Best Non-Fiction Reads of 2018

My previous posting listed my best fiction reads of 2018.  Here are the best non-fiction books.  (A few were re-reads.)

1.  Peggy Pond Church.  The House at Otowi Bridge--The Story of Edith Warner and Los Alamos. Here is the tale of a woman who lived on the Rio Grande as a neighbor of the Indians of San Ildefonso Pueblo and friend to the atomic scientists just then gathering at Los Alamos.  Nicely done.

2.  Jennet Conant.  109 East Palace--Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos.  Comprehensive, readable.  An excellent telling about many of the scientists and how they took over a former boys' school on a New Mexican plateau and secretly turned it into the birthplace of the atomic bomb.

3.  Isak Dinesen.  Out of Africa.  Elegant.  For me, this book is a long pastoral prose-poem describing Kenya in the 1910s and '20s, the Kikuyu and Masai, the animals both domestic and wild, the British and Europeans, and the tribulation and joy of running a coffee farm.

4.  Ivan Doig. This House of Sky.  A beautifully written, evocative account of the author's childhood in the Montana sheep-herding country with his father and grandmother.  They led a tough life but he is always generous in his outlook of the small-town ranchers and herders.  Appropriately subtitled, Landscapes of a Western Mind.

5.  Timothy Egan.  The Worst Hard Time--The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl.  Here is disaster in Biblical proportions by first tearing the grass out of millions of acres covering parts of six states, then suffering years of drought and many, many subsequent dust storms (so that when it did rain, it rained mud), followed by millions of grasshoppers eating everything but the knobs on doors.  Of those who caused this, many stayed behind, suffering through it if they were lucky, otherwise dying of dust pneumonia along with their animals.  Horrific.

6.  Jack Kornfield.  No Time Like the Present--Finding Freedom, Love, and Joy Right Where You Are.  Good compilation.  Wise words by one of the most respected meditation teachers around.

7.  Margareta Magnussen.  The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning--How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter.  In other words, tossing it out yourself while you're still alive so someone else doesn't have to do it later.

8.  Sigrid Nunez.  Mitz--The Marmoset of Bloomsbury.  This is the story of a marmoset who joined Leonard and Virginia Woolf's household, accompanying them everywhere by sitting on Leonard's shoulder or inside his waistcoat.  Using Bloomsbury letters, diaries, and memoirs, the author uncovers Mitz's life and describes it in a charming fashion.

9.  Lynne Olson.  Last Hope Island--Britain, Occupied Europe, and the Brotherhood That Helped Turn the Tide of War.  How Britain was the port in the storm for six European nations and how each built its own liberation network.  As it turned out, Poland and Czechoslovakia were tossed aside by the West and "given" to Stalin.  Norway, Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg were not.  Also how three Poles and a Frenchman were the first to crack the Enigma code, then not asked to help Bletchley Park after they reached England.  Lots of built-in prejudice, hubris, and down-right stupidity.  But also a lot of heroism.  Excellent. Good telling, too, about the Polish RAF airmen who helped win the Battle of Britain and who, in fact, had more experience flying than the British at that time.

10.  Emily Kaiser Thelin.  Unforgettable--The Bold Flavors of Paula Wolfert's Renegade Life.  This is a very readable description of Paula's gastronomic explorations around the Mediterranean jotting down recipes for authentic dishes cooked by the locals from Morocco to Turkey.  It's also a combination of recipes and biography of this mid/late-20th-century food authority, complete with excellent photos.

11.  Lucy Worsley.  Jane Austen at  Home.  Engrossing biography 1775-1817.  Very readable, well researched, and well written with a broad sweep of information, domestic and literary, encompassing Austen's entire life, all her family members, all her homes, even every man who might have been interested in her.  In her lifetime, she earned just over £600 from her writing.  Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, and Emma were published during her lifetime, anonymously (or "By a Lady").  Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, published after her death, were finally published under her name with the notice that the earlier four had been by her as well.

Best Fiction Reads of 2018

This year I read 43 books, 22 of which were fiction.  And half were repeats, something I've been doing more these years.  I still have a fine library of books most of which I've read, many of which I once thoroughly enjoyed.  So, why not re-read them, I asked myself, especially since years have gone by and many have sunk into the depths of memory-past.   (I'll post the non-fiction next time.)

Here is this year's list of the fiction I most enjoyed.  (Repeat reads are marked with an asterisk.)

