Bookish NYC

Off on Vacation

BookishNYC is overdue for a vacation from the daily grind of her law practice.  (Divorce law = as bad as it sounds.)  She'll be back on Monday, June 7th.  Meanwhile, browse through the archives, explore some of the links in the right sidebar, and talk among yourselves. 

Seen on the Subway

A woman in her early thirties with a pixie haircut was wearing a casual outfit accessorized with snakeskin ballet flats, silver nail polish, and huge "Jackie O" sunglasses (yes, she was wearing them on the subway) and was reading The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood.  

A twenty-something woman dressed for the ghastly 90-degree heat (floaty dress, flip flops) was reading Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese.  According to the write-up on Amazon, the book opens with the birth of twin boys to Sister Mary Praise Joseph in a hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and is narrated by one of those boys, from the womb onwards.  (This Seen on the Subway vignette is courtesy of my friend "L.")  

And no surprises here:  The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, the third in Stieg Larsson's posthumously-published trilogy, read by a guy in his early 30s wearing a business suit and a funky pair of glasses with architectural navy blue frames.  

On the Shelf

About twelve years ago I went on a walking tour in Austria, and was privileged to visit Melk Abbey, a Benedictine monastery overlooking the Danube, and to spend some time in the famous library there.  Trivia:  In The Name of the Rose, author Umberto Eco named one of the characters "Adso von Melk" in tribute to this abbey and the magnificent library there.  

 
 

Reading Habits Meme

This meme has been kicking around for a while now, but I've enjoyed reading other bloggers' responses and thought I'd give it a go myself at the suggestion of Julie at AustenOnly. 

Do you snack while you read?  Not so much.  I often read while eating an actual meal, but I'm generally not a big between-meals snacker.   If so, what is your favorite reading snack?  Well, if pressed I would rarely say "no" to salt-and-vinegar potato chips.   

What is your favorite drink while reading?   Fresca.  (Beverage of the gods.)  Or just plain old ice water.  

Do you tend to mark your books while you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you?  I would only ever write in a textbook, never any other kind of book.  That's what Post-It notes are for! 

How do you keep your place while reading a book?  Bookmark?  Dog-ears?  Laying the book open flat?  Bookmarks, usually postcards I pick up at museums or elsewhere in my travels.  Occasionally a dog-ear in a paperback book.  I never EVER lay a book open flat.   

Fiction, nonfiction, or both?  Both, although I go through phases.  I just finished a long run of non-fiction (I read a lot of history), and am now embarking on what I think is going to be a nice long stretch of fiction.  

Are you a person who tends to read to the end of a chapter, or can you stop anywhere?  Anywhere.  

Are you the type of person to throw a book across the room or on the floor if the author irritates you?  Um... no.  Not really a drama queen. 

If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop and look it up right away?  One of my few worthwhile accomplishments is a black belt in vocabulary, so unless I'm reading a book on a technical or scientific subject I don't often encounter an unfamiliar word, but when I do I MUST look it up right then and there, otherwise I am incapable of continuing.   

What are you currently reading?  Honestly, Dearest, You're Dead, by Jack Fredrickson; The Imperfectionists, by Tom Rachman; The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande; Innocent, by Scott Turow.  

What is the last book you bought?   Last weekend I bought Those Who Save Us, by Jenna Blum, on the avid recommendation of a colleague. 

Do you have a favorite time/place to read?  Anytime, anywhere.  Although I confess I'm looking forward to a long plane ride I have coming up this Saturday so I can have 6 or 7 uninterrupted hours of reading.  Bliss!  (Well, only because I upgraded to business class with 7 billion frequent flyer miles and some bone marrow, otherwise "bliss" would be "misery.") 

Do you prefer series books or stand-alones?  No preference.  I do, however, love discovering a series after several books have already been published.  This is what happened, for example, with Donna Leon's Inspector Brunetti series set in Venice.  I didn't start reading this series until there were already about ten books and then I devoured them one after the other.   What a enjoyable few weeks of reading THAT was!  

Is there a specific book or author you find yourself recommending over and over?  I'm forever trying to persuade people to read Anthony Trollope.  (Really!  You should!)  I also love to recommend P.G. Wodehouse, Barbara Pym, and Dorothy Sayers.   And lest anyone think I read only British authors, perish the thought -- I love Edith Wharton, Henry James (I know, I know, he became a British subject as an adult, but he's still homegrown), and on the contemporary scene, I'm a big fan of Dennis Lehane, Richard Russo, and Gail Godwin. 

