Underfoot in Show Business

Hanff, Helene. Underfoot in Show Business. New York : Little, Brown & Co, 1960. Print.

First Sentences:

We'll begin with the law that governs the life of every one of the 999 from the day he or she first arrives in New York, which was first explained to me by a stage manager named Bill Flanagan. Flanagan's law of the theatre is:

               "No matter what happens to you, it's unexpected."

Description:

Helene Hanff, author of Underfoot in Show Business, is probably best known as the author and main character of her book, 84 Charing Cross Road.  But prior to this memoir of books and correspondence with a rare book dealer in London post-World War II, Hanff was an aspiring playwright in New York City. Her day-to-day hopes, meetings with producers and agents, struggles to find money to live, and interacting with friends in similarly tenacious circumstances in the theater world now are all wonderfully recollected in this delightful memoir.

Hanff entered a play-writing contest sponsored by the Bureau of New Plays with three submissions. She was later contacted by Terry Helburn of The Theatre Guild, a high-end group that produced new plays. Helburn told Hanff at their first meeting that "Your plays are terrible....Just terrible!....Never mind. You have talent." She had picked Hanff's plays out of the contest submissions (which Hanff did not win) and decided to help Hanff rework those plays so the Guild might produce them. 

So Hanff was enrolled in the Guild's seminar for new playwrights, which once included Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller. But the four current Guild-produced plays, including one by Lee Strasberg, all flopped, so Hanff's pieces never saw the stage. But she now had an in and was off and running.

Thus begins a world of Hanff where she took any sort of job that left time for writing (waitress, secretary, and play-reader who recommends works for production). These jobs leave time for daily visits to agents who send her scripts to producers. These producers in turn express interest in her new work, then, after weeks of inquiries from Hanff, reveal to her they had promptly forgotten about them. There's even a chapter explaining this process called, "If They Take You to Lunch, They don't Want Your Play."

Meanwhile, Hanff and her struggling actress friend Maxine learn to explore New York with little or no money. She explains how they sneak into every movie or play. For plays, they waited outside in the cold for the intermission, then mixed in and followed the real theater-goers inside, locating vacant seats to enjoy the second half. Sneaking into movies involved attending to the last showing and then walking in after the box office and ticket takers had closed for the night. One time, they even paid full price...with US mail stamps stolen from Hanff's office. Maxine came up with these plans due to her "unflagging imagination and the nerve of Naploeon."

One of Hanff's jobs entailed stuffing envelopes and mailing 10,000 publicity notices for the new American Folk Opera, "Away We Go." The title was changed at the last minute to..."Oklahoma."

It sounds fine to you: you're used to it. But do me a favor and imagine you're working in a theatre and somebody tell you your new musical is to be called "New Jersey." Or "Maine."

Then, after folding and stuffing several hundred press releases publicizing this play with its new title, it was decided that "Oklahoma" need an exclamation point. Since the title "Oklahoma" appeared three times in each press release, Hanff had to add 30,000 exclamation points by hand to the new releases.

She loved being an outside reader in 1947 where she read and summarized a play or novel every day and two on the weekend, receiving $6 per each summary. She explains how she can read (i.e., "skim") works to allow time for her own writing. One book, which appeared in three volumes, allowed her to double her usual fee:

What I read during that nightmare weekend--taking notes of all place names, characters' names and events therein--was fifteen hundred stupefying pages of the sticky mythology of J.R.R. Tolkien....and phoning several friends to say good-bye because suicide seemed so obviously preferable to five hundred more pages.

Of course, things eventually improve for Hanff but not in the theater world. Rather, she begins writing scripts for the new medium, television. Maxine got a job as the Blue Cheer detergent girl and convinced Hanff to take a job writing weekly Ellery Queen mystery stories at $200 a show. The difficulty was each show could only have five characters: Ellery Queen and his father, the murdered character, and two suspects, as well as two "five-liners" who could only speak five lines.

As you might guess, I loved immersing myself into the theater world of the 40's and 50s and beyond. Hanff is a exquisite tongue-in-cheek writer who clearly views her life and those around her with a clever, caustic, and very humorous eye. If you enjoy great writing, intimate look into the world of struggling playwrights and theater production, as well as life in New York City for struggling artists, then Underfoot in Show Business is definitely for you.

  

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

 Hanff, Helene. 84 Charing Cross Road

Hanff, a struggling, poor writer, wants to buy classic rare books unavailable in the United States, so contacts a used book dealer in London. Their witty, intelligent, and personal correspondence is delightful to read. 

 Happy reading.

Fred

[P.S. Click here to browse over 500 more book recommendations by subject or title and read the introduction to The First Sentence Reader.]

 

You Can't Win

 Black Jack. You Can't Win. New York : MacMillan 1926. Print.

First Sentences:

I am now librarian of the San Francisco Call. Do I look like one?

