Sacred Secrets: Shredding the Shackles of My Shame
Verianne Barker, 2013
The We Care Group Publishers
354 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781620505496
Summary
Peppered with beatings, incest, drugs, and murder, this story of abuse sends us careening through the rages and indiscretions of a father, and provokes our own rage at a mother whose efforts were more to cover up her husband’s physical abuse, than they were to protect her children.
Our sympathy pours out, too, when we see how these children of abuse became adults ravaged by a helpless vulnerability to drugs, crime, and any combination of social ills. This book is not casual reading. Be prepared to feel revulsion, anger, shock, fear, pity, and abject disgust, as this sad saga of one woman’s tale of abuse unfolds.
Sacred Secrets: Shedding the Shackles of my Shame is the true life story of Louisianan, Connie Gilbert, who no longer wants to pretend that her abused childhood and her subsequent social missteps were all a part of normal living. She is tired of hiding who she was and where she came from.
She is ready to shed the shackles of her shame. See more at The Local Christian Town Hall. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Though she is the creator of this work, Verianne Barker never refers to herself as a writer or an author. She just sees herself as someone who has been blessed to be able to express her thoughts in writing, when she feels that itch to talk it out by writing.
Over the years she has responded to that itch by writing about several issues that span several genres, from poetry to politics but has never felt the compulsion to publish, until faced with the social tragedy that is this story.
Verian, as she prefers to be called because it is the original spelling of her name, lives in South Carolina but is originally from Guyana, in South America. Before settling in South Carolina, she lived in New York and New Jersey and worked in several major cities where she started volunteering as a grammar, writing skills, and general educator in helping to equip basic academic skills to those in need.
It was in one of these classes that she met the Connie, the subject of Sacred Secrets: Shedding the Shackles of my Shame, and was so sympathetic with the story that was her life, that she agreed to help her document its details her to help her to overcome the pain and tell the story that Connie felt would provide the answers to most of the questions so many in her generation and the generation following hers, still have. (From the author .)
Book Reviews
Please visit The Local Christian Town Hall to find reader reviews.
Discussion Questions
1. When a mother keeps her children in an abusive environment she is equally as guilty as the father who inflicts the physical abuse and should be prosecuted accordingly. Discuss.
2. There is a tendency for women to stay with their abusers for reasons that are unfathomable to those looking in from the outside. In this book, the mother stays because she is convinced that one day the Good Lawd will change her abusive spouse and father of her children. One argument is that she stays out of fear but the other is, if she is afraid then why not flee? It is a strange but very common juxtaposition. Discuss.
3. Growing up in an environment where drug use was pervasive and ultimately destructive, it is logical to assume that the product of this environment would steer clear of drugs. Why do you think drug use becomes the chosen path of these children, the products of this environment, anyway?
4. Very frequently, antisocial behaviors seem to pass from generation to generation, giving rise to the contemplation of generational curse. What are your thoughts on why these behaviors follow some families?
5. In this book, we see a generation that has been raised on welfare continue their existence on the welfare system and then raise their own children on welfare as well. There are some that would blame legislators for the institution of this culture of dependency. Using this book as your reference prepare a presentation for Congress to review and revise the welfare system Be very generous with your proposals.
(Questions courtesy of the author.)
The End of Absence: Reclaiming What We've Lost in a World of Constant Connection
Michael Harris, 2014
Current Hardcover
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781591846932
Summary
Every revolution in communication technology—from papyrus to the printing press to Twitter—is as much an opportunity to be drawn away from something as it is to be drawn toward something. And yet, as we embrace technology's gifts, we usually fail to consider what we're giving up in the process. Why would we bother to register the end of solitude, of ignorance, of lack? Why would we care that an absence had disappeared?
Soon enough, nobody will remember life before the Internet. What does this unavoidable fact mean?
For future generations, it won’t mean anything very obvious. They will be so immersed in online life that questions about the Internet’s basic purpose or meaning will vanish.
But those of us who have lived both with and without the crowded connectivity of online life have a rare opportunity. We can still recognize the difference between Before and After. We catch ourselves idly reaching for our phones at the bus stop. Or we notice how, mid-conversation, a fumbling friend dives into the perfect recall of Google.
In this eloquent and thought-provoking book, Michael Harris argues that amid all the changes we’re experiencing, the most interesting is the one that future generations will find hardest to grasp. That is the end of absence—the loss of lack. The daydreaming silences in our lives are filled; the burning solitudes are extinguished. There’s no true "free time" when you carry a smartphone. Today’s rarest commodity is the chance to be alone with your own thoughts.
To understand our predicament, and what we should do about it, Harris explores this "loss of lack" in chapters devoted to every corner of our lives, from sex and commerce to memory and attention span. His book is a kind of witness for the "straddle generation"—a burst of empathy for those of us who suspect that our technologies use us as much as we use them.
