This all got me thinking about books and smell. No, I will not be covering

Yum. The Recipe: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Madeleines-234680

Proust; this is not that kind of blog. We’re a little more lowbrow here. You can make your own madeleines if you want.

The Lantern

The Night Circus

One Salt Sea

Back to de-skunking the dog. It’s a good thing he’s cute, because he sure is smelly.

That said, people who write jacket copy for the memoirs of single mothers are fair game. So from the front flap of B. Palin’s new book, Not Afraid of Life: My Journey So Far, I give you:

“…Through all of these ups and downs, Bristol learned how to face her challenges head-on with courage and grace, [WAIT FOR IT!] traits she put to good use as a contestant and finalist on Dancing with the Stars.”

People are generally said (if they emerge from such horrors not actually having descended into a permanent state of jibbering idiocy) to have faced things like life-threatening disease, natural disasters or hostage situations with courage and grace. Dancing with the Stars? Really?

I would prefer to face Dancing with the Stars with gin and tonic.

Other things that make me giggle, but in more of a laughing-with-you kind of way:

The Practical Napper: Tips, Facts, and Quotes for the Avidly Recumbent, by Jennifer Eyre White.

My favorite:

Napping is good for world peace. When you’re napping, you’re not:

1. Behaving like imperialist swine.
2. Trying to convert other countries to your religion and/or political system and/or fashion sense.
3. Calling other countries mean names.

The Ralph Steadman Book of Dogs

Every once in a while, somebody will bring up that old hypothetical question, “If you could have a dinner party and invite anybody you wanted, living or dead, who would you ask?” People generally get all earnest about this one and come up with a guest list that includes Gandhi, Mother Theresa, and Eleanor Roosevelt. Personally, I think having Ralph Steadman, Rabelais and Christopher Moore over for pizza and booze would be a laugh riot. Ooh — and Django Reinhardt. Maybe he’d jam. I’d ask Hunter S. too, but he might wander off with a bottle of drugged wine and a shotgun to lie in wait for the delivery guy.

Steadman’s latest goofy collection of canine drawings is a hoot.

That's some hat.

Anything by Angela Thirkell

I first discovered Thirkell during a dark, scary, I-can’t-read-anything-distressing-my-life-is-distressing-enough-what-if-I’m-doing-everything-all-wrong-probably-it-would-be-better-for-everyone-if-I-just-hid-here-under-the-couch-wow-I-should-really-vacuum . . . time in my life. She seemed the perfect antidote to my then-reality: a sort of buttoned-up, post WWI Jane Austen knock-off.

Thirkell is a gentle and forgiving observer of every-day people doing every-day things in an English village. She’s also got an out-of-nowhere-surprise hit of snark when you least expect it. Literary quotes from Dickens and Thakeray sneak up and bite you when you’re not looking. She wrote for money, starting in the 1920′s and continuing into the 50s. She didn’t expect most of her “society” friends to like, or even read, her novels. She’s classist and sexist and funny and kind – sometimes, upsettingly, all at once. I like her Barsetshire books the best. If you’re a guy, you will very likely hate them (I didn’t say in what way she was sexist). If you’re not, or you’re up for something different, give them a try.

“NOOOOOOOO!” we booksellers cried as one, throwing our bodies in front of the classic literature stacks.

Alright, that’s the dramatized version. What actually happened was, Nancy said, “Um, well, I’m not sure that’s a very good…er…” and Reid fled to the basement, and I said, “You really have to be in an emotionally secure place for Plath. She doesn’t want to read that now. Let’s find you something cheery.”

Years ago, I made the mistake of giving a copy of The Bell Jar to a good friend who was sad. Needless to say, this did not help. Individuals currently on pain meds, starting birth control pills or other hormone-based therapy, beginning a regimen of blood pressure regulating drugs, being treated for depression, anxiety or other emotional ills, or even just having an off day should avoid Plath like the plague. Her writing – both verse and prose – has great power and emotional heft and is best left for better days. The Bell Jar does have one of my very favorite (and supremely creepy) opening lines though:

“It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.”

If you don’t know the story, it’s not like it gets any sunnier from there. Not good stuff to read while experiencing heartbreak.

What is? Here are some ideas – all safe as a hot cuppa, comforting as a pint of Ben & Jerry’s:

Kaya McLaren’s novels, The Church of the Dog and On the Divinity of Second Chances, are both uplifting in a non-goopy way.

