2007 Bookmark

The Girls by Lori Lansens

I have never looked into my sister’s eyes. I have never bathed alone. I have never stood in the grass at night and raised my arms to a beguiling moon. I’ve never used an airplane bathroom. Or worn a hat. Or been kissed like that. I’ve never driven a car. Or slept through the night. Never a private talk. Or solo walk. I’ve never climbed a tree. Or faded into a crowd. So many things I’ve never done, but oh, how I’ve been loved. And, if such things were to be, I’d live a thousand lives as me, to be loved so exponentially.    We’ve been called many things: freaks, horrors, monsters, devils, witches, retards, wonders, marvels. To most, we’re a curiosity. In small-town Leaford, where we live and work, we’re just ‘The Girls’.  by Lori Lansens

The Girls is written with two voices – each twin, Ruby (the pretty one, artistic and fashion conscious, but intellectually lazy) and Rose( frizzy haired, bookish and rather serious), writing in turn. Lori Lansens manages to create two distinct and colourful personalities, drawing the reader into the experience of living as a conjoined twin. Ruby and Rose each have their own jobs, their own interests and their own fantasies. The twins find their way into the hearts of most people they meet. Although this might appear unlikely, it seems that once people move beyond the extraordinary way the girls look, they are captivated by their courage and individuality. The girls have different friends, relationships and even a love affair. There are moments of profound sadness and moments where the reader might well envy the girls their deep and abiding love for one another. by Elaine Walker

Critical Praise

"The Girls skillfully tackles a tricky subject with both laugh-out-loud humor and grace."

—Redbook

"A complex consideration of identity and individuality, of sameness and difference, of what it means to be normal and what it takes to feel at home in the world."

—Francine Prose, People

"Lansens, who has a gentle, open way of writing, makes of these two girls a kind of perfect marriage, harmonious and everlasting."

—Stacey D'Erasmo, New York Times Book Review

"This is not a book about the grotesque but a book about love, about being bound to someone else and accepting the situation gracefully, even gratefully."

—Malena Watrous, San Francisco Chronicle

Life, Death & Bialys by Dylan Shaffer

"Filled with passages which are laugh out loud funny and switching to passages which are poignant, all without missing a beat, Life, Death & Bialys is a warm human story of how two men found their way back to a mutually supportive relationship."- Bestsellersworld.com

"If somebody told me they wrote a book about learning to bake bread with their curmudgeonly, dying father, I would have said, 'Break out the violins and wake me up when it's over.' But Dylan Schaffer has created something genuinely sharp and entertaining here. What a fantastic surprise." - Beth Lisik, author of Everybody in the Pool

THE PAGE 99 TEST

“Open the book to page ninety-nine and read, and the quality of the whole will be revealed to you." ~Ford Madox Ford

I hate to admit it, but I’d never heard about this page 99 business before. I mean, I’ve read a little Ford Madox Ford, but his advice about turning to page 99 to find the essence of a book stuck me, initially, as a little weird. Then I tried it with my latest book, a memoir about how me and my dying father baked our way to truth and reconciliation, called Life, Death & Bialys: A Father/Son Baking Story. And let me tell you, FMF turns out to have been a freaking genius.

Here’s a bit from page 99:

“We walk outside and stand in front of the store eating. Cream cheese would be nice, but I can see how eating it dry is a purer bialy experience.

We hear someone with an English accent say to her friends, ‘It’s just like a bagel, but without the hole.’

Flip [my father] steps over and corrects her ...

Legal Work - Cases author has handled:

The San Francisco dog mauling case: We represent Marjorie Knoller, who was originally convicted of murder after her dog fatally attacked a woman in her apartment building in San Francisco.

The Gambino Family Prosecution: This was the case in which Sammy "the bull" Gravano switched sides and testified for the government.

The Repressed Memory Murder case: George Franklin, was accused by his daughter of having killed her best friend when she was eight years old. Franklin's daughter claimed to have repressed the memory for twenty years. It was the first and only murder case ever tried on a repressed memory theory.

The Mitchell Brothers Murder: We represented Jim Mitchell in the appeal from his conviction for killing his brother, Artie. The Mitchell Brothers are famous for having produced one of the first feature- length pornographic films.

The Billionaire Boys Club Case: We represented Ben Dosti, who was part of a group of young Beverly Hills men who reportedly kidnapped an Iranian business man for the purpose of extorting money from him.

