Book of the Week #52

Faith on Trial: Mary Baker Eddy, Christian Science and the First Amendment by Peter A. Wallner (Concord, NH: Plaidswede Publishing, 2014.)

"In the category 'truth is stranger than fiction' is the case of Eddy v. Frye, argued before the Merrimack County Superior Court in Concord, New Hampshire, in 1907. Ostensibly, the case was about who should care for an eighty-five-year-old woman: her estranged son and adopted son, or the people who has surrounded her for years. But in reality, this was a heresy trial in civil court. The plaintiffs int he case were more concerned about discrediting the religious doctrine of the old woman, Mary Baker Eddy, and the religion she founded, Christian Science, than they were about caring for her in old age. In fact, the case was brought before the public by a great newspaper, litigated by a well-known progressive politician, and promoted by such famous Americans as Mark Twain, Willa Cather, and Joseph Pulitzer. The last heresy trial in the United States would test whether a new religious movement would be banned for teaching a reportedly dangerous doctrine, or whether the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution truly protected the right of every American to believe and practice what religion they chose." (p. ix)

 

Book of the Week #51

The Pawnbroker's Daughter: A Memoir by Maxine Kumin (NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 2015)

In her own perfectly chosen words Maxine Kumin explains in this memoir how a little Jewish girl from Philadelphia became one of America's foremost poets.

"When my fourth poetry book, Up Country: Poems of New England, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973, I was stunned. The news came in a phone call from a local television station; I was certain someone was perpetrating a cruel hoax. Once I was persuaded the award was real, I was aghast. Harper & Row were, too. In six weeks they managed to renew the print run and bring out a paperback edition as well. However, when my editor, accompanying me to my first reading at the 92nd Street Y in New York, announced cheerfully, "This should be fun. I've never been to a poetry reading before," I was so unsettled that I misplaced the carefully annotated list of poems I planned to read and had to choose as I went along. That summer after the flurry of interviews, including appearances on TV, I fled from suburban Boston to our derelict former dairy farm in New Hampshire. Candide's advice to cultivate my garden helped center me. I was truly afraid I would never write again--but the poems came, as they always had, on their own terms, beginning in the most unexpected ways and demanding that I pay attention." (p.82)

Book of the Week #50

e. e. cummings: a life by Susan Cheever (NY: Pantheon Books, 2014)

"From the author of American Bloomsbury, Louisa May Alcott, and Home Before Dark , a major reassessment of the life and work of the novelist, painter, and playwright considered to be one of America's preeminent twentieth-century poets. At the time of his death in 1962, at age sixty-eight, he was, after Robert Frost, the most widely read poet in the United States. E. E. Cummings was and remains controversial. He has been called "a master" (Malcolm Cowley); "hideous" (Edmund Wilson). James Dickey called him a "daringly original poet with more vitality and more sheer uncompromising talent than any other living American writer." In Susan Cheever's rich, illuminating biography we see Cummings's idyllic childhood years in Cambridge, Massachusetts; his Calvinist father--distinguished Harvard professor and sternly religious minister of the Cambridge Congregational Church; his mother--loving, attentive, a source of encouragement, the aristocrat of the family, from Unitarian writers, judges, and adventurers. We see Cummings--slight, agile, playful, a product of a nineteenth-century New England childhood, bred to be flinty and determined; his love of nature; his sense of fun, laughter, mimicry; his desire from the get-go to stand conventional wisdom on its head, which he himself would often do, literally, to amuse. At Harvard, he roomed with John Dos Passos; befriended Lincoln Kirstein; read Latin, Greek, and French; earned two degrees; discovered alcohol, fast cars, and burlesque at the Old Howard Theater; and raged against the school's conservative, exclusionary upper-class rule by A. Lawrence Lowell. In Cheever's book we see that beneath Cummings's blissful, golden childhood the strains of sadness and rage were already at play. He grew into a dark young man and set out on a lifelong course of rebellion against conventional authority and the critical establishment, devouring the poetry of Ezra Pound, whose radical verses pushed Cummings away from the politeness of the traditional nature poem toward a more adventurous, sexually conscious form. We see that Cummings's self-imposed exile from Cambridge--a town he'd come to hate for its intellectualism, Puritan uptightness, racism, and self-righteous xenophobia--seemed necessary for him as a man and a poet. Headstrong and cavalier, he volunteered as an ambulance driver in World War I, working alongside Hemingway, Joyce, and Ford Madox Ford . . . his ongoing stand against the imprisonment of his soul taking a literal turn when he was held in a makeshift prison for "undesirables and spies," an experience that became the basis for his novel, The Enormous Room . We follow Cummings as he permanently flees to Greenwich Village to be among other modernist poets of the day--Marianne Moore, Hart Crane, Dylan Thomas--and we see the development of both the poet and his work against the backdrop of modernism and through the influences of his contemporaries: Stein, Amy Lowell, Joyce, and Pound. Cheever's fascinating book gives us the evolution of an artist whose writing was at the forefront of what was new and daring and bold in an America in transition." --jacket copy

