Tender at the Bone
Ruth Reichl, 1998
Random House
243 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812981117
Summary
At an early age, Ruth Reichl discovered that "food could be a way of making sense of the world.... If you watched people as they ate, you could find out who they were." Her deliciously crafted memoir, Tender at the Bone, is the story of a life determined, enhanced, and defined in equal measure by a passion for food, unforgettable people, and the love of tales well told.
Beginning with Reichl's mother, the notorious food-poisoner known as the Queen of Mold, Reichl introduces us to the fascinating characters who shaped her world and her tastes, from the gourmand Monsieur du Croix, who served Reichl her first soufflé, to those at her politically correct table in Berkeley who championed the organic food revolution in the 1970s.
Spiced with Reichl's infectious humor and sprinkled with her favorite recipes, Tender at the Bone is a witty and compelling chronicle of a culinary sensualist's coming-of-age. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio • Birth—January 16, 1948
• Where—New York City, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Michigan
• Awards—4 James Beard Awards
• Currently—lives in New York City
Ruth Reichl is an American food writer, perhaps best known as the editor-in-chief of the former Gourmet magazine. She has written more than 10 books, including several best-selling memoirs. These include Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table (1998); Comfort Me with Apples: More Adventures at the Table (2001); Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise (2005); Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir (2019). Her first novel, Delicious!, was published in 2014.
Born to parents Ernst and Miriam (nee Brudno), Reichl was raised in Greenwich Village in New York City and spent time at a boarding school in Montreal as a young girl. She attended the University of Michigan, where she met her first husband, the artist Douglas Hollis. He graduated in 1970 with a M.A. in Art History.
She and Hollis moved to Berkeley, California, where her interest in food led to her joining the collectively-owned Swallow Restaurant as a chef and co-owner from 1973 to 1977, and where she played an important role in the culinary revolution taking place at the time.
Reichl began her food-writing career with Mmmmm: A Feastiary, a cookbook, in 1972. She moved on to become food writer and editor of New West magazine from 1973 to 1977, then to the Los Angeles Times as its restaurant editor from 1984 to 1993 and food editor and critic from 1990 to 1993. She returned to her native New York City in 1993 to become the restaurant critic for the New York Times before leaving to assume the editorship of Gourmet in 1999.
She is known for her ability to "make or break" a restaurant with her fierce attention to detail and her adventurous spirit. For Reichl, her mission has been to "demystify the world of fine cuisine" (CBS News Online). She has won acclaim with both readers and writers alike for her honesty about some of the not-so-fabulous aspects of haute-couture cuisine.
Though an outsider's perspective, she harshly criticized the sexism prevalent toward women in dine-out experiences, as well as the pretentious nature of the ritziest New York restaurants and restaurateurs alike.
Despite her widely-celebrated success, and hilarious tales of how she used to disguise herself to mask her identity while reviewing, she is quite open about why she stopped. "I really wanted to go home and cook for my family," she says. "I don't think there's one thing more important you can do for your kids than have family dinner" (CBS News Online).
She has been the recipient of four James Beard Awards: in 1996 and 1998 for restaurant criticism, one in 1994 for journalism and in 1984 for Who's Who of Food and Beverage in America; as well as several awards granted by the Association of American Food Journalists. She was also the recipient of the YWCA's Elizabeth Cutter Morrow Award, celebrating the accomplishments of strong, successful women.
Reichl served as host for three Food Network Specials titled "Eating Out Loud" which covered cuisine from each coast and corner of the United States, in New York in 2002, and Miami and San Francisco in 2003. She is also frequents Leonard Lopate's monthly food radio show on WNYC in New York. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2014.)
Book Reviews
Reichl writes with such simplicity...even the recipes included in this memoir are stripped down to their bare goodness.
New York Times Book Review
Reading Ruth Reichl on food is almsot as good as eating it.
Washington Post
A prominent food critic, Reichl writes memorably about food. But her real gift is making the people who taught her about food live on in the pages of this funny and moving memoir.... You can read this book anywhere.
USA Today
A poignant, yet hilarious, collection of stories about people [Reichl] has known, and loved and who...steered her on the path to fulfill her destiny as one of the world's leading food writers.
Chicago Sun-Times
Reichl discovered early on that since she wasn't "pretty or funny or sexy," she could attract friends with food instead. But that initiative isn't likely to secure her an audience for her chaotic, self-satisfied memoirs, although her restaurant reviews in the New York Times are popular. Reichl's knack for describing food gives one a new appreciation for the pleasures of the table, as when she writes here: "There were eggplants the color of amethysts and plates of sliced salami and bresaola that looked like stacks of rose petals left to dry." But when she is recalling her life, she seems unable to judge what's interesting. Raised in Manhattan and Connecticut by a docile father who was a book designer and a mother who suffered from manic depression, Reichl enjoyed such middle-class perks as a Christmas in Paris when she was 13 and high school in Canada to learn French. But her mother was a blight, whom Reichl disdains to the discomfort of the reader who wonders if she exaggerates. The author studied at the University of Michigan, earned a graduate degree in art history, married a sculptor named Doug, lived in a loft in Manhattan's Bowery and then with friends bought a 17-room "cottage" in Berkeley, Calif., which turned into a commune so self-consciously offbeat that their Thanksgiving feast one year was prepared from throwaways found in a supermarket dumpster. Seasoning her memoir with recipes, Reichl takes us only through the 1970s, which seems like an arbitrary cutoff, and one hopes the years that followed were more engaging than the era recreated here.