 

Description:

Hardly the opening sentence for the autobiography of a lifelong criminal, a thief who spent the greater portion of his life either stealing, incarcerated in jail, or on the run from police. But such is the start of this fascinating memoir from the author/criminal Jack Black in his 1926 book of detailing his life of crime, You Can't Win. Interestingly, this was a favorite book of William S. Burroughs, author of Naked Lunch, as well as several other Beat writers.

Black was born in the late 1800s and, after his mother died when he was 10, lived with his father in a hotel. Because his father traveled often for business, Black was placed in a Catholic school for four years until he aged out and returned to the hotel life. Unsupervised by his father for weeks, often months at a time, he obtained small jobs like collecting bills for the milkman and minding a tobacco shop (which the owner used as a front for illegal gambling). These jobs brought him in contact with former Civil War soldiers, drunks, gamblers, prostitutes, bums, thieves, and others who were, in his words, "bad men." 

 

At 20 he left "home" and began life as a "Yegg," that is, a beggar/thief, who hitched rides on trains, robbed homes, held up people by gunpoint, blew up safes, and was constantly on the lookout for "coppers."

My background is crowded with robberies, burglaries, and thefts too numerous to recall. All manner of crimes against property. Arrests, trials, acquittals, convictions, escapes. Penitentiaries! I see in the background four of them. County jails, workhouses, city prisons, Mounted Police barracks, dungeons, solitary confinement, bread and water, hanging up, brutal floggings, and the murderous straitjacket. I see hop joints, wine dumps, thieves' resorts, and beggars' hangouts. Crime followed by swift retribution in one form or another. I had very few glasses of wine as I traveled this route. I rarely saw a woman smile and seldom heard a song. In those twenty-five years I took all these things, and I am going to write about them. And I am going to write about them as I took them - with a smile.

After Black left home for the road, he met up with various other wandering men with colorful names such as "Smiler," "Foot-'n'-a-half George," "Salt Chunk Mary," "Soldier Johnnie, and "The Sanctimonious Kid." They taught him through example how to determine a source of money to steal, painstakingly prepare for all contingencies, investigate escape routes, execute the plan, and hopefully hop on a nearby train, leaving nothing behind of your presence in the town. All clothes used in a crime episode were always immediately discarded and any rental rooms cleaned out. Guns, seldom used except in stick-ups as a threat, were often thrown away as well, as they were cheap and readily available in those days. 

But the risks Black undertakes are high. Even with careful planning, things often go wrong. Statistically, burglars are successful only one in five attempts and are often shot at by homeowners or attacked by household dogs. Safes need to be exploded, the sound often raising the owners' interest and subsequent capture of the thief. Train guards were a constant threat as they were known to savagely beat up or even kill anyone they found jumping onto their trains for a free ride.

It was a grim life as well. Several of his fellow thieves were killed during a job with him. He was often jailed, waiting trial for months until shipped to a penitentiary for long-term sentences. He was betrayed by several people through their perjury in court, resulting in his convictions when there was little proof he committed the crimes. He endured solitary confinement, 30 lashes with a whip, and being bound up in a full-body straight jacket, a then-recently invented device that often drove prisoners completely insane after only a few hours trussed up in it.

He does meet people who are kind to him, whether fences, fellow prisoners, lawyers, judges, or simply people sympathetic enough to him to help him obtain legal help. He was even assisted in escaping several jail cells by friends who smuggled in files for him to saw through window bars. Once, he sawed for several nights under the nose of his drunk jailer. In several jails, he was given books from the prison library and passed the empty hours in his cell reading voraciously.

There is some ironic humor in several of his experiences. He and two partner picked the lock of their cell, left the jail and blew up a safe, hid its contents, then went back to their cells, achieving the perfect alibi. Once after two months' planning, Black blew a safe containing the local miners' weekly pay, but the exploded safe fell forward onto its door, thus preventing Black from opening it. He once buried a stash of stolen money in a vacant lot, only to return months later to claim it only to find a building had been constructed over his hiding place. In prison, he ordered cheap jewelry from mail order catalogs, then sold them at a profit to visitors who were told the items were "stolen stuff" smuggled into the jailhouse.

Although Black was twenty-five year thief, an opium addict, and Faro gambler, he brought an honesty and clarity to his world and the people he encountered. He was a thinker, whether in planning a job or wondering at length about the influences on a man which shapes his life, and how much one can control his own destiny. His writing in this autobiography is straightforward, thoughtful, and full of details that bring his world, the people he encountered, his jobs, and his personality into sharp focus.

Black does eventually give up his criminal life, kick his addictions, and secure lawful employment as a librarian no less. And with his former life behind him, he wrote this book. 

