Bookish NYC

Here's What I've Been Up To . . .

In case you've been wondering . . . there's a silly article about me and my latest project in The Daily Mail (U.K.), here.  Read it and have a giggle.    

And if you're interested in a preview of a few chapters of the book itself, take a look here, where my co-author and I have tried to inform and amuse you...

Hope you're all well!  

 

 

Happy 2011 . . .

 . . . and farewell.  It's been nearly two years since I started this blog, which has provided me with a fun creative outlet and put me in touch with many wonderful people all over the world.  However, as I may have mentioned very occasionally (ahem!) I have a demanding career that leaves little time for my personal interests, including reading.  So I have found myself in the awkward position of spending much of the precious time that I would otherwise devote to books, to writing a blog that's supposed to be -- at least in part, anyway -- about books.  

I've done a good deal of thinking over the holidays, and have decided to devote myself to other pursuits in my scant spare time.  Yes, I'm going to put a dent in my To-Be-Read pile, but am also going to work on a couple of my own book projects.  One is a bit hush-hush; the other is about a more mundane work-related topic that happens to be my professional speciality, namely: prenuptial agreements.  

So, dear readers, thank you for all of your kind and encouraging comments over the past two years.  I am going to keep my email address (bookishnyc@gmail.com) active, and will certainly keep posting under that moniker on all of your sites, bookish and otherwise.  Please keep in touch!  

Best wishes for a very Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas

MERRY CHRISTMAS to one and all.  I hope to have my technical difficulties sorted out in time to resume regular posts and to wish you all a Happy New Year next week! 

A Lovely but Technically Challenging Weekend

BookishNYC is having technical difficulties this week, as her modem at home has suddenly stopped working and she must wait for Time Warner Cable to come and replace it.  That shocking cursing that you kept hearing over the weekend from the direction of the East Side emanated from chez Bookish.  So posts this week may be a little erratic. 

Other than THAT, however, the weekend was most pleasant.  I saw The King's Speech, and can only add my accolades to everyone else's.  Stuck to the story of George VI's debilitating speech impediment, didn't sentimentalize, didn't veer off into the tedious and over-baked story of the Abdication other than as absolutely necessary; Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush (as speech therapist Lionel Logue) both superb, with Helena Bonham Carter as the Duchess of York (later known to us as the Queen Mother) and Timothy Spall as Churchill slyly amusing foils to the main characters.  Now, I believe I've already mentioned in these pages how impressed I've been with Colin Firth of late -- particularly so in last summer's A Single Man.  (Run, don't walk to get it on DVD.  Go ahead -- I'll wait.)   He's really a quietly terrific actor, too long overshadowed by his role as Mr. Darcy in the 1995 adaptation of Pride & Prejudice, for which I thought he was terribly mis-cast.  (I'm quite possibily the only woman on either side of the Atlantic to think so.....)  In any event, imagine my silent mirth on Saturday as I watched The King's Speech in a sold-out movie theater, when none other than Jennifer Ehle, the actress who played Elizabeth Bennett to Firth's Mr. Darcy, was introduced to him as the wife of Lioniel Logue. 

As to reading:  precious little of late, I'm sad to report, but what with the press of year-end business at the office plus presents to wrap and send, cards to get out, etc., I'm lucky to remain conscious long enough to eat something unhealthy for dinner before passing out in the evenings.   However, I have just downloaded and started The Four Stages of Cruelty by Keith Hollihan -- it got a good mention in the Times last week, and its setting in a harsh midwestern prison is just the antidote to all of the faux holiday cheer.  (Let me go on record:  I have no problem with ACTUAL holiday cheer, it's just the forced jollity of the season that makes me want to read a good serial killer novel.) 

Sunday Quote

"I stopped believing in Santa Claus when my mother took me to see him in a department store, and he asked me for my autograph." --Shirley Temple

Seen on the Subway

A woman with wildly curly hair wearing a very unattractive lime green shearling coat (lime green!) was reading Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro.  Questionable taste in clothing; excellent taste in books. 

A young woman encased in a full-length black down coat (it was a cold week here in NYC, thus the appearance rather early in the season of the shearling and down coats featured here) was standing on the uptown 6 platform at Grand Central Terminal reading a green leather-bound copy of Howard's End by E.M. Forster, with gilt page edges. 

A very handsome guy in his mid-30s was reading The Autobiography of Mark Twain  and smiling to himself. 

Park Avenue Divorce Tales

"For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?"  On this, the 235th birthday of Jane Austen, I thought there could be no better illustration of that wonderful line from Pride and Prejudice than a divorce anecdote showing human folly in all its glory. 

