Bookish NYC

Bookish Quote

"Those who write clearly have readers.  Those who write obscurely have commentators."  

-- Albert Camus

The next best thing . . .

As long as I don't have a fireplace, this is the next best thing on a chilly November evening:  A Feu de Bois ("Firewood") candle from Diptyque.  It smells like I have a fire crackling on the hearth and makes me want to curl up with a book.   

Seen on the Subway

On a ride downtown on the #1 train the other day I spotted a 30-something balding businessman carrying crumpled copies of the Times and the Wall Street Journal under his arm, and reading 7 Steps To A Pain-Free Life:  How To Rapidly Relieve Back and Neck Pain, by Robin McKenzie and and Craig Kubey.  Sitting across from me was a frumpy woman reading a library copy of Sandra Brown's Smash Cut, and seated next to me was a teenage schoolgirl studying a French grammar text. 

The stocky rather scruffy guy seated to my left tonight on the uptown 6 train was reading a massive trade paperback entitled The Icewind Dale Trilogy (Collector's Edition), by R.A. Salvatore. According to Amazon, this is "one of fantasy's best and best-loved series," featuring a beloved hero, "the noble dark-elf ranger Drizzt Do'Urden."  I confess that I don't think I'll be rushing out to buy this one.  

My friend Imani, with whom I had dinner this evening, spotted a fellow rider on the subway in Brooklyn completely engrossed in Mistress of the Vatican:  The Secret Female Pope, by Eleanor Herman, the true story of a 17th-century woman who was the power behind Pope Innocent X.  

A New Austen Blog

I recommend to any Austen devotees out there a new blog by my friend Julie, to which I've already linked over on the right sidebar :  Austen Only.  Julie is an amateur Austen scholar with an impressive knowledge not only of Austen's novels and life, but also of the late Georgian/early Regency period in general.  She has an extensive personal library of original sources which add a depth to her posts that I think is unrivaled on the web.  Please do visit her site and enjoy her fascinating and well-researched inaugural post, on the topic of "Were They Right To Worry About Jane Fairfax's Health?"  

Bookish Quote

"Magazines all too frequently lead to books and should be regarded by the prudent as the heavy petting of literature."  

---Fran Lebowitz

Seen on the Subway...

There were some rich pickings on the subway this week:

En route to court yesterday morning on the downtown 6 train, I spotted The View From the Bridge, read by a guy in his mid-30s seated to my left.  It wasn't until a few minutes ago when I looked it up on Amazon that I saw that the subtitle is: Memories of Star Trek and a Life in Hollywood.  The author is Nicholas Meyer, who has written the screenplays of some of the Star Trek movies.  

Seated to my right on the same train was a woman in her late 30s/early 40s with a waist-length blonde braid reading Polio: An American Story, by David Oshinsky.  I am going to buy this one on my Kindle -- it sounds like a fascinating account of the vaccine race between Salk and Sabin, as well as the role that polio victim FDR had spurring research into this once-dread disease.  

Earlier in the week I spotted a very pale, thin woman (unremarkable except for the fact that she was wearing white patent leather ankle boots with white athletic socks) reading Leonardo's Swans by Karen Essex.  This is historical fiction focusing on the romantic rivalry of two sisters from the noble d'Este family in Renaissance Italy.  I'm a little unclear as to the role DaVinci plays in the story.  The editorial reviews on Amazon were less than glowing, although the customer feedback was generally quite positive.  

Last night I saw a very young woman who got off at the Hunter College stop (68th Street) reading Mansfield Park, and wondered if this was the first time she was reading about the Tediously Good Fanny Price and one of my favorite "baddies" in all literature, Mrs. Norris.  Perhaps Austen is required reading in her freshman English class...

Miscellany:  Midnight:  A Gangster Love Story, by Sista Soulja, read by a short squat middle-aged woman (go figure); and the Bible (one of those editions with all of Jesus' words in red), studied by a man in his 30s with a Banana Republic shopping bag.  

Culture Fatigue

Somewhat against my better judgment (solely because I am STILL trying that case and had to spend all day Saturday as well as this morning in the office -- groan), I agreed to go see two "blockbuster" events this weekend -- Hamlet last evening, and Mahler's 9th this afternoon.  So here I am, early on Sunday evening, as exhausted as if had been up there on stage with the Prince of Denmark for the three-and-a-half hour play, or conducting the symphony at Avery Fisher Hall!!  Don't get me wrong -- I'm not complaining -- but I definitely need a day off to recover from my weekend.  No such luck.  

