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Category: Book reviews
Posted on August 1, 2019 August 1, 2019 by Ann@BooksontheTable
One of my favorite summer reading spots (and one of my favorite reading companions).
Every year, summer reading lists suggest "beach reads" you'll want to "dive into", the "hottest" books that are "making waves". Dozens and dozens of books are touted as "must reads" for your beach bag or suitcase. The World Economic Forum takes a data-driven approach to summer reading recommendations, analyzing 67 lists and presenting what it calls "the most statistically sound summer reading list on the internet." The 45 books on this list are almost all fiction written by women, and almost all were published in the last six months.
The World Economic Forum recommends some pretty good books — City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert (#1 on the list), The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo, Fleishman Is In Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner — as well as The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (#2 on the list), probably the most acclaimed book of the summer. (I haven't read it yet — I'm saving it for my vacation this month.)
What this list of the summer's "most-endorsed reads" doesn't include are five of my recent favorites:
Ask Again, Yes (Mary Beth Keane) — I couldn't love a book any more than I loved Ask Again, Yes. Kate Gleeson and Peter Stanhope grow up next door to each other in New York City suburb, both the children of Irish immigrants in the police force. A tragic incident divides the two families, but Kate and Peter remain friends and eventually fall in love. I don't want to reveal any more about the plot, but I will say that this is a grace-filled story of love and forgiveness that will stay with you.
Disappearing Earth (Julia Phillips) — "This should win the Pulitzer!" a friend exclaimed at a recent book club meeting. I agree — Disappearing Earth is definitely prize-worthy. Set in Kamchatka, a peninsula in northeastern Russia, this highly original and beautifully written novel explores the lives of girls and women, both "native" and Russian, in this remote and tension-filled area. Each chapter is a short story, introducing new characters, but is also a piece of a puzzle. What happened to the young girls who disappeared in the opening pages? You won't be able to put the book down until the final chapter. Maybe this is a stretch, but it reminded me of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo — without all the confusing parts.
Miracle Creek (Angie Kim) — One of the book clubs I moderate chose this as their favorite book of the past few years. It's a terrific page-turner, with plenty to discuss (experimental medical treatments, raising special needs children, the experience of immigration, cultural differences, marital secrets). When a hyperbaric therapy chamber explodes, killing two people, law enforcement quickly recognizes this was no accident and accuses the chamber's owner, a Korean immigrant. But could it have been the mother of a patient, or perhaps one of the fanatics who had been demonstrating against the controversial therapy? A series of unreliable narrators provide their version of events, leading to a surprising conclusion.
Rules for Visiting (Jessica Francis Kane) — May Attaway is a forty-year-old single woman, working as a gardener at a university and living with her eighty-year-old father. When a professor wins a prize for writing a poem about a tree that May planted, the university rewards her with thirty days of paid leave. Realizing she's neglected her friendships, May leaves her comfort zone and reconnects with four old friends. This is a lovely jewel of a book, filled with warmth and wit, that will remind you of the importance of friends, good books — and plants.
On the World Economic Forum's "list of lists" and very good:
The Most Fun We Ever Had (Claire Lombardo) — If you like dysfunctional family dramas (and I do!), this is for you. It's one of the best of its kind. Marilyn and David, married (mostly happily) for forty years, have raised four very different adult daughters. Their world is rocked when a teenage grandson, given up for adoption, enters their lives. Chicagoans, take note: this absorbing novel is set in our city and the suburbs.
City of Girls (Elizabeth Gilbert) — Maybe you loved Elizabeth Gilbert's bestselling memoir, Eat Pray Love; maybe you hated it. It doesn't matter, because you would never guess they're written by the same author. I suppose you could say they both focus on the same theme — the freedom of women to live as they choose — but the style and tone couldn't be more different. City of Girls covers seventy years in the life of Vivian Morris, who comes to New York as a naive college dropout in 1940 and becomes a successful costume designer as well as a sexual adventurer. What I enjoyed most about this fun book was the dialogue (plenty of witty repartee), the eccentric characters, the clothes, and Vivian's unexpected friendship with a damaged veteran.
Fleishman Is in Trouble (Taffy Brodesser-Akner) — Recently separated from his workaholic wife, Rachel, Toby Fleishman is enjoying a robust social life when Rachel vanishes, leaving him with their two children. This clever and insightful debut novel both satirizes and scrutinizes contemporary marriage. It bogged down for me a bit in the middle — I got tired of Toby's exploits in the world of dating apps — but ultimately redeemed itself with a satisfying, and unexpected, ending. Reviewers have compared this book to Where'd You Go, Bernadette?, and I can see why.
I hope August is a wonderful reading month for you!
Posted on May 15, 2019 by Ann@BooksontheTable
Rainy Day Thoughts on Reading and Reviewing
Woke up this morning with
a terrific urge to lie in bed all day
and read. Fought against it for a minute.
Then looked out the window at the rain.
And gave over. Put myself entirely
in the keep of this rainy morning.
Rainy day reading . . . beach reading . . . airplane reading . . . what's the difference? To me, a good book is a good book whether I'm curled up on the couch on a rainy day, lying on a lounge chair at the beach, or crammed into a middle seat on a long flight. But there is something about a dreary day that makes a person want to hibernate and read. We've had a lot of those days recently in the Midwest — so many that I finally read quite a few long magazine articles that I was literally saving for a rainy day.
One of those articles was "Like This or Die: The Fate of the Book Review in the Age of the Algorithm" by Christian Lorentzen, published in the April issue of Harper's. Lorentzen laments the decline of the traditional book review:
The basic imperatives of the review—analysis and evaluation—are being abandoned in favor of a nodding routine of recommendation. You might like this, you might like that. Let's have a little chat with the author. What books do you keep on your bedside table? What's your favorite TV show? Do you mind that we're doing this friendly Q&A instead of reviewing your book? What if a generation of writers grew up with nobody to criticize them?
I don't think authors need me to criticize them. I assume that by the time their books are published, they've received a lifetime's worth of criticism, from professors, classmates, editors, and "sensitivity readers". Lorentzen's basic point, which is that both readers and writers deserve "painstaking appraisals" of serious books is a good one. I agree with him that much of what now passes as literary journalism is lightweight — for example, lists of "reading recommendations" with blurbs lifted from jacket copy, Instagram photos of celebrities with books as props, and five-minute TV interviews in which it's obvious that interviewer hasn't read the author's book. But if a photo of Reese Witherspoon reading The Library Book inspires her fans to read Susan Orlean's fascinating narrative about public libraries and their place in our society, what's wrong with that?
Objecting to what he calls "a consumerist vision of reading", Lorentzen says, "I'm skeptical of the popular and the commercial." Yes, bestselling books can be poorly written and formulaic, but so are many "literary" books. It seems almost too obvious to state that many bestsellers are popular for a very good reason — they're terrific books by any standard. For example, the current New York Times bestseller list includes Circe by Madeline Miller, A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles, and Being Mortal by Atul Gawande — books beloved by both critics and ordinary readers.
Lorentzen can't resist recommending his own favorite authors, mentioning Yaa Gyasi, author of Homegoing ("formally daring historical fiction") and Nico Walker, the incarcerated author of Cherry ("the opioid epidemic's hard-boiled chronicler"). I would say yes to Gyasi and her powerful, lyrical novel about slavery and its legacy; no to Walker and his repetitive, needlessly vulgar novel with thinly developed female characters.
Bookmarks editor Dan Sheehan asked fourteen literary critics to weigh in on Lorentzen's essay:
Is relentlessly sunny book "coverage" replacing honest book criticism, or merely supplementing it? Are listicles, Bookstagram, and literary Twitter nothing but treacly promotion puddles on the surfaces of which books can float unscrutinized and unchallenged; or are they in fact vibrant and necessary new arenas of discourse wherein previously silenced critical voices can finally be heard?
In a thoughtful discussion ("The Book Review is Dead: Long Live the Book Review"), most critics found some merit in Lorentzen's argument, but most also — like me — agreed that Lorentzen's elitism ignores the positive aspects of 21st century book coverage:
What's the point of panning a disappointing debut that the vast majority of your audience doesn't—and has no reason to—know of? ~ David Canfield, Entertainment Weekly
I don't think there's anything wrong with cheerleading, not when there are so many wonderful books to talk about, not when there's a chance that people might be listening. ~ Steph Cha, LA Times
Readers come in all stripes, and offering a wide array of reviews and profiles and Q&As and lists (or listicles) is a way to draw more attention to books, a way to offer more variety and attract the attention and interest of readers to books they might want to read. ~ Laurie Hertzel, National Book Critics Circle President
Criticism should not only be evaluation or recommendation, but it's not anti-intellectual or wrong for readers to want recommendations or to enjoy curated lists . . . The best we can do is to keep thinking and writing about books, relentlessly and endlessly, as much as we possibly can. ~ Constance Grady, Vox
I keep a log of all the books I've read, with brief reviews. (For the current list, see Read in 2019.) You can see that there are a few books I really disliked, but not many, probably because if I'm not enjoying a book, I don't finish it. The books that I choose to spotlight in blog posts are books I liked enough to recommend to other readers. They're not necessarily masterpieces. Here are a six books (one fiction, five nonfiction) that I enjoyed recently, with appropriately positive reviews. (I draw the line at posting photos of me with books, however — I'm firmly in Christian Lorentzen's camp when it comes to selfies.)
The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See
The best part of this book was learning about a culture that I had no idea even existed — the lives of haenyeo (female divers who can hold their breath for up to three minutes and earn their living by harvesting animals and plants from the ocean) and their matrifocal community of Jeju Island, off the coast of South Korea. Beginning during the Japanese colonial period in the 1930s and moving through decades of rapid change, The Island of Sea Women tells the story of the friendship between Mi-Ja, the daughter of a Japanese collaborator, and Young-Sook, the daughter of the diving collective's leader.