Most lawyers I know loathe getting involved in a discussion of the division of a divorcing couple's "stuff" (a technical legal term for the crap that fills most of our houses and apartments).  We're not talking about the valuable art work or priceless antiques or oriental rugs here (those are significant assets and are usually valued by neutral appraisers and then divided in some fashion between the parties), but rather the sofa from Crate and Barrel in the basement rec room, the kitchen paraphernalia, the old TV set in the guest room, etc. etc.  As one of my partners says, "I'm not a furniture lawyer; figure it out yourself."  So, except in the bitterest of cases the couple does just that -- they don't bother the lawyers (at, let's face it, ungodly hourly rates) with their disputes over these issues.  Occasionally, however, we DO have to step in.  About ten years ago I had a case where the other lawyer and I had to go the couple's beautifully-appointed Fifth Avenue apartment.  The distribution of the Bosendorfer piano and the Aubusson carpets had already been agreed upon, but they couldn't come to an agreement on -- get this -- the pots and pans and other kitchen things.  The apartment had been the husband's prior to the marriage (a relatively brief, childless union between two older people), so the wife was shortly to vacate the premises.   One evening after work the other attorney and I schlepped up to the apartment to referee the division.  After hours of excruciating debate over the fish poacher and the broiler pan, etc., the wife (not MY client I hasten to add), went into the pantry and began going through the FOOD, including opened boxes of breakfast cereals, indicating that she was going to take them.  My  client was embarrassed, but said "yes, yes, fine."  However, when she got to an unopened jar of white asparagus, my client wouldn't budge.  "NO.  That's it.  No more."  Tears, screaming, etc., but the wife finally relented.  A few months later at Christmas, I sent my long-suffering adversary a jar of white asparagus.  And to this day, whenever we see each other in court, we ask each other if it's asparagus season. 

Object of Desire

I'd love one of these travel backgammon boards from Pickett:

Although first I'd have to memorize this: 

 

 

Lazy Weekend

For the first time in ages I actually had a weekend during which I did NOT go to the office.  Heaven, although I will probably regret it when I'm in the midst of the Monday onslaught.   

On Saturday I was lucky to attend the Metropolitan Opera's new production of Don Carlo.  (I was supposed to see it with a friend on opening night, but a custody case exploded that day and I had to cancel, much to my regret.)  Very minimal, modernistic sets which I usually hate, but the cast was so terrific that they could have been singing in a shopping mall and it wouldn't have mattered.  Roberto Alagna sang the title role, the Russian sensation Marina Poplavskaya played Elisabeth de Valois, and English baritone Simon Keenlyside was Rodrigo.  (He gets my award for "Best Singing While Lying Prone Dying From a Gunshot Wound.")  

Plan for Sunday:  Run some errands, including picking up a couple of the very few Christmas gifts I'm actually buying in person rather than online; go the movies to see The King's Speech; get a start on my Christmas cards; do a couple of loads of laundry.  Actually accomplished on Sunday:  Nothing, unless you count a three-hour afternoon nap.  

Sunday Quote

"Christmas is a season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart."  

-- Washington Irving

Seen on the Subway

I saw a woman in her 20s the other day, wearing one of those knit winter hats that small children used to wear -- the kind that ties under the chin.  Hers was a sort of dirty white, with panda eyes and a bulbous panda nose that jutted out over her forehead.  WHY this woman was wearing headgear that my nine-year old niece would eschew as weird and babyish, I do not know.  All I can tell you is that she was on the uptown 6 train reading At First Sight by Nicholas Sparks.  

A woman in her early 30s with gelled hair was wearing navy blue suede knee boots, unflattering jeans and a leather jacket bearing a Chicago Bulls patch, and was reading The School on Heart's Content Road by Carolyn Chute.  

Park Avenue Divorce Tales

If I sometimes (OK, always) seem a bit jaundiced about my career, my feelings are from time to time reinforced in a particularly funny way.  Two instances:

I was making a court appearance with my client in tow, along with her husband and his attorney, a high-profile member of the criminal defense bar (trust me, you've heard of him) who very occasionally dabbles in matrimonial law. (We'll call him Mr. X).   Mr. X and I proceeded to fill out some required forms at the counsel table, while our respective clients seethed at one another from opposite ends of the courtroom.  Mr. X glanced back at his client over his shoulder, then turned to me and muttered, "Trying a death penalty case is less stressful than this."  I raised my eyebrows, and he explained, "the death penalty clients are in JAIL -- they can't call you seven times a day."  He had a point . . . 

Many years ago I was representing a woman, a fellow attorney who worked in the sex crimes unit of one of the local District Attorneys' offices.  We were working on her financial statement, and I asked some routine question about  her monthly budget or the current balance of her checking account or whatever, and she burst into tears.  "How can you do this for a living?" she sobbed.  I have never forgotten that someone who spent her professional life interviewing rape victims thought that I had a distasteful job.  

A BookishNYC Christmas

I don't know about you, but all of these year-end "Best Of" lists are leaving me a bit fatigued.  Best books, best recordings, best movies, best recipes, best presents for your mother-in-law, husband, brother, lover, surly teenage son, eccentric aunt, co-worker, etc.   But why should that stop me from offering my own suggestions -- bookish and otherwise --  for the holiday season?  

