Bookish NYC

Seen on the Subway

Early this week a woman in her 30s was seated to my left on the downtown 6, absorbed in Collecting the New: Museums and Contemporary Art, by Bruce Altschuler.  She got off at Astor Place, carrying a large orange suede tote bag. 

I've seen too many of those Stieg Larsson books to count this week -- not the Dragon Tattoo one, but, you know . . . the other one.  (And yes, I know the third one is being released in the U.S. next month.)

Yesterday en route home, I sat opposite a sweet-faced boy who looked to be about ten years old, with wire-rimmed glasses, dressed head to toe in military camouflage, and with a huge book backpack propped between his feet.  His mother and her friend were chattering excitedly, but as I don't speak Chinese I couldn't tell you what the conversation was about.  The boy was leaning against his mom, reading a Harry Potter book.  

On the Shelf

Last week I showed you a favorite NYC bookstore; here is a shot of the shelves of Heywood Hill, which I make a point of visiting every time I'm in London.  (Let the vacation countdown begin:  I will be flying there -- volcanic eruptions allowing -- one month from today).     

 

The Season of Second Chances

 I almost didn't buy The Season of Second Chances by Diane Meier, as I was quite prepared to dismiss it as a shallow "feel good story" or (horrors!) chick lit. However, it received a positive blurb in the Times last week, so I bought the Kindle edition and was pleasantly surprised to find a thoughtful, engaging novel about a middle-aged college professor, Joy Harkness, who relocates from New York City to Amherst, Massachusetts to take a faculty position in a ground-breaking new college curriculum.  (One clue that it's not chick-lit:  the word "semiotics" appears more than once, and the depiction of the politics of academia is dead-on.)   At age 48, Joy's life in the city had become narrower and narrower; a brief, youthful marriage had all but disappeared in the rear-view mirror; and she had no close family.  She gradually and at first reluctantly is drawn in (somewhat predictably, I'll admit --but otherwise there would be no story) to the life of her new community, interacting with fellow faculty members and a couple of not-so-stock "townies."  Her inner transformation mirrors her renovation of a ramshackle Victorian house, as she slowly allows herself to connect with others.  The ending is satisfying in that it isn't tidily "happy," but is nonetheless plausible and optimistic.  All in all: a well-written, witty, good read.  

Object of Desire

You're likely familiar with Elizabeth Bradley's beautiful needlepoint kits, in particular her floral designs.  However, I have a fondness for the FISH patterns, in particular this rainbow trout.  If I didn't already have an embarrassing backlog of projects, I would splurge on this kit.  Here it is shown made up into a pillow:  

 

 

Reading Now...

Over the weekend I started the latest Commissario Guido Brunetti novel by Donna Leon, A Question of Belief.  The 19th installment in this wonderful mystery series set in Venice features judicial corruption and a scheming astrologer who bilks gullible followers of their life savings.  The story is as always enlivened by Brunetti's home life with his aristocratic university professor wife Paola and their two children.   Highly recommended.  

 

Sunday Quote

New York:  "What else can you expect from a town that's shut off from the world by the ocean on one side and New Jersey on the other?"  

-- O. Henry

Seen on the Subway

I have been very tired this week, out of my mind busy at the office, and I confess I have taken cabs virtually everywhere.  I am now taking time out from preparing the resulting bankruptcy petition to report to you my sightings on the one subway journey I took this week (Wednesday evening on the uptown 6), when I was lucky to get a seat AND be flanked by two readers:  

The thirty-something guy to my right, dressed in jeans and a tee shirt, was reading Magician: Master by Raymond Feist.  According to Amazon, this is the second book in the "Riftwar Saga."  Mr. Feist appears to be quite prolific, as he's also written the multi-book series the "Demonwar Saga" and the "Darkwar Saga."  The reader was using one of those laminated prayer cards with the picture of a saint on it as a bookmark.  No, I couldn't tell what saint it was.  

Meanwhile, the fellow to my left on this same journey, a slight man in his 50s, was reading the Bible in Spanish.  

After I got off the train and was making my way along the platform to the exit, I spied a girl in her late teens attired in a tunic, leggings, layers of tatty scarves, and flip-flops (she was aiming for Bohemian but missed), and holding a paperback edition of Ovid's Metamorphoses.  

On the Shelf

Here is a pic of the shelves at one of my favorite New York bookstores, Crawford Doyle Booksellers on Madison Avenue (I rarely escape without buying something):  

 
 

And here is the street view of the shop:

 

 

The Meaning of Night

Got home this evening to find Amazon had delivered The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox.  I had really meant to order in dinner and then buckle down to deal with the contents of my bulging briefcase, but how could I resist this opening line:  "After killing the red-haired man, I took myself off to Quinn's for an oyster supper."  

