When You Are Engulfed in Flames

“A zoo is a good place to make a spectacle of yourself, as the people have creepier, more photographic things to look at” (16).

Since reading Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris, I knew that his new book, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, would bring more of his intoxicating humor, eccentric lifestyle, and deeply entrenched dysfunctional family to the page.  Thus, perfect summer reading!

Sedaris takes us from his obsession with Virginia depression-era living, which appalled his father, to his $20,000 quit smoking plan.  When he isn’t obsessing about the Tegenaria April, he is busy searching markets for the perfect human skeleton for his boyfriend Hugh’s birthday.  How far will D’accord get you France?  “A pig’s nose standing erect on a bed of tender greens” (118).  What does one do about the New York cabbie who informs Sedaris that it is inappropriate to lie about such things as flaming mice burning down a house, as reported by a newspaper, though the cabbie insists he was in India and it was 150 degrees.  (Sedaris notes that when he wrote this book, the hottest day documented was not in India, but in Libya at 136 degrees in 1922, which was years before the cabbie was born.) (203)

There is a bit for everyone in this Sedaris book.  Whether you are into feeding spiders, smoking some pot, or just wanting to lounge around and enjoy some rather strange artistic elements, this book is for you.  So … go home and grab some news articles for conversation with your sweetheart if you don’t want to end up like the older couple next to you who have been married for years and have nothing to say.  No newspaper available?  Then When You are Engulfed with Flames will be a great conversation starter!

You can find When You are Engulfed in Flames (PS 3569 .E314 R47 2008), and these other Sedaris books at the BSC Library. 

• Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim  (PS 3569 .E314 R47 2005)                     
•  Me Talk Pretty One Day   (PS3569.E314 M4 2000)
• Je Parler Français  (PS3569.E314 M414 2000)
• Holidays on Ice   (PS3569.E314 H65 1998b)
• The Santaland Diaries; and, Season’s Greetings  (PS3569.E314 S35 1998
• Naked   (PS3569.E314 Z469b 1997)
• Barrel Fever: Stories and Essays (PS3569.E314 B3 1994)

By Johanna McClay Bjork, Reference Librarian

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Library Staff Favorites … Check them out!

Looking for a good book to read?  Check out the display case near the reference desk to see what BSC Library staff recommend:

Johanna’s selections …

• Choke: a Novel by Chuck Palahniuk
• In My Skin: a Memoir by Kate Holden
• Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood by Koren Zailckas

Carolyn’s choices …

• 1776 by David McCullough
• Giants in the Earth by O. E. (Ole Edvart) Rolvaag
• Undaunted Courage:Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West by Stephen E. Ambrose

Liz suggests …

• Guns, Germs, and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond
• Longitude: the True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by Dava Sobel
• The Weather-resistant Garden: a Defensive Approach to Planning & Landscaping  by Charles W. G. Smith

Laura’s picks …

• Black and Blue: a Novel by Anna Quindlen
• Laura Ingalls Wilder: a Writer’s Life by Pamela Smith Hill
• The Master Butchers Singing Club by Louise Erdrich

Marlene recommends …

• Down the Nile: Alone in a Fisherman’s Skiff by Rosemary Mahoney
• Love in the Driest Season: a Family Memoir by Neely Tucker
• The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx

Burned Alive: a Survivor of an “Honor Killing” Speaks Out

You  are

• female
• uneducated
• beaten, if you spill the rice
• beaten, if you spill the milk
• not allowed to go to shops
• not allowed to go out by yourself
• not allowed to look a male in the eye or speak to him
• told that sheep are more valuable than you
• told you are worth nothing
• walled up

You live in fear.  Searing flames lick your delicate flesh. 

You are Souad.

“Every centimeter of skin on her chest and her arms is decomposed in a vast purulent wound.  The passengers can hold their noses and make faces of disgust to the flight attendants; it’s all the same to me.  I’m taking a burned woman and her child to salvation, one day they will know why” (149).

While working with a humanitarian organization in the Middle East, Jacqueline found the burned Souad in the hospital.  She had been left to die.  She had dishonored her family by having an “adventure” with a man and becoming pregnant.  Souad had been labeled as Charmuta (whore).  Her family took steps to remove this dishonor from their household by having her burned alive.

