How could this happen in America?

Zeitoun, by Dave Eggers
Recommend: Yes
To whom: Everyone
Why: Amazing true story about a hero that Americans should celebrate

How could this happen in America?

Those are the words New York Times book reviewer Timothy Egan wrote in response to Abdulrahman Zeitoun’s experience in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Those same words ran through my mind while I read this incredible book, Zeitoun, by Dave Eggers. I had to keep reminding myself that this was a work of non-fiction.

I knew that FEMA’s handling of Hurricane Katrina was flawed and broadly criticized; FEMA Director Mike Brown resigned as a result. I’d heard Kanye West’s infamous statement: “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” I’d seen images of unfathomable destruction and chaos. But I had never heard of “Camp Greyhound,” a makeshift prison in downtown New Orleans where Zeitoun was caged like an animal and denied a phone call to his family after his wrongful arrest for looting. Of course I'd also never heard of Zeitoun, a true American hero, who should have been praised for his actions in New Orleans, not detained.

It’s been five years since Katrina, but if you read Zeitoun you’ll remember this story for many years to come.

Egan concludes: “... my guess is, 50 years from now, when people want to know what happened to this once-great city during a shameful episode of our history, they will still be talking about a family named Zeitoun.”

Road trippin', Harry Truman's way

Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip, by Matthew Algeo
Recommend: Yes
To whom: Anyone, no matter your political leanings
Why: Thoroughly entertaining and informative, and reads quickly

Imagine George and Laura Bush taking a road trip less than six months after leaving office, without Secret Service or hotel reservations.

Hard to believe, but Harry and Bess Truman did just that when Harry accepted the invitation to speak at the Reserve Officers Association convention in Philadelphia in the summer of 1953. The couple piled into his brand new Chrysler New Yorker and headed out of Independence, Missouri east onto U.S. Highway 24.

Algeo chronicles the Trumans' two-and-a-half-week trip, with stops in Indianapolis, Washington, D.C., and New York City. Algeo visited the diners, hotels, and other places Truman visited, hoping to get a sense of what Truman experienced. Of course, Algeo didn't attract the attention that Harry did when he dined at the Princess restaurant in Frostburg, Maryland, or when he simply stopped at a gas station.

Not only does the book cover the Trumans' itinerary, it also reveals the history of the American road trip. Algeo writes that when Truman stopped at a gas station in Decatur, Illinois, he asked the attendant for a motel recommendation. "We'd never stayed at one," Truman later explained, "and we wanted to try it out and see if we liked it (p. 61)." Algeo offers a brief history of the motel, which began in 1925 with the construction of the first "motor hotel" in San Luis Obispo, California along Highway 101. The idea took off, and 20,000 motels dotted highways by 1940. The first Holiday Inn opened in 1952, introducing the national chain motel model that we know so well today. Algeo presents similar fascinating histories of roads, Air Force One, and the presidential pension.

Harry Truman was the last President to leave office without a guaranteed pension. Harry loved to drive and looked forward to this independent road trip, but the Trumans traveled by car (not by plane) to save money. Algeo explains:

"As a government employee ... Harry Truman did not qualify for Social Security. And he'd left the Senate too soon to qualify for a congressional pension. His only income was that army pension."

So Harry and Bess had to be frugal. Out of principle, Harry refused numerous job offers that came his way because he wanted to preserve the dignity of the Presidency. As Algeo points out, things have changed dramatically, with former Presidents now claiming thousands of dollars for a single speech. In 1958, the Former Presidents Act was signed into law granting the presidential pension, an annual sum of $25,000, plus $50,000 for office expenses and "unlimited franking privileges." Algeo writes: "At long last, Harry Truman was financially secure."

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson
Recommend: Yes
To whom: Everyone (although be warned, full of grisly details)
Why: Just a damn good story about a large, powerful family with unspeakable secrets and a turbulent past.

More TK.

