I'll Have What She's Having by Rebecca Harrington

Earlier this month I was looking at a list of books to read in 2015 and I saw I'll Have What She's Having.  It looked fun to me, so I asked Lisa to buy it.

The author, Rebecca Harrington, gamely tries 14 different celebrity-endorsed diets.  Her observations about what she's eating are witty and sarcastic, and any time her current celebrity endorses entertaining, she subjects her friends to parties almost doomed to failure.  Just my kind of book!

She starts out following Gwyneth Paltrow's diet which requires her to spend more on groceries than she has in her entire life.  It is heavy on kale and fish.  She is doing ok on the diet when she decides to throw a dinner party.  She decides to make Gwyneth's meatballs, and is unnerved early on when the meatballs turn out to be green.  One of her guests pulls out his emergency bag of chips and another leaves to "actually eat dinner." 

Following Gwyneth Paltrow, Rebecca tries diets by Elizabeth Taylor, Greta Garbo, Madonna, Pippa Middleton, Beyoncé, Jackie Kennedy, and several others.  She also tries a couple of diets endorsed by men, one by NBA star Carmelo Anthony.  On Anthony's diet she decides, "NBA superstars are less hard-core than the average American teen girl the week before prom!"

If you are looking for a quick, fun read try I'll Have What She's Having. 

Thought for today.....

Tom's Two Cents: Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh, by John Lahr

Terry Mathews recently posted a great review of the above book on Facebook's "Between the Covers," to which I can add very little except some background material and a few juicy tidbits about Williams' co-literary executor, Maria Britneva St Just.

Lahr's biography was preceded a number of years back (1995) by Lyle Leverich's "Tom: the Unknown Tennessee Williams," an exhaustive study of Williams' early life and career, up to the production of his first major Broadway success, "The Glass Menagerie." Named Williams' "official" biographer, Leverich was nonetheless upstaged by Maria Britneva St Just, who withheld permission for him to quote from Williams' unpublished works, which by that time had been placed in several literary archival collections, including the Humanities Research Center at UT Austin.  (A personal note: I happened to be working at the HRC in Austin in 1963 when a collection of Williams' early manuscripts was acquired from his mother, Edwina Dakin Williams, and I personally catalogued a major portion of that collection). Leverich waited twenty years to try to complete his biography, but died before it was possible.  John Lahr's book covers the early period, but places most of its emphasis on the years after "The Glass Menagerie."

 
Maria Britneva St Just and her long association with Williams are treated fully in Lahr, who had already published a long article on her in The New Yorker.  To say the least, she was quite a woman--an aspiring young actress in London, presenting herself when Williams first met her as a Russian ex-patriate, whose father had medically attended the Czar's family (not true), she insinuated herself into the early period of his London stage productions and flitted in and out of his life for the rest of his tormented days.  Later she married an English lord, had a child by him, and gained a title--thus as a kooky Lady St Just, she maintained a certain status and reputation among the international set--all this would have amounted to little or nothing, were it not for the control she exerted over Williams' estate after his death, which included production rights to all his plays.  To be fair, however, she also provided a high level of care from the Williams Estate for his mentally ill sister, Rose, who lived into her 80's.

By 1960 Williams and his highly personal, lyrical style had given way to a new European avant-garde type of theatre called "Theatre of the Absurd," and the heyday of Broadway, starring Eugene O'Neill, Williams, and Arthur Miller, was practically over.

Next time: Arthur Miller and his marital nemesis, Marilyn Monroe: Arthur Miller: His Life and Work, by Martin Gottfried

Did you know? : Book Donations

Did you know that the library accepts donations?  We don't just take books, either.  We take movies, games, and puzzles as well.  A few days after Christmas, a gentleman walked in and donated an e-reader! 

We are very grateful for the donations, and if we can, we will put them on our shelves for people to check out.  If we already own the book or movie, we put it in our book sale.  We have books for sale all year long.  All we charge is a reasonable donation!  The proceeds help us buy more books!

A few tips for donating to the library:

1. Make sure items are in good shape - i.e. no torn covers or pages; binding still tight; all the pieces are with the item.
2. Do not donate books that have been wet, even if they are now dry.
3. Make sure items are clean without excessive dust or bug infestations.
4. Unfortunately, we do not accept encyclopedia sets or large collections of magazines.
5. Please do not leave items after hours. 

The next time you don't know what to do with the books you are no longer using - think of us!

Poet's Perch: It Couldn't Be Done by Edgar A. Guest

I'm starting a new feature on the blog, "Poet's Perch".  I plan to put up one poem a month.  If you have a favorite poem, let me know.  I might feature it!

 

It Couldn't Be Done

 

Somebody said that it couldn't be done,

But he with a chuckle replied

That "maybe it couldn't," but he would be one

Who wouldn't say so till he'd tried.

So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin

On his face.  If he worried he hid it.

He started to sing as he tackled the thing

That couldn't be done, and he did it.

 

Somebody scoffed: "Oh, you'll never do that;

At least no one ever has done it";

But he took off his coat and he took off his hat,

And the first thing we knew he'd begun it.