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb
When an unexpected crisis sends therapist Lori Gottlieb into a depression, she seeks the help of another therapist to reassemble the pieces of her life. With humor and compassion, Gottlieb weaves her story with the stories of several patients she's treating, including an insufferably egotistical Hollywood producer, a lonely elderly woman who's planning to commit suicide on her next birthday, a newlywed recently diagnosed with a terminal illness, and a millennial who can't seem to form meaningful relationships. Although it's nonfiction, this book has twists that will keep you turning the pages. You'll root for Gottlieb and for her patients — even that obnoxious producer, who has a backstory that will bring tears to your eyes.
The Storm on Our Shores: One Island, Two Soldiers, and the Forgotten Battle of World War II by Mark Obmascik
Probably, most readers don't know much about the only World War II battle fought in North American — the Battle of Attu, which took place in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska in 1943. This well-researched account personalizes history by focusing on two soldiers — a Japanese medic named Paul Tatsuguchi, educated in America and drafted into the Imperial Army, and an American coal mine, Dick Laird who killed him — and found his diary. Versions of the diary were distributed to American soldiers. Many questions are left unanswered at the end of this book, which I suppose is inevitable because this is real history, not historical fiction; still, I felt the author could have spent more time addressing some of the moral controversy raised by the diary.
The Unwinding of the Miracle: A Memoir of Life, Death and Everything That Comes After by Julie Yip-Williams
I must be a masochist because I can't seem to stop reading memoirs written by people who are dying: The Bright Hour, When Breath Becomes Air, and now The Unwinding of the Miracle. Each one is more heartbreaking — and yet more inspiring — than the last. Born blind in Vietnam, Julie Yip-Williams barely survived childhood; her family tried to euthanize her because of her disability. So it truly is a miracle that she escaped Vietnam in a leaky boat, received surgery in the United States that allowed her to see, graduated from Williams College and Harvard Law School, married, and had a family. Her book, based on a blog she started when she was diagnosed with cancer, is a beautifully written account of a life well lived.
Southern Lady Code by Helen Ellis
This northern lady really enjoyed Helen Ellis's collection of sharp and snappy essays, Despite the title, they're not all about being Southern. And anyway, how can you not adore a writer whose idea of a fun evening is to invite her girlfriends over to drink wine and put together a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle of "a spooky owl in mid-flight"? I just want to know how I can get on Helen's guest list. If you like David Sedaris, you'll love Helen Ellis.
Nanaville: Adventures in Grandparenting by Anna Quindlen
How could I not love this book? Anna Quindlen is one of my favorite authors AND I recently became a grandmother. This is going to be my go-to gift for all the new grandmothers in my life. That said, I don't think you need to be a grandmother to enjoy Nanaville; if you've had a beloved grandparent in your life, that's enough.
Since you've read this far, here's a bonus recommendation: Ask Again, Yes, by Mary Beth Keane, out on May 28. One of my favorites this year, it's the story of the complicated relationship between next-door neighbors.
Posted on April 8, 2019 April 7, 2019 by Ann@BooksontheTable
10 New Books Worth Your Time
The book must of necessity be put into a bookcase. And the bookcase must be housed. And the house must be kept. And the library must be dusted, must be arranged, must be catalogued. What a vista of toil, yet not unhappy toil!
William Gladstone
According to multiple Internet sources, Frank Zappa came up with the saying, "So many books, so little time." Well, it turns out that Zappa didn't coin this phrase; it comes from a pamphlet called So Many Books, So Little Time, What to Do? published in 1892 by a British organization called the National Home Reading Union that aimed to guide middle-class and working-class citizens in their "reading practices and choices." Frank Zappa did say some other smart things, such as "Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff" and "A mind is like a parachute. It doesn't work if it is not open." He also said, "Drop out of school before your mind rots from exposure to our mediocre educational system. Forget about the Senior Prom and go to the library and educate yourself if you've got any guts" and "Tobacco is my favorite vegetable" Well, keep in mind this is a person who named his children Moon Unit and Dweezil.
Someone once gave me a T-shirt that says "So many books, so little time" and if that T-shirt hadn't been too small, I'd have worn it the other day while cleaning out my bookshelves. (I apologize to whoever gave me the shirt, but it's going in the donation bag .. . as soon as I decide to tackle my closet. Sorting through books can be fun, sorting through clothes is never fun.) I had totally run out of shelf space and had to make some tough decisions. A few were not so difficult — I had no problem tossing Mary Ellen's Best Helpful Hints, 1983 edition — but it was hard to get rid of piles of yellowed paperbacks I'd never read that I knew were good books. I'd just never gotten to them, and enticing new books keep arriving. What does it mean that I've never been in the mood to pick up Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna, even though I'm pretty sure I'd like it?
At the end of my cleaning project, I had two shelves of books I want to read, plus a basket full of books I have to read for upcoming discussions. I'm going to adhere to a new policy: one in, one out — if I add a book to the TBR shelves, I have to remove one and pass it along. My mother just gave me a copy of The Last Romantics by Tara Conklin, so Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson had to go. I slid it into the Little Free Library around the corner, hoping someone would give it a good home.
Here are ten books that were definitely worth my time:
The Honey Bus: A Memoir of Loss, Courage and A Girl Saved by Bees by Meredith May
You know you're reading a really good book when the topic is one in which you've previously had no interest — but you still can't put the book down. The topic here is beekeeping and the natural world of honeybees, and it's absolutely fascinating — both in its own right and as a metaphor used by Meredith May's beekeeper grandfather to teach her life lessons. Meredith May's memoir of growing up in a rural area of northern California, near Big Sur, ranks at the top of my list of terrific coming-of-age memoirs.
Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir by Ruth Reichl
I loved every page of Ruth Reichl's behind-the-scenes look at her career as editor of Gourmet magazine. Reichl, who was the restaurant critic for the New York Times when Conde Nast approached her to run the magazine, initially turned down the job, citing her lack of editorial experience. But she finally decided to take a chance, spending ten exhilarating years at the helm of Gourmet. At a time when print magazines are becoming an endangered species, Reichl's love letter to Gourmet — and her talented and idiosyncratic colleagues (chefs, writers, and editors) — is particularly poignant. It's truly a joy to read, whether you're a foodie or not.
An American Summer: Love and Death in Chicago by Alex Kotlowitz
In a heartbreaking book that offers no easy answers, Alex Kotlowitz examines the rampant gun violence in Chicago's most dangerous neighborhoods during the summer of 2013. He brings to life the perpetrators, victims, and their families, demonstrating their shared humanity and the twists of fate that can shape one person into a killer and another into a victim. The story of gun violence isn't a story of statistics, Kotlowitz shows us. That said, I wish he had included more facts in the book — for example, the fact that Chicago's murder rate has been going down, and that it isn't among the top ten most violent cities in the country, or that other major cities (notably, New York) have seen an even larger drop in violence in recent years.
Henry, Himself by Stewart O'Nan
Henry, Himself is the third in a trilogy about a middle-class Pittsburgh family. In the two earlier books, Wish You Were Here and Emily, Alone, we meet Henry only in retrospect — he has died and his grieving family is trying to move on without him. In this lovely, quiet novel, we see Henry and his family through his own eyes. Short, well-titled chapters alternate between the present, when Henry is 75, and the past, starting with his childhood and moving through his service In World War II and his adult years. The novel brims with affection for its main character, an ordinary man wrestling with big questions: What is the meaning of an individual life? What do we leave behind? You don't have to have read the previous books to enjoy this one, but once you've read Henry, Himself, you'll want to read the others.
The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker
I'm generally not drawn to dystopian fiction, or magical realism. If it couldn't really happen, I lose interest. But there are exceptions to every rule, and The Dreamers is one of them. I couldn't stop reading this haunting, and yes, dreamy, story of a college town struck by a mysterious flulike illness whose victims fall deeply asleep and experience vivid dreams. This novel, which reminded me of one of my all-time favorite books, Station Eleven, will stay with me for a long time. (I just noticed that Emily St. John Mandel provided the cover blurb!)
The Huntress by Kate Quinn
The best page-turner/World War II novel I've read in ages! Every chapter ends with a cliffhanger — you won't be able to stop reading. Kate Quinn expertly weaves the story of the Nazi "huntress" with several others, all compelling: the female Soviet pilots known as the "Night Witches", two postwar Nazi hunters, and a young girl and her antique dealer father living in Boston. Bonus: it's a paperback original.
Sadie by Courtney Summers
If you're an adult reader who's a bit wary of YA fiction, Sadie is a great place to start. This smart and original thriller, about a missing teenage girl, is also perfect for fans of true crime podcasts. Half the book is narrated by Sadie, the runaway girl, and half is a transcription of a podcast called "The Girls". It's an addictive read for both older teenagers and adults. For readers who noticed that A.J. Finn provided the cover blurb, check out the fascinating New Yorker article, A Suspense Novelist's Trail of Deceptions, which shows "A.J. Finn" (the pseudonym of Dan Mallory) to be a pathological liar.
The Age of Light by Whitney Scharer
I loved learning about Lee Miller, the 1920s Vogue model who was surrealist Man Ray's muse in Paris and then become a celebrated photographer, documenting the horrors of World War II. If you enjoyed any of Paula McClain's novels, especially Love and Ruin (about Martha Gellhorn and Ernest Hemingway), you'll adore this book.
The River by Peter Heller
Two Dartmouth students, experienced outdoorsmen, embark on a journey in northern Canada that they intend to be a rugged adventure in the wilderness but that turns out to be a "Deliverance"-style nightmare. It's a page-turner, to be sure, but this novel is much more than that. For one thing, Heller's writing is gorgeous; for another, he has created two characters that are as real as any you'll meet on the page. The last lines of the Denver Post review are "I could not put this book down. It truly was terrifying and unutterably beautiful", and I couldn't agree more.
