Bookish NYC

Seen on the Subway

Just two sightings this week because I spent very little time on the subway.  I took the train uptown on Wednesday night, though, and saw the following:

A woman in her 30s with elaborate swirly tattoos on the tops of her feet was reading A Breath of Snow and Ashes, by Diana Gabaldon.  

A guy in his 20s was sitting next to me, playing a game on his iPhone, and holding on his lap More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite, by Sebastian Mallaby.  

 

On the Shelf

On the theory that books belong in every room in house, I see no reason not to have bookshelves in the kitchen, whether for cookbooks or just to have books at hand to read during solitary meals.  (Or, if you come from a family like mine, books to read during meals with others -- LOL! -- while we weren't allowed to have books at table during dinner, it was permitted at breakfast and lunch.)   This is quite a cheerful bookish kitchen, isn't it? 

 

 
 

A Booker Baker's Dozen

The Booker Prize "long list" of thirteen books has been announced, and will be whittled down to the shortlist in the autumn.  I have read only ONE of the contenders, Parrot and Olivier in America, which was terrific, and have another, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, loaded on my Kindle.  Herewith the full list:  

• Parrot and Olivier in America, by Peter Cary
• Room, by Emma Donoghue
• The Betrayal by Helen Dunmore
• In a Strange Room, by Damon Galgut
• The Finkler Question, by Howard Jacobson
• The Long Song, by Andrea Levy
• C, by Tom McCarthy
• The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, by David Mitchell
• February, by Lisa Moore
• Skippy Dies, by Paul Murray
• Trespass, by Rose Tremain
• The Slap, by Christos Tsiolkas
• The Stars in the Bright Sky, by Alan Warner   

Anybody have recommendations as to any others on the list they've read? 

Object of Desire

A brass "railroad spike" bracelet  (also available in sterling silver) from Giles & Brother:  

 

And the "winner" is . . .

 . . . Proust.  (See my post from last Monday, here.)   After some considerable waffling, I've decided on the new translation of Swann's Way by Lydia Davis.  I've also armed myself with Marcel Proust's Search For Lost Time: A Reader's Guide To The Remembrance Of Things Past, by Patrick Alexander, as well as How Proust Can Change Your Life, by Alain de Botton.  

Now if I can just get this damned trial behind me (I've billed over twenty hours this weekend in simultaneous witness preparation and last-minute settlement talks), I will embark on this new reading adventure.  I will from time to time keep you all posted.  

 

Sunday Quote

"It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating." 

--Oscar Wilde

 

Seen on the Subway

I saw a burly middle-aged guy with a beard, sloppily dressed in black shorts, a black tee shirt, and grimy sneakers, reading Sugar: A Bittersweet History, by Elizabeth Abbott.  I looked this up and it's described as "a compelling and surprising look at the sweet commodity, from how it Africanized the cane fields of the Caribbean to how it fuelled the Industrial Revolution and jump-started the fast food revolution."

A young woman in her 20s wearing an acid-green shift dress was reading the movie tie-in edition of Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert, featuring Julia Roberts on the cover.  I confess I couldn't finish the book (I only liked the Italy bits), and imagine I won't be seeing the movie.  

An auburn-haired woman in her 50s carrying a Yale Business School tote bag was reading You Are Not A Stranger Here, a critically acclaimed collection of short stories by Adam Haslett, whose first novel, Union Atlantic, was just published and is waiting for me on my Kindle.  

On the Shelf

Some views of The Strand Bookstore, "Home of Eighteen Miles of New, Used, Rare, and Out-of-Print Books":

 

  
 

Chanel on Novels

I mentioned a month or so ago that I had received as a gift a lovely little volume called The Allure of Chanel, by Paul Morand.  At the end of World War II, Morand interviewed Chanel at some length in connection with helping her write her memoirs.  The project never came to fruition, but his notes of their conversations remained, and came to light after Chanel's death in 1971.  This book is essentially a transcription of those interviews, in Chanel's own words, about a wide range of topics, and one passage concerns her views on novels (I wouldn't have pegged her as much of a reader, but . . . ):  

"Most of all, I bought books:  to read them.  Books have been my best friends.  Just as the radio is a box full of lies, so each book is a treasure.  The very worst book has something to say to you, something truthful.  The silliest books are masterpieces of human experience.  I have come across many intelligent and highly cultivated people; they were astonished by what I knew; they would have been much more so if I had told them that I had learnt about life through novels.  If I had daughters, I would give them novels for their instruction.  There you find all the great unwritten laws that govern mankind.  In my region of the country people didn't speak; they were not taught through the oral tradition.  From the serial novels, read in the barn by the light of a candle stolen from the maid, to the greatest classics, all novels are reality in the guise of dreams.  As a child, I instinctively read catalogues like novels; novels are merely big catalogues."  