I also like Peculiar People: The Story of My Life by Augustus Hare, for pure it-could-be-worse-you-could-be-him value. He laments the Decline of The English Eccentric. His stories are enchanting, but I can’t share his reluctance to see these people go. Loons, every one. I have also sometimes wondered if Augusten Burroughs wasn’t influenced by this writer, or if he might even have chosen his name based on Hare’s, but then I think that Augusten Burroughs can hardly be a pseudonym, because who would do that to themselves?

Anything by Henry Mitchell. I first came upon his Essential Earthman, a collection of his gardening column for The Washington Post, when I won a copy from the lavishly generous people at Indiana University Press (long story). His non-garden stuff is even better, though not much of it is still in print. He writes tenderly, with great understanding, and with the humor necessary for same. Try Any Day.

Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield is funny and diverting and contains little mention of love. Plenty of polite snark, though.

I Don\’t Care About Your Band by Julie Klausner and My Boyfriend Wrote a Book About Me (Hilary Winston) are good for general grrl power rallying and the exorcising of bitterness. Band is better, but the quote on the back of Boyfriend is, all by itself, worth the cover price. Oh, marketing department at Sterling, are there t-shirts? Can there be t-shirts?

 F**k You, Box is, sadly, only available from the author as a digital download now, but is superb for this (or really, any) situation. Who doesn’t love a swearing cat?

Thus supplied and with plenty of chocolate, a girl can make it through some trying times.

But this, this is a book to shatter your heart and make you weep:

On Canaan\’s Side, by Sebastian Barry.

You don’t want your heart shattered? You don’t feel like weeping? You will. This is the sort of novel to make you glad you speak English. It is what our language is for. A haunting story, the book is unmatched for sheer lyricism. It is poetic, colloquial, and full of a wrenching beauty that will keep you reading, your mouth hanging open for more. Barry has been shortlisted for Man Bookers before and he won a Costa in 2008, so you open this book expecting something pretty good. And then Barry makes you fall in love with a suicidal 80 year old living on Long Island and leaves you praying that her talk will never cease. It comes out in September. Don’t’ miss it.

Many of us are loath to lug hardcover books with us on summer travels, but here is one that will repay its schleppage in full:

Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness, by Alexandra Fuller.

Written by the author of the popular memoir, Don\’t Let\’s Go to the Dogs Tonight Cocktail Hour is certainly not one of those my-childhood-was-horrifying-please-feel-free-to-gape-in-wonder-and-revulsion kinds of family recollections. It is, above all, wonderfully funny. Fuller’s mother (a central figure in Dogs) is portrayed with warmth and understanding, and her courage and wit are borne forth in her daughter’s wry, deft style.

Part of an Anglo-African family that disdained the capers of the Happy Valley Set,* Nicola Fuller led an extraordinary life by any measure. As a newlywed, she fell in love with equatorial East Africa. With her husband, she weathered family tragedy and civil war. Somehow, through the grace of forgiveness and good humor and the “liquid equatorial light” that so captivates the Fullers, this family –broken time and time again—repairs and reinvents itself and comes to enjoy a time of peace: a cocktail hour under the tree of forgetfulness.

The only bad thing about this book? It doesn’t come out until August, so we will have to save it for Labor Day, rather than Memorial Day Weekend reading. On the plus side, if your personal beach-time is spent on the East Coast of the U.S., the water will be nicely warm by then. All the rest of my Beach Books are available now.

Portably in Paperback:

Angelology, by Danielle Trussoni   –A beach book if there ever was one. Adventure, ancient secrets, intrigue, drama, the supernatural: Think The DaVinci Code, but with angels. Or read what I had to say about it when it came out in hardcover here.

Russian Winter, by Daphne Kalotay is a glittering saga that starts in Stalin’s Russia and ends up in one of New York’s most prestigious auction houses. It’s big and thick, so if you can only tote one book beachward, this is a good choice: Fast off the block and chock full of details that will draw you in. Now (hooray!) in paperback. You can read more (recycle, reuse…) here. And: it comes with discussion questions if you want to use it as a book club pick  -and-  it is also available in large print.

Arcadia Falls, by Carol Goodman is a good old gothic-type ride. It’s set in Upstate New York at a tony boarding school, home both to artistic young people and old and sinister mysteries. Can the new professor untangle the antique knots of deception in time to save her daughter from something about Arcadia that seems bent on murder?

Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War, by Karl Marlantes received critical acclaim when it first came out. Now available in (a big) paperback edition, this gripping and sensitive story of a Marine Lieutenant and his company dropped into the mountain jungle of Vietnam like so much cargo was written by a veteran over the course of 30 years. It spent 16 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List for a reason.

