"Under Magnolia" by Frances Mayes (A Southern Memoir)

SUMMARY :

A lyrical and evocative memoir from Frances Mayes, the Bard of Tuscany, about coming of age in the Deep South and the region’s powerful influence on her life.

The author of three beloved books about her life in Italy, including Under the Tuscan Sun and Every Day in Tuscany, Frances Mayes revisits the turning points that defined her early years in Fitzgerald, Georgia. With her signature style and grace, Mayes explores the power of landscape, the idea of home, and the lasting force of a chaotic and loving family.

From her years as a spirited, secretive child, through her university studies—a period of exquisite freedom that imbued her with a profound appreciation of friendship and a love of travel—to her escape to a new life in California, Mayes exuberantly recreates the intense relationships of her past, recounting the bitter and sweet stories of her complicated family: her beautiful yet fragile mother, Frankye; her unpredictable father, Garbert; Daddy Jack, whose life Garbert saved; grandmother Mother Mayes; and the family maid, Frances’s confidant Willie Bell.

Under Magnolia is a searingly honest, humorous, and moving ode to family and place, and a thoughtful meditation on the ways they define us, or cause us to define ourselves. With acute sensory language, Mayes relishes the sweetness of the South, the smells and tastes at her family table, the fragrance of her hometown trees, and writes an unforgettable story of a girl whose perspicacity and dawning self-knowledge lead her out of the South and into the rest of the world, and then to a profound return home.

PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK :

Published by:  Crown Publishing
Pages: 336
Genre:  Non-Fiction/Memoir
Author:  Frances Mayes
Find her:  http://www.francesmayesbooks.com
Purchase this book:  Amazon


ABOUT THE AUTHOR :

In addition to her worldwide bestselling Tuscany memoirs Under the Tuscan Sun, Bella Tuscany, and Every Day in Tuscany, FRANCES MAYES is the author of the travel memoir, A Year in the World, illustrated books In Tuscany and Bringing Tuscany Home (with Edward Mayes), and The Tuscan Sun Cookbook (also with Edward Mayes). She has published a novel, Swan, set in the South, The Discovery of Poetry: A Guide for Readers and Writers, and five books of poetry. Her books have been translated into more than fifty languages. She divides her time between Tuscany and North Carolina. Visit her at www.francesmayesbooks.com.



THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS :

It's rare to find a memoir that reads like an adventure novel!  But Frances Mayes has written one.  She is a daunting woman who is world travelled, but who can come home in the most regal and relateable way.  Reading this memoir is like having the most enjoyable of training courses in becoming a Southerner! 

Wonderfully written with anecdotes of her wild and woolly childhood, her growing up years and her coming of age in a home where she wasn't completely neglected but had enough of it to have to learn much by herself, this book is both heart-warming and sad.  There is much here to admire in a mouthy child who is full of spunk and "spit," as we say in the South.  It's obvious where she got the courage to persevere and become one of the best-loved authors of her kind in the world.  Yet, through it all, she has become a great minder of the beautiful things in life.

She really has a way with words and a way of truly "seeing" the world around her.  Her ability to translate that world, even from early childhood is a gift.  Mayes's descriptions of even the smallest details of the South brought me flashbacks of home growing up there myself.  I loved the way she brought it to life again after so many years for me.

Whether you're a fan of Ms Mayes because of her Tuscany or other books, a Southerner yourself, or "wannabe"one, or just a reader who wants to be taken on a trip through a fabulous memoir, this is the book for you.  I highly recommend "Under Magnolia."  It would be a great book group read...lots to discuss here.

5 stars                 Deborah/TheBookishDame

"Charles Dickens In Love" by Robert Garnett ~ New Biography

 

SUMMARY :

 

When Charles Dickens died in 1870 he was the best-known man in the English-speaking world—the pre-eminent Victorian celebrity, universally mourned as both a noble spirit and the greatest of novelists. Yet when the first person named in his will turned out to be an unknown woman named Ellen Ternan, only a handful of people had any idea who she was, and her conspicuous presence in his will was a mystery. Of his romance with Ellen, Dickens had written, “it belongs to my life and probably will only die out of the same with the proprietor,” and so it was—until his death she remained the most important person in his life.

She was not the first woman who had fired his imagination. As a young man he had fallen deeply in love with a woman who “pervaded every chink and crevice” of his mind for three years, Maria Beadnell,
and when she eventually jilted him he vowed that “I never can love any human creature breathing but yourself.” A few years later he was stunned by the sudden death of his young sister-in-law, Mary Scott Hogarth, and worshiped her memory for the rest of his life. “I solemnly believe that so perfect a creature never breathed,” he declared, and when he died over thirty years later he was still wearing her ring.

Charles Dickens has no rival as the most fertile creative imagination since William Shakespeare, and no one influenced his imagination more powerfully than these three women, his muses and teachers in the school of love. Using hundreds of primary sources, Charles Dickens in Love narrates the story of the most intense romances of Dickens’s life, and shows how his novels both testify to his own strongest affections and serve as memorials to the young women he loved all too well, if not always wisely.

PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK :
Published by:  Pegasus
Pages:  256
Genre:  Non-Fiction/Biography
Purchase:  Barnes & Noble


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Robert Garnett is a graduate of Dartmouth College and the University of Virginia
(Ph.D.), and currently Professor of English at Gettysburg College. He has been researching Dickens for over a dozen years, has presented papers on him at many academic conferences, and has published articles on his life and novels in scholarly journals such as Dickens Quarterly and Dickens Studies Annual.


THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS :

This is an all together very readable biographical study and chronicle about the love life of Charles Dickens.  It's comprehensive but not at all massive, doable and enjoyable to read.  I found it quite "user friendly," surprisingly enough.  A good read and an informative one.