Publishers Weekly
The [fomer] restaurant critic of the New York Times whips up a savory memoir of her apprentice years. Growing up in New York City and Connecticut during the 1950s, Reichl learned early"that food could be dangerous." Her manic-depressive mother favored weird melanges crafted from culinary bargains of dubious freshness; throwing an engagement party for Reichl's half-brother, Mom served spoiled leftovers from Horn and Hardart that sent 26 people to the hospital. Reichl enjoyed safer food elsewhere: at her Aunt Birdie's, the apple dumplings of an African-American cook; at the home of a wealthy classmate from her Montreal boarding school, classic French cuisine. The descriptions of each sublime taste are mouthwateringly precise, and the recipes scattered throughout nicely reflect the author's personal odyssey. After a disorderly adolescence, she attended the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. The education of her taste buds continued during trips to North Africa and Europe, a waitressing stint at a doomed French restaurant in Michigan, and impoverished early married life on New York's Lower East Side. In Berkeley, Calif., she worked at a collectively owned restaurant whose entire staff cooked, cleaned, and served such vintage '70s dishes as quiche and Indonesian fishball soup. Reichl describes these experiences with infectious humor, then achieves a deeper level of emotion and maturity when her story reaches the year 1977. That summer, she returned to New York and for the first time successfully rescued one of her mother's manic party efforts. In the fall, she became restaurant critic for a San Francisco magazine and found the voices of various people who had taught her about food echoing in her ears as she discovered the work her editor told her "you were born to do.'' The book closes with a moving scene in which Reichl eats a sumptuous lunch with two women as forceful and resilient as she has finally become. A perfectly balanced stew of memories: not too sweet, not too tart.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The first two chapters of Tender at the Bone feature the culinary shortcomings of Ruth Reichl’s relatives, particularly her mother. To what do you attribute prowess in the kitchen? Is the ability (or inability) to cook a reflection of other traits? Who are the most notorious cooks in your family?
2. Besides a perfect recipe for Wiener Schnitzel, what other gifts did Mrs. Peavey impart to Reichl?
3. How was Reichl affected by her three years at boarding school in Montreal? What do you think her mother’s true motivation was in enrolling her there?
4. In the absence of parents, what role did cooking take while Reichl was a teenager? Why did feeding her friends become her primary joy? Does chapter 5, “Devil’s Food,” express unique or universal notions about adolescence and self-image?
5. In what way does the topic of mental illness shape the memoir overall, particularly the bipolar disorder that afflicted Reichl’s mother? What do the book’s images evoke regarding the psychology of indulgence and hunger?
6. How does the tenderness mentioned in the title manifest itself throughout the book? How do Reichl’s sense of humor and her wry honesty play off one another?
7. What were Reichl’s early impressions of France, including her summer on the Île d’Oléron? How did her casual immersions in French cooking shape her attitudes toward cuisine in general? How did they help her on the job at L’Escargot and when she later embarked on the vineyard tour?
8. At the end of chapter 7, Serafina writes “I hope you find your Africa” in a note to Reichl. How was Reichl’s view of humanity being transformed by Serafina and Mac?
9. Did traveling in North Africa bring Reichl closer to or farther from a sense of fulfillment? How did this travel experience compare to her previous ones?
10. As Reichl watched Doug bond with her parents (he even elicited previously unknown details about her father’s life) she felt a new level of exasperation with her family. What models for marriage did she have? Was winter in Europe, with Milton often at the helm, a good antidote?
11. Reichl writes that in 1971, lower Manhattan was a cook’s paradise. What did life on the Lower East Side, from the gefilte fish episode to Mr. Bergamini’s Veal Breast recommendation, teach Reichl about how she would define a successful meal? Why was the Superstar so insistent that great cooking was the sure way to seduce a man? With Mr. Izzy T. as navigator, what did the Superstar and Reichl both learn about themselves?
12. How does the idealism of Channing Way compare to the organic food movement of today? Have any of Nick’s tenets become part of mainstream life in the 21st century?
13. The now-legendary Swallow Collective was as innovative in its management style as in its menus. What chapters in culinary history are captured in Reichl’s recollections of working there?
14. Tender at the Bone ends with an image of Reichl conquering her bridge phobia while accompanied by Marion Cunningham, who says, “Nobody knows why some of us get better and others don’t.” What ingredients in Reichl’s life may have helped her to “get better” and achieve such tremendous success in the years that would follow this scene?
15. Food writing presents the unusual challenge of conveying distinct, intangible flavors through mere words. How would you characterize Reichl’s approach to the task? Does she approach haute cuisine and comfort food in the same way? How would you have responded to her mother’s comment that by developing a career as a food writer Reichl was “wasting her life”?
16. How would you characterize the recipes Reichl selected for Tender at the Bone? Do they possess a common “personality”? What recipes represent the most significant turning points in your life?
(Questions issued by publishers.)
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Cleopatra: A Life
Stacy Schiff, 2010
Little, Brown & Co.
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316001922
Summary
Her palace shimmered with gold but was richer still in political and sexual intrigue. Cleopatra, the wealthiest ruler of her time and one of the most powerful women in history, was a canny political strategist, a brilliant manager, a tough negotiator, and the most manipulative of lovers. Although her life spanned fewer than forty years, it reshaped the contours of the ancient world.
At only 18 years old, Cleopatra was already one of history's most remarkable figures: the Queen of Egypt. A lethal political struggle with her brother marked her early adulthood and set the tone for the rest of her life; a relationship with Julius Caesar, forged while under siege in her palace, launched her into a deadly mix of romance and strategy; a pleasure cruise down the Nile followed, a child, and a trip to Rome, which ended in Cleopatra's flight. After Caesar's brutal murder, she began a nine-year affair with Mark Antony, with whom she had three more children. Antony and Cleopatra's alliance and attempt to forge a new empire spelled both their ends.