While this may not sound like an attractive read, believe me Jack Black is a wonderful writer with a compelling story to tell. You Can't Win paints a historical picture of the society of the late 1800-early 1900s that is both vivid and revealing.  I found this book tremendously engrossing and gets my highest recommendation for everyone.

The thought of turning to the right, squaring myself, and starting anew never entered my mind. Probably youthful egotism, which is nothing but confidence born of ignorance, whispered to me that I could beat a game I knew to be wrong and full of dangers....I knew I was wrong, and yet I persisted....I thought in terms of theft. Houses were built to be burglarized, citizens were to be robbed, police to be avoided and hated, stool pigeons to be chastised, and thieves to be cultivated and protected. That was my code; the code of my companions. That was the atmosphere I breathed. 

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

 Lowrie, Donald. My Life in Prison

In the early 1900s, the author, after stealing a watch and purse valued at about $100 is sentenced to 15 years in San Quentin prison. In this fascinating book, he recalls his life as a prisoner, from food to riots to friendships and the strait jacket punishment that drove men insane. Brilliantly recorded, shocking at times, and revealing of a world, both positive and negative, that few of us know about. (Previously reviewed here)

 Happy reading.

Fred

[P.S. Click here to browse over 500 more book recommendations by subject or title and read the introduction to The First Sentence Reader.]

An Unsung Hero

Smith, Michael. An Unsung Hero: Tom Crean - Arctic Survivor New York : Gill Books, 2000. Print.

First Sentences:

Thomas Crean was born on 20 July 1877 at Gurtachrane, a remote farming area a short distance to the west of the village of Anascaul on the Dingle Peninsula, in Ireland's County Kerry....The Contrast with the hostile, frozen Antarctic Continent where Crean would carve a remarkable career could hardly be more stark.

Description:

I've always been drawn to non-fiction memoirs, biographies, and re-tellings of explorations, adventures, resourcefulness, and survival under difficult conditions. How do these people overcome the obstacles they face daily? Where do they get the strength and will to press on? Sometimes I even wonder how I would have fared should I have been alongside these brave people (No question here, I would have done poorly and given up at a very early stage).

 

Thomas Crean is not a man who gave up. While his name is not familiar to most of us, I was given his biography by friends who visited a museum in Ireland dedicated to his exploits. He was a survivor, a conqueror of more than a few death-defying situations, and someone truly respected by the great Arctic explorers of his time, enough so that they requested him accompany them on several dangerous expeditions to that unknown world.

 

Thomas Crean was a shipmate with Ernest Shackleton on Robert Falcon Scott's ambitious  voyage to explore for the first time Antarctica, an "unknown and hostile territory." This was to be a hugely dangerous but prestigious and widely popular undertaking.

The Discovery expedition to one of the world's last unconquered spots had aroused huge interest in the English-speaking world. It was regarded by many as something of a virility symbol for Britain at a time when the Victorian age had finally drawn to a close, and the Empire was under severe strain in places like South Africa and Ireland.

Thomas Crean, an Irish seaman assigned to another ship helping to outfit Scott's Discovery for the expedition, was chosen to replace a discharged Discovery crew member at the last minute and thus gained a spot on the voyage and an introduction to the Antarctic. Although Crean proved popular with mates and officers alike, it was Scott himself who doomed the voyage.

[Scott] determined that the expedition would use traditional British methods of traveling, which meant man-hauling sledges across the ice, rather than the more suitable dogs and skis. Dogs were quicker, hard working and at worst, could be eaten by the other dogs or the explorers themselves.

Once in Antarctica, instead of dropping off a small group of men to explore and map local areas while the Discovery wintered safely in New Zealand, Scott chose that everyone would spend the winter safely iced up in -40 degree weather for nine months to await the "warmer" season when exploration was possible. Thus Crean and his shipmates were introduced to the cold, inhospitable land, making forays over the ice on day trips, hauling massive sleds with supplies by their own strength after their Siberian horses proved unable to walk, much less pull sleds over broken ice fields. The horses quickly died and were eaten.

Man-haulers during this era were plagued by the intense, cold, frostbite, blizzards, hurricane-force winds, snow blindness, life-threatening-crevasses and one final indignity -- they were always thirsty and hungry....The British...took special pride in the ability to cope with hardship, the test of real men pitted against the worst the elements could throw at them. ...They gloried in the hardship and seemed unable or unwilling to adapt to more modern, less arduous methods of travel, such as dogs and skis.

Crean became one of the best of these man-haulers, never weakening in his responsibility to not let his piece of harness go slack, and encouraged other haulers to keep them going and alive. They covered an average of only 6-12 back-breaking miles a day. Roland Amundsen, a rival explorer also trying to be the first to reach the South Pole at the same time, was familiar with travel on ice. He studied the natives in Norway and, using their proven methods with dogs and skis, and was able to cover 60 miles a day without men hauling the sleds. Guess which man made it to the Pole first and which one died on the cross-continent trip back?