Do your homework before applying for a congressional internship

The House: The History of the House of Representatives, by Robert V. Remini
Recommend: Yes
To whom: History enthusiasts
Why: Learn inner workings of the House from 1789 to present, and consequently the entire history of the U.S. Those early Congressmen weren't as civilized as many of us may have thought!

I checked this book out because I was considering applying for an internship in my Congressman's office. I thought it would be a good idea to truly understand the role of the House of Representatives before a potential interview.

Commissioned by the Library of Congress to write The House, Remini became the official historian of the House of Representatives as a result. While he worked on the book, he was provided with his own office in the Library of Congress and access to all of its materials. Personally, I think this sounds like a wonderful job! And I actually hear that it's about to open up: Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced on June 11 that Remini will be retiring on August 31.

Anyhow, because it was LOC-commissioned, the book is intended for all interested readers, not just scholars. While I agree that the book is readable, it takes a most dedicated and engaged reader to get through it cover to cover. That's why I recommend it only to history enthusiasts. However, those that stick with it won't be disappointed. The book is full of first-hand accounts from Congressmen throughout the centuries, and incredible stories of duels, filibusters, and impeachment. Wonder how various House committees work? You'll learn more than you'll ever need to know. Throughout the book, Remini examines the evolution of the role of Speaker.

Well, I decided not to apply for a congressional internship (and for reasons that have nothing to do with this book), but I sure learned a lot about the legislative branch of government!

For more information about the House historian, visit http://historian.house.gov/.

What's behind the First Lady's radiant smile?

American Wife, by Curtis Sittenfeld
Recommend: Yes
To whom: Fans of The West Wing, people fascinated by the American presidency, and those who appreciate strong character development
Why: Riveting. The progression of Alice and Charlie Blackwell’s relationship is real, complicated, and delicious.

When I got online to update this post, a timely headline showed up on Yahoo! News: "Bush twin's surprise remark". Barbara Bush revealed on Fox News that she's glad health care reform passed. The article also mentions that former First Lady Laura Bush recently said she is pleased that another woman, Elena Kagan, has been nominated to the Supreme Court, and she told Larry King she supports gay marriage and abortion rights. Of course, Barbara and Laura's views are not popular with the Republican majority.

How does this relate to American Wife? I was excited to find this novel at my local library's used bookstore. I am a big fan of the TV show The West Wing. I had recently watched the final season on DVD, and was eager to find a book that would give me a similar fictional inside glimpse of the White House. Once I started reading, I was a bit disappointed to learn that only one of four parts of the novel would take place at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. I also discovered right away that Alice Lindgren was based on Laura Bush.

While reading the first half of the book, I cringed to think what Mrs. Bush must have thought about the book, assuming she read it. Sittenfeld spares no detail in describing Alice's surprisingly scandalous sex life. (I am still looking to see if there are comments from Mrs. Bush out there!) The book had unfortunate (but deliberate) timing for Mrs. Bush; it was released just months before the end of her husband's presidency. I knew I was reading fiction, but there are many parallels in the lives of Alice and Laura, including the devastating car accident that killed a high school classmate. I often wondered what was fact and what was fiction.

But from the beginning, Sittenfeld makes you truly care about Alice and despite his character flaws, Charlie Blackwell is likable the moment he is introduced. We all know that the Bush Administration could do nothing right in the eyes of the press for most of its tenure. But Sittenfeld humanizes Alice and Charlie Blackwell, and as a reader I felt sympathy for the couple's challenges. The article I mentioned above is a reality that Alice struggles with as First Lady; she has different views from her husband, but is unable (with a few notable exceptions) to express them.

Although I had hoped the entire book would focus on the First Lady in the White House, I loved getting to know Alice as she grew up in Wisconsin, seeing her relationship with Charlie develop, and watching them became America's most powerful couple. The section devoted to Alice's life as First Lady focuses on a single day, which masterfully ties up remaining loose ends. Alice's feelings about her public responsibilities and expectations as the president's wife are fascinating -- and probably spot on.

