Teaser Tuesdays: Shakespeare: The World as Stage by Bill Bryson

I've been on an (extremely minor) Shakespeare jag -- without actually reading Shakespeare -- in preparation for arguing with people about the upcoming movie Anonymous. More on that later. In the meantime, here's my Teaser, in accordance with the book meme hosted by Should Be Reading (to play along, go to that blog and post your own link or teaser). I'm just finishing Bill Bryson's Shakespeare biography, which is part of the Eminent Lives series and thus not a giant tome:

"We would know even less about the business and structure of Elizabethan theatrical life were it not for the diary and related papers of Philip Henslowe, proprietor of the Rose and Fortune theaters. Henslowe was a man of many parts, not all of them entirely commendable."

A friend writes ...

Full disclosure: Diana Abu-Jaber is a friend. This is both very cool -- Diana is a smart, kind, generous person as well as an excellent writer -- and kind of fraught. Because when a friend publishes a book and you think, "Gee I should really read that," there's always that lurking fear: What if I don't like it? I shouldn't have worried. First of all, like I said, Diana's an excellent writer. And Birds of Paradise started getting great notices months before it was published, in trades I keep an eye on (Library Journal and Booklist, the ALA's book review magazine). When it was published, last month, the great reviews hit the streets. So last week, I summoned the courage to read it. And it is great. Really great.

Quick plot synopsis: The Muir family of Coral Gables has fractured. Felice, their younger child, has run away from home at 13 and had only rare, sporadic contact in the five years since. She's survived on the streets of Miami Beach by modeling and forming bonds with other street kids. Their son, Stanley, is semi-estranged, struggling to make a go of his organic market in Homestead. Dad Brian is corporate counsel to a developer that is a prime player in the mid 2000s building boom. The novel's main action takes place in August 2005, just before Hurricane Katrina sweeps across South Florida. Avis is a pastry chef who is in an extended state of shock from losing her daughter and somehow unable to connect with her son, despite their shared love for providing food as a vocation.

The book rotates through the points of view of everyone in the family, though Stanley is mostly offstage until the book's finale. This works very well and somehow everyone is (mostly) sympathetic -- I was a bit fed up with Avis, at times, especially in her treatment of Stanley. But I was still caught up, wanting to know what would happen next.

A couple things I particularly appreciated about this book. 1) The characters are real people, not merely metaphors who stand for some national trait or cardboard cutouts illustrating something about society. This, I realized as I was reading the book, is what irritates me in novels that are often held up as Great Literary Works (Don Delillo, anyone?). 2) She gets South Florida right -- you'd expect that, since she lives here, but it's still a pleasure and a relief since this is an area that so many people write about, many of them with only a glancing knowledge of the place. My favorite line from the book: "Increasingly Brian feels that living in Florida is an act of both rebellion and willful perversity -- like rebuilding a house on the train tracks." 3) Characters of varying ethnicities are real people, not merely foils against whom the Anglos to test out their wild and crazy sides. That's another thing that seems to happen a lot in Great Literary Works, especially by white guys. 4) She uses food in a truly literary way, as an expression of character and individuality, not as some gimmick or plot frame. Diana was a panelist at the first session of the Key West Literary Seminar, way back in January, when our topic was food in literature. She was a hit there -- I hope some of the folks who saw her there are reading (and buying!) the book.

Teaser Tuesdays: The Victorians by A.N. Wilson

I'm joining in the bookish meme hosted by MizB of the Should Be Reading blog and posting what I'm reading today. My wordpress skills are not up to the formatting of MizB or Julia, so forgive me. But my reading at the moment, continuing my recent return to giant nonfiction tomes, is The Victorians by A.N. Wilson. It's one of those grabbag compendium popular histories -- I'm only 88 pages in but it seems to jump around a lot. I suspect I'll learn quite a bit by the time I finish though I'm dubious about how much I'll retain. I've read the first two volumes of James/Jan Morris' Victorian trilogy -- Heaven's Command and Pax Britannica -- and the only thing I remember is that the Brits got slaughtered in Afghanistan trying to get through the Khyber Pass.

Anyway here's the random excerpt:

" The Queen had been in effect an only child -- though she had a half-sister she was brought up as a solitary, uncertain of her mother's love and yet monarch of all she surveyed. ... Neither from parent nor from first-born son could the consolations of affection be found, nor the even more deeply consoling qualities of dependability, obedience, affection for her whims."

