The world is SUCH a better place with him in it.

A few pix from his first birthday:

Heavy hangs the head that wears the crown, apparently

Presents! Yes, his guest for his first birthday was none other than Alexandra! Talk about going way back!

Yummy little one-year-old.

Tay Tay, I hope you have the happiest of birthdays. And I also hope that your friends tease you mercilessly over these pix

She had shown so little interest in the nesting area that I wondered aloud yesterday morning as to whether Ms. Pippa might be a Mr. Pip. Guess she needed to prove me wrong because she flapped up there a few hours later and left a pretty little cream-colored egg.

Pippa's first egg next to one of Tulip's for size comparison

If chicken math made any sense, I would be getting seven eggs for seven hens, but Pippa’s debut only brings us up to three hens a-laying. What’s up with that?

Pippa

A current mystery is why did Coco start laying lovely green eggs at four-and-a-half-months and then simply stop laying at six months? She is not molting and seems to be in fine health but has simply stopped laying. Chickens can cease to lay during the winter months, but in our neck of the woods it’s hard to make much of a case for winter being an issue. Hours of light determine the laying cycle rather than climate, but I would propose to Coco that both Lucy and Tulip seem to find the winter schedule adequate for laying, so girl, get with it!

Coco: slacker chick!

Lucy and Tulip are diligently doing their part to provide breakfast each day.

Tulip keeps those dark brown eggs coming

Hope is not currently laying. She went from broody hen to mama hen to molting hen. She’s been dropping feathers for six weeks or so and appears to be nearing the end of that phase, so hopefully we will start getting some eggs from her soon. In commercial operations, a two-year-old hen is a dead hen, but many backyard flock-keepers attest to having hens that lay well into their older years. We’ll see. Hope has, of course, been promised to live out her days with no threat of becoming chicken bouillon, whether she lays eggs or not.

Hope molts: she's a bit on the scrawny side but on her way back

Of the original four chicks, Hope is the only one who has remained healthy. As many of you will recall,we lost Lily, the Delaware hen, at six months from unknown causes. And Amelia, the Light Brahma, died at a year old after several weeks of an undiagnosed illness.

Which brings us to Autumn.  Poor, sweet Autumn.

Autumn’s problems with internal laying have been well-documented  and updated. Regular (and expensive!) shots of Lupron have given her several extra happy months of foraging, bossing around the new chicks as they grew and being cuddled and carried around by the CE.

But now she’s struggling again. She started favoring one leg a few weeks ago, which we and the vet thought was an injury that would heal. But instead of getting better, it worsened.  She can’t walk. We took her back to the vet who now diagnoses a degenerative hip – she said that Autumn’s hip socket has basically dissolved.  I haven’t been able to find much information on this condition yet other than this abstract, probably since most rational people don’t routinely take their injured hens to the vet.

More meds for Autumn

The vet prescribed calcium, which will hopefully build up a “false” nub at the hip joint, and pain medication to provide enough relief that she will keep moving. The vet also suggested that we crush up cuttlebone to give her additional calcium.

cuttlebone

An immediate concern is that the other hens will respond to Autumn’s vulnerability by pecking at her, in which case we will have to separate her from the rest of the flock. For the moment, she seens to be resting comfortably  and we’ll just have to take it a day at a time.

Last, but not least on the list of non-laying hens is our beauty queen, little Luna. She spends hours in the coop appearing to nest but never drops an egg. Silkies are well-known for hatching eggs; much less so for laying them, so this is not a huge surprise. But an egg or two here and there would certainly be nice. The wait continues. Perhaps the moral of the story is don’t count your chickens until they lay…

Luna

By the way, did you know that steadfast non-believer Jobs’ last words were “Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.” And personally, I don’t think he was talking about a new Apple product.

But I digress. Apologies for no Polloplayer update today. I promise a few Vegas photos when we return home and I’m back at the wheel of my Costco HP desktop.

Score for today: PC – 1; Mac – 0

Evie and Viv tumbled out of the car and ran straight  to say hello to Hope.

A chick chick here and a chick chick there...

Then the CE, aka Grandpa, bustled them off for a swim before dinner. And after dinner, of course, we read stories in front of the fire.

Grandpa listened, too.

Story listeners all in a row.

Chloe listened, too

Viv said, “Gampa, you’re so silly!”

Evie said, “Grandpa and Nana, you live on a farm!”