cummings' long-time summer home, Joy Farm, is an historical landmark in Madison, NH. 

Book of the Week #49

The Urban Legion by Dave Agans (Wilton, NH: B. Mirthy & Sons, 2015)

Traffic jams. Automatic flush sensors. Sharp plastic packaging.
Who’s behind it all?
Hold on to your tin-foil hat and beware the alligators
as you explore a sewerload of absurd conspiracies.

Granola mom Lynn Grady is on assignment as restaurant critic Our Zen Gourmet when a hostile phantom voice invades her head. A stranger appears and, after blocking the voice with an improvised tin-foil hat, recruits Lynn for a hydroponic-farm-to-fork tasting gig. But a surprise attack by armed French waiters plunges her into a high-tech underground war—against her grunge-star ex‑husband—with her teenage daughter at stake. Lynn learns that urban legends are not what they seem as she uncovers a pervasive (and entertainingly plausible) consumer products conspiracy.

The Urban Legion warps your world in a funhouse mirror.
Food courts and airport restrooms will never be the same.

                         --Back cover. 

Book of the Week # 48

No Fret Cooking: Something for Everyone by Marilynn Carter. (Infinity, 2015)

This cookbook by New Hampshire author Marilynn Carter, which includes two CDs of music composed and performed by Steve Carter, seemed like the perfect choice for Thanksgiving week.

"No Fret Cooking, a cookbook blending simple, healthy, yummy recipes accompanied by music to cook and dine by. Together food and music are paired that take you on a culinary adventure to nurture, tantalize, and stimulate your body, mind, and spirit as you prepare and enjoy your food.Focus is on fresh, local, organic ingredients without artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives. Alternative ingredients used to create gluten-free, dairy-free, raw, vegetarian recipes, that even children love.A cookbook for everyone, and no fret, there is room for your own creativity and personalization." --Back cover.

Book of the Week #47

The Amoskeag Manufacturing Company: A History of Enterprise on the Merrimack River by Aurore Eaton; foreword by Robert B. Perreault (History Press, 2015).

"Amoskeag Manufacturing Company experienced extraordinary growth following its founding in 1831. The complex company developed land and water power and produced rifle muskets for the Union army during the Civil War. America fell in love with the beautiful, long-lasting colors and quality of Amoskeag’s iconic gingham. The company’s history is one of engineering genius and invention, enlightened city planning and visionary leadership. It is also the story of the workers, including thousands of eager immigrants who came to Manchester seeking economic opportunity and personal freedom. The company struggled through labor disputes and conflicts between economics and altruism. When the doors finally closed in 1936, local business leaders saved the property from abandonment and extended the Amoskeag legacy through a new wave of prosperity. Author Aurore Eaton explores this revolutionary industry and its lasting significance in Manchester." --publisher's blurb

Book of the Week #46

Awake Chimera by Justine Graykin (Double Dragon Publishing, 2015)

“Justine Graykin’s fascinating new novel Awake Chimera observes three species competing for control of their destinies on an alien world.  Refreshingly, homo sapiens are not the default good guys.  Rather, in one of many pleasant surprises, the focus is on an unlikely friendship between a plucky trader with a long reptilian tail and a shape shifting bureaucrat.   Check it out: Justine Graykin’s SF debut is a winner.” --James Patrick Kelly

Justine Graykin is a New Hampshire author and librarian and this is her second novel.