 Not New, But Notable:

The Samurai\’s Garden, by Gail Tsukiyama is as delicate and deliberately plotted as a classical Japanese garden. Meditative in tone but richly sensual, this story starts with a young Chinese man recuperating from TB in a Japanese seaside town, and goes on to explore the strange history of local lives which intersect his – lives sculpted ultimately into unexpected beauty like the graceful, twisted pines of the coast.

*If you don’t know about the “Happy Valley Set” of (roughly) 1920s – 1940s Kenya & Uganda, here’s an uncharitable synopsis:   Rich white people carried on with each others’ spouses and let everybody know about it, all the while drinking too much, abusing various pharmaceuticals, playing polo, wearing eccentric clothing, attempting to keep wild animals as pets and driving hell-for-leather about the countryside, whining about how terribly bored they were. Sometimes they got murdered – surprisingly, only by each other. Because some of them were titled, the whole world was interested. Except the actual Kenyans & Ugandans who, sensibly, did not care much one way or the other.

Robopocalypse is a fast-paced, smart thriller. It’s good fun and very, very hard to put down. Run out and grab a copy this June. And if you’ve got a quirky graduate to buy for: This is it. You will be “The Cool Relative who got me This Awesome Book.” Engineering student? Perfect. Reads the Onion? Wrap this puppy up. But honestly, everyone will be hooked. I’m thinking it will be The Book of the Summer. A guilty pleasure? Yes, in the exact same way that Clancy and Grisham were, at the top of their game.

The jacket promotion on my reader’s copy tells me that Stephen Spielberg is supposed to be making a movie of the novel in 2013. It will probably make a great film. If you’re a fifteen year old boy. It’s not a short book, so I envision it reduced to loud and incessant Transformer-like effects. I will go see it, and (thanks to my old college roommate and her fondness for high-volume hair metal) will probably sleep soundly through the second half.  A girl can dream though…  And since movies, as a rule, need bear no relation to the book they are named for, I wish for this closing scene:

Humphrey Bogart turns to his unlikely automaton companion and watches as the machine tosses a can of Vichy Brand Motor Oil into the wastebasket. “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” says Bogie, as they stroll down the runway into the Moroccan night.

Sex with Presidents

Larry Flint and Harvard professor David Eisenbach have recently published One Nation Under Sex, a look at how the sex lives of the powerful have molded American politics and history. Did you know they think Lincoln was gay? Yeah, that’s an old one. And except for the feather it ought to put in the caps of everybody who fights the good fight for gay rights, I really don’t care. Tom & Sally sittin’ in a tree is pretty much yesterday’s news too, but I did not know so much about James Buchanan before.

It’s an interesting book. Because most of the people in it are dead, it was less salacious than I expected, and also more put-down-able. Still, a worthy read. And the last chapter makes it an important one, in a nation which has tended in recent years to think that who somebody sleeps with is more important that who they call airstrikes on.

I’m never sure how I feel about Larry Flint. As a full-on Freedom of Speech geek, I kind of like him. As a girl… meh. I’ve got nothing against the young women who pose for things like Hustler. Good for them; they are making money. And I guess that the fellas who purchase the mag are paying their wage, but really? It just kind of perpetuates this weird disconnect between what guys are led to think goes on inside women’s heads and what really does. What goes on in guys’ heads? No idea. Ask Lincoln.

Drying-out clothes at the office always makes me think of my brief stint at the Fed. One of the economists used to dry his socks on the lovely old radiator behind the desk in his office. I don’t think he ever wore galoshes, or those things they call “rubbers” in England (you know, goofy overshoes for men – Do they even make those anymore?) when it rained. Nope, just draped the socks over the radiator and they dried. It made for a pleasant, homelike atmosphere.

Which brings me to our latest money management -type acquisition. Suze Orman\’s newest is all the rage, but am I the only one who thinks that her cover photo makes her look like she needs a trip to the Betty? She’s always looked sort of scarily over enthusiastic, but now seems to have crossed over into true Speedy the Squirrel mania. Maybe she just needs to cut down on the caffeine. Maybe it’s her photographer. Who knows? In any case, that is all that I know about her book. Which is selling like hotcakes. And which I could probably use. But I would so much rather eat Easter candy and read one of the following:

First Grave on the Right  It’s a mystery. The narrator is the grim reaper. Yes, I know… you’re tired of the paranormal. But really, she’s funny and snarky and noir. You’ll like this one. It’s great for Sookie Stackhouse fans & smart enough for devotees of Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman & Christopher Moore to enjoy.

