I met Susan Schnur online. We both subscribe to a Carleton alumni e-mail list. At times discussion on the list turns to things literary and Susan often wrote things I found fascinating. She's a librarian who lives on an island off the Maine coast. She may be the first islander on our mailing list unless we try to count Australia as an island (and that would bring justifiable protests from David O. Rodaugan). She offers thoughts on a stack of intriguing books.
"I must have been thinking of the changing millennium as I chose my reading this year. Last year I ran heavily to philosophy, religion, and the environment. This year it seems to be history.
"One book I highly recommend is America in 1900: The Turning Point by Judy Crichton. She starts on New Year's Day and brings us through the entire year, trying to show what the ordinary American's life was like.
"I just finished Garrick Utley's new book You Should Have Been Here Yesterday which I enjoyed. It isn't greatly profound, but it covers the beginning and the end of what we had thought would be permanent, the nightly TV news. The book is a chronological series of vignettes interspersed with some analysis of the TV news business. And it reminds us of the events of the second half of the 20th century.
"A book that is somewhat tedious to read is Firewall: The Iran-Contra Conspiracy and Cover-up by Lawrence E Welch. Despite the effort to read over 500 pages of minutia, this is the most complete information about that breathtaking treason-like set of crimes. The minutia here is important, and the book should be read. (The word "treason" is clearly defined in the Constitution as "aid and comfort to the enemy in time of war." Despite Iran's commission of an act of war against the United States and our subsequent sanctions, we were not technically at war with her. Hence my invention of the word "treason-like.")
"I am currently reading Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s book A Life in the 20th Century: Innocent Beginnings, 1917-1950. Despite Mr. Schlesinger's birth in the Midwest, this is a very New England history. My parents, only slightly older, raised and educated on the West Coast, had a very different take on the same events. These coincidences make this biography particularly interesting to me. I was raised in the East, and feel like I can distinguish the generational differences from the regional differences. I assume there will be a second volume.
"Apple Bartlett and her daughter wrote a biography of Sister Parrish, Sister, The Life of the Legendary American Interior Decorator Mrs. Henry Parish II by Apple Parish Bartlett and Susan Bartlett Crater. Sister, for those of you who don't recognize the name, was a very famous interior decorator among the old money Easterners. I couldn't put the book down, but I freely admit part of that is because I know (or know of) so many of the characters who are the backbone of our summer community. When put alongside the Schlesinger book I am extra conscious of the end of one era and the beginning of another.
"I have discovered a couple of new (to me) mystery writers: Jan Gleiter, author of Lie Down with Dogs and A House by the Side of the Road and Margaret Frazier, who has written a series of mysteries taking place in what I continue to call (in my own politically incorrect way) the Dark Ages. I was surprised to enjoy these, as it is not one of my favorite historical periods. My favorite historical mysteries remain those of Anne Perry (Victorian), but I usually prefer contemporary United States with female protagonists. Off and on I enjoy Sue Henry's Alaskan mysteries.
"I never liked fantasy much as a child, and am not partial to it or science fiction as an adult. But I have read and enjoyed every one of the Harry Potter books much to the dismay of my 22-year-old stepson who thinks they are trash. Although the books are fantasy, they are even more about life in English boarding schools. My ex-husband who attended boarding school in England loved the books and lent me his. How he found them I have no idea.
"Still on my list of books I think everyone should read are
"I am getting a good deal of pleasure out of another book I am currently reading: The Class of 1846 From West Point to Appomattox by John G. Waugh. The West Point class of 1846 fought together in the Mexican War and against one another in the Civil War. The book starts covering several young men from the time they arrived at West Point to the end of the Civil War. The book is available in paperback."
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