The Penguin Lessons

Michell, Tom. The Penguin Lessons: What I Learned from a Remarkable Bird. New York: Ballentine 2017. Print.

First Sentences:

 

Had I been told as a child in 1950's England that my life would one day run parallel with that of a penguin -- that for a time, at least, it would be him and me against the world -- I would have taken it in stride. After all, my mother had kept three alligators at the house in Esher until they grew too big and too dangerous for that genteel town and keepers from Chessington Zoo came to remove them. 

Description:

Probably never does a movie even come close to the quality and depth of the book on which it is based. Films in my mind that are closest to achieving a similar level of quality as their book, in my mind, might be To Kill a Mockingbird with Gregory Peck and The Martian with Matt Damon. While these films can't plum the full depth and characterization possible in the books, they do convey the storyline, the tension, the emotion, and the overall impact. More importantly, they encourage movie-watchers like me to seek out the original source material book to answer questions, fill in gaps, and follow tangents only hinted at in the film.

After recently watching the film The Penguin Lesson with Steve Coogan, it tickled my interest enough that I really wanted to read author Tom Michell's own words about his escapades with a South American penguin. Lo and behold, in our local library I found a copy of The Penguin Lessons: What I Learned from a Remarkable Bird. I plunged right in and was quickly absorbed into his homey narration.

In 1975, author Michell was an assistant master and resident at an exclusive boy's school in Argentina. While on a vacation in Uruguay and walking along a beach, he noticed hundreds of dark lumps on the shore. These turned out to be dead penguins, recently migrating northward now covered with oil from unloading tankers and washed ashore. Shocked at the sight, he looked closer and found one that was still alive. As he approached it, the penguin, oil-slicked and weak, boldly stood up to defend itself.

Michell decided to try to save it by washing off the oil, capturing the 10lb bird in a string grocery bag and cleaning it in the home where he was house-sitting. Definitely not an easy task, nor a very clean one.

But after the penguin (later named "Juan Salvado") calmed down and allowed Michell to fully remove the oil, the author tried to return it to the ocean. To his surprise, the penguin immediately waddled away from the shore, determined to follow Mitchell wherever he went. 

After several more unsuccessful attempts to set it free, and due to a growing respect and love for this bird, Michell decides keep the bird until he can take it to a zoo. But he first must sneak the penguin back to the Argentine boy's school with him. This ridiculous journey involves adventures with buses and trains, customs inspections, feeding, and of course some very smelly pooping (by the penguin).

This is the action of the first few pages, so I am not giving much away. From here on in, Michell recounts decision after decision he faced about the penguin's food, water, exercise, secrecy, and of course what to do when Michell is away from his apartment teaching and Juan Salvado is left alone. 

We also get glimpses of the people and life in a small town and school in Juan Peron's politically unstable Argentina. Inflation was 100% per month, so Michell was told to spend his entire  paycheck the same day he received it, buying things he didn't even need so he could re-sell them from the school. Otherwise, his money would decrease by 50% the next day.

We meet the people who enter the penguin's life: the school's head of housekeeping who befriends Juan Salvado as one of the students needing her care; the local fisherman who sold Michell the small sprat fish for Juan Salvador; and the school boys who after learning there is a penguin living with a teacher on their grounds, they adopt as a mascot, friend, and confidant. The chapter where a shy, outcast school boy swims with Juan Salvado is absolutely first rate.

The book is delightful, heart-warming, and overall fun to read. Juan Salvado is a star in his new land-locked life, carefully integrated into the lives of every person he encounters. I loved it and hope you find it equally satisfying ...much more so than even that very good movie version of his adventures.

[If this book interests you, be sure to check out:] 

  

Montgomery, Sy. The Soul of an Octopus..   

Fascinating up close encounter, study, and even friendship between the author and an aquarium octopus. (Previously reviewed here.)

Happy reading.

Fred

 

Click here to browse over 470 more book recommendations by subject or title

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Memoirs of an Infantry Officer

Siegfried Sassoon. Memoirs of an Infantry Officer: The Memoirs of George Sherston. New York: Coward, McCann. 1930. Print.