1.  Anita Brookner.  Dolly*.  A girl's aunt, come to England from Vienna and Paris, though very selfish, greedy, and self-absorbed, nonetheless fascinates her young niece.  Very little action, barely any plot, mostly character description.  As the author herself, the young niece lives alone, establishes a career in writing, and makes the most of a rather lonely life--one that she realizes needs some adjustment but one that she finds satisfying in its way.

2.  Rudyard Kipling.  Kim*.  This is, of course, Kipling's classic published in 1901--he who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907.  It was my third reading, read this time because my book club selected it.  (And I enjoyed it as much this time as my previous two readings.)  Set in India, it tells the tale of orphaned Kimball O'Hara as he and a Tibetan lama go on a quest that turns into a great adventure--from Lahore to Benares and up into the hills of the Himalayas, all in the time of what is known as The Great Game, the political and diplomatic confrontation between the British Empire and the Russian Empire for control over Afghanistan plus Central and South Asia. Filled with wonderful descriptions of the people and the region.

3.  William Maxwell.  The Chateau*.  Maxwell is one of my favorite authors, once fiction editor of The New Yorker.  (See my April 22, 2018 posting, "Willa, Wallace, and William".) This book is set in 1948 and 1953 during the two trips to France that the American couple protagonists made right after the war.  This is both their story and the story of the French whom they meet along the way including the very human vagaries that occur between them all.  Beautifully written as is everything he writes.  Published 1961.

4.  William Maxwell.  Time Will Darken It*.  Set around 1912.  In terms of its writing, this is a real "show, don't tell" book.  It centers on how a family is affected by the visiting of foster relatives, all doing their best to be truthful, kind, understanding, helpful--but some of whom could use some tough love instead.

5.  Bill McKibben.  Radio Free Vermont, A Fable of Resistance.  Delightful. About keeping Vermont small, local, organic, while considering the wisdom of voting to secede from the union.  Most amusing, laugh-out-loud funny, and just the right flavor for a good Vermont read.

6.  Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows.  The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society*.  Written in an epistolary format.  A basic story line but filled with description about the German occupation of Guernsey and the other Channel Islands.  Engaging.

7.  Muriel Spark.  The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.  This was a first reading during which I could not get the image of Maggie Smith (who played the role in the 1969 movie) out of my head.  But since she fit the part to a T, why try! About a young Edinburgh teacher who gathers a few girls around her to teach them what real education is about.  A wonderfully witty comedy-drama.

8.  Oswald Wynd.  The Ginger Tree*.  Wonderful.  Set in China and Japan from 1903-1942.  A young Scottish woman goes out to the East to marry her fiancé, staying on for many years after she falls in love with a Japanese aristocrat and learns to embrace a new life, surviving despite being in a culture that "barely tolerates women."  Also written in an epistolary format.  Substantive.  Characters the reader learns to care about.  This was made into a BBC mini-series in 1989 with Samantha Bond in the lead role.  (She who plays Maggie Smith's daughter, Rosamund, in Downton Abbey.)



I also want to give special mention to the works of Alexander McCall Smith who writes something like 5 new books a year.  How he does it, I don't know because he is always amusing, graceful, and endearing.  I keep track of his new book listing each year and make a point of getting them from the library.  Here are the ones I read this year:

1.  A Distant View of Everything (in the Isabel Dalhousie series)
2.  The House of Unexpected Sisters (in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series)
3.  A Time of Love and Tartan (in the 44 Scotland Street series)
4.  The Good Pilot Peter Woodhouse (not part of a series)
5.  The Quiet Side of Passion (in the Isabel Dalhousie series)

Foreign Movies That I Saw in 2018 That I Can Recommend

I have been finding some excellent foreign films on Netflix, often enjoying them more than those made in this country.


1.  Dunkirk.  2017. US, UK, France, Netherlands.  Gritty.  Another historical drama.  Little dialogue.  It's more as if you are part of the scene, present at the time as German troops force the allies onto the beaches at Dunkirk where they are being strafed as the big ships there to take them home are being sunk.  No Americans are present since the U.S. hasn't yet entered the war.

2.  From the Land of the Moon.  2016.  France.  A passionate French woman (Marion Cotillard) must decide between her husband who fought in Spain and a young man wounded in France's Indochina war. Beautiful settings.  An interesting, complex story line.

3.  Goodbye, Christopher Robin.  2017.  UK.  Bio drama about A. A. Milne, creator of Winnie the Pooh.  It concentrates on the family's troubles following WWI all the way up to WWII.