Robert Garnett describes the main three loves of Dickens's life and their affects on him and his individual works, as well as his writings in total.  I felt many parts of the book were redundant, however, although not tiring to read. I wondered whether the book actually came from his teaching notes at times. But, basically, there are intimate sections that enhance the chapters on each of Dickens  muses/loved ones.  And, his relationships with famous writers of the times such as Wilke Collins, brought an added dimension I enjoyed reading about.

While I did not find it an extremely academic book, I was refreshed and relieved by that fact to an extent.  It is a book I can recommend to those who love Charles Dickens and would like to know more about this softer side of him and how his love of particular women, the central focus of his novels, came about.

A book I would recommend to Dickens lovers with the above reservations.

3.5 stars              Deborah/TheBookishDame



 

Please Read ~ "Don't Sing At The Table" by Adriana Trigiani ~ You'll Be Transported

Published by: Harper Collins 

Pages: 224

Genre: Non-Fiction, Memoir

Summary :

From Publishers Weekly~

Fans of novelist Trigiani will be delighted with this guided tour through the author's family history via her grandmothers, Lucia and Viola. She lovingly details the women's lives and recounts the lessons she's learned while offering a fascinating look at U.S. history from the perspective of her Italian-American forebears. Both Lucia and Viola worked hard from an early age, cooking and cleaning among any number of chores, and parlayed their work ethic and expertise into strong careers. Viola started out as a machine operator and, later, co-owned a mill with her husband, while Lucia worked in a factory and then became a seamstress and storefront couturier.

Her grandmothers also took pride in passing along wisdom to others; throughout her life, Trigiani benefited from their guidance regarding everything from marriage to money, creativity to religion. She credits them with telling good stories: "I mimicked their work ethic imagining myself in a factory, layering words like tasks until the work was done. I took away more than life lessons from their stories; I made a career out of it." Here, Trigiani combines family and American history, reflections on lives well-lived, and sound advice to excellent effect, as a legacy to her daughter and a remembrance of two inimitable women.

The Dame's Perspective:

What a treasure of a small book this is. I stayed up into the wee hours of the night because I just couldn't tear myself away from the story of Viola and Lucy and how they operated in the world. To say that Adriana Trigiani benefited from having them as grandmothers is an understatement.

I loved that both grandmothers had a strong interest in some area of dressmaking. Viola in the heart and hard work of factory sewing, and then her own blouse-making business; and Lucy in her devotion to clients and perfection when she became a "storefront couturier." Talented and beautiful women, they understood the value and power behind a women dressed well in perfectly fitted, classic clothing. They also understood that keeping up their skin/beauty routine, social standing and family reputations were tantamount to good life, good health and good self-esteem; among other important things.

It seems Adriana learned so much from them about integrity and self-respect, there's no doubt about that. But, she also learned the value of manners, of going after what you want, of having a purpose in life, of minding your reputation. The specifics of these lessons are ones you'll be delighted to read.

I thought it was delightful and serious at the same time to read Lucy's lessons first on romantic love, then on keeping a marriage strong. Hers is practical wisdom. Her instructions on raising children are some we absolutely could use today. I particularly liked her dictum never to burden a child with adult problems. That lesson alone would change the mental health of so many children in these times.

There is so much to this book. It's humorous, it's character building, it's serious and it's a lesson book on how to live a life with wisdom. What a blessing Adriana Trigiani had in these two lovely women. No wonder she's a bestselling author with fragments of these things to share with her readers.

Those of us who had grandmothers like Viola and Lucy will enjoy reading about them and, possibly, taking a nostalgic trip back to our own childhoods. Those of you who didn't have grandmothers like them will gain something very special in the reading.

5 perfectly heartwarming stars

Deborah/TheBookishDame

This Was A Review Made Possible By: TLC Book Tours ~ Thanks, Lisa and Trish! I loved this book!

"Last Minute Knitting" by Joelle Hoverson~Now in Ebook format!

Published by:  Open Road Media/Abrams

Pages:  107

Release Date:  September 13, 2011

Now in Ebook format

Overview:

Today's knitters are chic, smart-and busy. Although they love to knit and enjoy making gifts for family and friends, they're constantly faced with the challenge of finding enough time to actually finish what they've started. Last-Minute Knitted Gifts solves this problem. Joelle Hoverson, owner of Purl, the hip knitting supply store in downtown Manhattan, has designed more than 30 fun, fresh, beautiful patterns, most of which can be made in less than ten hours—some in as little as two! Known for her keen sense of color, Hoverson includes instructions for classic gifts like baby booties and bonnets, sweaters, and scarves, plus imaginative options like a cashmere tea cozy, a felted yoga mat bag, floor cushions, and a poncho—surely something for everyone on the gift list. And to make each present extra-special, Hoverson offers easy tips on how to incorporate knitting and other yarn embellishments into the gift wrap.

Perfectly awesome video of Joelle and her work:  Found on Open Road Media at:
http://www.openroadmedia.com/authors/joelle-hoverson.aspx

The Dame's Review :

This is a book radiant with color.  How I would love just to spend a few days in Joelle's shop, wandering around, touching the yarns, pulling colors and learning to knit a couple of her patterns.  The way she's written this particular book gives it not the urgency one might think is needed if you're making a "last minute" gift, but a kind of serenity and assurance that all is well.  So, that makes it just plain entertaining.

Oh, just kill me now, Sleeping Beauty!  I'm going for the sharp needles!
Because time is spent here helping us understand color, color relationships, substitutions of color and yarns; and about which needles will produce the product we hope to achieve.  We get a good idea about felting, fluffing and fancy yarns, along with the basics of knitting from a pattern.  While this book is easy on the eyes of any stage knitter, it's also filled with good, solid information that can be a reference any time.