Book of the Week #45

The Quiet Man: The Indispensable Presidency of George H. W. Bush by former Chief of Staff John H. Sununu (Broadside Books, 2015)

John H. Sununu served three terms as New Hampshire Governor, co-chaired G. H. W. Bush's 1988 presidential campaign, and served as his chief of staff from 1989-1991. His view of the former President is far from objective, which Sununu makes clear in the Introduction, but it does provide up-close insight that a more academic study couldn't provide.
In the Introduction Sununu explains (to the former President and his wife while lunching at their Kennebunkport home) about his plans for the book:

"I told both Bushes that I felt it was time for the full story of his administration to be told--to document what he had achieved in both the domestic and the international arenas during his presidency. I lamented that so many of his accomplishments were still unappreciated and perhaps even unknown to members of the younger generation." (p. xv)

Book of the Week #44

Haunted Hillsborough County by Eric Stanway (Charleson, SC: Haunted America, History Press, 2014)

"Hillsborough County's haunts, mysteries and mystical places are finally revealed from Nashua to Weare. When a house moved from Dunstable, Massachusetts, to Davis Square in Nashua, its resident poltergeist appeared to feel at home in its new town. Elizabeth Ford seems to have gotten over the tragedy of her death, and now her friendly ghost teases the guests of the Country Tavern on Route 101. Discover the history behind the nasty reputation of Haunted Pond in Francestown, from its grisly fire to its strangely high number of premature deaths. The county's specters float from New Ipswich to the shadows of Amherst, and phantoms linger just around the corner of Wilton's Main Street on the banks of the Souhegan River. Author Eric Stanway takes the reader on a ghostly tour of Hillsborough County history." (publisher's blurb)

Book of the Week # 43

The Runaway's Gold by Emilie Christie Burack (NY: Amulet Books, 2015)

New Hampshire resident Emilie Christie Burack was inspired by her own family history to pen this tale set in New York City (during Boss Tweed's childhood) and the Shetland Islands.

"I am apprentice to smith Peter O'Reilly, first cousin of Billy Tweed, who happens to be the only person I know in the City of New York who was actually born here. Billy found me five months before, wandering lost and confused, when I first stumbled off the ship from Liverpool. the O'Reilly Forge shoes horses for the city's high and mighty, and I wouldn't have the work if it wasn't for Billy. Its low ceiling and soot-coated walls on Eighth Street and Broad Way are near Washington Square, where I often wander at dusk, damp grass at me toes, trying not to forget the stark windblown hills of me island home.
Back in me homeland I'm wanted for one crime I committed and one I did not, so having the chance to learn the blacksmith trade is beyond me wildest dreams." (p. 1-2)

Book of the Week #42

Gate City: A Novel by Michael Davidow (Manchester, NH: The North Union Press, 2015)

"Los Angeles, 1960. Their days are scored by rocket ships, oil rigs, and surfing boards; their nights by trinitite, solitude, and death.
Two advertising executives get caught up in that year’s presidential election: Jack Mercer, native Hawaiian, wealthy and idealistic, and Henry Bell, Ohio-born, a professional fixer for the Rockefeller organization. And when their superiors throw these men together to defeat a case of blackmail involving the finances of Vice President Nixon, they are soon stumbling across even more serious problems for not just their candidate, but also themselves.
All around them, the world is changing. The state of California is being built before their eyes; new highways, new bridges, new cities and towns. Their wives and girlfriends are moving on without them. Their families and friendships are fading into the past. And a mysterious white paper from the RAND Corporation about game theory in the atomic age appears to be predicting their actions through that summer’s political conventions and into the fall campaign. Because they are not just helping to elect Richard Nixon as president. They are chasing “the delta velocity of history” – and atoning for their sins, besides.
Join these characters on their journey into the dark heart of American politics. GATE CITY: when you run out of options, all that’s left is the truth." --Jacket copy.

Micheal Davidow lives in Manchester and practices criminal defense law when he isn't writing. This is the first novel in his Henry Bell Project which continues with Split Thirty. 