My personal favorite books of the year:  The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal, and Wait for Me by Deborah (Dowager Duchess of) Devonshire:  

For mystery aficionados, I particularly recommend The Sherlockian by Graham Moore, Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane, and Portobello by Ruth Rendell.  

  

 

For the music lover:  The Ninth: Beethoven and the World in 1824 by Harvey Sachs:

. . . . and the latest recording from one of my favorite artists, Ian Bostridge, Three Baroque Tenors: 

For the art lover, you can't do better than the catalogue from the Metropolitan Museum of Art's exhibit Man, Myth & Sensual Pleasures: Jan Gossart's Renaissance:  

I loved Bunny Williams' Scrapbook for Living, which is sure to please any design aficionados on your shopping list:

 

 

Any P.G. Wodehouse fan would like this mug, one of a series featuring Penguin Classics covers:  

Gifts of food:  I'm a big fan of the classic peppermint bark from Williams-Sonoma:  

 

Or if you prefer savory to sweet, how about this delectable mixture from Stonewall Kitchen:

Consider these rock crystal and pearl earrings from Kate Hines Jewelry.  Perfect for virtually any woman on your list, in particular divorce lawyers moonlighting as bookish bloggers (ahem!): 

I adore these Christmas ornaments from Bergdorf Goodman -- an elegant lady shopper laden with packages (and of course the iconic lilac-colored Bergdorf's shopping bag), and the doorman ready to help her into her waiting chauffeured car: 

I have previously featured John Derian's fabulous decoupage in these pages, and I love this domed glass paperweight featuring a map of New York's Greenwich Village circa 1857 (other neighborhoods are available as well): 

This Jo Malone candle scented with "English Pear & Freesia" will make your apartment smell so good you won't ever want to leave:

And to cap off a perfect pre-Christmas weekend, why not attend the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at the Evensong service on December 19th at 4:00 p.m. at the beautiful St. Thomas Episcopal Church on Fifth Avenue, with its magnificent choir of men and boys?  It's magical: 

 

Tree Lighting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Last Thursday evening a friend and I attended a patrons' holiday reception at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, featuring the lighting of the exquisite "Angel Tree," which is decorated with 18th-century Neapolitan figures of angels, and surrounded by an elaborate Neapolitan creche.  Here are some photos of the tree (all photo credits, Metropolitan Museum of Art):  

The tree in place in the medieval sculpture hall:

An angel: 

And another: 

The creche:

The Magi:

Sunday Quote

"My idea of happiness is to be alone in a room in a house full of people."

Antonia Fraser, Must You Go?

Seen on the Subway

My friend "F" had a very amusing sighting on the uptown 6 the other day:  A gentleman in his 60s, with a well-groomed mustache and goatee ("F" thought he looked like a psychiatrist) was reading A Mind of Its Own by David Friedman.  Subtitle:  A Cultural History of the Penis.   

A rather portly guy in his 50s with a florid complexion was reading The Hero's Farewell: What Happens When CEOs Retire, by Jeffrey Sonnenfeld.  

A little girl about eight years old was wearing brightly-flowered rain boots and reading The Problem Child, which a search on Amazon revealed to be the third in the "Sisters Grimm" series by Michael Buckley and Peter Ferguson.  

Park Avenue Divorce Tales

Almost all of my clients have what I call a "committee" -- a collection of well-meaning friends, relatives, neighbors, etc., all of whom want to offer divorce advice.  It is not unusual for me to spend hours with a client (at $600 per hour) carefully outlining his/her options, answering their questions, and recommending a carefully thought-out course of action based on 24 years of experience, only to have them call me the following day to say, "my cousin Fred/my college roommate Sue/another mother at my kids' school/a guy I see at the gym got divorced last year and THEY think . . ."  Aaaagghh!!  My invariable response -- delivered in as innocent and deadpan a manner as I can muster -- is:  "Oh, is he/she a divorce lawyer in New York?  No?  A divorce lawyer ANYwhere?  No?  Well, how about a lawyer of ANY kind?  No?  Uh-huh . . . so, um, why would I -- or you -- be interested in their legal opinion on this issue?"   Sigh.  

Seriously, just because Sue/Fred/the other mom at school/the guy at the gym got divorced doesn't  mean that their respective experiences in the court system have any relevance to yours.  It's not that you shouldn't seek emotional and social support from your "committee" -- by all means, avail yourself of their friendship -- but take any legal advice they start dishing out with a grain of salt.  