I have to say that I had a hard time resisting the precious bonnets and cotton caps in this book.  Oh, my, they made me want to call my children and beg for new grandchildren!!  But, the color crunched big kids caps are just as delicious and are perfect for all ages.

The drawstring pouch on the cover of the book is simplicity and beauty in one.  It can be used as a bride's purse, a gift bag, a jewelry pouch and a place to store secret, small treasures or memorabilia.  Joelle suggests stitching it with alpaca and silk, "a soft, luscious drape and a lustrous sheen."  But, I can also see beads, pearls, silk ribbons accessorizing...  Leave it to me to take the simplicity away!

Without putting too fine a point on it, this book is a good little addition to your knitting and crafts collection.  The directions, glossary and darling designs make it a keeper for reference and to "go to" often.

5 multicolored blended stars

Deborah/TheBookishDame

"Dead Celebrities Cookbook..." by Frank DeCaro~Deathly Hallows Never Tasted So Good!

Title:  Dead Celebrities Cookbook: A Resurrection of Recipes from the More Than 145 Stars of Stage and Screen

Published by: HCI

Pages:  385

Genre:  House & Garden, Cookbooks

Book Summary :



If you've ever fantasized about feasting on Frank Sinatra's Barbecued Lamb, lunching on Lucille Ball's "Chinese-y Thing," diving ever-so-neatly into Joan Crawford's Poached Salmon, or wrapping your lips around Rock Hudson's cannoli – and really, who hasn't? – hold on to your oven mitts!
  
In The Dead Celebrity Cookbook: A Resurrection of Recipes by 150 Stars of Stage and Screen, Frank DeCaro—the flamboyantly funny Sirius XM radio personality best known for his six-and-a-half-year stint as the movie critic on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart—collects hundreds of recipes passed on from legendary stars of stage and screen, proving that before there were celebrity chefs, there were celebrities who fancied themselves chefs.
 
Their all-but-forgotten recipes—rescued from out-of-print cookbooks, musty biographies, vintage magazines, and dusty pamphlets—suggest a style of home entertaining ripe for reexamination if not revival, while reminding intrepid gourmands that, for better or worse, Hollywood doesn't make celebrities (or cooks) like it used to.

Starring
Elizabeth Taylor's Chicken with Avocado and Mushrooms
Farrah Fawcett's Sausage and Peppers
Liberace's Sticky Buns
Bette Davis's Red Flannel Hash
Bea Arthur's Good Morning Mushroom Tomato Toast
Dudley Moore's Crème Brûlée
Gypsy Rose Lee's Portuguese Fish Chowder
John Ritter's Famous Fudge
Andy Warhol's Ghoulish Goulash
Vincent Price's Pepper Steak
Johnny Cash's Old Iron Pot Family-Style Chili
Vivian Vance's Chicken Kiev
Sebastian Cabot's Avocado Surprise
Lawrence Welk's Vegetable Croquettes
Ann Miller's Cheese Soufflé
Jerry Orbach's Trifle
Totie Fields's Fruit Mellow
Irene Ryan's Tipsy Basingstoke
Klaus Nomi's Key Lime Tart
Richard Deacon's Bitter and Booze
Sonny Bono's Spaghetti with Fresh Tomato Sauce

And many others from breakfast to dessert.


Your Dame's Spicey Review:

"The Dead Celebrity Cookbook" makes you wish you were at a banquet of the dead.  Honestly,  Frank DeCaro tells tales of celebrities and shares their secret, homey recipes in such a way that you want to go "down under" with them.  Alas, it's impossible--to most of us!  For cookbook readers everywhere...this is one for your library.

Mr. Decaro is a funny character, and a gifted writer.  His characterizations and talent for focusing on perfect highlights that show us the nature of famous celebrities, brings a certain bubbly brightness to his cookbook.  When you read his quips and synopses of such celebrities as Johnny Carson and Joan Crawford you can't help feeling they are people you could spend time with over dinner. 

Let's talk about the recipes.  Man, oh, man!  There are sooo many to try!  As a Southerner, I have to try Johnny Cash's fried okra.  There are pies galore, lots of fish and casseroles.  Yum!  These celebs knew how to cook and entertain friends;  I suspect the gatherings were like family times.  Interestingly enough, many were health conscious; probably in order to keep those beautiful figures.

Set into categories, such as:  Batman Capers, I Lunch Lucy, and Watching A Detective (Cook), just to mention a few, and to give you an idea of how much fun this cookbook is.  The tidbits of information about cast members of famous shows brings back memories!  I loved being reminded about Dinah Shore, Merv Griffin and others... And, having a Bette Davis recipe is practically like gold for a fan like I am.

When all's said and done, I'd kill (die) for this cookbook.  It's a dance with the dead that will stick with you and will offer friends a ghostly conversation at a dead celebrity-based dinner party.  What fun to know so many details of the actors we grew up watching, believing in and loving.  Here's to Frank DeCaro for bringing us this wonderful book...and here's looking at all our beloved celebrities.

How about a Halloween Dinner Party using this crazy cookbook this year!?  Fabuloso!

5 stars for this cookbook keeper!

Deborah/TheBookishDame

New Orleans Decorating~"Big Easy Style:Creating Rooms You Love to Live In" by Bryan Batt

Published by:  Crown

Release Date:  October 4, 2011

Pre-release Price:  Available

Pages:  208 including photos

Hardcover

Overview :  (Taken from book)

An enchanting space that’s truly unique calls for a sense of humor, whimsy, and an open mind.
From a charmed New Orleans childhood to a successful acting career on Broadway and the award-winning TV show Mad Men to the opening of his popular Big Easy home furnishings boutique, Hazelnut, Bryan Batt has always turned to home design as a creative outlet.