By placing our situation in a rich historical context, Harris helps us remember which parts of that earlier world we don’t want to lose forever. He urges us to look up—even briefly—from our screens. To remain awake to what came before. To again take pleasure in absence. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Michael Harris is a contributing editor at Vancouver magazine and Western Living. His writing has been published by Wired, Salon, Huffington Post, Globe & Mail, National Post, and The Walrus. He and has been nominated several times at the Western and National Magazine Awards. Harris lives with his partner, the artist Kenny Park, in Toronto, Canada. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
To pull away from our hyperconnected lives is painful; it is hard, and it is a muddle. Harris walks us through his particular muddle with wit, wry honesty, and compassion for the "strange suffering" of all who find themselves checking email at the dinner table.
Andrew Cleary - Christian Science Monitor
A personalized jeremiad against the state of constant distraction in which our benevolent technologies have ensnared us.... Harris' core argument...feels valid, and his prose is graceful, but as a social narrative, the book becomes repetitive and less focused.... A thoughtful addition to the bookshelf addressing the unintended consequences of a wired world.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal
Ben Macintyre, 2014
Crown Publishing
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780804136655
Summary
Kim Philby was the greatest spy in history, a brilliant and charming man who rose to head Britain’s counterintelligence against the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War—while he was secretly working for the enemy.
And nobody thought he knew Philby like Nicholas Elliott, Philby’s best friend and fellow officer in MI6. The two men had gone to the same schools, belonged to the same exclusive clubs, grown close through the crucible of wartime intelligence work and long nights of drink and revelry. It was madness for one to think the other might be a communist spy, bent on subverting Western values and the power of the free world.
But Philby was secretly betraying his friend. Every word Elliott breathed to Philby was transmitted back to Moscow—and not just Elliott’s words, for in America, Philby had made another powerful friend: James Jesus Angleton, the crafty, paranoid head of CIA counterintelligence. Angleton's and Elliott’s unwitting disclosures helped Philby sink almost every important Anglo-American spy operation for twenty years, leading countless operatives to their doom.
Even as the web of suspicion closed around him, and Philby was driven to greater lies to protect his cover, his two friends never abandoned him—until it was too late. The stunning truth of his betrayal would have devastating consequences on the two men who thought they knew him best, and on the intelligence services he left crippled in his wake.
Told with heart-pounding suspense and keen psychological insight, and based on personal papers and never-before-seen British intelligence files, A Spy Among Friends is Ben Macintyre’s best book yet, a high-water mark in Cold War history telling. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1963
• Where—England, UK
• Education—N/A
• Currently—lives in London, England, UK
Ben Macintyre is a British author, historian, and columnist writing for The Times (London) newspaper. His columns range from current affairs to historical controversies.
Books
MacIntyre is the author of a book on the gentleman criminal Adam Worth, The Napoleon of Crime: The Life and Times of Adam Worth, Master Thief (1992). He also wrote The Man Who Would Be King: The First American in Afghanistan (2004). In 2008 MacIntyre released an informative illustrated account of Ian Fleming, creator of the fictional spy James Bond, to accompany the For Your Eyes Only exhibition at London's Imperial War Museum, which was part of the Fleming Centenary celebrations.
Three of his most recent books center on World War II and have become international bestsellers. In 2007, he published Agent Zigzag: The True Wartime Story of Eddie Chapman: Lover, Betrayer, Hero, Spy. The story centers on Chapman, a real-life double agent during the Second World War. Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory, issued in 2010, recounts the Allied deception their impending invasion of Italy. Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies, released in 2012, is about the Allies' D-Day spy network.
All three books have been made into BBC documentaries—Operation Mincemeat (in 2010), Double Agent: The Eddie Chapman Story (in 2011), and Double Cross (in 2012). His most recent book, published in 2014, is A Spy Among Friends: Phil Kilby and the Great Betrayal. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Macintyre has produced more than just a spy story. He has written a narrative about that most complex of topics, friendship...When devouring this thriller, I had to keep reminding myself it was not a novel. It reads like a story by Graham Greene, Ian Fleming, or John Le Carre, leavened with a dollop of P.G. Wodehouse...[Macintyre] takes a fresh look at the grandest espionage drama of our era.
Walter Isaacson - New York Times Book Review
By now, the story of British double agent Harold "Kim" Philby may be the most familiar spy yarn ever, fodder for whole libraries of histories, personal memoirs and novels. But Ben Macintyre manages to retell it in a way that makes Philby’s destructive genius fresh and horridly fascinating.
David Ignatius - Washington Post
Macintyre writes with the diligence and insight of a journalist, and the panache of a born storyteller, concentrating on Philby's friendship with and betrayal of Elliott and of Angleton, his pathetically dedicated admirer at the top of the CIA. Macintyre's account of the verbal duel between Elliott and Philby in their final confrontation in Beirut in 1963 is worthy of John le Carré at his best.
Guardian (UK)
A Spy Among Friends, a classic spookfest, is also a brilliant reconciliation of history and entertainment…An unputdownable postwar thriller whose every incredible detail is fact not fiction…[a] spellbinding narrative…Part of the archetypal grip this story holds for the reader is as a case study in the existential truth that, in human relations, the Other is never really knowable. For both, the mask became indistinguishable from reality…A Spy Among Friends is not just an elegy, it is an unforgettable requiem.