There is another stock character in many divorce scenarios, a character that one of my former partners termed a "coat holder."  The "coat holder" is typically another professional -- the client's shrink, or stockbroker, or accountant.  That professional riles the client up by proffering gung-ho advice along the lines of "you need to say blahblahblah, and you tell your lawyer that he/she needs to go into court and take the offensive and tell the judge blahblahblah."   Typically, the client has not really told this other professional the full story, so the cheerleading-type advice they give out so readily is usually based upon a false premise.  And keep in mind that often times the only legal knowledge these other professionals have is derived from a devoted viewing of Law & Order.  But why did my partner refer to them as "coat holders?"  It's because he likened them to a situation where you're in a bar with a friend, and a Hell's Angel sitting a few barstools away is drunk and belligerent and tossing around insults.  Your friend then urges you to punch the guy even though the odds are you'll end up beaten to a pulp:  "You shouldn't put up with that!  Go on, you can take him!  Teach him a lesson!  I'll hold your coat."  LOL!  The point is, these mis-informed professionals are all keen to urge the clients to an aggressive, rash course of action without having any appreciation for the risks involved, and without bearing any responsibility for the consequences that flow therefrom.  I usually tell my client in these situations:  "Tell Dr. Smith/your broker/your accountant that I won't perform psychotherapy/sell securities/prepare tax returns, if he/she stops trying to practice law."    

Object of Desire

I have a weakness for Christmas ornaments, and always end up adding to my collection annually, despite having almost run out of storage space in my apartment.  I think that this beauty from Simon Pearce will end up being this year's acquisition (not only is it lovely crystal, but pears also happen to be my favorite fruit):  

Monday, Monday . . .

I'm back from Thanksgiving upstate, and hope American visitors to this site had a great holiday.  I did not subject myself to the retail hell of "Black Friday," and in fact haven't yet purchased a single Christmas gift.  *twinge of anxiety*  I'll remedy that soon enough, but will end up doing most of it online.  

Over the past few days I finished Bill Bryson's At Home: A Short History of Private Life.  Not as laugh-out-funny as his travelogues, this was nonetheless an amusing collection of long essays, organized (albeit very loosely) around a tour of the former rectory in Norfolk in which he now lives.  He covers topics as disparate as Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin, the discovery of an Ice Age man in a glacier in the Italian Alps, the mice infesting his (Bryson's, not the ice age man's) study, Thomas Jefferson's construction of Monticello, and the intermarriage of the Darwin and Wedgewood families.    

I am now deep into An Impartial Witness, the second of Charles Todd's books featuring WW I-era nurse Bess Crawford.  A light but satisfying read.  I enjoyed Todd's previous series featuring a shell-shocked Inspector Rutledge, but these are a good change of pace.  ("Charles Todd" is actually the nom-de-plume of a mother-son writing team, and they seem to have worked out a winning formula....)  

Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation

I imagine there are few American readers of this blog who didn't learn in kindergarten all about the Pilgrim Fathers and the "first Thanksgiving" at Plymouth Rock in the 1620s.  However, Thanksgiving wasn't actually established until 1863, when, in the midst of the Civil War (the same year that saw the Union victory at the Battle of Gettysburg), Abraham Lincoln make the following proclamation: 

"We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that [the gifts of God] should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens . . . to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens."

Enjoy Thanksgiving, everyone.  I've got a tough few days at work this week, and then plan to get in some relaxation over the holiday.  I'll be resuming posts on Monday the 29th.  

Seen on the Subway

A girl in her late teens was reading Islamic Fundamentalism and the Doctrine of Jihad by A.J. Abraham.  

A thirty-something woman with a taxicab-yellow handbag was reading The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery.  

A tired man in his 50s -- a manual laborer, to judge by his clothing -- was reading The Imitation of Christ, by Thomas a Kempis.  

Park Avenue Divorce Tales

Last Thursday I remarked that there are only five basic divorce stories, and one commenter inquired as to what they are.  So, here is my wildly unscientific summary, based on my observations after 24 years in the divorce trenches:  

1.  Infidelity.  By a VAST margin the most, uh, "popular" of the basic fact patterns, easily comprising 75% or more of my caseload.  Ranges from garden-variety adultery (husband has one night stand on a business trip, or wife rekindles flame with senior prom date at her 25th high school reunion) to sort of mid-level cheating (husband has long-term liaison) to really epic infidelity (husband keeps string of exotic dancers/porn stars on the side).  The last variety is available only to hedge fund managers and other potentates due to extraordinary expense thereof.  

2.  Brief marriage; no kids; all a horrible mistake from the get-go.  What were they thinking in the first place?  A "starter marriage," if you will.   After a year or two of misery they split the wedding gifts and go their separate ways.  No harm, no foul.  

3.  One or both of them is an addict:  alcohol/pills/gambling/food/internet porn.  Complications ensue.  

4.  Already wobbly marriage implodes when they have kids; horrifying custody battle ensues that sometimes lasts longer than the marriage did.  These are by far the WORST kind of cases, and show people in their least flattering light.  I'm getting a stomach ache just thinking about it.  

