir 2 stars on Goodreads. I think had I not had the preconceived notion that I was going to learn about what type of books helped her through different types of crises, if I didn't think she omitted personal information that might have helped give me context, I might have enjoyed the book a little bit more.

 

Things My Son Needs to Know About the World

I was looking for a Fredrik Backman novel to read for July's book club author study and Things My Son Needs to Know about the World was available right now. So I took it out. It definitely helped to acquaint me more with Fredrik Backman. And to know him better as a parent.

Things My Son Needs to Know about the World is a series of missives to Backman's son as a newborn and a toddler with lessons that the author himself is learning about life as a new father, what he hopes will make him a good enough father and what his son, later on, should take from his experiences. We learn about how Backman ended up with a woman who is his exact opposite who is a wonderful mom to their son. And we learn about unconditional love.

This is a good book to read as a parent of adult children, reminding me of when my kids were little. Why I might have held a child's hand too tightly. When I struggled with the question of whether I was a good enough parent. This would also be a good book to read as a new parent, to know you are not alone... and perhaps to learn a few lessons yourself.
 

Speak, Okinawa: A Memoir

Like last month, I'm pretty sure that my New Jersey book club will go back to holding outdoor meetings and my time zooming with them has probably come to a close. But I decided to read their May pick, Speak Okinawa, Elizabeth Miki Brina's memoir, anyway. It sounded interesting enough.

Before I even write my impressions, I realized almost immediately that I knew almost nothing about Okinawa. I was marginally familiar with the Battle of Okinawa, but that was about it. I guess I thought it was an island of Japan. Even after finishing this memoir, I can't claim to know much about the very interesting history of Okinawa. It makes me wonder how we know so little about so much of the world.

As Speak, Okinawa begins, I thought that this was going to be story much like Crying in H Mart. A young woman of mixed race, with an Asian mother and an American father. But while I related to much of Crying in H Mart, that wasn't true about Speak, Okinawa.

In addition to this being the story about Elizabeth and her mother, it was about so much more. It gave a bit of history of Okinawa through the centuries. It touched upon World War II and the Vietnam War. It focused on being clearly in the racial minority growing up in Rochester, New York. It was the story of someone trying to fit in.

It was the sad story of Elizabeth's mother and her family on Okinawa. It was part of her father's story and about the way Elizabeth's relationship with him changed with him as she got older and became more aware.

I liked this book but didn't love it. However, I think it will encourage a riveting book club discussion.
 

Yearbook

Why is changing devices so difficult for an old gal like me? Got a new iPad in anticipation of a bunch of travel this summer and I can't get it to do what my PC can do. So please bear with me. Mostly especially in updating my reading log.

Not sure who the intended audience is for Seth Rogen's memoir, Yearbook. And I'm also not sure how I got this book on my radar. Some of it was funny, some of it was so current and a bit unsettling, and some of it was just TMI. I mean, he's the age of my kids, and I don't like imagining them doing some of the things that he was up to in his life. Some sex and lots of drugs. I'm no prude, but like I said, I read those parts as a mom. Hmm, I wonder what Seth's mom thinks about his book.

Enough Already: Learning to Love the Way I Am Today

 

I was a huge fan of Valerie Bertinelli back in the day when she was on "One Day at a Time" and I am really enjoying her now on "The Kids Baking Championship" on the Food Network now. I'm pretty sure I read her first memoir, Losing It, about 12 years ago, after she'd lost a lot of weight as the Jenny Craig spokesperson. I don't really remember anything about that book, but was curious enough to read this current one.

Bertinelli and I are of similar ages although our life experiences have obviously been quite different. And we've both gained and lost weight and gained and lost weight and gained. (In my case now, lost, too.) And we're both looking at a lot less life ahead of us as opposed to what is behind us. I was interested in finding out how Bertinelli has come to the place where she is today, in her early 60s, being comfortable in her own skin.