Observer (UK)
Ben Macintyre’s bottomlessly fascinating new book is an exploration of Kim Philby’s friendships, particularly with Nicholas Elliott… Other books on Philby may have left one with a feeling of grudging respect, but A Spy Among Friends draws out his icy cold heart…This book consists of 300 pages; I would have been happy had it been three times as long.
Mail on Sunday (UK)
Such a summary does no justice to Macintyre's marvellously shrewd and detailed account of Philby's nefarious career. It is both authoritative and enthralling... The book is all the more intriguing because it carries an afterward by John le Carre.
New Statesman (UK)
No one writes about deceit and subterfuge so dramatically, authoritatively or perceptively [as Ben Macintyre]. To read A Spy Among Friends is a bit like climbing aboard a runaway train in terms of speed and excitement–except that Macintyre knows exactly where he is going and is in total control of his material.
Daily Mail (UK)
Philby's story has been told many times before–both in biography and most notably in John le Carre's fictional masterpiece Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy—but never in such exhaustive detail and with such panache as in Ben MacIntyre's brilliant, compulsive A Spy Among Friends… Reads like fiction, which is testament to the extraordinary power of the story itself but also to the skills of the storyteller…One of the best real-life spy stories one is ever likely to read.
Express (UK)
(Starred review.) Working with colorful characters and an anything-can-happen attitude, Macintyre builds up a picture of an intelligence community chock-full of intrigue and betrayal, in which Philby was the undisputed king of lies…Entertaining and lively, Macintyre’s account makes the best fictional thrillers seem tame.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Ben Macintyre offers a fresh look at master double agent Kim Philby…Fans of James Bond will enjoy this look into the era that inspired Ian Fleming's novels, but any suspense-loving student of human nature will be shocked and thrilled by this true narrative of deceit.
Shelf Awareness
(Starred review.) A tale of espionage, alcoholism, bad manners and the chivalrous code of spies—the real world of James Bond, that is, as played out by clerks and not superheroes.... Gripping and as well-crafted as an episode of Smiley's People, full of cynical inevitability, secrets, lashings of whiskey and corpses.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also, consider these talking points to help start a discussion for A Spy Among Friends (Spoiler Alert in effect—beware if you've not read the book.):
1. The central question raised by Macintyre's book, and by Nicholas Elliot, is how could—and why did—a man as Kim Philby, with a decidedly English upbringing and all of its prequisites, undertake a life of deception on such a grand scale? And why would he choose communism over capitalism? Talk about Philby: how would you describe him? What kind of person was he? What motivated him?
2. Talk about MI-6's Nicholas Elliot and the CIA's James Angleton, two of the sharpest, most wizened spies in the West. What about their personalities, backgrounds, or world views enabled both to be so thoroughly duped by Philby?
3. Philby himself says, in his own mind, he didn't betray Britain so much as remain intensely loyal to the USSR, an ideology he was firmly committed to. What do you think?
4. What about the Vermehrens, Erich and Elisabeth, the couple Elliot recruited in Turkey during the war? What motivated them...and how was their motivation different from Kim Philby's? Consider, too, that their defection ended up destroying the members of their families by both Nazis (during the war) and Soviets (after the war). The bigger questions here is where does one's loyalties lie...or where should they lie?
5. One of the many ironies of the Philby's double agentry is that the better the information was that he provided his Soviet overseers, the less they trusted him. Why did Moscow distrust Philby during the early war years? Were the Soviets paranoid, an extension of Stalin's paranoia? Or did their mistrust make sense? What changed their minds?
6. What kind of individual does it take to be a spy, keeping secrets from everyone, including those you are most intimate with—spouses, family, and close friends? Could you ever work in intelligence, particularly undercover operations?
7. Talk about the role that social class played in this story. How did it aid Philby's ability to deceive his close friends and associates?
(Questions by LitLovers. Feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette
Hampton Sides, 2014
Knopf Doubleday
480 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385535373
Summary
A white-knuckle tale of polar exploration and survival in the Gilded Age.
In the late nineteenth century, people were obsessed by one of the last unmapped areas of the globe: the North Pole. No one knew what existed beyond the fortress of ice rimming the northern oceans, although theories abounded.
The foremost cartographer in the world, a German named August Petermann, believed that warm currents sustained a verdant island at the top of the world. National glory would fall to whoever could plant his flag upon its shores.
James Gordon Bennett, the eccentric and stupendously wealthy owner of the New York Herald, had recently captured the world's attention by dispatching Stanley to Africa to find Dr. Livingstone. Now he was keen to re-create that sensation on an even more epic scale.
So he funded an official U.S. naval expedition to reach the Pole, choosing as its captain a young officer named George Washington De Long, who had gained fame for a rescue operation off the coast of Greenland. De Long led a team of 32 men deep into uncharted Arctic waters, carrying the aspirations of a young country burning to become a world power. On July 8, 1879, the USS Jeannette set sail from San Francisco to cheering crowds in the grip of "Arctic Fever."