It was better when ... wait, it's still pretty damn cool

My review of Mile Marker Zero: The Moveable Feast of Key West ran in the Miami Herald today . The book chronicles a very interesting moment in the cultural history of the island and, to some extent, the nation. For another, longer and in some ways more positive review, check out this one from The Wall Street Journal. The book made me think a lot about some of my longtime obsessions -- in ways that weren't really down to the merits of the book so I didn't address them in the review. That's why I have a blog, right? First, there's the nostalgia thing, specifically the baby boomer nostalgia thing. If you're a Gen X-er, as I am, you grew up with -- and are still dealing with -- the overwhelming, overbearing weight of the giant generation before you that set the cultural norms and insists, to this day, that their music/writers/political opinions/lifestyle choices are superior to yours and should continue their culturally dominant positions for ... well, apparently forever. My college newspaper had a reunion in the early 1990s, drawing people who had been staffers from throughout the paper's recent history -- someone brilliant made up coffee mugs with the slogan "It was better when we were there." Exactly. I am not arguing that the 1970s in Key West were not a remarkable moment for many reasons, not least the cultural convergence that saw Thomas McGuane, Jim Harrison and I guess Jimmy Buffett drawn to the same small island at the same time. But it's the notion that this was some paradise that has been lost, that there was a golden age when everything was better -- and the conclusion that everything happening now just sucks that irritates me.

Related to which is the question of Key West's authenticity, something with which anyone who chooses to live here longterm must wrestle. In Mile Marker Zero, McKeen describes present-day Key West  as having been "embalmed as an alcoholic theme park" and his main character, Tom Corcoran, finds that "the quaintness and weirdness that Corcoran found when he stepped off the plane in 1968 had largely been institutionalized." I can see why you'd think that. Key West can appear as a theme park with a strong alcoholic bent, as a hippie version of an Amish community, as a tacky cruise ship stop. But that's only if you see the place at its most superficial, namely Lower Duval Street. Key West has tons of authenticity and it's not that hard to find -- it's at Sandy's Cafe and Five Brothers. It's at the bocce courts and the high school baseball field and and Lucky Street Gallery and the Green Parrot. It's at the library and the Holiday Parade and the Porch and the MARC Christmas tree sale and Bad Boy Burrito and the Burlesque. True, it has a high tolerance for alcohol and other behaviors that get people into trouble -- but that stems from a culture that is remarkably nonjudgmental and open to new things and unconventional lifestyles. People are constantly coming and going. Lots of them are short-timers, some of them are scammers, some have ridiculously unrealistic ideas of what they can do here. But a few stay on and add interesting new layers to the place. If you're from here, you can draw on a tightknit community of surviving natives who have learned to adapt to the constant changes and know things about the island that we newcomers will never figure out, no matter how long we're here. If you're from elsewhere, you get to reinvent yourself as you choose, as an adult. Despite what McKeen says, it is not "millionaires and the homeless and hardly anyone in between" -- most of the interesting stuff is in between and there's plenty of it. And despite what Mrs. Buffett and Mrs. McGuane and Tom Corcoran may think/have thought, it is a fine place to raise children. Some of the coolest people I know grew up here -- and kids regularly go off the rails in affluent suburbs, wholesome rural communities and elite private schools. People sometimes ask me if I plan to stay in Key West forever (I don't plan that long-term but have no plans to leave at the moment) or why I've stayed. My answer is always the same: It's a small town that's never boring. I'm sure this exists elsewhere and I imagine it might be nice to live somewhere with a lower level of drunken idiocy. I might find another community with as many smart, funny, interesting people where I can ride my bike to my job, the movies, my friends' homes and any number of interesting restaurants. But I kind of doubt it.

My top 100

I wonder what it is about lists? Is it staving off death by making sure there's always something left to do? Is it trying to bring order to chaos? Whatever it is, I'm obsessed with them, both with the "best of" types compiled by various publications and organizations and with my own, books to be read, books I have read, etc. So I was intrigued to see on Pages of Julia, one of my favorite new blogs, a list of 100 books people most like to read, give and share compiled by a British organization called World Book Night. It's an interesting list. Julia, a Houston librarian and book reviewer, also has a page on her blog with her own list of 100 "most important/should read/best books". So as with all excellent ideas, I decided to steal it.

My list of 100 consists of books I've read and that have stayed with me, some for decades. When I was a kid I was a big re-reader; I would read some books (the Little House books, the Chronicles of Narnia, Caddie Woodlawn) over and over.  The first 31 of these titles I came up off the top of my head; after that I had to consult my LibraryThing catalog.

I had thought a lot of my personal "best books" were nonfiction so I was surprised to find fiction winning the race here -- especially impressive since fiction in series were limited to one entry. I hope anyone who finds their way to this list might come up with some titles of interest -- and it may change over time. The last entry is a book I finished reading last night -- Susan Orlean's new book about Rin Tin Tin -- which I think is her best book yet.

I hope this list also helps me, and anyone who comes across it, in providing book recommendations. A friend asked me awhile back to name my favorite book -- and i blanked. After compiling all of these ... I still can't name a single favorite book. But all of these are books I would recommend to others and would not mind re-reading.

Addendum: Time magazine provides its list of 100 best nonfiction books of all Time. Hmph. I think the only one we share is Mystery Train by Greil Marcus -- though it has me considering switching from The White Album to Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion. My list will change, by the way. Just yesterday I took out one of the three Jane Smiley titles and replaced it with A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. And I'm always reading!