Opening the pages, I noticed the font and wondered what it was called – not Times Roman or Arial;  a small note on the opposite side of the title page named the typographer and dated the copyright in the sixties (not so long ago).  But, the overwhelming sense of nostalgia came as I leafed through the pages and smelled the musty aroma.  Nothing smells like an old book.

Just as I revel in being the first to check out a new book from the library, turning its crisp pages, feeling a responsibility to carefully not bend back the binding – holding an old book gives me a sense of wonder.  How many others had taken this book to bed, sipped coffee while turning the pages, lost themselves in the words?  Just as new books gives me a sense of adventure, the old ones give me a sense of comfort.

Are you reading any old books these days?

Older books I’m reading:

Domestic Manners of the Americans (1832)

The Stone Angel (1964)

Jozef’s sojourn begins and ends in America in this coming of age tale that follows his young life through the hills of Austria-Hungary, World War I, prison camp, and back again.  Jozef’s father leaves the Colorado mining town where his wife died, and returns with baby Jozef to his hometown in rural Hungary.  As he grows into a boy, Jozef follows his father to become a shepherd, and acquires the hunting and shooting skills of killing animals that he eventually uses as a sharpshooter when he enlists in World War I.

As the images shift to the brutal and raw horrors of war, Krivak’s descriptions vividly reveal how the war changes the boy.

“Soldiers rarely get to glimpse the maps of the high command and they maneuver out of discipline and duty to those positions where they are ordered, pawns needed to stand and hold until the enemy is drawn out and exposed, at the expense of the pawns.”

Rivalling Cormac McCarthy in his harsh yet simple descriptions, Krivak contrasts the savagery of battle against the intense single-minded purpose of its participants.  At times, the killings and maulings are hard to read, but the language held me to the page.

“One morning as I looked down at the river flowing below through a valley already turning into a tapestry of greens, yellows, and whites as far as the blue of the Adriatic, and back to the still snowcapped and windblown mountain range behind, rising all at once far into the Alps, I realized that I had no desire and no drive to fight anymore, no rage at having been wronged somehow, no belief in the right and purpose of kings.  I longed only to turn back and climb and begin life all over again in a place where I might find the peace I’d once known in mountains of another time and another place, and I wondered – if I could slip out of camp unobserved – whether I just might be ale to stay hidden and uncaptured until this war came to end.  But in the same moment this will to live overtook me, we were ordered to fall in, and so we shouldered our packs and rifles and set out like thin sheep kept in line with the promise of food and sleep, too numb to expect our slaughter.”

Jozef somehow survives the hellfire of battle, only to be taken prisoner.  When, finally, he is released and sent to walk across the border to home, he confronts yet another challenge – a young pregnant gypsy girl being attacked by soldiers.  The imagery shifts again – with another baby boy looking for survival.  But, to tell you how it all works out would spoil the ending.  It’s enough to know that Jozef’s father rescues him in the end, as he makes his way back to where he came from – his sojourn ended – his life yet to begin.

Krivak’s book is deceivingly simple looking – a small paperback that can easily fit into a pocket.  But the story is strong and breath-taking with images that will stay with you.

Lane’s geometric illustrations beg for discussion and exploration when read to a small child – the last two fold out pages are the best.

A book for children with an adult message.

After his untimely death, Nicky’s family flees to a remote Scottish island in the Hebrides for the safety of old family surroundings and seclusion from the harsh innuendo of the diplomatic gossips.  Letty, Nicky’s wife is tortured by his incriminating death-bed letter; Georgie, his seventeen year old daughter harbors a secret uncovered when she accompanied her father to East Berlin; Alba, fourteen, is angry at the world and her father for deserting them.  Only eight year old Jamie believes his father will keep his promise and come back to tell his family the truth.