The subject of gossip and legend, veneration and speculation in her lifetime, Cleopatra fascinated the world right up to her death. In the 2000 years since, myths about the last Queen of Egypt have been fueled by Shakespeare, Dryden, and Shaw, who put words in her mouth, and by Michelangelo, Delacroix, and Elizabeth Taylor, who put a face to her name.
In Cleopatra, Pulitzer prize-winning biographer Stacy Schiff accomplishes a feat that has eluded artists and writers for centuries: capturing fully the operatic life of an exceptionally seductive and powerful woman, whose death ushered in a new world order. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—October 26, 1961
• Where—Adams, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—B.A., Williams College
• Awards—Pulitzer Prize in Biography (more below)
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York
Stacy Schiff is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American nonfiction author. Born in Adams, Massachusetts, Schiff attended Phillips Andover Academy preparatory school and went on to earn her B.A. degree from Williams College in 1982. She was a Senior Editor at Simon & Schuster until 1990.
Her essays and articles have appeared in The New Yorker, New York Times and Times Literary Supplement. She is a guest columnist at the New York Times, as well as a frequent contributor to the New York Times Book Review, which noted that she has been "regularly praised for both her meticulous scholarship and her witty style."
In 2000, Schiff won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for her biography of Vera Nabokov, wife and muse of author Vladimir Nabokov. She was also a finalist for the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Saint-Exupéry: A Biography of Antoine de Saint Exupery.
Her work, A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America (2005) won a number of awards. In discussing the book, author and historican Ron Chernow wrote, "Even if forced to at gunpoint, Stacy Schiff would be incapable of writing a dull page or a lame sentence." Gordon S. Wood hailed the book as "Stunning. A remarkably subtle and penetrating portrait of Franklin and his diplomacy."
Schiff's 2010 biography Cleopatra: A Life reached number 3 on the New York Times Best Seller list and garnered extraordinary reviews. The Wall Street Journal's critic wrote, "Stacy Schiff does a rare thing; she gives us a book we'd miss if it didn't exist." Rick Riordan declared Cleopatra "impossible to put down;" Simon Winchester predicted the book would become a classic.
Witches: Salem, 1692, published in 2015, recounts the witch trials and mass hysteria in New England, as well as Europe. Harvard historian David D. Hall said the book "is as close as we will ever come to understanding what happened in and around Salem in 1692. Courtrooms, streets, churches, farm yards, taverns, bedrooms-all became theater-like places where anger, anxiety, sorrow, and tragedy are entangled. An astonishing achievement."
Schiff resides in New York City. She is a trustee of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
Award and honors
Fellowships
♦ National Endowment for the Humanities
♦ Cullman Center for Scholars & Writers, New York Public Library
♦ John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
Awards and honors
2000 - Pulitzer Prize, Vera
2006 - Academy Award in Literature, American Academy of Arts and Letters
2006 - Gilbert Chinard Prize, A Great Improvisation
2006 - George Washington Book Prize, A Great Improvisation
2006 - Ambassador Book Award (American Studies), A Great Improvisation
2010 - EMMA Award for journalistic excellence, "Who's Buried in Cleopatra's Tomb?"
2011 - Library Lion by the New York Public Library
2011 - PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography, Cleopatra
2012 - Phillips Academy Alumni Award of Distinction
2012 - The French-American Foundation Vergennes Achievement Award
2014 - BIO Award, Biographers International Organization
2015 - Newberry Library Award
(Author bio adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 10/13/2015.)
Book Reviews
[C]aptivating...a cinematic portrait of a historical figure far more complex and compelling than any fictional creation, and a wide, panning, panoramic picture of her world.... Ms. Schiff seems to have inhaled everything there is to know about Cleopatra and her times, and she uses her authoritative knowledge of the era—and her instinctive understanding of her central players—to assess shrewdly probable and possible motives and outcomes.... Ms. Schiff also demonstrates a magician's ability to conjure the worlds her subject inhabited with fluent sleight of hand.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times
If you think two millennia of dusty research and hoary legend have told us all we need to know about this woman, you're in for a surprise. Stacy Schiff...has dug through the earliest sources on Cleopatra, sorted through myth and misapprehension, tossed out the chaff of gossip, and delivered up a spirited life...for all its splendor of detail, Schiff's book is a model of concision, and its brisk, vividly written chapters move with a swiftness the Nile never enjoyed...a great, glorious spree of a story.
Marie Arana - Washington Post
Startling. Rarely have so distant a time and obscured a place come so powerfully to life. It is a great achievement. It is also a provocative one. Faced with the perplexing question of how to write about a person when the evidence is sketchy and often misleading, Schiff has hit on an ingenious solution. She has written a biography in negative, describing the outlines of what she cannot know by brilliantly coloring around the queen.
Louisa Thomas - Newsweek
Schiff's learning is immense, but worn lightly and with an assured grasp of human nature.
Cullen Murphy - Vanity Fair
(Starred review.) An excellent, myth-busting biography...Schiff enters...completely into the time and place, especially the beauty and luxury of the "great metropolis" of Alexandria, Cleopatra's capital.... And though we all know the outcome, Schiff's account...makes for tragic, page-turning reading. No one will think of Cleopatra in quite the same way after reading this vivid, provocative book.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) [A] swift, sympathetic life of one of history's most maligned and legendary women....[Cleopatra] took into her bed some of the most powerful men in history (Julius Caesar, Mark Antony), maneuvered through a male world with intelligence, skill and sanguinary.... Successfully dissipating all the perfume, Schiff finds a remarkably complex woman—brutal and loving, dependent.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Stacy Schiff writes, “It is not difficult to understand why Caesar became history, Cleopatra a legend” (page 5). What are the differences between the two? How are these differences related to gender?
2. Discuss the role of subjectivity in historical records. How does Schiff factor that subjectivity into her account? Do you think it’s possible to document events that are close to us in time? Or do chroniclers’ subjectivities necessarily bias their accounts?
