Dear readers,
I'm currently at home recovering from hip surgery, not a replacement but an arthroscopy to fix a torn labrum that had been causing me increasing pain over the last two years. I
was told recovery would be a long haul, and indeed, it is proving to be. Almost two weeks in, I can't do anything for more than 30 minutes except lying down and being hooked up to an ice machine.
Hopefully I will be able to share insights from that experience in next month's newsletter when my brain will be less foggy from the pain medication, and when I can sit or stand at the computer for
longer than 30 minutes without my hip feeling like it's on fire. In the meantime, I'll make good on a recent Facebook challenge I slacked off on, namely to share a few favorite books.
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Whenever I am asked about my favorite memoir, I name Angela's Ashes. Not that there aren't memoirs I've
loved more, or that were written better. But Angela's Ashes most sunk into my consciousness and that of my family. My children read it in high school, and while listening to the audiobook, my husband lamented every day: "How much worse can it get?" Angela's
Ashes is exceptional because Frank McCourt managed to tell a singularly depressing tale with such biting humor, that we still reiterate funny moments from the book to each other. It also gave us all a whole new appreciation for the simple luxuries of life, such as a soft boiled egg for breakfast. I use Angela's Ashes to teach memoir students about voice, sharing a passage of the audio version with them. In fact, the audiobook is even better than the written version because McCourt reads it himself. I was fortunate to witness him in action at an event at the Art Institute of Chicago where he read from his last memoir, Teacher Man. He was a superb performer and raconteur (not all writers are
such winning characters in person), and in the audio version he not only gives us his Irish accent, and masterfully impersonates other characters, he also sings those Irish folk ballads that his father taught him. It's priceless, providing all the local color the print version can only partially convey.
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This is my favorite Hemingway in terms of learning something. I learned a lot about the practice of being a writer. For all his enjoyment of life and frivolous pursuits like betting on horse races, Hemingway was a disciplined writer, and here he shares how he developed that discipline. 500 words a day was one. Another advice I've put to good use was to stop
writing at a point where you know how the story goes on so that the next day you can easily pick it up again. His friendship with other writers, first and foremost Scott Fitzgerald, is fascinating. A Moveable Feast gives us a back-row seat on a road trip they took to Lyon, and sadly, Hemingway's misgivings about Scott's wife Zelda proved
to be pretty accurate. Wonderful also are his descriptions of a winter spent in the snowy Alps with his young family, skiing and writing. And when you read his first novels, The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms you'll find parallels to his own life as portrayed in this posthumously published memoir. Beware of the newest edition, which has been altered considerably, putting some material back in that Hemingway's fourth wife and widow, who was in control of publishing it, had taken out. It's always dicey to publish something under the author's name that he did not sign off on, but such is the fate of this last of Hemingway's works.
Nevertheless, I am glad we have at least this semblance of a memoir from him.
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When my husband recently asked which book about Israel's history our youngest should read as he embarks on his gap year there, my choice was O Jerusalem. First published in 1971, O Jerusalem is written like a novel, recounting the battle for Jerusalem during Israel's War of Independence from 1947-48. The writers switch effortlessly between the Arab, the
British, and the Jewish point-of-view, and one realizes how improbable the whole endeavor of founding a Jewish state really was back then, and in particular how utterly impossible it seemed to keep even part of Jerusalem under Jewish control, and yet how it eventually became possible. At times wickedly funny and chillingly tragic, the reader meets all the colorful characters that played a part in this battle and gains insight into why, quite often, it was not their means or weaponry but
their personalities and determination that helped them achieve and fail in their goals. My favorite passage is of a Syrian who walks all the way from Aleppo, shouldering a WWI French mortar, to help shell the Jews holding out in the Old City. I'm sharing the cover image of my first copy of this book, a German version, that my husband-to-be gifted me in 1985. A few years ago, I listened the an
audiobook when I was trying to learn all I could about the incredibly long and multilayered history of Jerusalem. At that point I knew a lot more about Israel's history, wars and politics, and I had a child serving in the IDF, and yet this book captivated me all over again, maybe because, by that point, I recognized many of the locations mentioned. And of course, I had a much bigger stake in the continuation of the story.
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This book was my introduction to Julia Cameron's work. I had heard about Morning Pages but, without understanding the concept, I thought they were a waste of time since I had so little time to work on my writing projects anyway. I have since gifted The Right To Write to many writer friends as well as assigned it in my creative writing classes. It is also one of the few books I reread now and again, opening it randomly, and I always find something inspiring or sustaining. I wish this book, or Cameron's famed The Artist's Way, had been assigned reading in my MFA program. From a writer's perspective, The Right to Write is more apropos, in my opinion, because it focuses on the creative process as it
pertains to writing. I credit this book with getting me into my now cherished habit of writing Morning Pages. It taught me how the creative process actually works, that writing requires practice
and sustenance just like any other endeavor, and that the ability to create is a blessing and the one thing in which we resemble our Creator. To create is a human need, and as a writer one is blessed to have the vehicle for expressing that need.
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It's taken me several intervals over several days to assemble this newsletter, but I also know I'll content when I click the Send button, because, even amidst my current impairment, I have created something!
I hope you've found at least one tip useful.
I wish you a happy summer, and I hope you're out and about more than I am. Mobility is a beautiful thing! As is the ability to sit...
Happy
reading,
PS: If you've read my book, please consider posting a review to amazon if you haven't already done so. It makes a big difference. Thanks! |
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