Anyhow, my thoughts on these two performances:

I haven't seen Hamlet on the stage in quite some time.  (I saw the Kenneth Branagh film version about ten years ago, but took a pass when Ralph Fiennes trod the boards a few years back, despite my lust admiration for him.)  So, when my friend "SB" suggested we get tickets for the current Broadway production (transferred from the Donmar in London) starring Jude Law, I was eager to go.  (Scroll down and see the Playbill and a "bookish quote" in my post from late last evening.)  It was a packed house -- standing room only -- which always adds to the energy of the evening.  However, Mr. Law's version of the prince was already so hyper-energetic that he really could have dialed it back a little.  (I kept thinking to myself -- "wait a minute -- isn't he supposed to be depressed?  More like MANIC if you ask me.")  He acquitted himself well, however, in the four soliloquys, and he certainly commands the stage.  Ron Cook played Polonius to humorous perfection.   I was disappointed in Geraldine James as Gertrude -- rather a blah performance.  Ditto the young woman who played Ophelia, although in fairness to the actress they seem to have cut a considerable portion of her part.  As for the production as a whole, I loved the minimalist set (all black and grey and brooding), although found the costumes -- particularly the women's -- bizarre.  I mean really -- why would Gertrude be wearing a jacket and palazzo pants around the throne room?  

During the one fifteen-minute intermission last evening, SB told me she had house seats to the London Symphony Orchestra's performance of Mahler's 9th this afternoon at Avery Fisher Hall, and asked if would I like to go.  I of course said yes, not only to the concert but to the pre-performance lecture.  Now, I am not someone who downloads Mahler onto my iPod and listens to it as I'm running my errands or blares it at top volume around my apartment, BUT I can and do appreciate the occasional live performance.  Our seats were in the fourth row (frankly, a bit too close, acoustically speaking), but I loved it.  I could feel the fillings in my teeth vibrate with the timpani.  LOL!!  It was a real feast of a performance, particularly the lush final movement, and the conductor, Bernard Haitink, took five curtain calls.  (Random celebrity sighting:  as we filed out of the hall, we spied Alec Baldwin -- who I confess I wouldn't have pegged as a Lincoln Center attendee -- and in true New York fashion absolutely no one paid him the slightest attention.)  

As we parted company, SB said, "just think of what we've experienced in the past 24 hours -- last night one of the greatest plays ever written, and today a magnificent piece of music -- and both places were packed to the rafters.  There is still something right with the world, kiddo."  

Amen.  

Bookish Quote

I've just returned from the theater, and thus this week's bookish quote:  

Polonius:  What do you read, my lord?

Hamlet:  Words, words, words.  

Seen on the Subway...

It was a non-fiction week on the subway:  

I saw a woman in her thirties -- long brown hair, brown clothes, brown bag -- reading a paperback edition of Reviving Ophelia:  Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls, by Mary Pipher.  

[Speaking of Ophelia -- I am going to see Hamlet tomorrow night.  I haven't seen it on the stage in a very long time, so I'm really looking forward to it.  This production, starring Jude Law in the title role, has gotten pretty good reviews.]  

The other night on the 6 train on the way home I saw a stocky guy in his late 20s/early 30s, dressed like a construction worker, reading Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert.  It sounds like yet another lame self-help book, but the Publishers Weekly review describes this as a "scientific explanation of the limitations of the human imagination and how it steers us wrong in our search for happiness."  

Finally, I saw a tall, scarily thin woman in her 40s reading What the Dog Saw, Malcolm Gladwell's new book.  This is a collection of Gladwell's New Yorker articles from the last few years, including a profile of Ron Popeil, the infomercial guy (anyone with insomnia -- like  me -- will remember Mr. Popeil shilling for spray-on "hair" and rotisserie ovens), as well as a piece on Cesar Millan, the "dog-whisperer."  

Calling all P.G. Wodehouse fans....

Please visit the website of Heywood Hill (a wonderful bookshop in London) to cast your vote for P.G. Wodehouse's funniest line.  

Two of MY favorites, not on the Heywood Hill ballot:

"She made one of those foolish remarks which do so much to confirm a man in his conviction that women as a sex should be suppressed."

-- Joy in the Morning

"At the age of eleven or thereabouts women acquire a poise and an ability to handle difficult situations which a man, if he is lucky, manages to achieve somewhere in the later seventies."

-- Uneasy Money