Nonfiction November To-Be-Read

When I was working on my Master’s degree I read at least a nonfiction history book a week. Since I graduated in May 2016 I have read one work of nonfiction, Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time; a far cry from my usual nonfiction picks.

The last couple months I’ve been a bit anxious about getting back to reading history monographs, so when I heard about the Nonfiction November reading challenge I was excited for a little push to get back to my academic roots. The challenge is supposed to follow four vague prompts, but I’m going to the beat of my own drum and reading two history books and two travel books.

The Unwomanly Face of War — Svetlana Alexievich

I’m cheating a little bit here, having begun this book last week. I just couldn’t wait to start this book, though. This is the first book by Alexievich, who has written other histories of Soviet Russia. The Unwomanly Face of War is an oral history of Soviet women who fought during World War II. What really drew me to this was that Alexievich was not allowed to publish it until Perestroika began in the mid-1980s, and even then in a highly censored version as it defied the official state version of the war.  The interviews are harrowing and tragic and utterly engrossing.

Cool Gray City of Love: 49 Views of San Francisco — Gary Kamiya

I visited San Francisco in 2014 and absolutely fell in love with the city. I randomly found this book in a discount bookshop near my apartment and picked it up because I love the feel of San Francisco. This is a travel book of snapshots of 49 different place in San Francisco, from Golden Gate Park to Chinatown.

Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall — Anna Funder

Another oral history about Communism in Europe; this time focusing on the German Democratic Republic. As part of my Master’s degree, I studied the history of Germany from World War I until reunification. Most of the books that I read for this focused on the political process, so this, which focused more on personal stories, will be an interesting addition to my previous knowledge.

Down Under — Bill Bryson

I have lived in Australia for almost three months now and I don’t know much about the country. Bill Bryson is a relatively famous travel writer and has an excellent sense of humor. To demonstrate this, in the first page he remarks on how Australia once lost a prime minister (he was walking along the beach and fell into the surf, never to be seen again). I’m excited to dive into Bryson’s other observations on this country.

I think this is going to be a good month for reading. What nonfiction books do you have on your TBR?

Rakowicki Cemetery

Rakowicki Cemetery (Cmentarz Rakowicki), a rambling cemetery located in Old Town Krakow, was established in 1803 and over the course of the last two centuries has been expanded several times. The cemetery is notable for its architecture as well as being the resting spot of many famous Poles.

 

Five Travel Books I Want To Read

In a Sunburned Country – Bill Bryson

“Sunburned” can mean only one country: Australia. Bill Bryson is one of the more prolific travel writers and has written about everywhere from the Appalachian Trail to Liechtenstein. In a Sunburned Country covers everything from modern-day Australia to Australia’s convict past. Bryson is supposed to be a hilarious writer and keeps his books fun and informative.

 

The Art of Travel – Alain de Botton

Of course, it’s always fun to read a good, fun-filled travelogue about one person’s journey through the Amazon or Russia, but sometimes you need to sit down and think about the philosophy of travel. Philosopher de Botton looks at the concepts behind travelling and how people are affected by it. What really draws me to this book is that de Botton uses poetry, artwork, and his own experiences to give the reader an understanding of what it means to travel.

 

West with the Night – Beryl Markham

This is less of a travelogue and more of a memoir about a not-often-heard-of remarkable woman. Markham was born in England in 1886, but lived most of her life in Kenya, and was the first female bush pilot in Africa. She was also the first woman to fly across the Atlantic from East to West. These memoirs seem like an interesting read about Colonial Africa and aviation in the early 20^th century.

 

The Dead Ladies Project: Exiles, Expats, and Ex-Countries – Jessa Crispin

I first came across this book over the summer and was instantly intrigued. This book is part memoir – of Crispin who left her life in Chicago for Berlin – and part examination of famous women expats. The book explores “exile,” and while it’s not so much of a travelogue, it still sounds fascinating.