(Does that mean the CE is silly enough to let me get that pair of pygmy goats I’ve been hoping for?)

John had a moment with Birdie

Sometimes Viv is in a shy mood when she sees us, but this visit she had a lot to say to Grandpa.

Who's the shy one now, Viv?

We took a long walk on Sunday morning.

Buster prefers to ride

Great-grandma joined us for Sunday brunch

Chloe was sad when they left. "Come back again soon!"

Thanks for the visit!

Chris, Gail, Christian, Daniel and Hannah

Daniel and Hannah from a Christmas past

And present

It was comforting to see them gathered in the kitchen and family room, and to hear their voices waft up from the jacuzzi late at night. As any mom knows, the happiest times are when your kids are right there under the same roof with you.

The animals are happiest when they're home, too: Chloe, Daniel, Soho and Chris

But now Daniel has gone back to NYC for his last semester at Columbia, with one job offer in his pocket and the certainty that he is staying in the city after he graduates. Taylor was only here for a very few days this holiday – vacation time is precious and we’re just grateful to have had him here at all. The post-holiday light bulb has clicked on: we can’t take these times for granted.

The CE and Taylor, Christmas 2011

When you live in a place where the demographics favor “the newlywed and nearly dead”, you can’t expect your kids to move back home. We’ve encouraged them to think of their lives as their own and to find their own path, and, good for them, that’s what they’re doing.

If things don't work out in the city, Daniel, you can always come home and be the Shoo-Bear's valet.

Wake-up call: Victoria came all the way up from LA to drive Christ and Daniel to the airport early in the am.

And I think I’ve been a pretty good sport about this empty nest thing. I just reserve the right to have a relapse now and then.  Today, I miss my boys.

Wherever they go and whatever they do, I just hope all roads always lead home at Christmas.

"We promise never to fly the coop. Does that help?"

Once upon a time, this was all the rage (image from retrophones.wordpress.com)

Then along came the Internet and, while forests of trees undoubtedly breathe easier, the written thank-you note seems to be heaving its last gasps. In 2003, the etiquette doyennes’ answer to the question “when is it appropriate to send a thank-you by email” was “Almost never”.  Today, even  that bastion of propriety Emily Post has been beaten into submission and now gives a non-committal “it’s never wrong to send a written thank-you note”

Of course, there's always a more creative way to get the job done (image from sitalruparelia.com)

Decidedly, no, it is not. More to the point, is it ever right to send an email thank you? There is wide professional agreement online that following an interview, a prompt email thank-you is appropriate, given that the business world could presumably crash and burn in the three days it might take for gratitude to arrive by snail mail. The sniveling Ms. Post even allows that when it comes to gifts, “if it is from a close friend or relative (and it’s not a wedding gift) you can email or call instead if you prefer”.

Well, duh, who is NOT going to prefer? Other than me, of course. I remain entranced by the allure of Mrs. John L. Strong, William Arthur and Cranes, all makers of stationery so thick and creamy it almost seems edible. And if I wasn’t a leftie who drags ink allong the page as I write, I would probably also be up to my ears in Watermans and Mont Blancs.

Perhaps he's hiding a love letter in that pocket.

Here’s a radical thought: why stop at thank-you notes? When was the last time you sat down and wrote someone a letter? On the one hand, you have these impassioned words from Napoleon written to Josephine: “My waking thoughts are all of you. Your portrait and the remembrance of last night’s pleasure have robbed my senses of rest. Sweet and incomparable Josephine, what an extraordinary influence you have over my heart….” Today’s equivalent would probably be a text to the effect of “Last night was kool. U wanna hook up again?” How silly are you going to look someday when you’ve conquered the western hemisphere and that’s the written legacy that goes in your bio? Think about it. On the other hand, don’t think about it – just go write someone a nice letter.

Admit it – you get a little thrill when you check your mail and there’s something besides bills and the weekly Coupon Clipper, right? Okay, so maybe you equate the hand-addressed envelope with a $20 stuck inside from Mom. That’s okay, too. I’m old-school, though, and anything hand-written, short of “Thought I’d drop you a note to let you know your taxes are being audited” is a bright spot in my day.

FYI, stamp prices go up this month

Oh, and an added incentive: As of January 22, 2012, the price of a first-class US postal stamp goes from 44 to 45 cents, so you’ll want to get your notes mailed before that date or else buy all those annoying sheets of 1 cent stamps.