This book started so slowly for me and I almost didn't stick with it. There was just too much focus on "losing those last ten pounds" for me. The further along I read, even though she brought that up far more times than I thought might be necessary, I was able to tune that part of her story out and get to the rest of it. Even though she's a celebrity, her first husband was a celebrity, her son is on his way to being a celebrity, other than having the means to live in lovely homes that she is able to completely redo as soon as she gets herself going, her concerns are regular concerns. Those of a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother, an ex-wife and a friend. I really embraced the passages about her relationship with her mother, mostly at the mother's end of life. And I did not think her horrible at all for stating that the death of Eddie Van Halen, her first husband, was a much more difficult one than the death of her parents. I totally get that.

Pre-pandemic I enjoyed food TV a lot more than I do now. "The Kids Baking Championship" is my favorite show on Food Network. I wish she'd talked a little bit more about that than about her cooking show, "Valerie's Home Cooking," which I've only seen a few times. But her cooking show plays into her acceptance of herself, of her love of food, of the satisfaction she gets from feeding people whereas the kids' show is something more for fun. I read about Sicilian Love Cake while scrolling through something late one night. When she described the cake, I decided that the next time I need to bring a cake somewhere, that's the cake I am going to bring. I quickly copied down the recipe. Her upside-down citrus cake also whet my whistle. Another recipe I copied down. She included several of her favorite recipes which were a bonus.

I'm not sure I can apply some of the life lessons she has learned recently... and I wonder how fully she has embraced them, but there was comfort in reading about the struggles she has, like anyone else, learning to love oneself. I'm not sure if you have to have weight issues to really connect with this book. Even though I thought she overdid it on the "last 10 pounds," I felt sort of connected to her in that regard. She says she doesn't weigh herself (ever? regularly?) but what did I do as soon as I finished the book. My morning routine of teeth, face, and weight. And while I'm not the weight where I'd ideally love to be, I'm happy with the weight I am now, and at least for now, the scale doesn't stress me out at all.

Crying in H Mart

Crying in H Mart popped up on my radar about the time it was published, but it never made it on to my "to be read" list. Not until my daughter read it and highly recommended it. She told me that I'd love it. And that it would make me cry.

Michelle Zauner is a Korean/American young woman who writes about the relationship she has had with her mother and with Korea as she remembers her mother and her mother's recent death. After her mother is diagnosed with cancer, the author moves back home to help with her mother's care. She was 25 at the time, trying to figure out her life.

At times, the story is gut-wrenching. I mean, losing your mother is difficult at any age. And it can be difficult to read about.

A big part of the relationship between the author and her mother had to do with food. Specifically ethnic Korean food. Which I always find so interesting since my relationship with my mother had almost nothing to do with food.

Interesting personal note about H-Mart. H-Mart is an American grocery store that sells Asian ingredients and food products. I miss living near an H-Mart even though I never stepped foot into the one that was just a few miles from my house. I  had a large Asian SUPER store just a few miles further away and smaller Asian markets very close to both home and work. H-Mart took over the space that previously had been my regular supermarket... and yet I never made it inside. Now a regret.

I hope Michelle Zauner is doing well now. She will never not miss her mother. Especially not as she is walking through H Mart.

 

Night

I remember wondering why I had never read Elie Wiesel's Night back when one of my kids was assigned this memoir for a social studies (or maybe Hebrew school) class. Said child read the book. I later picked it up and read it. I'm thinking that this was definitely after I heard Elie Wiesel speak at some fundraiser for a Jewish organization. Really, though. How did I hear him speak and not rush home to read the memoir? 

I was surprised when Books and Beer Club selected this as their memoir for memoir month. And I'm anxious to discuss this book with a very diverse group.

I was already an adult when I read Night the first time, but my takeaway from reading it this time feels quite different. What really drew me in this time was the relationship between Elie and his father. And the extreme sadness I felt knowing that all the horror they experienced was at the end of the war, when the concentration camps were so close to being liberated. 

I really do wish I had a record of what stood out to me last time and how I felt after reading the book.

I am grateful that I had the opportunity to hear Elie Wiesel speak. I'm glad that he felt he had a message to give to the rest of the world who hadn't experienced such horrors. As there are fewer and fewer Holocaust survivors still alive, the quality memoirs become even more important. The Holocaust must be taught. The message is still important. We need to pay attention so that nothing like that ever happens again.
 