Book of the Week #40

Massacre on the Merrimack:Hannah Duston's Captivity and Revenge in Colonial America by Jay Atkinson (Lyons Press, 2015)

"Early on March 15, 1697, a band of Abenaki raided the English frontier village of Haverhill, Massachusetts. Striking swiftly, the Abenaki killed twenty-seven men, women, and children, and took thirteen captives, including Hannah Duston and her week-old daughter, Martha. A short distance from the village, one of the warriors murdered the squalling infant by dashing her head against a tree. After a forced march of nearly one hundred miles, Duston and two companions were transferred to a smaller band of Abenaki, who camped on a tiny island located at the junction of the Merrimack and Contoocook Rivers, several miles north of present day Concord, New Hampshire. The Abenaki intended to make the captives run the gauntlet at their village in Quebec, after which they would be sold as slaves.

This was the height of King William’s War, both a war of terror and a religious contest, with English Protestantism vying for control of the New World with French Catholicism. The fact that the two religions could not have worshipped a more similar God is an ironic footnote to the carnage that would ensue.
After witnessing her infant’s murder, Duston resolved to get even. Two weeks into their captivity, Duston and her companions, a fifty-one-year-old woman and a twelve-year-old boy, moved among the sleeping Abenaki with tomahawks and knives, killing two men, two women, and six children. After returning to the bloody scene alone to scalp their victims, Duston and the others escaped down the Merrimack River in a stolen canoe. They braved treacherous waters and the constant threat of attack and recapture, returning to tell their story and collect a bounty for the scalps.
Was Hannah Duston the prototypical feminist avenger, or the harbinger of the Native American genocide? In this exquisitely researched and riveting narrative, bestselling author Jay Atkinson sheds new light on the early struggle for North America." -publisher's blurb

On Saturday, October 3, 2015 at 4pm Gibson's will host a launch party for this latest book from Jay Atkinson who was a recent guest on The Exchange.

Book of the Week #39

Nobody's Perfect by David Elliott; illustrated by Sam Zuppardi.(Candlewick Press, 2015)

David Elliott's latest picture book shows us that it is OK to be less than perfect and is filled with fun illustrations by Sam Zuppardi--how our narrator's room looks after he cleans it is fabulous. If you are looking for even more David Elliott (and why wouldn't you be?) check out the trailer for This Orq (he cave boy) which is a Ladybug Picture Book Award nominee this year.

This seemed like a good book to choose as I am trying to get back on track after having missed quite a few weeks of book-of-the-week this summer. I have a big stack of great looking books from New Hampshire authors (some new, some old friends) lined up to tell you about in the coming weeks.

Book of the Week #38

Different Roots, Common Dreams: New Hampshire's Cultural Diversity. Becky Field, photographer. (Portsmouth, NH: Peter E. Randall, Publisher, 2015)

A launch party will be held for this gorgeous book on Thursday, November 17, 2015 at the Kimball Jenkins School of Art beginning at 5pm. Governor Margaret Hassen, who wrote the introduction to this book, is an invited speaker at the event which will include an exhibit of Field's photographs.

"... I met thousands of New Hampshire's residents who had resettled here from more than forty-seven countries. With my ever-present camera, I was welcomed into homes and served interesting food. I experienced colorful celebrations, sacred ceremonies and made new friends. I learned that, while we are different in many ways, we all have the same dreams to have safe homes, jobs to support our families, strong futures for our children, and freedom to practice our cultural and religious traditions." (Preface, p. x)

Becky Field was kind enough to give me one of the first copies of this book and I was very impressed by the photographs which are beautifully composed and provide a dazzling look into the homes of some of our newest Granite State neighbors. The book concludes with a set of essays by people who came from the six countries that, over the past five years, have been the source of the largest numbers of refugees coming to New Hampshire. A list of resource information on immigration in NH is also included.

Book of the Week #31

Enabling Acts: The Hidden Story of How the Americans with Disabilities Act Gave the Largest US Minority Its Rights by Lennard J. Davis (Beacon Press, 2015).

NHPR's The Exchange talked with the author of this book last week and part of the discussion focused on the role of John H. Sununu, who was serving at the time as George H. W, Bush's Chief of Staff, in the fight for the ADA. 

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is the widest-ranging and most comprehensive piece of civil rights legislation ever passed in the United States, and it has become the model for disability-based laws around the world. Yet the surprising story behind how the bill came to be is little known.