Rawhide Down  I never was much of a Regan fan, but this

play-by-play of his almost-assassination looks pretty fascinating. The inner workings of the secret service, the fact that he was much closer to being dead than we were ever told, the jolly, brave face he put on the whole thing, lend insight into the man’s character – not to mention lots of drama, and make it seem worth slogging through the exhaustive details.

Furious Love  Normally I can’t be bothered with actor bios, but the photos alone make this a lovely way to remember Elizabeth Taylor.

War Horse  Did you miss this wonderful children’s book when it first came out? Have you heard about the amazing stage production of it in London? Do you know they are making the book into a movie? Even if you don’t give a fig for all the hype, this is a deeply touching story of the mutual affection of a horse and his boy during The Great War. Generations away, we tend to think of WWI… well, not very much at all. But this was a conflict that scarred people in a whole new way – something like the Vietnam of its time. I’d love to take a class on WWI in fiction someday. The Lord of the Rings would be among the obvious choices for something like this, but War Horse gives an interesting window into this terrible time as well.  Besides all that, the horse is really, truly horse-ish. Like all the best fictional animals, he makes us better somehow. And his boy – well, you’ll just have to read it, won’t you? 

Having read thus far, you may be thinking that my take on politics, both present and past, is a bit dicey. I am about to exceed your worst fears.

Theories of International Politics and Zombies  I just ordered this for stock today and I cannot wait until it comes! If you’re looking for a poly sci run-down with a clever dose of satire, I’m thinking this is your book. Possibly for the title alone…

And now my sweater is dry. Whew!

The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain distills the expatriate life of Ernest and Hadley Hemingway – it’s the world of A Moveable Feast experienced from a woman’s point of view. Lots of people call Ernest Hemingway a misogynist. I think nothing could be further from the truth. He reserves both his most tender and most scathing characterizations for the women in his novels. They don’t get as much ink as the men, but they are much more telling. (How can Lady Brett not break your heart at the end of The Sun Also Rises, with her summation of the Almighty, “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”) Hemingway’s years with Hadley were some of his most productive and most interesting. Her presence and personality inevitably colored his writing. Scattered with characters like Gertrude Stein and the Fitzgeralds, The Paris Wife is a feast indeed, and the Paris it draws –the bars, the cafes, the clamorous neighborhood surrounding the Hemingways’ deeply crummy little apartment– seems a character too, gathering artists, writers, thinkers together under wings as dusty and soft as the pigeons scratching in the Tuileries.*

The Beauty of Humanity Movement is a glorious book with a horrible title. Even some marketing folks at Penguin think the moniker is pretty bad. The story is a delight.  Here too, the setting is almost a character in itself. Moody, ever-changing, improvising like an actor, it remakes itself from a past of infinite sadness with great courage.

Here is a story of the divide and connection between survivors and their children, between foreigners returning and those who never left, between artists and their legacies, the living and the dead. It’s beautiful and sad and revealing and, once you’re done with it, the title doesn’t seem so stupid after all.

Since Donald Rumsfeld’s memoir came out, we’ve all had to hear again about how some things you know you know, and some things you know you don’t know, and some things you don’t know that you don’t know. And yes, we all had a good laugh at his strangely poetic expense. But I have to say, like him or hate him; that is what novels are all about. Fiction – stories – are about telling each other what we don’t know that we don’t know. There are so many things in this life that it never occurs to us to ask. Sometimes we don’t know the right questions because one of us is male and one is female, or one of us is old and one of us is young – because we come from different places or different pasts. The best fiction doesn’t just tell the truth – it reveals mystery.

It’s spring now. There are crocuses coming up through the mud. The dog is shedding and daylight savings will soon be here. It’s time to celebrate crunchy-granola-type things like new beginnings and getting up in the dark. In that spirit, let me suggest this:  Ask someone today, “Tell me a story.” You never know what you might hear.

And now, a little poetry from Donald Rumsfeld:

As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don’t know
We don’t know.

—Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing (Stolen from Slate Magazine)

*And yes, in case you were wondering, Hemingway did say that he used to shoot and eat them (the pigeons, I mean).

How can you not love a woman who responded to Fiorello LaGuardia’s snipe that she had “a need to take her clothes off,” by saying, “Why Mr. Mayor, you know I would never end a sentence with a preposition”?