How do you organize your books (by genre, title, author's last name, etc.)?  First by genre -- fiction in the living room, separated into American and British sections, with a shelf for French lit; general non-fiction in the dining area; essays and art books in the foyer;  music-related-books in a huge basket bear the piano; biographies, design titles, and gardening books in the bedroom.  (Of course, there are also random piles, especially of the larger-format art & design books, stacked high in a couple of spots -- including one pile I use as a side-table near my livingroom couch.)  Then, although I do keep each author's work grouped together, I don't alphabetize or otherwise organize them on the shelves.    

Object of Desire

I love the clean, simple lines of these Simon Pearce candlesticks.  

 
 

Eleanor of Aquitane

This weekend my friend "S," an older lady of rather hifalutin cultural tastes with whom I attend many concerts, lectures, exhibits, etc., expressed a keen interest in seeing the film Robin Hood.  I was somewhat surprised (our previous forays to the movie theater together having been confined to foreign films with subtitles, obscure actors, and murky  themes), but chalked it up to what I assume (I certainly did not ask) is a certain tendresse for Russell Crowe.  He's not my type {{shudder}}, but I agreed to go cheerfully enough, figuring it would be awful but what the hell, my friend is a nice lady and if she wants to gawk at the obnoxious New Zealander for a couple of hours it's no skin off my nose.  To my surprise, the movie was NOT awful, but instead just rather mediocre, although with some excellent supporting performances, most notably that of Mark Strong, doing his usual turn as the sexy bad guy, and Eileen Atkins as Eleanor of Aquitane.  All of which brings me to (YES, I do have a point) . . .

 . . . I want to read a biography of Eleanor of  Aquitane.  There are a few out there -- sadly, none yet available for Kindle, as I would have liked to read this on my upcoming trip on which I am confining myself solely to electronic books as I don't need to pay for overweight luggage.  Does anyone have a recommendation? 

Sunday Quote

"No one wants advice -- only corroboration."

    -- John Steinbeck 

A New Link

Over there on the right side-bar, I've added a new link to Flashlight Worthy Books, a terrific site that provides suggested reading lists of books on every conceivable topic, including:   The Best Novels About WASPS; Books With the Sea in Sight; Some Great Books About Autumn; and even The Best Books About Book Collecting.  Enjoy browsing his book recommendations!  

Seen on the Subway

I spotted a guy in his 20s wearing grimy jeans and reading Pagan Babies by Elmore Leonard.  According to Amazon, in this book Mr. Leonard "uses the Rwandan genocide as backdrop for a story that moves gaily between romantic comedy and a massive, labyrinthine con."   

A middle-aged woman with tightly permed hair was wearing a yellow rain slicker and reading It Ain't All About The Cookin'  by TV chef Paula Deen. 

A young woman with long braided hair was reading Let The Great World Spin by Colum McCann, which made a number of 2009 "top ten" lists.  Set in New York City in the summer of 1974, when Frenchman Phillipe Petit walked on a cable strung between the two towers of the World Trade Center, this book tells the stories of ten widely divergent lives that all come together in the final few pages.  I note that I couldn't really get into this book and gave up after about 50 pages, but my friend "L" loved it and urges you to stick with it.  

On the Shelf

Bookshelves in the bedroom . . . now THAT'S sexy -- LOL!  

 

Reading Now

At home on the weekend/evenings:  31 Bond Street by Ellen Horan.  This is a mystery set in 1857 New York, which was a stew of seamy political corruption, racial conflict, a shifting class structure, and a sensationalist press.  (Hmm...seems strangely like the current day . . . )   A well-to-do bachelor dentist is murdered in his bed in his townhouse, and the prime suspect is his pretty young widowed housekeeper, branded as a conniving gold-digger by the press and police.  An excellent read, evocative of the age.  (Dare I say it:  shades of Caleb Carr, albeit several decades before the Gilded Age era in which his historical mysteries were set . . . )   

In bed, before dropping off and waking with a start. drooling, three hours later with lights on, TV blaring an infomercial, and reading glasses crushed beneath me:  I'm re-reading an old favorite, Excellent Women, by Barbara Pym.  Gentle, wickedly humorous, comforting.  