First Sentences:

I have said that Spring arrived late in 1916, and that up in the trenches opposite Mametz it seemed as though Winter would last for ever. I also stated that as for me, I had more or less made up my mind to die because in the circumstances there didn't seem anything else to be done.


Description:

Siegfried Sassoon's Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, has been considered the greatest book about World War I ever written. Sassoon, was a writer of dreamy poetic verse until the War came. Then, at age 28, he became an second lieutenant in the British cavalry and sent to the front lines in France where he soon became noted for his compassion for the men serving under him. 

 

Details abound as readers experience every aspect of war through the eyes of British Officer Georege Sherston, Sassoon's fictionalized version of himself. Sherston/Sassoon watch and enter into battles both with his men or alone, with bullets and bombs all around him. The barb wire he confronts is real in Sherston's depictions, as are the smell of chemicals, gun powder, sickness and death. Truly, readers are taken into the trenches to join Sherston and his men live hour by hour in the trenches.

Well, here I was, and my incomplete life might end any minute; for although the evening air was as quiet as a cathedral, a canister soon came over quite enough to shake my meditations with is unholy crash and cloud of black smoke. A rat scampered across the tin cans and burst sandbags, and trench atmosphere reasserted itself in a smell of chloride of lime.

After the death of a friend, however, Sherston turned into "Mad Jack," looking for vengeance against the Germans through carrying out reckless forays behind lines. He was eventually wounded and sent back to England. There, he contemplated the futility and fraud of war and wrote completely different anti-war poetry.

 

In real life, while recovering from his wounds, Sassoon refused to return to the War, publishing his statement in "A Soldier's Declaration." Here he protested the sanitized version of the war promoted by the government, and stating his personal reasons for "refusing to serve further in the army." That powerful anti-war letter is published in full here in Memoirs of an Infantry Officer. Its opening lines are below:

I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it. ...I believe that this war, upon which I entered as a war of defense and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest....

This is the second of three books in Sassoon's fictionalized autobiography series, centering on Sherston, a shy British country gentleman who only knows of horses, cricket, and golf, but finds himself in the trenches of Somme and other battles in the heart of World War I.

 

Powerful, yet beautifully written very penetrating eye witness account of what Sassoon experienced on the front lines, the confidence, the bravery, the horrid conditions, the disillusionment, and the eventual bitterness that led to Sassoon's future anti-war writings. 

 

For any history buff, you cannot go wrong with this realistic depiction of the men, battles, and conditions of World War I. Highest recommendation.

Next evening, just before stand-to, I was watching a smouldering sunset and thinking that the sky was one of the redeeming features of the war. 

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

More book recommendations

About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Crane, Stephen. The Red Badge of Courage.   

The classic narrative novel of the dreams, fears, and disillusionment of a common soldier fighting in the United States Civil War.

 

Rogue Male

Household, Geoffrey. Rogue Male. New York: New York Review of Books 1939. Print.

First Sentences:

 

I cannot blame them. After all, one doesn't need a telescopic sight to shoot boar and bear; so that when they came on me watching the terrace at a range of five hundred and fifty yards, it was natural enough that they should jump to conclusions. And they behaved, I think, with discretion.

Description:

Geoffrey Household's Rogue Male came to my attention because it was repeatedly mentioned in another great book, The Ministry of Time. One of the men, slated to be killed in World War I, was snatched by this experimental Ministry to prove people could be relocated to the present from the past, and also study how these people would adapt to the modern age. And during his time in his new, unfamiliar world of the present, this time traveler was continually reading Rogue Male so many times that the cover fell off. 

 

Now that is a book I just had to explore.

 

Written in 1939, Rogue Male opens with an unnamed British gentleman sportsman lining up his high-powered rifle sights on an unnamed, vicious European foreign leader. As he narrates in this novel, he is unexpectedly apprehended and "questioned," all the while claiming he was just performing an intellectual challenge  just testing whether a skilled hunter could break through this leader's security. This internationally-known hunter escapes his enemies, only to begin months of pursuit and survival.