As the family copes with their grief – each in their own way – a bear that has escaped from a one-man circus act appears intermittently in the action.  Pollen assigns chapters to the thoughts of each: Letty, Georgie, Alba, Jamie – and the bear.  Jamie believes the bear is his father in a new form, and Pollen allows the bear’s thoughts, its interest in the family, and its protective instincts toward the children to make the connection a possibility.

Place is important to the story – from the watchful paranoia at the Wall dividing Berlin to the proper stiffness of the British diplomatic corps in West Berlin, to finally, the wild Outer Hebrides.  Pollen spent her childhood summers in the Scottish Highlands and her descriptions of the raw beauty of the cliffs, the birds, and the sea places you there in that magical yet forbidding place.

I was caught up in the intrigue; was Nicky’s death murder, suicide, accident?  Did he betray his family and country?  Was he a double agent?  Pollen maintains the suspense while demonstrating how differently each character deals with the grief and uncertainty as well as with each other.   Although the dramatic ending is neatly tied with the imagination and loyalty of the young boy, my satisfaction came with the possibility – the belief – that the bear really was the savior.   More than a mystery or an examination of family relationships and loyalties, The Summer of the Bear is a sweet comfort I enjoyed.

Prince Philip has always seemed an austere snob – almost grumpy at times as he followed the requisite steps behind the Queen, but Eade’s book could “rebrand” his image.   Philip’s young life was tragic, brave, “turbulent,” sometimes with wartime suspense; his mother was deaf and his father abandoned him when he was eight years old.  Eade writes the biography with the flavor of historical fiction.

When the sample stopped, I bought the book and am now slowly falling under the spell of the tall young blond German who was a Prince of Greece as well as a Mountbatten of England.

Seems he really was the dashing prince charming when Elizabeth fell for him.

In his essay for the Sunday New York Times – Of Mouselike Bites and Marathons  - food and restaurant critic Frank Bruni exposes the secret behind “the people who invite us to wallow in food…”

“Here’s what we don’t see:  the yogurt and berries they had for breakfast; the salads and grilled vegetables they eat on nights off…the enormous exercise involved…”

  Bruni cites Allison Adams’ new book Smart Chefs Stay Slim: Adams interviews some well known chefs and reports that most svelte television chefs exercise fanatically – some have personal trainers – and all are careful about what they eat -  debunking the myth that chefs eat what you see them making.

Deen donut burger

In a nod to the queen of the donut burger (a hamburger between glazed donuts instead of a bun), Bruni concedes that Deen’s oven-fried potato wedges with mayo have fewer calories than French Laundry chef Thomas Keller’s “tasting of potatoes with black truffles” with cream and butter.

I’d forego the calorie savings and choose the Keller dish any day.

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Recipe for Keller’s potatoes with truffles

 Daum refers to using the royalties of the novel she wrote while in Nebraska – one of her many places to live – to ultimately buy a house.  I found that novel – The Quality of Life Report.

Although fiction, the book matches some of Daum’s brave revelations about her personal life in her exaggerated memoir – you write what you know?   The character Lucinda Trout might have been having the same adventures as Meghan Daum, but I had read the nonfiction sequel, and Lucinda was (mostly) fiction.

In the novel, after a visit to Prairie City, Nebraska to cover a news story on drugs, and noting the difference in rentals – 1000 square feet for $400 a month compared to her New York 400 square foot rental for $2000 – Lucinda Trout creates a documentary project that would have her feeding reports on “the quality of life” from her on-site experiences over a year from Prairie City.

Lucinda’s New Yorker sensibilities confronted with rural life of coyotes and truck stops give Daum the opportunity to demonstrate her cynical humor as Lucinda explores her new surroundings.   Mason Clay, a combination Sam Shepard/Brad Pitt, grain elevator operator with three children from three different women, becomes the love interest – an echo of the Nebraska “ex boyfriend” Daum often references in her memoir.

While the book was funny in places, it didn’t hold the same interest for me as “Life Would Be Perfect…”  I had been fascinated with Meghan’s real adventures; when I read them as pieces of a fictionalized venture with Mason – not so much.   But I still like Daum’s style – maybe the next book will reel me back in.

