I’m a fool for those that make me laugh. If you want me to endorse a candidate, follow a flag, babysit kids or be nice to your Mama, make me giggle. That’s been true for a long time and that’s why I champion Florence King. I’ve never met the lady, don’t expect to meet her and I don’t endorse many of her positions but she has my undying devotion (and I read whatever she writes) because she tells a story well and her stories can make me laugh. Florence is the ultimate outsider, She comes by it genetically, according to her memoir, Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady. Her mother, Louise, was the anti-Southern Belle who cursed, competed with men and avoided flirting like it was the plague. Her father was a self-educated cockney musician who didn’t follow any of the practices associated with a Gentleman of the South. These two oddballs got along by accepting each other’s differences and their only child was Florence. That girl puts them both in the shade. Imagine, if you will, a beautiful child who goes off to school wearing pinafore dresses and Mary Janes. Her favorite beverage is black coffee, she already…
Everyone has obsessions: mine are centered around entertainment and art but my husband is obsessed with disasters. There’s history in these tales and often the tragedy of hubris and the indelible courage of the fallen and the survivors. Disaster stories are all about humanity at our best, how we recover from the worst and I think that’s why my husband likes them. Consequently, I’m always on the lookout for a disaster story he may not know. A few years ago, I learned of the Halifax Explosion and found the book Shattered City. If disaster tales are your cup of tea, this is a book for you. It was December 6, 1917, ninety-seven years ago last Saturday, and two ships were both in a hurry. The Imo, a French ship was late leaving Halifax’s harbor with relief supplies for Belgium while the SS Mont Blanc was trying to get into port with a full load of explosives. They collided and spilled fuel on the Mont Blanc set that ship on fire. The crew abandoned ship and the Mont Blanc drifted, unmanned, toward the town. In those days, the fanciest houses were set close to the water and they got a…
I used to listen to the Book Radio Channel. This as a 24/7, 365 internet channel where books and radio serials were read aloud to the subscribers and I liked it. Instead of the same 250 songs in rotation, I got stories. Some were familiar and loved but often they were something new and either way, I was entertained. Imagine, a channel whose programming targeted my special interest! Evidently that interest was too specialized to be profitable because they closed the channel down but not before I found another book worth keeping. Trust Book Radio Channel to read Jasper Fforde’s The Eyre Affair out loud. This fantasy is a bibliophile’s dream. The Eyre Affair is one of those alternate-universe stories but one where Readers are the Cool Guys on Campus. Seriously. Writers are treated like rock stars. The populace likes watching Shakespearean plays (In one place, “Richard III” is watched and performed nightly by a group of Rocky-Horror type devotees) and the Baconites go around witnessing like Mormons. There are other, less-startling ideas like a time-traveling guard and a Crimean war that lasts longer than a century but nothing compares to a public that cherishes books. The…
I miss Anne George. During the early 1990’s, when I was settling into life as an adult, Anne was one of the literary lights in Birmingham, Alabama. She was a local girl who taught for years and wrote poetry and short stories on the side. After retiring from education, her literary career swung into high gear and she made readers and booksellers happy until that day in 2001 when she died, most unexpectedly, during heart surgery. Her passing broke a lot of hearts, including my friend J.’s, who appreciated her as a friend as well as an author. Anne’s poetry was good but what I miss most are her Southern Sisters mysteries. Anne turned Birmingham into the setting for her Southern cozies. Cozies are that sub-set of mysteries that are uncomplicated fun. Any violence is usually off-stage, the detective is normally an amateur and there’s a minimum of grit or grime. Jessica Fletcher is a good example of a cozy’s detective, although the first must have been Miss Jane Marple. Normally, I like mayhem in my mysteries and angst running through all of the characters (hurray for Val McDermid!) but I love Anne George’s Southern Sisters mysteries because she…
Siblings always surprise you. When you are young, siblings are your competition for the limited resources known as Mom and Dad. They are part of the family woodwork and it’s hard to see them outside of their family roles, at least while you’re sharing a bathroom. I’m not sure when I first saw my sister as a grown individual but it probably started when she told me she loved Willa Cather’s, O Pioneers! I noticed this because I had been avoiding Cather’s work for years. Cather is, of course, the novelist of the Great Plains and since we grew up in that area, I had avoided her just to be contrary. There are other prairie writers but Cather usually leads the pack with her stories about the European settlers that came to the Plains and remade their lives on that alien land. The feeling the settlers develop for this land is central in Cather’s O Pioneers! and my sister acknowledged as much when she discussed it. “I read it,” she said, “when I’m homesick.” I decided to give the story a chance. Now it’s a “read-every year” book for me. On the simplest level, O Pioneers! is the story of…