“And of all these things the Albino whale was the symbol. Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt?”

Moby Dick by Herman Melville is certainly in the top tier of American literature – they call them “classics” for a reason. Perhaps the timelessness of Moby Dick is why we had such a great turnout this month for our Brown Baggers book group!

As this novel is so central to the American canon, we started our discussion by contrasting our expectations to our post-reading reactions. Those of us who had read the book previously reported having a different understanding of the book after reading it again with fresh eyes and life experience behind them.

Our character discussion mainly revolved around Ahab, Ishmael, Queequeg, and Starbuck. We compared Ahab’s single-minded focus and ability to convince much of his crew to adopt his obsession as their own to the sway of a magnetic cult leader. The isolation of the vessel showed how insular their community was. We also noted how progressive the physical makeup of the crew seemed for the time. The Pequod’s crew consisted of men from different countries, races, and religions, but all worked mostly in harmony towards their shared profit. These foreshadows of equality and other events appeared to echo fears and tensions in the pre-Civil War U.S.

We also were intrigued by all the practical details of whaling and making your life at sea. Any stops would have been few and far between and the ship had to be outfitted for the needs of 30 or so crew members. After the hunt, the men’s work wasn’t done. To collect and store the oil from these huge beasts, the whole ship had to become a processing area. We thought that perhaps one reason for the book’s lasting influence was that it was a fascinating mix of the concrete details of whaling as well as more philosophical explorations written with a Romantic sensibility.

Moby Dick would be a vastly different book without these contradictions and contrasts. In our discussion, we also mentioned Nathaniel Philbrick’s recent book, Why Read Moby Dick? One chapter notes that Melville’s initial version of the book was a more straightforward account of whaling, without “a whiff of Ahab in it.” It was only upon meeting the more senior Nathaniel Hawthorne and closely studying Shakespeare that Melville realized he could expose some grittier truths about life by using dark characters and scenes. Between Philbrick’s book and the library’s showing of the 1956 movie adaptation last week (starring Gregory Peck!) we all had the opportunity to study the story of Moby Dick from all possible angles.

“I am convinced that it is almost as immodest to refuse a high distinction as stubbornly to strive to attain it.” – Goethe

We’re more than a week into 2012 but I feel I’m only just catching up with last year’s “best-of” lists for music, television shows, movies, and of course, books. Instead of feeling annoyance or validation if my personal favorites respectively miss or make the cut, I look to see what I might have missed. I tend to do the same with annual awards, especially when it comes to literary prizes.

The National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Man Booker Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction – and that’s only concentrating on fiction! I’ve noticed that there is often little overlap between the winners of these awards. I tend to only focus on the winning titles, but lately I’ve been wondering what books I’ve been missing. Have I neglected nominees I may have enjoyed more? Or wonderful books that didn’t make any lists due to the whims of judging panels? While browsing previous years’ award winners, I noticed that in 1961, To Kill a Mockingbird and Rabbit, Run were both up for the National Book Award – but neither won. It’s hard to imagine, especially knowing either of these titles could easily beat certain winners from other years. One of my favorite books from 2010, Skippy Dies by Paul Murray, was shortlisted for at least three awards but never selected as a winner.

I came across a Salon article that argues that the National Book Award in particular doesn’t focus on the best or most important works of the year, but rather books that might be overlooked. Miller states that the nominees “exhibit qualities — a poetic prose style, elliptical or fragmented storytelling — that either don’t matter much to nonprofessional readers, or even put them off.” While Miller is certainly not advocating a dumbing-down of selections, I think it is valid criticism to say that a constant stream of “good-for-you” books might cancel out the award’s influence on many readers. So, should award committees look for slightly more populist titles? Should we readers take a closer look at nominees and non-winners?

While you’re deciding, check out the Readers’ Corner on our website. We have staff picks, reviews, bestsellers, and of course, award lists.  

“The Comanches were kind of like the Spartans. Because of their incredible military mastery, which derived from the horse — they were the prototype horse tribe, the tribe that could do more with the horse than any other tribe could.” S. C. Gwynne

So on the longest day of the year I am reading “The Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history” S. C. Gwynne  which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for 2011.  Not sure if there is any correlation with the short day at all, but I am fascinated by the story here.