Souad was born and raised in a small West Bank village.  She knew nothing of the outside world.  Uneducated, she spent her days laboring away at household chores.  These chores included everything from milking the cows, shaking the rugs, and picking tomatoes, to tending the flocks in the field.  She was waiting, waiting for the man, her husband, who would set her free from this servitude and introduce her into another.  She should have married early, 15 years old, but was forced to wait.  Her older sisters must marry first.  Traditions must be taken seriously; they cannot be changed.  So she must wait.

“I did my work as usual.  I cared for the sheep, cleaned the stable, I brought in the flock, picked the tomatoes.  I waited for the evening.  I was so afraid that I picked up a bit of stone and struck my stomach with it hoping to make myself bleed and put things right” (89).  Souad had an “adventure;” she is pregnant.   ”He comes toward me.  It’s my brother-in-law Hussein in his work clothes, old pants and T-shirt.  He stands in front of me now and says, with a smile, “Hi.  How goes it?”  He’s chewing on a blade of grass, smiling: “I’m going to take care of you” (105) .

“I suddenly felt a cold liquid running over my head and instantly I was on fire … I start to run in the garden, barefoot.  I slap my hair, I scream … I smell the gasoline and I run …”  Hussein had done it to protect the family’s honor, a perverse justice for Souad’s unpermitted love (106).  To live, Souad and her child must die.  This is Souad’s brief life, death, and her rebirth in a far away country.  Her second life “began in Europe at the end of the 1970s in an international airport … on a stretcher.” 

In the book, Souad says that if she had lived in a city, things would have been different.  I found Burned Alive horrifying.  Living in a world (the United States) with so much freedom to do, be, and develop my own female identity, Souad’s memoir is like a stranglehold on my consciousness.  It is painful to consider there is a world where women are still shut away, on bended knee to the dominant male, and if they step out of line, their punishment is swift, unforgiving. 

Do not be lulled into apathy even in the hallowed halls of our western world.  There are women whose freedoms are limited by the males that keep them.  As females, we must be careful to protect our freedoms and hold tight to our identities. 

For more information about the Swiss foundation that assisted in the rescue of Souad and continues rescuing victimized girls and women, please visit SURGIR.

Reviewed by Johanna McClay, Reference Librarian

This book is available at the BSC Library (HV 6197 .P19 S6813 2004).  Check it out!  

 

 

My Lobotomy by Howard Dully

“He poked these knitting needles into my skull, through my eye sockets, and then swirled them around until he felt he had scrambled things up enough” (97).

December 15, 1960, at 12 years old, Howard Dully’s life changed forever.

On November 30, 1948, Howard was born to Rodney and June Dully.  Two more brothers followed, Brian and Bruce.  Bruce, the third child, was born brain-damaged.  June had been ill and 12 days after Bruce’s birth, died, never leaving the hospital.  Colon cancer, undiagnosed until after death, had grown unchecked within her.  Howard and Brian were without a mother.  Bruce would never live with them.  Four-year-old Howard Dully was told his mother would never come home again; she was gone.

Enter Lou in 1955 with her sons, Cleon and George.  Howard writes, “All I knew is one day she wasn’t there, and the next day she was” (18).  Known for her temper, Lou became the deciding factor leading up to the day Howard’s life changed.   On December 15, 1960, psychiatrist Walter Freeman poked ice-picks into Howard’s eye sockets, performing a transorbital lobotomy.

Lou had issues with Howard; she made it quite clear she wanted him out of the picture.  Lou shipped him off to stay with close friends, complained frequently to his father, Rodney, about Howard’s behavior, and finally took him to six psychiatrists to find out what was wrong and how to fix him.  The psychiatrists said, “Howard’s behavior was normal” (59).  Then Lou met Walter Freeman.

After the lobotomy, Howard was bounced around from psychiatric institutions to boarding schools, but never, permanently, to live with his brothers, father, and stepmother again.  After the lobotomy, after being in the system, Howard wants to know why this happened to him.  Why did he become one of Freeman’s youngest patients when six psychiatrists said that he was normal?

