Commonwealth

Just finished this one. So good.

It is my second favorite by this amazing writer. Because who can't list Bel Canto as their favorite Ann Patchett novel?

Thanks to my mom for the autographed copy. I love going to Patchett's bookstore when I'm in Nashville visiting my mom and O. It's tradition now. Kudos to Ms. Patchett for keeping the independent bookstore alive.

Dare we forget, Ann Patchett is the queen of awesome first lines. Her book openers are legendary--concise, yet delivering us perfectly and elegantly into the story with carefully chosen words and information. If you ask me, her chapter and paragraph openers are just as powerful. She's taught me a lot.

Here's the opener to Commonwealth:

The christening party took a turn when Albert Cousins arrived with the gin.

Here's the opener to Bel Canto, one of my all-time favorite novels:

When the lights went off the accompanist kissed her.

Boom! See what I mean?

Permanent Residency

My very favorite indication of residency--library cards!

Kids are now booked up and proud card holders.

Five Sextillion Atoms

I'm so proud and honored to share this book of poetry with you. 

The author, Jayne Benjulian, and I have know each other for about twelve years now. We met as next-door neighbors in Mill Valley, CA, under the redwoods we both love so much. Indeed, it seems we share a soulful appreciation of the same geography for we have separately lived in a number of the same places, including Bainbridge Island, WA, New York and France. We both earned our Master's degrees at Emory University and share a joy of the French language. It's uncanny the ways in which our lives have criss-crossed. Now, if I could just finish my book and get it published too!!

Of course, regardless of the uncanny ways in which our personal lives have criss-crossed, Jayne's official biography is much more intriguing . . . I mean chief speech writer at Apple?!!?

Jayne’s careers have been as varied and many as places she has lived: she served as chief speechwriter at Apple, investigator for the public defender in King County, Washington, and director of new play development at Magic Theater. She was an Ossabaw Island Project Fellow; a teaching fellow at Emory University, where she earned an MA; a lecturer in the Graduate Program in Theater at San Francisco State University; and a Fulbright Teaching Fellow in Lyon, France. She holds an MFA from the Warren Wilson Program for Writers. She lives in Massachusetts and hikes the Berkshire Hills with her long-haired German shepherd, Ophelia, but she misses her big, brash Pacific Ocean. Five Sextillion Atoms is her first collection.

Jayne has been on a book tour, and so I had the chance to see her read when she passed through NYC last week at the legendary "Cake Shop on the Lower East Side. As she said, this was probably her most funky reading venue, and it turned out to be a quintessential night out in NYC.

I hope you all check out her new book! You can learn more about Jayne on her website.

Dutch Bucket List (The Most Liberal City)

I confess. I have a lot of literary crushes: Michael Pollan, David McCullough, Robert Massey, Alice Munro, to name just a few.

Upon moving to Amsterdam, I added Russell Shorto, whose books on Amsterdam and New Amsterdam (aka, New York) have been praised by critics worldwide.

McCullough

McCullough

McCullough

McCullough

McCullough

McCullough

McCullough

Admittedly, I've been so busy reading fiction and writing and doing mom stuff that I just got around to reading this darling by Shorto, which has been on the bucket list for three years:

I now have such a better understanding of Amsterdam's contributions to the modern world. And I'm stunned by some of Shoto's personal anecdotes, which eerily mimic my own experience here in Amsterdam. I've paid so much closer attention to my surroundings because of this book.

As we all hopefully know, New York was settled and founded by the Dutch. We are in the process of moving from Amsterdam to what was once called "New Amsterdam" before English settlers took it over from the Dutch and named it after a city back in England: York.

I mentioned in a previous post that I figured my bucket list would beget an even bigger bucket list. Shorto has written another widely acclaimed work about the Dutch islandcalled Manhattan, and this book, of course, is now on my reading bucket list. You can count on the fact that I'll be reading this one before I land in my new home.

Finally, as mentioned above, Robert K. Massie is one of my favorite authors. I read his book on Peter the Great way back in the early 90's, and DS gave me his book on Catherine the Great when it first came out in 2011.

Regrettably, I never got around to it. It's been on my reading bucket list (and on my nightstand) ever since. It may not be on my Dutch bucket list, but I did finally get around to starting it recently.

I'm half-way through, and wouldn't you know it, but the Hermitage Museum here in Amsterdam (sister museum to the world famous Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia) is launching a new exhibit all about you-know-who: Catherine the Great. It starts June 18. Guess what I've added to my bucket list?

Members of the Community

Two years later, we finally signed up for city library cards.  I'm feeling like such a resident.

It was the perfect rainy day activity, affording us the opportunity to visit the very cool central library of Amsterdam. A & R checked out books with their very own library cards.

The library is home to this crazy mouse house, made famous by the children's book of the same name. There are over 100 miniature rooms in the mansion.

The view from the cafe at the top of the library:

It had been a while since we bopped around town using the tram.  Kids waiting for the #5, which takes us from Museumplein to Central Station and the library.

Small Gestures

I miss my pile of New Yorkers, which sat in the same basket for four-plus years in our house back in the States. They came weekly, and I certainly didn't have time to read them all. It was costly and totally not earth-friendly, but I loved getting them in the mail each week, quickly skimming the articles topics and the short fiction and the cartoons, then throwing it in the basket to read as I had time.

In Amsterdam, I occasionally go to the American book store or other random newsstands that carry English magazines to pick up the New Yorker. And I frequently read it online.

But I must say, I cherished every page of this edition of the New Yorker because my husband brought it home for me while on a trip to the U.S. in June, along with the Smithsonian's travel mag. It was kind of like getting it in the mail, insomuch as I didn't have to pursue it. 

A small, sweet gesture with big impact.

Lit Love: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I love this woman.  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has been a writing inspiration to me for a number of years, and I study her craft with the same excitement I have when I open a map and set off to explore a foreign place.

Yet Adichie also finds the most welcoming ways to engage her readers and audiences (she is a rather popular public lecturer) in the issues of our time.  She recently gave the commencement speech at Wellesley, and in just a few minutes she brought insight and relatability to the topic of feminism through storytelling about her mother.  Her point (and caution) is this: there's not one so-called feminist response to all situations.  As Adichie says "gender is always about context and circumstance' and "life is messy," meaning standardized ideology doesn't fit all situations.

Check out this link for more excerpts from her recent lectures.  The story about her mother is quoted below, and the full commencement speech can be found here.

Adichie's emphasis on the "danger of the single story" and "standardized ideology" resonate to say the least.  As does her fiction work.  My favorites are Half a Yellow Sun and That Thing Around Your Neck.

 And who can't get drawn in by her smile?  My guess is that she's as warm and funny and accessible and strong and insightful in person as she appears in her work and in her smile.

I bring greetings to you from my mother. She’s a big admirer of Wellesley, and she wishes she could be here. She called me yesterday to ask how the speech-writing was going and to tell me to remember to use a lot of lotion on my legs today so they would not look ashy.

My mother is 73 and she retired as the first female registrar of the University of Nigeria—which was quite a big deal at the time.

My mother likes to tell a story of the first university meeting she chaired. It was in a large conference room, and at the head of the table was a sign that said CHAIRMAN. My mother was about to get seated there when a clerk came over and made to remove the sign. All the past meetings had of course been chaired by men, and somebody had forgotten to replace the CHAIRMAN with a new sign that said CHAIRPERSON. The clerk apologized and told her he would find the new sign, since she was not a chairman.

My mother said no. Actually, she said, she WAS a chairman. She wanted the sign left exactly where it was. The meeting was about to begin. She didn’t want anybody to think that what she was doing in that meeting at that time on that day was in any way different from what a CHAIRMAN would have done.

I always liked this story, and admired what I thought of as my mother’s fiercely feminist choice. I once told the story to a friend, a card carrying feminist, and I expected her to say bravo to my mother, but she was troubled by it.

“Why would your mother want to be called a chairman, as though she needed the MAN part to validate her?” my friend asked.

In some ways, I saw my friend’s point.

Because if there were a Standard Handbook published annually by the Secret Society of Certified Feminists, then that handbook would certainly say that a woman should not be called, nor want to be called, a CHAIRMAN.

But gender is always about context and circumstance.

If there is a lesson in this anecdote, apart from just telling you a story about my mother to make her happy that I spoke about her at Wellesley, then it is this: Your standardized ideologies will not always fit your life. Because life is messy.