A Short Guide to a Long Life

I saw Dr. David Agus on Fareed Zakaria GPS, and he made sense to me, so I picked up his Nook book for $9 on Barnes and Noble. It's a nice book, a very quick read with mostly common sense health recommendations. This is, I think, a great book for young people and obese people, but most healthy people probably are doing or at least know they should be doing the stuff he recommends.

Most of this stuff is a no brainer - drink lots of water, exercise, practice good hygiene, eat real food. Some of it is controversial, like avoiding vitamin supplements and taking preventative baby aspirin and statins. I honestly already do a lot of what he recommends, and I don't do most of what he says not to do. But I don't think my One-A-Day is going to kill me.

A Short Guide to a Long Life

A Spear of Summer Grass

This is an absolutely beautiful novel of 1920's Kenya, where the African savannah is almost as much a character as any human.

Delilah Drummond is a 20-something-socialite whose latest scandal has even her mother in a tizzy. So she ships Delilah off to her stepfather's Kenyan estates, Fairlight, to wait for things to die down and maybe grow up a little. Delilah and her cousin, Dora, find that Fairlight has been left to fall apart, and set about doing what they can to make the place livable and working with the natives to improve the living situation for everyone. They also find a community of British ex-pats who are all a little too involved in each other's lives, among them tracker/hunter/know-it-all Ryder White, who has an immediate attraction with Delilah.

Yes, there are similarities to Out of Africa, but those are superficial. Author Deanna Raybourn has created a wonderful heroine in Delilah - she's smart, beautiful, charming, loyal, and worldly. Ryder is the perfect foil for her, and they have fabulous chemistry. And the story just drives you right along - I really couldn't put it down. This is one of the best novels I've read in a while.

A Spear of Summer Grass

Someone

This latest novel by prize winner Alice McDermott is just a lovely little novel. It's actually sort of a study in novel writing, kind of like writing the way the brain works, if that makes any sense. The main character is Marie Commeford, a young girl growing up in Brooklyn in the days between the World Wars. She's 7-years-old with thick glasses, and she's waiting for her dad to come home from the train. So begins an ordinary life told with extraordinary charm.

Marie tells her story through a series of vignettes, memories really, of the blind WWI vet who's the go-to umpire for the neighborhood stickball games; the girl down the street who dies from falling down the stairs; her brother Gabe's recitations after dinner, his attending seminar, and his abrupt departure from the priesthood for reasons unknown. And Marie remembers the important milestones in her own life: the death of her father; the first boy who loved her; and the birth of her first child. Ordinary moments that most of us experience, but told with such charm, and humor, and gentle wit, and in a seemingly haphazard pattern, that actually makes total sense.

This is just a lovely story about someone who worries she won't find someone to love, and who winds up beloved by so many.


Someone

Smile at Strangers

Susan Schorn has written an entertaining, educational, and amusing memoir about the lessons learned in her practice of karate. I'm not a martial artist, I have no desire to be a martial artist, but I really like her writing style and her sense of humor, both of which are very approachable and relatable.

Schorn is an imperfect person (a real person, thank God), who uses what she learns in the dojo to deal with pushy people, disappearing contractors, family illness, and all the other little things that can annoy us. Along the way she also gives the reader some great hints for setting limits, finding personal strength, and making oneself feel easier in difficult situations. This is a good read that I enjoyed enough to want to read more from its author, so I'll be looking up Schorn's web site in the very near future.

Smile at Strangers

The Beautiful and Damned

Since I just finished reading a novel about Zelda Fitzgerald, I thought it fitting to read one of Scott's novels, so I picked up The Beautiful and Damned for my Nook at the library. I've read a bunch of his short stories and of course Gatsby, and Tender is the Night, and I loved all of them, so I thought I would love this, his second novel, as well.

I did not love this novel. I know, it's shocking, but it's true. In my opinion this novel just doesn't stand the test of time the way the others do. The language is stilted, the characters are unlikeable, and the story just feels very old-fashioned to me. I got about two-thirds of the way through and then my check-out expired and I just didn't renew it. I feel horrible about it, I do, but I just don't care anymore what happens to Anthony and Gloria Patch,  I just don't.

I'll try to read his first novel, This Side of Paradise, at some point. But I wonder if maybe I just prefer an older F. Scott Fitzgerald (although he never did get that old). We'll see. But I'm damned disappointed that I just couldn't enjoy this one.

The Beautiful and Damned

Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald

Ever since I took an English lit class focusing on Fitzgerald and Hemingway, I have been drawn to almost anything written about them. This is the first time I've ever read anything focusing on Zelda Fitzgerald, and it shows quite a different perspective from what I am used to. Yes, this is a work of fiction, but the author clearly shows with whom her sympathies lie.

It's 1918, when we meet high-school-aged Zelda Sayre at her hometown in Alabama, where there is a street named for her family. She is beautiful and charming and could have her pick of any boy, but she falls head-over-heels for the handsome officer stationed there, Scott Fitzgerald. Her family would like her to marry someone with a profession (writing it not a profession by their standards) but she'll have none of it. So begins the fun, wild, interesting, intriguing, and heart-breaking life of THE premier Jazz Age couple.

My main problem with the novel is that the author, Fowler, places pretty much all of the blame for the couple's problems squarely on Scott's (and to an extent, Hemingway's) shoulders. Yes, Scott is a needy alcoholic artistic genius (bordering on abusive), but I don't believe Zelda is as innocent as she is portrayed. Fowler takes tons of artistic license, including making up correspondence between Zelda and Scott, despite having the actual letters available as reference. Fowler also makes Hemingway out to be just a horrible person, which I think is over-simplifying one of the greatest literary minds of a generation.

Having said all that, this is still a GREAT read. The characters are rich and interesting, the story moves very quickly, and I really like Zelda. She was arguably one of the most interesting women of the 20th century, in fiction or reality.

Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald

The Dark Witch

Okay, so all of you who regularly read this blog (all 3 of you!) know that I have a love-hate relationship with Nora Roberts. On the one hand, her books are just so easy to read, and she tells a gripping story. On the other hand I often find her formulaic and a little repetitive. But I have to say, I really enjoyed this first book of her new Irish trilogy, The Dark Witch. It's got Ireland and castles and witches and spells - what's not to like?

American Iona Sheehan has felt different her whole life, and when her grandmother urges her to go find her distant cousins in Ireland, she leaps at the chance. When she meets cousins Branna and Connor, she feels a special kinship right away, and she realizes that coming to Ireland is fulfilling her destiny. Hitting it off with sexy stable owner Boyle is just icing on the cake.

So Iona, Branna and Connor are the three who are destined to vanquish the evil witch Cabhan, thanks to their ancient ancestor Sorcha's curse. They get help from Boyle and friends Meara and Fin - Fin being a descendant of the evil Cabhan, wouldn't you know. This is mystical realism/romance at it's best, and Nora does it better than anyone.

I'm already looking forward to book two, which I'm guessing will focus on Meara and Connor. She'll probably save Branna and Fin for the last book.

The Dark Witch