In this riveting account, acclaimed disability scholar Lennard J. Davis delivers the first behind-the-scenes and on-the-ground narrative of how a band of leftist Berkeley hippies managed to make an alliance with upper-crust, conservative Republicans to bring about a truly bipartisan bill. Based on extensive interviews with all the major players involved including legislators and activists, Davis recreates the dramatic tension of a story that is anything but a dry account of bills and speeches. Rather, it’s filled with one indefatigable character after another, culminating in explosive moments when the hidden army of the disability community stages scenes like the iconic “Capitol Crawl” or an event some describe as “deaf Selma,” when students stormed Gallaudet University demanding a “Deaf President Now!”

From inside the offices of newly formed disability groups to secret breakfast meetings surreptitiously held outside the White House grounds, here we meet countless unsung characters, including political heavyweights and disability advocates on the front lines. “You want to fight?” an angered Ted Kennedy would shout in an upstairs room at the Capitol while negotiating the final details of the ADA. Congressman Tony Coelho, whose parents once thought him to be possessed by the devil because of his epilepsy, later became the bill’s primary sponsor. There’s Justin Dart, adorned in disability power buttons and his signature cowboy hat, who took to the road canvassing fifty states, and people like Patrisha Wright, also known as “The General,” Arlene Myerson or “the brains,” “architect” Bob Funk, and visionary Mary Lou Breslin, who left the hippie highlands of the West to pursue equal rights in the marble halls of DC.

Published for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the ADA, Enabling Acts promises to ignite readers in a discussion of disability rights by documenting this “eyes on the prize” moment for tens of millions of American citizens.

Book of the Week #30

The Governor's Lady: A biographical novel of Frances Wentworth, whose husband governed Nova Scotia but could not govern her by Thomas H. Raddall (Doubleday, 1960).

"John Wentworth had made his mark as the popular Governor of rugged New Hampshire just before the American Revolution in spite of growing colonial ferment over British rule - and in spite of his young and restless wife. But then the Revolution exploded into mob violence, and a rabble of backwoods farmers and city merchants drove the Governor back to England.
In the fashionable whirl of London, with its court intrigues and political fortune grabbers, it became evident to all but John that his wife was gambling with his future for her own ends. But it was not until he was sent to a minor post in Nova Scotia that his wife's designs came clear. There, on that sparsely settled peninsula, Frances Wentworth was to employ all her seductive charm to its limits to realize a peculiarly feminine triumph.
It is around this fascinating life, lived in a stormy period of North American history, that Thomas Raddall, author of The Path of Destiny, has written this stirring biographical novel." -Jacket flap

John Wentworth was the last royal governor of New Hampshire.  He was born in Portsmouth, he chartered Dartmouth College, and his portrait hangs in the NH State House.
 
Thomas Raddall is a Canadian writer of history and historical fiction. The Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award is named for him.

Book of the Week #29

Of Sea and Cloud by Jon Keller (Tyrus Books, 2014)

"Nicolas Graves raised his sons to be lobstermen. Bill and Jonah Graves grew up aboard their father’s boat—the Cinderella—learning the rules and rites of the antiquated business they love. But when their father is lost at sea and the price of lobster crashes worldwide, Bill and Jonah must decide how much they are willing to risk for their family legacy.
Standing against them is Osmond Raymond— former Calvinist minister, mystic, captain of Sanctity, and their father’s business partner for more than twenty years. Together with his grandson and heir, Julius, Osmond is determined to push the Graves family out of their lobster pound, regardless of the cost or the consequences.
In the tradition of Russell Banks’ Affliction, Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News or Philipp Meyer’s The Son, Of Sea and Cloud is a powerful, haunting novel that, with extraordinary depth and compassion, explores the relationships between fathers and sons, tradition and change, and the surprising ways in which globalization is affecting some of the most isolated harbors on this planet." --publisher's blurb

This book (which has been getting great reviews all over the place and was launched at the Gilford Public Library) is set in Maine, where author Jon Keller lives part of the year. Lobstering goes on in New Hampshire as well and Keller will be talking about his book on Saturday, July 18, 2015 at The Country Bookseller in Wolfeboro so I decided to feature Of Sea and Cloud this week.

