The Book Whisperer Examines a Book for Book Lovers

My friend Judy sent me a copy of A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books by Nicholas A. Basbanes. Publisher’s Weekly in a starred review calls A Gentle Maddness “an absolutely fascinating tale and an engrossing, essential book that no book lover should be without.” In 1995, A Gentle Madness was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award. Basbanes has received numerous awards for his writing of nonfiction books and articles for a variety of newspapers and magazines such as The Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, and The Smithsonian.

A Gentle Madness pays homage to book lovers, book collectors, and book history. Obviously, Basbanes tackled a monumental job in chronicling the history of books and their collectors. The book is 638 pages long with 39 pages of notes, an extensive bibliography consisting of another 37 pages, and finally an index of 25 pages.  A Gentle Madness is a scholarly work.

Basbanes has also included a number of illustrations to accompany his work. Sir Robert Cotton, 1571-1631, is noted as an “antiquary and collector.” Another picture of interest is of the statue of John Harvard, 1607-1638, “the Puritan clergyman whose gift of books established the first library to be formed in British North America.”

The chapter titles are intriguing. “Balm for the Soul,” “Rule Britannia,” “Brandy for Heroes,” and “Infinite Riches” will keep readers moving from one page to the next.

In Chapter 13, “The Blumberg Collection,” the first line spoken by FBI Special Agent W. Dennis Aiken will intrigue book lovers: “I really don’t know why you want to come out here. All you’re going to see is seven rooms stacked to the ceiling with old books.”

Clearly, I did not read all of A Gentle Madness. It is the kind of book one keeps on hand to dip into again and again and then to pass it along to another book lover as Judy has done.

Nicholas Basbanes maintains an extensive Web site: https://www.nicholasbasbanes.com/.

The Book Whisperer is a Book Club Junkie

When I tell myself to stop looking at, reading about, and seeking out books to read, I always fail. I am a member of two book clubs that tell me what to read, so I have no responsibilities except to read the books by the appointed day and time and be prepared to discuss them. I am happy with that arrangement.

I also belong to two other book clubs where I have a great deal more responsibility. One of those, I started in 1985; over time, the group has evolved so that I choose the books for each meeting. Because we follow an academic calendar for that group, I choose three books for the fall with a theme in mind and three for the spring with a different theme. In the summer, I choose a book for the June discussion; in July, members bring a book to describe to the others in an attempt to interest them in reading the book. I do provide guidelines that limit the discussions so that everyone has an opportunity to speak.

I am the leader of a fairly new book club, formed in Nov 2017. Choosing books for that club is a bit less straightforward. I both take suggestions from members and make suggestions, but, admittedly, I tend to sway the decisions.

Should I mention that I belong to yet one more book club? It meets irregularly and only from September through April. I am not responsible for selecting the books for it, but I am a consultant.

Should I also mention that I do love to read and to discuss books? Or perhaps that is self-evident.

Some of my favorite sources for locating books include the following: Nancy Pearl, https://www.nancypearl.com/; Riffle, https://www.rifflebooks.com/; Bookriot, https://bookriot.com/; and NPR books, https://www.npr.org/books/. BookBrowse, https://www.bookbrowse.com/, is another useful source. After using the free portion of BookBrowse for some time, I decided to join and have access to more information now. I have also received several books from BookBrowse to read, review, and discuss.

Today, as I read my email, I started down a rabbit hole of books recommended from some of the sites listed above. I started with Nancy Pearl’s site. Her reviews intrigue me. I discovered two nonfiction books to keep in mind for one of the book clubs.

Code Girls by Liza Mundy tells the story of women who served as code breakers during WWII. More than ten thousand women came from small towns and elite colleges to help shorten the war and save lives. Who would not be interested in the story of these women?  Pearl also mentioned The Hare With Amber Eyes by Edmund De Waal. In her review, she said The Hare With Amber Eyes is a book she would like to give to everyone. To me, that sentence sealed my desire to read the book. De Waal provides a true story of art, history, and family. De Waal inherited his family’s collection of 264 “wood and ivory carvings, none of them larger than a matchbox.” From Japan, they are netsuke, objects of art which evolved over time from utilitarian objects that were used to secure a cord which held personal possessions. Kimonos had no pockets, so men who needed a place to keep pipes, tobacco, money, and other personal items would put them into a pouch which then hung from a cord on the sash or obi. The netsuke started as an object of utility, but evolved into art forms. The family also owned a large collection of priceless art in other forms, but the Nazis removed all that art. Because the netsuke were hidden away, they survived to remain in the family.