The Boneyard Killer: We represented an elderly woman who was convicted of killing nine men in her boarding house in Sacramento California and burying them in her back yard.

The Bialy Book Video

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

A Thousand Splendid Suns tells the story two women against the background of the last forty years in Afghanistan. Mariam was born an illegitimate child in 1959 and was married off to a man from Kabul when she was 15. Her husband was abusive and cruel and he forced her to wear a burqa even though many liberal women in Kabul were free to go without it. Laila was born just before the Russian invasion and had dreams of a life of education and travel. A bomb kills most of her family and she recovers from her wounds in Mariam's house. While the woman bond, Mariam's husband has his eyes on Laila. With the emergence of the Taliban, the women have few options, if any. Review of books

Characters

Mariam is a 15 year old girl when the book begins. The story centers around her and the events of her life as they intertwine with Laila.

Nana is Mariam's mother, who used to be a servant in Jalil's house and had an affair with him. He built her a kolba (small hut) to live in and raise Mariam.

Mullah Faizullah is Mariam's elderly Koran teacher and friend.

Jalil is Mariam's father, a man who had three wives before he had an affair with Nana. Marries Mariam to Rasheed, but later regrets sending her away.

Laila is a young, beautiful, educated girl coming from an upper class family when first introduced. Her life becomes tied with Mariam's when she is forced into marrying Rasheed, Mariam's husband.

Rasheed is the villain of the story. Rasheed marries Mariam through an arrangement with her father and later marries Laila by deceiving her.

Tariq is a boy that grew up in Kabul with Laila. They were best friends and eventually lovers.

Aziza is the daughter of Laila and Tariq, conceived when Laila was 14 and causing her to marry Rasheed.

Zalmai is Laila and Rasheed's son.

About the Author

While in medical practice, Khaled Hosseini began writing his first novel,  

The Kite Runner, in March of 2001. In 2003, The Kite Runner, was published and has since become an international bestseller, published in 38 countries. In 2006 he was named a goodwill envoy to UNHCR, the

 United Nations Refugee Agency.  His second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns was published in May of 2007. He lives in northern California.

 

The River of Doubt by Candice Millard

A year after Roosevelt lost a third-party bid for the White House in 1912, he decided to chase away his blues by accepting an invitation for a South American trip that quickly evolved into an ill-prepared journey down an unexplored tributary of the Amazon known as the River of Doubt. The small group, including T.R.'s son Kermit, was hampered by the failure to pack enough supplies and the absence of canoes sturdy enough for the river's rapids. ~Copyright © Reed Business Information

“Martin Luther Roosevelt” Roosevelt reacts to the offer of a third term, regarded here in 1907 as a deal with the devil. ~Time Photo Essay

TIMELINE ~condensed from website

November - 1913

21 "...we crossed the Andes into Chile by rail."

December - 1913

09 "...we left the attractive and picturesque city of Asuncion to ascend the Paraguay."

10 Arrives in Concepcion and fishes for piranha. "The only redeeming feature about them is that they are themselves fairly good to eat, although with too many bones."

12 Meets Colonel Rondon on the boundary of Brazil and listens to numerous piranha stories.

27 Bags ant-eater.

January - 1914

14 Jaguar hunting in Brazil after "a good New Year's Day breakfast of hardtack, ham, sardines, and coffee."

February - 1914

04 "We started into the 'sertao', as Brazilians call the wilderness...Skeletons of mules and oxen were more frequent ; and once or twice by the wayside we passed the graves of officers or men who had died on the road...

05 "We camped at the headwaters of a little brook called Huatsui, which is Parecis for 'monkey.'"

21 Kermit comes across a band of Nhambiquaras and brings them back to camp.

27 "shortly after midday, we started down the River of Doubt into the unknown."

March - 1914

01 "Cherrie shot a large dark-gray monkey with a prehensile tail. It was very good eating."

11 Party loses two canoes in the Broken Canoe Rapids.

14 After three days work, the replacement canoes have been hewn from the Brazialian jungle and the journey down the River of Doubt continues.15 "In these Rapids died poor Simplicio." 

18 Colonel Rondon " formally christened it [Duvida] the Rio Roosevelt.”

April - 1914

03 "Under such conditions whatever is evil in men's natures comes to the front." A porter, Julio, kills another porter and runs into the jungle.