 

Journeys – Stefan Zweig

Stefan Zweig is an author who has become increasingly popular over the last few years. In fact, his work inspired Grand Budapest Hotel. I’m a fan of his short stories, which look at a “lost” Europe from before World War I and the inter-war years. Journeys is Zweig’s travels through post-World War I central Europe. I think this would be very interesting for anyone travelling through central Europe who want to know a bit more about what the area was like in the past.

What are the books about travel that you intend to read?

Weekly Reads — March 5, 2017

It’s been a long and busy two weeks! Language classes started back up, and I’ve been spending several days going to movies/talks/dinner/protests with friends. Kind of exhausting, and also not good for being productive with a blog and writing.

But I’m back at it, and this week we have “Weekly Reads and One Podcast.”

“The Infamous Tale of the Murderous Chemistry Professor” — JSTOR Daily:

Here’s a little fascinating tale of the murder of a prominent Boston doctor and benefactor of Harvard’s Medical College in the 1840s by a “hot-headed” Chemistry professor. The article reminds me a lot of a historical mystery book, and I think this would a really fun story to fictionalise. I’m imagining the book cover in an Edward Gorey style.

“Six Stories of Stunning Passports from Countries that No Longer Exist” — Atlas Obscura:

Passports have always fascinated me, even as a child. I think this fascination came from a desire to travel that I had even as an 8-year-old. It wasn’t until I came across this article about a passport collection that I even thought that passports were something that could be collected. And what a fascinating thing to collect! Atlas Obscura boils down some stories and background of rare passports from the website Passport Collector.

Podcast: Don’t Keep Your Day Job

It’s only been in the last year that I’ve been really into listening to podcasts. This last week, bored of the podcasts that I’ve been listening to months on end, I decided to browse Itunes for something new to listen to. That’s how I came across Don’t Keep Your Day Job, a podcast that interviews creatives who have started their own businesses. I’ve found it really inspiring, even though I have no interest in starting my own business. It definitely helped me get out of this creative slump I’ve had these last few weeks.

Weekly Reads — February 19, 2017

It’s a week of history, romance (OooOoooO!), and remembering an article I was supposed to write about last week.

“The Dark Origins of Valentine’s Day” — NPR:

We started off the week with that ubiquitous holiday of romance and chocolate.  I had a vague understanding of where Valentine’s Day came from — something about a martyred saint and the such — but didn’t know about the Roman holiday of Lupercalia, which could be considered the original Valentine’s Day. I wish the article would have expanded on the usage of the holiday in Shakespeare’s works.

“Making Ink” — The Recipes Project: 

When I found this article my heart swooned a bit. The whole website in dedicated to recreating (or attempting to recreate) historical recipes. This particular article really sparks my interest because I’ve always had a love for old-fashioned ink and quill pens. The website is really good as well if you have any interest in methods for teaching history or recreating the past.

“Opening the Heart’s Floodgates, With a Paw” — Modern Love (New York Times):

I have homesickness sometimes. Particularly as I’m living in a dormitory abroad. These past few months have been hard because I’ve had absolutely no contact with animals but when I’m at home I’m constantly surrounded by dogs and cats. And a sheep. This article gave me warm fuzzies thinking about the people who love shelter dogs.

And finally, the article which I forgot last week:

“Q&A: The Women Who Write Dinosaur Erotica” — The Cut (New York Magazine): 

Yes, dinosaur erotica is a thing. Which I had no clue about until a couple months ago when a friend (the same friend who pointed out that this article was not included in last week’s edition of “Weekly Reads”) mentioned it. It’s an interesting insight into what type of books sell. Apparently. I would suggest following your enjoyment of this article with a little light listening of the podcast My Dad Wrote a Porno.

 

Book Review: The Passport — Herta Müller

There is something ingrained in me that makes me believe that short books will be easy reads. I blame studying history because a short monograph on history usually means you can read the whole book and not be overwhelmed.