Nancy Pearl’s recommendation of Our Homesick Songs by Emma Hooper caught my attention because I had read Etta and Otto and Russell and James, also by Hooper. Our Homesick Songs is a story of a family “on the edge of extinction, and the different way each of them fights to keep hope, memory, and love alive.” I enjoyed Etta and Otto and Russell and James so I am intrigued by Hooper’s new novel. I have been unable to discuss Etta and Otto and Russell and James with anyone else, so I am hopeful that will not be the case with Our Homesick Songs.

Another book on Pearl’s fiction recommendations is The Great Believers by Rebedda Makkai. Makkai weaves in the story of the AIDS crisis along with art, loss, and friendship. The story takes place in Chicago and Paris. A Rising Man by Abir Mukherjee puts readers in Calcutta in 1919. It is also the first in a planned trilogy starring Captain Sam Wyndham, formerly of Scotland Yard, and now living in Calcutta for a new post in the police there.

Then at NPR books, I discovered Rules for Visiting by Jessica Francis Kane. May, the main character, is a university gardener who is more at home with plants than with people. At forty, she decides to take a year and reconnect with four old friends. May has four rules which she follows rigidly:

1. Make the visit for the purpose of friendship only—not because you have a business trip in the area, for example.
2. Stay at your friend’s house.
3. Be alive in the space of the friendship, meaning no social media during the visit. Take pictures for yourself, if you want, but no posting until later.
4. Don’t make special plans (spa, resort, fancy local restaurant), because the purpose is to see an ordinary day in the life of your friend.

So, dear readers, as you can see, my desire to stop looking for books to read is an impossible goal. I must continue to look for that next great read to share with my book clubs, my friends who are not in book clubs, and my blog readers.

Currently, that book is Searching for Sylvie Lee by Jean Kwok, but you will have to look for the complete review from the Book Whisperer soon.

The Book Whisperer Examines a Book on Writing

I was totally unfamiliar with Alice Mattison until I read about The Kite and the String: How to Write With Spontaneity and Control—And Live to Tell the Tale.” The title alone should intrigue writers and would-be writers as well as readers who enjoy learning about the process of writing those beloved stories.

I opened The Kite and the String to the “Introduction: Excuse Me, Don’t We Know Each Other?” That title added to my interest. The first two paragraphs are engaging:

“Maybe you’re that woman in the corner of the coffee shop. You’re gazing over the lid of a laptop, then typing fast, then gazing again. Or possibly you’re that man with the narrow-ruled notebook, writing fat paragraphs in black ink…. And I? I’m the woman with messy gray hair who’s at risk of spilling her coffee down your neck, because she can’t help glancing over your shoulder to get a glimpse of what you’re writing. Is it, perhaps, a story? Is it a novel? A memoir?”

Mattison goes on to explain that The Kite and the String is not a how-to manual. Instead, she says it “describes one woman’s way of thinking about writing.”

Mattison has divided The Kite and the String into five parts. Within those five parts, she has included a variety of chapters. She includes chapters titled “Imagine,” “Let Happenings Happen,” “Become Someone Else,” and “Revising Our Thought Bubbles.”

My favorite chapter is “What Killed the Queen? and Other Uncertainties That Keep a Reader Reading.” Mattison reminds her readers, “we don’t write well without touching on painful subjects, and many of us need to write for a long time before those painful thoughts emerge from wherever we ordinarily hide them.”

Throughout The Kite and the String, Mattison uses examples from other novelists to illustrate the points she is making. This technique allows her readers then to research further for themselves by referring to those books and authors.