My Lobotomy is a careful step back for Howard on a subject that he has never discussed freely until now.  He writes and researches to find out “why” he deserved such an operation as a transorbital lobotomy and what happened to Freeman’s other patients.

“I’ve always felt different — wondered if something’s missing from my soul.” — Howard Dully, NPR

I highly recommend My Lobotomy: a Memoir, a disturbing read which made me question why Freeman was allowed to perform for so long unchecked such an invasive, horrible, mind-altering procedure.

For more information about the book and Howard Dully’s journey into his past, visit National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” for “My Lobotomy : Howard Dully’s Journey” at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5014080

Reviewed by Johanna McClay, Reference Librarian

This book is available at the BSC Library at RD 594 .D85 2007.  Check it out!

In My Skin by Kate Holden

Facilis descensus Averno … sed revocare … hoc opus, hic labor est.    

To descend into hell is easy.  But to return — what work, what labor it is! — Virgil

Holden spirals the reader into the bleak darkness of her heroin-addicted world.  Introduced to the drug by her older boyfriend, James, who takes her beyond marijuana trips to needle-penetrating heroin, Holden discovers quickly the heroin-infused realm that she desperately wishes to visit more and more frequently.  “Heroin was a lure, a security, a delight.  It calmed me, glossed me; the infusion of heat, the tickle of satisfaction” (21).

The benefits of using seem endless; not only does she find a warm satisfaction in the heroin usage, the sex is tremendous!  “I love you,” we said to each other every time we slid the needle into the other’s arm” (25).  As Holden and her various lovers use more, their bodies demand more of the drug.  She is forced to hide her use from friends and family, only to turn around and steal money to support her habit.  Desperate attemps to stay clean fail.

Destitute, with the physical and mental desire for more of the drug increasing, Holden begins prostituting herself in an attempt to support her and her boyfriend’s heroin habit, which is now expensive.  She moves from the dangerous streets into brothel service – the brothel, that in many ways, is far safer than the streets.

Much like Virgil’s quote from the start of Holden’s In My Skin, it is easy to descend into heroin but difficult to depart the drug’s grasp.  A user can’t leave heroin behind instantly, the drug’s hold is so strong that instant departure could kill the user.  The user must be slowly weaned from the drug’s curse by using similar drugs like methadone.

This is a deeply disturbing, painful memoir that reminds the reader it is easy to start, but very hard to stop.  Addiction, particularly to heroin, wraps itself around one’s soul and will not let go. 

I highly recommend In My Skin (BSC call number: HV 5805 .H64 A3 2006).  To understand more about addiction, I also recommend this new BSC Library book, Addiction: Why Can’t They Just Stop? (RC 565 .A32 2007).

 Johanna McClay, Reference Librarian

The Professor and the Madman

dic-tion-ar-y [dik-shuh-ner-ee]  — noun, plural — ar-ies.

1.  a book containing a selection of the words of a language, usually arranged alphabetically, giving information about their meanings, pronunciations, etymologies, inflected forms, etc. , expressed in either the same or another language; lexicon; glossary: a dictionary of English; a Japanese-English dictionary.

“If you were stranded on a desert island, what books would you want with you?”  

I have finally decided that one of the books I would really want with me is a dictionary — a great big, unabridged dictionary.  I love words and I love language.   I like to look things up and to know what words mean and where they come from and how they have evolved.   A dictionary would entertain me for a very long time. 

If you are a word lover, too, I recommend the book, The Professor and the Madman: a Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester (HarperCollins, 1998).

The Professor and the Madman tells the story of one of the greatest literary achievements in the history of the English language — the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) .  It is also the story of two men who played key roles, Professor James Murray and Dr. William Chester Minor.  Murray was the distinguished editor of the OED project and  Dr. Minor, an American surgeon, was one of the most prolific of the thousands of contributors who submitted illustrative quotations of words to be used in the dictionary. 

Finding out how murder and insanity and dictionary-making (strange bedfellows indeed!) come together makes for a fascinating read.    

Check it out at the BSC Library!  (Call number: PE 1617 .O94 W56 1998)

Marlene Anderson, Director of Library Services

P.S.  Simon wrote a second book about the OED – The Meaning of Everything: the Story of the Oxford English Dictionary  (Oxford University Press, 2003).  It is also available at the BSC Library; call number: PE 1617 .O48 W558 2003.