Little Faith by Nickolas Butler
Lyle and Peg Hovde have recently welcomed their daughter, Shiloh, and her six-year-old son, Isaac into their home in rural Wisconsin. Having lost a baby boy in infancy, the Hovdes relish their roles as hands-on grandparents. But when Shiloh joins a fundamentalist church that practices faith healing, and declares that little Isaac is a gifted healer, Lyle and Peg are faced with difficult decisions. This beautiful novel, covering a year of the changing Midwestern seasons, raises provocative questions about faith and family. I'm looking forward to hearing Butler talk about the novel at a Lake Forest Book Store luncheon on April 25 — click here for more details.
Posted on January 29, 2019 January 29, 2019 by Ann@BooksontheTable
Random Recommendations on a Snowy Day
Snow was falling,
so much like stars
filling the dark trees
that one could easily imagine
its reason for being was nothing more
than prettiness.
Happy 2019! I'm not sure why, but I haven't written a blog post since October. Today, the snow is falling and my plans for the day have been canceled. It's a perfect time to sit at my desk and put together a list of winter reading recommendations. But it's been so long . . . where do I start? Books that are hot off the press? New in paperback? My favorites from 2018?
A list of books with "winter" in the title would be fun — The Dakota Winters, by Tom Barbash , is a brand-new and absorbing novel about growing up in the famous Dakota apartment building in New York, with John Lennon as a neighbor, and The Winter Soldier, by Daniel Mason, is terrific historical fiction about an Austrian medical student sent to a remote field hospital during World War I. And how about Isabel Allende's In the Midst of Winter, a beautiful novel about three characters whose lives collide during a Brooklyn blizzard, and Robin Oliveira's Winter Sisters, a page-turner set in 19th century Albany, New York that features a former Civil War surgeon, Mary Sutter (last seen in My Name is Mary Sutter)? My favorite "winter" novel has to be The Long Winter, which I think is the best of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series.
Some random thoughts on more of my recent reading, which has been mostly nonfiction:
I really love books about whaling. I'm one of those rare readers who not only enjoyed Moby Dick but didn't skip the long passages about whaling techniques. Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea, narrative nonfiction about shipwrecked whalers, is one of my favorite books. I'm also fascinated with indigenous people who live in remote areas, so The Last Whalers: Three Years in the Far Pacific With a Courageous Tribe and a Vanishing Way of Life, by Doug Bock Clark, hit my sweet spot. I think anyone who enjoys excellent narrative nonfiction will find this book fascinating, and hard to put down. The New York Times review says, it "has the texture and coloring of a first-rate novel", and I agree.
When a lot of people whose opinions you respect keep telling you to read a book, you should listen to them. For some reason, I was dubious about Elena Ferrante's acclaimed Neapolitan Novels, but after watching My Brilliant Friend on HBO, I decided to give the series another try — and now I'm hooked. I wish someone had told me that these books are an Italian version of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn — but even better, because the story just keeps going.
For some memoir authors, one book isn't enough. An article about the increasing number of "serial memoirists" explores this phenomenon: "This Is the Story of My Life. And This Is the Story of My Life." Dani Shapiro, for example, has just published her fifth memoir, Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love. I don't have enough material to fill even a fraction of one memoir, but my AncestryDNA results were, unlike Shapiro's, exactly what I expected. I read this book in one day and can't wait to discuss it with a book group.
Bill Bryson, watch out — Jennifer Traig is encroaching on your territory. In Act Natural: A Cultural History of Misadventures in Parenting, she delves deep into the history of Western child-rearing, starting with ancient Rome, juxtaposing detailed research with scathing wit. In order to keep their babies from stumbling into "bubbling pots of gruel", medieval parents swaddled their babies tightly and hung them from hooks on the hall, "like purses on a bathroom stall."
I can never resist a book about books, especially one about children's books, so I couldn't wait to read The Enchanted Hour: The Miraculous Power of Reading Aloud in the Age of Distraction, by Meghan Cox Gurdon, the children's book critic for the Wall Street Journal. (Doesn't that sound like a dream job?) She shares fascinating data from the Reading and Literacy Discovery Center at Cincinnati Children's Hospital, among other research centers, that prove what "we enthusiasts have long suspected is true: reading aloud really is a kind of magic elixir."
I am such a word nerd that I actually enjoy reading books about grammar and vocabulary. I don't know how many people like me exist, but there must be enough of us to justify publishing these books. How to Tell Fate From Destiny: And Other Skillful Word Distinctions by Charles Harrington Elster and Dreyer's English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style by Benjamin Dreyer (copy chief of Random House). If you were the kind of kid who liked to read the dictionary, you'll enjoy both of these books, which are both full of humor as well as useful information.
You might think a certain category of book is not for you, but then you read one and change your mind. I didn't think I would like a graphic memoir, but I absolutely adored Hey, Kiddo: How I Lost My Mother, Found My Father, and Dealt With Family Addiction, by Jarrett J. Krosoczka. It's unlike anything I've read before, and humanizes the opioid crisis in way no other book I've read on the subject has been able to do.
I'd love your recommendations!
Posted on July 30, 2018 by Ann@BooksontheTable
What I've Been Reading — Summer 2018
Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.
John Lubbock
And of course, reading is never a waste of time. The number of good books to read is overwhelming, and sometimes I get frustrated when I realize I've spent hours reading something that is just OK, when there are piles of other books waiting for me. It's maddening to go on a trip with several carefully chosen books, only to find that not one of them is especially engaging. That's when I have to remind myself that I'm not going to love every book, and that even the time spent reading a mediocre book is time well spent. As Will Schwalbe says in Books for Living, "You can learn something from the very worst books . . . even if it's just one gleaming insight in a muddy river of words."
Case in point: on a recent long weekend, I packed a couple of brand-new books I thought I would love: The Bookshop of Yesterdays by Amy Meyerson and That Kind of Mother by Rumaan Alam. They were both disappointing, but I learned a couple of things that I probably should have already known: 1) Just because a book centers on an independent bookstore doesn't mean it's a great book; and 2) If I didn't like the author's first book (in this case, Alam's Rich and Pretty) it's unlikely that I'll like his second.
The third book I read on that trip, which I didn't start until the plane ride home, was one that I tossed in my bag at the last minute — The Fact of a Body by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich. A terrific mash-up of true crime and memoir, this is one of the best nonfiction books I've read in years. When she was a law student, the author spent the summer working on an appeal for a convicted child murderer, Ricky Langley. An avowed opponent of the death penalty, Marzano-Lesnevich found herself wishing for Langley's execution. As she examined the case, eventually spending years studying every detail, she came to a new understanding of her own painful childhood and a radically different view of the legal system.
Here are eight more books I recommend, whether you're in the mood for easy summer reading (The High Season, The Book of Essie), serious literary fiction (Asymmetry, The Great Believers, The Dependents), something in between (The Locals, Visible Empire), or bittersweet humor (Less).
The High Season by Judy Blundell
This is the quintessential beach book! The High Season is the most entertaining book I've read in a long time. Ruthie Beamish abandoned her art career to direct a small museum on the West Fork of Long Island. Now a board filled with social climbers wants to oust her, and Ruthie faces losing not only her job but her beloved waterfront home. Take this one on your next vacation, whether you're on the beach or not.
Visible Empire by Hannah Pittard
I love books where several plot threads come together in an unexpected way, and I love books based on little-known events in history — so Visible Empire hit my sweet spot. In 1962, an Atlanta-bound jet crashed in Paris, killing 121 passengers, most of whom were prominent in Atlanta society, who'd just finished a cultural tour of Europe. Pittard imagines the aftermath of this tragedy, focusing on several characters connected to the deceased passengers.
Less by Andrew Sean Greer
Last year's Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction is that rarest of all literary prize winners — a comic novel. The readers I've discussed this book with seem bewildered about why Greer's novel won the prize. Recent winners have covered the violence of slavery (The Underground Railroad), the legacy of the Vietnam War and the immigrant experience (The Sympathizer), and the horrors of World War II (All the Light We Cannot See). How does a story about a middle-aged gay man traveling around the world to avoid his ex-lover's wedding compare to these lofty works? Read it, and prepare to be dazzled. The blurb on the Pulitzer website describes the book better than I ever could: "A generous book, musical in its prose and expansive in its structure and range, about growing older and the essential nature of love."
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
One of my favorite novels of the year, and the only one that's moved me to tears, The Great Believers tells the story of Chicago's AIDS crisis in the 1980s through the eyes of Yale Tishman, the development director at an art gallery. Makkai skillfully weaves the story of Yale and his community with two others that are almost as compelling: that of Fiona, his deceased friend Nico's younger sister, who loses her daughter to a religious cult and goes to Paris to track her down, and Nora, the elderly owner of a valuable art collection she wants to donate to Yale's art gallery, against the wishes of her family. Don't start this book unless you have plenty of time, because you won't want to stop.
The Book of Essie by Meghan MacLean Weir
Seventeen-year-old Essie Hicks is the youngest daughter of an evangelical preacher. Nearly every move she makes is filmed for the TV reality show featuring her family. When she becomes pregnant, the producers, aided by her conniving mother, spin the story by planning a wedding — to be aired on TV, naturally. It's all rather unbelievable, until you remember the Duggar family ("19 Kids and Counting") and their fall from grace — and you'll keep turning the pages. The Book of Essie, Weir's debut, is an adult novel, but it reads like YA and is perfect for teenagers.
The Dependents by Katherine Dion
The Dependents is a lovely and quiet novel that will linger in your mind long after you turn the last page. In its beautifully rendered exploration of relationships — between husband and wife, parent and child, and friends — it reminds me of Alice McDermott's fiction. Another reviewer mentioned that the book reminded her of Wallace Stegner's Crossing to Safety (I assume because of the focus on the lifelong friendship between two married couples), and that is high praise indeed.
Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday
When Lisa Halliday was in her twenties, she had an affair with Philip Roth. Her debut novel is about a young editor who has a relationship with a famous author who bears a strong resemblance to Philip Roth. At least, that's what you think this novel is about — until the second section, when the narrative focuses on a Muslim man detained at Heathrow. Imaginative and thought-provoking, Asymmetry is a "literary phenomenon", according to the New Yorker. It's the kind of book you'll want to discuss the minute you finish it. Less than 300 pages long, Asymmetry raises more questions and covers more territory than most books twice its length.