5.  Long term marriage, with or without children, fizzles.  No big dramatic reason; they just wake up one day and "Eh.  Don't want to be married anymore."  

6.  (OK, OK, there are six, not five):  One spouse is a control freak and/or mentally cruel.  

---------- 

Where, do you ask, are all the horrible physical abuse cases?  Well, remember, this is a portrait of MY practice, of which such cases are not really a significant feature.  I'm not saying that none of my clients have ever been hit, or for that matter administered a slap/punch/kick, but it's almost always in the context of their epic final marital argument, often when they've already been discussing divorce and things get a little heated.   It's been nearly fifteen years since I had a client who was really a victim of chronic domestic violence.  

So, there you have it:  the six basic fact patterns into which my entire caseload can be categorized.   

 

Too crazed to post...

Sorry all, but at the moment the press of my litigation practice is too much for me to have any time to read, much less BLOG about matters bookish today.  Amuse yourselves by trolling through my archives (scroll down on the left column somewhere).   Talk among yourselves.  

Object of Desire

I am always on the lookout for the perfect boots, and I think I may have found them in this style from Cole Haan:  

Monday. Sigh.

Well, here we are again.  Monday morning.  I was in the office both days this weekend working on an appellate brief, so I'm feeling all rested and refreshed and raring to go for the four days of depositions I have this week.  [insert hollow laughter here]

The weekend was not a total loss, however.  On Saturday night I attended the New York Philharmonic's performance of Mendelssohn's oratorio, Elijah.  It was a superb performance all-round, but the real stand-out was Canadian bass-baritone Gerald Finley.  After the concert, we (as in my concert buddy Susan and I, not me and Mr. Finley) had a late dinner at Nougatine.  When I hopped in a cab to head back to the East Side, I found an empty Smirnoff bottle on the seat.  A quick reconnoiter revealed that no one had vomited in said back seat nor did the driver seem drunk, so I continued on home.  A classic evening in the Big Apple.  

When I trudged home from the office late Sunday afternoon, I sank into a light comfort read, The True Memoirs of Little K: A Novel, by Adrienne Sharp.   "Little K," a Russian prima ballerina assoluta in the waning days of the 19th century, becomes the mistress of the last tsar before his marriage to Alexandra, granddaughter of Queen Victoria and carrier of the hemophiliac gene that plays its part in bringing the imperial family to its doom.  Good for ballet lovers, Romanov aficionados, mentally exhausted lawyers, etc.  

Sunday Quote

"Delicious autumn!  My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking successive autumns." 

-- George Eliot

Seen on the Subway

My friend F spotted a bespectacled "lawyer-type" reading Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar.  This one is described on Amazon as "a brilliant psychological novel and meditation on history," originally published in 1951.  

I saw a woman in her 30s with a scruffy PBS tote bag reading John Grisham's latest, The Confession.  

A guy in his 40s with a holster on his belt for a blackberry, was reading No Man Is an Island, by Thomas Merton.  

Park Avenue Divorce Tales

Lest you think that my job is glamorous -- life amongst the rich and occasionally famous, as it were -- think again.  It's not all titillating anecdotes about excessive spending and mildly scandalous extramarital relationships.  Most of it is just a long slog, and truth be told, there are only about five basic stories.  This is not to minimize the very individual agony through which each person goes when their marriage crumbles, but seriously:  the number of basic fact patterns are surprisingly limited.

In any event, there are quite a few dark moments, including the time I had to go to court to obtain an order of protection for a client whose husband had shoved her down a flight of stairs.  There was the former professor of history at a prestigious university, a Ph.D. tragically rendered child-like by a massive brain tumor, whose clever M.B.A. wife finessed his signature on a separation agreement in which he gave up his rights to property or support. (We overturned the agreement after a two-year litigation.)  There was the mother of newborn handicapped twins whose husband walked out of the marriage before she was even released from the hospital after her C-section. 

So . . . glamour?   Not so much. 

Reading Now . . .

I'm reading the Persephone edition of Farewell Leicester Square by Betty Miller, a novel of anti-Semitism in Britain between-the-wars.   The protagonist is a young man who leaves behind his Jewish upbringing in Brighton, marries a Gentile woman, and becomes a successful film-maker.  The anti-Semitism he experiences is all the more chilling for being so casual and ingrained.  

I've just started Portobello by Ruth Rendell.  I prefer her stand-alone suspense novels (such as this one) to her Inspector Wexford series.  The fifty-year old central character, a resident of London's Notting Hill neighborhood, finds an envelope stuffed with cash one day on his way to the shops, and embarks on an ill-considered plan to find whomever lost it.  

Finally, I'm not so much reading as salivating over The Gourmet Cookie Book: The Single Best Recipe from Each Year 1941-2009.   I do miss Gourmet magazine (which folded in November 2009), so this is a wonderful resource.  Coconut macadamia shortbread, anyone?  Or how about Chocolate Peppermint Bar Cookies?  