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• Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived in That House (nochargebookbunch.com)

With the fervor of Erin Brockovich pursuing a cause and some big money, Grisham focuses on a class action suit to bring down a pharmaceutical firm for its death-causing cholesterol drug.  Not even lawyers can control everything, and clever plot twists sustain the momentum.

The action is fast and fun, with a little dark humor mixed in, and the characters have a film noir flavor.  Grisham stays true to his successful formula – a fast read – nice diversion while I was sitting in a waiting room for hours.

Using the recent real estate debacle as the beginning and end of her story, Meghan Daum’s humorous memoir resembles the style in  ”Eat, Pray, Love”  - but Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived in That House is much better written, funnier, and even offers cautionary advice to those seeking perfection in a place.

From Texas to New Jersey to a farmhouse or two in Nebraska, with a few rent-controlled gems in New York City and tumble-down houses with panoramic views in Los Angeles, Daum chronicles her life in moves:

“The number of houses and apartments I’d rented in my adult life far exceeded the number of boyfriends I’d had.  It probably even rivaled the number of expensive shoes I’d ever owned.”

Always alert for that next place,  Daum introduces her family and friends with their laughably exaggerated foibles but with enough realism that you might recognize their characteristics in some people you know.  Meghan’s mother only finds perfection when she gets her own place; I understood her constant state of  anxiety, trying to fit into a house/neighborhood/lifestyle.

In her first person narrative, Daum seems to be talking to you, “dear reader.”  Her conversational style  includes her obsessed scouring of Craigslist, open house tours, and decorating fantasies, until she ultimately manages to overdo some details – especially in her early years.  But as she marches through Vassar, post-college, and her thirties, the search for good real estate sprinkled with her own anxieties will keep you reading.

When she finally finds a house (a fixer-upper beyond help), depleting her savings  at the height of the real-estate bubble, and settles into enjoying her solitude, of course, she finds a guy.   Her angst at giving up closet space and the freedom to eat salami over the sink will have you smiling, but the reason they finally decide to take the plunge and move in together will ring true to any city dweller who has tried to find a parking space.

Witty and sometimes laugh out loud funny, Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived In That House does have a moral to the story at the end – one well-known and often ignored – a house is just a place after all; a home is what you make it.

Daum uses her royalties from the sale of her novel to buy that house; I plan to find her book.  She left me wanting more.

In an interview with Kenneth Branagh  for The New Yorker – Being Sir Larry -  Rebecca Mead discovers that Branagh is not far from the Sir Lawrence he portrays in the movie.  Known for his interpretation of Shakespearean roles, Branagh – like Olivier – assumes an air of superiority in discussing books and himself.  Unlike Sir Larry, Kenneth turned down the title but often finds the “Sir” attached to his name anyway; he notes:

“Theatrical folk who do classical plays – the title goes with it, whether they have it or not.”

I saw “My Week with Marilyn” and was reminded of Monroe’s beauty, vulnerability, and ambition.  Clark’s memoir may have exaggerated, but that makes for a good show.  Now to watch that old classic “The Prince and the Showgirl” – with a new perspective.

Edgar Allan Poe

Poe, born in 1809, would be over 200 years old.  He won two small awards: a $50 prize for “MS. Found in a Bottle” awarded by the Baltimore Saturday Visiter. In 1845, Poe won a $100 award for “The Gold Bug” awarded by the Dollar Newspaper, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Julian Barnes

Barnes is still writing – most recently winning the 2011 Man Booker Prize for The Sense of an Ending – prestige and £50,000.

As Johnson follows Lanier’s life in the Idaho panhandle, the story takes on the flavor of a yarn told around the campfire – until Johnson jolts the narrative.  When Lanier is not witnessing death, he tells of rail accidents, fires, murder, and catastrophes, but in a disaffected tone that makes the incidents seem like normal fare for the times – sometimes with a sense of justice. The tale of the dog-shot man is at once humorous and jarring.  Pioneer characters sprinkle the narrative at first, and later Johnson has Lanier spotting Elvis Presley on a train.