The Locals by Jonathan Dee
Just after 9/11, a wealthy New Yorker, Philip Hadi, moves his family to their vacation home in the Berkshires, and quickly becomes involved — perhaps over-involved — in local politics. Meanwhile, Mark Firth, a contractor who's remodeling Hadi's house, faces his own problems. As the novel progresses and tensions between the locals and the interloper escalate, Dee introduces a cast of characters in fictional Howland, Massachusetts, each with a distinct voice. The Locals is reminiscent of Richard Russo's upstate New York novels — but with a bit more of an edge. There's plenty of material for a book group discussion; I'd start out by asking why Dee included the first chapter, narrated by a New York City con artist who never becomes important to the story.
What four-star books have you read recently?
Posted on April 19, 2018 April 19, 2018 by Ann@BooksontheTable
6 Books to Read This Spring
I won't bore you with long-winded complaints about the weather, but I will mention that it snowed and rained all weekend — which meant that I had the perfect excuse to stay home and become completely absorbed in The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer.
Books were an antidepressant . . . she'd always been one of those girls with socked feet tucked under her, her mouth slightly open in stunned, almost doped-up concentration. . . Novels had accompanied her throughout her childhood, that period of protracted isolation, and they would probably do so during whatever lay ahead in adulthood.
Greer Kadetsky is a freshman in college when she has a life-changing encounter with feminist icon Faith Frank (who closely resembles Gloria Steinem). After graduation, Greer goes to work for Faith's foundation, while her longtime boyfriend, Cory Pinto, moves abroad for a consulting job. After he returns to the United States, events force both Greer and Cory (who are two of the most endearing characters I've come across in contemporary literature) to re-examine everything they've valued.
The publicity surrounding Wolitzer's twelfth novel have focused on its political themes — female ambition and activism, the evolution of the women's movement, sexual assault on campus — but this isn't a political book; it's a traditional, character-driven novel. There's even a satisfying, mostly happy ending. For an interesting interview with Meg Wolitzer, check out the Parnassus Books blog. Fun fact from the interview: Nora Ephron was Meg Wolitzer's mentor, who encouraged her to find her voice just as Faith makes Greer's "head crack open".
Like Meg Wolitzer, Anna Quindlen is an author who never disappoints me. I think her latest book, Alternate Side, is one of her best, although quite a few reviewers disagree with me, finding her focus too rarefied.
Nora and Charlie seem to have everything: a brownstone on a quiet cut-de-sac in New York's Upper West Side, surrounded by long-time neighbors who throw great parties, college-aged twins who love their visits home, and terrific jobs. But when a parking dispute turns into a violent incident, life begins to unravel.
Like Nora Ephron, Quindlen zeroes in on her characters with just the right details. (Is it a coincidence that Quindlen named her protagonist Nora?) Nora, a passionate New Yorker, can't understand why anyone would want to live anywhere else:
"I hear it's snowing there!" Bebe would bellow jubilantly when she called in later in the day, in that way Florida people always did, as though temperate weather alone were equivalent to Lincoln Center, Broadway theater, endless restaurants, Saks.
According to the Washington Post, "Quindlen has written a book that only a New Yorker — or at least someone who has lived there for a stint — could love. The rest of the world may have a hard time relating to the characters." I disagree — you certainly don't need to have lived in New York, or even to understand the city's "alternate side" parking regulations, to enjoy this novel.
Not everyone is going to love Kate Greathead's debut novel, Laura and Emma, but I'm crazy about it. Not much happens; it's a character study of a woman named Laura, who comes from a very privileged background in New York but has never felt that she fits in. When she gets pregnant by accident, she raises her daughter, Emma, on her own. The writing is just perfect; Kate Greathead has a unique voice that resonated with me. It's perfect for readers who enjoyed Emily, Alone by Stewart O'Nan, Someone by Alice McDermott, or My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout. These books are the opposite of page-turners, but I found them more compelling than any thriller.
Laura, who incongruously makes her living as an event planner, is a keen observer:
The featured guest was an author who had recently published a bestselling novel, the kind of book everyone they knew was reading. Laura didn't need to read it to know it was trash. She could tell from the cover: two pairs of feet and rumpled bedsheets. The author himself looked like he'd just emerged from an afternoon in a hotel room, with his tousled hair, slap-happy grin, and dress shirt unbuttoned one button too many.
Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser successfully combines the true story of Wilder's difficult life and American expansion in the West in an original and captivating narrative. This meticulously researched book — which just won the Pulitzer Prize for biography — will fascinate not only Little House on the Prairie fans but anyone with an interest in the complicated history of pioneers and homesteaders.
Wilder's perseverance gave rise to one of the most astonishing rags-to-riches stories in American letters . . . Wilder reimagined her frontier childhood as epic and uplifting. Her gently triumphal revision of homesteading would convince generations that the American farm was a model of self-sufficiency. At the same time, it would hint at the complex realities behind homesteading, suggesting that it broke more lives than it sustained.
In one of the most moving memoirs I've ever read, Clemantine Wamariya, a very young survivor of the Rwandan genocide, tells her heartbreaking story of loss and survival. The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After is reminiscent of A Long Way Gone by former child soldier Ismael Beah. With her older sister, six-year-old Clemantine fled her home and wandered throughout Africa in search of safety, finally receiving asylum in the United States. As a young adult, she tries to come to terms with the tragedy that shaped her life:
I had been so absorbed as a young child, in knowing the world, and then I'd lost the whole world that I knew . . . Now I was sitting here, in Kenilworth, across a rift in the galaxy a million miles wide, learning about one group of people killing another group of people, people they lived with and knew.
I absolutely adored The Friend by Sigrid Nunez, about a writer who loses her dearest friend but finds solace when she becomes the reluctant owner of the Great Dane he has left behind. It's a lovely, unsentimental story about grief, friendship, literature, and the bond between people and their pets, filled with the narrator's thoughts on reading and writing. If you love dogs and books, you'll savor this jewel of a book. I promise you that it's not sappy. This will definitely make my list of favorite novels at the end of the year.
Your whole house smells of dog, says someone who comes to visit. I say I'll take care of it. Which I do by never inviting that person to visit again.
I recommended Alternate Side, The Friend, and Prairie Fires in an earlier post this month (How to Celebrate National Poetry Month), but that post has the dubious distinction of being my least-read post in years — which shows that one, National Poetry Month was not an enticing topic to most readers, and two, that I'm not good at writing catchy titles. There are actually websites devoted to creating click-bait blog post titles — you plug in the topic and an algorithm fills in the blanks. Here are some of the headlines suggested to me:
Five Stereotypes About National Poetry Month That Aren't Always True; The Worst Advice We've Ever Heard About National Poetry Month; Think You're Cut Out for Poetry? Take This Quiz and Find Out!; and my favorite, Does National Poetry Month Make You Feel Stupid? Actually, no — what makes me feel stupid is when I click on a ridiculous headline created by an algorithm, not a thoughtful human being.
How to Celebrate National Poetry Month –and National Car Care Awareness Month
April is National Poetry Month!
The act of treating poetry like a difficult activity one needs to master can easily perpetrate those mistaken, and pervasive, ideas about poetry that make it hard to read in the first place. Like classical music, poetry has an unfortunate reputation for requiring special training and education to appreciate . . . To learn to read poetry is first a matter of forgetting many incorrect things we have learned in school. And then of learning to accept what is right before us on the page.
Matthew Zapruda, Why Poetry
If your idea of reading poetry is your sophomore English teacher leading the class through a grim line-by-line analysis of "Ode on a Grecian Urn", I suggest you pick up a copy of Matthew Zapruda's Why Poetry — along with Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver. These books will show you the joy of reading a poem without viewing it as a coded message.
Believe it or not, a century or so ago, poetry was popular, published every day in newspapers and magazines. Consider Margaret Fishback , the real-life inspiration for the title character in Kathleen Rooney's absolutely delightful Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk, Fishback, a highly paid advertising copywriter long before the days of Madmen, published four bestselling books of poetry, and her clever verse, amusing and easy to understand, was published in Vanity Fair, Good Housekeeping, Harper's Bazaar, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, to name just a few. Lillian Boxfish, just out in paperback, is a charming chronicle not only of the life of a remarkable woman but of six decades of change in Lillian's beloved New York City.
Poetry fans aren't the only people who have claimed April as their official month. Dozens of other causes and organizations have designated April as National Whatever Month — here are a few examples, along with recommended reading:
Distracted Driver Awareness Month
Please for the love of God, if you drive a car and you haven't read A Deadly Wandering: A Mystery, A Landmark Investigation and the Astonishing Science of Attention in the Digital Age by Matt Richtel, read it and make sure your kids do too. It's truly a lifesaving book about a teenage driver who killed two people when he decided to send his girlfriend a quick text. But it's not homework — it's also as compelling a story as any thriller. For my complete review, click here.
Confederate History Month
This one doesn't sit well with me. I suggest one of the recent award winners about the horrors and legacy of slavery — Sing Unburied Sing by Jesymn Ward and The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. Or you could read Rick Bragg's The Best Cook in the World: Tales From My Momma's Table, which would also count for National Food Month.
Pets Are Wonderful Month, Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Month, and National Canine Fitness Month
I absolutely adored The Friend by Sigrid Nunez, about a writer who loses her dearest friend but finds solace when she becomes the reluctant owner of the Great Dane he has left behind. It's a lovely, unsentimental story about grief, friendship, and the bond between people and their pets, filled with the narrator's thoughts on reading and writing. If you love dogs and literature, you'll savor this jewel of a book.
This one doesn't sit well with me. I suggest one of the recent award winners about the horrors and legacy of slavery — Sing Unburied Sing by Jesymn Ward and The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. You could also read Rick Bragg's The Best Cook in the World: Tales From My Momma's Table, which would also count for National Food Month.
