'Tis the Season... for political conventions!

Remembering Jack: Intimate and Unseen Photographs of the Kennedys by Jacques Lowe

A tribute to the Kennedys, during this political week when Caroline Kennedy so poignantly paid tribute to her uncle, Ted Kennedy, at the Democratic National Convention. Photographer Jacques Lowe first met Robert Kennedy in 1956, when he photographed Kennedy while he was serving as majority counsel for the committee investigating the Teamsters union. He continued on to photograph Bobby Kennedy’s young family at home, and later to photograph John F. Kennedy’s family at home, on the campaign trail, and eventually in the White House. This book is great fun to page through. Some standouts include the photo of the young Senator, his wife, and his baby daughter (who is chewing on her mother’s soon-to-be-famous pearl necklace); behind-the-scenes photos of the 1960 presidential campaign (including some neat photos on their airplane the Caroline); and the photos of Robert and Ethel Kennedy at home with their many children. This was one photogenic family. Looking at those early photos, before tragedy had struck, makes me wish all over again that things could have turned out differently.

Best Book I've Read So Far This Year

Run by Ann Patchett

I’ve been in a fiction drought for a bit, and this book was like fresh rain. It begins with a cherished family heirloom: a statue of a saint, which closely resembles Bernadette Doyle, wife of Boston mayor Bernard Doyle. The couple has one biological son, Sullivan, and two adopted sons, Tip and Teddy (yes, named for those famous Massachusetts politicians). The family is powerfully Irish Catholic, and they do not blink at adopting Tip and Teddy, who are African American. When the children are still young, Bernadette dies, leaving Bernard to raise the boys on his own. While Sullivan turns out to be quite a disappointment to the family(though they will not admit it), studious Tip attends Harvard and falls in love with the study of fish, and tenderhearted Teddy seems destined for the priesthood – following in the footsteps of an adored uncle (who may just be performing miracles from his nursing home bed). Then, one night after a political lecture, Tip is nearly run down by a car, and he is saved by a woman named Tennessee, who throws herself into harm’s way to keep him safe – and who is his biological mother. Tennessee and her young daughter Kenya have been benevolently stalking Tip and Teddy for years, it turns out. The family circle has just expanded in a most unexpected way… In the end, it is a book, very simply, about family love. I kept feeling surprised at the lushness of the detail Patchett includes in this story – it almost seemed like too much (she should save some of this good stuff for the next book!) – but then it turned out to be perfect. The title also makes a person think about the ways each character runs – whether they run as athletes, run for elected office, or run away… This is a book I’ll be re-reading for the sheer joy of it.

Childhood on a Dude Ranch

Where Rivers Change Direction by Mark Spragg

The most poignant recollection of boyhood I’ve ever read. While reading the chapter “My Sister’s Boots,” I actually had to put the book down because I almost began to weep (while reading in a restaurant; that will not do). This author is just that good. Spragg grew up on a Wyoming dude ranch, where, from a tender age, he worked alongside the hired men. I’m not sure whether he either inherited his stoic ways from his tough, quiet father or his strong mother; or whether he learned them from the men he worked with (and lived with – during part of the year, he slept in the bunkhouse). An honest, beautiful book about a sometimes brutal, mostly wondrous boyhood and the young adult years that followed. It was awarded the Regional Book Award by the Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Association. This group has selected a fine list of winners, and Where Rivers Change Direction is certainly award-worthy. It reminds me of other excellent memoirs of rural childhoods: Lazy B: Growing up on a Cattle Ranch in the American Southwest by Sandra Day O’Connor and H. Alan Day, and The Road from Coorain by Jill Ker Conway. But of these three, Spragg’s book is the one I know I’ll need to re-read.

Reading About Reading

How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines by Thomas C. Foster

What a nifty book. In a conversational tone, Foster describes the meanings of baptism, vampires (I was surprised by this one!), dining scenes, and more, in literature. His light approach makes me think he must be one of those professors whose classes everyone scrambles to take. The thing I like about this book is that Foster offers up a traditional literary device or symbol I thought I understood, and then he takes it one step further than I expected. And his writing is deft and fresh enough that it never feels like he’s teaching; instead, I’m having a fun time reading, and I’m learning along the way. Excellent. Also, while the subtitle includes the words “reading between the lines,” I found this book to be fine reading while waiting in the grocery store line. True story.

Midwife in Old New York

Murder on Astor Place: A Gaslight Mystery by Victoria Thompson

At the turn of the (last) century, young widow Sarah Brandt lives on her own in New York City, delivers babies, and – in this book, the first of the series – begins solving mysteries. When the sister of an old friend is murdered in a boarding house where Sarah has delivered a baby, she meets Frank Malloy, the police sergeant assigned to the case. Sarah’s roots in high society (which she has rejected following a family tragedy that could have been prevented if her parents had not been blindly stuck on social status) allow her access to information unavailable to the police. Sarah reminds me of Molly Murphy, the equally liberated woman of Rhys Bowen’s excellent mystery series (which begins with Murphy’s Law), which is high praise indeed.