 

He is doggedly pursued by two men whom, as fellow huntsmen, he cannot shake. He faces confrontations and close escapes, sometimes even confronting them face to face, as he uses his ample wits to flee from one hiding place to another. He must use all his hunting skills avoid capture and, if caught, to insure there is no tie-in to the British government as responsible for his "assassination attempt," even though it was only a mental challenge for him.

And dawn, I think, is the hour when the pariah goes out....It is the hour of the outlawed, the persecuted, the damned, for no man was ever born who could not feel some shade of hope if he were in open country with the sun about to rise.

There is a strong sense of honor, of British dignity, loyalty to country, and general life in rural parts of Europe that provide the backbone of the novel. The narration by the sportsman is formal, clipped, and gripping, although always seeming in control. Heis words and thoughts reminded me a bit of a James Bond figure but without any weapons, gadgets, or exotic locations. Just clear, organized thoughts about his next steps and potential consequences.

 

It is a fairly short book, only 182 pages, but written with such beautiful language that it was a pleasure to spend time enveloped in the mind and words on a pre-WW II British gentleman on the run. Highly recommended for lovers of intrigue, thrillers, survival, and wondrous language.

 

[If this book interests you, be sure to check out:] 

  

Howarth, David. We Die Alone.   

Twelve men try to sabotage a German military post in northern Norway, but only one survives the mission. He swims through freezing water and is forced to elude enemy pursuers through icy Norway, without boots, gloves, shelter, or friends. Riveting true survival story (Previously reviewed here.)

Happy reading.

Fred

 

Click here to browse over 450 more book recommendations by subject or title

(and read the introduction to The First Sentence Reader).

 

My First Hundred Years

Murray, Margaret. My First Hundred Years. London: William Kimber 1963. Print.

First Sentences:

I always think that an autobiography should begin with some account of the forebears and immediate family of the writer so that one can understand some of the early influences which have affected the writer and have helped to make him what he is. My ancestral tree is a very short one going back to only one set of great-great-grandparents, about two hundred. I have quite undistinguished lineage...

Description:

I sought out Margaret Murray's autobiography My First Hundred Years after reading The Dictionary People by Sarah Ogilivie, and discovered Murray was a contributor of more than 5,000 entries to the original Oxford English Dictionary. The words and definitions she sent to the editors (after the call went out to the general public for assistance in finding new items), focused on India where she was born and spent much of her life, as well as her field of Egyptology and also witchcraft. Better still, I found OED contributor Murray had written her autobiography at age 100, something I felt would be extremely interesting to peruse.

And she did not disappoint. Her memory is remarkable for a centenarian (or for anyone for that matter), and her writing style exquisite: free-flowing, descriptive, chatty, and full of interesting details of life as a woman archeologist in that very new field.

Born and raised in Calcutta, India, to wealthy parents, Murray was educated in London where she became interested in archeology, a class she only had taken on a whim. The professor, Sir William Petrie, a pioneer of the new field of Egyptology, took Murray under his wing. She edited and illustrated his writings, eventually accompanying Petrie to Egypt as a site nurse. There she absorbed his methods and discoveries at various sites and soon grew to be a qualified archeologist in her own right. She became a teacher of Egyptian linguists and translator of hieroglyphics at the University of London.

What I loved about her recollections was her attention to details and personal feelings. She related memories of the visit to India of the Prince of Wales, where attending Maharajahs competed to out-dazzle each other in their dress. For example, the Maharajah of Patiala wore a coat with "fronts, color, cuffs, and hem embroidered with gold thread and peals, [and] round his neck he wore at least four graduated rows of diamonds, the longest reaching nearly to his waist."

Her early home life included eating with small silver cutlery (larger ones were never adopted by her father) and, at the end of the meal, having the visiting servants of the invited diners carefully frisked for any valuable spoons they might have pocketed. Her mother encouraged a broad education without focus on a single subject, a technique that so limited Murray's brilliant sister Mary she never could focus on one skill and thus was unable to rise to her potential in piano, mathematics, or language. Murray also recalled tales of the horrific Indian Mutiny as related by her grandmother.