While eating lunch at the office:  Finding Chandra by Scott Higham and Sari Horwitz.  This is an account of the bungled investigation into the infamous disappearance and murder of Washington intern Chandra Levy, which resulted in THE media circus of the summer of 2001, which was pushed from the front pages only by 9/11.  Jurisdictional squabbles, disputes between the police and the prosecutor, and plain old sloppy police work caused the investigators to fail to "connect the dots" between the occurrence of violent attacks on two women joggers in Rock Creek Park in the months leading to Chandra's disappearance and the fact that the day she went missing she did a Google search for jogging trails in Rock Creek Park.  She had been dead for days before anyone really realized she was missing, and it was more than a year before her body was found (not surprisingly, off a jogging trail in -- you guessed it -- Rock Creek Park).  It now appears that a competent investigation would have at least recovered her body and given her parents some answers months earlier.  Instead, the search seems to have been derailed by the relentless focus on married Congressman Gary Condit, with whom Chandra had been having an affair.  While there's no doubt that Condit was a total sh**heel, it was clear pretty early on that he had ZIP to do with Chandra's disappearance/death, but you wouldn't have known it had you been watching virtually any news program that summer.  

On the Subway:  61 Hours, the latest in the Jack Reacher series by Lee Child.  A guilty pleasure.

Paging through wistfully at random times:  The Home Within Us: Romantic Houses, Evocative Rooms by Bobby McAlpine & Susan Sully.  Something to aspire to . . . 

Object of Desire

I have been a fan of Jo Malone's perfumes ever since I caught a whiff of her Grapefruit fragrance about twelve years ago or so in London.  Since then, the line has been expanded and Jo Malone fragrances are now carried in many department stores, as well as in her own boutiques.  This is my absolute favorite, which I wear every day:  Nectarine Blossom & Honey.   

 
 

Sunday Quote

"It is absurd to divide people into good and bad.  People are either charming or tedious."  

-- Oscar Wilde

The Mourners Redux

Lest anyone doubt that Bookish has her finger on the pulse of culture in the metropolis (LOL! - just kidding), I call your attention to my March 29th post, here, about the Mourners exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and to the front page of the Arts section in this past Thursday's New York Times, here.  

If you can't make it to the exhibit, which closes next week, the accompanying photographs (by Sara Krulwich) give you an excellent glimpse of these exquisite alabaster figures (just click to enlarge):      

 

 

 The author of the Times article, Ken Johnson, notes that "anyone who cares about the art of sculpture should pay them a visit, for each is a small masterpiece of stone carving and humanist realism."  Johnson goes on to quote Johan Huizinga, author of The Waning of the Middle Ages, who described these figures as "the most profound expression of mourning known in art, a funeral march in stone."   

Highly recommended.  

Seen on the Subway

A burly guy in his late 40s/early 50s with closely-cropped hair was wearing paint-stained jeans and reading Sunshines: The Astrology Of Being Happy by Michael Lutin, who, according to the reviews on Amazon, writes the astrology column for Vanity Fair magazine.  

A plump 30-ish woman was reading Under the Dome, by Stephen King.  

A young woman clad in head-to-toe black was reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows.  

A blonde woman in her late 20s wearing "jeggings" (jeans so skinny they're more like leggings, thus "jeggings" -- not, I confess, a cornerstone of my own wardrobe) and gold ballet flats was reading The Collection by Gioia Diliberto.  I looked it up, and this is the second novel in a series set in the couture houses of post-WWI Paris and featuring a fictionalized Coco Chanel.   

On the Shelf

I love the over-hanging lights illuminating the jam-packed bookshelves in this comfortable reading spot. 

 

Prolific Blogger Award

Last week I was honored with a "Prolific Blogger Award" by Entomology of a Bookworm, who has long occupied a spot over there on the right sidebar under "favorite blogs and websites."  The award is intended for bloggers who are "intellectually productive, keeping up an active blog with enjoyable content."   I am supposed to pass this award on to seven other bloggers, who, if they are so inclined (no pressure from this quarter), can pass it on to yet another seven.  So, without further ado, my selections for the Prolific Blogger Award -- some bookish, some New York-y, some design/style-oriented.  Please do click on the links and enjoy!  

Julie of Austen Only

Nan from Letters from a Hill Farm

Sara at Orchids in Buttonholes.    

Danielle of A Work in Progress

Bart from Bart Boehlert's Beautiful Things.