3. How do you think Cleopatra felt as she traveled to meet Caesar for the first time? What are the differences between that meeting and her first encounter with Mark Antony? How did the circumstances of the initial encounters set the tone for the relationships?
4. Despite her political ambition, Cleopatra has been painted as a seductress and siren rather than as a powerful and adept ruler. Do you think it’s still the case that men are said to strategize where women manipulate?
5. Discuss women’s roles and rights in ancient Egyptian and Roman society. Did they surprise you? Why or why not? Women in Egypt enjoyed an equality close to what they enjoy today; it was then lost for some two thousand years. Could that happen again?
6. Although Cleopatra came from a long line of strong female rulers, do you think she felt out of place on a political stage dominated by men? Is there any indication that she doubted her abilities? Can you imagine her in a Roman military camp, for example?
7. Cleopatra lived in an era of rampant murder, covert political alliances, and fierce betrayal. Has human nature changed in two thousand years? In what ways is it different and in what ways is it the same?
8. Do you think that Cleopatra loved Caesar and Mark Antony, or were their relationships purely for political leverage? What makes you think so?
9. What do you think of Cleopatra as a woman, mother, lover, partner, and ruler? Was she admirable or detestable? Why or why not?
10. Can you retell Cleopatra’s story as one of her subjects might have written it? How does it diverge from the Roman account?
11. Why has Cleopatra’s story captivated artists and audiences for over two thousand years? Why does she interest you?
12. Are there any modern women who you would compare to Cleopatra? Who? What characteristics do they share with her? Discuss how these women are depicted in histories or in the media today.
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Ten Green Bottles: The True Story of One Family's Journey From Worn-Torn Austria to the Ghettos of Shanhai
Vivian Jeanett Kaplan, 2004
St. Martin's Press
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312330545
Summary
To Nini Karpel, growing up in Vienna during the 1920s was a romantic confection. Whether schussing down ski slopes or speaking of politics in coffee houses, she cherished the city of her birth. But in the 1930s an undercurrent of conflict and hate began to seize the former imperial capital. This struggle came to a head when Hitler took possession of neighboring Germany. Anti-Semitism, which Nini and her idealistic friends believed was impossible in the socially advanced world of Vienna, became widespread and virulent.
The Karpel's Jewish identity suddenly made them foreigners in their own homeland. Tormented, disenfranchised, and with a broken heart, Nini and her family sought refuge in a land seven thousand miles across the world.
Shanghai, China, one of the few countries accepting Jewish immigrants, became their new home and refuge. Stepping off the boat, the Karpel family found themselves in a land they could never have imagined. Shanghai presented an incongruent world of immense wealth and privilege for some and poverty for the masses, with opium dens and decadent clubs as well as rampant disease and a raging war between nations.
Ten Green Bottles is the story of Nini Karpel's struggles as she told it to her daughter Vivian so many years ago. This true story depicts the fierce perseverance of one family, victims of the forces of evil, who overcame suffering of biblical proportion to survive. It was a time when ordinary people became heroes. (From the publisher.
Author Bio
• Birth—June, 17, 1946
• Where—Shanghai, Peoples' Republic of China
• Raised—Toronto, Canada
• Education—University of Toronto
• Awards—Canadian Jewish Book Award; Adei-Wizo Literary
Award (Italy)
• Currently—lives in Canada
Vivian Jeanette Kaplan was born in Shanghai, where her parents were married. As her family originated in Vienna, her mother tongue is German. When she was two years old, her parents arrived in Canada, settling in Toronto. She graduated from the University of Toronto, where she studied English, French, and Spanish. She is married and has three sons.
For a number of years the family owned and ran a lakeside lodge in Muskoka, north of Toronto. For twenty years she had her own business, Vivian Kaplan Oriental Interiors, an import-export firm with interior design showrooms specializing in decor from the Far East.
Ten Green Bottles, which tells her own true family saga, is her first book. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Her powerful, harrowing story grips the reader. In an odyssey of horrors that takes place over a decade...what shines through is the family's indomitable will to survive.
Ottawa Citizen
Kaplan's prose is simply stunning . . . Kaplan's descriptions bring wartime Shanghai, its people and smells, to life... Although nonfiction, Ten Green Bottles reads like a novel. Kaplan captures the mood and feelings of her mother experiences as if they were her own.
Canadian Jewish News
For a brief period between 1938 and 1941, roughly 20,000 Jews found refuge from the Nazis in the one place not requiring visas, police certificates or proofs of financial independence: Shanghai. In this spellbinding memoir, Kaplan recounts her family's transition from the "delight" of Vienna to "a mysterious blob on the map, China." Writing in a fictional present tense, Kaplan narrates this evocative, moving saga in the voice of her mother, Nini. The halcyon early years of cafes and skiing end as the Nazis rise to power. Still, in 1936 when Nini meets her future husband, Poldi, a Polish refugee, she is "adamant that [persecution of Jews] could never happen here." It does. By 1939, her family will make the month-long, 7,000-mile journey to Shanghai. Amid "pervasive poverty... overpowering heat... [and] strange faces," Nini and Poldi find an anxious and precarious normality, but after Pearl Harbor, they struggle terribly. With the war's end comes the shock of learning what became of family and friends left behind in Europe. Although Vienna is rebuilt and a daughter (the author) is born, Communist troops arrive, and Nini and Poldi move again, this time to Canada. Kaplan's intimate knowledge of her parents' story makes it seem as if she experienced it herself, and her remarkable achievement will make readers feel that way, too. Agent, Barry Kaplan. Although there is a ton of Holocaust literature, the China experience is not as well mined, which sets this book winner of the Canadian Jewish Book Award apart.