As an Egyptologist, Murray translated inscriptions found in tombs, uncovered a major temple to Osiris constructed by the Pharaoh Seti I, and was the first woman to unwrap an Egyptian mummy. 

Murray later became an ardent supporter of women rights and suffrage, including pushing for acceptance of women in academia and archeology. She expanded her on-going interest in folklore to include witchcraft, a topic on which she wrote many books as well as the entry for the Encyclopedia Britannica on that topic.

Hers was an amazing life, one that is now available to lucky readers to delve into the world of nineteenth century India and twentieth century (and centuries-earlier) Egypt. I was totally fascinated to "listen" to her recall story after story, detail after detail, of the worlds she knew and was eager to share. A lively, lovely story of an important woman's world and achievements. 

 

[If this book interests you, be sure to check out:] 

  

Ogilivie, Sarah. The Dictionary People.    

Carefully details the lives of those people from the general public who contributed words, definitions, and sources for terms to be included in the original Oxford Dictionary. (previously reviewed here)

Happy reading.

Fred

 

Click here to browse over 465 more book recommendations by subject or title

(and read the introduction to The First Sentence Reader).

Beautiful Ugly

Feeney, Alice. Beautiful Ugly. New York: Flatiron. 2025. Print.

First Sentences:

 

If all we need is love, why do we always want more? I dial her number. Again. Finally she answers.

Description:

I think Alice Feeney is one of my favorite "soft" thriller writers. Author of the twisty, gripping books Sometimes I Lie and Rock, Paper, Scissors among others, she takes ordinary people, often couples, and explores their personalities, relationships, dreams, and foibles that lead them into very tense, maybe threatening situations. No ax murders here, just edge-of-your-seat, something-funny-is-going-on-here, don't-know-what's-behind-that-door-that-I'm-about-to-foolishly-open kind of situation found on every page.  

 

Feeney's newest thriller, Beautiful Ugly is another fantastic read, full of sudden surprises, quirky characters, unexpected plot twists, and slightly unnerving settings. It opens with an author, Grady Green, talking on the phone with his wife while she is driving home to see him. She suddenly says she sees a body in the road and will stop to help. Grady warns her not to get out of the car, to stay safe, but she gets out anyways. That is the last she is heard from.

One year later, Grady is struggling. He desperately misses his best friend wife. He cannot afford mortgage payments on their house, so moves to a cheap hotel while trying to write the second novel he is contracted to produce (and has spent the advance for).

Fortunately, his publishing agent has inherited a small "writing cabin" from a former writer/client on a remote island in Scotland. She feels Grady needs a quiet environment to produce his required novel, and the cabin might be just what he needs. She will sponsor him with her own money for a few months in hopes he can free himself from his block and produce a new book.

But once settled into the luxurious cabin Grady makes a discovery that might change his fortune, despite the far-ranging risks involved. While considering which path to follow, he begins to notice strange things about the island and its people. With no phone coverage, no internet, and not way of communicating with the non-island world, Grady soon feels an unease that makes him question his sanity.

All this happens in the first few pages, so I am not giving away the real plot that unfolds from this point. Alice Feeney is the master of her characters glimpsing things out of the corner of their eye, reading questions into seemingly ordinary situations, and misinterpreting everyday conversations. 

All this leads to a very tense, unputdownable story. It only reveals its secrets in the final pages, and even then there are several completely unpredictable revelations.

I really enjoyed letting this plot, characters, and environment engulf me completely. Pick it up if you like to follow a lead character experience confidence, questions, suspicion, anger, and uncertainty in his life among an unusual village full of quirky townspeople that he cannot quite figure out if they or he is crazy. 

 

[If this book interests you, be sure to check out:] 

  

Feeney, Alice. Sometimes I Lie.   

A woman wakes from a coma without any memory of how she got there or anything about her past few months. She cannot talk or move, so people visiting her do now know she can hear them. Slowly from their conversations and foggy memories, she begins to piece together incidents that led to her hospitalization and current situation, and not everything she learns is positive. (Previously reviewed here.)

Happy reading.

