Belles on Their Toes, Frank Gilbreth & Ernestine Gilbreth Carey

Belles on Their Toes

Frank B. Gilbreth & Ernestine Gilbreth Carey

Category: Nonfiction: Memoir; Parenting & Families

Synopsis: Reeling after the death of their husband and father, the Gilbreth clan moves on with humor and grace.

Date finished: 14 October 2014

Rating: *****

Comments:

How I wish there were more than two of these Gilbreth family books.* They’re hilarious. And they’re full of family values from another era—which a lot of us still practice in this era.

Belles on Their Toes is the follow-up to Cheaper by the Dozen, which inspired a movie decades ago but bears little resemblance to the Steve Martin/Bonnie Hunt movies. Cheaper by the Dozen ends with the death of Mr. Gilbreth. This book picks up where it leaves off. Raising 11 kids (one of the 12 died years before but it isn’t really mentioned in the original book) in the early 1900s isn’t going to be easy for Mrs. Gilbreth. She continues on with the efficiency work she and her husband did before his death. In an era where women didn’t hold jobs out of the home, she had a lot to prove—and a lot to juggle. The family, already very close, really pulls together.

This book was just as funny and full of heart as the original. It follows the kids into adulthood with a number of humorous family stories throughout the years. This would be a great book for tweens who are into more traditional literature (the Anne of Green Gables and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn crowd). While some of the references are so outdated I don’t know what they’re talking about, there’s never anything objectionable.

 

*These are written by the children when they are adults.

Would you recommend this to a friend?

Definitely.

You might also enjoy:

Cheaper by the Dozen

Still Life with Bread Crumbs, Anna Quindlen

Still Life with Bread Crumbs: A Novel

Anna Quindlen   

Category: Fiction

Synopsis: Sixty-year-old divorcee, Rebecca Winter, moves from the city to the country. Just how much will her life change?

Date finished: 24 September 2014 

Rating: ****

Comments:

I’ve long enjoyed Anna Quindlen’s nonfiction. Her essay collections, her book on reading, her latest woman-of-a-certain-age memoir, I’ve enjoyed them all. I’ve also read one (two?) of her novels, and I was sorely disappointed. But other bloggers read Still Life with Bread Crumbs earlier this year and praised it so highly, I had to check it out.

I was not disappointed. The plot, best described as woman-of-a-certain-age-romance (I see a theme developing in Quindlen’s writing lately), as well as the characters, were light and breezy. It’s a quiet slice of life novel, complete with a dislocated artist, an all-around good guy, and some other stock characters. There’s nothing really striking in the plot or characters arena. But the writing is where it’s at for this novel. I wrote down many whole passages in which Quindlen absolutely nails the human condition to the wall. Her writerly turn of phrase is a special gift. The writing kept me reading; the story was secondary. 

A couple of my favorite passages:

They were photographs that you had to explain, which meant they were a failure. (page 35)

Bebe Winter had never relaxed into anything, especially motherhood. (page 53)

It would make sense that the women who lived there thought he was her dog, given her mental state; it made sense that [the dog] was agnostic about the whole thing, given his history. (page 63)

 

If you’re looking for a nice light, quick, read with some romance and human psychology, this is the book for you.

Would you recommend this to a friend?

Yes.

You might also enjoy:

Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake

Marie Curie and Her Daughters, Shelley Emling

Marie Curie and Her Daughters: The Private Lives of Science’s First Family

Shelley Emling

Category: Nonfiction: Biography; Science

Synopsis: The biographies of physicist and Nobel Prize winner, Marie Curie, and her daughters, Irene and Eve.

Date finished: 20 September 2014

Rating: ***

Comments:

This book. This book. THIS BOOK! Oh book, you could have been so great in another writer’s hands.

This book made me SUFFER. Suf-fer. The research was well-done and thorough, but the writing was terrible. There was so much repetition, so much clumsy language, so many bad transitions. And it’s so too bad, because Madame Curie, and both of her daughters, deserve better.

I read Madame Curie in high school and credit it with turning me on to biographies. That book changed my life in so many ways. I’ve felt a reverence for Marie Curie (and the well-turned biography) ever since. The things this woman accomplished in her time, in a male-dominated field, are astonishing. She won not one but two Nobel Prizes, the only person to this day to win two science Nobels in two subjects (physics and chemistry). She discovered two elements, radium and polonium. She was the first female professor at Sorbonne. And the world’s first treatment of tumors with radiation was done under her direction.

But I had no idea that her daughters, too, were just as accomplished. Elder daughter, Irene, married a physicist and, having discovered artificial radioactive isotopes, they won a joint Nobel Prize. Their discoveries were used to help solve the problem of how to release energy from the atom, one of the greatest and most horrific scientific discoveries of modern time.