Publishers Weekly
One of the great, tragic epics of the last century was the odyssey of Jewish families from Hitler's Europe to relative safety in Japanese-occupied Shanghai in the late 1930s. (The Japanese were not anti-Semites, though when war broke out they were happy enough to accommodate their Fascist allies.) This beautifully composed and engrossing memoir relates the story of the author's mother, who traveled from 1920s Austria to Shanghai and eventually settled in Canada. Kaplan, winner of the Canadian Jewish Book Award in Biography/Memoir, brings the history of the period to life as she shows how the family adapted to each development. Somehow, as in The Diary of Anne Frank, the outcome of this tale is uplifting and instructive, showing us that nobility endures despite political oppression, war, poverty, disease, and human pettiness. Although the general historical facts are well known, this is a worthwhile retelling of a story that each new generation should hear. Recommended for larger public libraries. —Charles W. Hayford, Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL
Library Journal
Riveting account of a family who fled the Nazis only to endure further persecution in Shanghai. Characterizing her work-winner of the Canadian Jewish Book Award-as "a memoir in the creative non-fiction genre," the author, who was born in Shanghai and now lives in Canada, tells the story in the voice of her mother, Nini Karpel, the youngest daughter of a prosperous and patriotic Viennese department-store owner. Her father died suddenly in 1922 when Nini was six, leaving her mother responsible for the business as well as their four children. Life went on more or less as usual, but the political situation was of increasing concern. In 1936, Nini fell in love with Poldi Kosiner, the son of Polish refugees, but he could find work only in Italy, and they had to continue their romance by correspondence. When the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938, the Karpels were immediately affected by the new anti-Jewish laws; their business and assets were seized, relatives were beaten, and they feared for their lives. Learning that refugees were welcome in Shanghai, Nini, acting on her own, approached a gentile lawyer, who bought their tickets for the long voyage to China. Her courageous initiative helped save her mother and siblings; with travel arrangements in place, the Karpels were able to obtain exit visas. Once in Shanghai, a place quite unlike any they had ever known, they were joined by Poldi, who came overland. Richly evoking the city's sights and smells, Nini's narrative details their struggle to find work; the arrival of the Japanese, who made Jews live in Shanghai's rundown Hongkew section; the brief interlude of peace and prosperity when the war finally ended; and then the Communist takeover that made it impossible for the family to remain in China. Kaplan closes with their 1949 arrival in Toronto. A moving and memorable portrayal of a less familiar aspect of the Jewish plight during WWII.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. In many ways Nini was a typical Austrian in her upbringing. What did she especially love about her youth in Vienna?
2. What Jewish cultural teachings impacted on her during childhood and adolescence that lay a foundation for her feelings towards her religion?
3. Nini's journey took her to self-discovery. From isolation to a world-view how did her outlook on the rest of humanity change because of the events of her life?
4. Nini attended a seder at Poldi's family's home. During the reading of the Haggadah she had a feeling of impending doom. The Passover tale is a foreshadowing of events that will take place. Consider the similarities between her life and the Exodus story. How many can you think of?
5. The book is written in a visual way. Words are used as pigments to depict the events that take place. Think of the story in terms of light and dark as a painter or film-maker might do. If light represents hope and dark is sadness what has the writer done to express the mood in descriptive terms?
6. The title "Ten Green Bottles" is enigmatic. It can be interpreted in various ways. Thinking of the actual words of the song that it is derived from, what other aspects of the title are present in the book? Think of the number ten, significant in various ways and then of the idea of broken glass. Even the color green is important. How are the words of the title evident throughout the book?
7. The book has been written as an exploration of the senses. How many can you find? Give examples of ways that the reader is invited into the pages to relive the experiences of the protagonist.
8. One aspect of the book is that of the strong female heroine. How is Nini the central figure in the survival of the family? Are there other strong women in the book? How do they take control of their destinies?
9. There are inanimate objects that play important roles in the story. What are they and what do they have to "say"?
10. Between them Nini and Poldi are hinges by which the Axis powers swung. They were involved with each of the three: Germany, Italy and Japan. How were these seemingly average people affected by the grand scheme of the waring nations? What did they do to take control of their own lives when they seemed destined to become victims?
11. Nini and Poldi looked for help to get them through the most difficult of their ordeals. How did Herr Berger, Herta Weinstein, Leon Druck, and Mother Laula influence them and change their outlook on life?
12. Nini's father wrote a poem that had eerie foreshadowing elements. How did the words that he wrote years before the Nazi takeover and the war years provide comfort and advice to Nini when she needed guidance?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Bitch is the New Black
Helena Andrews, 2010
HarperCollins
244 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780061778827
Summary
Meet Helena Andrews, sassy, single, smart, and, yes, a bitch—but Tina Fey said it best, bitch is the new black!
When Helena Andrews heard this declaration on Saturday Night Live, her first reaction was How daaare you? But after a commercial break and some thought, she decided to poke at the stereotype that says "successful" and "bitch" are synonyms. Unafraid and frank, she comes to realize that being a bitch is sometimes the best way to be—except, of course, when it's not.
Bitch Is the New Black follows Andrews—sexy, single, and a self-described smart-ass—on her trip from kidnapped daughter of a lesbian to Washington, D.C., political reporter who can't remember a single senator's name. Told in Andrews's singular voice, this addictive memoir explores the roller coaster of being educated and single while trying to become an "actual adult" and find love.
In these candid yet heartfelt essays, she chronicles that ride from beginning to end: a childhood spent on an all-white island, escaping via episodes of The Cosby Show; being set up with Obama's "body guy" Reggie Love by Maureen Dowd; and the shocking suicide of a best friend. Through it all, Andrews and her gang of girlfriends urge each other to "keep it moving." But no one can stay strong all the time—not even the women we believe do so without trying.