The ship sailed into uncharted seas, but soon was trapped in pack ice. Two years into the harrowing voyage, the hull was breached. Amid the rush of water and the shrieks of breaking wooden boards, the crew abandoned the ship. Less than an hour later, the Jeannette sank to the bottom, and the men found themselves marooned a thousand miles north of Siberia with only the barest supplies.
Thus began their long march across the endless ice—a frozen hell in the most lonesome corner of the world. Facing everything from snow blindness and polar bears to ferocious storms and frosty labyrinths, the expedition battled madness and starvation as they desperately strove for survival.
With twists and turns worthy of a thriller, In The Kingdom of Ice is a spellbinding tale of heroism and determination in the most unforgiving territory on Earth. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1962
• Where—Memphis, Tennessee, USA
• Education—B.A., Yale University
• Awards—PEN USA Award
• Currently—lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico
Hampton Sides is an American historian and journalist—author of several bestselling works of narrative history and literary non-fiction.
In addition to being a book author, Sides is editor-at-large for Outside magazine and has written for such periodicals as National Geographic, The New Yorker, Esquire, Men's Journal, and the Washington Post. His magazine work, collected in numerous published anthologies, has been twice nominated for National Magazine Awards for feature writing.
Sides has appeared as a guest on such national broadcasts as American Experience, the Today show, Book TV, History Channel, Fresh Air, All Things Considered, CNN, CBS Sunday Morning, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, The Colbert Report, and Imus in the Morning.
Books
His Ghost Soldiers (2001), a World War II narrative about the rescue of Bataan Death March survivors, has sold slightly over a million copies worldwide and been translated into a dozen foreign languages. Esquire called it "the greatest World War II story never told." The book was the subject of documentaries on PBS and The History Channel, and was partially the basis for the 2005 Miramax film, The Great Raid (along with William Breuer's The Great Raid on Cabanatuan). Ghost Soldiers won the 2002 PEN USA Award for non-fiction. The book's success led Sides to create The Ghost Soldiers Endowment Fund, a non-profit foundation dedicated to preserving the memory of the sacrifices made by Bataan and Corregidor veterans by funding relevant archives, museums, and memorials.
Blood and Thunder (2006) focuses on controversial frontiersman Kit Carson and his role in the conquest of the American West. It was named one of the 10 Best Books of 2006 by Time magazine, and selected as that year's best history title by the History Book Club and the Western Writers of America. The book was the subject of a major documentary on the PBS program American Experience and is currently under development for the screen.
Hellhound on His Trail (2010) is about the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the largest manhunt in American history to capture James Earl Ray. Ray pled guilty in 1969 and served the rest of his life in prison. Sides, a native of Memphis, is the first historian to make use of a new digital archive in that city (the B. Venson Hughes Collection), which contains more than 20,000 documents and photos, many of them rare or never before published. Sides’ research forms much of the basis for PBS’s documentary episode "Roads to Memphis", which originally aired May 3, 2010, on American Experience.
Personal
A native of Memphis with a BA in history from Yale, Sides lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with his wife Anne Goodwin Sides, a journalist and former NPR editor, and their three boys, all soccer players. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/3/2014.)
Book Reviews
This first-rate polar history and adventure narrative…is a harrowing story well told, but it is more than just that. Sides illuminates Gilded Age society, offering droll anecdotes of [James Gordon] Bennett's escapades in New York, Newport and Europe. The author also convincingly portrays what it was like to survive in northern Siberia and provides an engaging account of the voyage of the Corwin, a kind of mail and police steamer that searched for the Jeannette and carried John Muir as a supernumerary.
Robert R. Harris - New York Times Book Review
As our knowledge of the world increases, it must be difficult for audacious explorers to find terra incognita to match their passion. Surely the same frustration holds true for writers in that worthy genre, exploration literature: Haven’t all great stories been told? Never underestimate the ingenuity of a first-rate author. Hampton Sides’s In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette, which recounts the astonishing tribulations of a group of seafarers determined to be the first men to reach and reconnoiter the North Pole, is a splendid book in every way… It would be malicious to ruin the suspense about the fate of the Jeannette’s crew… The book is a marvelous nonfiction thriller.
Wall Street Journal
America’s own brush with epic polar tragedy, the subject of Hampton Sides’ phenomenally gripping new book, is a less well-known affair…What ensued—a struggle to survive and a nearly 1,000-mile trek across the Arctic Ocean and into the vastness of Siberia—stands as one of the most perilous journeys ever. Sides works story-telling magic as he evokes the pathos and suffering of what unfolded: De Long and his crew endured hardships that boggle the mind. But there is also beauty here… [Sides] writes superbly on the geography of Siberia and the Arctic, and the abundant bird and animal life the explorers encountered on their travels, which took them across ice, storm-tossed seas, treacherous tundra, rocky seacoasts, and volcanic islands.
Boston Globe
Unforgettable…a pulse-racing epic of endurance set against an exceedingly bizarre Arctic backdrop…[Sides’] descriptions of the physical challenges the men face and the eerie landscape that surrounds them are masterful. As De Long and his crew attempt to save themselves, the story grows in suspense and psychological complexity…More strange and fantastic turns follow, involving uncharted and uninhabited lands, and it pains me that I cannot describe them without spoiling the pleasure of those who have not yet read In the Kingdom of Ice. Sides’ book is a masterful work of history and storytelling.