I'm looking forward to reading Laura Bush's autobiography, Spoken From the Heart, that came out last month.

Oprah's grittiest book recommendation yet?

Some Things That Meant the World to Me, by Joshua Mohr
Recommend: Yes
To whom: Not everyone, but to non-squeamish individuals who have a moderate to high tolerance for obscene language and gritty detail
Why: Full of interesting characters, and so unconventional, I never knew what was going to happen next.

Joshua Mohr’s first novel Some Things That Meant the World to Me made Oprah’s “10 Terrific Reads of 2009” list, but I heard about the book from the author’s sister, my friend Jessie. I bought the book to be supportive, but I devoured it in less than 48 hours. In case an endorsement from Oprah isn’t enough to cause Some Things to fly off the shelf, I’ll add mine.

Much of the book is disturbing and painful to read, but if you can stand it, you’re in for a fascinating and unusual story. The narrator, Rhonda, who endured an unbelievably cruel childhood, must confront his past at age 30, at a particularly low point in his life. Mohr alternates his narration between reality and delusion, and allows Rhonda to take high-stakes risks, so that I never knew what was going to happen. When I finished reading, I felt I had experienced something intimate and truly unique.

Never Miss an Opportunity to be Fabulous

What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20, by Tina Seelig
Recommend: Yes

To whom: Job seekers and soul searchers

Why: Made me feel better about not having a full-time job.

A few weeks ago my mom brought a couple of self-help books for me home from the library. She knows I've been struggling since I graduated from college to "find my place in the world". One of those books was What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20, by Stanford professor Tina Seelig, who strives to help floundering souls like myself. And I think she does this quite successfully, as she addresses many of the fears I have had since graduating without much of a career plan.

Here's some advice and reassurance that interested me the most:

- “All the cool stuff happens when you do things that are not the automatic next step,” says one of Seelig’s former students.

- Having a baby does not kill a woman’s career, but presents unique opportunities. Seelig shares Sandra Day O’Connor’s story as an example of a mother who took time off from her career to raise her kids and volunteer part-time, and rose to Supreme Court Justice!

- Courses graded on a curve encourage fierce competition, and discourage teamwork. Seelig explains how we all benefit from working together and helping each other out.

- “Never miss an opportunity to be fabulous.”

The last point is the essence of Seelig’s entire book. She shares many inspiring stories and pieces of advice, but ultimately, we are in charge of seizing the opportunities that, as she points out, are waiting for us everywhere.

What would Elizabeth Gilbert think of "The Bachelor"?

In my last post I didn’t reveal anything about Elizabeth Gilbert’s attitude toward marriage other than that she has strong feelings and is “reluctant” about marrying Felipe. Felipe feels the same way, since they both endured painful divorces. Although they care deeply about each other and agreed to be monogamous, they didn’t think it would be necessary to enter into another marriage. Alas, this attitude changed dramatically when Felipe, not a U.S. citizen, was barred from the United States after one too many extended visits to the country.

One reason Gilbert feels queasy about marriage is that she has seen the great sacrifices that many women, including her mother and grandmother, make for marriage. She devotes a large chunk of her book to this topic. Since I finished reading Committed, I’ve been hearing about this season of “The Bachelor”. I’ve been following with mild interest because I worked at a summer camp a few years ago with Ali, one of the contestants. I learned today that Ali, who had made it to the final four, had to make a difficult decision at the end of last night’s episode – stay on the show and risk losing her job as an advertising account manager or return to her job and give up her opportunity to “win” love. She chose work.

I imagine that Gilbert must disapprove of this TV show that chronicles the fierce and dramatic competition among a gaggle of beautiful ladies for the opportunity to marry one eligible bachelor. I’m surprised she didn’t include commentary about the show in her book. However, I know Gilbert would be cheering for Ali and her decision. I applaud her, too. You go, girl!