04 Injures leg while preventing destruction of yet another canoe. 

06 Julio is sighted along the river. Request to be brought into captivity are rebuffed and the murderer is left in the jungle.

15 "We had come over three hundred kilometers in forty-eight days, over absolutely unknown ground; we had seen no human being, although we had twice heard Indians."

26 "We had been two months in the canoes … [and] had put on the map a river

May - 1914

07 "…We bade good-by to our kind Brazilian friends and sailed northward for Barbados and New York.”

About the Author

Millard does an excellent job of making us feel the uncanny silence of the rain forest, with its odd lack of visible animal life and the way its greatest dangers - human and other - are ever at hand but almost always unseen.

To read this book is to gain nothing but respect for Roosevelt himself and also for his son, both of whom acquitted themselves as true heroes, as did almost all their fellow voyagers.

Overall, this is a stranger-than-fiction tale that - be forewarned - many readers will feel compelled to devour in a single sitting. ~Marjorie Kehe, Monitor's book editor. 

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Elizabeth Gilbert’s fourth and latest book – a #1 best selling memoir about the year she spent traveling around the world in search of personal restoration after a difficult divorce. ~authors website

Favorite Book Quote

"It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody elses life with perfection." — Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia)

WERE YOU EVER WORRIED THAT TAKING A YEAR OFF TO TRAVEL AROUND THE WORLD WAS A SELFISH ACT?

What is it about the American obsession with productivity and responsibility that makes it so difficult for us to allow ourselves a little time to solve the puzzle of our own lives, before it’s too late? That said, yes – I did worry a great deal about selfishness. But after three years of despair and depression, I had come to believe that living my life in a state of constant misery was actually a pretty selfish act. Who would be served by a lifetime of my sorrow? How would that enrich the world? Going off for a year and creating a journey to pull myself back together, to rediscover joy, to face down my failings and rebuild my existence, was not only an important thing for my life, but ultimately for the lives of everyone around me. And it’s not just my family and friends who are better off now that I am happy; it’s everyone I encounter. Because the reality is that we human beings are constantly leaking our dispositions upon each other. When I was in such a dark state, everyone I passed on the street had to walk through the shadow of my darkness, whether they knew me or not. I remember once, during my divorce, crying uncontrollably on the subway in New York City. When I look back on that crying young woman, I feel great compassion for what she was going through. But I can also feel pity now, in retrospect, for those poor, weary New York commuters, who had to sit there after their own long days at work, watching this sobbing stranger. I didn’t want to be that person anymore. Saving my own life (through therapy, medication, prayer and – most of all -- travel) was something I did for my own benefit, yes, but I can’t help but think that it was ultimately also a little bit of a community service.

HOW COULD YOU AFFORD TO TRAVEL THE WAY YOU DID?

This year-long journey was paid for entirely by the book advance for “Eat, Pray, Love”, which was a huge blessing. But I got that advance because this was my fourth book, and so I’d earned my way up over the years to that level of trust from my publisher. That said, though – when I was younger, I did a whole lot of traveling around this world before anyone ever paid me to do it. For many years, I traveled on the salary of a waitress or a bartender. I would work every shift for six months, then take my savings and go away to a new place, then come home and start working again. I was able to do this because traveling was such an important force in my life (rivaled only by writing) and I willingly gave up certain comforts (nice clothes, a steady job) to save money for plane tickets. Also, I shouldpoint out that while I was traveling for “Eat, Pray, Love,” I met hordes of people of all ages and backgrounds and nationalities (families, even!) who were doing incredible journeys – and not one of them had a generous book advance. (Or, at least, nobody would admit to it.) Of course it’s true that not everyone who wants to see the world will be able to. People are held in place by all sorts of forces – by commitments to work, by the needs of their families, by ill health, by poverty. Yet many, many more people could travel than do. When it becomes important enough, doors can open in mighty ways. ~for more on this topic

I WANT TO GO TO ITALY – WHERE CAN I GET THAT PIZZA YOU DESCRIBED?

Pizzeria da Michele. "Order the double mozzarella. If you go to Naples and don’t eat this pizza, please lie to me later and tell me that you did."

ARE YOU AND FELIPE STILL TOGETHER?

Very much so. Ours remains a lovely, nourishing, happy love story. Thank you for asking!