Los Angeles Times
There is enough humor, wonder, scandal and romance in these pages to make for good reading even if the ship never sets sail. It is well to be buoyed up by the first act because the Jeannette’s voyage is a disastrous one…The book’s final act is a stunning story of courage, loyalty and determination, at times horrifying, but not without moments of wonder… Exhaustively researched and brilliantly written, In the Kingdom of the Ice is the work of a top-notch historian and storyteller. Readers braced for its hardships are in for a great read.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Compelling....Sides spins a propulsive narrative from obscure documents, journals and his own firsthand visits to the Arctic regions visited by the Jeannette and its crew. In the Kingdom of Ice makes for harrowing reading as it recounts the grim aspects of the explorers' battle for survival: illness, crippling frostbite, snow-blindness and the prospect of starvation. As grisly as the details are, you keep turning pages to find out how DeLong and his men pull themselves past each setback—even though there's always another one looming ahead.
USA Today
[Sides] brings vividness to In the Kingdom of Ice, and in the tragedy of the Jeannette he’s found a story that epitomizes both the heroism and the ghastly expense of life that characterized the entire Arctic enterprise…With an eye for the telling detail, he sketches the crew members as individuals…The bare facts of what happened to the Jeannette’s crew are easily Googleable, but if you don’t already know the story, In the Kingdom of Ice reads like a first-class epic thriller. De Long and his companions became explorers of not only unknown geographical territory but also extremes of suffering and despair. In his stoic endurance of disappointment and pain, De Long rivals Louis Zamperini, the hero of Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken.
Lev Grossman - Time Magazine
(Starred review.) In a masterful retelling, Sides chronicles American naval officer George Washington De Long’s harrowing 1879 expedition to the North Pole, an account as frightening as it is fascinating.... Impeccable writing, a vivid re-creation of the expedition and the Victorian era, and a taut conclusion make this an exciting gem.
Publishers Weekly
[A] lengthy, gripping, and well-written account.... Suspenseful and well grounded with biographical and historical context, Sides's work skillfully captures the passionate essence of determined explorer De Long, his indomitable compatriots, and the public's fascination with his quest .—Ingrid Levin, Salve Regina Univ. Lib., Newport, RI
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Another crackling tale of adventure from journalist/explorer Sides, this one focusing on a frigid disaster nearly 150 years ago.... A grand and grim narrative of thrilling exploration for fans of Into Thin Air, Mountains of the Moon and the like.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
(The following questions were submitted by Conrad Beattie and developed for the Men's Reading Group of Douglasville, Georgia. Many thanks, Conrad.)
1. What conditions in America and Europe had developed to set the stage for the “heroic age of exploration”? Is this the typical flow of history?
2. Had the British found the elusive Northwest Passage with their numerous Arctic expeditions, how might that have impacted the economies of America and Europe?
3. What was the allure of the Arctic to men like DeLong?
4. Aboard the Little Juanita, while searching for the Polaris crew, DeLong wrote that he felt a responsibility for his crew that “I do not desire to have again.” What caused him to change his mind?
5. How would you describe the character of James Gordon Bennett? Which of his antics seems the most bizarre?
6. What, do you think, was foremost in Bennett’s mind when he decided to underwrite the expedition?
7. In spite of the previous experience of all Arctic adventurers who had been thwarted by the ice and of the skepticism of men like Sir Clements R. Markham, the secretary of the Royal Geographical Society who scoffed at the idea of the Open Polar Sea and called it a “mischievous” idea whose arguments in favor of it were “all so obviously fabulous that it is astonishing how any sane man could be found to give credit to them”, the notion of the Open Polar Sea was a collective obsession. Why do you think that was the case?
8. Silas Bent (who had conducted extensive hydrographic surveys in the Pacific for the U.S. Navy) based many of his assumptions about the Kuro Siwo current in the Pacific Ocean on the work of Matthew Maury of the U.S. Naval Observatory who was a well-respected oceanographer, astronomer and meteorologist. Maury, in turn, based much of his belief in the Open Polar Sea on anecdotal evidence. What can be learned about the process of investigation and discovery from the experience of these two men?
9. Ancient legends of the Vikings spoke of Ultima Thule in the far north and the Greeks of Hyperboria. How much and in what way do you think these ancient legends affected the thinking of the proponents of the Open Polar Sea?
10. August Petermann, the eccentric German mapmaker, held stubbornly to his opinions in the face of contrary evidence provided by men who had actually been to the Arctic. In what way did his opinions and ideas negatively affect Arctic exploration?
11. As DeLong selected his crew for the Jeannette, did you have any misgivings about any particular crew members? If so, what and why?
12. Shortly before the Jeannette’s departure for the Bering Straits, the U.S. Coast Guard and Geodetic Survey schooner made its way out of the Arctic with findings that refuted the previously held assumptions regarding the Kuro Siwo current. Why do you suppose that raw data wasn’t shared with DeLong, knowing that he was about to embark for the Arctic? Note—the final report wasn’t issued until four years later!