National Food Month (also, National Fresh Celery Month and National Soft Pretzel Month)
First of all, shouldn't it be National Soft HOT Pretzel Month? Because if pretzels are soft but they're not hot, they're no good at all.) I have no suggestions for books about celery or pretzels, but I can recommend a terrific memoir masquerading as a food book: The Best Cook in the World (to be published April 24). I loved journalist Rick Bragg's earlier stories of growing up poor in the deep South, and this installment is just as good. But don't read it for the recipes, unless you relish pan-roasted pig's feet and baked possum.
National Autism Awareness Month
If you liked The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, don't miss Ginny Moon. Narrated by the title character, a fourteen-year-old girl with autism, Ginny Moon holds surprises on nearly every page. Your heart will go out to Ginny, who is misunderstood at every turn. The author, Benjamin Ludwig, knows what he's talking about: like the couple in his novel, he and his wife adopted a young autistic girl who longed to return to her birth mother.
National Older Americans Month
Older? Older than whom? I am 57. Am I an "older American"? There are a lot of much older Americans. Still, it's nice to read books written by and about these older Americans. I was inspired by Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser, which successfully combines the true story of Wilder's difficult life and the history of American expansion in the West in an original and captivating narrative. Wilder published her first book in the beloved Little House series when she was sixty-five.
Anna Quindlen's new book, Alternate Side, about a Manhattan couple with an empty nest (who could be described as "older Americans") who are facing problems with each other and in their closely knit neighborhood, is terrific. According to the Washington Post, "Quindlen has written a book that only a New Yorker — or at least someone who has lived there for a stint — could love. The rest of the world may have a hard time relating to the characters." It's true that this book — like Lillian Boxfish and The Friend — is a New York book, but you certainly don't need to have lived in New York, or even to understand the city's "alternate side" parking regulations, to enjoy this novel. You can never go wrong with Anna Quindlen.
National Car Care Awareness Month
I have no suggestions. I'm going to take my car for a wash.
P.S. I forgot to mention that it's National Safe Digging Month, and I do have a suggestion for that: Mike Mulligan and the Steam Shovel, still a favorite among preschoolers.
Posted on February 27, 2018 by Ann@BooksontheTable
I also believe that there is no book so bad that you can't find anything in it of interest. You can learn something from the very worst books . . . even if it's just one gleaming insight in a muddy river of words.
Will Schwalbe, Books for Living
I agree with Will Schwalbe. Although I don't love every book I finish, there's something to appreciate, enjoy, and learn in each one. Usually, if a book isn't working for me, I won't finish it — but sometimes, I persevere because reviews have led me to believe that it's going to improve. This is like heading outside with no raincoat or umbrella as black storm clouds gather. Here are some mini-reviews of books I've read recently, starting with my favorites.
My favorite book this year (so far):
Educated: A Memoir (Tara Westover) — This is my first "I couldn't put it down" book of 2018. It's the amazing true story of a young woman raised off the grid in a strict fundamentalist/survivalist family. Not allowed to attend school or visit doctors, Tara Westover was used as slave labor in her family's scrap business, suffering life-threatening injuries multiple times. Through incredible strength and some lucky breaks, Westover got herself to college and eventually to graduate school at Cambridge.
My favorite novel so far this year:
The Immortalists (Chloe Benjamin) — Reading the jacket copy might make you think this book is a work of magical realism, but it's really a family story — but a very creative one. Four children visit a fortune teller who claims to be able to predict the day each of them will die. The rest of the novel follows each sibling's path through life, asking the question: how much control do we have over the trajectory of our lives?
Terrific narrative nonfiction:
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI (David Grann) — The author of The Lost City of Z, which I loved, has written another outstanding "truth is stranger than fiction" page-turner about a buried piece of history. In the early part of the twentieth century, the Osage Indians, who'd been banished to what the government thought was a useless piece of land in Oklahoma, discovered oil. Their newfound wealth led to a shocking and cold-blooded plot to murder many of them — a plot that was uncovered by the fledgling FBI. The photos of the people involved (victims, and their family members, villains, and heroes) add to the tragic and compelling story.
The perfect gift for your sister, mother, daughter, or friend:
Tell Me More: Stories About the 12 Hardest Things I'm Learning to Say (Kelly Corrigan) — Corrigan's trademark wisdom and self-deprecating humor shine in this series of personal essays.
For anyone who loved When Breath Becomes Air:
Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved (Kate Bowler) — At age 35, Kate Bowler, a divinity professor and new mother, found she had Stage IV cancer. A scholar of the American prosperity gospel, which asserts that God will bless the deserving with health and wealth, Bowler is forced to confront uncertainty. She laces her heartbreaking memoir with wit and humor. Start at the end of the book — Appendix 1 ("Absolutely Never Say This to People Experiencing Terrible Times: A Short List") and Appendix 2 ("Give This a Go, See How It works: A Short List").
2017 Man Booker Prize finalist, new in paperback:
Exit West (Mohsin Hamid) — Some books are best enjoyed and appreciated by solitary readers, while others demand discussion. Exit West, a finalist for last year's Man Booker Prize, is one of the latter. It's the story of a young couple, Saaed and Nadia, who escape their war-torn country through a series of magical doors. Fans of The Underground Railroad will love this novel.
I should have read it in 2017 . . . but I'm glad I finally got to it:
Sing, Unburied, Sing (Jesmyn Ward) — Last year's National Book Award winner is a beautifully written story about, among other things, the legacy of slavery. I had to slow myself down while reading it to savor the language. Usually, when ghosts show up in a book, I put the book down in disappointment — but I can't imagine this novel without the ghosts.
To keep on your bedside table:
Mothers of Sparta: A Memoir in Pieces (Dawn Davies) — A collection of essays about parenthood that will have you chuckling one moment and choking up the next, Mothers of Sparta is a raw and beautiful book. The titular essay, about the challenges of raising a severely handicapped son, is particularly moving. Davies intersperses the story of her son's difficult childhood with the story of mothers raising sons to be Spartan warriors.
Oprah's recent book club choice — I thought it was pretty good:
An American Marriage (Tayari Jones) — Married just a year, Roy and Celestial are adjusting to marriage when Roy is arrested for a crime he didn't commit and sentenced to a lengthy prison term. Through letters, we see Celestial's commitment unraveling, and when Roy is released early, matters come to a head. This is an insightful portrait of flawed but appealing characters facing a no-win situation. I was a little bothered by a plot hole and would love to discuss this book with other readers.
Written by a publishing insider:
The Woman in the Window (A.J. Finn, pseudonym) — This is a solid suspense novel that doesn't quite live up to the hype. But what could? It kept me engrossed on a long plane trip, even if I didn't find the ending completely surprising. Hitchcock aficionados will enjoy the film references.
For fans of domestic thrillers:
The Perfect Nanny (Leila Slimani) — Plenty of controversy has surrounded this French bestseller which is loosely based on a real-life case in New York City in which a nanny murdered her charges. The author has been accused of making judgments about working women and of exploiting a tragedy (see this article in the New York Times). I thought it was a realistic, if horrifying, glimpse into the mind of a person descending into insanity.
Novel that our YA book group enjoyed discussing:
Far From the Tree (Robin Benway) — The National Book Award winner for Young People's Literature in 2017, Far From the Tree tells the affecting story of three siblings, given up by their birth mother, who find one another as teenagers. I'm a little surprised this won the National Book Award — it's very good but not exceptional.
Currently #1 on the New York Times bestseller list — but why?
The Great Alone (Kristin Hannah) — Hmmm. This novel about PTSD, domestic abuse, and the Alaska wilderness kept me turning the pages on a recent beach vacation, and the Little House in the Prairie fan in me loved learning about twentieth century homesteading. But the writing is subpar — lots of blankets of snow and buttery sunshine — and the characters were stereotypical and uninteresting.
The shortest hardcover book I've ever read: (144 pages, lots of white space):
Heather, the Totality (Matthew Weinstein) — This is a very weird little book. I can't decide if it's brilliant or just plain bad, and the reviews are equally divided. (See the article in Library Journal, "What to Make of Heather, the Totality.") Perfect for book clubs, especially those looking for short books. Our group joked that we spent more time discussing the book than it took to read it. The author is the creator of Madmen, which is interesting because there's hardly any dialogue in the book.
Skip this one — but read the author's earlier novel, Black Chalk:
Grist Mill Road (Christopher Yates) — This ambitious novel starts out with a bang — literally, as a teenage boy repeatedly shoots a female classmate with a BB gun as another boy watches, leaving her for dead. Soon, the characters are introduced as adults and we learn that the victim and the observer are married to one another. Through each character's version of events, we go back to the day of the crime, eventually learning what really happened and why. The twist was a big disappointment, and I closed the book feeling that I'd been cheated.
Posted on October 14, 2017 October 14, 2017 by Ann@BooksontheTable
What Fiction to Read Next — Fall 2017
And indeed, what is better than to sit by one's fireside in the evening with a book, while the wind beats against the window and the lamp is burning?
Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary
Publishers love to release their big, prestigious books in the fall, just in time for holiday shopping. And people claim to love summer reading, but the cooler months are the best time to curl up with a good book. The problem every fall is that there are too many books getting lots of buzz. How do readers determine which of these books are overhyped, overlong, or overambitious?
Nearly every publication that covers the literary scene, print and online, assembles a list of "must-read" books every fall. The same titles pop up again and again, as an article in Literary Hub (The Ultimate Preview: The Most Recommended Books of Fall) points out. Literary Hub looked at seventeen articles, including The Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2017 (Publishers Weekly), 27 of the Best Books to Read This Fall (Elle), 28 Exciting New Books You Need to Read This Fall (Buzzfeed), and 28 New Fiction Books to Add to Your Must-Read List This Fall (Huffington Post). Why 27? Why 28? Who knows.
One of the more peculiar lists is Today.com's 6 Must-Read Books for Fall, which includes Sing,Unburied, Sing and Manhattan Beach, of course, but also the actress Anna Faris's debut literary effort, Unqualified, in which she "shares lessons she's learned along the way." (Note to the Today.com writer who assembled the list: Faris's soon-to-be ex-husband, Chris Pratt, wrote the FOREWORD to the book, not the FORWARD.)