You have been warned: "Committed" not another "Eat, Pray, Love"

Committed, by Elizabeth Gilbert
Recommend: Yes
To whom: Devoted Gilbert fans, those with an interest in cultural studies, and those who are considering getting hitched soon
Why: This book is not for everyone, but it presents fascinating history about the institution of marriage. Not as fun as Eat, Pray, Love though.

Warning: Committed is not the sequel to Eat, Pray, Love, even though technically it is. Elizabeth Gilbert brings the reader up to date on her life with Felipe, introduced as her lover in Eat, Pray, Love, but unfortunately Gilbert’s follow-up book is not nearly as fun as the original. Gilbert is upfront about this in her introduction, explaining that she wrote her first draft trying to please every reader, but in the end she narrowed her intended audience down to her closest female friends. Committed is not a narrative story, but Gilbert’s exploration of marriage – what it means to the parties involved, and how the institution has evolved throughout the course of history and many cultures. At times the content is completely detached from Gilbert’s own life and reads as a rather dry historical account of marriage. Committed is still an enjoyable book, but it might disappoint those who expect another Eat, Pray, Love.

Even if you don’t agree with Gilbert’s strong feelings about marriage, her views on traditional gender roles and expectations about marriage are worth considering. There are also some delightful, humorous passages, reminiscent of Eat, Pray, Love, such as her description of her parents’ vegetable garden that is so divided that one would “practically need a United Nations peacekeeping force to understand my parents’ carefully partitioned spheres of horticultural influence” (222). Gilbert writes most vividly describing her travels with husband-to-be Felipe through Southeast Asia as they wait for the green light to return to the United States to (reluctantly) marry. Her fascinating first-hand accounts of her conversations with the Vietnamese Hmong and the Laotian Leu women should appeal to aficionados of cultural history.

Committed struck an unexpected chord with me. Gilbert believes that many American women become unhappy with their marriages because their expectations are too high and life is complicated by too many choices:

The problem, simply put, is that we cannot choose everything simultaneously. So we live in danger of becoming paralyzed by indecision, terrified that every choice might be the wrong choice. Equally disquieting are the times when we do make a choice, only to later feel as though we have murdered some other aspect of our being by settling on one single concrete decision. By choosing Door Number Three, we fear we have killed off a different – but equally critical – piece of our soul that could only have been made manifest by walking through Door Number One or Door Number Two… All these choices and all this longing can create a weird kind of haunting in our lives – as though the ghosts of all our other, unchosen, possibilities linger forever in a shadow world around us, continuously asking, “Are you certain this is what you really wanted? (45-46)

This passage spoke to me not because I'm thinking of marriage, but because I recently graduated from college and have been struggling to find the “right” career path. I cannot describe my own feelings about making career decisions more accurately than this. College taught me that the world is open to me, but I fear that deciding to pursue one thing will close the door permanently on other opportunities that perhaps would be better for me. Although this doesn’t help me make a decision, it helps to know that I am not alone in feeling this way.

This is Gilbert’s strength – her ability to express herself in a way to which readers can relate. At times while reading Eat, Pray, Love I wondered to myself: Why is her story important? Why should I care about this woman? Sure, the book is entertaining and at times laugh-out-loud hilarious, but I realize I am riveted to her writing because she strives to understand the human experience, and I sometimes discover my own imperfect self reflected in her books.

Guernsey Part II

After I had read just a few pages of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Juliet Ashton already reminded me of Bridget Jones. This was not such a surprising connection to make because as the title suggests Bridget Jones’ Diary takes the form of Bridget Jones’ diary and in Guernsey, Juliet’s voice is expressed in a collection of letters. Both British women refer to themselves as aging spinsters and endear themselves to their readers with their enviable wit and humor.