13. Once entrapped in the ice they soon found that Bell’s telephones and Edison’s arc lights didn’t work and the chemicals for developing photographs hadn’t made it aboard the ship. The blame for all of this seemed to fall on Collins, the Jeannette’s scientist. How do you think that affected his disposition towards DeLong?
14. There seems to have been a sense of relief among the crew when the ship’s hull was finally breached by ice and it sank, casting them onto the ice. How would one account for such optimism in the face of disaster?
15. The rescue ship Corwin landed on St. Lawrence Island and discovered frightful conditions among the surviving populace of the Yupiks. Several explanations are given for the conditions they found on the island. Do you think the fault lay predominantly with the white man’s incursion into their world and if so, why? What can be learned from that episode?
16. As DeLong and his party made their way across the ice he gives fascinating insights into the nature of the ice itself. How did his insights differ from your own perceptions of the ice?
17. Once the party finally reached open waters, it became clear that the three boats differed significantly in their ocean going abilities. Was that an oversight on DeLong’s part when equipping the Jeannette for her journey? If so, what might he have done differently?
18. Once the crews of the boats (that survived the crossing) made it to the Siberian mainland progress seemed to slow almost to a standstill. What, in your opinion, was the most frustrating part of that section of the narrative?
19. It seemed, time and again, that Providence was on their side at the worst possible moments of their journey and that they were bound to make it to safety, yet DeLong and his boat crew ultimately perished. How do you reconcile that?
20. What, ultimately, was the legacy of the Jeannette? Did their ordeal and sacrifice contribute much to the understanding of the Arctic or was it a fool’s errand?
(Questions courtesy of Conrad Beattie. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
Anthony Bourdain, 2000
HarperCollins
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780060899226
Summary
A deliciously funny, delectably shocking banquet of wild-but-true tales of life in the culinary trade from Chef Anthony Bourdain, laying out his more than a quarter-century of drugs, sex, and haute cuisine—now with all-new, never-before-published material.
New York Chef Tony Bourdain gives away secrets of the trade in his wickedly funny, inspiring memoir/expose. Kitchen Confidential reveals what Bourdain calls "twenty-five years of sex, drugs, bad behavior and haute cuisine." (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 25, 1956
• Raised—New York City, New York, USA
• Education—Vassar College (2 years); Culinary Institute of America
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York
Anthony Michael Bourdain is an American chef, author, and television personality. He is known for his 2000 book Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, and in 2005 he began hosting the Travel Channel's culinary and cultural adventure programs Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations and The Layover. In 2013, he joined CNN to host Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown.
Bourdain is a 1978 graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and a veteran of numerous professional kitchens. Though Bourdain is no longer formally employed as a chef, he maintains a relationship with Brasserie Les Halles in New York, where he was executive chef for many years. He is described by Les Halles as their "chef-at-large".
Early life and family
Bourdain was born in New York City, to Gladys Bourdain (nee Sacksman) and Pierre Bourdain (d. 1987). His father was an executive for Columbia Records in the classical music recording industry Bourdain's paternal grandparents were French: his paternal grandfather emigrated from Arcachon to New York following World War I, and his father grew up speaking French and spent many summers in France. Bourdain's mother worked for the New York Times as a staff editor. Bourdain has said he was raised without religion, and that his ancestors were Catholic on his father's side and Jewish on his mother's side.
He grew up in Leonia, New Jersey, and graduated from the Dwight-Englewood School in 1973. He attended Vassar College before dropping out after two years, but then enrolled in the Culinary Institute of America, from which he graduated in 1978.
Bourdain married his high-school girlfriend, Nancy Putkoski, in the 1980s, and they remained together for two decades before divorcing; Bourdain has cited the inevitable changes that come from traveling widely as the cause of the split. He currently lives with his second wife, Ottavia Busia, whom we married in 2007. Together, they have a daughter, Ariane. Busia has appeared in several episodes of No Reservations—notably the ones in Sardinia (her birthplace), Tuscany (in which she plays a disgruntled Italian diner), Rome, Rio, and Naples.
Culinary training and career
In Kitchen Confidential, Bourdain describes how his love of food was kindled in France, when he tried his first oyster on an oyster fisherman's boat as a youth, while on a family vacation. Later, while attending Vassar College, he worked in the seafood restaurants of Provincetown, Massachusetts, which sparked his decision to pursue cooking as a career. Bourdain graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in 1978, and went on to run various restaurant kitchens in New York City—including the Supper Club, One Fifth Avenue, and Sullivan's—culminating in the position of executive chef at Manhatttan's Brasserie Les Halles, beginning in 1998.
Writing
Bourdain gained immediate popularity from his 2000 New York Times bestselling book Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, an outgrowth of his article in The New Yorker called "Don't Eat Before Reading This." The book is a witty and rambunctious expose of the hidden and darker side of the culinary world, as well as a memoir of Bourdain's professional life.