4.  Lemon Tree.  2008.  Israel.  Based on a true story of an Israeli Defense Minister whose department orders the lemon grove next door to be cut down so that it might not harbor terrorists.   Since the orchard is her livelihood and harbors no terrorists, the owner, a Palestinian widow, takes the case to the Israeli supreme court.  Poignant.

5.  The Fencer.  2015.  Estonia and Finland.  Set in the late '40s and early '50s, this is the story of a man who takes a teaching position in a small Estonian village school to hide from the KGB.  He is a fencing champion and starts a sporting club of students who become good enough to go on to a tournament, but by taking them there, he then exposes his identity.  A true story.

6.  The Syrian Bride.  2004.  Israel, France, Germany.  The story is set in a Druze village in the Golan Heights right on the Israeli-Syrian border.  Living there creates untold troubles for the residents ... such as making it seemingly impossible (due to political strictures) for the bride on one side of the border and the groom on the other to physically reach each other.

7.  The Treasure.  2015.  Romania.  A lovely little film.  Two men attempt to find a great grandfather's buried treasure in the family garden.  It's very slow-paced, amusing in its little bits of business, with a very adequate ending (not to be a spoiler and tell all).  In Romanian.

8.  The Wedding Plan.  2016.  Israel.  A moving film.  After a decade of looking for someone to marry (even the matchmakers aren't successful), a young woman decides to trust that God will provide and goes ahead with wedding plans though a groom hasn't yet shown up.  In Hebrew.

9.  The Women's Balcony.  2016.  Israel.  A group of neighborhood women work at patching up a rift in their community with the help of a new charismatic rabbi.  In Hebrew.

10.  Things to Come.  (L'Avenir).  2016.  France and Germany.  Set in Paris and the Grenoble area.  Less plot, more reporting about the daily life of the main character, a fifty-ish philosophy professor who follows a good life--job, husband, children, Parisian apartment--but then finds that everything shifts as she acquires a new freedom that she doesn't realize comes with choices that are up to her to make.  Isabella Huppert.

U.S. Movies That I Saw in 2018 That I Can Recommend

The popcorn aisle

1.  Allied.  2016.  Brad Pitt is a Canadian in World War II who meets and marries a French woman (Marion Cotillard) who is later accused of being a German spy.  Is she?  Isn't she?

2.  Brooklyn.  2015.  From the book by Colm Toibin.  A romance about a young Irish immigrant who lives in 1950's Brooklyn but then has to decide between two different men--one back in Ireland and one in the U.S.  Beautifully done.  Many subtleties plus intelligent acting.

3.  Chef.  2014.  This is the kind of movie I love--fun, nice music (Cuban), good food, no one's hitting anyone, good story line, good actors including Robert Downey Jr. in a playful role.  A chef leaves the restaurant where he works and goes back to basics opening a food truck which proves to be the perfect work for him to get back on his feet and spend time with his 10-year-old son.

4.  Darkest Hour.  2017.  US and UK.  Historical war drama.  How words can inspire--the "we will fight them on the beaches" speech when Churchill, as someone said, "mobilized the English language and sent it into battle."  Through words, spirit, courage, at their darkest hour, the English were able to prevail and Churchill was able to speak for the people and carry out the country's destiny through those words which astonished everyone and brought them to a new place--a place they hadn't really tapped but that he tapped for them.  Gary Oldman is Churchill.  Excellent.  Joe Wright is the director.  Look him up; he's done some beautiful work.

5.  A Dog's Purpose.  2017.  I loved this movie--a comedy-drama directed by Lasse Hallstrom.  Wonderful.  In realizing that he's being re-incarnated, a dog begins to wonder what the purpose of his life is.  "Here we go again," he says to himself at the beginning of each new puppy-hood, " ... but just what is this life stuff all about?"  He decides it all boils down to "Be here now."  A charming film.

6.  Gifted.  2017.  Whether to let a 7-year old girl who is a mathematical genius be a child or send her off into an adult's world to solve some of the Millennium Problems, as they are called.  Her uncle has taken her in on the death of her mother and hopes he is doing the right thing by letting her enjoy her childhood and learning to socialize with others her age.  Her grandmother has a different vision for her.  Mostly set in Florida.

7.  Inside Job.  2010.  Documentary narrated by Matt Damon about the 2008 financial meltdown.  Wonderfully executed.

8.  Mark Felt.  2017.  A biopic that mostly seems to hit the high spots of the Watergate affair.  Liam Neeson plays Mark Felt, aka Deep Throat.  The film is okay but very superficial.  It's also very dark, very hard to see as if the whole thing was taken at night with no extra lights.