To him, the best rooms are unexpected yet refined and, above all, evoke emotion. He doesn’t think twice about hanging over sized decorations from a Mardi Gras float in an elegant dining room or bringing home vintage etchings of sconces when he was actually shopping for real ones. He believes that a vibrant orange wall can be a neutral backdrop for an antique writing desk and earthy accessories, and that an artist’s whimsical bird’s nest sculpture hung in a lavender entryway couldn’t serve as a better welcome into a cozy abode. New Orleans has taught Bryan so much about how to pull together a space that’s fearless and colorful with plenty of panache. With the city as his muse—its strong roots in history, its celebration of tradition, and, of course, the wild festivities of Mardi Gras—he believes that designing a fabulous, livable home that truly reflects a dweller’s passions need not be intimidating.

Big, Easy Style showcases rooms that make Bryan smile, with pages of rich photography featuring the work of many designers—and plenty of Crescent City interiors—framed by his own entertaining maxims on color, pattern, collecting, living areas, intimate spaces, and more. Explore rooms he’s personally designed and others that inspire him; from an old-world kitchen imported straight from the heart of France to a luxurious Art Deco media room, these homes are enticing and unique, and through their surprising details, completely inviting. 

Decorating your home to reflect your personality and taste takes practice and patience and can be a daunting undertaking, but Bryan proposes that we not worry about making mistakes, that any decision we make is better than no decision at all. With Big, Easy Style, learn how to put aside your hesitation and surrender to the wild side of home design for a big statement that’s easy to achieve.

Let's Meet Bryan!

BRYAN BATT (actor, designer, civic activist, and author) is most recently known for his two-time Screen Actors Guild Award winning performance as “Salvatore Romano” in AMC’s critically acclaimed dramatic series MAD MEN, which has been lauded with awards including Emmys, Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild as well as the Peabody awards.

Bryan is also a designer. He and Tom Cianfichi, his partner of 22 years, are the nationally recognized creative forces behind HAZELNUT, a fine gift and home accessories shop in his home town of New Orleans. HAZELNUT has been featured in the NEW YORK TIMES, HOUSE BEAUTIFUL, IN STYLE, FOOD AND WINE, TOWN AND COUNTRY and many more publications.

His debut book, a memoir, or as he calls it, a momoir, “SHE AIN’T HEAVY, SHE’S MY MOTHER,” celebrates his Steel Magnolia / Auntie Mame of a mom and depicts growing up in wildly colorful  New Orleans in the 1970’s. The book has received wonderful notices… “I Loved, Loved, Loved This Book” – Whoopi Goldberg …and was on Janet Maslin’s NY Times top 10 summer read list.

As a Broadway veteran, Bryan’s leading and principal roles include: 2005 revival of LA CAGE AUX FOLLES, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, SUESSICAL THE MUSICAL, SUNSET BLVD, SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL, JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT, STARLIGHT EXPRESS, and CATS. Off Broadway: FORBIDDEN BROADWAY (Drama Desk Nomination). Theatrically, Bryan is most proud of originating the role of DARIUS in the N.Y. and L.A (Drama Logue Award) productions, as well as the film adaptation, of Paul Rudnick’s ground breaking comedy JEFFREY.

A civic activist, Bryan champions many causes including Broadway Cares/ Equity Fights AIDS, Habitat For Humanity, Second Harvest Food Bank, the Human Rights Campaign (Equality and Visibility Awards), the SPCA, The Preservation Resource Center, The Point Foundation, N.O. AIDS Task Force, and Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carré.

His next book is a design book for Clarkson Potter entitled “BIG, EASY STYLE” and will be released October 4th.

Bryan (left, back section of picture!) 

The Dame's Review :

"The Big Easy..." is a beautifully written book in addition to being a book with gorgeous photographs of homes in lush details and sophisticated tastes.  Bryan Batt displays his Renaissance man characteristics not only in acting, it seems, but in writing, decorating and presenting himself as an entertaining man-about-town in New Orleans.  This is a book of many surprises, one that you'll be pleased to reference, and have available for friends and family.

I love 1800's period homes.  Having been an interior designer myself, and having owned a few houses in that time period, I know the joys and the challenges they can present.  Mr. Batt has shown them off and led us through those with panache!  It's a real joy to see and read his excitement over the smallest of details that makes a house a home and a room spectacular.

In terms of learning to decorate for oneself, Bryan gives so many practical examples and easy lessons covering such things as:

~  attention to lighting

~  importance and use of paint, which paint co. he uses, and

    some color choices specifically

~  sophisticated small things that enhance

~  how to use a splash of strong color for taste and drama

~  bars that set a mood and sparkle

~  art to bring a home to life

It was particularly heartening to read how much support Bryan gives to clients and readers of his book in the very common area of decorating fright.  Here, I quote him:

"..never make a decision based on fear; one can never be truly stylish without taking a risk or two." 

Regarding our color education and use in our own home design, he urges us to keep our eyes open in nightclubs for colors, in art galleries, museums, books, and when we travel.  In "Big Easy..."  he also shows the gorgeous home of one of his school friend's, a local New Orleans artist, who employs her own artwork and crafts to fill her house with personality and punch. 

 I loved when he wrote:

"...think of this (your powder room, specifically,) as a perfect chance to express yourself and get your ya-yas out!"