I have always liked reading books about Native Americans.  I began in elementary school with “Hominy and His Blunt-Nosed Arrow” by Miriame E. Mason about Miami Indians and the “Song of Hiawatha” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  Then as a middle schooler I read James Fenimore Cooper’s “Last of the Mohicans” and “The Light in the Forest” by Conrad Richter.  The stories in these works are fanciful and romantic.  So much more is known about the Native Americans now, but those stories hooked me.  I was sucked into the forest world of these stoic, strong, and independent people in their simple life style.  I was quite disappointed by the Indians I saw in the Great Smokey Mountains in the 1950’s, because they did not wear war paint and carry bows and arrows (I had the same reaction when I saw cowboys in Texas without their guns).

As I got older, I read of the very unromantic and more complicated history of the Indians and came to realize that the Smokey Mountain Indians that I had seen were Cherokees whose ancestors had traveled west on the Trail of Tears.  I read about the people of the Great Plains and the South West.  I traveled through the West where you can’t avoid bumping into Chief Joseph, Sacajawea, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull.  I learned that my grandfather had been ceremoniously welcomed into the Hopi nation.  So “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: an Indian History of the American West” by Dee Alexander Brown was an important read at that point.

Recently I read Nathaniel Philbrick’s “The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn” which showed a much more complex battle situation than that usually presented.  For example, there were numerous skirmishes going on as Custer rode to his death.  So again the issues surrounding the Native American are not simple, not straightforward.

Well, now I am reading “The Empire of the Moon” and learning much more about the Southwest.  The book covers the early settlement of that area and tells of the Comanche conquest of the Spanish in Texas, and the nomadic and vengeful Comanche domination of a huge untamed area which includes Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico.  The book also tells about Quanah Parker, the chief who succeeded in terrorizing settlers in this area, and of his settler family, the Parkers.  His mother was Cynthia Ann Parker who, as a child, was kidnapped by the Comanche, married a chief, and did not want to return to the Parker family.

We can imagine what happens ultimately.  This is not romantic nor is it fiction.  But it still has me hooked.

~ The Reluctant Blogger

Brown Baggers 2012 Book Selections

Despite the number of great titles our Book Baggers group has read in the past, there is definitely no shortage of new books we’d like to tackle next. Our group recently held our December meeting and didn’t talk about one single book – we talked about a LOT of them! We set about compiling a list of all of our suggestions while enjoying some cookies and other tasty treats. Even with my trusty whiteboard and marker in tow, I struggled to fit all of our ideas on the board!

Our book suggestions definitely covered a wide range of topics and time periods. Some of us suggested old favorites, while others mentioned books they were eager to read. There were a couple of things to keep in mind as we whittled the list down. We decided we wanted a mix of contemporary books along with some older classics. The group also wanted to make sure we read a few non-fiction titles.

Once we voted on our top choices, we set about devising a schedule – also a bit of a task! Some things were easy to decide, like reading “Bless Me, Ultima” for March – it’s the selection for the Big Read and the library will be offering lots of additional related programming. There is definitely still time to start reading our previously chosen January selection of “Moby Dick” but our first brand new selection of 2012 will be “Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet.” We’ll be discussing that at our February meeting. You can always check out the upcoming schedule as well as books we’ve read in the past at our JMRL Wiki page, but here is also a list of our upcoming books:

February: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet – Jamie Ford (2009)
March: Bless Me, Ultima – Rudolfo A. Anaya (1972)
April: People of the Book – Geraldine Brooks (2008)
May: Infidel – Ayaan Hirsi Ali (2007) non-fiction
June: The Good Priest’s Son – Reynolds Price (2006)
July: The Hare with Amber Eyes – Edmund de Waal (2011) non-fiction
August: The Daughter of Time – Josephine Tey (1951)
September: Tropic of Cancer – Henry Miller (1934)
October: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – Rebecca Skloot (2011) non-fiction
November: We the Drowned – Carsten Jensen (2011)
[no December selection - meet to pick books for 2013]
January 2013: Bleak House – Charles Dickens (1853)

Stuck In A Book

I spend a lot of time in front of a computer. When I’m not working, I’m often searching for information about books and reading. A good friend recommended:
http://www.stuck-in-a-book.blogspot.com/
 Based in the UK, this site is the perfect combination of anglophilia and bibliophilia. The blogger, Simon David Thomas, is incredibly well-read and writes in an entertaining, witty style.  A  recent post included a quote from Mark Haddon and that’s what prompted me to share Stuck In A Book with the JMRL Blog audience.  If you need a recommendation for a good book and your favorite librarian is unavailable, give this website a try.