Book of the Week #28

The Great Typo Hunt: Two Friends Changing the World, One Correction at a Time by Jeff Deck and Benjamin D. Herson (NY: Crown Publishers, 2010)

"Our journey was, on the surface, simple. Man Drives Across U.S. Fixing Typos. There it is in six words." (p. 123)

That is what the journey was, but there is a lot more to it than that. This is an entertaining travelogue (one Goodread's reviewer describes it at Bill Bryson-esque) and a thought provoking discussion of how we communicate with each other and what the impact of typos/misspellings/etc. is on that process. Deck considers his own place on the continuum of grammar police--from hawk to hippie--and the questions he wrestles with are illuminated by background info on dictionaries, phonics education, and other word-related stuff.

Here is the publisher's blurb:
"The signs of the times are missing apostrophes.
The world needed a hero, but how would an editor with no off-switch answer the call? For Jeff Deck, the writing was literally on the wall: "NO TRESSPASSING." In that moment, his greater purpose became clear. Dark hordes of typos had descended upon civilization… and only he could wield the marker to defeat them.
Recruiting his friend Benjamin and other valiant companions, he created the Typo Eradication Advancement League (TEAL). Armed with markers, chalk, and correction fluid, they circumnavigated America, righting the glaring errors displayed in grocery stores, museums, malls, restaurants, mini-golf courses, beaches, and even a national park. Jeff and Benjamin championed the cause of clear communication, blogging about their adventures transforming horor into horror, it’s into its, and coconunut into coconut.
But at the Grand Canyon, they took one correction too far: fixing the bad grammar in a fake Native American watchtower. The government charged them with defacing federal property and summoned them to court—with a typo-ridden complaint that claimed that they had violated "criminal statues." Now the press turned these paragons of punctuation into "grammar vigilantes," airing errors about their errant errand.
The radiant dream of TEAL would not fade, though. Beneath all those misspelled words and mislaid apostrophes, Jeff and Benjamin unearthed deeper dilemmas about education, race, history, and how we communicate. Ultimately their typo-hunting journey tells a larger story not just of proper punctuation but of the power of language and literacy—and the importance of always taking a second look"

Jeff Deck grew up in New Hampshire and his adventure begins at a Dartmouth College reunion. Some of his typo hunting takes place on Manchester's Elm Street.

Book of the Week #27

The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness by Sy Montgomery (Atria Books, 2015)

"Her name was Athena, but I didn't know that then. I knew little about octopuses—not even that the correct plural is not octopi, as I had always believed (it turns out you can't put a Latin ending—i—on a word derived from the Greek, like octopus). But what I did know intrigued me. Here is an animal that has venom like a snake, a beak like a parrot, and ink like an old-fashioned pen. It can weigh as much as a man and stretch as long as a car, yet can pour its baggy, boneless body through an opening the size of an orange. It can change color and shape. It can taste with its skin. Most fascinating of all, I had read that octopuses are smart. This bore out what scant experience I had already had; like many who visit octopuses in public aquaria, I've often had the feeling the octopus I was watching was watching me back, with an interest as keen as my own." (from Chapter 1)

 One of two recent octopus-related books by Sy Montgomery this book received a starred review from Library Journal (p. 130 of the 6/1/2015 issue) and was one of their "editors' spring picks" for 2015.

Book of the Week #26

The Summit: Bretton Woods, 1944: J. M. Keynes and the Reshaping of the Global Economy by Ed Conway (NY: Pegasus Books, 2014)

"The phrase 'history in the making' is bandied around so often that it has lost most of its potency. But when the delegates turned up to the Mount Washington hotel in the summer of 1944 they were under no delusions that that was precisely what they were doing.
Their task was breathtakingly ambitious: nothing less than to repair the world economy by fashioning a system whereby countries could trade with each other without the threat of financial and economic crises like the ones which had punctuated the 1920s and 1930s.
... It is the aim of this book to describe what really happened in those remarkable twenty-two days--and, of course, the months and years of surrounding meetings and behind-the-scenes debates that are equally intriguing." --Prologue

To learn more, check out this interview with the author and the New York Times Book Review article.