So funny, and so true!   He suggests an antique gold enamel paint, a piece of art inspiration, a theme that can set the tone such as; "The Last Emperor" or "The Secret Garden."  I once had a powder room designed around the small mistress eye paintings that were done for noblemen during the Renaissance to carry with them in secret.  These beautiful eyes, peeking out of knot holes of alabaster, exotic woods, agate and the like gave me a jewelled palette from which to decorate that little room for guests.  It was such fun and I called it my "Little Jewelry Box."

With his homebase of New Orleans, his apparently fabulous decorating shop (it has to be spectacular!) called "Hazelnut," with a nod to his beloved mom; and, including the cultural mix of Mardi Gras...Bryan Batt has shared with us his whole heart and gifts in this special book.

It's visually a treat, it's a happy read, it's helpful and it's a reference for interior decorating.  I would recommend it for everyone who loves their home, who wants to gift a loved one or newlywed, or friend; and a decorating professional looking to build her/his reference library.

5 stars

Deborah/TheBookishDame

*Oh, and one more thing;  I would love to share with you Bryan's delicious recipe for "Tequila Mockingbird II"  his signature drink for parties, but you'll have to get his book to find out for yourself.  Yum--mie!  I've enjoyed mine while reading "Big, Easy Style:  Creating Rooms You Love to Live In"   Hope you get a chance to enjoy!   Cheers, New Orleans style!

A Bookish Libraria: The Bookish Dame Reviews: Hoarding~ "Dirty Secret: A Daughter Comes Clean Ab...

A Bookish Libraria: The Bookish Dame Reviews: Hoarding~ "Dirty Secret: A Daughter Comes Clean Ab...: "Publisher: Gallery Books, A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. Date published: January 2011 Pgs: 311 Plus Reading Group Guide Paperba..."

Hoarding~ "Dirty Secret: A Daughter Comes Clean About Her Mother's Compulsive Hoarding"

Publisher:  Gallery Books, A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Date published:  January 2011
Pgs:  311  Plus Reading Group Guide
Paperback Edition and Ebook

Overview:
"To be the child of a compulsive hoarder is to live in a permanent state of unease. Because if my mother is one of those crazy junk-house people, then what does that make me?"

When her divorced mother was diagnosed with cancer, New York City writer Jessie Sholl returned to her hometown of Minneapolis to help her prepare for her upcoming surgery and get her affairs in order. While a daunting task for any adult dealing with an aging parent, it’s compounded for Sholl by one lifelong, complex, and confounding truth: her mother is a compulsive hoarder. Dirty Secret is a daughter’s powerful memoir of confronting her mother’s disorder, of searching for the normalcy that was never hers as a child, and, finally, cleaning out the clutter of her mother’s home in the hopes of salvaging the true heart of their relationship—before it’s too late.
 
Growing up, young Jessie knew her mother wasn’t like other mothers: chronically disorganized, she might forgo picking Jessie up from kindergarten to spend the afternoon thrift store shopping. Now, tracing the downward spiral in her mother’s hoarding behavior to the death of a long-time boyfriend, she bravely wades into a pathological sea of stuff: broken appliances, moldy cowboy boots, twenty identical pairs of graying bargain-bin sneakers, abandoned arts and crafts, newspapers, magazines, a dresser drawer crammed with discarded eyeglasses, shovelfuls of junk mail . . . the things that become a hoarder’s “treasures.”

With candor, wit, and not a drop of sentimentality, Jessie Sholl explores the many personal and psychological ramifications of hoarding while telling an unforgettable mother-daughter tale.

My Review:

Jessie Sholl's book is absorbing and enlightening.  It stands alone as a book revealing the heartaches and horrors of being the child of a hoarder.  And, she carries us along with her as she writes her very novel-like history of dealing with her own obsession to make her mother different -- cured of her hoarding, and "normal."

Ms Sholl is an accomplished author.  Her writing is clear and concise, taking us swiftly along her story as if she's sitting in the same room telling us...spell-binding us. This is a story that will give yet unheard of insight into both the hoarder's mindset, and that of those who try to make their own lives make sense. It may also open some eyes to their own pre-hoarding tendendancies.

One of the most profound inside confessions of Ms Sholl is the horror she and her family experienced when she contracted a bug from her mother's house.  This was something I would literally have lost my mind over!  This singular incident would have sent me over the edge and made me react differently altogether to my mother and her hoarding.  However, Jessie Sholl's love of her mother reveals itself in a very telling manner...which I won't spoil by detailing here.

While Ms Sholl gives a comprehensive account of her mother's background and life as a hoarder, as well as her own life as a daughter secondary in her mother's heart to hoarding, Jessie also explains the disease in total.  An awful and seemingly discouraging property of hoarding is that it cannot be "cured."  The medical world has finally come to see it as a mental illness that seems to be triggered by a tremendous loss in some instances, but there is nothing that can "fix" the problem.  When teams and family come in to clear out the home, and therapy ensues--the hoarder only resists, relapses and continues.

I found Jessie Sholl's book to be immanently readable and enlightening. It has made me want to know more about hoarding and hoarders in general.  Frankly, it's become less a disorder to laugh at on "Hoarders."  Any time we can understand a disease at its roots, we can be more sympathetic toward those whose life it affects.  And when we can reach that point, it makes us more whole as a community.  This is the treasure of Ms Sholl's book.  She is the crusader that will hopefully give hope to children of hoarders, and understanding to those of us who look from the outside.

5 stars for this enlightening book and congratulations to Jessie Sholl

*Please share in comments anything you have to say about hoarders you've encountered and how it's affected you.

