wednesday november 26
At Halloween, I heard a radio story that asked people about the frightening movie scenes they remembered most vividly from childhood. (The flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz seem to have scarred many otherwise healthy adults.)
In the kinder, gentler spirit of Thanksgiving, I have a different question for you: what are the childhood books that made you grateful you learned to read? All the way back to Green Eggs and Ham, or whatever that very first book was for you.
It isn’t just Thanksgiving that has brought this to my mind lately. I’ve been recommending some favorite books for a third-grader (hi, Nathan!), and it has been a lot of fun to root through old memories for things he might like. It turns out that he loves some of them as much as I did.
So what books are you grateful for? What childhood favorites would you recommend?
I’ll just pick one. Well, I’ll cheat, since it has a sequel: Elizabeth Enright’s 1957 Gone-Away Lake and its sequel, Return to Gone-Away.
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friday november 21
F. Scott Fitzgerald is one of my favorite authors, and The Great Gatsby is one of my all-time favorite books. The book itself is dedicated to his wife, Zelda Fitzgerald, in honor of their often tumultuous love. I was intrigued to read the story behind this dedication in the book Once Again to Zelda: The Stories Behind Literature’s Most Intriguing Dedications by Marlene Wagman-Geller.
Arranged chronologically, she reveals the fascinating, tragic, and often romantic stories behind the dedications in fifty classic books, including a few that I’ve read and enjoyed:
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1880)
Dedicated to
Anna Grigorevna Dostoevsky
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (1936)
TO
J.R.M.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960)
Dedication
For Mr. Lee and Alice
in consideration of Love & Affection
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (1965)
FOR Jack Dunphy AND Harper Lee
WITH MY LOVE AND GRATITUDE
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan (1989)
To my mother
And the memory of her mother
You asked me once
what I would remember.
This, and much more.
monday november 17
It seems that every Thanksgiving table is host to two basic types of people: the Traditionalists - who look forward to the same menu year after year; and the Innovators - who want to shake things up and try something different. Hopefully, in the spirit of the day, there is room for everyone at the table. Putting together the big feast can be a daunting idea, but fear not - my advice is to keep it simple. And, have lots of pie.
The Library's collection contains copies of these books that are specifically geared toward Thanksgiving entertaining:
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wednesday november 12
Here’s something cheerful.
Paula Marantz Cohen writes charming modern-day Jane Austen tributes. Her Jane Austen in Boca was a very funny take-off on Pride and Prejudice, set in a Florida senior community, where any widower with any means at all must be in want of a wife.
Now with Jane Austen in Scarsdale, she takes on Persuasion, in a tale of a mild high school guidance counselor who has lost in love.
Anne was once talked out of marrying a young travel agent, Ben, by her imperious grandmother. Ben has since gone on to found a wildly successful line of cultural travel guides. Now he’s back in town to enroll his nephew in Fennimore High School. All of the required complications ensue.
It’s hard to capture the spirit of an Austen novel, as the many readers of the many, many recent knock-offs can attest. Cohen hits the mark. No assembly balls or empire dresses, but plenty of gentle satire (the book’s subtitle, Love, Death, and the SATs, hints at the mockery of the modern college application frenzy) and a satisfying romance.
monday november 10
"I'm not ready for my first child to fade into history," writes National Book Award finalist (for The Giant's House) McCracken in this searing account of the loss of her firstborn child. She "wants people to know" that she gave birth to a stillborn son, but "doesn't want to say it aloud."
The author and her husband were living in rural France at the time of their son's (playfully nicknamed "Pudding" by his parents) death. Past due, McCracken noticed that "Pudding" was moving less than usual. Her midwife reassured her that the baby was fine. Hours later, it was too late, and McCracken gave birth to her son an agonizing two days after his death.
An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination is both beautiful and wrenching, both unbearably sad and surprisingly uplifting. McCracken calls her memoir "the happiest story in the world with the saddest ending". After reading it, you'll know why.
For other books dealing with the loss of a child, check out Ann Hood's Comfort and Darci Klein's To Full Term.