 

Object of Desire

I long to have a whole hour to sit and gaze at my favorite painting in the Frick Collection (Fifth Avenue & 70th Street), Thomas Gainsborough's The Mall, circa 1783:

 
 

In need of a project . . .

I'm thinking of embarking on a serious reading project -- something substantial that I can study for the next year or so -- certainly not to the exclusion of all other reading (perish the thought), but as a focal point.  I'm considering Pepys' Diary (I own an unabridged 12-volume edition from the late lamented Common Reader, which was one of my favorite book catalogues), or maybe Proust's Remembrance of Things Past.  Any thoughts/recommendations?  

Sunday Quote

"The penalty of success is to be bored by the people who used to snub you." 

  -- Lady Astor

Seen on the Subway

I saw a tall woman in her early 30s with a long blonde ponytail, wearing a pair of black sweat pants (the legs of which were mesh from just above the knees to the ankles), reading Yoga Sutras: The Means to Liberation, by Dennis Hill.  

En route to court in Brooklyn on Tuesday (it went very well, thanks for asking), I saw a guy in his mid-20s (khakis, striped shirt, beeper on his belt) reading Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. Seated across the aisle from him was a woman in her 40s with very impressive Cleopatra-style eyeliner (keep in mind this was 8:30 a.m.) reading American Political Thought: A Norton Primer. 

 The other night I spotted a casually-dressed man in his 30s reading Losing the Light: Terry Gilliam and the Munchausen Saga, by Andrew Yule, which is a chronicle of the making of Gilliam's film The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, one of the most spectacular financial disasters in the history of the movie industry.  

On the Shelf

I think I could live in this room forever:

 

Light Reading While Heavy Lifting

I am in the midst of a particularly hectic time at work, preparing for an upcoming trial and juggling the rest of my caseload, on top of which one of my partners just had a death in his family so I'm covering some of his matters as well.  This leaves little time and energy left over for anything else, including reading, but I'm managing a few pages a day, if for no other reason than to maintain my sanity . . . 

I love crime novels and I love books, so I'm enjoying The Man Who Loved Books Too Much, by Allison Hoover Bartlett.  This is the true story of John Charles Gilkey, an obsessed book collector who stole valuable volumes from antiquarian book dealers, from the rare books section at various libraries, etc., and Ken Sanders, a book dealer/detective who became consumed with catching him.  The author got to know both men, and for the most part the book reads like a suspense novel.  

I am also reading Greenery Street, by Denis Mackail (brother of Angela Thirkell, a long-time favorite of mine for her "modern" -- i.e., 1920s -1950s -- Barsetshire books).  Greenery Street , reissued as a Persephone classic, tells the story of the first year of married life, circa early 1930s, of Felicity and Ian Foster, deeply in love, completely devoted, and utterly naive.  Very charming.

Now I have to go complete the "pre-clean," by which I mean purging my apartment of a week's worth of newspapers, discarded magazines, empty Amazon boxes, junk mail, and the occasional stray Fresca can, before my cleaning woman comes tomorrow.  I am also puzzled as to why every shoe I own -- whether I've worn it in the last week or not -- somehow finds its way into the livingroom or front hallway.  I think they party while I'm out during the workday.   

Object of Desire

 As this stuff costs $7M per jar (well, actually, $130 per ounce), I've always been a bit skeptical about the claims that it's some kind of miracle potion.  Then, a few weeks ago I was at Bergdorf servicing my Jo Malone addiction (Nectarine Blossom perfume, for any of you taking notes on what to get BookishNYC for Christmas this year) and the very helpful (agent-of-the-devil) saleswoman said she was going to give me a "special sample," which turned out to be a teeny tiny little jar of Creme de la Mer serum.  Or cream.  Or lotion.  Or whatever.  I got home and tossed it in the makeup drawer.  And there it lay in wait, until about ten days ago I was looking for something to soothe a dry patch on the back of my heel, caused by a delightful pair of sling-back pumps I've favored for office wear during the ongoing hellish heat.  I figured I'd try out the freebie sample and while I was at it I dabbed it on the rough elbows, the slightly-sunburned nose . . . 

OMG!!!  I now want to dip my entire body in a giant vat of this stuff.  Of course, I'll have to get a second job in order to do so . . . 

 

Sunday Quote

"Sadness is but a wall between two gardens."  

--Kahlil Gibran

 

 

Seen on the Subway

A short, plump woman in her late 30s with very thinly-plucked eyebrows and elaborate dangly earrings was reading 28 Days to a More Magnetic Life by Sandra Anne Taylor.  

A man in his 50s with prematurely all-white hair, wearing a blue pinstriped suit, was reading Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson.  This is a novel about the Vietnam War, with fair-to-middling editorial and customer reviews on Amazon.

A guy in his mid-20s was reading Raymond Carver's short story collection, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.  