In “Revising Our Thought Bubbles,” Mattison gives advice about showing one’s writing. She explains that a writing workshop she attended for thirteen years with poets Jane Kenyon and Joyce Peseroff “made me dare to be a writer.” She goes on to say that “it’s possible to show your writing, cautiously, to people who aren’t writers and to learn from them.”  She emphasizes the word cautiously if showing the writing to non-writers. The writing workshops provide a much-needed service then because they consist of other writers.

Mattison is forthright in her teaching. She says, “Cherish the readers who offer more praise than you deserve, but find others as well—which may be more difficult.”

In the end, Mattison tells writers “be ambitious, in the best sense. Write—write first drafts—when you’re sleepy and stupid, receptive and vulnerable…. Take outrageous risks, and then have the patience and humility to fix your work.”

Mattison has published six novels, four collections of short stories, and a collection of poems. She has received a number of awards. She currently teaches in the MFA program at Bennington College. Learn more about Mattison and her work at her site: http://www.alicemattison.com/index.htm.

The Book Whisperer Reviews Fly Girls

Keith O’Brien has received high praise for Fly Girls: How Five Daring Women Defied all Odds and Made Aviation History. O’Brien conducted meticulous research into the five women: “Florence Klingensmith, a high‑school dropout who worked for a dry cleaner in Fargo, North Dakota; Ruth Elder, an Alabama divorcee; Amelia Earhart, the most famous, but not necessarily the most skilled; Ruth Nichols, who chafed at the constraints of her blue‑blood family’s expectations; and Louise Thaden, the mother of two young kids who got her start selling coal in Wichita.”

O’Brien details the difficulties each woman faced, starting with simply learning to fly, then having access to a plane, and finding funding for flights. As readers learn about the five women, they also learn about the fledgling airplane manufacturing business.

O’Brien begins the “Introduction” with “in 1926, there were countless ways to die in an airplane.” Throughout Fly Girls, readers continue to learn about the ways pilots, crew members, and people on the ground died when wings iced over, propellers fell off, or planes lost altitude and crashed into the earth.

By 1926, women had fought for and earned the right to vote, but many avenues were still closed to them. O’Brien describes the ways that “gender roles were shifting, cultural norms were evolving, and the Great Depression had people questioning almost everything in America.”

Florence Klingensmith, Ruth Elder, Amelia Earhart, Ruth Nichols, and Louise Thaden supported one another as their paths crossed over and over again in flying competitions and in promoting women as pilots. On one occasion, the female pilots all agreed to wait for a part to be flown in for Ameila Earhart so they could all take off together, not taking advantage of Earhart’s problem.

The women faced sabotage of their planes. Before one competition in Cleveland, the female pilots received a telegram with three words on it: “Beware of sabotage.” They found evidence of tampering when one woman discovered “every switch in the cockpit turned on, every throttle moved.” The women then sat up most of the night with the planes to avert any further damage. Thus, they started the race on only four hours sleep.

Swanee Taylor, announcer at Henderson’s air races, classified the women pilots into six categories: The Dependent Woman; The Athletic Girl; The Flapper; Little Lucy, The Timid Type;  The Talkative Woman, and the Good Egg.

Earhart was giving a talk to young women. She told them “two capital Ts stand in the way of their progress. One is Training – or lack of it. The other Tradition.” Earhart went on to say that “[a woman’s place] is wherever her individual aptitude places her. Or it should be anyway. And the work of married men and women should be split. She should taste the grind of earning a living – and he should learn the stupidity of housework.”

All of the women featured in Fly Girls are fascinating, but I was most captivated with Louise McPhetridge Thaden who came originally from Bentonville, AR, my home state. She has a page in The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture: http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=30.

Mary Frances Files Silitch, my cousin, also a pilot and from Arkansas, has a page in The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture: http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?search=1&entryID=6634.  Mary Silitch was the first woman editor-in-chief of a national aviation magazine. October 28, 2010, Silitch was inducted into the Arkansas Aviation Hall of Fame. Silitch’s accomplishments follow on the heels of the five women featured in Fly Girls, showing that women have not slowed down in their pursuit of their goals.

Book reviewers have called Fly Girls “exhilarating” and “riveting.” Those terms are both relevant in describing a book that chronicles the difficulties those pioneering female pilots faced and the obstacles they overcame in the ever-present face of danger and criticism.

Keith O’Brien is a regular contributor to NPR. He also writes for The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, Slate, and Politico. O’Brien has also published a young readers’ edition of Fly Girls which should encourage young girls today to dream, set goals, and accomplish those dreams and goals.

At O’Brien’s site, https://www.702wi.com/keithobrien.html, readers will discover additional material about Fly Girls along with a link a list of discussion questions found on Reading Group Choices.

 

 

The Book Whisperer Discovers Soonish & Learns About the Future–Maybe

A cartoonist and a researcher team up to write a book. Does that sound like the beginning of a joke? Well, it isn’t! The Weinersmiths, Kelly, a science researcher, and Zach, a cartoonist, have collaborated in writing and illustrating Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That’ll Improve and/or Ruin Everything. Amazon tells us that Soonish became an “instant New York Times bestseller.” The Wall Street Journal and Popular Science both call Soonish the “best science book of the year.”

We have long seen predictions of what the future will bring. Some of those predictions have been outlandish, and others have been right on target. For example, in the 1950s, Time magazine ran an article about the coming square tomato. Also, in 1950, Popular Mechanics published an article called “Miracles You’ll See in the Next Fifty Years.” The author of the article predicted houses would be made of metal, sheets of plastic and aerated clay because brick, stone, and wood would be too expensive. The article continues by explaining that plastics would be made from fruit pits, soybeans, straw, and wood pulp. Not only that, but sawdust and wood pulp would be changed into sugary foods.

On the other hand, John Elfreth Watkins, an American civil engineer, wrote “What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years, an article for Ladies’ Home Journal in 1900. In the article, Watkins made the following predictions which have come true: digital color photography, rising height of Americans, mobile phones, pre-prepared meals, TV, and bigger fruit.

In Soonish, the Weinersmiths tackle such topics as “Cheap Access to Space Travel,” “Asteroid Mining,” “Fusion Power,” “Programmable Matter,” “Precision Medicine,” and “Brain-Computer Interfaces.” Some of the sub-headings are equally intriguing: “Fusion Power: It Powers the Sun, and That’s Nice, but Can It Run My Toaster?” My favorite is “Programmable Matter: What if All of Your Stuff Could be Any of Your Stuff?”

Readers interested in the future of what may or may not come to pass should read Soonish. It is bright and funny and interesting.

At the end of the book, the Weinersmiths write, “We hope that, unlike so many books, we have not tried to sell you on a philosophy of futurology, or on a vision of the future. To our way of thinking, it’s probably impossible and it’s certainly not necessary. It’s exciting enough to know that right this second, people far smarter than us are working out how to probe your thoughts one neuron at a time or to pry open distant alien minerals.”

A side note: Weinersmith is a combination of Kelly Smith and Zach Weiner, forming Weinersmith when they married. Kelly tired of looking for her scientific articles under the name Smith because there were so many. When she researched articles by scientists named Weiner, she encountered the same problem. As a result, Kelly and Zach created their own last name: Weinersmith.

Kelly, an adjunct assistant professor at Rice University in BioSciences, studies how “host behavior influences risk of infection with parasites, and how parasites subsequently change host behavior.” Find out more at her site: http://www.weinersmith.com/.

Zach Weinersmith blogs at this site he calls The Weinerworks: http://theweinerworks.com/. Readers will find his sense of humor embedded in all his work. Here is the description from the site:

“The Weinerworks used to be a blog where Zach posted occasionally thoughts and essays. Now that he has two children, he no longer thinks, and the blog had fallen into dereliction.

Zach realized that having no thoughts made him an ideal critic, so he began writing book reviews of the various things he was reading. These were posted on various sites and were more popular than he would have guessed. So, he decided they should have their own site.”

Find more of Zach Weinersmith’s cartoons at Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal: https://www.gocomics.com/saturday-morning-breakfast-cereal/2014/07/14.

 

The Book Whisperer Discovers Miss Thistlebottom, a Grammarian

Theodore M. Bernstein wrote seven books on grammar and English usage including Miss Thistlebottom’s Hobgoblins: The Careful Writer’s Guide to the Taboos, Bugbears and Outmoded Rules of English Language. Bernstein created the fictional Miss Thistlebottom, an eighth grade English teacher at an all boys’ school and supposedly his teacher.

Bernstein begins with “A Word to the Whys” in which he explains the title of his book: Miss Thistlebottom’s Hobgoblins: The Careful Writer’s Guide to the Taboos, Bugbears and Outmoded Rules of English Language. He maintains “a belief that a title so hard to pronounce and so hard to remember will be difficult to forget.” He goes on to report that the title is designed to denote the contents of the book. He wishes to “lay rest to the superstitions that have been passed on from one generation to the next by teachers, by editors and by writers — prohibitions deriving from mere personal prejudice or from misguided pedantry or from a cold conservatism that would freeze the language if it could.”

“A Word to the Whys” concludes with a list of references Bernstein cites in Miss Thistlebottom’s Hobgoblins. A few of those include the following: The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, The Verbalist by Alfred Ayres, Write it Right by Ambrose Bierce, Syntax by George Curme, The Oxford English Dictionary, and A Grammar of Present-Day English by Eric Partridge. The last book was published in 1947.

In the prologue of Miss Thistlebottom’s Hobgoblins, we find a letter from Bertha Thistlebottom to Bernstein in which she says that “the disparaging remarks you make about me in several places hurt me.” At the end of the letter, however, she writes, “Despite all, however, I am of a forgiving nature and I am content with the thought that I must have taught you something right if you were able to turn out that book.”

In his reply to Miss Thistlebottom, Bernstein concludes that “as in so many endeavors in life, in the use of English an avoidance of extremes is the way to achievement and excellence.” Perhaps this bit of advice is the most important in the whole book.

The table of contents should pique any language lover’s interest. In addition to the ones already described, Bernstein includes “Witchcraft in Words,” “Syntax Scarecrows,” “Imps of Idioms,” and “Spooks of Style.”

In his letter to Miss Thistlebottom at the beginning of “Imps of Idioms,” Bernstein writes: “Idioms, it must be remembered, are sports in the linguistic garden.” Sentences such as that abound in Miss Thistlebottom’s Hobgoblins: The Careful Writer’s Guide to the Taboos, Bugbears and Outmoded Rules of English Language. Those who love language can enjoy Bernstein’s wit and his understanding of the English language. Following his introduction to idioms, Bernstein goes into an explanation of some commonly used idioms. He gives a bit of history to explain the idiom even if “the label for [so long] must be ‘origin obscure’.”

In “Spooks of Style,” Bernstein explains about puns. He says “puns are the easiest form of humor, but it does not follow that they are the lowest form.” Bernstein cites Charles Lamb in a letter Lamb wrote to Samuel Coleridge: “A pun is a noble thing per se. O never bring it in as an accessory! … it fills the mind; it is as perfect as a sonnet; better.” Bernstein ends “Spooks of Style” with this bit of advice about using you to refer to readers: “A few cautions are necessary. One is not to overdo the you device; that same caution applies to any writing advice. A second is to avoid shifting from one person to another. A third is to avoid seeming to talk down to the reader.”

At the end of the book, Bernstein includes “William Cullen Bryant’s Appendix Expurgatorius.” It contains a list of words that Bryant wanted writers to avoid. Bryant, though a poet, was also well-known as a journalist and was part owner and editor in chief of the New York Evening Post. The list is too long to repeat here, but it includes some interesting choices such as “over and above instead of more than, artiste instead of artist, casket for coffin, pants for pantaloons, en route, donate, rowdies, and the deceased.” Read Miss Thistlebottom’s Hobgoblins: The Careful Writer’s Guide to the Taboos, Bugbears and Outmoded Rules of English Language to find the entire list.

Theodore M. Bernstein earned a BA from Columbia University in 1924. He was editorial director of the New York Times Book Division, taught journalism at Columbia, and was a consultant on usage for Random House and American Heritage dictionaries. Miss Thistlebottom’s Hobgoblins: The Careful Writer’s Guide to the Taboos, Bugbears and Outmoded Rules of English Language is full of good advice and fun to read for those who love language.

The Book Whisperer Takes a Look Inside North Korea

Suki Kim explains that her book Without You, There Is No Us: Undercover Among Some of North Korea’s Elite is “literary nonfiction based on investigative reporting…. The book is not based on memories to explain my life, but based on undercover investigative journalism to convey the psychology of North Korea’s future leaders and their very complex and human and inhumane world, seen through my eyes. Those who expect a straightforward reporter’s nonfiction, this is not. Those who expect a memoir about a woman’s self-discovery, this is not.”

She clarifies further in the prologue:

“Time there seemed to pass differently. When you are shut off from the world, every day is exactly the same as the one before. This sameness has a way of wearing down your soul until you become nothing but a breathing, toiling, consuming thing that awakes to the sun and sleeps at the dawning of the dark. The emptiness runs deep, deeper with each slowing day, and you become increasingly invisible and inconsequential.”

These explanations give readers the clear insight they need to understand Without You, There Is No Us.  Kim Jong-il is known as “Dear Leader” to distinguish him from his father Kim il-sung, “Great Leader.” The current supreme leader is Kim Jong Un, “Outstanding Leader.” Suki Kim’s students praise the leaders, past and present with gratitude for giving them the greatest country on earth. Songs, TV shows, and articles are all about the leaders and admiration for them.

The fact is that many people in North Korea are starving. Electricity is unreliable and can go off unexpectedly and remain off for some time. People know only what Kim Jong-Un wishes them to know.

Kim describes the constant surveillance she and the other foreign teachers are under. They all have minders who monitor their classes and their free time as well. All of the students watch the teachers, but one particular student is known to be ready to report any infractions. Then Kim learns yet a second student in each class is a watchful observer ready to report as well. All lessons must be approved ahead of time and no deviation must be made once the approval is given. Kim writes that “the constant surveillance by the counterparts and minders evoked fear in us. We knew that the consequences were unthinkable, so we did what we were told.”

The first picture below shows Kim in her classroom. Now, of course, Kim Jong-Un’s picture is hanging alongside the pictures of his father and grandfather. The second picture shows students gathered outside following an exam.

The teachers must not say anything that sounds as if they are “boasting about America.” That means that Kim remains guarded in answering her students’ questions. When she mentions that she backpacked across Europe as a college student, the students’ faces close down and they become silent as if they do not believe her. They cannot travel freely in their own country much less travel outside the country.

The teachers may go on planned trips, but they must pay for the use of the bus, gas, and admission to any attractions. These trips must be planned far in advance as well.

Teachers are guarded in their communication with their families. They do have access to email, but the emails are monitored. Kim set up a special email to use in communicating with friends and family outside of North Korea. Readers can easily see why Kim describes the life in North Korea as “wearing down your soul until you become nothing but a breathing, toiling, consuming thing that awakes to the sun and sleeps at the dawning of the dark.”

Kim, like Hyeonseo Lee, describes the weekly confessions for students. After a fashion, the foreign teachers also had confessions, but that is because most of the teachers are religious. The school cannot proselytize, have students read the Bible or otherwise discuss Christianity, but the founders of Pyongyang University of Sciences and Technology (PUST) hope that by providing the free education that if the regime relaxes its views on religion, the founders of PUST will have an opportunity to speak freely about religion in North Korea. Their hopes are most likely ill-founded. Suki Kim has not professed that she is religious or that her reasons for teaching at the college are only to find out more about North Korea. No one has questioned her either.

Kim describes a number of unusual actions that she observes in North Korea. For example, on an outing to the International Friendship Exhibition Hall, she and her fellow teachers ate lunch at the Hyangsan Hotel in Pyongyang. She notices “five or six women squatting and cutting the grass with scissors.” Other odd actions included seeing peasants in the countryside gathered on the roadways, sitting, talking, and eating together. Kim realizes the pavement represents their town square or café, a place where they can gather.

The food served in the cafeteria is almost inedible. Teachers have been told to bring food with them such as dried fruits and canned foods. They even bring their own toilet paper. They are allowed to take supervised shopping trips to the markets where most of the items are from China.

Kim records a conversation with a fellow teacher:

“There’s no freedom. They are watching us constantly. I know they are recording everything we say and keeping files on us, and I feel really bad all the time. I just don’t feel comfortable here. It’s not about the terrible food and the material lack of everything. It’s the basic humanity. It’s missing here.”

That observation sums up the experience of living in North Korea. On the other hand, Kim does speak lovingly of her students as she describes them. After spending six months teaching the young men, she has come to love them and hope for their futures, but she knows even as the elite, they will live restricted lives.

Suki Kim’s Web site provides additional insight into her experience of teaching at PUST in North Korea: http://www.sukikim.com/. On the site, Kim has included a bio, photo album of pictures from North Korea, and her TED Talk along with other videos.

 

 

The Book Whisperer Enjoys Dreyer’s English

Praise for Benjamin Dreyer’s Dreyer’s English is easily found. Newsday says that “Dreyer can help you…with tips on punctuation and spelling…. Even better: He’ll entertain you while he’s at it.” Now, when has one, dear Reader, ever seen such a statement about an English handbook or style book? Publisher’s Weekly in its starred review calls Dreyer’s English “that rare writing handbook that writers might actually want to read straight through, rather than simply consult.”

Benjamin Dreyer is copy chief at Random House. He published Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style in 2019.

In Chapter 1, “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (Your Prose),” Dreyer challenges writers to refrain from using the following words in their writing for one week: very, rather, really, quite, and in fact.” However, he does not stop there. He continues with just meaning merely and so as an intensifier, pretty, of course, and surely among other widely and over-used words and expressions. I am reminded of Mark Twain’s advice: “Substitute damn every time you’re inclined to write very; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.” For those of us who are our own editors, we should remove damn in our revising.

As one tempted to use too many exclamation marks in informal, personal emails and personal letters, I enjoyed Dreyer’s discussion of exclamation marks covered in Chapter 3, “Assorted Things to Do (and Not to Do) with Punctuation.” Dreyer says to “go light on the exclamation points. When overused, they’re bossy, hectoring, and ultimately, wearying.” I remember a student in my Honors Comp I class who told me her third-grade son told her she needed to use more exclamation marks in her writing to jazz it up. She and I concluded that she would ignore that sage advice for purposes of writing essays in Comp I and II.

Dreyer also covers semicolons in Chapter 3. He begins that sub-heading with the sample sentence “I love semicolons like I love pizza; fried port dumplings; Venice, Italy; and the operas of Puccini.” Then he follows with an explanation of why he used semicolons in the sentence as well as giving several alternate versions of the sentence without the semicolons.

Chapter 8, “peeves and Crotchets” may well be my favorite chapter. That chapter begins with this sentence: “I’ve never met a writer or other word person who didn’t possess a pocketful of language peeves and crotchets — words or uses of words that drive a normally reasonable person into unreasonable fits of pique, if not paroxysms of rage—and I doubt I’d trust anyone who denied having a few of these bugaboos stashed away somewhere.” As an English prof, I had my share of peeves and crotchets and they remain with me even in retirement. Read Chapter 8 to discover Dreyer’s own peeves and crochets.

Another favorite chapter is number 10, “The Confusables.” Dreyer explains that spell check offers writers help, but it cannot detect the wrong word. The first words he tackles in Chapter 10 are a lot/allot, allotted, allotting. I spent countless hours reminding students how to use these words properly. I agree with his assessment of using alright rather than all right. Dreyer explains “I continue to crinkle my nose at the sight of it, perhaps because I can’t see that it has a worthwhile enough distinction from all right to justify its existence.” He does go on to report that others may differ with him.

Dreyer provides additional resources for the thoughtful writer. He likes “Theodore Bernstein’s Miss Thistlebottom’s Hobgoblins, one of the charmingest, smartest, most readable books on the subject of language I’ve ever seen.” He also recommends several Web sites: grammarist.com, grammarphobis.com, arrantpedantry.com, and korystamper.wordpress.com among others.

Borrow or buy a copy of Dreyer’s English. You will be charmed by this English handbook and learn from it as well.