Accused of indecency, Gypsy always maintained that her burlesque act was “pure comedy.” Even given her physical charms, this can’t have been far from the truth. Her long-time signature act had her walk on stage in a stuffy and elaborate Victorian gown, held securely together with straight pins. To orchestral accompaniment, she would remove the costume piece by piece, tossing the pins into the bell of a tuba with resonant pings.  Sexuality is always best seasoned with a little laughter, as anyone who’s ever been married will tell you.

American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee follows the changing cultural climate of a nation as well as the making of a consummate performer. From a family that calls to mind Dave Peltzer or Augusten Burroughs, Gypsy’s world was a complicated dance to start with. Balancing an arguably psychotic mother and a sister determined to get the hell out (who could blame her?) Gypsy held the family together, for good or ill, longer than was likely. She was the “ugly, untalented” one of the clan, but achieved a professional success beyond any expectations but her own.

…And, as we approach Valentine’s Day, the subversive in me can’t help but laud another kind of misbehavior by recommending The Gallery of Regrettable Food, by James Lileks. If the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, this is the tasting menu at Chateau Run, Run Away – RUN NOW!

A truly loveable collection of the worst in American cooking, Lileks’ feast for the eyes includes Liberties taken with peas, and plaid sauce. Readers are treated to page-turning fun, peppered with perky 50’s housewives who use Frigidaires to abuse innocent cabbages. The A-1 Steak Sauce Guide to Better Sex is a personal favorite.  Lurid and disturbing photos of jello molds occur throughout.

Please note:  The canned salmon section should be kept from children and those with cardiac ailments.

When angry, count to four. When very angry, swear. (from "Puddn'head Wilson")

It has recently come to this bookseller’s –and everybody else’s — attention that there is a new version of Huck Finn soon to be available. For those of you who don’t want to read the Publisher\’s Weekly article, here’s the skinny:

Huck always makes the Most Banned list. So, has it been withheld from literally hundreds of school curricula, not to mention libraries’ circulation, for its revolutionary ideas about race and class in America or it’s skewering of popularly accepted mores? Nope. It’s usually banned because of the use of one word:  nigger.

This is very sad. Far from being a racist book, Huckleberry Finn pillories the unjust society in which it was written. An attentive and carefully educated reader will pick this right up. Maybe.

Twain chose his words with purpose, and there’s something about changing the rhythm of a great writer’s prose that makes a bookseller itch. But there is that “n” word. .. What makes it such an important issue? If the word has never been applied to you personally, let me suggest that it might go something like this:

At one time in my life, I fell into the company of a group of sales and marketing professionals, all of them men, who liked to use the word, “rape” to mean “take advantage of.” As in, “Talk about sticker shock – I really got raped on that new hummer.”  Or, “Oh my God, Bob, you totally raped that supplier – way to go!”

 As a woman, the word rape just flat stopped me listening. 

Three good friends of mine have been raped. One was nearly killed. The great majority of us have had near misses. Before I turned 14 I learned how to check shop-front reflections to see if a creepy guy was still following me, and to be sure and look like I knew where I was going. A few years later, we all learned to hold house keys with the pointy bits sticking out of our fists.

The point is that these guys were using a word that could never affect them the way it did me. They didn’t give it a second thought. And while they went on to discuss moon roofs or motherboards, I was busy thinking “Did he really say that? Why would somebody say something like that? I can’t believe he said that.” I was angry and hurt and, yeah, kind of shocked. And then all of a sudden, I was realizing, “Wait, what? We’re talking about quarterly bonuses now? Oh hell, now I missed something important.”

Because of our relative employment positions, and because of these fellows’ imperturbable dickliness, calling them on their inappropriate word usage would have been lousy for my income – and pointless too.

I’m a straight white girl with very little in the way of ethnic or religious peculiarity. It’s tough to offend me personally, much less throw me right off the track of a discussion. But what if “nigger” was my hot-button – if that was the word that I find threatening and hurtful and clearly chosen to intimidate? A huge chunk of great American literature would be a very different kettle of fish.

Maybe substituting the word “slave” for the word “nigger” in Huck Finn is not so bad. Nobody is suggesting that the new edition replace the original text. The New South version acts simply as an alternative or supplement. In Twain’s day, a word which causes readers to cringe now was in common use – not even recognized as a slur.

The Mark Twain I think I know, though he did have a certain fondness for giving offense, never wished to give it undeserved. Nor would he care to prevent the enjoyment of his work with a single word.