Now, all that said, does it mean my holiday thank-yous are all written and sent? Well, no, not exactly. But I’m working on it. And if nothing shows up in your mailbox by the end of this week, you might want to check your email…

It’s Groundhog Day in red and green. Our tree is still up. The poinsettias are still on the front step. And I am embarrassed to say that the CE’s and my stockings are still hung by the chimney with care – we’ve been too busy taking down wreaths and sweeping up pine needles to open them. We cannot seem to vanquish the jingle-belled monster that Christmas has become. And now, neither can you, because here you are, forced to view the rest of our holiday pix:

Daniel and Taylor on our way to church Christmas Eve afternoon

We went out for Italian afterwards - here are Gail and Taylor awaiting their pasta

Bobby and James: Italian New Yorkers resigned to eating West Coast pasta

PG and Gail on Christmas Eve

James and Thomas hoping Santa notices how very good they are being at this moment!

Thomas got a NASA astronaut suit on Christmas morning

Daniel doesn't know what he got but he's pretty sure he hates it.

Christmas morning: Taylor and the Tart

Merry Christmas!

Viv brought a present for Grandpa

Santa brought Evie a princess pillow

Evie and John are feeling merry

Sisters

Cousins!

Gail, Tina and PG

Paul drew the short straw assignment this year: unmolding the jello

Jamesy enjoys his Christmas dinner

Gail and Daniel

PG with her gift from Taylor

But do we have enough candy?

Ta da! Here it is - Hannah and Daniel's prize-winning spaceship and mini-marshmallow astronaut. (image from Tina)

We will absolutely, positively finish de-Christmas-ing this weekend. After all, it’s time to get busy – there are only 352 shopping days until Christmas 2012!

Christmas won't be over until Buster takes off the antlers!

Pippa's idea of Hell is that hawk that keeps circling overhead

True to my New Year’s resolution, I cracked open the Inferno to begin a second reading on Sunday. Last time around, I read the Sayres translation; this time I started with Mandelbaum. I decided to compare it with the other versions the CE has given me, including a gorgeous limited edition copy of the Norton translation with designs by Boticelli. An embarrassment of riches!

Illustration from the 1955 Norton limited edition: Dante encounters the leopard, the lion and the she-wolf in Canto I (Polloplayer image)

Reading four translations at once is only a slight deja vu – each one has its own nuances and read simultaneously, they lend depth and breadth to the understanding of the work. Because this, my friends, is no comic book. The Divine Comedy will be found on any serious list of the best literature ever written, and for good reason. As I read the opening lines of Canto I for the second (and third, fourth, fifth time) I was struck with a completely new perception of the work. Here are the lines:

Bergin translation (1969):

“Midway along the journey of our life

I found myself within a gloomy wood

For the right pathway had been lost to view”

Hollander translation (2000):

“Midway in the journey of our life

I cam to myself in a dark wood

for the straight way was lost”

Mandelbaum translation (1980):

“When I had journeyed half of

our life’s way, I found myself within

a shadowed forest, for I had lost the path that

does not stray”

Norton translation (1955):

“Midway upon the journey of our life I

found myself in a dark wood, where the right

way was lost”

As I read the subtly different shadings of these translations, especially the Hollander, which succinctly states “the straight way was lost”, it occurred to me that what Dante was describing might correctly be linked with the concept of The Dark Night of the Soul as described (a few hundred years after Dante’s time) by St. John of the Cross.

Written in the 1500's this work is still sought out by seekers of Christian spirituality (Barnes and Noble image)

St. John of the Cross was a 16th century Spanish Carmelite monk whose master work continues to be widely read today. The simplest definition of the “dark night of the soul” is when one has lost his or her way and no comfort can be found, even in faith. Some claim that Christ endured such a time at Gethsemane. Most of us expeience periods of darkness and hopelessness in our lives, and if they occur with a crisis of or an absence of, faith, they can be crushing. Dante had been banished from Florence and was a wandering political exile, separated from the people and places he loved during the thirteen years he spent creating the Divine Comedy. It’s not a stretch to imagine that he experienced a “dark night of the soul” during this time.

Dante was banished from Florence during his lifetime, but a prominent statue of him stands there today. (image from molon.de)

At least one observer has made a connection between Dante’s presumed dark night of the soul in The Inferno and the decidedly more accessible Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost.