As Andrews says, "Despite the fact that the most recognizable woman in the United States is black, popular culture still hasn't moved past the only adjective apparently meant to describe us— "strong." She is also flawed, tired, naive, greedy, gutsy, frightened, and kind: secret sides that come out in honest detail here. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—October 28, 1980
• Born—southern California, USA
• Education— B.A., Columbia University; M.A.
Northwestern University
• Currently—lives in Washington, D.C.
Helena Andrews is a graduate of Columbia University and has written for numerous publications, including the New York Times and Marie Claire. She lives in Washington, D.C., and is currently working on the film adaptation of Bitch Is the New Black with the creator of Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice, Shonda Rhimes. (From the publisher.)
More
Helena Andrews is an author, journalist and pop culture critic. Her first book, Bitch is the New Black (2010) is a collection of essays chronicling her experiences as a single Black female in Washington, DC. First conceptualized as a daily blog documenting the sad state of dating among educated African Americans, Bitch is the New Black evolved to describe all the influences and impacts on the modern Black woman. The film rights have been optioned by "Grey's Anatomy" creator/executive producer Shonda Rhimes, who will serve as executive producer for the project.
In a interview with The Root.com she discussed the book:
Despite the fact that the most visible woman in the United States is black, popular culture still hasn't moved past the only adjective apparently meant to describe us: "strong." Bitchwill hopefully function as a sort of dictionary (abridged, of course), providing a new vocabulary for black women. Almost automatically I'd describe myself as strong, but I'm also flawed, tired, sexy, depressed, frightened, naïve, hilarious, greedy and, of course, bitchy. In 16 essays, 'Bitch' gives credence to each one of my faces—secret sides every woman often keeps hidden.
Career
Helena began work in publishing as an intern at O, the Oprah Magazine in 2002. After leaving O, she worked brief stints at Seventeen, Domino, and Rap Up magazines. After a year pursuing a master's degree from Northwestern University in 2005, Helena worked as a news assistant in the Washington bureau of the New York Times. In 2006 she became a staff writer for the online political magazine Politico.com where she covered the cultural goings on of Capitol Hill. Helena has appeared on CNN, Inside Edition, Fox News and XM Radio. Currently, she is a regular contributor to Slate’s TheRoot.com and AOL’s PoliticsDaily.com.
Helena graduated from Columbia University in 2002 with a Bachelor of Arts in English and Creative Writing. At Columbia she joined the Rho Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. She earned a master's degree in print journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in 2005. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Andrews's exploration of what it's like to be young, black and single in Washington, D.C., is at times cringingly frank. Still, any young professional woman, regardless of color, will relate.
Nancy Trejos - Washington Post
[A] bitingly funny—and honest—read....[Andrews] establishes herself as an individual, proving that the women who fit into the “strong (single) black woman” category are more complex than the one-dimensional persona lets on.
Associated Press
Andrews offers a caustic and humorous running account of her life, mad texting her girlfriends about dates and career horrors, as she navigates the prickly terrain of a modern America getting used to a black First Lady and struggling to rethink its image of black women in general.
Booklist
Political reporter Andrews assembles 16 autobiographical essays exploring her unconventional upbringing, academic and professional accomplishment and the challenges of being a successful, single black woman in Washington, D.C. The scathingly witty author examines a wide variety of topics that, beneath the jokes and sarcasm, address weighty issues (depression, aging, abortion) with wry astuteness. The "bitch" referred to in the title is an allusion to the tough veneer—perhaps subtly survivalist—that Andrews claims is necessary for a black woman who is often the only black woman in school or at work. She reveals the inception of this facade in chapters about her childhood, where she describes being the only child of an openly gay single mother whose eccentricities were both fascinating and impenetrable. One anecdote describes the author's abduction by her grandmother at age six, in a misguided attempt to protect her; another details her attempt to reconcile the Bible with her mother's homosexuality (she couldn't). Whatever the effect of these profound incidents, the author clearly inherited ambition and confidence. She attended Columbia and Northwestern before climbing the ranks as a reporter in Washington—a situation that presented an entirely new set of obstacles, from finding an apartment without rats to finding camaraderie in the workplace. "There's something terribly frightening about being the only black person at a political newspaper when there's a black guy running for president," she writes. "Or should I say freeing?" Much of the book chronicles Andrews's dating misadventures. Nearing 30, and with a hilariously grandbaby-crazed mother, the author's reaction to a Washington Post headline titled "Marriage Is for White People" is understandably incredulous. Andrews, however, finds comfort in her artistic success, and has already sold the movie rights to her book. An irreverent, savvy and sharp memoir.
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 LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Bitch is the New Black:
1. Talk about the title: what does it mean? How does Helena Andrews use the word "bitch? How does she apply the word to herself? Is it a pejorative or a compliment? Does she use the title out of malice or self-confidence?
2. Why, according to Andrews, are successful black women lonely and single? Is her assessment—that success gets in the way of romance—accurate? What are your personal experiences and observations?
3. Why does Andrews admire with astronaut Lisa Nowak?
4. Talk about Andrews' prayers for her father's return. How did his absence haunt her life as a young girl...and later, as a young woman?
5. Discuss her growing up years on Catalina Island. In particular, what do you think of her mother? What kind of mother was she? Did you agree with the friend's accusation that Frances was raising Andrews to have no feelings?
6. Talk about the kidnapping scene? What were your emotions while reading it?
7. What impact did The Bill Cosby show have on Andrews and her expectations for life? Talk about her hopes for the TV-film, Polly and its effect on her white classmates?
8. In general, how does Andrews describe the various people who enter her life—the interior designer, Reggie Love, Rayetta, or Dexter? Are her assessments of them fair, funny, mean, perceptive? Does she present them as fully-developed individuals...or as one-diminsional figures?