Object of Desire

I think this Hermes shawl is stunning.  It's a design from a few years ago and is now almost impossible to find.  It's called Tohu Bohu ("Hurly Burly"), and this is the framboise colorway: 

 

de Tocqueville Times Two

Why simply enjoy a book when one can have a PROJECT?  I have long looked forward to Peter Carey's novel Parrot and Olivier in America, which is being published here tomorrow, and is at one level a fictionalized account of Alexis de Tocqueville's trip to the young United States in the 1830s.  The main characters -- Olivier, a pampered French aristocrat, and his servant Parrot -- share the narrative in alternating chapters.  Not satisfied to enjoy this very well-reviewed novel, I also felt compelled to learn more about the REAL de Tocqueville, whose account of his nine-month sojourn to the United States is of one the most enduring and revealing portraits ever written about the American people.  For this I turned to the also newly-released Tocqueville's Discovery of America, by Leo Damrosch, which I bought over the weekend and spent much of yesterday afternoon poring over the illustrations. 

 

Sunday Quote

"Does there, I wonder, exist a being who has read all, or approximately all, that the person of average culture is supposed to have read, and that not to have read is a social sin?  If such a being does exist, surely he is an old, a very old man."  

-- Arnold Bennett, English novelist (1867-1931)

Seen on the Subway

This week's only amusing sighting occurred on my way to court Wednesday morning in a god-awful paternity & child support case.  As the downtown 6 train neared the end of the line, my attention was drawn to a guy in his late 40s several seats away who was reading a hardcover book from which he had removed the jacket, thus making it impossible to spot the title from a distance.  I was debating whether or not to bother sidling up to him to get a closer look when he took out a pair of clippers and began giving himself a manicure.  The woman next to him gave him a disgusted look and got up and moved away.  (I'm guessing she must have been hit by flying fingernail shrapnel -- good thing he wasn't giving himself a pedicure.)  So that decided it for me; I got up as the train entered the Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall stop and stood over him (he'd finished grooming by that point) and saw that he had been reading Mission to Mars.  I looked it up on Amazon and there are three books with this title; I don't know which one it was.  

A middle-aged woman next to me a few days ago was reading Return to the Summerhouse by Jude Devereaux, described as a "time travel romance fantasy."  

A woman in her 30s wearing a trench coat, skinny jeans and Tory Burch ballet flats (for the record:  my favorite shoes ever) was reading Silence by Thomas Perry.  

A woman in her 20s on the 86th Street uptown platform on Thursday night was reading The Bottom of the Harbor by Joseph Mitchell.  This is a collection of stories about the New York waterfront that was originally published in The New Yorker in the 1940s and 1950s.  I might buy this, as according to the review, it contains "Mr. Hunter's Grave," which is "widely considered to be the finest single piece of nonfiction to have ever appeared" in that magazine.  (And that's saying something!!)  

On the Shelf

I love this cozy under-the-eaves home library -- the antithesis of last week's uber-stylish wall of books -- and the perfect place to spend a rainy afternoon re-reading an old favorite like The Provincial Lady or maybe The Claverings.  (I adore Trollope, as you know . . . )  

 

Object of Desire

One of the many reasons to visit Paris in April is to make a pilgrimage to Laduree to sample some of their out-of-this-world macarons (not to be confused in any way with coconut macaroons) in flavors ranging from raspberry to pistachio to caramel to licorice to rose to chocolate . . . absolute heaven.  

 

  

Children's Books

A co-worker is having a baby later this month, and this week is her last before she's off on maternity leave.  On Tuesday night we're having a dinner for her, so today I went to the local bookstore and picked out a selection of children's books -- always my favorite baby shower gift.  

She is having a boy, so I selected the following mix of classics and New York-related picture books, and packed them all in a pale blue tote bag instead of wrapping them:

      
 
 
      

 

And, last but not least:

 

  

 

  

Sunday Quote

April 15th looms . . . 

"It's income tax time again, Americans:  time to gather up those receipts, get out those tax forms, sharpen up that pencil, and stab yourself in the aorta."  

-- Dave Barry

 

Twittering

I have finally taken the plunge and have begun "twittering."  I'm still a bit bemused by it all and am still getting the hang of it, but if you're interested in "following" me, just click the button at the top of the left sidebar.  