Robert Frost (image from loc.gov)

I don’t know who Tina Blue is, but she appears to know a thing or two about poetry. In her Internet article How Literary Allusion is Used in a Well-Known Poem by Robert Frost which can be found here she interprets Dante’s opening lines of the Inferno as being consistent with the “dark night of the soul” experience and also cannily observes that Frost pays homage to Dante’s terza rima meter with a similar rhyme scheme. Not everyone can or will undertake to read the Divine Comedy, but you can enjoy Frost’s poem right here:

(image from literarypiano.tumblr.com)

Ms. Blue asserts that Frost had Dante and the “dark night of the soul” on his mind in the lines “He will not see me stopping here / To watch his woods fill up with snow” According to Blue, Frost “means us to understand not only the woods’ human owner, but also at some level God, whose “house” (the church) is also in the village. She adds that “the speaker’s belief  that the owner will not see him stopping to watch the snow fall in the woods subtly suggests that he has somehow fallen outside of God’s range of vision or concern”, which is precisely the condition of one experiencing a “dark night of the soul”.

Susan Jeffurs illustration from the picture book version of Frost's poem (image from literaryfictions.com)

It all folds up so neatly into a literary piece of origami! The Divine Comedy is woven so thoroughly through the fabric of literature through the centuries and is awash in Dante’s coruscating spiritual, political and historical, mythological and literary genius. And I believe it can be threaded backward as well as forward. I haven’t read St. John of the Cross’ work in its entirety, but in the excerpt that I’ve seen, he ties the condition to the seven deadly sins. In Canto I of the Inferno, as Dante struggles in his loss of the “straight way”, he encounters a leopard, the lion and the she-wolf, which represent three of those sins: lust, pride and avarice (extreme greed). This suggests to me that St. John of the Cross might have had a copy of The Inferno on his desk when he wrote The Dark Night of the Soul.

The leopard represents lust. Leonard Baskin illustration from the Bergin translation (Polloplayer image)

(image from ktpapas.tumblr.com)

For related posts on Dante and The Divine Comedy, there’s one here for the Paradiso or here for the Purgatorio. As you can tell, I’m no scholar, but I might just be Dante’s most avid fangirl.

For instance, how else would I know that I traveled via the page to fifteen different countries – well, sixteen if you count Paradise – and read a total of 17,619 pages over the course of the past year. When I complete a book, I enter it on the list and include the title, the author, number of pages and sometimes a brief paragraph describing the book and the main characters. This helps jog my memory when my aging brain locks the door on the details of a book I read last year or even last week. I will also sometimes include a memorable quote or two from a book that impressed me, and lately, since we’ve been traveling a lot, I enter my geographic location at the time I finish the book. What? You say I exhibit obsessive compulsive symptoms? Not really – I just look at the books I read as a sort of collection.

Here’s my list for the second half of 2011:

July

25. She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb 480 pp

** This is a very popular author, but, for me, the sad tale of a young woman who responds to abuse and loss in her adolescence by encasing herself in a freakish weight gain did not work. The characters seemed like escapees from a comic book for me, but hey, to each his own.

August

26. The Paradiso by Dante Alighieri 349 astounding pp

Dante Alighieri (Wikipedia image)

***** I’ve covered this ground in a previous post http://polloplayer.wordpress.com/2011/09/15/i-have-entered-the-empyrean/ so there’s not much more to say other than WOW. And yes, I have not forgotten that my New Year’s Resolution will be to crack open the Inferno again tomorrow for a re-read.

27. Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand 398 pp

*** If this story wasn’t true, Hillenbrand would have to be accused of jumping the shark. An almost unbelievable tale of war-time survival and spiritual redemption. Hillenbrand gifts readers with a lucid account of the life of Louis Zamperini and the only thing more amazing than his story is the fact that Hillenbrand apparently remains an atheist after writing the book.

28. Drown by Junot Diaz 213 pp

*** A book of short stories drawn from the author’s Dominican Republic heritage. He writes in a truly original and authentic voice.

29. The Most Beautiful Walk in the World: A Pedestrian in Paris by John Baxter 298 pp

***And so begins the spate of books I tried to digest before and during our recent trip to France. This one was a gift from my dear friend, Nancy, and was one of my favorite Paris primers. Baxter writes engagingly of the people and places of Paris past and present.

30. Almost French: Love and a New Life in Paris by Sarah Turnbull 304 pp

** This was a fast read and gave me a sense of the Rue Montorgueil area in the 2nd arrondissement of Paris that I would not have otherwise had, but the author’s self-involvement and self-conscious style made me squirm.