If any book could rid me of this foolish notion, it would be Herta Müller’s Nobel Prize-winning The Passport.

Despite being just over 100 pages, The Passport conveys the bleakness and desperation that surrounds the characters. The Passport, like much of Müller’s other pieces of fiction, deals with the struggles of the German minority in Romania under the Ceaușescu regime.

The Passport doesn’t go into depth about the terrors of the regime — nor does it need to. The book follows Windisch, the miller of a village which is predominantly German, as he struggles to obtain passports for himself, his wife, and their grown daughter. Broadly, The Passport details Windisch’s attempts at bribing officials, first with flour from his mill, and later with sexual favours from his daughter. But the most prominent part of this book is the sheer weight of suppression and the desperation Windisch and his family have to leave Romania.

Müller writes exceptional imagery. Throughout The Passport is the image of an owl that flies over the town as a harbinger of death. The owl symbolises the fear that the German villagers live with. The owl also shows how the German villagers look for something to blame for their misfortune.

Animals as symbols are used quite often in The Passport. In one scene Windisch’s wife recounts a dream she had in which she journeyed up to the attic with a flour sieve, only to find a golden oriole that had died in the attic. When she lifts ups the bird, she finds a swarm of fat, black flies underneath it.

The flies flew up in a swarm. They settled in the flour sieve. I shook the sieve in the air. The flies didn’t move. Then I tore open the door. I ran into the yeard. I threw the sieve with the flies into the snow.” –38

Müller uses the flour sieve to show domesticity and food, and the golden oriole is wished-for prosperity (perhaps the kind that the Windisch family hopes to find when they leave Romania). But the oriole is dead, and the hidden flies taint the domesticity they already have.

The portrayal of time in the novel is another part of what makes the narrative so interesting. The timeline is not entirely clear, we’re not aware if the process has taken weeks, months, or years. Despite not knowing, the tone of The Passport gives us this feeling of oppression and uncertainty.

Overall, Müller’s terse language — she writes in short, almost choppy sentences — gives us the sense of fear and nervousness that surrounded the characters. The Passport is an excellent book for those who have an interest in history, or just want a general understanding of German minorities in communist-ruled countries after the Second World War.

 

Weekly Reads — February 12, 2017

Confession: Do I read most of these articles on Friday and Saturday night, after putting them in my Pocket App for safe keeping? Yes. Do I feel bad about that? Ehh…maybe. But I rather think that point is moot because I mean to read these earlier in the week, I just don’t get around to them until later in the week.

“Keeping Kids Frenetically Entertained is Ruining our Museums” — Aeon:

Even before studying history for six years, museums have had a special place in my heart. I enjoy the quiet calm, where I can think about history or art or dinosaurs. I go as far to like the quiet of a museum so much that I tend not to use the audio guide because I like to think on my own about the art or artifacts. Switek wonders about the function museums have had to take on in a world that pushes children (and adults) to be constantly entertained. I think if you’re interested in museum studies this piece will get you thinking.

“Teddy Girls: The Style Subculture That Time Forgot” — AnOther:

Teddy Girls were the female counterparts to the British, 1950s Teddy Boys; young working class men who took on the style of upper-class Edwardians. This article is a short history of the Teddy Girls, punctuated with photographs by Ken Russell that were thought to be lost until 2005. Definitely a must-read for those interested in 20th-century subculture and fashion.

“How to Be a Writer: 10 Tips from Rebecca Solnit” — Literary Hub:

I’m trying to get back into writing fiction. I feel like I’ve been away for eons, and I don’t remember how to write anything but essays. Part of this attempt has been reading about the process of writing and trying to be inspired. I don’t agree with all of Solnit’s advice, but then, I don’t have to! I can take the advice that works for me, and leave the rest.

“Vegetarian Chili with Winter Vegetables” — New York Times Cooking:

And finally, a recipe that I actually made! This is a really good recipe that is pretty easy. I didn’t have access to/didn’t want to search all over Krakow for winter squash so I just left it out.