Younger daughter Eve wrote one of the best-selling biographies ever written (Madame Curie) in 1937. She won the National Book Award. Eve’s husband was ambassador to Greece and then the executive director of UNICEF where he accepted a Nobel Prize for the organization. Eve was the only member of her family to not receive a Nobel. Her mother, father, sister, brother-in-law, and husband all accepted the prestigious prize.

See? The information in the book is wonderfully fascinating.

But is the book worth its tortured prose? I guess that depends on your tolerance for subpar writing. The information is top notch, how it’s laid out is deeply flawed.

Would you recommend this to a friend?
If you can get past any prejudice you have about books being well-researched and well-written, go for it. I learned so much.

You might also enjoy:

Madame Curie

Dinner: The Playbook, Jenny Rosenstrach

Dinner: The Playbook: A 30-Day Plan for Mastering the Art of the Family Meal

Jenny Rosenstrach

Category: Cookbook

Synopsis: Part game plan, part cookbook, Rosenstrach combines the two to foster the family meal.

Date finished: 8 September 2014

Rating: ***

Comments:

I hate it when cookbooks have an agenda. And there are few things I resist more than fads. Especially, fads in cooking and eating. This year’s kale chips are next year’s yucca chips, if you know what I mean.

So, as much as I look forward to this book for months, it was a disappointment. Rosenstrach’s debut cookbook, Dinner: A Love Story, also ladled out a big dose of autobiography (always a plus in my book) and its recipes felt much more accessible. The recipes here seemed more a snapshot of food for the Trader Joe set circa 2014. I just have this feeling that Rosenstrach will look back on this book and its recipes the way we look back on 80s hair, neon legwarmers, and jeans that zipped at the ankle. Mark my words, her husband will one day ask, “Honey, remember that year we ate nothing but quinoa, butternut squash, and lentils?” To which she’ll reply, “Do I? I wrote the cookbook on that year!”

The cookbook, as well as her website, is designed to get families to eat meals together at the table. It’s a simple concept without a single drawback other than someone has to cook that meal. Enter Rosenstrach. Her mission is to get parents cooking and kids eating.

I love her mission. I grew up with family suppers every night. That and weekly church services may or may not be responsible for three college degrees and no jail time for my brothers and me. But in this book, she gets a little hysterical about her mission, and little too four-star-general and bossy. Frankly, I think folks need more encouragement than bludgeoning. It felt pretty heavy-handed.  

Now, I really didn’t hate the book. In fact, I found a couple recipes that I’d like to try. Hello, Sticky Pomegranate Chicken Pieces!* Howya doin’ Cornmeal Crusted Fish! And a shout-out to my friend the Tomato and Avocado Salad. There’s a picture for every dish, and the meals are well-balanced. She even works them out for you so that leftovers from Monday’s meal become Wednesday’s supper so you use up produce and don’t let things go to waste.

If you like to eat the in thing, the current superfoods, this is the book for you. For the traditional set, who want a cookbook that lasts a couple decades, you might look elsewhere.

*When I have $9 to spend on pomegranate juice, I swear I’m gonna try this.

 

 

Would you recommend this to a friend?

I don’t think so.

You might also enjoy:

Dinner: A Love Story

 

Top Ten Tuesday (new authors in 2014)

Click on the icon to link up!

 

This week's Topic: Top Ten New-to-me Authors I Read in 2014

 

This has been a great year of literary discoveries for me. I've found some of the best books I've ever read, and choosing ten for an end-of-year best of it going to be very difficult.

 

Ten authors I'm glad to have discovered in 2014:

 

 

 

Laura Hillenbrand. I read Seabiscuit and Unbroken in the same month because once I read one, I couldn't wait to read the other.

Hampton Sides. In the Kingdom of Ice is a stunner. I've added a number of Sides' other books to my TBR list.

 

Erik Larson. I read Devil in the White City and eagerly await the March release of Dead Wake.

Candice Millard. Destiny of the Republic was a surprise favorite for me this year.

Bill Bryson. I thought I'd read Bill Bryson before, but I may have gotten him confused with Calvin Trillin, because none of his books sound familiar. His One Summer blew me away. 

 

Bill O’Reilly. This might be cheating, because I did read his memoir several years ago, but his Killing series (there will be seven in all) seems like a thing all its own. I read both Killing Kennedy and Killing Patton. Killing Lincoln is waiting in the wings.

 

 

Robert Klara. One of my favorite history reads this year was The Hidden White House about the massive renovation of the executive mansion during the Truman administration. I also read his FDR's Funeral Train.

Sheri Fink. Five Days at Memorial was truly masterful.

 

 

 

Molly Wizenberg. Her website never appealed to me, but I decided to give Delancey a try when it came out, and I'm so glad I did. Now her A Homemade Life is on my list.