Bourdain subsequently wrote two more New York Times bestselling nonfiction books: A Cook's Tour (2001), an account of his food and travel exploits across the world, written in conjunction with his first television series of the same title, and The Nasty Bits (2006), another collection of essays mainly centered on food. Bourdain's additional books include Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook, the culinary mystery novels Bone in the Throat and Gone Bamboo, a hypothetical historical investigation Typhoid Mary: An Urban Historical, and No Reservations: Around the World on an Empty Stomach. His latest book, Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook, the sequel to Kitchen Confidential, was published in 2010.
Bourdain's articles and essays have appeared many places, including in The New Yorker, New York Times, The (London) Times, Los Angeles Times, Observer, Gourmet, Maxim, Esquire (UK), Scotland on Sunday, The Face, Food Arts, Limb by Limb, BlackBook, The Independent, Best Life, Financial Times, and Town & Country. On the Internet, Bourdain's blog for Season 3 of Top Chef was nominated for a Webby Award for best Blog-Cultural/Personal in 2008. In 2012, Bourdain co-wrote the original graphic novel Get Jiro! for DC Comics/Vertigo along with Joel Rose, with art by Langdon Foss.
Television
The acclaim surrounding Bourdain's memoir, Kitchen Confidential, led to an offer by the Food Network to host his own food and world-travel show, A Cook's Tour, which premiered in January 2002. In July 2005, he premiered a new, somewhat similar television series, Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, on the Travel Channel. As a further result of the immense popularity of Kitchen Confidential, the Fox sitcom Kitchen Confidential aired in 2005, in which the character "Jack Bourdain" is based loosely on the biography and persona of Anthony Bourdain.
In July 2006, Bourdain was in Beirut filming an episode of No Reservations when the Israel-Lebanon conflict broke out. The crew had filmed only a few hours of footage, but the producers compiled behind-the-scenes footage of Bourdain and his production staff, including their eventual escape on July 20, by the United States Marines. The Beirut episode aired on August 21, 2006, and was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2007.
Travel Channel announced in July 2011 that it would be adding a second one-hour ten-episode Bourdain show to be titled The Layover, which premiered November 21, 2011. Each episode features an exploration of a city that can be undertaken within an air travel layover of 24 to 48 hours.
Bourdain has since left the Travel Channel to host a show titled Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown for CNN, focusing on other cuisines and cultures; the new show premiered April 14, 2013.
Public personae
Bourdain has labeled by Gothamist as "culinary bad boy." Because of his liberal use of profanity and sexual references in his television show No Reservations, the network placed viewer discretion advisories on each segment of each episode.
He has been known for being an unrepentant drinker and smoker. In a nod to Bourdain's (at the time) two-pack-a-day cigarette habit, renowned chef Thomas Keller once served him a 20-course tasting menu which included a mid-meal "coffee and cigarette": a coffee custard infused with tobacco, together with a foie gras mousse. Bourdain stopped cigarette smoking in the summer of 2007 because of the birth of his daughter.
He is also a former user of cocaine, heroin, and LSD. In Kitchen Confidential he writes of his experience in a trendy SoHo restaurant in 1981:
We were high all the time, sneaking off to the walk-in refrigerator at every opportunity to "conceptualize." Hardly a decision was made without drugs. Cannabis, methaqualone, cocaine, LSD, psilocybin mushrooms soaked in honey and used to sweeten tea, secobarbital, tuinal, amphetamine, codeine and, increasingly, heroin, which we'd send a Spanish-speaking busboy over to Alphabet City to get.
In the same book, Bourdain frankly describes his former addiction, including how he once resorted to selling his record collection on the street in order to raise enough money to purchase drugs.
Bourdain is also noted for his put-downs of celebrity chefs, such as Paula Deen, Bobby Flay, Guy Fieri, Sandra Lee, and Rachael Ray, and appears to be irritated by both the overt commercialism of the celebrity cooking industry and its lack of culinary authenticity. He has voiced a "serious disdain for food demigods like Alan Richman, Alice Waters, and Alain Ducasse."
At the same time, he has recognized the irony of his own transformation into a celebrity chef and has, to some extent, begun to qualify his insults; in the 2007 New Orleans episode of No Reservations, he reconciled with Emeril Lagasse. He has been consistently outspoken in his praise for chefs he admires, particularly Ferran Adria, Juan Mari Arzak, Mario Batali, Fergus Henderson, Jose Andres, Thomas Keller, Martin Picard, Eric Ripert, and Marco Pierre White, as well as his former protege and colleagues at Brasserie Les Halles. Bourdain has also spoken very highly of Julia Child, saying that she "influenced the way I grew up and my entire value system."
Bourdain is also known for his sarcastic comments about vegan and vegetarian activists, saying that their lifestyle is rude to the inhabitants of many countries he visits. Bourdain says he considers vegetarianism, except in the case of religious strictures as in India, a "First World luxury." He has since said that he believes Americans eat too much meat, and admires vegetarians who allow themselves to put aside their vegetarianism when they travel in order to be respectful of their hosts.