9. How does Andrews relate to the Obamas, Michelle in particular—her "diplomas in plural, a career in progress, a presidential husband, and perfect babies"?
10. What do you think of Dexter? At one point, he tells Andrews that she's too good for him—do you agree, or not? Why is Andrews attracted to him?
11. Talk about Andrews' treatment of difficult subjects—abortion and abusive relationships.
12. What, if anything, does Andrews come to learn by the close of her book? Do you feel she has examined her life, and her own role in its unfolding, with depth and perception? Or do you see the book as a more superficial treatment, written primarily as an entertaining, comedic take on life for a single black woman?
13. Which of the book's 16 essays are your favorites? Which parts are the most humorous? Most moving? Most enlightening? Most irritating?
14. Overall, what is your response to Helena Andrews and her book? Would you describe her writing as crass and offensive—a way to gain attention? Or is her writing a raw and openly honest presentation of life's disappointments. Does she strike a chord in your own life?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Known and Unknown: A Memoir
Donald Rumsfeld, 2011
Penguin Group USA
832 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781595230676
Summary
If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much. —Rumsfeld's Rules
Few Americans have spent more time near the center of power than Donald Rumsfeld. Now he has written an unflinching memoir of his half-century career, sharing previously undisclosed details that will fascinate readers and force historians to rethink many controversies.
Starting from a middle-class childhood in Illinois, Rumsfeld had a rapid rise that won him early acclaim. He shows us what it was like growing up during the Great Depression and World War II, going to Princeton on scholarships, serving as a naval aviator, then getting his first political job on Capitol Hill during the Eisenhower administration. He recalls how he won a seat in the House of Representatives at age thirty and what he experienced as a Republican in Congress during the Kennedy and Johnson years.
We also follow him back to the executive branch as he took on key cabinet positions in the Nixon and Ford administrations, including his service as the youngest-ever secretary of defense, just after the trauma of Vietnam. And we learn about the challenges he later faced as a CEO in the private sector, and during his special assignments for President Reagan, including a face-to-face meeting with Saddam Hussein in 1983.
All of that would have been enough material for a fascinating book. But as 2001 began, Rumsfeld's greatest challenges lay ahead of him. At age sixty-eight he returned to the Pentagon as President Bush's secretary of defense, with a mandate to transform the military for a new century. Just nine months later he would confront the worst acts of terrorism in American history, followed by unexpected wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And he would be on the firing line for many controversies, from the revelations of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison to allegations of torture at Guantánamo Bay.
Known and Unknownreveals what happened behind the scenes during the critical moments of the Bush years, as the President's inner circle debated how best to defend our country. It is based not only on Rumsfeld's memory but also on hundreds of previously unreleased documents from throughout his career. It also features his blunt, firsthand opinions about some of the world's best-known figures, from Margaret Thatcher to Elvis Presley, from Henry Kissinger to Colin Powell, and about each American president from Dwight D. Eisenhower to George W. Bush.
In a famous press briefing, Rumsfeld once remarked that "there are also unknown unknowns . . . things we do not know we don't know." His book makes us realize just how much we didn't know.
Donald Rumsfeld is donating his proceeds from the sales of Known and Unknownto the military charities supported by the Rumsfeld Foundation.. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—July 9, 1932
• Where—Evanston, Illinois, USA
• Education—B.A., Princeton University
• Currently—lives in St. Michaels, Maryland
Donald Henry Rumsfeld is an American politician and businessman who served as the 13th Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977, under President Gerald Ford, and as the 21st Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2006, under President George W. Bush. Combined, he is the second longest-serving defense secretary after Robert McNamara.
Rumsfeld was White House Chief of Staff during part of the Ford Administration and also served in various positions in the Nixon Administration. He was elected to four terms in the United States House of Representatives, and served as the United States Permanent Representative to NATO.
He was president of G. D. Searle & Company from 1977–1985, CEO of General Instrument from 1990–1993, and chairman of Gilead Sciences from 1997-2001.
Youth
Donald Rumsfeld was born in Evanston, Illinois, to George Donald Rumsfeld and Jeannette (née Huster). His great-grandfather, Johann Heinrich Rumsfeld, emigrated from Weyhe near Bremen in Northern Germany in 1876. Growing up in Winnetka, Illinois, Rumsfeld became an Eagle Scout in 1949 and is the recipient of both the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America and its Silver Buffalo Award in 2006. He was a camp counselor at the Northeast Illinois Council's Camp Ma-Ka-Ja-Wan in the late 1940s and a ranger at Philmont Scout Ranch in 1949. Rumsfeld later bought a vacation house 30 miles (48 km) west of Philmont at Taos, New Mexico.
Education
Rumsfeld went to Baker Demonstration School, a private middle school, and later graduated[6] from New Trier High School. He attended Princeton University on academic and NROTC partial scholarships (A.B., 1954). In extracurricular activities he was an accomplished amateur wrestler and a member of the Lightweight Football team playing defensive back, and at Princeton he became captain of both the varsity wrestling team and the lightweight football team. While at Princeton he roomed with another future Secretary of Defense, Frank Carlucci.
His Princeton University senior thesis was titled "The Steel Seizure Case of 1952 and Its Effects on Presidential Powers." That precedent was later used against him in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.
In 1956 he attended Georgetown University Law Center but did not graduate.
Domestic life
Rumsfeld married Joyce H. Pierson on December 27, 1954. They have three children and six grandchildren. Rumsfeld lives in St. Michaels, Maryland, in a former plantation house, Mount Misery, the site of Frederick Douglass's resistance to the unsuccessful breaking by Edward Covey. (From Wikipedia—where a longer and more indepth biography can be found.)