Although short, Train Dreams requires full attention as the time unravels quickly over a lifetime.  Otherwise, the feeling of the growing West and the man would be easy to miss, as Johnson reminds the reader in his last lines:

“And suddenly it all went black.  And that time was gone forever.”

“The retirement industry has exported its tactics, using them to achieve similar outcome in retirement plans in Canada, Europe, Australia, and elsewhere…Unless it is reined in, the global retirement industry will continue to capture retirement wealth earned by many to enrich a relative few.”

Wall Street journalist Ellen E. Schultz explains how companies plunder and profit from retirement nest eggs in Retirement Heist, an exposé on yet another trusted institution gone astray.  Written before the 1 percent became a target, Schultz’s book adds more fuel to the manipulation of funds to sustain executive benefits and golden parachutes.

In twelve chapters, Schultz offers a menu of shady possibilities with unnerving titles.  Pick your poison:  from chapters on “How Dead Peasants Help Finance Executive Pay” to “How Employers Use Pension Law to Threaten Retirees,” to “Inflating Retiree Health Liabilities to Boost Profits.”  Did you know companies can be the beneficiaries of life insurance for their workers?

Schultz is decidedly one-sided but the other side may be too busy yachting or jetting off to an exotic site to care.  Her investigative reporting that uncovers the miserable state of affairs is no comfort, and her point is better made in her news articles (the book is compilation of many of her Wall Street columns).  If you read her article - How Employers Raid Pension Plans - shorter and you’ll get the idea.

No wonder I prefer reading fiction.

With careful attention to describing the old house and its surroundings, Lively creates the sense of being in the lovely British countryside.  Maria narrates through her thoughts and anxieties as she quietly converses with the cat.  When she meets her first real friend, Martin, she manages to emerge from her solitude to engage with his rowdy family of brothers and sisters, discovering her interest in fossils and maps, and changing from a frightened lonely girl to one who learns how to have fun.

Although the story proceeds slowly, episodes of strange sounds and visions that only Maria can experience – the sound of a barking dog, the creaking of an old swing – tease you into wondering if this is a ghost story.  Lively maintains the suspense with Harriet, a ten-year old girl who lived in the house over one hundred years before.  After finding the sampler with the swing and dog included in the art, that was finished by Harriet’s sister, Maria begins to imagine Harriet’s life and death at a young age.  Harriet seems to come to life within Maria when she swings, and, at times, Maria thinks she can see the other girl.   The ending includes a tense episode on a seaside cliff that solves the mystery but leaves the door open to interpretation.

A Stitch in Time is one of Penelope Lively’s older books targeted for a younger audience.  The pace is slow but calming.   The story is available as an audiobook, and it seems the perfect candidate for listening – for children or adults who need to remember the child within.

“…in a funny way we {adult and child} both go on being here forever, aged ten or eleven one summer, because we once were…”

Lively is a prolific writer with an elegant Old World style; winner of the Man Booker prize in 1987 for Moon Tiger, she has a new book I am looking forward to reading – this one for adults.

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• New Year Honours 2012: Writer Penelope Lively becomes a Dame (telegraph.co.uk)

Gowda’s description of Somer’s Indian mother-in-law and Kavita’s life in India offer glimpses into another world in Secret Daughter.  Somer is an American pediatrician married to an Indian neurosurgeon who adopt Kavita’s baby from an Indian orphanage. Eventually, the daughter seeks her heritage and birth parents.

The facilitator of the book discussion wisely invited a woman who had grown up in India, giving the participants the opportunity to question how much of Gowda’s references to the culture are fiction.

A quick read – could be a Hallmark Channel movie – be sure to have your tissues handy for the heart wrenching ending.

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