With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,

Without any doubting or quiddit,

He started to sing as he tackled the thing

That couldn't be done, and he did it.

 

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,

There are thousands to prophesy failure;

There are thousands to point out to you, one by one,

The dangers that wait to assail you.

But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,

Just take off your coat and go to it;

Just start to sing as you tackle the thing

That "cannot be done" and you'll do it.

 

Edgar A. Guest

 

Tom's Two Cents : Stephen Sondheim's "Into the Woods"

No, it's not a book, it's a film, based on the Sondheim musical of 1987, which I've read has been trying to get produced for some twenty or so years.  Now Disney and Rob Marshall, the director of the fabulously successful "Chicago," have finally done it, with a cast headed by none other than Meryl Streep, though she plays the central supporting role.  This is late Sondheim, certainly not a mainstream musical, but a considerable achievement nonetheless. 

I wouldn't consider myself a Sondheim fan, and I've come to him late in life, with "Sweeny Todd," of all things, which surely has to contain the most unsuitable story ever used in a musical!  "Into the Woods" falls into the genre of fantasy, but fantasy with a twist: fairy tale characters stepping into humanized roles that make them different and sometimes strange.

Streep plays a witch with her characteristic brilliance, Johnny Depp is a sly, hip Wolf, as eager to seduce Red Riding Hood as he is to swallow her, and Christine Baranski a hysterically over-the-top Wicked Stepmother, willing to cut off one daughter's toe and slice another's heel to make them fit into Cinderella's glass slipper--this, I'm told, from Grimm's original, but surely not from any version I've ever read!

The thing about Sondheim is that he is not so much a musician as a lyricist.  His mentor was one of the greats--Oscar Hammerstein II--and he wrote the lyrics to one of the last century's greatest musicals, Leonard Bernstein's "West Side Story."  His music is catchy and smart, but for the most part it's not melodic or even particularly tuneful.  You don't come out humming Sondheim, instead you're trying to remember his clever and at times extremely sophisticated use of words, especially his use of rhyme.  The opening ensemble number, the title song, is a perfect example.  Characters and words are coming at you so fast and furiously that you're hardly aware of the music, which seems almost like background.

Viewers should be forewarned that right slap in the middle of what seems to a typical fairy-tale ending, this musical literally goes to hell in a hand basket.  A seeming earthquake (which turns out to be a revengeful giantess coming down Jack's beanstalk) wreaks havoc and introduces a whole new set of complications that must be unraveled.  It's rather an exhausting two+ hours that could have (and did in the original musical) had an intermission.

All this being said, "Into the Woods" is a brilliant piece of musical theatre, exceedingly well translated into film.  It runs in Mt Pleasant for one more week.  See it if you dare!

Did you know? : Tech Zoo

Did you know that you can bring your technology questions to the library?  If you've gotten a new phone, tablet, laptop, or other device for Christmas and need some help learning to use it, we can help!

All this week, we are promoting a Tech Zoo and so far have worked on several different types of Kindles, phones, and other tablets.  No question is too small - we have been asked everything!  We will try and fix your problems or show you anything you need to know about using your device.  If we don't know the answer we will try to find out for you.  All the library staff use different technology, so if one of us doesn't know the answer, hopefully somebody else will. 

Now, I'll tell you a secret....  We don't do this just this one week.  We are ALWAYS available for help with your technology.  We will be glad to try and answer your questions all year long.  Just stop in!

Julie's Journal : Book Challenges

Last year, for the first time, I kept a log of all the books I read.  I created a spreadsheet in excel and since I'm an accountant at heart, I kept up with all sorts of statistics about the books I was reading.  I read a total of 140 books or 46,969 pages.  Slightly less than half the books I read were e-books.  Only 13 were non-fiction and only 8 were classics.  Of the 140 books, I liked 110 enough to recommend them.  33 were books I had read before.

As I was reading over bookish blogs towards the end of the year, I noticed them putting up book challenges.  A book challenge is exactly what it sounds like.  There are many different types, but they all challenge you to read more books or different types of books.  This year, I decided to participate in three challenges. 

1st is the A-Z challenge.  I have to read at least one book that starts with each letter of the alphabet.  Exceptions are given for "Q", "X", and "Z".  They just have to be in the title of the book.

The 2nd is one I made up for myself.  I need to clear out some space, so I challenged myself to read at least 12 books off my "To be read" (TBR) shelf.

3rd is a "Back to the Classics" challenge.  I didn't do as well reading classics as I wanted last year, so maybe this challenge will help me.  Chance has been helping me find books to fulfill this challenge.  I have to read at least one book in each of the following categories:

• A 19th century classic
• A 20th century classic
• A classic by a woman author
• A classic in translation
• A very long classic novel (500+ pages)
• A classic novella (-250 pages)
• A classic with a name in the title
• A humorous or satirical classic
• A forgotten classic
• A nonfiction classic
• A classic children's book
• A classic play

So what do you think of my challenges?  Have you ever heard of book challenges?  Would you be interested in participating in a reading challenge at the library?  My hope is that by participating in these challenges, I will broaden my reading horizons.