Fred

 

Click here to browse over 450 more book recommendations by subject or title

(and read the introduction to The First Sentence Reader).

 

Food for Thought

Brown, Alton. Food for Thought: Essays and Ruminations. New York: Gallery Books 2025. Print.

First Sentences:

 

I am sitting in front of a bowl, a spoon a box,and a bottle, and I'mbeginning to break out in just a wee bit of a cold sweat.

Description:

I been a long-time fan of Alton Brown and his goofy, informative cooking shows such as Good Eats (16 seasons) and Iron Chef America (13 seasons). These television entertainments provided even non-cooks like me an entertaining introduction to the wonders and science behind preparing delicious food.

Now Brown had created a book, Food for Thought: Essays and Ruminations, chock full of his memories and wide-ranging thougts about his career with food. 

These short essays cover such diverse topics as "Biscuiteering," "Bad Day at the Bakeshop," "Luau from Hell," "The Turkey Man Cometh," "The Sip of the Civilized" and "Cooking: The Final (Marriage) Frontier." In other words, Brown shares everything running through his mind, from making the perfect martini to cooking hacks, as well as his disastrous introductions to Cap'n Crunch cereal and s'mores.

It is not a book of recipes, although he does share his Horcrux meal (something that contains a part of him), the perfect martini (stirred, not shaken), and a few other tips on meal preparation and tools. And believe me, he has strong opinions. It is not a How-To book, but more of a collection of his rambling thoughts.

Here's a sample from inside his brain:

• The Son of Blob story about the discarded bread dough Brown had put into the restaurant dumptster that expanded to gigantic size and oozed out of the metal container;

• The first bite of a Cortona, Italy pizza which was so delicious that he used it to define his life "before the bite and life after the bite....To say it was just six simple ingredients would be like saying Pollock's Autumn Rhythym is just four colors of paint";

• He self-taught himself to cook in college to "lure" plan to woman to be interested in him. First, he will give her a simple, cheap meal (spaghetti and meatballs). Then, if all goes well, a second invitation to a slightly more costly one (coq au van). Finally, a third meal to close the deal with an expensive serving (sole florentine au gratin. Unfortunately, his first date cancelled at the last minute and he thoroughly enjoyed the meal by himself;

• [Note: About that seduction-through-meals-plan] - Brown states, "I harbored no illusions of actually bedding anyone; a bit of hand-holding on the sofa or a good-night kiss would have ranked as a major victory." He only cooked one more meal to win a woman's affection and burned the spaghetti, but won her heart and she eventually married him]; 

• "The word chef when preceded by the adverb yes becomes a subtle yet effective form of "f**k you." 

• He conceived of a new type of cooking show to be "a juxtaposition of unrelated forms" based on the style of Julia Child (practical), Mr. Wizard (science), and Monty Python ("laughing brains are more absorbant');

• The theme song for Good Eats was, at Brown's insistence, catchy and only 10 notes long in order to be used in the new 1997 cell phones and their customizable ring tones;

• Eating with chopsticks helped him lose weight;

• To get youngsters to eat food they refuse, just tell them they can't have any of it anyways because it is adult food;

• Once after sampling a soup on Iron Chef America" that contained oysters (which he is allergic to) he threw up repeatedly on the set and ended up in the ER.

I could go on and on with engaging tidbits from Brown, but I'll leave the rest of the discovery to those who read his book in full. Haven't laughed out loud at a book in a long time, so as you can tell I really enjoyed his behind-the-scenes stories, quips about life, and of course, cooking advice/failures/triumphs. 

Read it even if you don't know anything about food or its preparation, but love delightfully written stories that will definite make you at least smile and msybe even laugh out loud as I did.

 

[If this book interests you, be sure to check out:] 

  

Pepim Jacques. The Apprentice.   

The autobiography of the chef who popularized French cooking in the United States. Includes his recollections about his French training, apprenticeships, and first restaurants, all told in his clear, personal writing style. Highly enjoyable, even for non-foodies. (Previously reviewed here.)

 

Happy reading.

Fred

 

Click here to browse over 435 more book recommendations by subject or title

(and read the introduction to The First Sentence Reader).