 

Object of Desire

These goblets from William Yeoward (pattern: "Fern") are perfection:

 

Project Proust

As regular readers know, I have been grappling with the first volume of Remembrance of Things Past, and while I have actually enjoyed being carried away on Proust's great sea of words, I have at times been near to drowning.  But, to stick with my labored metaphor, a lifeboat has just arrived in the shape of the Proust Society, which meets at the Center for Fiction at the Mercantile Library in midtown Manhattan -- just a few blocks from my office!  Two "group reads" have just begin -- one a sort of "speed-read" lasting just ten months, and the other a four-year cycle in which the work is discussed in greater depth.  (This all makes me feel better about the snail-like pace of my own reading of Swann's Way . . . !)  I will be attending the November meeting of the latter group.

God, I love New York.  

Sunday Quote

"Like many intellectuals,  he was incapable of saying a simple thing in a simple way." 

-- Marcel Proust

Seen on the Subway

A tall young guy in business attire and Gucci loafers was absorbed in The Warrior Elite: The Forging of Seal Class 228 by Dick Couch.  Living vicariously, I guess . . . 

An elderly woman sporting an elaborately-coiffed wig and wearing a trim trench coat was reading Cleopatra: A Life, by Stacy Schiff.  

A 30-ish woman wearing black leggings, a bulky fleece jacket, and yoga shoes, and carrying a huge Tory Burch tote bag was reading John Grisham's latest, The Confession.  

 

Park Avenue Divorce Tales

One question I am asked often is "do you represent more women or men?"  The answer is: "it's about 50/50."  Many women, in my experience, initially express a strong preference for having female counsel, reasoning, "she will understand what I've been through!"   Not necessarily.  Just because an attorney is a woman, doesn't mean she's going to be warm, nurturing, and sympathetic to the wife's cause.  On the flip side, relatively few male attorneys are misogynistic jerks.  If you're in the market for a divorce lawyer (I'm so sorry), you should interview a wide range of attorneys, including both men and women, until you find one in whom you have confidence.  

One (much older) male lawyer of my acquaintance who shall remain nameless expressed his opinion on this point:  "Women shouldn't really want to be represented by female attorneys who have to haul themselves out of bed every morning, go to the office, and make a living in a competitive profession.  They aren't going to be sympathetic to the hedge fund managers' wives with full household staffs who spend their days shopping and getting manicures and pretending to be feminists.  What those women really need is to be represented by a chauvinistic a**hole like ME, someone who thinks women are ignorant and naive and need to be protected."  While this largely self-serving view is, admittedly, equally offensive to female lawyers, hedge fund managers' wives, and womankind in general, the really sad thing is:  he's not that wrong.  

Moonlight Mile

I have long been a fan of Dennis Lehane, so today when his latest novel, Moonlight Mile, was published, I bought it on my Kindle.  Featuring detective couple Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro, this is a sequel of sorts to Lehane's Gone, Baby, Gone -- twelve years have passed, and the now 16-year-old Amanda McCready has gone missing again.  The investigation of her disappearance gives Patrick plenty of time to re-visit his decision to rescue four-year-old Angie from her loving kidnappers and return her to her neglectful mother.  

I can't wait to delve into this one.  

Object of Desire

The BookishNYC living room is already laden with decorative pillows, but I think there may be room for one more, from Pillow Folly:  

Sunday at the Met

I had family in town this weekend, and we took in an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, "Man, Myth, and Sensual Pleasures:  Jan Gossart's Renaissance."  I had never heard of Gossart, a "Burdundian Netherlandish" artist (1478 - 1532), but a good friend had told me not to miss this show, and I was not disappointed.  From the exhibition notes:  "Most often credited with successfully assimilating Italian Renaissance style into northern European art of the early sixteen century, [Gossart] is the pivotal Old Master who changed the course of Flemish art from the Medieval craft tradition of its founder, Jan van Eyck, and charted new territory that eventually led to the great age of Peter Paul Rubens."  

Let me share some of the beautiful and fascinating images we saw today: 

First of all, Virgin and Child: 

 . . . Adam and Eve:  

  . . . Portrait of a Man: 

 . . . and A Young Princess (Dorothea of Denmark):  

After a happy hour spent at the Gossart exhibition, we were contemplating lunch and wending our way back to the Great Hall when we stumbled upon a small gallery (an anteroom, really) that contained a jewel of an exhibit -- the sort of thing the Met presents with little fanfare but in any other setting would be a blockbuster:  "Vienna Circa 1780:  An Imperial Silver Service Rediscovered."  The display cases contained dozens of solid silver plates, candelabra, wine coolers, tureens, etc. etc., as well as porcelain-handled sterling flatware, and stiffly-starched napkins elaborately folded into fantastical shapes.  This magnificent silver was made for Duke Albert Casimir of Sachsen-Teschen and his bride, Archduchess Marie Christine, daughter of the Empress Maria Theresa, and the only one of that formidable monarch's children who was allowed to marry for love rather than dynastic concerns (unlike her more famous sibling, Marie Antoinette).  Worth a return visit when I have more time, but in the meanwhile, I treated myself to the catalogue:

We had planned to continue to the Neue Gallerie (the museum of late 19th/early 20th century Austrian/German art) a few blocks away after lunch, but as we were already afflicted with severe cases of "Museum Feet" we fell into a cab and headed home!  ("Museum Feet" is the strange condition whereby every 100 feet traversed inside a museum = one mile run in the N.Y. Marathon.)  

Sunday Quote

"To have her meals, and her daily walk, and her fill of novels, and to be left alone, was all that she asked of the gods."  

Anthony Trollope, The Eustace Diamonds

Seen on the Subway

I saw a woman in her early 30s wearing surgical scrubs and reading The Jewel in the Crown, the first book in Paul Scott's Raj Quartet (basis of the beloved 1980s TV miniseries).  

A Wall-Streeter in his 40s was reading Life, Keith Richards' autobiography, which received a VERY good review in the Times earlier this week.  

A rotund little woman in her late 50s/early 60s sported a bowl-shaped haircut, bright red reading glasses, big clunky beads, and an NPR tote bag, and was reading Little Bee by Chris Cleave.  I keep meaning to read this one, but  . . . I don't know.  I just haven't.  

Park Avenue Divorce Tales

Herewith, the first weekly vignette in my new Thursday feature:  

When I first started practicing in this field in the late 1980s, I enjoyed titillating glimpses into a lifestyle that I could not have imagined growing up in a small upstate town.  One of our clients had a Renoir hanging over the toilet in the powder room.  Another had a full-time silver polisher on his household staff.  Yet another had an entire room filled with her shoes and someone who came in twice a week to clean and polish them.  The very first client whose case I worked on as a young associate earned $20M per year -- and that was when twenty million dollars was still a lot of money!  Despite the tens of millions of dollars of assets that changed hands in that case, the settlement came down to one lapis lazuli picture frame the parties had acquired at Aspreys.  Neither party would budge -- each one wanted it.  The solution?  The lawyers, who were exhausted and exasperated after four years of litigation, ordered a duplicate from Aspreys and told each party that he/she had prevailed.  

"They were new money, without a doubt: so new it shrieked.  Their clothes looked as if they'd covered themselves in glue, then rolled around in hundred-dollar bills."  Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin.  

The Midweek Report

As I write this, just after midnight on Tuesday night, I am unwinding from tonight's Carnegie Hall concert -- the first in my "Keyboard Virtuosos" subscription -- Andras Schiff with an elegant all-Schumann program.  It's just what the doctor ordered in the thick of this hectic work week.  In keeping with the Schumann-esque mood, afterwards we had dinner at Seasonal, a terrific German/Austrian restaurant just around the block from the concert hall.  

On the reading front, I am still plodding through Proust (I wish I could say "pirouetting," or "prancing," but alas . . . ) and am overdue for a report thereon.  Next week, I promise.  Meanwhile, I am reading Too Big To Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System -- and Themselves by Andrew Ross Sorkin.  I am quite possibly the last person among my friends to read this book, but although I'm late to the party, it lives up to its billing as the definitive account of the 2008 financial meltdown.  The best "blurb" about this book definitely comes from Tom Wolfe, who described it as " . . . a fascinating, scene-by-scene saga of the eyeless trying to march the clueless through Great Depression II."  

Object of Desire

I love this sterling-and-agate bookmark, circa 1898, available from bexfield.co.uk for  £225.  Sadly, not adaptable for use with a Kindle, but a lovely thing nonetheless.  Addendum to original post:  LizF's comment below made me realize I should have indicated the size of the bookmark:  it's TINY, only about an inch and a half to two inches long.  I have a couple of this style of bookmark at home -- both mother-of-pearl -- and if I remember I will take a photo of one actually IN a book so you can get an idea of the scale. 

Wallenberg v. Eichmann

The Envoy by Alex Kershaw caught my eye Sunday afternoon as I walked past the Crawford Doyle bookshop on Madison Avenue, where it was featured in the window.  The subtitle is: The Epic Rescue of the Last Jews of Europe in the Desperate Closing Months of World War II.   By December 1944, SS Colonel Adolf Eichmann had sent over half a million Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz.  Enter Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomatic envoy, who saved over 100,000 Jews from the Budapest ghetto by forging documents, providing safe houses, and remaining half a step ahead of Eichmann.  A thrilling, compelling, read:  

 

Sunday Quote

"The Bibliomania, or the collecting an enormous heap of books without intelligent curiosity, has, since libraries have existed, infected weak minds, who imagine that they themselves acquire knowledge when they keep it on their shelves."