Crean survived this ill-fated voyage and undertook two other Arctic trips with Ernest Shackelton, including the famous disastrous trip where Shackelton, Crean and crew were so badly iced in that their ship, the Endurance, broke up into pieces. Some of the men, including Crean, were forced to haul boats miles over the ice to the open sea and then try to row hundreds of miles without instruments to seek help for the men left behind.

Crean also, when a fellow crewmate was disabled on an multi-day exploratory trek, volunteered to go get help by jumping on floating ice floes to work his way back to their base camp. He even survived falling into a deep crevasse, using only his physical strength and willpower, an incredible feat.

Adventure after hair-raising encounter with challenges, death and despair fill the pages of An Unsung Hero, forcing readers to marvel at Crean's perseverance, strength, and positive attitude. It's a detailed examination of the outdated British methods of exploration and unqualified leaders and crew, life of men stuck on a ship for months of sunless cold, as well as the personal triumphs for those who flourished when facing hardships.

It's a page-turner of a story of an extraordinary man and his survival in the last glorious age of exploration where the world breathlessly followed the progress of brave men, hailed their triumphs, and mourned their defeats. And Tom Crean was in the middle of it all, and survived to tell of these exploits and the men who endured them. Highly recommended, of course.

  

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

 Lansing, Alfred. Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage

Classic, minutely-detailed, and gripping account of Ernest Shackleton's ill-fated adventure to cross the Antarctic. One of his most trusted crew members was Thomas Crean, chronicled in the above book.

 Happy reading.

Fred

[P.S. Click here to browse over 500 more book recommendations by subject or title and read the introduction to The First Sentence Reader.] 

The Last Policeman

Winters, Ben. The Last Policeman. Philadelphia : Quirk Books. 2012

First Sentences:

I'm staring at the insurance man and he's staring at me, two cold gray eyes behind old-fashioned tortoiseshell frames, and I'm having this awful and inspiring feeling, like holy moly this is real, and I don't know if I'm ready. I really don't, 

Description:

Sometimes I am attracted to a book by the setting alone, hoping to see how major characters deal with foreign, often threatening situations caused by their environment and the forces faced. Such books include The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (stranger in a magical land); The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury (evolving human settlement of Mars); Seveneves by Neal Stephenson (Earth's moon blows up on the first page and humans have 18 months to figure out how to preserve some form of mankind); and even Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchel (living in a Civil War-torn country).

 

Ben Winters' The Last Policeman is exactly such a book. Here is the situation: Earth scientists have discovered a monstrous-sized asteroid heading for earth and are 100% certain it will hit Earth in six months with the destructive force that killed the dinosaurs. 

Hearing this news, people have reacted differently, from quitting jobs, pursuing Bucket List adventures, delving into drugs to leave the world high, and more and more commonly, suicide.

 

In this world of small town Concord, New Hampshire, Detective Hank Palace narrates the tale of how he tries to preserve his sense of order and justice. Recently promoted to Detective (since so many police officers above him had simply left the police department), Palace finds himself in his dream job. But he is surrounded by fellow officers who are unwilling to make any effort to confront crime. 

Detective Palace, nonetheless, doggedly pursues a new case, the suicide of a man found in a MacDonald's bathroom. Palace believes this, his first murder, is not a suicide as all appearances point to. Fellow officers, the Police Chief, the coroner, and even the victim's sister all feel this is merely one of a huge number of self-inflicted deaths, an act easily explained by the hopeless despondency felt worldwide.

 

But Palace is not to be deterred. There was no phone found on the body, an expensive belt was used in the hanging, and the location was an unusual one. Palace digs in, exploring seemingly minor leads and people to understand who this man was, his work, his relationships, his emotions, and any possible reasons to do away with himself.

 

Working in this highly tense environment, Palace is in contact with people who demonstrate they have no hope left, have religious convictions of salvation, feel they have uncovered highly secretive plots, want to lead believers to safe underground compounds, and even those who dream of space travel to the secret moon colonies the government has hidden from the world.

 

Crackpots, fanatics, dreamers, rebels, and even a few ordinary people who accept their inevitable fate are part of people Palace must interrogate to try to wring out of them the circumstances of this man's life and whether Palace's theory of murder is any more than just a fancy. And all this occurs in a world with unreliable phone service, businesses shut down, gasoline unavailable, and when friends, colleagues, and everyday people you meet one day are gone forever the next day from their jobs, homes, or life itself.

I would characterize the mood, here in town, as that of the child who isn't in trouble yet, but knows he's going to be....He's sullen and snappish, he's on edge. Confused, sad, trembling against the knowledge of what's coming next, and right on the edge of violence, not angry be anxious in a way that can easily shade ito anger.  

