Cookery Bookery

(When Julia Child was working on the series of recipes that would ultimately comprise Mastering the Art of French Cooking, she referred to her project as cookery bookery.)

For those of you who may have old copies of French Cooking or other neat cookbooks that you might want to donate, you can hand them over to the Southern Food and Beverage Museum culinary collection. Since Katrina, the collection, which is currently housed at the New Orleans Public Library, has been working to replace the nearly 2,000 cookbooks that were destroyed by the hurricane. Southern university libraries have been helpful in donating, but the real gems have come from individual donors.

Find out more.

Oddities Amongst the Stacks

Today brings us a funny article about 10 of the strangest things to happen in a library. My favorites: an unfortunate slob who had to pay $360 in library fines, granted due to his own laziness, and the lady who dumped condiments in the bookdrop. Though, I shouldn't poke too much fun at the guy with the high fine, I think I'll be hit with one the next time I return my books...

A Course of Study with Bite

I'm not a huge fan of the Twilight books or vampires in general - though I have read Meyers' series (regrettable) and Stoker's Dracula (entertaining) - but if the newest iteration of vampire mania is to be believed (and it can be; see below), you can now, actually, get a DEGREE in Vampire studies. (Don't get me started on the silliness run amok in higher education...)

Beginning this fall, the University of Hertfordshire in England will offer Reading the Vampire, a master's degree in vampire literature. The course offers students an in-depth study of vampires in literature and the ways in which the idea of the 'vampire' has embedded itself in modern culture.

Course Description from UofH website:

Reading the Vampire: Science, Sexuality, and Alterity in Modern Culture

This module investigates vampire narratives in literature from early vampire stories such J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s lesbian vampire tale Carmilla and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the most famous vampire narrative of all, to the twentieth-century vampire chronicles of Anne Rice and the romantic blockbusters of Stephanie Meyer. Since their animation out of folk materials in the nineteenth century, vampires have been continually reborn in modern culture. They have enacted a host of anxieties and desires, shifting shape as the culture they are brought to life in itself changes form. Reading the Vampire embeds vampires in their cultural contexts, exploring their relationship to modernity; the influence of key thinkers such as Darwin, Marx, and Freud will be addressed, together with issues of gender, national identity, technology, consumption, and social change. The module will provide a forum for the development of innovative research and examine these creatures in all their various manifestations and cultural meanings.

Amy Greene's Bloodroot

If Mudbound and Wuthering Heights were mashed up like DJ Dangermouse’s Gray Album, the resulting masterpiece would be Bloodroot, Amy Greene’s debut novel set in Appalachia. The tale follows Myra Lamb, who in her disappointments represents a type of population in rural America. As the story unfolds, Greene artfully draws the story around us, distributing key point plots like much desired crumbs from a table. With the slow pace of a Southern drawl, Greene creates a multi-layered, intense tale that spellbinds the reader until the last line.

sarahsachaMyra Lamb is the child her grandmother has been waiting for ever since a relative put the family under a curse that would not be lifted until a child was born with "haint" blue eyes. Myra's grandmother lost all her children, and she desperately wants to keep her precious grandchild with her on Bloodroot Mountain, but like her mother before her, Myra wants to fly. Unfortunately, she flies into the arms of John Odom, a miserable, beautiful man who treats Myra very differently than what she expected. The novel is told from the point of view of six main characters, each character telling their story in their own first-person section, which allows for an individualized emotional intimacy. However, because we hear from everyone, we have a complete view of the novel's world. And it is quite a world. Greene penetrates the poverty, hopelessness, and fear of her characters’ experiences to contemplate the essence of what we need to live, which the novel suggests, is love.

sarahsachaFor the characters of Bloodroot, love brings connection, belonging, safety, and creativity. Without love, one is left in the clutches of the devil, or in Myra’s case, John Odom. Though some reviews have suggested that this novel is a commentary on the mother-child relationship, this is far too limited a view. It is not the pursuit of a better relationship with mothers, but a pursuit of love, as the characters disparately define it, that propels them. These characters lead hard lives – multiple children die in one year, husbands beat wives, dreams are killed, families are separated – but that does not hinder them in their search for love. The novel’s title intimates this dualism between love and evil, as the bloodroot plant is reputed to both poison and to heal.

sarahsachaWith its intensity, keen perception, precise language, and captivating characters, Bloodroot deserves a place on the bookshelf of Southern classics. Amy Greene writes in the tradition of Carson McCullers, Flannery O’Connor, and William Faulkner. This novel is not to be missed.