31. A Year in the Merde by Stephen Clarke 288 pp

*** This little piece o’ fluff gets an extra star for the number of times it made me actually LOL.  Clarke sometimes tries too hard to entertain, but is often wickedly funny as he lampoons the French in the way only a Brit could manage.

September

32. Seven Ages of Paris by Alistair Horne 422 pp

*** A survey of the City of Light from the days of the Romans through the rule of DeGaulle. I would have given this four stars but for the fact that the author handicaps his impressive work of history with a rather alarming lack of objectivity. Yes, I know Mr. Horne is esteemed and revered, but he enmeshes the facts with his opinion a bit much for my taste.

33. The Flaneur: A Stroll through the Paradoxes of Paris by Edmund White 224 pp

** White is a literati darling and has apparently drunk the Kool-Aid and believes his own press. When he sticks to the subject of Paris walks he is tolerable but his political convictions are jaw-droppingly outlandish. I’m sure the French adore him…

34. Le Divorce by Diane Johnson 309 pp

** Saucy and frivolous, this salacious account of Americans in France attempting to navigate French mores, morals and cuisine is a clever romp up to the last fifty pages. It seemed as if the author was in danger of missing her deadline and, needing to tie up loose ends, tossed in an inexplicable and implausible shoot-out at Disneyland Paris. Huh?

35. A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle 224 pp

*** I’m the last person in the western hemisphere to read this book so you hardly need a summary. I’m always wary of mega-best-sellers but I really enjoyed this book and it was a great preparation for our visit to Provence. I finished it in Paris…sigh.

36. Babylon Revisited by F. Scott Fitzgerald

**** This collection of short stories are quintessential Fitzgerald. It would be easy to dismiss this volume as a period piece but I finished it with a renewed respect for Fitzgerald’s gift of prose. He himself once said “All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath” – and this was an author who dove deeply and held his breath well. Of course, he also said “First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you”, which, for him, was the truth, and a darned shame.

Scott and Zelda (image from flavorwire.com)

October

37. In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin by Erik Larson 464 pp

***** This is a must-read. For me, this book finally answered the question “How could it have happened?” Meticulously researched and masterfully written, Larson lets us experience pre-WWII Nazi Germany as Hitler careens toward madness and his “Final Solution” and as statesmen on both sides of the Atlantic fail to act through a convenient combination of denial and disbelief.

38. When She was White: the True Story of A Family Divided by Race by Judith Stone 288 pp

** Genetics play a trick and a family’s life is destroyed when a dark-skinned daughter is born to white Afrikaner parents in 1950′s South Africa ruled by Apartheid.

November

39. The Ambassadors by Henry James 450 pp

**** This was my first Henry James novel but it will not be the last. The sly James pits Calvinist Americans against belle epoque Parisians and everything that could happen does. It is true that Henry James will invariably choose to write a thirty-word sentence when ten would do, but after a while it grows on you.

The Ambassadors (image from tradebit.com)

40. The Sojourn by Andrew Krivak 191 pp

*** If the entire book had been as stunningly written as the first chapter, this would be a five-star review. Krivak tells an interesting, if uneven, story of an American-born Slav who becomes a sniper for the doomed Austro-Hungarian army in WWI. The book was a finalist for the 2011 National Book Award.

41. Leaving Van Gogh by Carol Wallace 258 pp

***A fictional account of Vincent Van Gogh’s last months at Auvers. Alluring, but ultimately frustrating as the reader longs to know what is fact and what is fiction.

42. Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay 293 pp

** Once again, I fail to fall for the best-seller everyone else loves. I’m not saying it isn’t worth reading – de Rosnay does a great service by shining a light on the infamous 1942 Vel d’Hiv round-up of French Jews by their own government. It’s when she switches to the present and the marital woes of the one-dimensional protaganist, journalist Julia Jarmond, that the book loses its focus.

43.  New York: the Novel by Edward Rutherford 862 pp

***Book snobs all hate it but I enjoyed every chapter. It’s not as good as Rutherford’s soaring London, but if you are a devotee of historical fiction and/or New York City, this is a good read. Rutherford’s m.o. is to trace generations of a family forward in history and here he begins with the Van Dyck family in 1600′s New Amsterdam and follows their descendants forward through the generations up to post-9/11 NYC.