Clever, twisty, completely unexpected, and totally involving, The Last Policeman is a gripping, fascinating deep dive into a world so foreign, yet so possible, along with the people who have to plan and then undertake the manner of how they will live out their final days.

 

Best of all, there are two more Detective Palace books available (Countdown City and World of Trouble). Of course, I immediately borrowed these from the library and absorbed them. One is set with only three months before Earth's destruction, and the last one takes place with only a few weeks to go. They both were fantastic, but you must start with The Last Policeman. It's a delightful, thought-provoking, wild ride.

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

 Stephenson, Neal. Seveneves

In the first sentence, the Earth's moon blows up and scientists worldwide predict the debris will begin raining down on Earth in 18 months. It is up to the combined resources of the world to somehow address this situation and try to survive this cataclysmic disaster to preserve the human race. It's simply the best sci-fi novel ever. (Previously reviewed here.)

 Happy reading.

Fred

[P.S. Click here to browse over 500 more book recommendations by subject or title and read the introduction to The First Sentence Reader.]

O Pioneers

Cather, Willa. O Pioneers. New York : Everyman's Library. 1913. Print.

First Sentences:

One January day, thirty years ago, the little town of Hanover, anchored on a windy Nebraska tableland, was trying not to be blown away. A mist of fine snowflakes was curling and eddying about the cluster of low drab buildings, huddles on the gray prairie, under a gray sky. The dwelling houses were set about haphazard on the tough prairie sod; some of them looked as if they had been moved in overnight, and others as if they were straying off by themselves, headed straight for the open plain. 

Description:

Right from the openng sentences, O Pioneers! by Willa Cather pulls readers into the windswept tiny settlement of Hanover, Nebraska at the turn of the nineteenth century. One cannot help but picture the desolation, the cold, and the emptiness that surrounds the people who are trying to scratch out a new town and solidify their own lives against tremendous obstacles. They are immigrants, German, Bohemian, Czech, and Swedish, who are shaped by the land as much as they try to wrestle the same land to work for them.

This novel first brought author Cather to the attention of the literary world as it sparingly recounts the courage, fortitude, and resourcefulness of one woman, Alexandra Bergson, a Bohemian daughter with two younger brothers. 

As her father began to weaken with a long illness, he turned over the operational decisions of the farm to his eldest daughter, Alexandra. His decision was constantly challenged by her two strong but less-mentally capable brothers who did the heavy work in the fields and felt they should have more say in the land's future. 

 

After the father's death, the acreage was equally divided among the three siblings with each having completelcontrol over a segment. But is is Alexandra and her section which succeeds, further evoking the complaints and envy of her brothers. Faced with natural forces of drought and stubborn soil, as well as the doubts of her two brothers over her management ideas, Alexandra definitely became a force to be reckoned with.  

Years pass and Alexandra began to make the farm flourish and even expand. But there is a cost. She becomes isolated from the one man who clearly loves her and courts her to no avail. She is simply too busy dealing with the everyday challenges and decisions of a struggling farm, as well as planning for its future.

How terrible it was to love people when you could not really share their lives!

O Pioneers! is the first of Willa Cather's Prairie Trilogy series (along with My Antonia and Song of the Lark), all set in the plains of Nebraska in the early 1900s. (She eventually won the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours). I have only read My Antonia and had the same admiration and warm feeling about the Nebraska land, the time, and the families. My Antonia is an equally absorbing novel which follows the lives of two children who grow up together on the prairies. I recommend both books for lovers of great writing, setting, and characters. 

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

 Young, Carrie. Nothing To Do But Stay

Memoirs of a woman living alone on the prairies of North Dakota after her husband died. The enthralling stories of her keeping a household, raising children, and surviving by cooking for field workers make this book a wonderfully engrossing read with my highest recommendation.   (Previously reviewed here.)

 Happy reading.

Fred

[P.S. Click here to browse over 500 more book recommendations by subject or title and read the introduction to The First Sentence Reader.]

The Novel Cure

Berthoud, Ella and Elderkin, Susan. The Novel Cure: From Abandonment to Zestlessness; 751 Books to Cure What Ails You. New York : Penguin 2013. Print.

First Sentences:

This is a medical handbook -- with a difference. First of all, it does not discriminate between emotional pain and physical pain -- you're as likely to find a cure within these pages for a broken heart as a broken leg....But there's another difference, too: our medicines are not something you'll find at the drugstore, but at the bookshop, in the library, or downloaded onto your electronic reading device. 

 

We are bibliotherapists, and the tools of our trade are books.

Description:

Want suggestions of books to read which understand what you are feeling at a specific time? Which can provide characters undergoing the same emotions you are feeling? Which might relieve your mind through laughter, wisdom, or just escapism? Which even can possibly suggest courses of action to ease your mind (or demonstrate roads not to take)?