One Perfect Day …

One Perfect Day: the Selling of the American Wedding by Rebecca Mead

$161 billion is what Conde’ Nast Bridal Group figures is the total yearly expenditure by Americans for weddings (26).  The American wedding is a billion dollar industry fueled by “wedding porn,” media, and the pressing urge by brides to have perfect (expensive) weddings.  Rebecca Mead’s One Perfect Day shreds the wrapping from the “supposed” traditional key elements that drive the wedding industry.

Let’s look at a few “supposed” wedding traditions marketed by the industry and highlighted in Mead’s book:

• Wedding Gown/Dress- The history surrounding this key player in the supposed wedding tradition does have a long history, but not as long as some would like you to believe.  A young bride wearing white has its roots in the 16th century.  White was not always the first choice by young brides, as the poorer had to suffice with whatever they had available.  Wearing white had less to do with one’s maidenhood and more to do with the fact that the bride was rich and could afford to keep the gown clean (79-80).

• Unity Candle - Use of the so-called “Unity Candle” in weddings began in 1960 (132).

• Apache Indian Prayer (also called the Navajo Prayer) - This prayer is frequently used in weddings, but as far as anyone can determine, including Apache culture scholars, this is just a work of “poetic fiction” with apparent roots in modern day cinema, i.e., the film “Broken Arrow” (134-135).

• Diamond Engagement Ring - In the late 19th century, the diamond engagement ring began to gain a foothold in America.  In the 1930s, with the push of advertising from De Beers, the diamond ring moved into its “supposed” traditional niche in the American engagement/wedding scenario (57).

The wedding industry and planners are thriving and manufacturing wedding memories as quickly as brides and grooms can snap them up.  Mead’s book opened my eyes to the wedding con that sucks our money and drives us into debt.  I refuse to be a part of this charade.

I highly recommend this book, particularly to anyone considering getting married.  It is available at the BSC Library (call number HQ 745 .M43 2007).

Johanna McClay, Reference Librarian

Venice … from your armchair

The City of Falling Angels — a wonderfully intriguing title for a wonderfully intriguing book.   

Whether you’ve been to Venice, Italy, or only dreamed of going there, The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt (who also authored Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil), will make you even more interested in this unique city.   I had the good fortune to visit Venice in 2005 and only wish that I had read this portrait of the city beforehand. 

The focal point of the book is a fire that destroyed the historic Fenice Opera House in 1996.   In the telling of that story, the author takes us to places in Venice that are not on the usual tourist’s itinerary and introduces us to many of the people (characters, really) who live there — their nature, their history, and their quirks.     

And what of that fascinating title?  Its genesis was from a sign posted outside the Santa Maria della Salute Church in Venice in the early 1970s, before restoration of its crumbling marble ornaments — “Beware of Falling Angels.”

The City of Falling Angels is available at the BSC Library.  Check it out!

Marlene Anderson, Director of Library Services 

Summer reading equals Hiaasen

Along with the warming sun and blooming plants my thoughts turn to summer reading. One of my favorite authors is Carl Hiaasen. Hiaasen is a native Floridian, and his love for Florida features strongly in his books. Hiaasen is an investigative journalist for the Miami Herald, and where he writes about property developers, shady politicians, and their lack of care for the environment.

His novels take on similar themes, although with humorous and sometimes violent effect. His novels feature broad characters, outlandish situations, and have a satiric bite. My favorite novel of Hiaasen’s (so far) is Stormy Weather, which takes place after a devastating hurricane roars through southern Florida, and some tourists change their plans to explore the devastation.

Lately, in addition to his novels, Hiaasen has been writing books for younger readers. Hoot, a book about students trying to save the habitat of burrowing owls from a dishonest developer, was a 2003 Newbery Medal Honor Book; an award given by the American Library Association. Hiaasen has written a second book for young readers called Flush. To me, summer reading brings to mind an escape to the lush beauty of Florida and the exciting novels of Carl Hiaasen.

–Liz Mason, Technical Services Librarian