December

44. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris 774 pp

**** The first of Morris’ fine three-volume study of Teddy Roosevelt. This one assays his sickly childhood, his years as a North Dakota cattle-rancher, the successful assault on San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War and his timely rise through the political ranks to become governor of New York, Vice President and then President of the United States following the assassination of William McKinley.

45. Tricking Freya by Christina Sunley 352 pp

**** I thoroughly enjoyed this novel about a young Canadian woman who searches her Icelandic origins and culture for answers to a dark family secret. The author skillfully weaves Norse  history and mythology into the plot and makes the landscape of Lake Winnipeg and Iceland come alive for the reader.

46. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson 644 pp

*** I know you thought I’d finish the year with something more erudite, didn’t you? Now that the film is out, I decided it was high time to read the book and there was a copy on the shelf of the room to which we were shuffled while guests were visiting during the holiday. The danger of waiting this long to read a whopper story like this one is that I had to picture Daniel Craig (not a hardship, admittedly) and Rooney Mara rather than draw my own idea of what the characters look like.

That wraps it up for 2011. If my insomnia continues at its current pace, I should easily be able to read fifty books in 2012.

I’m always looking for reading recommendations – send me yours!

Apt quote! (image from blog.quotabl.es.com)

Our new roommate: the Dodge

I finally got some shut-eye between 3 am and 6 am, but in the long hours preceding my “nap”, I was grateful for the insomniac’s best friend: a good book and a reading light.

Which reminded me: some Polloplayer readers have asked for another book list update and the last day of the year would seem like a good time to provide it. Thanks to my membership in two book clubs, the list is an eclectic one. The list is chronological, and I’m awarding stars for those of you who are looking for recommendations. I will divide the list into two posts, as it turns out I did a fair amount of reading this year!

January

1. The John McPhee Reader 416 pp

***  Selections from McPhee’s works. Recommended especially for the chapter “The Crofter and the Laird”, McPhee’s enchanting account of life on the Inner Hebrides islands of Scotland.

McPhee lived for several months on his ancestral island of Colonsay while writing "The Crofter and the Laird" (image from armin-grewe.com)

2. Little Bee by Chris Cleave 266 pp

* Not recommended. Everyone loved this novel but me. It was a bestseller but I found the characters unsympathetic and the plot overpromising and implausible.

3. The Iliad by Homer (Fagles translation) 614 pp

***** What can I say? The ultimate page-turner. There will be blood!

4. The Memory Palace by Mira Bartok 301 pp

** Meh. Highly readable account of the author’s childhood with a paranoid schizophrenic mother. For my money, Jeannette Wall’s The Glass Castle was a better treatment of this genre.

4. Colonel Roosevelt by Edmund Morrison 570 pp

**** The third and final volume of Morrison’s meticulous account of Roosevelt’s life. A larger-than-life read of a larger-than-life character, this account covers the period of Roosevelt’s life from his White House departure to his death.

February

5. Postcards by Annie Proulx 320 pp

**** Proulx is the rare best-selling author who just happens to be a fine, fine writer.

Annie Proulx's latest is "Bird Cloud: A Memoir" (image from thestar.com)

6. The Curious Life of Robert Hooke by Lisa Jardine 323 pp

*** Okay, this is an esoteric one, but I enjoyed it. Hooke was a contemporary and rival of Sir Isaac Newton who, according to the author, was gypped out of his rightful claim for his contribution to Newton’s inverse square law of gravitational attraction and for his partnership with Christopher Wren to the plans for St. Paul’s cathedral. A fascinating read for a survey of the history and innovations in Europe during the 1600′s.

7.  Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore 235 pp

*** I dare you to read this and not be moved. An account of an unlikely and redemptive friendship between an art dealer and a homeless man.

8. Crow Lake by Mary Lawson 304 pp

*** A novel of family tragedy and growth told against the backdrop of rural Ontario, Canada.

9. Rivers in the Desert by Margaret L. Davis 303 pp

**** Fascinating account of the building of the Los Angeles aqueduct, the Owens Valley water wars and William Mulholland’ fall from grace after the tragic failure of the St. Francis dam.

March

10. The Blindness of the Heart by Julia Francke 416 pp

***** Disturbing but ethereally written translation from the German about a woman who had the misfortune to be a child in Germany during WWI, a young adult during the era of the Weimar Republic and an adult mother during the privations of WWII. I should warn the squeamish that there are passages of graphic although not gratuitous sexual encounters between two sisters. An astonishing work from a preternaturally accomplished young author.