 

Then check out The Novel Cure: From Abandonment to Zestlessness; 751 Books to Cure What Ails You by Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin. Here you will find one to five titles and short descriptions of several books each relevant to whatever mood you are in and which expand plots and characters facing similar emotions. The authors consider themselves bibliotherapists, playing a similar role as doctors who prescribe specific medicines for specific illnesses of patients.

 

Taking some random flips through this book, I found:

• Flying. Fear of: (see Night Flight by Antoine de Saint-Exupery) - describes the fears of a aviator mail carrier wrestling in a flimsy two-seat plane with a cyclone in South America;

• Happiness, Searching for: (see Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury) - describes the conflict of direction faced by a fireman of the future assigned to burn books;

• Pessimism: (see Robinson Caruso by Daniel Defoe) - describes one man shaping his own destiny rather than giving in to circumstances; 

• Risks, Not Taking Enough of: (see The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes) - describes "being drenched in regrets for an underlived life."

There are other special categories with corresponding suggested books and descriptions as well as words of wisdom to deal with each Topic, such as:

• 10 Best Lists - including Audiobooks; Big Fat Tomes; Best Novels for Fortysomethings (every decade milestone is covered); Shocking Novels; Novels to Cheer You Up; For When You're Locked Out; To Drown Out Snoring; For Plane Journeys; To Read in a Hammock"; etc.

• Reading Aliments - including Being a Compulsive Book Buyer, Too Many Children Requiring Attention, Refusal to Give Up Halfway, Put Off By Hype, Seduced by New Books, Tendency to Skim, Desire to Seem Well-Read, Tendency to Read Instead of Live, etc.

Of course, the book is carefully indexed so you can quickly find books by title, author, ailment, or Ten Best lists. 

 

So many book titles I had not heard of but, with their detailed, easy-to-read, often humorous annotations, made me expand my To Be Read list by many, many new temptations.

 

Give it a browse. No need to read it cover to cover as I did just because each new section seemed compelling and full of interesting titles for me. Skim through it and see if you don't find the exact book you need for whatever you are feeling. I'm certain you will find multiple gens just right fir you.

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

 Prose, Francine. What To Read and Why.

Thirty-three short chapters on specific, can't-be-missed books by titles and lucid descriptions, as well as special sections for highly recommended books by subject. (Previously reviewed here.)

 Happy reading.

Fred

[P.S. Click here to browse over 500 more book recommendations by subject or title and read the introduction to The First Sentence Reader.]

The Healing Power of Korean Letter Writing

Mun, Juhee. The Healing Power of Korean Letter Writing. New York : Ten Speed Press. 2025. Print.

First Sentences:

It's hard to find anyone who doesn't like letters. We feel a thrill when we receive them. One of their charms is that we can't see what's inside right away: there's an anticipation in unsealing the mysteries held within.

Description:

Sometimes we need a book that presents a reality that restores our faith in humankind. A world where people are friendly, curious, and good. A place where strangers seek to communicate in a kind manner, displaying their interest in the lives of others on a highly satisfying and very personal level.

Such a book is the delicate, wonderful The Healing Power of Korean Letter Writing, by Juhee Mun. Mun opened a small lettershop in Seoul in 2019 called "Geulwoll," which is "a native Korean word, a respectful term meaning 'letter'." In her shop she sells fine writing materials from high end pens and variety of luscious papers to envelopes, stamps and books about writing.

But most importantly what Geulwoll provides the public are letter-writing spaces for people to sit down and actually compose letters. Customers purchase products and often remain in the shop to create  letters.For me, that's an amazingly comforting sight to imagine. 

 

The shop owner/author also is fascinated by her customers and describes her experiences watching and helping them. She writes about her own personal preferences as well, including her best places to write, best times, best opening lines, drafts, endings, and even replies. Here are a few samples of what Mun observes in her shop and life:

• That which takes longer to arrive stays longer in the heart. I think that is why we turn to letters when we want people to remember us;

•  I believe that letter writing is an act of storytelling;

• Letters have the power to remind us of the people who've made us who we are today.

• Respite from loneliness, however brief, isn't found in the grand or the extravagant, but in the little, simple things -- a pleasant autumn breeze, a sweet dessert, or a letter just for me. Within simplicity we find serenity, and though the moment may be fleeting, our hearts grow peaceful for a while.

• When there's something I can't speak out loud, I can still write, no matter how uncomfortable it may feel to do so. Thus I try not to package up the letter solely as something beautiful; otherwise, it's impossible to be authentic as I sit before a blank sheet of paper.

There is also some charming advice that any correspondents might find useful, from selecting stamps to choosing the correct slot in a Korean mailbox, from using a post office itself to delivering the letter by hand. 

The shop also has an anonymous Pen Pal area where people may drop off letters into a box about their lives, questions, problems, etc. They then may select another anonymous letter to simply read or possibly begin corresponding with that stranger via the shopkeeper as go-between to preserve anonymity. 