All Boys Aren't Blue

All Boys Aren't Blue: A Memoir Manifesto by George M. Johnson is about a boy who felt he didn't fit in who become a young man trying to figure out who he really is. I picked it up as part of the Velshi Banned Book Club, not really sure what to expect. 

It's not a book written for me, but I could certainly appreciate the heart and soul he puts into to creating a... hmm... not sure what the word would be. It's not a guide book. But it is a book to offer guidance and comfort to others going through a similar crisis of self that Johnson went through. His story is about a queer Black boy, but it would work for anyone questioning his or her sexuality.

Which I suppose is the reason why this book has been banned. Why this very much needed book has been banned. People, it's not a "how to" book. But I can imagine reading George's story might make a kid questioning where they fit in realize that others have gone through what they've gone through. They are not alone.

Johnson was truly blessed to come from such a loving, accepting family. I was pleased that he knew that. And I wish that for everyone.

I have my DVR set to record Velshi tomorrow morning. I really want to hear what the author has to say.
 

Taste: My Life Through Food

Sometime in 2021 (how does one keep track of things that happened in that year that didn't fit any pattern?), my husband and I watched "Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy." We were engrossed. Tucci travels around Italy, exploring the food cultures and the foods of different areas of the country. All we could think of as we watched was that we wished we could travel around Italy with Stanley Tucci. What a wonderful companion he would be. And the foodie doors he would open for us would be amazing!

In Renee's Reading Club, the Facebook group that I am a member of, a woman mentioned reading his memoir, Taste. It sounded wonderful. My husband is not a reader, but I thought he'd really enjoy it. Perfect choice for an audio book for the two of us to listen to together.

And boy, was it ever! We both so thoroughly enjoyed listening to this memoir! Each one of us for our own personal reasons. As Tucci described the role food played in his family, my husband was nodding his head. I was hearing it differently. My husband and I have very different attitudes towards food. As Tucci explained his connection to food, something clicked. My husband wasn't weird in his attitudes to food. He must be coming from the same place as Stanley Tucci. Stanley Tucci was raised by parents born in America with Italian roots. My husband was born in Italy but raised in America. I was raised as a 3rd generation American Jew. Big difference in attitudes towards food!

We both love food and we loved listening to Stanley Tucci tell his stories. We loved listening to him read off his recipes. I have requested the e-book from the library so I can copy some of them down. There were some laugh-out-loud moments and some tearful moments as well.

I can't recommend this book highly enough. And if you have the opportunity to listen to it rather than to read it, that's the route I'd take. 

While I'm waiting for the e-book and Season 2 of "Searching for Italy," I have The Tucci Cookbook to drool over. After listening to the first chapter of Taste, I knew that exactly what I needed to get my husband for Christmas. In addition to Tucci's cookbook, I got him two editions of Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well by Pellegrino Artusi. One in English and the other in Italian (La Scienza in Cucina e L'Arte di Mangiar Bene. It's a book that Tucci recommended in the TV series, almost like the Bible of Italian food.

Buon appetito!

 

Life From Scratch: A Memoir of Food, Family and Forgiveness

 

Once again, when I read the blurb about Life From Scratch: A Memoir of Food, Family and Forgiveness by Sasha Martin, I didn't read carefully enough. I thought it was going to be about the author trying to cook a dish from every cuisine worldwide. It turns out, that was the purpose of her writing a book. But that this book was about much, much more. It's about what drove her to even attempt such a project. Once I was about a quarter of the way into the book, I went back to goodreads to see what I'd misread. Turns out that the blurb really didn't give much information. So I started skimming the reviews. That's when I truly realized my mistake.

A few of the reviewers likened this to The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. Only with food. I tend to agree. There were very many differences, but the vibe was the same. Kids neglected by mother (or parents), trying to come to terms with that while forging ahead in life. Unlike The Glass Castle, Life From Scratch resonated with me. In the past 30-something years of my life, food has played a much more important role than it did in the first 30-something years. Food can be a connection to others, a way to armchair travel, a way to express love.

Sasha and her brother Michael grew up with their single mom who marched to the beat of a different drummer. They were very poor, but because of their mom's creativity and quirkiness, they didn't even realize it. In their small nuclear family, food was important. Events were marked by food. The mom made sure that Sasha and her brother understood their Italian and Hungarian roots - through food.

For about two years, Sasha and Michael were bounced from one foster home to another when the "system" deemed their mom unfit to raise them. When Sasha was nine-years-old, the mom's best high school friend and her husband agree to become the kids' guardians. The family moved from Boston, where their home with their mother was, to Atlanta and eventually, after tragedy strikes, overseas. Sasha is physically and emotionally abandoned by her mother. She leads a troubled teenaged life and only seems content when she's in the kitchen cooking.

Sasha comes into a bit of money when she's at loose ends after college and she decides she's going to use half the money to go to the Culinary Institute of America. She leaves for the first summer to complete an internship in Tulsa and ends up staying in Tulsa and creating a new life. Only after Sasha and her husband have a baby does Sasha realize that food might hold the key to being able to truly move forward. That's when the idea of cooking herself around the world comes in.

When I realized that their was a blog that came before the memoir, off I was to explore the blog. It's called Global Table Adventure and if you are at all into cooking or ethnic foods, it's a worthwhile site to explore. There are some interesting recipes with some beautiful photographs, plus there's a little bit of story telling.

Another memoir this one reminded me of was The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels. Even though I enjoyed Life From Scratch and found The Pioneer Woman irritating. Whose table would I rather sit down to eat at? Sasha's. Hands down. But the same idea, figuring out how to move forward with your life with the help of food.

I'd recommend Life From Scratch.

Some of My Best Patients Were Animals

August is southern author month for Books & Beer Club. Last month, one of our members suggested that we read a new book by a local author, K.C. Nayfield. Nayfield is a local veterinarian who had put together a collection of stories about his over 30 years as a veterinarian. Our member seemed pretty confident that the author would be happy to attend our August meeting.

I've only had one pet, a cat, and he only had one veterinarian in all the years he was part of our family. So my experience with veterinarians is pretty limited. The book is a collection of articles that had been in our local paper over the years. Some were adapted for the book. Others went in the book as they'd been in the paper. Nayfield called the book "fact-tion" as all the stories were based on truth, but some of them were embellished much more than others.

I didn't know that while I was reading the book. While I was reading I had clear preferences for the stories about Nayfield becoming a veterinarian and the stories that were about the personalities of the pets - or their owners. It was full of local culture. I wasn't really interested in the technical medical stuff. But now that I understand how the book was put together, it makes sense that some of that medical stuff was included. There were also stories about his time volunteering his services in both the Bahamas and in Cuba which I found fascinating and inspiring.

It was a pleasure meeting with the author last night. It gave a much better insight into the book, into his experiences. 

Know My Name

Chanel Miller's memoir, Know My Name, is one of the most powerful memoirs that I've read in a long time, if ever. You may not know Chanel Miller's name because after she was sexually assaulted by Stanford University student, Brock Turner, she was known as "Emily Doe." Besides being a story of strength told by a very gifted writer, it's a story of a criminal justice system that doesn't work for victims of sexual assault. 

I don't want to go into much of the story. It was in the news for over a year, a young man of privilege who seemed to get away with an on-campus attack, even though the case was pretty cut and dry, and he was convicted on three charges. "Emily Doe's" victim impact statement was posted on BuzzFeed where it went viral.

This memoir deals with the journey of the victim as she takes back her own name and tries to reclaim her own identity. There was much talk at the time about what Brock Turner had lost. But what about Chanel Miller? What did she lose? What were the long-term ramifications on her life? What is it like to be the victim? And what is it like to be a survivor?

Additionally, what did Chanel Miller want from the criminal justice system, from Brock Turner, and from Stanford University?

I highly encourage everyone one to read this.

If All the Seas Were Ink

I think the only book that I kept putting down and picking up and putting down and picking up that I ever finished was Uncle Tom's Cabin. I'm not sure what it was about Ilana Kurshan's memoir If All the Seas Were Ink that took me so long to get through it.

A neighbor of mine had received the book from her daughter, read it, only liked it, but thought it might be something I'd be interested in. I agreed that it sounded interesting so borrowed the book. It was around the time of the Jewish New Year (September). I was still (vaguely) content to sit outside, birdwatching and reading at the same time. And the concept of Daf Yomi, what  the memoir is focused on, was intriguing. It made me more connected to the fall Jewish festivals that we were celebrating untraditionally, alone, at home. The holidays ended and my reading tapered off. It wasn't until right before Passover that I picked it up again. That holiday ended and my reading once again took a pause. A little over a week ago we celebrated another Jewish festival, Shavuot, perhaps the final holiday I'll be celebrating at home, alone, and I decided it was time to finish the book!

What's Daf Yomi, you ask? It's kind of sort of like a Jewish book club, but instead of reading some juicy fiction or interesting non-fiction, you're reading a page a day (exactly what daf yomi) means, front and back, of Talmud, the Oral Torah and commentaries. At the rate of a double-sided page a day, you're able to finish reading the entire Talmud in about seven and a half years. Everyone who is reading Daf Yomi is reading the same page on the same date. Kind of cool. As my neighbor expected, I thought the whole concept was pretty cool. But wow, what a commitment someone has to read to complete the cycle. I guess that's why there's a big celebration at the end.

Kurshan is an avid reader, makes her living doing various things related to books. And her love of books shines through. That part, I really enjoyed.

I had mixed feelings, though, about how all the tiny details of Daf Yomi translated into Kurshan's memoir. I found the personal bits - the aftermath of her divorce, her running routines, her relationship to the synagogue, her second marriage, motherhood, being an American living in Israel - those are the bits that I found extremely interesting. Where she gives a bit too much information about a particular section of Daf Yomi, I would have preferred a more abridged edition. I liked the way she was able to connect what she was reading to what was going on at different points in her life. But once she got past the connection, I wanted more personal stuff.

I'd definitely recommend this for someone who is interested in learning about what it's like to participate (I'm not even sure if that's the proper word) in Daf Yomi from a personal angle. Or someone interested in reading the memoir of an American who is now making a life in Israel. You don't need to be religious or Jewish to understand what the book is all about.

How One Letter Changed Two Lives

Our granddaughter turns 13 tomorrow and for her birthday, I wanted to give her a meaningful book. I was thinking along the lines of celebrities writing to their younger selves, wondering if one of those might be appropriate for a young teen. I reached out to Renee's Reading Club on Facebook to ask for suggestions. What came back were older books, books that I read in my teens. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Little Women. That kind of thing. Maybe if I had had a favorite book as a teen, but nope. That really wasn't what I was looking for. 

One title stood out. I Will Always Write Back: How One  Letter Changed Two Lives. It  stood out for a few reasons. I absolutely love letter writing and one of the author's was named Caitlin, spelled exactly the same way our granddaughter spells her name. Next, I read the description. It was about 7th grade Caitlin (our Caitlin is in 7th grade) participating in a pen pal project in school. I loved participating in pen pal projects in school. And... apparently I've had it on my "to be read" list for almost 5 years!

Before I decided about whether or not I was going to send her I Will Always Write Back by Caitlin Alifirenka, Martin Ganda and Liz Welch, I needed to read it. To make sure the material was appropriate, to make sure it was a good book, and so I'd be able to say "Yes, I've read it" when asked. 

What a wonderful book. When Caitlin's teacher proposes a pen pal project with foreign young people, Caitlin doesn't want a pen pal from Europe. She's been to Europe, has a cousin in Germany, thinks she understands the differences in the lives of German kids and kids like her in Pennsylvania. She decides to select somewhere exotic, like Zimbabwe. 

Martin is thrilled that he's only one of ten students in his class of 50 to receive a pen pal letter. He's tops in his class and that's why he got the first letter that was distributed in his class. Out of all the students in the project, Caitlin and Martin were the only two to still be writing a year later. Something between the two of them clicked.