Here’s the quote that inspired me:
Reading is primarily a symptom. Of a healthy imagination, of our interest in this and other worlds, of our ability to be still and quiet, of our ability to dream during daylight. And if we want more people to enjoy better books, whatever that means, we should concentrate on the things that prevent people reading. Poverty, poor literacy, library closures, feelings of cultural exclusion. Alleviate any of these problems and reading will blossom.
–Mark Haddon, ‘The Right Words in the Right Order’
Stop What You’re Doing and Read This!
Stella Pool, JMRL Staff

“And for those Occupiers who continue to defy police harrassment, I’m going to throw in a few manuals on Arctic survival.” ~ Barbara Ehrenreich in her “Washington Post” article about books and protests.

Protests everywhere.  The Mideast, Wall Street, and now Russia.  We read that the Occupy movements set up libraries in their “communities” almost immediately.  So what would they add to their collections, and what might we donate to such a library if we felt so inclined?

Barbara Ehrenreich, in her brief “Washington Post” November 18 article , gives us a bibliography of such books that were part of New York’s Occupy Wall Street movement.  Some were found in a NY warehouse after the movement’s community was removed and others were destroyed.

Occupy Charlottesville is not dead and Occupy Wall Street is looking at rebirth.  Ehrenreich is ready to donate to these causes but feels that she has to distill her choices down to just a few if she must “lug a box to the post office.”  Her choices then would be:

1. Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States.”
2. Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward’s “Poor People’s Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail.”
3. Adam Hochschield’s “Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves.”

Others that she mentions in her article and from the list of Occupy Wall Street’s catalog:

Manning Marble’s “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention.”

Edgar Snow’s “Red Star over China.”

Todd Gitlin’s “The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage.”

Ruth Rosen’s “The World Split Open: How the Modern Women’s Movement Changed America.”

Most of us would not pitch a tent in Lee Park, and some of us would not read the books mentioned above, but whether we would do any of those things, many of us have read a very American protest essay:  Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience.”  From Thoreau.eserver.org we can read their view of that essay:  “While Walden can be applied to almost anyone’s life, ‘Civil Disobedience’ is like a venerated architectural landmark: it is preserved and admired, and sometimes visited, but for most of us there are not many occasions when it can actually be used. Still, although seldom mentioned without references to Gandhi or King, “Civil Disobedience” has more history than many suspect. In the 1940′s it was read by the Danish resistance, in the 1950′s it was cherished by those who opposed McCarthyism, in the 1960′s it was influential in the struggle against South African apartheid, and in the 1970′s it was discovered by a new generation of anti-war activists. The lesson learned from all this experience is that Thoreau’s ideas really do work, just as he imagined they would.”

Books and writings like “Civil Disobedience” nurture protests, and they are available in your public libraries.

~ The Reluctant Blogger

“No, I wonder if, above all, Coach Paterno could not bear to see shame come to his beloved game of football.” – Frank Deford – SI.Com (November 16, 2011).

In early summer I wrote about Roger Angell and his books about baseball.  It seems like yesterday that St. Louis won the World Series, and it was yesterday the NBA settled their differences.  Now, it’s all football, high school, pro, or college, all the time.   We are in the week after the UVa/VaTech football game – many of us might want to forget that one – and the week before college bowl matchup announcements.

But the major sports story is that of the Penn State football sex scandal.  The latter has our attention and overshadows all other sports news.  The scandal has its horror, but it has forced fans to focus on Penn State’s football culture, its tailgate parties, and the Joe Paterno fanaticism.  I heard one woman from State College, Pa – quite a name for the town where Penn State lives – admit ashamedly that she didn’t know a lot about football, but she could never say that to her family or friends.  As she said, “it would be like telling my sister who lives in Pittsburgh that I don’t like the Steelers.  She would not invite me to Christmas dinner.”  (Hey, that’s my team!)

I love Roger Angell’s writing which is very literary, but for succinct thought-provoking sports talk Frank Deford is the man.  In his “SI.Com” article of November 16, 2011 he gives us his views of the Penn State sex scandal and of how the love of football can cloud one’s vision so that we can overlook even the most terrible of things.

Penn State is no different from other football campuses.  Football rules at Louisiana State University, University of Nebraska, and University of Alabama – to name only a few.  I am sure you can name others even if you are not a football fan.  UVa would love to be in the same league.  What do you think would happen here then?