I Write Like

This is pretty cool. Thanks to my sister, who is also cool and sent me this link, I was able to determine that I write like Margaret Mitchell. I'll take it. Perhaps a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is in my future, too.

What's Good Now: July 2010

I'm handicapping us, dear readers, by posting my list so late in the month. So, in honor of my procrastination - which is really just forgetfulness - I'll only post two.

Allegra Goodman's The Cookbook Collector

David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

Short Story: Allegra Goodman's La Vita Nuova

Allegra Goodman’s graceful short story La Vita Nuova follows Amanda in the aftermath of an emotional break up. Her fiancé has jilted her, and she struggles to recover from the shock, ultimately finding herself through a babysitting job. As she takes care of Nathanial, a precocious little boy, she rediscovers her artistic talent and slowly processes the impact of her broken relationship. Yet, it is not until she sees Nathanial mourn her decision to stop babysitting him that she allows herself to feel the extent of her own lost love.

Goodman’s story is compact and penetrating; and the prose is distant, reserved. Emotion resonates through simple facts that are related as one would relate the weather. As Amanda struggles with what she will do next, her mother ask: '“When was the last time you painted anything? Apart from your apartment?” Her father said, “I paid for Yale.”' Her parents’ disappointment is stark and obvious, and the reader is made to feel the blows of this agitation as powerfully as Amanda does.

What is most interesting, however, is experiencing Amanda’s transformation from a defeated and emotionally-dead victim of a hurtful break-up to someone who can feel again.

Book Haul

It's been a rough week, but, in even the gloomiest moments, books exist...and can be purchased or borrowed by me. A bit of time in my local bookstore and the nearest library branch brought in some gems:

Broken Glass Park - Alina Bronsky

Heard about this one a few months ago from BookBrowse and was surprised to see it in the bookshop. (I'm usually surprised to see good, literary novels in the bookshop since it seems that vampires, werewolves, and Fabio-inspired lovie-dovies grace far more bookshelf real estate than they should.)

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox - Maggie O'Farrell

When Iris discovers she's the executor of her Aunt Esme's will, an aunt she never knew she had, the reader is plunged into the depths of one family's dysfunction.

The Deerslayer - James Fenimore Cooper

The first of Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales. I wanted to start with The Last of the Mohicans but thought that I should start at the beginning (since it's a wonderful place to start) and wasn't sure I could read the Leatherstocking Tales out of order...

The Cookbook Collector - Allegra Goodman

Critics say that Goodman deserves to "wear the mantel of Jane Austen," so I felt compelled to have a read.

Just finished Bloodroot by Amy Greene, which was so good, I'm still trying to pick my chin up from the ground. Am now enjoying Finny by Justin Kramon, which pubs tomorrow. Will have more substantive thoughts on these novels very soon. Until then, dear readers, keep the pages turning.

"If you’re an avid reader, and a book gets under your skin, it can affect you as intensely as a real human relationship, it lingers with you for your whole life."
- Dan Chaon

Updates

I admit it, I'm a nerd, which is why I find the Hot Word blog so wonderful.

I like the Bellwether Prize, so I thought I would share - belatedly - the news of its recent winner.

I am very excited about this book (Click on The Distant Hours) and this one.

And, finally, do you lie about reading books? Some people do, and here are the top ten favorite books for those prevaricating purposes.

Count down to Booker Prize 2010 Longlist Announcement: 18 days

Gail Godwin's Unfinished Desires

Gail Godwin's Unfinished Desires is, well, unfinished. The novel expertly evokes a sense of time and place, as it delves into the lives and drama of Mount St. Gabriel's, a Catholic girls' school; yet, the story fails to follow through on its promise. The novel begins with Sister Suzanne, a graduate of Mount St. Gabriel's and former head mistress, creating her memoirs that will double as a history of the school. As her story unfolds, the reader becomes hooked by the mystery surrounding the class of 1951. In order to tell the tale more intimately, Godwin tri-sects the novel, allowing us to follow Suzanne in current time, Suzanne as a student, and Suzanne as head-mistress in 1951. The plot incorporates a panoply of characters, most of whom are (confusingly) related, and the story marches towards the conclusion…which occurs with nary a whimper.

Perhaps, though, this novel shouldn’t be read for the plot development but for the brilliant job it does in capturing the evolution of girls’ friendships and power-struggles against the backdrop of a Catholic school. In this, Unfinished Desires is quite successful, but do not expect to be thrilled by the anti-climactic resolution of this largely lukewarm novel.