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Quickie: NOTHING DAUNTED by Dorothy Wickenden
2011 at 5am Posted by Rebecca Schinsky
Published June 21, 2011 by Scribner
When lifelong friends Dorothy Woodruff and Rosamond Underwood graduated from Smith College in the early 1900s and most of the other young women they knew got married, they went on an extended European tour. After prolonging the trip as much as possible, they returned home to Auburn, New York not to settle down and set up house but to flaunt the conventions of their well-to-do social circle and become teachers. That might seem tame enough, even when one considers that none of the women they knew worked, except that Dorothy and Rosamond went all the way to Colorado—the 1916 equivalent of the Wild Wild West—to do it.
In Nothing Daunted, Dorothy Wickenden—executive editor of The New Yorker and granddaughter of Dorothy Woodruff—draws from letters, diaries, photographs, newspapers, and memorabilia to reconstruct the Dorothy and Rosamond’s experiences as neophyte teachers braving the challenges of a Colorado wilderness winter. Wickenden creates a snapshot of the early-twentieth-century American west through the eyes of two unconventional young women in a story that has elements of history, feminism, romance, and adventure. There’s even a real stick-up with real handkerchief-wearing bandits!
Nothing Daunted is fascinating read, and Wickenden combines history, biography, and social study to great effect. Highly recommended.
The Bare Necessities—Adam Ross (LADIES AND GENTLEMEN)
2011 at 5am Posted by Rebecca Schinsky
The Bare Necessities is a series in which authors and book industry professionals share annotated reading lists of books they love.
Adam Ross is the author of Mr. Peanut, one of my favorite books of 2010 (out now in paperback), and Ladies and Gentlemen, a remarkable collection of short fiction out today from Knopf. While I put the finishing touches on my review of Ladies and Gentlemen, please enjoy Adam’s unique twist on The Bare Necessities.
Not the First, But the Second
I tend to read myopically, one author straight through, sometimes even chronologically, their first work to last. Here’s a list of the books that got me hooked on a particular writer followed by a second, perhaps less well-known or esteemed work that I love just as much, if not more.
The Windup Bird Chronicle > Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami
Murakami’s masterpiece is pulse-pounding, mind-bending, and, at times wildly unnerving (you’ll never look at a Mongolian the same way again). Sputnik, on the other hand, is a slim volume about a love triangle between three characters: Miu, Sumire, and K, the narrator. As with many Murakami novels and stories, people drift in and out of other planes of reality and the novel’s conclusion is deeply mysterious. For Murakami, true knowledge of anything or anyone far outstrips our meager mortal abilities. But the heartache the reader feels at the end is unquestionably of this world.
Mr. and Mrs. Bridge > Notes from a Bottle Found on the Beach at Carmel by Evan S. Connell
I’m cheating here. Mr. and Mrs. Bridge are, of course, two novels, both inarguably great, slam-dunk recommendations authored by one of our country’s more underappreciated, broadly talented writers (Connell’s also a first-class historian, essayist, and short story writer). Which is why I’m suggesting his astonishing book-length poem about history’s cyclicality and the nothingness that bookends our brief time on this planet, a work filled with apothegms that will stop you cold: “Visions are not without their usage, however fanciful/if only to purge us of dark and sickening forms.” (And by the way, I’m cheating here again, because this book is the companion poem to Points for a Compass Rose. Can’t recommend that one highly enough either.) Read more
On Reading to Escape
2011 at 5am Posted by Rebecca Schinsky
Start a public discourse about why people read, and it is inevitable that someone (or twenty someones) will mention escapism. This is a truth universally acknowledged and one so reliable you could build a drinking game around it. “I read to get away from the stresses of everyday life.” DRINK!
I understand the idea of escapist reading in theory, but my experience is usually quite the opposite. I read not to escape but to be more engaged with the world. Reading feeds my curiosity, giving me answers to my questions and leaving me with even more questions. To quote my friend Kevin Smokler, reading makes me a glutton for life. It makes me want to do more, learn more, try more new things, eat more new foods. It challenges my assumptions about the world, exposes me to new ideas and ways of being, and allows me to be a lifelong student at the feet of our best thinkers.
It’s not often that I read to escape, but when I do, I need fiction with a strong sense of place. Not fluff. Not vacation reading brain candy. Solid fiction grounded in a fully realized—if not fully real—world. I am first and foremost a person who reads for language and writing—something I attribute to the fact that I am generally very verbal and not so visual, which you’d know if you’d ever seen me try to load a dishwasher—and high quality (if not completely literary) writing is always important to me. Good writing can get me all kinds of hot and bothered. But when I need a break, when I’m turning to a book to shelter me from some kind of real-life shit storm, few things make me happier than a story in which the setting, be it one beautiful and appealing or not, is so primary that it becomes like a character itself. The second half of this post is about a few of my recent reads that have done this remarkably well. Read more
The Sunday Salon 6.26.11
2011 at 10am Posted by Rebecca Schinsky
Well hi there! Bet you thought I’d given up on the Sunday Salon thing, huh? It has been a while, but I’m back in action (I think it took me an entire month to recover from the wildness of Book Expo), and I’m happy to be coming to you this morning from my favorite spot on the couch, the one that is actually molded to my rear end (for reals, I’d take a picture, but I’m pretty sure you don’t need to see that).
It’s been a great week here on ye olde blog. Monday brought an interview with John Milliken Thompson about his debut novel The Reservoir, a historical murder mystery set in my fair Richmond. I loved the book and was thrilled to have the opportunity to interview John in anticipation of his launch party at Fountain Bookstore. We had a wonderful time celebrating with a great crowd Tuesday night and were joined by Paul Kozlowski, associate publisher from Other Press (one of the best small presses in the business), who first brought The Reservoir to our attention more than a year ago. It’s always terrific to see a good book meet a warm reception, and this was no exception.
I continued my Books for Your Beach Bag series this week with a collection of women’s studies books, including Sugar in My Bowl, Erica Jong’s new anthology of essays and short fiction about sex. This is one of my favorite books of the year so far, and I don’t intend to be quiet about it any time soon. Team Bookrageous finally got around to recording our Book Expo recap episode this week, just in time for me to read and rave about The Night Circus, one of the most buzzed-about books at this year’s convention. And, oh yeah, there was that part of the week where I responded to a very poorly written critique of bloggers and called the writer an asshat (because I’m a classy lady like that). Read more
Mark Your Calendars for THE NIGHT CIRCUS
2011 at 12pm Posted by Rebecca Schinsky
Coming September 13, 2011 from Doubleday
The circus pops up unannounced, black-and-white striped tents filled with the kinds of things that under normal circumstances you can only see in your dreams. A maze made of clouds, wherein you can jump from the very highest without fear of falling. A garden made of ice. A carousel on which the carved animals appear to breathe and blink. A room filled with bottles that contain full sensory experiences built of memories and desires.
Le Cirque des Rêves opens at nightfall and closes at dawn, and that is not the only thing that makes this circus a horse of a different color. Behind the scenes, two young magicians, Celia and Marco, are competing in a battle they’ve been training for their whole lives. With the dream-filled circus as the setting for a showdown orchestrated by their mentors, Celia and Marco can’t help but fall for each other, which makes their discovery that this is a competition only one of them can survive all the more complicated.
Erin Morgenstern has written a terrific book and created a beautiful and fully-realized world—one it’s easy to lose yourself in—between its covers. Put a pretty red circle around September 13 and plan your visit to Le Cirque des Rêves.
Check out one of my favorite images from the book in this tumblr post and pre-order The Night Circus from an independent bookstore.