Since I prefer lists of ten, here are the ten works of fiction that appear most often on Literary Hub's fall previews:
Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan (mentioned on nearly every list)
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward (finalist for the National Book Award)
Fresh Complaint by Jeffrey Eugenides (short stories)
Five Carat Soul by James McBride (short stories)
My Body and Other Stories by Carmen Maria Machado (short stories)
Forest Dark by Nicole Krauss
The Golden House by Salman Rushdie
Dinner at the Center of the Earth by Nathan Englander
The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermott
I'm currently reading and enjoying Manhattan Beach — but it's very different from Jennifer Egan's earlier novels, which experimented with form and content. According to an article in the New Yorker, "Jennifer Egan's Travels Through Time", Egan "is a realist with a speculative bent of mind, a writer of postmodern inclinations with the instincts of an old-fashioned entertainer. She's known for her roving, unpredictable imagination, and for the dazzling ingenuity of her narrative conceits." Manhattan Beach is straightforward historical fiction, focusing on Anna Kerrigan, who becomes one of the U.S. Army's first female deep-sea divers during World War II. Egan spent nearly fifteen years writing the book, doing prodigious amounts of research and producing draft after draft.
It's interesting that three of the books most frequently recommended are collections of short stories, because in my experience hardly anyone wants to read short stories. I'm not sure why, because short stories are perfect for those times when you're between books, or don't have the time to immerse yourself in your current book. It can be very satisfying to read a thoughtful, well-written story. You feel like you've accomplished something. And there are many stories you can read in 10 or 15 minutes . . . stories that you will be thinking about for much, much longer than that. But they're a tough sell. To read my sales pitch for short stories, check out Five Reasons to Read Short Stories.
I had the pleasure of hearing Nicole Krauss discuss Forest Dark at a local bookstore event. One of her earlier books, The History of Love, is on my list of all-time favorites. My reaction after reading Forest Dark: Wow, this is a brilliant book. My reaction after listening to Krauss speak, and read from her novel: Wow, she is brilliant. The New York Times calls her "an incisive and creative interpreter of Kafka"; the Guardian says Forest Dark is "blazingly intelligent, elegantly written and a remarkable achievement. Yes, but . . . this is a novel that I admired more than I loved.
On the other hand, I loved Alice McDermott's The Ninth Hour. McDermott is one of my very favorite writers, and I've had to wait four years for The Ninth Hour. (Someone came out in 2013). Every time I read one of her books, I think, This one is her best, and that's exactly what went through my mind when I finished The Ninth Hour. In Brooklyn, about one hundred years ago, a young husband commits suicide, leaving behind his pregnant wife. His widow, Annie, and his daughter, Sally, are taken in by nuns in the nearby convent. Sally marries a local boy, Patrick, and their children and grandchildren are the narrators of this beautiful and poetic novel.
I can't stop raving about Little Fires Everywhere. It's hard to believe that Celeste Ng could top Everything I Never Told You, her debut novel, but I think she has. In many ways, the books are similar. Everything I Never Told You starts with the mysterious death of a teenager; Little Fires Everywhere starts with a mysterious house fire. Both novels are concerned with the secret lives of teenagers and clashes between cultural groups. But Little Fires Everywhere adds even more layers of depth, with more characters and subplots. Don't start this book until you have plenty of reading time ahead of you — you won't want to stop. By the way, Little Fires Everywhere was Reese Witherspoon's September pick for her book club. She often chooses terrific books — Alice Hoffman's The Rules of Magic, which is next up in my TBR pile, is her selection this month.
One book I haven't seen on any of the fall preview lists is Rene Denfeld's The Child Finder, and I don't know why, because it's one of the best books I've read all year. If anyone thought Denfeld was a one-hit wonder (The Enchanted) — don't worry, The Child Finder is spectacular. The "child finder" of the title is Naomi, a private investigator who has a mysterious gift for finding missing children — and who was once a missing child herself. A heartbroken couple hires her to find their little girl, Madison, lost when they were cutting down a Christmas tree in Oregon's Skookum National Forest. As Naomi searches for Madison, she comes closer to discovering the secrets of her own past. Echoes of fairy tales resound throughout this gorgeous novel, reminding the reader of the power of stories and imagination to heal and redeem. I can't wait to meet the author at a Lake Forest Book Store luncheon this Wednesday.
What are you reading this fall?
Posted on September 21, 2017 by Ann@BooksontheTable
The book trade invented literary prizes to stimulate sales, not to reward merit.
Almost every year, when the nominees for the major literary prizes (Man Booker, National Book Award, and Pulitzer) are announced, I am bewildered. There's always at least one book that I think is a masterpiece that the panels overlook, and there's always at least one book that I think is mediocre that makes the shortlists.
The selection process for each of the prizes is different. For the National Book Awards, publishers submit nominations to the National Book Foundation, paying an entry fee for each book. There are four categories — Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Young People's Literature — and each category has five judges. The judges receive the books by July 1, announce a longlist in September, choose finalists in October, and present the awards at a ceremony in November. According to the National Book Foundation's website, "Each panel reads all of the books submitted in their category over the course of the summer. This number typically ranges from 150 titles (Poetry) to upwards of 500 titles (Nonfiction)." This year, publishers submitted 394 titles for the Fiction prize.
Wow — that's a lot of summer reading. It seems like the Poetry judges get off easy! The judges are authors, booksellers, librarians, and critics. This year's Fiction judges are authors Alexander Chee, Dave Eggers, Karolina Waclawiak, and Jacqueline Woodson (chair), and bookseller Annie Philbrick. Last week, they chose ten novels that include works by established authors and past winners (Manhattan Beach by 2001 finalist Jennifer Egan, to be published October 3, and Sing, Unburied, Sing by 2011 winner Jesmyn Ward) as well as by debut authors (The Leavers by Lisa Ko, A Kind of Freedom by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, Barren Island by Carol Zoref).
According to Bustle (an online women's magazine that covers the literary world, among other things), "These are the best of the best, book nerds, so get ready to read them all." But are they really? I'm not actually qualified to say — I've only read two of the ten books, The Leavers and Pachinko (by Min Jin Lee) — but it's hard to believe that those two novels are "the best of the best." I enjoyed them both, but do they deserve to be National Book Award nominees?
Pachinko is the engrossing story of a Korean family, starting in in Japanese-occupied Korea in the beginning of the twentieth century and ending in Japan in the 1980s. It's the sort of multigenerational saga that I adore, with the added benefit of covering unfamiliar territory: the experiences of ethnic minorities in Japan, and the culture of the pachinko parlor. Pachinko grabbed me from the beginning and wouldn't let me go. However . . . I didn't love the writing style. I was frequently distracted by oddly structured or ungrammatical sentences.
The Leavers, about a Chinese immigrant woman and the son she abandons, also addresses cultural differences. It's a worthwhile and enjoyable novel — but is it better than Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng, or Everybody's Son by Thrity Umrigar? Those excellent novels also concern themselves with adoption, race, and class. Actually, so does 'Round Midnight by Laura McBride, which will definitely make my list of favorite novels at the end of 2017. McBride brilliantly weaves together the stories of several characters with Las Vegas as the backdrop. The writing is gorgeous and the story is perfectly paced and constructed, with surprises at every turn.
Julia Glass's A House Among the Trees is another of my favorites that didn't make this year's National Book Award longlist. Inspired by the life and career of Maurice Sendak, this compassionate and insightful novel explores art, truth-telling, and loyalty, while telling a well-plotted story. Glass won the National Book Award for her debut novel, Three Junes, in 2002. surprising the literary community. According to an article in New York magazine titled "Cinderella Story,":
Jaws dropped when unknown author Julia Glass beat a field crowded with literary luminaries to win the National Book Award . . . She was selected over such best-selling competition as Ann Packer (The Dive From Clausen's Pier) and Alice Sebold (The Lovely Bones), and such hip lit boys as Jonathan Safran Foer (Everything Is Illuminated), Mark Costello (Big If), and Adam Haslett (You Are Not a Stranger Here).
Ann Packer, Jonathan Safran Foer, and Adam Haslett have had successful careers since 2002, but Mark Costello hasn't published another novel and Alice Sebold has only published one (The Almost Moon) and it was pretty awful. Julia Glass, on the other hand, has published five more very good books.
It's anyone's guess who will win this year's National Book Award for Fiction. Last year's choice, Colson Whitehead (The Underground Railroad), was the expected winner, but in 2015, Adam Johnson won for his short story collection, Fortune Smiles, beating favorites Hanya Yanigahara (A Little Life) and Lauren Groff (Fates and Furies).
Here's the 2017 longlist for the National Book Award in Fiction — cast your vote, and we'll see what happens in November. And if you've read any of those, I'd love to know what you think.
Dark at the Crossing by Elliot Ackerman
The King Is Always Above the People: Stories by Daniel Alarçon
Miss Burma by Charmaine Craig
Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan
The Leavers by Lisa Ko
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Her Body and Other Parties: Stories by Carmen Maria Machado
A Kind of Freedom by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesymn Ward
Barren Island by Carol Zoref


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Aegean earthquake death toll ups to 116 as Turkey closes search
Turkey on Wednesday finished inquiry and salvage endeavors in the rubble of structures that fell because of Friday's solid seismic tremor in the Aegean Sea, after the loss of life sneaked up to 116 in the western city of Izmir and a Greek island.
The shake, the deadliest to hit Turkey in almost 10 years, harmed 1,035 individuals in Izmir and 137 were all the while being dealt with, Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) said.
It said search and salvage endeavors at 17 harmed or fell structures had been finished and groups were clearing the rubble.
Notwithstanding the 114 individuals murdered in Turkey, two casualties of the quake were young people on the Greek island of Samos, specialists said.
On Tuesday, 90 hours after the shudder struck, rescuers in Izmir pulled a little youngster alive out of the rubble.