 

Saturday night blogging essentials. Mmmm, raspberry beer. 

 

Weekly Reads — April 24, 2016

In which I catch up on some articles burning a hole in my Pocket (the app). Also, I’m back from some gruelling weeks of researching and writing my thesis!

“The Bittersweet Announcement of a New Beatrix Potter Book” — The New Yorker: This fall a new — that is, until now lost — Beatrix Potter story will be published, titled “The Tale of Kitty-in-Boots.” It’s about a young female cat who dresses up in jodhpurs and a jacket at night to hunt. The one illustration of Kitty-in-Boots by Potter is supplemented by new illustrations from Quentin Blake.

“The Foods that Passed Through Ellis Island” — Smithsonian Magazine: This is a short article on the importance of ethnic foods for immigrants after they arrived in the United States. Food can be very telling about a culture, and is something that I would like to research more about.  The article also talks about the importance of familiar foods for immigrants on the journey from Europe to the United States. “In the early years, stewed prunes over dried bread was a standard meal. Later, ethnic and kosher meals were incorporated; during what must have been a disorienting and stressful experience, finding familiar foods was probably comforting—provided the immigrants showed up for the right seating for their ethnic group.”

“A Few Words About the Faux Rembrandt” — The New Yorker: It’s a Rembrandt! Well … until you look again. A team of scientists, art historians and engineers took thousands of data points from Rembrandt’s paintings to create the faux Rembrandt, which was 3D printed. It’s deceptively good when you first look at it. But keep looking and you start to see that it really does not have the soul of an actual Rembrandt. “The sitter has a sparkle of personality but utterly lacks the personhood—the being-ness—that never eluded Rembrandt. He is an actor, acting.”

“The Villain Gap: Why Soviet Movies Rarely Had American Bad Guys” — A.V. Club: I’m currently working on a class paper about the stereotypes of communists in films during the 1920s, 1950s and 1980s. So when this article popped up on my Facebook feed I needed to read it. I think most people know, or at least aware of, how communists were portrayed in American movies during the Cold War. This article, on the other and, gives us a sense of why the villains in Soviet movies were rarely Americans, and more often than not Nazis.

Weekly Reads — January 31, 2016

 

Back to the university grindstone. In this edition of Weekly Reads I read about Bill Gates’ book reviews, New York Public Library’s historical map collection, and travel writing.

“Bill Gates: The Billionaire Book Critic” — The New York Times: Bill Gates has a blog, and reviews books. Who knew? The article is less about the blog itself and more about how he chooses what he reads. I don’t know why, but I really like to learn about other people’s reading interests.

“Hope in the Dark: Rebecca Solnit on the Redemptive Radiance of the World’s Invisible Revolutionaries” — Brain Pickings: Brain Pickings always has articles that speak to me. This article addresses Rebecca Solnit’s statements on hope. “We lose hope, Solnit suggests, because we lose perspective — we lose sight of the ‘accretion of incremental, imperceptible changes’ which constitute progress and which render our era dramatically different from the past, a contrast obscured by the undramatic nature of gradual transformation punctuated by occasional tumult.” I’m overly aware of how terrible history has been, but at the same time I remain quite hopeful for the future.

“Stanisław Barańczak’s ‘This is Not a Conversation for the Telephone’” — The Paris Review: Stanisław Barańczak was one of the translators of Wisława Szymborska — a favorite poet of mine. I’ve never read Barańczak, so this was a nice introduction to his work. What really interests me is how he was eventually banned from publishing in Poland.

“180,000 Historic Maps, Photos, and Postcards Are Now Free for Public Use” — City Lab: Anyone who loves history has to love historical documents. And the internet only makes it easier to check out cool documents all around the world. This is a quick article on all the great things you can find online from the New York Public Library. I would suggest looking at the remixes, which are interactive sites of three document collections.

