When I first began my foray into journalism, it began with a simple column I wrote about being a closet bookworm for most of my life. That column was my "coming out" moment, and it well defined both my yearning for reading as a hobby and my disappointment in the public school system I grew up in. It wasn't cool to read in my school. We never even read Hamlet, the teacher opting instead to show us the Mel Gibson film. Book clubs didn't exist. I couldn't be caught dead in the school or community library, although I'd spent hordes of time there as a child and pre-adolescent.
But this post isn't about my sad, somewhat self-deserved curse of not allowing myself to be cool with reading. The gist of that tale is I broke through to the other side. I kick-started my journalism career and embraced myself for who I am and stopped aligning myself with the coolness of it all. Ha.
My first years in New York City were spent without TV, so reading became my outlet. To be accurate, we had a TV the first six months when I lived in the West Village, but once we hit Brooklyn, we went without. Books overflowed out of our apartment.
Anyway, I've been reading a lot these days. Since my happy hour days and nights are on hold, I have more time on my hands. Last night I considered the books I've read recently, and realized my yearning to travel must be subconsciously tugging at me. For, I've been to Limerick, Provence, Baghdad, the mountains of Afghanistan, Syria, Jordan, Kenya, New York City, and Kansas. You might enjoy a few of these yourselves:
A Year in Provence, by Peter Mayle
This book literally documents one year of living in Provence and it’s mostly about food, but also delves into reconstruction of a country home and experiencing the locals. It will make you want to drink tons of wine and lie in a pool. It will make you want to eat foie gras and cheese with every meal. It will make you curious about the howling “mistral” that flies in from the Rhone Valley. It will make you wonder why the recession had to hit and destroy all hopes of retirement for my generation. This is non-fiction and it’s very entertaining. A quick read.
In the Woods, by Tana French
A debut novel, the book opens with three children mysteriously disappearing from their Dublin neighborhood. One returns home alive with no memory of the disappearance while sporting slash marks through his t-shirt and blood-filled shoes. The other two children remain missing. Flash forward 25 years or so and the little boy who returned home is now an adult detective investigating the murder of a 12-year old girl found near the same woods where the detective disappeared years earlier. This book is not like other mysteries I’ve read… it’s not flat or boring, and full of really interesting turns. The book kept me up several nights because I couldn’t stop reading. And, the best part: I couldn’t have predicted the end.
East to the Dawn: The Life of Amelia Earhart, by Susan Butler
Few people know that Amelia Earhart had a love affair with Gore Vidal’s father. She also wasn’t terribly keen on doing things for anyone but herself, but thankfully her star power and apparent charisma fought through to make her an American darling. I’d always heard of Amelia, as a girl from Kansas… not unlike me. But Amelia actually lived all the over the country as a child and teenager. From what little bits of research I’ve done about Amelia, there are a hundred biographical books about her life. This book is supposed to be the best one, the most recent one, that presents a true accounting of Amelia. Parts of it get long-winded with details about her female flying rivals, about her foray into fashion, but the descriptions of her many flights, particularly the first trans-Atlantic crossing are fascinating.
A Hundred and One Days, by Asne Seierstad
Again… a non-fiction tale documenting 101 days prior to and during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Seierstad is a Norwegian journalist who achieved not only continued permission to remain in Baghdad from January to April 2003 (we invaded on March 19), but also survived. This is seriously one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. It documents meticulously her efforts to constantly get out and find a “real” story in the war-preparing Baghdad and surrounding cities. The travails of remaining in Iraq, by way of permission surreptitiously granted by the French-cheese loving Uday, are so bizarre and fragmented, I’m shocked anyone received news during this time at all. In some ways, her descriptions of the city and her Sadaam-loyal translator prior to the invasion are more riveting than after the bombs start dropping. I loved this book so much that I ran out and found Seierstad’s other war accountings, and I’m currently reading A Bookseller in Kabul, which she is most famous for. War turns me off in film and theory, but this book enlightened me. Big plus: it’s not written from an American perspective.