Known for consuming exotic local specialty dishes, Bourdain has eaten sheep testicles in Morocco, ant eggs in Puebla, Mexico, a raw seal eyeball as part of a traditional Inuit seal hunt, and a whole cobra—beating heart, blood, bile, and meat—in Vietnam. According to Bourdain, the most disgusting thing he has ever eaten is a Chicken McNugget, though he has also declared that the unwashed warthog rectum he ate in Namibia and the fermented shark he ate in Iceland are among "the worst meals of [his] life.
Bourdain is an advocate for communicating the value and tastiness of traditional or "peasant" foods, including specifically all of the varietal bits and unused animal parts not usually eaten by affluent, 21st-century U.S. citizens. He also consistently notes and champions the high quality and deliciousness of freshly prepared street food in other countries—especially developing countries – as compared to fast food chains in the U.S.
Bourdain frequently champions the industrious Spanish-speaking immigrants—often from Mexico or Ecuador—who are chefs and cooks in many U.S. restaurants, including upscale restaurants, regardless of cuisine. Bourdain considers them to be talented chefs and invaluable cooks, underpaid and unrecognized even though they have become the backbone of the U.S. restaurant industry.
Awards
2001 - Bon Appetit, Food Writer of the Year (Kitchen Confidential)
2002 - British Guild of Food Writers, Food Book of the Year (A Cook's Tour)
2008 - Induction, James Beard Foundation’s Who’s Who
2009 - Creative Arts Emmy Award, Outstanding Cinematography (No Reservations)
2011 - Creative Arts Emmy Award, Outstanding Cinematography (No Reservations)
2010 - Honorary CLIO Award
2012 - Critics' Choice, Best Reality Series Award (No Reservations)
2013 - Emmy Award, Outstanding Informational Series (Parts Uknown)
2014 - Emmy Award, Outstanding Informational Series (Parts Unknown)
2014 - Peabody Award (Parts Unknown)
(Bio adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/1/2014.)
Book Reviews
The guy is hysterical…in a style partaking of Hunter S. Thompson, Iggy Pop and a little Jonathan Swift, Bourdain gleefully rips through the scenery to reveal private backstage horrors.
New York Times Book Review
Bourdain captures the world of restaurants and professionally cooked food in all its theatrical, demented glory.
USA Today
You’ll laugh, you’ll cry...you’re gonna love it.
Denver Post
A gonzo memoir of whats really going on behind those swinging doors.... Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain is unique.
Newsweek
Bourdain’s prose is utterly riveting, swaggering with stylish machismo and a precise ear for kitchen patois.
New York magazine
Bourdain pulls no punches in this memoir of his years in the restaurant business. His fast-lane personality and glee in recounting sophomoric kitchen pranks might be unbearable were it not for two things: Bourdain is as unsparingly acerbic with himself as he is with others, and he exhibits a sincere and profound love of good food.... Bourdain has a tender side...[that] elevates this book to something more than blustery memoir.
Publishers Weekly
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these talking LitLovers points to help start a discussion about Kitchen Confidential:
1. Talk about Bourdain—as a drug-induced young man working his way up through the ranks and, eventually, as the more mature executive chef of Brasserie Les Halles. Have his essential qualities changed as he's aged, or is he basically the same individual, perhaps with a little mellowing around the edges? Is he someone you admire, like, or find offensive? What do you think of him...then and now?
2. Talk about the restaurant business as Bourdain describes it—the male-dominated, testosterone-drenched atmosphere. What, if any, has your experience been with restaurant kitchens? Do your experiences match Bourdain's, or do they differ? If so, in what way? If you have never worked either as a server or at a food station, would Bourdain's portrayal encourage you to do so?
3. What is Bourdain's attitude toward women, the waitresses and the few female cooks he's worked with?
4. What surprised you most about restaurant dining? What appalled you? Will you EVER order fish on Monday again? What about well-done beef?
5. Talk about the skills required to be a top-notch line cook during a frantic Saturday night dinner service? What are the qualities admired by Bourdain in both line cooks and sous chefs. Do you have the ability, either mental or physical, to work in a kitchen environment? Why does Bourdain prefer to work with talent from Mexico, San Salvador or Ecuador over Americans, especially young American men as he was himself?
6. Were you surprised by Bourdain's frank comparison of Scott Bryan's career path, success, kitchen management, and cuisine to Bourdain's own? What are the differences between the two chefs? Which path (be honest now) would you have chosen (not knowing what you know now, but as you were going through it)?
7. Discuss the second-to-last chapter of the book, the so-called Commencement Address. Is the advice Bourdain offers sound—are they words to live by for anyone in any endeavor? Do you find Bourdain's warnings hypocritical, or his the voice of a man who has gone through it all and learned form his mistakes? Has he learned from his mistakes?
8. Have you watched any of Bourdain's TV serials—No Reservations or Parts Unknown? If so is Bourdain the same or different as he comes across in his books? Have you read any of his other books, A Cook's Tour or Nasty Bits?
9. Finally, you might try to get hold of the few Kitchen Confidential TV episodes with Bradley Cooper that were aired on Fox in 2005 (go to IMDb). What do you think?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)