Books I’ve Been Meaning To Read

This quote hangs next to my desk in the office I share with the other graduate assistants. It’s a good reminder of how little time I have (no time, actually) to read the books I’ve been meaning to read.

Or the books that I must read … but that’s another problem all together.

I’ve recently been thinking about all the books that I’ve been meaning to read. Some of them I picked up hoping to get to them over the summer, and some of them I started reading long ago and got too busy to actually finish them.

And so, here are six* of the books that I’ve been meaning to read:

Novels

The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood:

This book contains two novels that are loosely related – Mr. Norris Changes Trains and Goodbye to Berlin. Goodbye to Berlin is best known for being popularized in Cabaret. Isherwood lived in Berlin from 1929 until 1933, and does a wonderful job of describing the city.

I ordered this book in the spring of 2013 after reading a chapter of it for my pre-study abroad class. I thought it was a perfect book to read before I went to Berlin. I got about half-way through Mr. Norris Changes Trains before I put it down for some reason or another. If I get a chance to pick it up again anytime soon I want to see if there is any streets or places mentioned that I went to.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen:

This is one of the very few books which I watched the movie (the 2005 version) long before I even thought of reading the book. But then, I was 13 when I watched the movie — so I think I get a pass on that.

I got this absolutely gorgeous copy for Christmas last year and read it during my time off from school. Of course, by the third week of the spring semester I was far too busy to read anything other than my class books. I’m sure I’ll have to start from the beginning again, since it does have such dense writing.

The Collected Stories of Stefan Zweig by Stefan Zweig

I first heard of Stefan Zweig after watching Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel. Zweig was born in Austria, and wrote about the “golden age” of Vienna. His writing is beautiful, and his life is very sad. He also wrote about history in Decisive Moments in History — which I own, but haven’t cracked open. The few stories which I managed to read are composed of beautiful, highly detailed scenes. With this collection you get a good understanding of what type of writer Zweig is.

I don’t feel that guilty that I haven’t picked this book up again. That’s the nice thing about short story collections — you can stop and start at any point you like.

Non-Fiction

Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956 by Anne Applebaum

Iron Curtain documents the rise of communist governments in East Germany, Poland and Hungary. I started reading this book just as I was gaining interest in post-WWII European history, and it (combined with other things) really pushed me over that edge. This is one of the most readable history books I have ever read. Iron Curtain  falls somewhere between an academic history book and a popular history book.

Which doesn’t explain why it seems as though I’ve been reading this forever. I was on a good streak with this in the beginning of 2014, but was distracted by my thesis and spring break that I didn’t pick it up until this last spring break … and had to put it back down again once classes started.

Borderland: A Journey Through the History of Ukraine by Anna Reid

This is about the shortest book one could get covering a thousand-year span. Borderland creates a portrait of how Ukraine’s national identity was formed during this time, but doesn’t go into much detail about each time period. Reid is a journalist, and a lot of the later chapters draw from her experiences in Ukraine. I really enjoy it when modern perspectives blend with history.

I’ve actually read more of the older version of this book in a modern Eastern European history class. This version adds a few chapters on the Orange Revolution and Maidan. I would very much like to read this as soon as I can, but we all know that isn’t going to happen anytime soon.

The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin’s Russia by Orlando Figes

Another book that I read parts of for a class. The Whisperers is a fascinating look at the personal history of Stalin’s regime. Unlike the other two history books I have on this list, this is very much a “traditional” version of history writing. What makes this spectacular is that Figes uses family documents in his narrative, which is different from a lot of histories on Stalin’s regime.

This is such an overwhelming book — both in topic as well as sheer volume (700 pages). I skimmed the introduction after I got this for Christmas last year, but aside from the chapters I read for my class, I haven’t gotten to it yet. I’ll save this for this next summer, when I can devote my whole self to it.

 

*Six of eleven books I’ve been meaning to read that are in my direct vicinity. There are more, I’m just not going to embarrass myself by counting them all.