One to watch: the German author Julia Francke (Wikipedia image)

11. Extraordinary, Ordinary People by Condoleeza Rice  328 pp

*** I read this after seeing Rice speak. A memoir of the forces that shaped Rice’s childhood and ascent to a powerful Cabinet position in the George W. Bush administration. My impression after reading the book is that the assumption that Rice is a right-wing conservative is far from accurate.

12.  Washington, A Life by Ron Chernow 817 pp

***** A stunning biographical achievement and a must-read. I have a whole new appreciation of the wisdom and sacrifice that won us independence and launched our nation.

April

13. Country Driving: A Journey through China from Farm to Factory by Peter Hessler 448 pp

*** Interesting account of a journalist’s experience living in contemporary China.  Wry humor and some behind-the-scenes portraits of real-life China. However, am I impertinent to suggest that this staff writer for The New Yorker needed a better editor?

14. Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks 385 pp

*** As a former musician, I really enjoyed this. I thought it was a much better read than Sacks’ popular The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat.

15. The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright 421 pp

***** A thorough, searing and often frightening account of the ways in which radical Islam of the 1940′s wrapped its tentacles forward in history and led to the tragedy of 9/11. Prepare to be horrified by the innumerable ways in which the terrorist attack could have been averted but for petty bickering among blockheaded government agencies.

May

16. The Cello Suites: J.S. Bach, Pablo Casals and the Search for a Baroque Masterpiece by Eric Siblin 336 pp

*** A lovely book that intertwines the slim details we have of J.S. Bach’s life with that of Pablo Casals and his iconic interpretation of the famed Bach Cello Suites. Best read with a recording of Bach’s transcendent cello suites at hand.

17. Gate of the Sun by Elias Khoury 536 pp

**** A haunting and lyrical fictional account of the squalid lives and shame of defeat experienced by Palestinians from 1948 forward,  based on factual interviews the Lebanese author conducted with refugee camp residents.

Recommended: Gate of the Sun by Elias Khoury (image from arablit.wordpress.com)

18. Children of Dust by Ali Eteraz 334 pp

** An autobiographical account of growing up Muslim in Pakistan and the US. Interesting, but I personally think the author (whose real name is Abir ul Islam) might have written a better book had he spent some time in therapy and chiseled his ego down to manageable size before putting pen to paper.

19. The Siege of Mecca: the Forgotten Uprising in Islam’s Holiest Shrine and the Birth of Al Qaeda by Yaroslav Trofimov

*** Somewhat esoteric (as you can see I was on kind of a roll with Middle Eastern reading) but significant piece to understanding the puzzle of contemporary radical Islam.  The author is a foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal and has an excellent grasp of his subject matter. This book (a gift from sister-in-law Jean) had been on my shelf awhile and my understanding of it was greatly enhanced by the other reading I had done on the subject.

20. “Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas 540 pp

***** Extraordinary account of an extraordinary personage. Also a gift from sister-in-law Jean – thanks, Jean, keep them coming! Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a member of a revered intellectual German family, emerged from a somewhat agnostic childhood to embrace Christianity and the pastorate. His conviction that his calling dictated that he work to save  the Christian church and Jews in Nazi Germany led him to eschew offers to leave his homeland for safety and instead, place himself on the periphery of a plot to assassinate Hitler. He was executed in the final days of the war.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, second from right, during an eighteen-month imprisonment at Tegel. He was later arrested and held in concentration camps before being executed in April of 1945. (image from being.publicradio.org)

June

21. The French Resistance: 140-1944 by Raymond Aubrac 40 pp

**This is just a small booklet of mostly photographs but gives a rudimentary account of the brave men and women who made up the Resistance in WWII France.

22. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan 288 pp

** This novel was on a lot of “best of 2011″ lists. The author’s breezy style and quirky characters make for an entertaining read, but if you’re looking for substance, you’d best look elsewhere.

23.  The Devil in the White City: a Saga of Magic and Murder at the Fair that Changed America  by Erik Larson 447 pp

**** This is a book that rightfully belongs on any “best of” list you want to make. Don’t let the ponderous sub-title hold you back: this is a terrific, gripping read that meshes the giddy excitement of the fair that ushered in the innovations of electric lights, the Ferris Wheel and Crackerjack with the chill of a serial killer on the prowl.

More to come…time for a nap!