And of course, the usual complement of Stieg Larsson books.   

On the Shelf

I love the charcoal-grey walls and the "pop" of the shocking pink parsons table: 

 
 

To Be Read Pile

I meant to get a lot of reading done, really I did, over the July 4th weekend.  But it didn't quite happen.  I was too distracted by the small-town Independence Day celebrations and the antics of my niece and nephew.   I was talking to my nephew, age 6, and asked him if he was looking forward to seeing Toy Story 3 at the movies later this week.  He was unenthusiastic, so I reminded him that the earlier Toy Story movies had been particular favorites of his.  He haughtily informed me that he has a new favorite, specifically, Patton.  Yes, that's right, the 1970-something film starring George C. Scott.  Apparently, having sickened of the Disney channel, his parents have encouraged him and his 8-year-old sister to watch old movies on AMC and TCM instead.  So now they've got a kid who prefers a charismatic/crazy WWII-era general to Hannah Montana.  Works for me.  

 OK, enough of the cute kids.  Over the weekend I did manage to finish Service Included by Phoebe Damrosch, who worked as a "captain" on the wait staff of Per Se, Thomas Keller's breathtakingly fabulous (and breathtakingly expensive) restaurant in the Time Warner Center.  It had some amusing anecdotes, most notably an account of serving NYT restaurant reviewer Frank Bruni, but other than that didn't really live up to its subtitle:  Four Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter.  I also just wasn't that interested in Damrosch's personal life, including her affair with a sommelier; I wanted to know more about the restaurant, from front-of-the-house to the kitchen to the wine cellar.

I also followed the recommendation of my sister (mother of the Patton-loving nephew) and downloaded The Last Child by John Hart.  I read about half of it on the train ride back to the city.  It's a page-turner with a 13-year-old protagonist whose twin sister was abducted a year before, and who refuses to give up the search, eventually leading the lead police detective, still haunted by the case, to a critical clue.  

Coming up next on my reading pile:

Lady Jane Grey by Eric Ives.  I've never quite understood the whole Lady Jane Grey episode of English history, so decided to pick this up off the remainders table at a local shop.  

How Did You Get This Number? by Sloane Crosley, another collection of essays by the author of I Was Told There'd Be Cake. 

 I LOVED In the Shadow of Gotham by Stefanie Pintoff, so I downloaded the second in the series, A Curtain Falls, set in 1906 Manhattan.  Fans of Caleb Carr will appreciate these books, I think.  

One Day by David Nicholls.  This novel follows characters Em and Dex over a period of twenty years, just one day per year, from their meeting right out of university to the brink of middle age.  The reviews of this are most enthusiastic, so I may make it my next read.  

Ms. Hempel Chronicles by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum, which caught my eye on the subway last week.  

Object of Desire

As New York swelters in 100-degree heat, there is nothing I long for as much as this:

 
 

Sunday Quote

 

 "I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."  

--Thomas Jefferson

"America is a mistake, a great mistake."

  --Sigmund Freud

"When good Americans die, they go to Paris." 

  --Oscar Wilde

 

Seen on the Subway

First, a shout out to Thomas at MyPorchBlog.  In his daily commute in Washington D.C., he occasionally spots interesting books (including a recent Anita Brookner sighting), and, like me, is avoiding those Stieg Larsson books for no particular reason except their ubiquity.    

Now back to the Big Apple:  A woman in her 40s wearing black capri pants, a white tee, and silver Tory Burch ballet flats was reading Ms. Hempel Chronicles by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum.  When I looked this up on Amazon to get the name of the author, I read the description on the book jacket and was hooked:  "Ms. Beatrice Hempel, teacher of the seventh grade, is new -- new to teaching, new to the school, newly engaged, and newly bereft of her devoted father.  Overwhelmed by her newness, she struggles to figure out what is expected of her in life and at work.  Is it acceptable to introduce swear words into the English curriculum, enlist students to write their own report cards, or bring up personal experiences while teaching a sex-education class?"

A thin, plainly dressed woman in her thirties was sitting next to me the other day, chatting to a friend on the other side of her, and holding a copy of The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa.  I later discovered that Varga Llosa is a former candidate for president in Peru, and has written a number of acclaimed novels, including this one, set amidst the turmoil of Latin American politics of the late 20th century.  

A miscellany:  The Chase by Clive Cussler read by a stocky guy wearing a bracelet made of wooden beads . . . Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist  by Michael J. Fox, read by a 35-ish guy with a crew cut . . . Next by Michael Crichton, read by a woman in her 30s with long purple fingernails and pale lavender toenails (coordinated, yes; attractive, no) . . . Resumes for Dummies, read by a plump woman in her 40s with 1980s BIG hair . . . 

On the Shelf

A perfect bookcase to usher in the Fourth of July weekend: