Non-Fiction

[Babi]

TO NONFICTION BOOK TALK

What are you reading?  Autobiographies, biographies, history, politics?

Tell us about the book; the good and the bad of it. 

Let's talk books!

Discussion Leader: HaroldArnold

 I like the Cicero quote.  Some things are timeless aren't they; true then, true
now.

[bellemere]

The House at Sugar Beach, by Helene Cooper,is fascinating.  It is her early life in Liberia, the country that the US founded before the Civil War for freed blacks. they sent over a few boatloads and promptly forgot about them 
both Liberia's history, and Cooper's amazing career as a reporter fo r the Wall St. Jounal and the New York Times, are great reading.

[Ella Gibbons]

Thanks, Bellemere!  I'll get it, I need a good nonfiction book to read, this one sounds very interesting.

[HaroldArnold]

Yes, thank you bellemere. for your  comment on  Helene Cooper’s  “House At Sugar Beach” book.  Liberia should be an interesting subject.  I would like to know more about it.  I was aware of the circumstances of its founding but I am quite ignorant of its subsequent history.  Ella if you get to see the book,  please  post further commenting on it.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-House-at-Sugar-Beach/Helene-Cooper/e/9780743266253/?itm=1&usri=The+House+On+Sugar+Beach

Click the above link for the B&N catalog page on this book.  It has a better than average synopsis of the story..

[HaroldArnold]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Liberia  Click the preceding link for a short history of Liberia.  This outline if printed would fill 14, 8 1/2  X 11 inch pabes meaning it is a sisgnificant overview of the history of this Country from its inception to the present.

[JoanP]

A Special Announcement -

We've just opened a poll to assess interest in a number of titles for upcoming Book Discussions.
IF YOU NEED MORE INFORMATION, the titles in the header of the Suggestion Box are links to reviews.
PLEASE MARK AS MANY TITLES THAT YOU MIGHT LIKE TO DISCUSS in depth in the coming months. (We're looking for a number of titles)
WHEN YOU ARE READY, THE POLL IS HERE

[Ella Gibbons]

HAROLD AND BELLEMERE, I reserved Cooper's book at the Library and will post about it later; meantime I am listening (while on the treadmill) to Whittaker Chambers by Sam Tannehaus (1997) which promises to be fascinating.  I remember bits and pieces of it all but you forget with time.  Here is one paragraph on a review, who can resist it?

"Whittaker Chambers is the first biography of this complex and enigmatic figure.  Drawing on dozens of interviews and on materials from forty archives in the United States and abroad - including still classified KGB dossiers - Sam Tanenhaus traces the remarkable journey that led Chambers from a sleepy Long Island village to center stage in America's greatest political trial and, in his last years, to a unique role as the godfather of post-war conservatism."

Whittaker Chambers is rich in startling new information about every phase of its subject's varied life; his days as New York's 'hottest literary Bolshevik', his years as a Communist agent and then defector, hunted by the KGB, his conversion to Quakerism, his secret sexual turmoil, his subsequent decade at TIME, where he rose from the obscurity of the book review page to transform the magazine into an oracle of apocalyptic anti-Communism.

[Ella Gibbons]

JOANP, I see your post and I hope everyone votes for their selection.

[serenesheila]

I just voted, for two of the books.

Ella, I have always been curious about Whittaker Chambers.  This might be a good way to learn some answers to my questions about him.

I just finished watching a segment on C-Span 2's "Non fiction books".  It was so interesting that I ordered the book for my Kindle.  It is called:  "The Harding Affair".  What convinced me that I wanted to read it, was learning that it is also about what was going on in the world, from 1911.  That period in time really fascinates me.  I am intrigued by world affairs during the lifetimes of my grandparents, and my parents.

Sheila

[Babi]

 I started on Anne Bronte's "Agnes Grey". It's fiction, of course, but written in
the form of a journal, or biography.  I thought the opening paragraph quite
relevant to some of our recent posts.

 "All true histories contain instruction; though, in some, the treasure may be hard to find, and when found, so trivial in quantity that the dry, shrivelled kernel scarcely compensates for the trouble of cracking the nut."
 

[Ella Gibbons]

Good one, BABI.  Nuts are hard to crack at times and, particularly when they are hidden in a book!