Scandal is not the word used when one speaks about the young men who play this dangerous sport at some universities without gaining much of an education or any other remuneration.    Too many of us love this sport and its trappings too much to delve deeply into its darker sides.

Most of the books about football tell us about the special game and dynamic men who play it.  To delve more into the football culture you can try the following reads:

Bissinger, H. G. “Friday Night Lights: a Town, a Team, and a Dream.”

Watterson, John.  “College Football: History, Spectacle, and Contraversy.”

Frank Deford’s Books

~ The Reluctant Blogger

Central Branch’s Regional Authors Series continues.

Henry Wiencek was quite a draw for Central’s Regional Authors Series.  He talked about his up-and-coming book about Thomas Jefferson and the enslaved persons who lived at Monticello during Jefferson’s time there.  The talk itself was well presented and showed Jefferson within the context of his neighbors and time.  Using quotes from Jefferson, those enslaved, and Jefferson contemporaries Mr. Wiencek demonstrated that Jefferson was not always the “good owner” that we might have wanted him to be.  The talk was followed by a lengthy period of questions from the audience.  It was obvious that there was great interest in Mr. Wiencek’s comments and anticipation for his book.

More books in the JMRL system by Henry Wiencek:

The Hairstons: An American Family in Black and White

The Imperfect God: George Washington, his Slaves, and the Creation of America

The next author of the series is Susan Kern who will talk about her award winning book, “The Jeffersons at Shadwell.”  She will speak on December 4 at 2 pm.  Her book will be sold at this time as well.  Ms. Kern teaches history at the College of William and Mary.  She received her PhD in History from William and Mary in 2005 and her masters in Architectural History from the University of Virginia in 1990.  In between she worked in the archaeology department at Monticello, including two years directing that research.  Her book appeared from Yale University Press in 2010 and has won the Richard L. Slatten Award for excellence in Virginia biography from the Virginia Historical Society and the Abbott Lowell Cummings Award for the best book in North American vernacular architecture and landscapes from the Vernacular Architecture Forum.

~ The Reluctant Blogger

“Boys, I realize that some of us are not going to finish this journey. Cherrie, I want you and Kermit to go on. You can get out. I will stop here.” Theodore Roosevelt on the River of Doubt

Ok, so why does one become an explorer and head off to unchartered depths, heights, or, in this case, jungle?  As the BrownBaggers book group discussed their latest read today, Candice Millard’s “River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey,” this is the one question that continued to confound me.  Now I must tell you that I am a moderate – no heights or depths for me.  No piranha either.   But Millard takes us with Theodore Roosevelt on his last great adventure in which we see a group of men leave creature comforts behind and charge off into a barely known world, the Amazon jungle – they were ill prepared at that.

The author’s many descriptions of the jungle’s hostile environment with its silent and invisible threats from camouflaged insects and reptiles, silent Indians, and oppressive vegetation was to some of us overkill, but for others she captured with her repetition the isolation, humidity, and constant fear that overburdened the explorers.

Most of us agreed that survival was the major theme, and survival was extra tricky for these explorers, because their planning was so poor.  Those in charge never spent time together to generate plans for adequate supplies or transportation – just to name only couple quite important necessities for such a trip.

This is Millard’s first book, and whether it is the Amazon jungle’s flora and fauna or the Cinta Larga Indians, it is obvious from her acknowledgements that she did her research.  Millard has been as writer for “National Geographic” so the subject matter would be right up her line.  She also shows us a Teddy Roosevelt that we may have missed in other readings.  Yes, there is the machismo and the arrogance, but there is also humanity.

Millard’s next and new book is about “Destiny of the Republic: a Tale of Madness, Medicine, and Murder of a President.”

So why did these guys do this?  The book may explain that for you, but I stick to my moderation.   I will not follow them.  They are on their own.   There is no doubt about that.

~ The Reluctant Blogger

Latest Regional Author Program a Great Success!

Thanks to the 19 in attendance, the latest program with Gary Gallagher was a smash hit! Many people thanked us for creating an entertaining program and told us they had a lot of fun. Gary was an enthusiastic and humorous speaker. Click here to see more books written or edited by Professor Gallagher in our catalog.

Extend the fun by attending the next program in the series on Sunday, November 13 at 2:00pm at the Central Branch downtown. Our speaker will be Henry Wiencek, author of the forthcoming book, “Jefferson’s Mountain.”