At first, Caitlin assumes that Martin's life is similar enough to hers. Martin couldn't really imagine Caitlin's life in Pennsylvania, but he really tried to keep from Caitlin just how dismal his life was. Once Caitlin got an inkling of what his life might be like, she read old letters trying to see what clues he might have given her before.

Both Caitlin and Martin tell their stories. Other than Martin being an incredibly diligent student, their stories were somewhat typical. Until their friendship blossomed. Then their stories, individual and together, became remarkable.

I hope that our Caitlin enjoys reading this book as much as I did.

 

I'll Be Seeing You

 

I'm the type of reader who is always on the lookout for my next book. Even when I have plenty of books out from the library or know exactly what I want to read next. What else can I read?

During my evening doomscrolling a few nights ago, I came across a blog post of books a young woman (younger than me, at least) has read during the pandemic. She mentioned a memoir by Elizabeth Berg, an author I know and like. It covers the time when Berg became caregiver for her parents during their final days.

I'm approaching the 7th anniversary of the day when I transitioned from being loving daughter to loving daughter caregiver. This is always a sad time for me. I mean, one day I was just my parents' daughter, talking to them every night to make sure they were doing okay. And the next day I was advocating for my mom at the hospital, reviewing her living will and other documents. At the same time making sure that my dad who had never lived alone would be okay. It was a lot. I think of my life as "before" and "after".

Was this the perfect time to read Berg's memoir, I'll Be Seeing You? Perhaps not. But perhaps yes. It gave me a legitimate reason to climb into bed each night and shed a few tears while reading.

Berg's experience with her parents - and her story - is quite different from my own. Her father was suffering from memory loss and faded very slowly. And her mother had to stoically deal with all that. Berg lived a 7-hour drive from her parents but her sister was local to where the parents lived. They have a brother who lives in Hawaii.

In my case, my parents' ends came very rapidly. My mom had a stroke on March 6 and died on March 25. On April 13, my dad was diagnosed with cancer and he died exactly 4 months later. So not quite 5 months after my mom. Both my brother and I lived flying distance from our parents. I was there for 6 months, flying home once when my (fairly new) husband had surgery and to spend a weekend with a dear friend in California. My brother flew in and out as he could.

So much, however, of what Berg wrote really spoke to me. Her parents had lived in their home for nearly 40 years. She wrote about the attachment to the house, even though she had never lived there. My parents lived in their house for all of the 57 years they'd been married. My mom grew up in that house. I grew up in that house. My kids grew up visiting that house as was the case with Berg's children. She wrote about being the sandwich generation. About what it's like  to be aging herself and closer to the point where her kids might need to care  for her. 

She wrote about visiting her uncle Frank at his nursing home. Shortly before either one of my parents "got sick," I drove them to visit my father's brother in his nursing home. Oh  yes, could I relate!

One thing that Berg wrote about the book was that she hoped her memoir might help others going through the same thing. It is good to know that we're not alone. It reminded me, too, that caring for aging parents as an older adult isn't ideal, but it does mean that we were blessed to have our parents for a good part of our lives.

Then I woke up this morning and saw the following post on Facebook by John Pavlovitz.

That's the thing you learn as you grieve deeply: when you lose someone you love, you lose a bit of you.

You don't simply lose yourself metaphorically or symbolically, but you have stolen away the part of your story that only they knew.

You lose the shared memories you curated.

You lose the you who you were when you were with them.

A part of you dies too, and so you want the person you love returned to you because you want that piece of your identity back—and you know you can't have it.

He linked a blog post. He takes this a whole lot further.

Many times over the past six years I’ve had to contend with a sobering realization: life will never be as good as it was when my father was here.
It will never be that complete.
I’ll never feel that rightness again.
That wholeness can simply not return.
My world now is a less-than substitute of the one where my father was alive.

And being a mere mortal who has no say in the when and where and how of reality, all I can do is be here in this world as it is, be who I am in this altered story that I wish I could rewrite but know I cannot.

We who are mourning in this timeline can only work with the reality handed to us and do the best we can to find gratitude in having once had someone worth missing. 

Mom and Dad, I miss you. Thank you for making me the reader I am. Reading often gives me comfort.