For a few short hours, I found myself dreamily envisioning myself in Geulwoll, carefully perusing writing papers and even expensive pens for the first time, then settling down in a quiet corner to write to my wife, son, and a few other special people in my life. It's a magical image for me, one that flows throughout this brief book. Maybe it will transport you to that small Korean letter-writing shop as well.

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

 Youngson, Anne. Meet Me At the Museum

Simply a wonderful book about two people corresponding from half a world apart. The gentleness and affection for their worlds and eventually each other is transporting. It's the best. (Previously reviewed here.)

 Happy reading.

Fred

[P.S. Click here to browse over 500 more book recommendations by subject or title and read the introduction to The First Sentence Reader.] 

Hatchet

 Paulsen, Gary. Hatchet. New York : Simon & Schuster 1987. Print.

 

First Sentences:

Brian Robeson stared out the window of the small plane at the endless green northern wilderness below. It was a small plane, a Cessna 406 -- a bushplane -- and the engine was so loud so roaring and consuming and loud, that it ruined any chance for conversation. Not that he had much to say.


Description:

Just because a book is labeled as being in the "Young Adult" genre doesn't mean it is not worthy of attention by adults, too. Such is the case of Hatchet by Gary Paulsen. Many of you may already know of this book (and many of Paulsen's other works) after reading it to your youngsters or watching them become engrossed while reading its story for themselves as teens. 

 

For me, it was cleaning out my bookshelves. I came across a worn version that both our son and I had read and re-read several times, although in my case not for many years. I decided I needed a bolstering adventure tale so started reading it again. In only a couple of days, I finished the nail-biting adventure, fully satisfied with the writing, characters, setting, and of course the survival story of thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson, lost deep in the Canadian woods.

Brian, flying in a small bush plane for a visit with his father in backwoods Canada, has to crash land the plane after the pilot suffers a heart attack and dies in the skies over the middle of nowhere. Brian manages to scramble out of his seat and finds himself in a dense, lonesome forest surrounding the lake where he crashed.

 

As a city boy who knows virtually nothing about the outdoors, Brian is faced with the conclusion that no one knows where he is or even whether he is alive. Therefore, left on his own, he must learn how to find shelter, eat, and ward off any threats to his survival.

 

The rest of the book follows his self-taught education into forest lore and the creatures and environment that surround him. He learns, slowly, frustratingly, and sometimes painfully how to manage his life day to day, alone.

 

And that is the story. I found the challenges faced by Brian to be realistic as were his solutions, including the choices he made that did not work in his favor. I was caught up in the life alone in the woods and continually wondered whether I would have addressed the situation and survived or just ... I don't know, gave up?

 

It is a gripping tale, a very personal experience narrated by Brian as he struggles with new challenges virtually every hour.  Author Paulsen is an extremely gifted writer of YA books and has related that he himself had experienced in his own life each of Brian's challenges, thus adding to the realistic adventures and mindset of Brian in his foreign world.

 

There are several other adventures in the Brian Robeson survival series, each one great although I enjoyed Brian's Winter the most for its completely different challenges he faces in the bitter cold season (see below).

 

Highly recommended for your own reading and especially to read aloud or give as a gift to a curious young person seeking adventure and a voice they can understand and identify with. 

  

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

Paulsen, Gary. Brian's Winter.

What if Brian had not been saved before the bitter cold of winter arrived in his woods? How could he survive, even using his newly-discovered forestry skills? A gripping adventure full of adventure, obstacles, hardships, and triumphs.

Happy reading.

 

Fred

[P.S. Click here to browse over 500 more book recommendations by subject or title and read the introduction to The First Sentence Reader.]

Island at the Edge of the World

Pitts, Mike. Island at the Edge of the World: The Forgotten History of Easter Island. New York : Mariner Books 2026. Print.

First Sentences:

This story about statues begins on Easter Sunday, 1722, on what was then the remotest inhabited island on Earth. This was the day the first European set eyes on Rapa Nui, the start of the final century when Islanders were in control of their own world. It was the day when everything about the island began to change, so that within a few generations no one there could say what the statues meant or who made them.

Description:

No one can deny a secret fascination with Rapa Nui (Easter Island). After all, it's a barren island thousands of miles from the nearest land, with no trees, few inhabitants, and hundreds of huge stone statues of heads and bodies scattered throughout the land. How was this island ever discovered and by whom? Where did all those people go? Why are there no trees? And, of course, who carved the gigantic heads and for what purpose?   

 

Mike Pitts, in his extensively researched Island at the Edge of the World: The Forgotten History of Easter Island, looks deeply into original documents recorded by the first seamen who came across Rapa Nui in the 1700s, as well as the diaries and notes taken by early researchers, Katherine and Scoresby Routledge, who in 1910 lived for months on the island with to study and understand its people, culture, and history. DNA and radiocarbon dating were also studied. He also included research by Thor Heyerdahl from the 1960s, although Pitts feels many of Heyerdahl's conclusions, while extremely popular with the public, were based on legends, misconceptions, and racism which perpetuated many untruths about Rapa Nui and its history.

 

Little is known of Raga Nui prior to 1760, with only scattered eye-witness records of Europeans from 1722 on and before the slave traders, missionaries, and South American governments took a self-centered interest.

 

Author Pitts divides Island at the Edge of the World into sections to explore several major questions. He focuses his studies about each subject on related hard evidence and original documents to draw conclusions based on facts rather than legends and unsupported rumors:

• First settlers? - Pitts research indicates that Polynesians were the first settlers around 1200. They were masters of navigating long distances and had already colonized other islands using huge outriggers that could carry sufficient men, women, and children as well as animals, tools, and food to start a colony. Easter Island culture is full of Polynesian art, building style, traditions, etc.

• First Europeans? - In 1760 a Dutch East Indian Company ship stumbled upon the island on, guess what, Easter Sunday, 1760. Other voyages followed, including those of James Cook and explorers from other countries as well. Pitts searched out these first-hand observations as the most reliable accounts of island life and people.

• What happened to the people? - Pitts found records indicating the immediate influx of Peruvian slave traders who captured most of the population as slaves. A decade later when the Chilean government passed laws to stop this human trading and return captured islanders, the released captives brought back diseases which decimated the population even further. The arrival of Christian missionaries spread more disease, further diminishing the culture and population. Investors bought the abandoned homes and gardens of deceased islanders and turned it into sheep-grazing land, destroying cultural centers, farms, houses, and religious symbols. The island was "sold" by the Chilean government in 1897 to one man who turned all the land to sheep grazing. The population was rounded up and placed in a single large community behind walls and not allowed outside that compound. Only a hundred or so people survived in 1877, down from an estimated population of 6,000  only a decade ago.

• Who built the stone heads (moai) and why? - Although the earliest interviews with the islanders were recorded by the Routledges in 1910, the current people did not know the origin of the carvings and purpose even at that early date. Recent carbon dating puts the stone carving between 1200-1680CE. Pitts concludes that the slave trade removed the men who knew how to carve the statues, as well as those who understood the purpose and traditions the carvings represented. Recent archeological digs have uncovered human bones at the foot of these stone heads, indicating the giant heads might be grave markers and protectors of ancestors.

• How were the statues moved? - Almost 1,000 heads were found scattered all over the island. They must have been moved from the quarry to their varied locations. But this barren island never provided enough trees to use as rollers under the statues, a difficult undertaking with any trunks that were not perfectly cylindrical. Rope-walking the heads was also tricky as statues were likely to fall, unable to be raised again. Pitts tested and soon felt the answer was sleds made of palm fronds and a couple of trunks which could easily slide the heads into desired locations.

• What new research is there? - DNA and radiocarbon dating have become very sophisticated, allowing anthropologists and archeologists solid data on the age of the stone carvings, the tools used, the ancestral history of the surviving people through buried bones, and the beginning of understanding of the few pieces of writing and pictures found.

Each of Pitts' conclusions was reached after exhaustive research into ancient records and visits to Raga Nui himself. Interestingly, he located records from Katherine Routledge, (the first person to actually study the island and culture), including her diaries, maps, statue counts and descriptions, sketches of petroglyphs, and interviews with natives. These documents had long before been seized and suppressed by her husband, Scoresby, after he had her forcibly committed her to an asylum for her paranoid behavior. Pitts also visited and described what few artifacts exist in museums around the world, including several carved heads, some untranslated writing on wood planks, and a feathered helmet.

 

Sorry this review is so long, but it is a fascinating subject full of thorough research clearly presented to try to unlock the secrets of Rara Nui. Many of Pitts' findings counter Heyerdahl's and other popular theories, with Pitt feeling these accounts relied on unproved rumors and conjectures by the writers, and did much damage to the real story of these islanders by suppressing the cruel influence that Europeans had thrust upon them. 

 

So read or at least skim this book for what I consider the true history, culture, and fate of this most mysterious of isolated islands: Rara Nui, also known as Easter Island. 

   

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

 Heyerdahl, Thor. Easter Island: The Mystery Solved

Read Heyerdahl's own explanation of the history of Easter Island, the stone carvings, writings, and original settlers. He proposes very different answers to the questions raised about the island, its people, and carvings. (Note: Mike Pitts, in the above book, thinks Heyerdahl is mistaken in almost ever explanation he proposes, but it is interesting to contrast their research and conclusions.)  (Previously reviewed here.)

 Happy reading.

Fred

[P.S. Click here to browse over 500 more book recommendations by subject or title and read the introduction to The First Sentence Reader.]