 

 

The Book Whisperer Recommends The Pocket Muse

Having taught Freshman Composition 1113 and 1213 and other comp courses for years, I have many writing prompts saved. Although I am retired, I still read about writing and I write a blog, emails, and letters. Then along with some friends, we formed Raindrop Conversations, an informal group of women who meet weekly to help some of our young Turkish friends improve their English. In that group, I provide short writing assignments which everyone in the group completes (usually); we share what we have written by reading aloud.

Because we write and then read the material aloud, we are also working on pronunciation and meaning of words. As a result of creating these assignments weekly, I look for interesting, intriguing, and useful prompts among my stored ideas and on the Internet. When I discovered Monica Wood’s The Pocket Muse: Ideas & Inspirations for Writing, I purchased it, looking for new prompts.

Monica Wood writes novels, plays, essays, and books about writing. Her Web site is extensive and stimulating: http://monicawood.com/. There, readers will find information about Wood’s books as well as “Books for Teachers” and “Tips for Writers.”

In reading through “Tips for Writers,” I was intrigued by advice she got from an interview she read with Richard Russo: “He explained that a writer can’t do it all at once. If it’s Monday, you just do your Monday work.” That’s good advice about many tasks one may have. Just do today’s work, writing, chore and then tomorrow, tackle the next job.

On Amazon, The Pocket Muse is described as “your key to finding inspiration when and where you want it. With hundreds of thought-provoking prompts, exercises and illustrations.” While Ms. Wood may have intended the book as inspiration to aspiring fiction writers, The Pocket Muse also contains useful prompts for anyone who simply needs a bit of inspiration to get started writing.

Wood explains that “for years now, I’ve been keeping what I call a word notebook.” In the small spiral notebook, she keeps lists of words. She emphasizes that these are not phrases or quotations, but single words. Then she can refer to the notebook to find words that have interested her or that she has looked up or that she simply liked. I have used a similar exercise, but with a bit of a twist. I have given students five words and asked them to use the five in a paragraph that makes sense. Writers could keep their own lists and refer to them for ideas.

Wood has included pictures throughout the book. The pictures themselves can help writers conjure up ideas. Included with the pictures is a prompt, but one could say there are two prompts: the words and picture and the picture alone. For example, on one page, we have a picture of an old-fashioned door knob showing the keyhole below the knob. The prompt is “write about the worst visitor who ever darkened your door.” However, a writer could choose to write about a room behind that doorknob or about a lost key that fit into the keyhole. Or?

The Pocket Muse gives writers a bit of a jump start in writing when they may feel in a slump. The ideas are fresh and fun. If one doesn’t work on a certain day, it might be just the spark the writer needs on another day. In short, The Pocket Muse is a good writers’ companion.

Wood’s last line in The Pocket Muse: “Don’t forget to be grateful that you love words.”

 

 

The Book Whisperer Reviews A Book For Book Lovers

My friend and fellow reader Theresa recommended that I locate and read Jane Mount’s Bibliophile. She gave good advice! Bibliophile is a book-lover’s dream. The advertising on Amazon calls Bibliophile “the perfect gift for book lovers, writers, and your book club.” I would agree.

To whet readers’ appetites, here are some topics from the table of contents: “Kids’ Picture Books,” “Striking Libraries,” “Bookstore Cats,” “Five-Word Synopsis Quiz,” and “Food Writing.”

In the chapter titled “Bookish People Recommend,” Mount quotes a variety of people who work with books from librarians to book buyers for book stores; they suggest books. For example, Julia Hobart who is a book buyer at Bookloft in Great Barrington, MA, recommends The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper. She says, “I read it as a kid, and it has stuck with me.” Maris Kreizman, editorial director of Book of the Month, suggests Anagrams by Lorrie Moore because “Anagrams broke apart all my expectations about what a novel could do.”

Bibliophile is a book one needs to purchase and dip into often. The tidbits one finds throughout the book delight readers. In “Songs About Books,” Mount includes information about Sting who “worked literature into many of the songs he wrote for The Police and for himself.” She points out lines from T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and from Shakespeare’s sonnets.

Not only are the topics interesting and varied, Bibliophile is also visually appealing. Mount has included numerous drawings to illustrate the chapters.

Discover more at https://janemount.com/.