SHEILA, is the book about President Harding's life?  I don't think he was one of our better known presidents even if he was from Ohio (my home state).  Didn't he campaign from his front porch and later involved in some scandal or other?  But what president has NOT been involved in scandals?  Well, there is Jimmy Carter, bless his heart!

[serenesheila]

Ella, I am not sure how to answer your question, about Harding.  I am just begining this book.  It begins in 1911.  Yes, it is about his life from then, until his death.  The author was fascinating on C-Span.  I believe he said that the woman, with the child she claimed was Harding's, isn't true.  Instead, the love of his life was a married woman.  She, and her husband, were friends with Harding and his wife.  The two couples spent quite a bit of time together.

The author also said that Harding was one of our better presidents.  News of WW I overtook publicty about Harding's accomplishments.  I will let you know what I think of it, after I am more into the book.

Sheila

[CubFan]

Sheila -
I have not read any biographies of President Harding, but I did read a 1998 biography of his wife called Florence Harding: the first lady, the Jazz Age, and the death of America's most scandalous president by Carl Sferrazza Anthony.   The strong arm tactics of the Harding supporters come through in her biography as they paid off and tried to hush up Harding's affairs.  As we who read history know - nothing changes. People are people and politics are politics and the pendulum just swings back and forth between left and right and right and wrong.  It all makes for interesting reading for us.   Mary

[FlaJean]

I also heard the talk on C-Span II on Pres. Harding.  Very interesting.

[Babi]

 True, CubFan.  And also true is that a position of power enables one to indulge
all the fantasies and take whatever is desired.  How many are strong enough
to resist that kind of temptation?

[Ella Gibbons]

I was so disappointed when I picked up the Whittaker Chambers audio book at my library to discover it was on TAPE - tape!  Usually the Library transfers those on tape to C.D, but as I listened to the first tape I can understand why they did not.  IT'S THE READER!  He reads in a monotone and much too fast, who would want to listen!  Why an author would permit that I do not know. 

I'll see about getting the book, I don't know  how large it is. 

Also I reserved the Harding book.  It must be popular as the Library bought 21 copies (unusual for a nonfiction book) and there are 27 requests for it.

Thanks for suggesting it!

[Frybabe]

When I first signed up with Verizon's DSL way back when, I got a free online audio books package for three months. I downloaded and copied several books to CD but never got around to listening to them before my subscription ran out. I didn't renew partly because I didn't find a lot of readers that did the books justice. The program was proprietary so I don't think I could have played the books on a regular CD player.  The one CD that I thought was excellent was Basil Rathbone and Vincent Price reading Edgar Allen Poe. Excellent.

[Ella Gibbons]

FRYBABE - is that the life of Poe or is it just his poetry?  I like the poetry, but would rather listen to a biography.

[Frybabe]

They were reading his stories and poetry. Just imagine Vincent Price doing The Raven. Hey, didn't he do a movie around the poem?

[Babi]

ELLA, I once discovered, to my disappointment, that a poet reading his
own poetry can also be a big mistake. You would think they would have a
natural feel for their own creation, but it doesn't always work that way.

  My son wants me to read "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman. He wants to be able to
talk with somebody about it.  Has anyone here read it?  If so, what do you think of it?
Naturally, I'm going to read it since he asked, but I'd like a clearer idea of what it's about.

[PatH]

Babi, I've found the same thing about poets reading their own works.

"American Gods": for a start, it's hardly non-fiction, more like fantasy.  The narrator, just released from prison, takes a job with someone who is obviously Wotan in modern dress.  There seem to be a lot of the old gods stuck in this country, brought over by immigrants, then left dangling when no one believed in them any more.  We are traveling through a sleazy Middle America, meeting more of these gods along the way, and going toward some kind of showdown.  I got tired of it half way through and stopped because it didn't seem to be going anywhere, but my daughter assures me I'm wrong and it's well worth finishing.  It's well-written and vivid, and someday when I'm in the mood I'll pick it up and finish it.

If you read it, do tell us about it in sci-fi.

[Gumtree]

Hi folks:  Clicked in here by mistake - or chance and stayed to have a read of what you're up to. Lots of interesting titles mentioned though I'm not really in a position to start reading them all at present.

The mention by Babi of Agnes Grey caught my eye. I've done a lot of work on the Bronte literature at various times so would be glad to hear your thoughts Babi and anyone else's too. How do you think Anne Bronte compares with Charlotte and Emily? - she's a different kind of writer from her sisters of course and she cut her teeth with Agnes Grey - but her real strength is in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - a much under rated book.

I agree with the comments about hearing a poet read his own work. I was all agog with excitement one time having secured a tape of T.S Eliot reading The Waste Land. What a disappointing let down! Yet Alec Guiness reading some of Eliot's other work was a joy to hear.... he somehow manages to imbue the poetry with more  meaning and symbolism than I was then aware that it embodied.


Thanks everyone - I'm glad I stopped by today!

[Babi]

  So I discovered when I looked for it at the library, PAT.  I had assumed it
was non-fiction from the title, and the fact that my son wanted to discuss it.
He has a poor opinion of formal 'religion', and he has probably found things in the book that he feels support that.  Actually, while a person of firm faith, I find fault with 'religion', per se, myself.  In my mind, they are not the same thing.
  I am finding "Agnes Grey" pleasant enough, GUM, but Anne Bronte is not a
writer of her sisters' caliber.  She lacks their wit and her characters seem too
one-sided.  She occasionally moralizes too long, to the point where I skip to
the end of the lecture. Still, I care about 'Agnes' enough to finish the book.

[serenesheila]

"The Harding Affair", by James David Robenalt, is fascinating to me.  I keep thinking about Ella, living in Ohio.  So many towns in Ohio are in this book.

Warren Harding was said to have had a child, out of wedlock.  This book says that isn't true.  He did have an affair, with the wife of a friend of his.  They met in 1905.  Harding spent time at Kellogg's health institute in Battlecreek, Michigan, several times.  He reccomended it to his close friend.

During World War I, his lover was thought to be a German spy.  The book says that his wife was not physically affectionate, following her stroke.  It is also said that he was a very handsome man.

I do not want to stop reading it.  So, many people I have heard of are in it.  I like the author's writing style, also.

Sheila

[Ella Gibbons]

SHEILA, I am just starting to read the Harding Affair and it is interesting.  I haven't gotten very far along, but I do recognize the towns.  Certainly!  I have heard of Harding off and on all my life so this will add much to all the rumors about the man and the scandals.

After taking the Chambers audio book back to the Library, I got another and it is very good.  FIVE DAYS IN LONDON:  May, 1940, by John Lukacs.

Will we ever lose our fascination with WWII?  So many countries involved, all of Europe, and, of course, America.  The men, the leaders, Adolf Hitler, Stalin, Churchill, FDR - they are such familiar names to people of my generation.  Will they continue to be of interest in the future?  Somehow I do not see anyone of their stature, good or bad, on the horizon.

[bellemere]

the House at Sugar Beach lost some of its unique appeal once Helene and her family leave Liberia after the coup d'etat.  Cooper's story is a typical "immigrant kid makes good in USA" and, in truth, she has had a rerarkable success as a journalist for the Wall St. Journal and the New York Times.  When she returns to a Liberia still strife ridden and finds her foster sister again, the book sort of regains its integrity.  All in all, I enjoyed it, and I am grateful for the insight I gained into a different culture.  I remembered that a college classmate was Liberian, and I googled her.  Sure enough, she married a Cooper, and served her country in different capacities.  There is a school named after her.  She was Hilda Knight Cooper, a relly lovely young woman when I knew her; her father was in some ambassador type, either in Washington or at the U.N.

[serenesheila]

Well, I am now at chapter 7, in the Harding book.  At this point it seems to be more about the woman, with whom Harding had his lengthy affair.  Also, about his lover's family.  I am disappointed.  But, I will continue to read.

I am not nearly as interested in the details, of his affair with Carrie Phillips.  I am much more interested in historical information.  Chapter 7, is back to Harding's political life, when he ran for Governor of Ohio, in 1910.   At this point I do not know if I reccomend this book, or not.

Sheila

[Ella Gibbons]

Sheila, I am of the same opinion after reading a few chapters.  This is not a good biography of Harding at all.  Am disappointed!

[Ella Gibbons]

However, the book by John Luckas - FIVE DAYS IN LONDON: 1940 is fascinating.  I'm listening to the audio and I think I'll get the book to read.  I have always wondered why Hitler did not cross the channel when he conquered France and stopped!  Britain was so weak at the time and could have been attacked and the British Empire could have crumpled and the war won.  Many, many reasons.

[bellemere]

Alain de Botton is an English philosopher whose essays are wonderfully readable.  "The
Art of Travel" tells you not WHERE to travel but how and why. 
"The Status Seekers" deals with our civilzation's "insatiable quest for status" and is funny as well as clear headed.  and "The Consolations of Philosophy" summarizes some of the great philosophical thinkers of history, Epicurus, Seneca, Nietsche.  I am stuck however on his latest "The
Architecture of Happiness' which actually is about architecture, and is getting over my head.  Has anyone else read this wonderful English polymath?His works are available in paperback and are not long.

[Babi]

 The "Consolations of Philosophy" sounds intriguing to me, BELLE.  I
would like to have at least a summary of the great philophers thinking.
I have done a bit of reading in some of them, and have vague ideas of
others. I'd like to 'pin down' some of those ideas.

[ginny]

I'm reading You'll Never Nanny in this Town  Again, which is absolutely  marvelous. Names names, right now we're dealing with the "great" Michael Ovitz. I liked Diary of a Nanny which was a super movie which they keep playing on TV, in which the names were changed, but this one is even better and you really get a feel for what parenting is like out in LA. It's hard to put down actually.

[bellemere]

Babi, Alain de Botton's book is for you!  of all the ancient philosophers he summarizes, the
Greek Epicurus appealed most to me.  Having always associated the word "epicurean:" with fancy food, I found how wrong I was.  You can get all his books in paperback. If you do get Consolations of Philosohy, I would love to hear what you think of it.

[Babi]

 My library only has the Botton book in audio, unfortunately. I'll have to
look for it elsewhere.  Since I've never had any problems whatsoever with
'status anxiety', I think I can skip that one even tho' the library does have it.

[bellemere]

I got to my 100 pages of Julia Child's My Life in France, and I think I'll quit before I get heartburn.I have lost all sense of guilt about not finishing a book; I will give it 100 pages max and move on if it doesn't do it for me.
I think when you eat French food a la Julia, you are basically eating butter, wine , and cream, with a little fish or veggie thrown in.
the descriptions of the restaurant meals in Paris were pretty inspiring, but I am too American to relish the idea of eating a lark or brains or sweetbreads, which I think are some animal's pancreas, is that right?  Anyway, au revoir and bon appetite, Julia.

[Ella Gibbons]

SERENA:  After listening to this - click below for a fascinating radio interview - I think I shall go back to the Harding book and read a bit more.  At least, take another look at it, how are you doing with it?  I don't think much of the author but in this interview the president, the man and his "take" on war and peace seem to be right on!  I never knew about Harding's Birmingham affair, did you?  And the author seems to believe that if Harding had been president, instead of Woodrow Wilson, the world would have been a better place.  Interesting indeed to think about.

And racial diversity???  What do you think?  Type in "President Harding" in the search box at the top of this page for the interview:

http://radiotime.com/program/p_1631/All_Sides.aspx

[serenesheila]

I am still reading the "Harding" book."  Ella, are you familiar with the "Golden Lamb", in Lebannon, Ohio?  They serve wonderful meals.  We go there every Christmas.  On the inside front wall, is a list of all of the Presidents who have stayed there, and/or eaten there.  I believe that Harding is among those listed.

In addition, I am reading "Night", by Elie Wiesel.  It is powerful.  Only a little over 100 pages.  It is his story of how his family were picked up, and transported to one of the prison camps. 

Sheila

[Ella Gibbons]

Funny you should ask, Sheila.  I went on a day's journey with a group from our Senior Center and we ate lunch at the Golden Lamb, which, as you say, has very good food.  I was there a number of times in the '70's as my daughter graduated from the University of Cincinnati.  Their campus does not allow autos on it, so there were quite a number of trips to and fro for four years.

After lunch we went to a fascinating place where this fellow started growing bamboo after he got fired from an insurance company some years ago.  He had started a privacy fence in bamboo, so he got interested in the product, expanded and now has a thriving business selling world wide.  He sells to many zoos as pandas eat bamboo.  There are many, many species of the plant, and it does not grow real tall in Ohio because of our winters but it does well enough.

I'll go back to the HARDING book.  Did you listen to the radio interview?  It was very good!

[JoanK]

I read "Night" many years ago. A very powerful book: I shall never forget it.

[Ella Gibbons]

Yes, I have read "NIGHT" also, Serena and Joan.  Some long years ago, but have never forgotten it.