Elaine from Random Jottings

Imani from MadameB NYC

Object of Desire

How about an English country house?  In particular, this one -- Holywell Hall, Stamford, Lincolnshire -- it was just sold for somewhere north of 7 million pounds:   

 

Reading Now

Sunday afternoon I attended a concert at Carnegie Hall -- a ravishing all-Chopin program performed by Maurizio Pollini.  (It was sold-out, and, as they occasionally do when a concert is over-subscribed, they actually had 4 or 5 rows of seating at the back of the stage itself.  It is my ambition to get one of those seats, although in fact they are not really optimal from an acoustical point of view . . . but it is certainly my only shot of ever getting on that stage!)  

Anyhow, I was a bit early to meet my concert-companion "S," so, prompted by a comment from Christine on my "Ideal Bookstore" post last week, I popped into Rizzoli Books, which is just down the block from Carnegie Hall.  True to form, I couldn't emerge without acquiring something, so I picked up Private Life, the latest from Pulitzer-Prize winner Jane Smiley.  Set between the 1880s and the start of the second World War, it tells the story of Margaret Mayfield, who at age 27, perched on the brink of spinsterhood, married an eccentric scientist and moved with him from her home in Missouri to a naval base near San Francisco.   Margaret gradually becomes aware that her husband, far from being a burgeoning genius, is in fact, well . . . NUTS -- an outcast from the scientific community and the author of one crackpot theory after another.  It's described by Booklist as a "cold-eyed view of the compromises required by marriage while also providing an intimate portrait of life in the Midwest and West during the years 1883-1942."  

I've also just downloaded Innocent by Scott Turow onto my Kindle.  I have admired Mr. Turow's writing ever since I read One-L, quite possibly the best account of the first grueling year of law school.  (Yes, better than The Paper Chase.)  If you're not familiar with One-L, you probably know of Presumed Innocent (or at least the hit movie based on the same, starring Harrison Ford and Greta Scacchi).  This book is the sequel thereto, which picks up 22 years later.  

I've had trouble finding satisfying fiction lately, so I'm hoping that Private Life and/or Innocent prove to be page-turners.  

Sunday Quote

"Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience:  this is the ideal life."  

-- Mark Twain

Seen on the Subway

This week's sightings:

A rather sedate-looking woman in her 30s wearing a long skirt and pink button-down blouse was reading Dragonbound, by Jade Lee.   The product description on Amazon says:  "Three kingdoms vie to understand and control the power of dragons, but only a clever beauty and a dethroned king are are truly possessed by -- and of -- it."  

A man in his 50s wearing khakis, a red plaid shirt, an L.L. Bean watch (he was seated right next to me so I was able to observe these things in minute detail) and blindingly white sneakers was reading Chourmo by Jean-Claude Izzo, the second in the "Marseilles" trilogy, described by Amazon as "gritty noir."  French gritty noir, to be specific.  

Finally, Thursday evening I saw a rather pasty-looking guy in his 20s with very long dreds; I can't tell you HOW long, because he was wearing them coiled on the top of his head in the style of a 1970s prom queen.  He was dressed in a tee shirt, jeans, and flip-flops and had a guitar case with him.  He was reading The Power of Place (subtitle:  Geography, Destiny and Globalization's Rough Landscape), by Harm J. De Blij.  

I can't say I was prompted to rush out and buy any of these, but I wish them all "Happy Reading" just the same.  

On the Shelf

How about this two-story beauty of a home library?  (Architect:  Curt Lamb.)  

 

My Ideal Bookstore

Last week a visitor ("hello" to MyTwoCentsWorth) asked what I think makes for a perfect bookstore, and I said to watch this space.  So here are my criteria (I have not provided links because several of these shops don't, in fact, have websites):  

1.  I like an idiosyncratic selection that reflects the bookseller's tastes and tempts me to try something different and/or from a smaller press.  This is how I discovered the Virago imprint many years ago at the now-defunct Burlington Bookshop, and Persephone Books at Crawford Doyle Booksellers, which succeeded the Burlington in the same retail space on Madison Avenue in the 80s.  After all, if I am looking for a bestseller or popular mainstream biography, I can more easily and cheaply order it online from Amazon or pick it up at the massive Barnes & Noble I pass every evening on the walk from the subway to my apartment.  (I'm not knocking those two behemoths; far from it, but sometimes you just want something a little more personal in a bookstore . . .) 