Elizabeth Gilbert (fiction). I've read all of Gilbert's nonfiction, but when I read her The Signature of All Things this spring I decided she might be just as gifted in the fiction genre.

Anna Quindlen (fiction). Again, I've read all her nonfiction books, but her novel Still Life with Bread Crumbs was good.

Friday Finds (Dec. 5)

Hosted by MizB. Click on the picture to link up!

 

I have a feeling this month is going to take no prisoners. I'm so far behind with my holiday plans, projects, and whatnot. The tree's up, though. So there's that.

 

Needless to say I don't have a lot of time these days to find new books. I added three this week.

 

 

Jane Smiley wowed me this autumn with the first in a trilogy of novels, Some Luck (review to follow). The second in the series, Early Warning, is due out in May. (Thanks to Bookmammal for this info!) The novels cover a family's lives from the 1920s to present, and this second book picks up in the early 1950s.

 

The Residence is something that caught my eye awhile ago, though it's not due out until April. I'm kind of a White House junkie, so this one is eagerly anticipated.

 

I've owned Under the Banner of Heaven for a couple years now, and I've yet to read it. In fact, I haven't read anything by Jon Krakauer. I've moved it up the TBR after reading Trish's review of it recently. It's about fundamentalist Mormons and a true-life murder of a mother and her child. I've read a number of books about fundamentalist Mormons, and I was kind of burned out for awhile, but I think I might tackle this one soon. (Though I own the paperback version with miniscule font which irritates me no end.)

 

Does anyone know of a good book about mainstream Mormons? I've read a couple, but most are about leaving the church, not living in it.

 

That's it for this week. Hope you all have a great weekend!

 

 

In the Kingdom of Ice, Hampton Sides

In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Hampton Sides

Category: Nonfiction: Biography; History; Adventure 

Synopsis: A recount of the 1879 North Pole expedition led by Captain George Washington De Long and his crew.

Date finished: 15 September 2014

Rating: *****

Comments:

I fear I’ve waited too long to write this review, and that is honestly one of my greatest reading regrets this year. Because you need to read this book, and a good, intelligent, well-reasoned review would have sold you on it. (Does anyone else put that kind of pressure on their book reviews? No wonder I have writer’s block!) Truly, this is one of my top five books of the year, maybe even top three.

Let’s start with the subject. Arctic expedition is not something I knew anything about before this book. I’d never heard of the USS Jeannette, Captain George Washington De Long, or even considered how we got to know our North (or South) Pole. But give me a well-written book on any subject, and I’ll eat it up.

Prior to Captain De Long and his crew, there had been many failed attempts at polar exploration. Many explorers wanted to be the first to the top of the world. Most didn’t survive. There were theories about the North Pole that would persist until De Long and his crew, as well as subsequent crews, proved them wrong. Chief among them was that there was an “Open Polar Sea,” that the Arctic ice barrier was simply a ring that if penetrated would lead you to an open body of water at the pole. Indeed, maps and globes of this era showed this Polar Sea. But penetrating that Arctic ring of ice was impossible in those days. Most every crew who braved the boat-crushing ice sheets faced the same fate: they couldn’t get past the 80^th parallel.

The USS Jeannette was fortified like no other polar exploration vessel before her. She was loaded with 33 (?) men and thousands of pounds of provisions including 2,500 lbs. of roast mutton, 3,000 lbs. of stewed and corned beef, 3,000 lbs. of salt pork, 100 lbs. of tongue…and Budweiser beer. Men took on the voyage not knowing if they would see their wives and families again.

The writing of this expedition was beyond compare. Some passages were so lyrical they brought tears to my eyes. And the landscape was described so well, I really felt like I was seeing it. I watched a book talk with Hampton Sides after I’d finished the book (husband points to hubby for seeing it and recording it for me!), in which he said he’d followed De Long’s path so that he would have the visual and visceral feeling of the place. This is obviously a man who puts himself into his work.

I won’t give you spoilers here, but the book’s subtitle gives you some hint as to what to expect. Suffice it to say, it’s a riveting account, and I can’t imagine this not becoming a Hollywood blockbuster in a few years. It’s best to go into the book, I think, without much knowledge of what’s going to happen, because that experience will most closely mirror the crew’s experience.

In addition to a great story and superb writing, there’s good historical context, character development (the crew kept outstanding journals and guarded them at all costs, and at times, great peril), flawless plotting, humor, and spellbinding “plot” twists.

I’m a Hampton Sides fan for life with this book. I hope you’ll try it. 

Would you recommend this to a friend?

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And yes.

You might also enjoy:

This may sound funny, but I kept thinking about Seabiscuit (another of my top five favorite reads of the year) while reading this book. While about vastly different subjects, the sea voyage and the champion racehorse winning his matches, are both spirited tales about humanity, perseverance, and accomplishing great things against greater odds. And the writing in both is unparalleled.