Seen on the Subway

A young woman wearing a sleeveless dress (we had mini-heat wave this week) and Doc Martens was reading Dear John by Nicholas Sparks.  

An elderly gentleman (he looked to be in his 80s) wearing a suit and bow tie was reading The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig.  A quick check on Amazon reveals that Doig is an acclaimed author who has written several novels set in the Western Plains.  

A guy in his 40s was reading the bestselling The Big Short by Michael Lewis, described as "a brilliant account --character-rich and darkly humorous -- of how the U.S. economy was driven over a cliff."  The thing is, this guy had that whiff of investment banker about him -- i.e., he looked like he might have been behind the wheel, or at least backseat driving, the vehicle as it took the plunge . . . 

On the Shelf

Living as I do in an apartment that is slowly becoming over-run with books, I sometimes fantasize about what it would be like to have a house with ample space for custom bookshelves.  What do you think of this one?  It's designed by Kelly Wearstler for a home in Los Angeles.  Very stylish, but it makes me kinda dizzy.  

 
 

The SEC and a few laughs . . .

While I was away over Easter I finished No One Would Listen, the Harry Markopolos book about the Madoff ponzi scheme.  It left me so aghast at the failures of the SEC that I advise everyone to take all of their money (in my case, all 12 cents that's left in my 401(k) after the past couple of years) and put it under their mattress.  

On the plane home, I wanted to read something a little less fraught, so I indulged in Lisa Kogan's Someone Will be With You Shortly, a collection of witty essays by this regular columnist for O Magazine, about her life as a middle-aged single woman living in New York City.  (In case that sounds a wee bit familiar, I can assure you the similarity ends there, as Kogan seems to love her career, has been in a solid and apparently happy relationship with Johannes, her best friend-turned love of her life, and they have a child together.)   Not that I'm bitter . . .  LOL!   Here is Kogan's take on living in the Big Apple:

"New York City is not for the faint of heart.  For one thing, it is a very expensive place to live.  The price for every single activity -- whether it's sending your child to nursery school or buying a cappuccino or parking in a garage -- is $11,000.  It is not uncommon for couples to run through their entire life's savings simply by going out for Thai food and a movie. This fact, combined with the pollution, the noise, the constant threat of another terrorist attack, and the knowledge that there is always an episode of  Law and Order SVU being filmed in front of your supermarket (Mariska Hargitay has made it damn near impossible for me ever to pick up English muffins and a box of Cascade), tends to make most New Yorkers a touch snarky."

Object of Desire

It's almost pedicure season.  I think these sandals (from Anthropologie) are quite covetable:  

 
 

Victorian Jewelry/Jewellery

I have pre-ordered Jewellery in the Age of Queen Victoria from Amazon's UK website.  Written by Charlotte Gere and Judy Rudoe and published by the British Museum Press, it's 450+ "sumptuously illustrated" pages that I expect will furnish me with hours of entertainment.  

 
 

Sunday Quote

To get thine ends, lay bashfulnesse aside;

Who fears to aske, doth teach to be deny'd.  

         -- Robert Herrick

Seen on the Subway

First, I must call your attention to an article in Wednesday's New York Times which discusses how the increasing popularity of ebooks has cost publishers some free publicity -- i.e., people spotting others in public reading a book with an intriguing cover or title that piques their interest.  This intrepid correspondent can attest to that -- just a year ago when I started this blog I was spoiled for choice in deciding which books to feature here (I try to keep it down to about three per week), but of late I've had to be a lot more vigilant in spotting titles.    

Now on to this week's sightings: 

The Nanny Returns, by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, read by a woman in her 30s.  This is a sequel to the huge bestseller from a few years back, The Nanny Diaries, which I have always defended against critics who scoffed, "oh, that was so exaggerated-- as if people are actually LIKE that!"  [referring to the monstrous socialites who employed the "nanny" character]   Um . . . Yes, there ARE quite a few people EXACTLY like that.  I know because I represent many of them in their divorce cases,  and they treat their lawyers only marginally better than they do their domestic staff!   Not that I'm making notes of my experiences or anything . . . [insert hollow laughter here]  

A hefty paperback volume entitled Essentials of Clinical Geriatrics, read by a scruffy guy in his late 20s who badly needed a shave, and who I can only assume is a sleep-deprived med student or resident.  

The Postmistress, by Sarah Blake, read by a woman in her early 40s with a beautiful pink-and-pale-grey Hermes scarf knotted at her neck.   I have heard good things about this one, and expect I'll be reading it myself one day soon.