Deborah/TheBookishDame

Cancer~The Deadly Enemy~ "The Emperor of all Maladies: A Biography of Cancer" by Siddartha Mukherjee

Published by:  Simon & Schuster

Overview:

Winner of the 2011 Pulitzer prize for general nonfiction.
The Emperor of All Maladies is a magnificent, profoundly humane “biography” of cancer—from its first documented appearances thousands of years ago through the epic battles in the twentieth century to cure, control, and conquer it to a radical new understanding of its essence. Physician, researcher, and award-​​winning science writer, Siddhartha Mukherjee examines cancer with a cellular
biologist’s precision, a historian’s perspective, and a biographer’s passion. The result is an astonishingly lucid and eloquent chronicle of a disease humans have lived with—and perished from—for more than five thousand years.

The Author:
Siddhartha Mukherjee is a cancer physician and researcher. He is an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University and a staff cancer physician at Columbia University Medical Center. A Rhodes scholar, he graduated from Stanford University, University of Oxford, Harvard Medical School. He has published articles in Nature, The New England Journal of Medicine, The New York Times, and The New Republic. He lives in New York with his wife and daughters.
His book, “The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer,” won the 2011 Pulitzer prize for general nonfiction.

A Review/Not The Dame's:

The Emperor of All Maladies is a magnificent, profoundly humane “biography” of cancer—from its first documented appearances thousands of years ago through the epic battles in the twentieth century to cure, control, and conquer it to a radical new understanding of its essence. Physician, researcher, and award-​​winning science writer, Siddhartha Mukherjee examines cancer with a cellular biologist’s precision, a historian’s perspective, and a biographer’s passion. The result is an astonishingly lucid and eloquent chronicle of a disease humans have lived with—and perished from—for more than five thousand years.

The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance, but also of hubris, paternalism, and misperception. Mukherjee recounts centuries of discoveries, setbacks, victories, and deaths, told through the eyes of his predecessors and peers, training their wits against an infinitely resourceful adversary that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-​​out “war against cancer.” The book reads like a literary thriller with cancer as the protagonist.

From the Persian Queen Atossa, whose Greek slave cut off her malignant breast, to the nineteenth-​​century recipients of primitive radiation and chemotherapy to Mukherjee’s own leukemia patient, Carla, The Emperor of All Maladies is about the people who have soldiered through fiercely demanding regimens in order to survive—and to increase our understanding of this iconic disease.

Riveting, urgent, and surprising, The Emperor of All Maladies provides a fascinating glimpse into the future of cancer treatments. It is an illuminating book that provides hope and clarity to those seeking to demystify cancer.

I urge you to get your hands on a copy of this profoundly interesting and "readable" book!  You'll find an excerpt and more about the author at his website:
http://sidmukerjee.com/  

Deborah/YourBookishDame

Pawnography! "License To Pawn" by Rick Harrison

Quite often my sweet husband takes a nosedive into the unknown and takes up with a new adventure/obsession with something "strange." I found this serendipitous oddity a very attractive characteristic when we first met (I know...red flag??), and frankly, it's had its ups and downs on my last nerve over the years. All in all; however, there's never a dull moment with Anthony if you just sit back and brace yourself.

The show is mind-boggling. As I sit in my little apple green recliner writing reviews while DH watches "his" shows, I'm wont to look up once in a while to see what's going on.

Against my better judgement, sometimes I'm captured by the absurdities of men: Men in the greater outdoors hunting with lots of equipment (guns, bows & steel tipped arrows, whistles, bright florescent suits, misshapen, weird hats & assorted other "gear"), excavating big mountains with equipment they don't know how to maneuver & in icy weather, clambering about and becoming lost without food in crumbling old caves with their teen aged daughters, panning for gold in muddy streams and gleefully coming up with minute particles which value is less than the cost of the pan, or pulling up by hand man-eating fish in mosquito infested jungles... Recently, I've been pulled in by pawn shops on the Tube! Ugh! This wars against every bone in my WASPish, DAR body, and would disgrace my family.  It's really tantamount to watching a strip show!

Primary among such shows is Rick Harrison's straight from Las Vegas "Pawn Stars." Pawn Stars is a fabulous program! I love it, and it's become my latest dirty little secret...now out in the open! We've agreed it's the only pawn show we'll watch.

Rick is an intelligent, witty and well-informed guy who actually makes wise choices about some seriously fabulous items brought to his shop. The experts Rick brings in to evaluate some of the items are so learned they add a dimension of knowledge and intelligence that rivals experts I've seen and heard from auction houses and museums in Boston. A couple of them are experienced in museum collections and authentic documents of early America and England...so interesting to hear and watch. I have learned a good deal from Rick, his dad and these experts.

One of the most fetching (did I use that word?) and hilarious things about the show is Chumly, Rick's doofus nephew. Chum is a complete novice at pawn, and life, it seems. He has no idea what's "good" and what's "fake," what are stolen goods, what's trash and what's treasure. He is a guy whose life is chockful of accidents and mishaps; i.e., nearly everything he touches falls apart, breaks down, or costs the shop money. In fact, Chum nearly costs his grandad more money than the shop brings in on some days! In the latest episode, Chumly test flies a valuable, antique kite and snags it on a highwire electrical tower...you flew it--you can't get it down--you bought it! And, poor Chum is always shocked by these manifistations of Murphy's Law in his life.

Chumly is the fall guy for the show, and makes it all worthwhile to watch...just for the hilarity of it. Rick's dad is also sooo funny as he glumly and stoically mumbles his way through all the trials and troubles of the shop and Chum. And, Big Hoss, Rick's son, who is assigned to watch over and teach Chum, as well as to be the Ass't Mgr., lumbers along making a couple of wise choices on the way, but mostly watching Chumly mess up and telling on him. Honestly, Chum is the best comedic character on tv.