Wildflower, by Mark Seal
Narrative nonfiction at it’s best… I’d never heard of Joan Root, her famous documentarian ex-husband Alan Root and certainly not her tragic murder in Kenya in 2006. Joan and Alan are super ridiculously famous for pioneering safari-style film documentaries of animals all over Africa. They even flew a hot air balloon over Mount Everest and filmed it. Those Nature shows you see on PBS… well, these two are responsible for making that type of filmmaking trendy with public. Most of the book discusses their early relationship and ongoing marriage as partners and filmmakers. When Alan leaves Joan for a despicable, cancer-stricken husband stealer, the story picks up on solely on Joan’s life as an advocate for protecting Kenyan wildlife and Lake Naivasha. Her tragic and seriously creepy murder in 2006 is wildly theorized and discussed by the author, and he reveals strange relationships Joan had with local poachers that may have led to her death. I didn’t care for the post-marriage part of this book so much, but only because it’s very sad. The best parts are describing the filmmaking process, documenting African wildlife for the first time on film: king cobras and baby elephants. The book also delves into the history of Kenya itself, from the “Happy Valley” times of the 1920s when British ruled to today’s seemingly apparent fragile lifestyle.
‘Tis: A Memoir, by Frank McCourt
How I got away in life thus far and didn’t read this book is beyond me. Angela’s Ashes is searingly sad. ‘Tis is sad, too, but the documentation of McCourt’s move from Limerick to NYC in his very early 20s until his success as a high school English teacher is fascinating and compelling. My thoughts couldn’t help but go to that of my dear hubzo, who also moved to NYC alone and lived in less than wonderful surroundings in Spanish Harlem. Of course, McCourt was starving through much of his early time in NYC, living destitute with his terrible red eyes. The days of licking the grease from his uncle’s fish and chips paper are gone in this book because McCourt more often than not lucks out. I loved this book much more than Angela’s Ashes… perhaps because it’s a story of success. Nevertheless, McCourt’s easy writing style, basic descriptions and harrowing chapter tales are so easy to read you don’t even realize you’ve plowed through the book before it’s over and you want more.
I'd heard about this book for years... finally picked it up. The story was tremendously thrilling, and totally not what I expected. A college-age boy relocates from a tepid California household to a small New England college in Vermont where he specializes in Greek and meets five bizarre, binge-drinking friends. The entire story of that year of school and wastedom is quite good. It's full of literary allusions, mostly through dialogue of the students who are supposedly brilliant. I constantly felt like Harry Potter-esque magic would surface at times, but it never does. It's just a good old-fashioned murder story/thriller told in the first person. I felt strangely sad when I finished the book, mostly because it was just over.
Of course, the people look very different, but structurally, it's similar. Check out these pics I took from morning of the Denver marathon. 
Do you feel it?
Again… a non-fiction tale documenting 101 days prior to and during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Seierstad is a Norwegian journalist who achieved not only continued permission to remain in Baghdad from January to April 2003 (we invaded on March 19), but also survived. This is seriously one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. It documents meticulously her efforts to constantly get out and find a “real” story in the war-preparing Baghdad and surrounding cities. The travails of remaining in Iraq, by way of permission surreptitiously granted by the French-cheese loving Uday, are so bizarre and fragmented, I’m shocked anyone received news during this time at all. In some ways, her descriptions of the city and her Sadaam-loyal translator prior to the invasion are more riveting than after the bombs start dropping. I loved this book so much that I ran out and found Seierstad’s other war accountings, and I’m currently reading A Bookseller in Kabul, which she is most famous for. War turns me off in film and theory, but this book enlightened me. Big plus: it’s not written from an American perspective.
How I got away in life thus far and didn’t read this book is beyond me. Angela’s Ashes is searingly sad. ‘Tis is sad, too, but the documentation of McCourt’s move from Limerick to NYC in his very early 20s until his success as a high school English teacher is fascinating and compelling. My thoughts couldn’t help but go to that of my dear hubzo, who also moved to NYC alone and lived in less than wonderful surroundings in Spanish Harlem. Of course, McCourt was starving through much of his early time in NYC, living destitute with his terrible red eyes. The days of licking the grease from his uncle’s fish and chips paper are gone in this book because McCourt more often than not lucks out. I loved this book much more than Angela’s Ashes… perhaps because it’s a story of success. Nevertheless, McCourt’s easy writing style, basic descriptions and harrowing chapter tales are so easy to read you don’t even realize you’ve plowed through the book before it’s over and you want more. 