Upstairs at the White House

I almost titled this blog post "Almost as good as being there" since I'm really hoping that zooming in with my old book club this Thursday is going to be a wonderful thing. My very first book club.

I started teaching when I was in grad school earning my teaching certification. I spent another 3 years in school continuing on for a masters degree. I was a single mom with three fairly young kids living at home, and did not have a whole lot of time for pleasure reading. I sat at the lunch table, envious of talk about the district book club. What they were reading, what their discussions were like. I'd never been in a book club  but I really wanted to join one. I wanted to join their book club.

Immediately after graduating, I let the folks at the book club know that I was ready to join them. I was so excited. My first book club! Then I learned that our district education foundation was the sponsor of the book club - and purchased the books for us! Free books and I'd get to discuss them. What could be better.

For the next 7 years, the book club was an important part of my life. When my kids were still little, it was my me time. (And since I was teaching fifth grade, it was my only time with adult conversation outside of faculty meetings and the lunch table at work.) I loved being in a book club and I loved this particular book club. I was sad to say goodbye to them when I moved from New Jersey to Florida with my new husband.

That first year away, I tried to read what they were reading. And faithfully each month I'd send my thoughts about each book to the woman responsible for emailing the group. She'd share my reflections with the group and then would try to relay what the discussion had been like. I'd found a local book club that I belonged to and got busy with my retirement life so eventually keeping up with the New Jersey book club fell off. Over the ten years that I've been down south, I have found myself up north twice on the afternoons when the book club was meeting and got to join them. The summer of 2014, I got together with some of the teachers when they met to select what books they'd read in the coming school year.

In December, I sent a Christmas card to one of my closest friends from my teaching days and was delighted when she wrote me a long letter back. And said, "Hey, the book club is meeting by zoom these days. Why don't you join us?" 

That brings me to Upstairs at the White House: My Life with the First Ladies by J.B. West with Mary Lynn Kotz. That's the book that the New Jersey book club and I will be discussing two days from now. It's not a book that I ever would have picked up on my own, and I'm not sure that I'm dying to discuss it, but it was a pleasurable read.

West was an assistant usher and eventually the head usher at the White House, a job that is primarily responsible for the running of the Executive Residence part of the White House. West started working during the FDR administration and retired 30 years later, at the beginning of the Nixon administration. It wasn't exactly about the First Ladies, but more about the impact each of the First Ladies had upon the White House. He gives some gossipy anecdotes about each of the families he served as well some dry facts about the running of the White House. I'm not sure how much there will be to discuss in this book (other to perhaps contrast it to what I'd expect life was like for the First Families of recent years. Some stories stuck out in my mind, but others might have found other different bits more interesting.

Many times, I've written here that timing really matters in whether you like a book or you don't like a book. I think that's the case here, too. This book is so different from what I've been reading the past few months and it contrasts so starkly with all the turmoil in Washington at the current moment. It was a good escape for me, one that I'm not sure I would have enjoyed as much at another time.

Best of all, I'll get to reconnect with some of my friends from another part of my life!

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

Lori Gottlieb's memoir, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed was highly recommended in Renee's Reading Club on Facebook. The idea of the group is to recommend titles so there is nearly no discussion about the books to avoid spoilers. (Details about the books are relegated to a different Facebook group.) I really had no idea what to expect, even after reading a blurb.

This memoir was definitely a heftier read than I expected it to me, but it was so worthwhile. I guess you have to believe that talk therapy is good for mental health in order to really get anything out of this book.

Lori Gottlieb takes an indirect career route to becoming a psychotherapist. She's been at it for a few years when she's blindsighted when "Boyfriend" dumps her. She's having trouble getting through the days and determines that it's time for the therapist to find a therapist.

By sharing anecdotes from Gottlieb's sessions with her patients (not her preferred term) and her sessions with her therapist, readers get a better understanding of what therapy can and can't do. Her narrative is completely relatable. I found myself nodding, laughing, being very moved as I read through the memoir.

I think this could be a great book to discuss with the proper book club. I know I'll recommend this book to others. Everyone should be able to get something very positive out of the experience of reading this book.