As I continued to read, I began to compare Juliet to Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the wildly popular Eat, Pray, Love. When Gilbert wrote about her travels in Italy, India, and Indonesia, she was trying to find herself following a painful divorce. Juliet finds herself on Guernsey. Last night after I finished reading Guernsey, I discovered praise for the book from Gilbert printed on its back cover:

“I can’t remember the last time I discovered a novel as smart and delightful as this one, a world so vivid that I kept forgetting this was a work of fiction populated with characters so utterly wonderful that I kept forgetting they weren’t my actual friends and neighbors. Treat yourself to this book, please – I can’t recommend it highly enough.”

Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love also introduces readers to extraordinary people, the friends she makes on her journey, so it is no surprise that she is a fan of Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows’ novel. The characters in Guernsey are so vivid because their unique voices and personalities are expressed in their personal correspondences. We feel like these characters are our own friends because we read the letters intended for their closest friends. Gilbert accurately and articulately expresses the appeal of this wonderful book.

A final note: This novel is compelling for many reasons, but I was amazed to learn about the German occupation of Guernsey during World War II. As a Londoner, Juliet did not know the extent of the hardship islanders endured, and vows to write a book to enlighten readers. In her acknowledgements, Shaffer explains that she visited Guernsey to research another book, but when she learned of the island’s unbelievable history she had to write a book to bring attention to it. I find the parallels fascinating: Shaffer writes about a character that is working on a book about Guernsey residents’ experience during World War II.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - A Book Lover's Delight

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Recommend: Yes

To whom: Everyone

Why: This book has everything going for it: humor, delightful characters, a fascinating (true!) historical backdrop, and an unusual narrative style - the novel is crafted as a series of letters and correspondences between characters.

I am at last reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. I have recommended the book to many customers, and it is my responsibility (and pleasure) to at last read Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows’ delightful novel. Eighty pages in, I can see I have made no mistake with my recommendation. This book is hilarious, clever, touching, and informative.

The protagonist, Juliet Ashton, is a London writer who found success writing a column during World War II under the pseudonym Izzy Bickerstaff. Her latest assignment is to write a story about the effects of reading on people’s lives. She finds a perfect subject for her article, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, when she receives a letter from earnest Dawsey Adams, who lives on Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands. He has contacted Miss Ashton because he owns a book by Charles Lamb that has her name and address inscribed inside the front cover. He wants to know if there are more books by Lamb to be found in London, since books have been scarce on the island since the Germans occupied Guernsey during the war. Dawsey discovered his love of reading after his neighbor, Elizabeth, dreamed up The Guernsey Literary Society as an alibi when German soldiers caught them breaking curfew one night after enjoying a forbidden roast pig dinner at Mrs. Maugery’s home. As a result, the residents of St. Martin’s parish had no choice but to start reading and to hold regular meetings.

I did not make a blind recommendation of this book. I’d heard testimonials on KQED’s Forum and my mom raved about it. It intrigued me because I heard that the book is a compilation of letters between characters. I am particularly enjoying it because before she was a writer, Juliet worked in bookshops. She reminisces about this time while visiting bookshops around England on tour for her book, Izzy Bickerstaff Goes to War:

“I love seeing the bookshops and meeting the booksellers – booksellers really are a special breed. No one in their right mind would take up clerking in a bookstore for the salary, and no one in his right mind would want to own one – the margin of profit is too small. So, it has to be a love of readers and reading that makes them do it – along with first dibs on the new books.” (p. 15)

Oh how I can relate, but this is a delight for anybody who loves to read. It allows the reader an inside look at the intimate correspondences between a writer and her publisher, close friends, and new friends on Guernsey. I am shocked along with Juliet as she learns about the terrible conditions imposed on the Guernsey residents by the Germans. I am eager to see how her relationships develop with Dawsey and his fellow society members.

Since I recommended this book before I ever had it in my hands, I can certainly get away with recommending it now, while in the process of reading.