Book Reviews
Mr. Rumsfeld’s memoir plays a fast and loose game of dodge ball with what are now “known knowns” and “known unknowns” about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The tedious, self-serving volume is filled with efforts to blame others—most notably the C.I.A., the State Department and the Coalition Provisional Authority (in particular George Tenet, Colin L. Powell, Condoleezza Rice and L. Paul Bremer III)—for misjudgments made in the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and the failure to contain an insurgency there that metastasized for years. It is a book that suffers from many of the same flaws that led the administration into what George Packer of The New Yorker has called “a needlessly deadly” undertaking—that is, cherry-picked data, unexamined assumptions and an unwillingness to re-examine past decisions.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times
A hefty and heavily annotated accounting and defense of [Donald Rumsfeld's] life in public service. "Never much of a handwringer, I don’t spend a lot of time in recriminations, looking back or second-guessing decisions made in real time with imperfect information by myself or others,” he writes. But hand-wring he does, in repeated blasts of Rumsfeldian score-settling that come off as a cross between setting the record straight and doggedly knocking enemies off pedestals.... The book is full of little nuggets..., but at its heart, it is a revenge memoir.... Rumsfeld has careful and consistent praise for only a few — chief among them George W. Bush, Gerald Ford and Richard B. Cheney.
Gwen Ifill - Washington Post
Donald Rumsfeld's Known and Unknown is thus one of the most important contributions to a growing list of remembrances of our most recent wars. The book is crisply written, blending narrative detail with personal judgment and reflection. Mr. Rumsfeld begins by giving us a fine, if compressed, account of his life before becoming George W. Bush's defense secretary in 2001.... But the bulk of Known and Unknown inevitably refers to the events that followed 9/11—that is, to the Bush administration's wars in Afghanistan and, especially, Iraq. From his accounts of various meetings and planning sessions, it is clear that the decision to go to war was not taken lightly, and Mr. Rumsfeld, to this day, does not doubt the wisdom of removing Saddam Hussein from power, even if weapons of mass destruction were never found in Iraq.
Robert H. Scales - Wall Street Journal
It's wearisome always being right, particularly when so many others are so wrong, so often — at least that's the impression a reader is most likely to draw from Rumsfeld's exhaustive, exasperating but vigorously written memoir.... Masterful bureaucratic survivor that he was until he ran out of room to maneuver, Rumsfeld delivers a memoir that is all about shifting blame and settling scores.
Tim Rutten - Los Angeles Times
Discussion Questions
1. What is the meaning of the book's title? It was taken from a well-known, and oft-repeated, statement Rumsfeld made in a 2002 press conference: “Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me because, as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” In what way is his statement relevant to his memoir? Why might Rumsfeld have chosen it as his title?
2. There is disagreement about the tone and purpose of Known and Unknown. Some reviewers believe it is a self-serving, blame-others memoir and scathing attempt to settle scores, especially regarding Colin Powell. John Scales, however, a retired major general, writes in the Wall Street Journal that Rumsfeld is always gracious to his opponents, that he "treats almost everyone with respect and softens his barbs." What is your opinion of the book's tone and thrust?
3. Mr. Rumsfeld writes that...
there is not a persuasive argument to be made that the United States would be in a stronger strategic position or that Iraq and the Middle East would be better off if Saddam were still in power. In short, ridding the region of Saddam’s brutal regime has created a more stable and secure world.
What reasons does he give for this statement? Do you agree or disagree with him?
4. How does Rumsfeld dispute his critics who have said the war in Iraq diverted attention from Afghanistan? Do you agree with Rumsfeld or his critics?
5. How does the author defend himself against his critics who claim that his preoccupation with building a fast, light, and flexible force crippled the military's ability to secure Iraq? Are his arguments convincing to you?
6. Rumsfeld distances himself from the neo-conservatives whose goal was to export democracy and engage in nation-building secure democratic societies. Why doesn't he agree with the neo-cons? What about you?
7. What accomplishments is Rumsfeld most proud of—and why? What are some of the things he regrets having said, done or not done—and why?
8. In writing of then-Vice President Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld says that Cheney could have served George W. Bush as defense secretary and vice president. Why does qualities does Rumsfeld admire in Cheney?
9. What does Rumsfeld think of the former president George H.W. Bush (the then-president's father)? Why was the relationship between the two older men so chilly?
10. Who else in George W's administration does Rumsfeld criticize...and why? What does he say about, for example, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice?
11. Why does he dispute Powell's charge that he, Powell, had been misled about the existence of WMD in Iraq, particularly in his presentation of evidence to the United Nations?
12. Discuss Rumsfeld's observations regarding the pernicious in-fighting between the Pentagon and the State Department. How does he say the bad relations underminded the war effort?
13. According to Rumsfeld, what was L. Paul Bremer's role, as head of the provisional government, in stabilizing or destabilizing Iraq? What about the decision to disband the Iraqi army and ban Ba'ath party members from public life? Why were those decisions made, who made them, and what were the consequences?
14. Rumsfeld admires then-President George W. Bush. What presidential qualities ad actions does he praise?
15. Overall, what impressions do you take away from having read Known and Unknown? Do you find yourself agreeing with Rumsfeld? Do you find him honorable, likeable, fair-minded? Do you find him arrogant and defensive? Do you believe he is willing...or unwilling...to accept responsibility for what went wrong in Iraq?
16. What have you learned from reading this memoir? What surprised you? What impressed you? What angered you? Does the book confirm or alter your basic views of former Secretary Rumsfeld and the prosecution of the War in Iraq?
17. Have you read other accounts of the war, and lead-up to the war, in Iraq—Assassin's Gate (Packer), Bush at War and State of Denial (Woodward), Fiasco (Ricks), The Forever War (Filkins), or others. If so, how does this memoir compare?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)