Isaac Disraeli, Curiosities of Literature, 1807

Seen on the Subway

A 40-year-old guy in a business suit was reading I'm Not High (But I've Got a Lot of Crazy Stories about Life as a Goat Boy, a Dad, and a Spiritual Warrior), by Jim Breuer, a former Saturday Night Live comedian.  

A little girl, age 5 or thereabouts, and dressed in pink from head-to-toe, was reading Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes.  

A grey-haired guy in his 50s, uneasy in a business suit, was reading Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.  The Publisher's Weekly review on Amazon describes this Booker Prize short-listed novel as "at once audacious, dazzling, pretentious and infuriating."  

Time for a Change

For nearly a year now, every Thursday I've featured a bookish photograph -- sometimes of a posh library in someone's home, sometimes of a bookstore, sometimes of an unusual bookcase -- but I've recently happened upon a site, courtesy of Twitter, that gathers many more such intriguing photos: bookshelfporn.com.  It's terrific, and I think you'll enjoy it.  Add it to your bookmarks!  

For the foreseeable future, I'm going to focus on a different topic on Thursdays.  I've noticed in my blog stats that my page views hit the roof every time I discuss my career as a divorce lawyer, and that those posts generate a significantly greater number of comments, emails, etc.  I get similar results on Twitter.  I'm a bit bemused by this, as I make no bones about the fact that I am at best ambivalent about my work.  (Let's be honest:  I hate it.)  However, the stats don't lie -- YOU are obviously interested in it.  So, each Thursday I will feature a vignette -- a story from the front lines, as it were -- from my practice.  Don't get too excited:  There will be no celebrity name-dropping, identities will be masked to protect the guilty, and no confidential information will be revealed.  But it will be amusing.  Or informative.  Or a tad frightening.  Or perhaps all three.  Please do check in next Thursday.  

Prenuptial Perils

I am in the midst of negotiating a particularly distasteful prenuptial agreement.  (It's all romance, all the time, here at BookishNYC.)  This time I'm representing the bride-to-be, who is penniless, marrying the standard-issue investment banker.  She may be a bit naive in financial matters, but he is being very cowardly about fessing up to just how stingy he intends to be.  He keeps telling her that "the lawyers should work it out," an instruction that she then repeats to me.  Today I had to take a strong stand with her and remind her that I am not marrying the other lawyer, that neither he nor I care in any real sense what the terms of the agreement are, and that it is her fiance -- her beloved, her soulmate, her groom -- and not the fiance's attorney, who is calling the shots.  Many tears.  

It brought to mind a quote from my favorite author Anthony Trollope:  "I doubt whether any girl would be satisfied with her lover's mind if she knew the whole of it." 

Object of Desire

What's not to like -- my favorite musical era (Vivaldi, Handel, Scarlatti) and my favorite tenor.  This cd is being released in the States in November, although I believe it is already available in the U.K.:  

Brahms & Byrne

On Saturday evening I attended a terrific New York Philharmonic concert -- Brahms violin concerto (Pinchas Zukerman, soloist), and Brahms's Symphony No. 4.   My concert-going buddy, "S," has been an influential fund-raiser in the music world and so at the intermission I was lucky enough to go backstage with her and met Mr. Zukerman, at which point I became paralyzed with shyness.  Fortunately, "S" chattered away happily with "Pinky" (yes, seriously) so my jejune reaction went unnoticed.  

As I am still not quite 100% (in truth, not even 80%) after my recent bout with bronchitis, I spent most of Sunday quietly at home bracing for the upcoming work week.  I expended an embarrassing amount of time watching back-to-back episodes of the second season of In Treatment on HBO.   This is the half-hour program that stars Gabriel Byrne as psychologist Dr. Paul Weston, and takes place almost entirely in his office.  Each daily episode is devoted to a session with one of his patients, with the fifth episode each week featuring Dr. Weston's session with his own therapist, played by Dianne Wiest.  It's absorbing and sophisticated drama, and I highly recommend it.  The third season begins on October 25th.  And my interest in this series has nothing whatsoever to do with the rather attractive Mr. Byrne.  Nope.  Not at all.  

And what of reading?  This is, after all, BookishNYC:  I've finished The Finkler Question -- morosely hilarious, if that makes any sense.  I've just started The Lawyer's Secret, a Victorian-era "sensation" novel by Mary Elizabeth Braddon.  First published in the early 1860s, it tells the story of Ellinor Arden, an orphan who is named heiress of her estranged uncle's fortune, provided she marry his adopted son.  Surprise, surprise: it doesn't turn out well.  

Sunday Quote

"There is perhaps nothing that has a greater tendency to favourably or unfavourably respecting a man's future intellect, than the question whether or not he be impressed with an early taste for reading."  

--William Godwin, Of an Early Taste for Reading, 1797