In excess of 2,790 tents were set up for brief safe house and in excess of 10,222 beds were appropriated in the territory, AFAD said.
It said 22 boats had sunk and 43 others had steered into the rocks, of which 40 had been saved, because of the tremor.
Turkey is crossed by separation points and is inclined to tremors. In excess of 500 individuals were executed in a 2011 shake in the eastern city of Van, while another in January this year murdered 41 individuals in the eastern region of Elazig.
In 1999, two ground-breaking tremors murdered 18,000 individuals in northwestern Turkey.
AFAD said Friday's tremor had a greatness of 6.6, with 1,855 consequential convulsions. The U.S. Topographical Survey put the greatness at 7.0 and the Kandilli Observatory in Istanbul said it was 6.9.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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The Power of 'Patriotic Populism'
It helps explain Trump.
By David Leonhardt
Tropical Storm Barry and the Governor, Both Calmer Than Their Predecessors
Bland? Maybe. But Gov. John Bel Edwards brought a different tone to hurricane response than his predecessors in a state where such responses matter.
By Richard Fausset
When Judges Defy the Supreme Court
The chief justice faces a time of great testing, both of himself and of the institution he heads, as the lower courts move rapidly even to his right.
By Linda Greenhouse
Op-Ed Columnist
Louisiana, 'a Failed State'
Tax cuts have left the state without the money it needs, and the legislature has failed to find a solution.
G.O.P. Is Coming Around in Its Embrace of Donald Trump
The recent outreach toward Donald J. Trump from many Republicans, both former rivals and members of the party's establishment, has been swift and striking.
By Alan Rappeport
Bobby Jindal Decides to Vote for Donald Trump, the Lesser of Two Evils
Former Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who has been extremely critical of Donald J. Trump, wrote in an article in The Wall Street Journal that he will nevertheless vote for him this fall.
Where Did the Government Jobs Go?
Long a ticket to the middle class, especially for African-Americans, they have become increasingly difficult to find.
By Annie Lowrey
Donald Trump Hires Political Insider for Delegate Team
Ken McKay, the former campaign manager for Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, is the latest longtime political insider to join Donald J. Trump's team as he makes a final push to win the 1,237 delegates needed to become the Republican presidential nominee.
Holding Their Noses, Louisiana Officials Act to Narrow State Budget Gaps
The Republican-controlled Legislature approved tax increases and budget cuts during a special session called by John Bel Edwards, a Democrat in his first year as governor.
By Jeremy Alford
How Nikki Haley Was Redeemed by Donald Trump
The governor's identity may feel tailored to reassure white Americans — but in her response to the State of the Union address, she appealed to a nation united by something deeper than appearances.
Louisiana's New Governor Signs an Order to Expand Medicaid
John Bel Edwards acted to fulfill a campaign pledge tied to the Affordable Care Act and aimed at aiding hundreds of thousands of state residents.
By Richard Fausset and Abby Goodnough
Governors Get Smarter on Medicaid
Some leaders from both parties have seen the wisdom of not rejecting generous federal matching funds.
The Primary That Disqualified the Qualified
This year, Republican voters rebelled against any candidates with real governing experience.
By Robert Draper
New Orleans City Council Votes to Remove Confederate Monuments
Lawmakers voted 6 to 1 to remove four monuments after a heated debate, declaring the three statues and an obelisk to be "public nuisances."
By Daniel Victor
When Should Presidential Candidates Drop Out?
Contenders with something to lose are more likely to drop out early if they don't think they're likely to win.
By Seth Masket
Time for a New Bobby Jindal Video
Mr. Jindal announced his candidacy with an extremely silly video. Now that he's dropping out, the time is ripe for a reboot.
By Andrew Rosenthal
Timeline of Bobby Jindal's Presidential Campaign
Once billed as a rising Republican star, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana had his 2016 presidential bid fail to make it out of 2015, plagued by a flat message and flagging poll numbers.
Bobby Jindal Quits Republican Presidential Race
"This is not my time," said the governor of Louisiana, who had never risen high enough in the polls to appear in the prime-time debates.
By Jonathan Martin
The Vile Politics of the Syrian Refugee Crisis [Updated]
As hundreds of thousands flee Syria, a growing number of American politicians are responding with unspeakable cruelty.
By Ernesto Londoño
Ted Cruz and the Anti-Gay Pastor
The religious right gets into the presidential race.
By Katherine Stewart


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Braves acquire center fielder Michael Bourn from Astros
By Drew SilvaJul 31, 2011, 9:52 AM EDT
Forget all that stuff we said earlier.
According to FOX Sports' Ken Rosenthal, the Braves are on the verge of acquiring outfielder Michael Bourn from the Astros for four minor leaguers.
Bourn, 28, has hit .303/.363/.403 this season with 26 doubles and seven triples in 473 plate appearances. He has also tallied 39 stolen bases in 46 attempts.
Bourn is likely to serve as the Braves' regular center fielder and leadoff man down the stretch.
Atlanta currently holds a 4.5-game lead over the Diamondbacks in the National League Wild Card standings. They're five games behind the Phillies in the NL East.
UPDATE, 9:55 AM: Rosenthal says the deal is "done" and will be announced momentarily.
UPDATE, 10:02 AM: According to ESPN's Jayson Stark, the Astros will get OF Jordan Schafer, LHP Brett Oberholtzer, RHP Paul Clemens and RHP Juan Abreu. Seems like an excellent deal for Atlanta.


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You are at:Home»Connecticut History»Breaking the Myth of the Unmanaged Landscape
Breaking the Myth of the Unmanaged Landscape
By Sarajane Cedrone on	 January 31, 2017 Connecticut History, Landscape/Environment, Native Americans, Uncategorized
By Tobias Glaza and Paul Grant-Costa
(c) Connecticut Explored Inc. Spring 2012
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No topographic map could have prepared me for how steep the terrain was. As I descended from the highest point on the Eastern Pequot's Lantern Hill reservation in North Stonington, past the powwow and burial grounds, the remains of old homesteads, and through the dense underbrush topped by oak, beech, and hickory trees, I couldn't help but ask myself, "How could anybody have been expected to farm this land?" A tribal elder later told me that the last resident of the house whose foundation we had just passed used to lug her groceries up from the road a quarter mile below when she was in her 80s. I was exhausted and I was going downhill.
That spring 2001 I had begun work with the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation, helping to coordinate their land management and environmental regulatory concerns. Their ancestors had successfully managed the reservation since its establishment in 1683, using traditional, but informal, methods. But in light of the potential for community growth, the tribe, wisely, wanted to plan ahead. To that end, it began an inventory of its cultural and natural resources, assessing and mapping when possible.
Except for a handful of homes and a small bait-and-tackle operation, the Eastern Pequot reservation is undeveloped, but through the trees a mile northwest looms the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe's museum and casino complex. Farther northwest is the Mohegan Tribe's reservation and casino. Those developments represent the other end of the modern land-use spectrum, what land-use managers call urbanization, a term belying the overall rural nature of the municipalities that border the reservations. The Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribal governments have highly structured land-use and environmental regulations. Both have been recognized for their efforts to minimize the impacts of their intensive land use on the surrounding environment, yet they are still beset by the challenges accompanying large-scale development.
Every community requires housing, healthy food, clean water, and places for burial, recreation, and ceremony. The tribes' continuing challenge has been to meet those needs within the boundaries of a greatly reduced land base and in compliance with complex federal, state, and, in some cases, their own tribal regulatory frameworks. While economic development in the form of gaming has made this somewhat easier for two Connecticut tribes, it remains a challenge for the remaining three tribes in the state: the Golden Hill Paugussett in Colchester and Trumbull, the Schaghticoke in Kent, and the Eastern Pequot in North Stonington.
A SURVEY OF LAND USE OVER 500 YEARS
The Eastern Pequot and other Connecticut tribes recognize that planning for the future requires an examination of the past. What was this land like 50, 100, or 500 years ago? How have traditional native land use and subsistence practices changed over time? What forces instigated these changes?
Asking those questions unearths a history stretching from native communities' first contact with Europeans to the present. That history is complicated by episodes of disease, warfare, colonialism, and land loss. But it also offers examples of native innovation, adaptation, and persistence. Along the way, a common misperception has gained a foothold in the American consciousness: that the historical Connecticut Indian landscape was an unmanaged wilderness. This could not be farther from the truth.
An extensive archaeological record supports the oral tradition that for approximately 10,000 years, Indians have occupied the land and exploited the associated natural resources within what would eventually become Connecticut. To understand the more recent past ethnohistorians weave archaeology and oral tradition with extensive documentary evidence, the earliest of which are the narratives of European explorers and settlers, to create a detailed record of the highly mobile and adaptive nature of native land use and subsistence patterns.
The importance of agriculture in early Connecticut Native culture was reflected linguistically both in place names and in the construction of its monthly time cycle. For instance, in mid-April and early May, or Squannikesos (which translates to "when they set Indian corn"), Indians quit their winter camps and traveled as far as 60 miles to their farmsteads or summer fields to prepare them for planting. After planting, crops needed less community attention beyond weeding, as the local name for May (Moonesquanimock kesos, "when women weed corn") indicates. At this time, small bands broke off from the larger community to tend personal gardens near the coast, where they collected seafood and gathered rushes and cattails for making mats.
Coastal people took advantage of marine resources year round, but from March (Namossack kesos, the "fish-catching month") to June, fish became more active, and Indians moved to the shores of the Connecticut River and the Long Island Sound to take advantage of the seasonal bounty. Many locations still bear the names given to them by the local native communities. More than just quaint reminders of the past, the place names served and, in some cases, still serve, as repositories of traditional ecological knowledge: Quambaug, (which translates to "scoop up fish in cove") in Stonington and Wabbaquasset (which translates to "mat making place" or "at the place of rushes") in Woodstock are good examples.
Once the crops began to grow, the first hunting season began. Fishing and fowling supplemented Indians' food stores, and forests were cleared of underbrush annually through the controlled use of fire.