2.  It's always wonderful when the shop staffers are themselves passionate readers and knowledgeable about the books for sale, and thus able to make recommendations, as they are at both the Corner Bookstore (Madison Avenue and 93rd) and Archivia Books (Lexington in the 70s).  There also used to be a terrific mystery bookshop on 81st between 1st and 2nd Avenues called Black Orchid Bookshop.  It specialized in mysteries (the shop name was derived from the Nero Wolfe series by Rex Stout), and the owners seemed to have read every book in the place, and were generous with recommendations.  Sadly, they closed up shop a couple of years ago. 

3.  I enjoy a certain aura of elegant coziness in my ideal bookstore.  I note that this does NOT include a shop cat, or free coffee.  (Cats are, um, not my favorite animal, and I can get a cappuccino at Starbucks, thank you very much.)   However, a certain organized clutter is always fetching, particularly when combined with ## 1 and 2 above.   Heywood Hill in London, featured in last week's "On the Shelf" post, typifies this sort of bookstore.  Even a small amount of dust is not entirely unwelcome. 

4. While a certain amount of shelving is inevitable, a good deal of the stock should be arranged on tables for easy browsing.  Posman Books in Grand Central Terminal comes to mind.  

5.  I like the store to have a distinct sense of place; if set down in the middle of Hatchard's you would know you are in London; the late, great Coliseum Books couldn't have been more quintessentially New York; Librairie Galignani fairly shouts, "You're in Paris!"  

6.  I DON'T like a lot of book-y merchandise competing for space with the books themselves -- you know -- such as bookmarks featuring cutesy sayings or cats (see #3 above), or, worse yet, cutesy sayings AND cats.  Ditto book lights, book tote bags, book magnets, etc.   That stuff is fine for Borders or Barnes and Noble, but not for my ideal bookshop.  

7.  If I had to chose, I would say that Northshire Books in Manchester, Vermont, which I first visited about fifteen years ago when attending an annual bar association convention in that town, is as near perfection as a bookstore is going to get, as it combines all of the elements of  ## 1 - 5, with only a limited amount of book-y tchotches as described in #6.  It's in a rambling Victorian structure with an old-fashioned wrap-around porch.  The selection is large but not cookie-cutter, the staff is warm and knowledgeable, and there are tons of nooks and crannies crammed with wonderful things to discover.  (It is also a convenient spot to hide from 300 divorce lawyers attending the aforementioned annual bar association convention.  Just in case you were wondering.)  

So, what is your ideal book store? 

Object of Desire

I love the scent of lilacs.  During the winter, I often burn Diptyque's Lilas candle, but now that May is here I can obtain the real thing, even in NYC:  

 

And here is Renoir's exquisite Bouquet of Lilacs:

 

Dinosaurs, Dulwich, and Dance

I had family in town, so it was a hectic weekend.  We devoted Saturday to the younger generation, with a visit to the American Museum of Natural History to see the dinosaurs and to attend a program at the Hayden Planetarium.  

Sunday, however, was for the grown-ups, with a stop at the Frick Collection (a perennial favorite of mine) to see the special exhibit:  Masters of European Painting from Dulwich Picture Gallery.  A highlight was The Linley Sisters, Gainsborough's portrait of Elizabeth and Mary Linley, who were the daughters of Thomas Linley, a successful composer.  (Elizabeth -- on the left below --later married playwright Richard Sheridan.)  

After the exhibit, we attended a matinee performance of Come Fly Away, a tribute to Frank Sinatra choreographed by Twyla Tharp.  There was virtually no dialogue -- just 
 fantastic dancing set to the tunes of Ol' Blue Eyes in a swanky nightclub set.  Although they used his recorded voice, there was a swinging live orchestra right up there on the stage, as well as a nightclub "chanteuse" who sang several numbers, some solo, some "in duet" with Sinatra.  The show was a lot of fun, and as is often the case with dance performances, I left the theater resolved to halve my daily calorie intake and take up intense cardio and Pilates routines.  I'm sure I'll be lithe and supple and auditioning for Broadway in no time.  LOL!!  

By-the-by:  The theater was one block from the location where the failed car bomb was found on Saturday afternoon.  Just lots and lots of tourists walking really slowly through the stifling heat;  no sign of the scare other than several of the local TV news stations' vans on the scene.  

Sunday Quote

"Loneliness is strange gift."  

E.B. White