All this to give you some kind of intro. into Rick Harrison's new book "License To Pawn" which I wholeheartedly recommend for your sweethearts and you when you want a different ride on the wild side.
 

Book Summary from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Press:

In Las Vegas, there’s a family-owned business called the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop, run by three generations of the Harrison family: Rick; his son, Big Hoss; and Rick’s dad, the Old Man. Now License to Pawn takes readers behind the scenes of the hit History show Pawn Stars and shares the fascinating life story of its star, Rick Harrison, and the equally intriguing story behind the shop, the customers, and the items for sale.

Rick hasn’t had it easy. He was a math whiz at an early age, but developed a similarly uncanny ability to find ever-deepening trouble that nearly ruined his life. With the birth of his son, he sobered up, reconnected with his dad, and they started their booming business together.

License to Pawn also offers an entertaining walk through the pawn shop’s history. It’s a captivating look into how the Gold & Silver works, with incredible stories about the crazy customers and the one-of-a-kind items that the shop sells. Rick isn’t only a businessman; he’s also a historian and keen observer of human nature. For instance, did you know that pimps wear lots of jewelry for a reason? It’s because if they’re arrested, jewelry doesn’t get confiscated like cash does, and ready money will be available for bail. Or that WWII bomber jackets and Zippo lighters can sell for a freakishly high price in Japan? Have you ever heard that the makers of Ormolu clocks, which Rick sells for as much as $15,000 apiece, frequently died before forty thanks to the mercury in the paint?

Rick also reveals the items he loves so much he’ll never sell. The shop has three Olympic bronze medals, a Patriots Super Bowl ring, a Samurai sword from 1490, and an original Iwo Jima battle plan. Each object has an incredible story behind it, of course. Rick shares them all, and so much more—there’s an irresistible treasure trove of history behind both the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop and the life of Rick Harrison.
From the Bookish Dame's perspective this is a no-brainer book purchase. Everyone will love it...you, your husband/significant other, your teen aged kids, and the neighbors!


5 stars to the TV Show, and to this book



The Bookish Dame/Deborah


PS: Have you ever been into a pawn shop? Ever pawned anything? 

"A Doctor's Journey" A Collection of Memoirs by Fredric A. Mendelsohn, MD

BOOK COVER SUMMARY :

Practicing neurologist Frederic A. Mendelsohn takes you on an insider’s journey through the sometimes startling landscape of American medicine today. Inspired by his own encounters during thirty-five years of clinical practice, Mendelsohn’s stories range from the tragic to the droll, but each speaks in some way to the incredible strength of the human spirit.
Here’s a taste of the remarkable stories in A Doctor’s Journey: “Searching for Salvation” – A teenage boy is seriously injured in a boating accident, but the effects of his accident are even greater on the boy who injured him. “Casanova Complex” – A gifted surgeon who looks like Tom Cruise – “if Tom Cruise were on steroids” – gets an unexpected fifteen minutes of fame while romping with a hospital nurse. “Wally the Whale” – A tale about several epileptic patients, but mostly about Wally, an unforgettable character who tries to murder the good doctor. “Angela's Angel” – A young woman, critically injured in a motor vehicle accident, makes a miraculous recovery, but the infant daughter of her angelic sister – who has been part of that recovery -- suffers a heartbreaking medical tragedy of her own. “Mambo Mendez” – Part confessional, part memoir, part introduction to the author’s musical heritage, this story shows the struggle of blending family life with the rigors of a medical practice.
Mendelsohn also explores the notion that a strong background in Debussy, Ravel and Satie may do as much to prompt the mental creativity and flexibility essential to successful doctoring as does a comprehensive training in phrenic nerves and conversion disorders.

Dr. Frederic C. Mendelsohn, MD:

MY REVIEW:

Doctor Mendelsohn's journal is positively impossible to stop reading.  It is told from the perspective of a passionate and dedicated practioner of neurological medicine; but, just as importantly, it's told from the life experience of a sensitive and committed doctor.  All of this a rarity in today's practice of medicine, particularly in his chosen field of expertise, and in the writing of medical memoirs.

I could not help falling in love with Dr. M.  I loved his careful descriptions of his patients~the way he fleshed out each one so humanely and with such a caring hand.  With every attention to the respect and dignity he bases his medical practice upon, we come to see his patients through his eyes no matter how strange and horrendous their diseases and incapacities.  This careful attention and sense of the specialness of each patient makes Mendelsohn's memoirs stand out in any group.

The patients recalled in this collection are so interesting and unique as not to be forgotten.  I found myself telling friends and family about them.  They were heroic in the face of diseases, pain and earth-shattering news.  Dr. Mendelsohn handled each case with discretion and often a sense of humor that helped them cope, it seemed to me.  I was impressed with his willingness to correct doctors and nurses alike who failed to respect the dignity of his patients.

Interestingly enough, Mendelsohn attributes much of the finest of doctoring; the ability to diagnose through that "second sense" or what we often call that intuitive, gifted or natural doctoring...to a side of the brain's development enhanced by early exposure to music and/or art.  This hypothesis was a lightbulb insight to me, but stands to reason in terms of the life experiences I have had in raising children on the gifted spectrum. 

Music develops a different pathway to the brain, an area concerned with language, sensitivity, intuitiveness, and visualization of solutions "outside the box" that those who have not been exposed to it in early development do not experience to the same degree.  He sites the studies done on the "Mozart Effect" of which most of us have become familiar.