By the close of August (Micheenee kesos), Indians knew that "the corn had become edible," as indicated by the English translation. The onset of fall brought the corn harvest and gathering of chestnuts, acorns, and various wild plants. Tree nuts were husked, dried, pounded, and used to thicken broth or porridge. In September (Pohquitaqunk kesos, "the middle between harvest and eating Indian corn"), preparations began for a season of gaming, dancing, feasting, and ceremony. After the harvest celebrations, people stored their surplus corn and beans in grass-lined pits or buried baskets and broke camp for the fall hunt. Their target was larger game—deer, moose, and bear—all at their fattest during the fall—and beaver, valued for their luxurious pelts.
In October (Pepewarr) and November (Quinne kesos), both meaning when "white frost was on the grass and ground," villagers, except for those hunting parties still at work, began to move inland into the dense forests, what Williams called their "thick warme vallies" and lived there throughout December (Papsapquoho, "the middle of winter"), January, and February. In these cold-weather camps, they ice fished, trapped winter game, and made use of dried provisions. They fashioned and mended equipment and clothing and told tribal stories as passed down by their ancestors. With the end of winter, they began preparing for another annual cycle of life.
Native existence depended on a vast reservoir of ecological knowledge gathered and passed down through generations. Though early explorers of North America often described the landscape of 500 years ago as a wilderness, it was in fact an actively managed landscape. The land was cleared, irrigated, tilled, pruned, transplanted, selectively harvested (hunted, fished, trapped, and gathered), sowed, weeded, dammed, and burned. These management techniques are human replications of natural disturbances—flooding, wind shear, erosion, and forest fires—but tempered with respect to timing, intensity, and scale. Some portions of the landscape were highly managed, while others benefited from more subtle human interventions. Agriculture and fire, for example, dramatically shape ecosystems, whereas the discrete encouragement of certain woodland plant species is less dramatic, but still important, in terms of overall ecosystem dynamics.
Indians abandoned communal and family fields in a particular location once nutrients had been depleted from the soil and cleared new fields, creating, over generations, a patchwork of habitats and increasing biological diversity. It is likely that repetitive and intensive harvest of firewood and materials for cordage, mats, and baskets had similar effect.
Colonists recognized planted fields as improvements to the landscape but overlooked or misunderstood such management tools as the use of fire. Many of the park-like glades and meadows described by early explorers were the result of fire, some caused by lightning strikes, others purposefully started by Indians. These low-intensity fires served to promote re-growth of useful plants and created habitat favored by important game species. They also reduced shrub-level vegetation, thereby increasing visibility, making travel easier, and reducing the chances of destructive forest fires.
Contemporary land managers have begun to accept what native people have known for years: Humans are an integral part of the larger ecological equation and sustainable harvest and land-use practices contribute to an ecosystem's overall health and biodiversity.
THE IMPACT OF EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT
In 1600, before European settlement, Connecticut's Indian population reached nearly 60,000. A generation later, a series of Europeanborne epidemics reduced this number by 90 percent, leaving about 5,400 native people, with a shattered social and economic structure, to face the brunt of colonization.
Indian land in Connecticut was acquired by European settlers through colonial conquest and by purchase, often by unscrupulous land speculators. Colonists used their observations of the physical world to justify legal conclusions about land ownership and the primacy of their own social standing, often conflating agriculture with notions of culture and civilization. They also equated Indians with the land, and if the land was wildly uncultivated, so then, were its aboriginal people.
According to this view, one measure of land ownership was the degree to which it had been "improved." Such "improvements" included, by European definition, construction of enclosures and permanent structures, privately owned planting fields, and practice of animal husbandry. Settlers overlooked the Indians' customary fishing and hunting practices and discounted their communally cleared and planted fields. In their minds, these efforts did not meet the definition of "improvement." Nor did they appreciate the valuable ecological changes these native practices produced. Colonial governments believed Indian land to be under-utilized and often permitted settlers to purchase large quantities while ignoring various treaties prohibiting such action.
As more land was purchased or appropriated and colonial towns began to spread throughout Connecticut, Indians were no longer free to use the land as they had been accustomed. While their moving from site to site was viewed by colonists with apprehension, especially during times of war, the reality was that the scope of colonial settlements—houses, barns, outbuildings, and fenced fields and pastures— not only limited native access to traditional hunting, fishing, gathering, and ceremonial sites but also restricted where Indians could permanently settle.
During colonial times guardians were appointed by the general assembly to informally assist the tribes. The state later formalized the process, instituting an overseer system under which Indians living within tribal reservations were considered its wards, with governmental agencies making decisions about their property and activities. Frequently the General Assembly granted away the best of native property to colonial families, reserving or sequestering small sections of poorer quality lands for its remaining Indian populations. The state ceded lands including homesteads, fields, pastures, and, to the great consternation of the Indians, burial grounds. Such was the case with the Niantic at Black Point, Mohegan in Norwich, and both Pequot tribes with lands in Noank and Ledyard, to name only a few.
And, too often, colonists continued to encroach even on sequestered Indian lands, fencing them in, clearing and planting, removing timber, and allowing wayward livestock to damage crops. Tribes vigorously resisted, often channeling their protests through advocates appointed by the colony. The colony contended that these reservations still fell within their jurisdiction and maintained that they had the right to further reduce the lands or move the tribes to other areas as they saw fit. When lands were taken or new boundaries were imposed, the tribes sought redress with petitions to the courts, the General Assembly, and even the English crown.
Try as they might, by the mid-1700s colonial policies had reduced Indian lands to a fraction of their original size. With the establishment of permanent reservations, the tribes' ability to move throughout the region to access specialized habitats and engage in traditional subsistence activities was further reduced. Documentary and archaeological evidence reveals a shift from construction of traditional wigwams to framed houses as their lifestyle became more sedentary. Extended hunting trips occurred less frequently, marine resources became more difficult to access, and animal husbandry, specifically the keeping of pigs, chickens, and, occasionally, larger draft animals, was introduced on the reservations.
Esther Beaumont, c. 1890. Beaumont was an itinerant basket maker born to a Narragansett father and a Connecticut Native American woman who eventually settled in Durham. She was representative of a growing demographic of Connecticut Indians in the late 19th century who lived outside of tribal relations. This mobility was especially common for basket makers who traveled a circuit selling their wares. Collection of Francis E. Korn, Durham Town Historian
Not surprisingly, the nature of Indian agriculture began to change. Tribes adopted many Euro-American agricultural practices but did not abandon their traditional ways altogether. Francisco de Miranda, a prominent Venezuelan revolutionary touring the United States, noted in his diary in 1783 that the Mohegan still planted their corn in the Indian manner "with neither circles nor any divisions." But as their respective land bases continued to diminish in the 18th and 19th centuries, so did their access to arable land. This was certainly true of the Schaghticoke, Paugussett, Mashantucket, and Eastern Pequot, whose reservations were either extremely small or rocky, or both. Tribal populations continued to decrease as men and women left the reservations to seek employment as soldiers, whalers, day laborers, or domestics. Shortly after the American Revolution and for several years afterward, portions of these communities migrated to New York and, later, Wisconsin, as part of the Brothertown Indian Movement, an agrarian Christian community.
The decreasing on-reservation populations and marginal quality land resulted in fewer communal fields and an increased reliance on the small home garden for food, medicine, and other needs. These gardens may also have had overlapping functions, serving as part of the range for pigs and chickens and as processing and social areas. During an 1852 visit, historian John Deforest commented that, "one acre would include all that is cultivated by the Pequots, who can not be induced to till anymore than will serve for their garden spots." Four years later, a state-appointed committee noted that "a very small portion of the land is cultivated by the tribe—each family improves what might be denominated a garden." During the 19th century and first half of the 20th century the produce from these gardens was an important part of the household economy.
Some older traditions endured. Indians continued to harvest black ash, white oak, and other materials for making baskets, brooms, and spoons for their own use and to sell. The harvesting of these materials occasionally resulted in conflict with neighboring non-natives who disputed the Indians' right to gather from off-reservation lands. This cottage industry supplemented the meager allowance the State of Connecticut granted to each Indian family. The allowances were drawn from a tribal fund that was generated from the sale and leasing of reservation land and the sale of timber and firewood, transactions that often incited tribal protest.
Beginning in the early 1900s oversight of the tribes and the management of their lands moved to the Parks and Forest Commission, then to the Welfare Department, and finally to the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). In the 1970s Indians in Connecticut gained more political power with the formation of the Indian Affairs Council (IAC) made up of representatives of the five Connecticut tribes and officials from DEP. Through the IAC the tribes had a larger voice in the management of their respective reservations. Current land-use issues on Connecticut's Indian reservations can be complicated by overlapping jurisdictions and internal tribal disputes. Successfully negotiating federal, state, and municipal concerns while asserting sovereignty is fraught with legal complexities and requires sophistication and diplomacy.
Many Connecticut Native Americans still live, work on, and derive sustenance from ancestral lands. The manner in which they do this may have changed, but traditional ways co-exist with new practices. Hunting, fishing, and gathering, along with small-scale horticulture, remain part of their management repertoire, but the tribes have also embraced modern technologies and techniques for managing their lands. A shared interest in protecting and preserving natural and cultural resources has led to a number of collaborations between the tribes and academic institutions and federal and state agencies. Elders and archaeologists work together to identify and protect important cultural resources. Using non-invasive ground-penetrating radar, they have been able to locate, identify, and protect previously unknown burial grounds and other culturally significant archaeological sites on their tribal lands. Tribal land managers, together with state and federal partners, use a combination of oral tradition, historic maps, on-the-ground monitoring, and aerial or satellite imagery to identify changes in the landscape (such as areas where illegal dumping has occurred and threats to critical water supplies) or for locating habitat suitable for the re-establishment of black ash. These collaborations have enhanced the tribes' land-use and management efforts in ways that would have been difficult to imagine 40 years ago and have led to more informed decision-making.