I quote:
"As so much of doctoring is listening, understanding, problem-solving, the ability to accept the details that don't quite fit, and to have a flexibility of mind--an ability to make meaning out of disparate symptoms (and sometimes hostile subjects)--wouldn't the brain sensitive to the forms that led Einstein to his most valuable scientific breakthrough be valuable in the practice of medicine? ...when Professor Einstein was asked how he came upon relativity theory, he claimed,

     "It occurred to me by intuition and music was the driving force behind that intuition.  My discovery was the result of musical perception."   (Saturday Evening Post, 1929)

All in all, this rather small book of 156 pages is one I could hardly stop reading.  I discovered it through Outskirts Press which you can find at:  http://outskirtspress.com   and which will give you more information regarding "A Doctor's Journey..."

Highly recommened book. For men, women, and college students considering a medical career.

Deborah/TheBookishDame

Werewolf Nazi's in America During WWII~ POWs Housed~ "German Jackboots on Kentucky Bluegrass: Housing German Prisoners of War in Kentucky, 1942-1946"

German Jackboots on Kentucky Bluegrass: Housing German Prisoners of War in Kentucky, 1942-1946
Diversion Press, distributed by Ingram
$24.95
Pages: 228, incl. pictures

BOOK SUMMARY:
"German Jackboots on Kentucky Bluegrass..." presents a case of American humanitarianism, adherence to international law, southern hospitality, and friendship and mutual respect between "enemies" in a brutal and bitter war. This academic work provides the first book length look at the housing of German prisoners of war in Kentucky during World War II. This book tackles the mysterious murals painted by prisoners at Camp Breckinridge, the Afrika Korps symbols left on chimneys at Fort Knox, and the issues of Nazi versus anti-Nazi at Camp Campbell. The impact of the "forced" German POWs on Kentucky's wartime economy cannot be underestimated. This important work tells Kentucky's story of housing, working, and entertaining over 10,000 German prisoners during the Second World War. German Jackboots on Kentucky Bluegrass shows how the U.S. POW program uniquely affected an individual state with end results that had local, national, and international implications.
This book is a must read for anyone interested in World War II, the U.S. home front, Kentucky history, German history, or prisoner of war treatment.

AUTHOR'S BIO.:

Dr. Antonio Thompson is a native Kentuckian who earned his Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky in History in 2006.  He began studying German POWs held in the US during WWII in 1998 while working on his Master's Degree at Western Kentucky University. 

From the Author:

Just a quick background that might help.  I am professor of history at Austin
Peay State University, I finished my Ph.D. at the University of Kentucky.  I
work on U.S. and German history, mostly World War II era, but my teaching and
research areas are a bit broader.

I just returned from a one year teaching assignment at the United States
Military Academy at West Point.  My second book, "Men in German Uniform," was
published in the fall.  I have a third book under contract.  I am married, with
three children.  I enjoy teaching and research.

Sincerely,

Antonio Thompson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor Austin Peay State University

MY REVIEW:

"German Jackboots on Kentucky Bluegrass:..." was a complete revelation to me. I had no idea that the United States brought Nazi POWs to our country, housed them, fed them, taught them and used them for labor during the 2nd World War. In the 1960's, as an Army Brat, I lived and went to high school at Ft. Knox. According to this book, I was at school within a few hundred yards of a POW barracks, and yet, we were never taught, informed or led to the site for studies. I find that an astounding and appalling lack of teaching and a serious gap in American History!

Professor Thompson's comprehensive book of the years that German POWs were brought to the several US States, including KY, is fascinating. Rather than the dry and sometimes boring history books of so many other writers, his book is infinitly readable and draws one in as a novel would. I was captivated from the Preface forward.

With a concentrated and well-documented hand, Dr. Thompson leads us from start to finish through the story of how Nazi priosoners of war were transported on supply ships from Germany to the US, to their release and being shipped home at the end of WWII...apparently better for their having spent the time in the US than they would have been as soldiers for their Homeland. 

It was startling to find that Nazis replaced our men as laborers at farms, industrial plants and other home shops where needed, to continue the economic balance of the US during the war time. I had no idea! Not only were they paid for their labor and "non-labor" according to the Geneva Convention, but they were given a "better" protein (meat) diet than the American population who were rationed, until it was discovered and a hew and cry went up.

American families, ever the welcoming and forgiving Christian nation that we are, made of immigrant stock and stem, were kindly and caring of the Nazi workers. These US families were warned and reprimanded with threats of taking their priviledges of hiring German laborers away, against giving them treats and special favors. I found this a most profound issue, specifically since these very men and their nation were the ones killing our own boys overseas at the same time. Where opportunity presented itself, some even aided the Germans in escape plans and married them.

Dr. Thompson is an author of immense talent. He has the quality of a writer of fiction while producing a work of non-fiction so absorbing that it is nearly impossible to put down. It never feels heavy or like reading the proverbial academic history book. He writes as if one were reading a secret document discovered from the desk of a Commanding Officer "for your eyes only." I loved this book!

I most heartedly recommend "German Jackboots on Kentucky Bluegrass: Housing German Prisoners of War in Kentucky, 1942-1946" to both women and men. And, I especially recommend it to teachers of American History for themselves and their students. It's a national shame that we weren't apprised of this information.

Finally, I want to share with you that Nazi POWs were also housed and labored in other States such as: Oklahoma, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Tennesse, Mississippi, Arizona, and Louisiana...not just in Kentucky. 

Further and frighteningly enough, a large group of rabid Nazis maintained a sect calling themselves the "Werewolves." This group infiltrated the more compliant anti-Nazi contingency, who were the main laborers, and became life-threatening to them, both murdering and torturing them. The Werewolves were also intrepid laborers in our communities with little supervision from military guards. Horrifying by any standards...

This book is available at Amazon and other book retailers, as well as through Diversion Press at:  http://www.diversionpress.com/

Your Bookish Dame/Deborah