9.  The Post.  2017.  Same era.  A well-done rendering of That Time.  But, again, this movie seems to have been filmed at night, everything is dark and hard to see.  Okay for an effect and metaphor but not easy to watch.  Tom Hanks is always good.

A Gallery of Photos: To France to Paint (Again): Some of Vaison's Neighboring Towns

View toward Séguret in Provence

This is the last posting from my recent painting trip to France, accompanied by a group of local artists under the organization of Travel Fever Tours out of Putney, Vermont.  Below is their website if anyone is interested in their upcoming tours which include Spain, France, and Sedona (Arizona)--watercolor and oil painting, Camino walking, and birding.  They are a couple--Bob Lawson and Cicely Carroll--who do all the planning, scout out excellent restaurants, and find cozy accommodations along with gorgeous scenery.  They're also fun to be with.  Highly recommended!

This past trip, after a few days in nearby Avignon to see the sights and get over jet lag before we started to paint, we then went on to "our" town of Vaison-la-Romaine where we were based for the week.  Some days we stayed in town taking in the Roman ruins and the medieval city.   Other days Bob and Cicely drove us to nearby spots where we sat and painted, looking out on wide Provençal landscapes filled with vineyards, olive trees, cypresses, and totally picturesque villages.

This fourth and final posting, then, centers around some of those spots neighboring Vaison.

See www.travelfevertours.com

Same view as above, though expanded somewhat

Village of Séguret

Roast duck luncheon at Côté Terrasse in Séguret

View from Séguret toward the Dentelles de Mortmirail

Old olive tree and vineyards from Piégon

View from Piégon

Lunch at the Centre Artistique de Piégon where we spent the day painting

Church in Villedieu

Residential street in Villedieu

The perfect season for beautiful grapes

The Shift to Winter

(Note:  The fourth posting about painting in France will appear next time.)

With Hallowe'en and that fine month of October over for the year, with November now appearing on the calendar, I find myself rather automatically shifting into That Other Life here in Vermont, here in the Northeast when it becomes apparent, once again, that the year is divided in two:  the green part and the white part.   With one about as long as the other.  With each its very own experience, so very unlike the other, as if half the year we're living in Iceland and the other half Mexico.  That's an exaggeration, but you get my point.

So, with November, this is what occurs, for me, at least.  The garden is now put to bed.  Each year I hire someone to come and tend it for me.  He carries the garden furniture into the cellar along with the flower pots that line my back deck.  He takes in the hoses and shuts off the water lines that feed their outside faucets.  He cuts back the dead ferns, does a final weeding, cuts back the peonies, blows dead leaves into my woods.  I, in turn, take my car to the dealer where they winterize it, rotate and balance the tires, change the oil, tend to any lubricants and filters, and make sure I don't intend to do much driving on icy/snowy roads or else, they say, I should buy snow tires.

Then there are the indoor things.  I put a flannel cover on my duvet. (Heavenly to sleep under.)  I make sure all the storm windows are in place. (I've long since ordered and paid for a winter's supply of fuel oil for my furnace.)  I buy a large non-scented candle to burn in the late afternoon hours to keep me company.  I buy yarn to knit a scarf or sweater since early darkness seems to lead me in that direction.  I buy ingredients to turn into favorite crockpot soups that fill the house with lovely aromas.  I put summer clothes in the cedar closet and retrieve winter ones.  I request even more inter-library loan books so that I'll be sure to have plenty to read on these long evenings since I rarely go out after dark.  I write up an early draft of a Christmas letter and go to our local copy shop with a new photo (usually of the grandchildren) to make up a batch of cards to send out. Doing so gives me a chance to reflect on the past year and to think about what the coming year might bring.  Then, too, these next weeks include birthdays for two in the immediate family.  (Including me.)   Finally, I get out my show shovel and set it on the front porch until April 15th when I always take it in again regardless of the April forecast which can, of course, include snow.

And with that, I'm ready for winter.

Birthday hors d'oeuvres

At first, I find the initial darkness that comes with restoring standard time to be pleasant.  I think of myself as being someplace like Norway.  It's fun at first.  The candlelight.  The hot soups.  The feeling of hygge (as the Danes call "coziness").  It also fits in with that lovely holiday, Thanksgiving.  And the head-spinning one that is Christmas.  But by the end of December, the whole darkness thing, the whole cold and icy thing begins to pall especially with a good three more months to get through.  Of course, the light returns with the solstice, with the first day of winter, but it takes those next three months to realize that lightness is, in fact, on its way.

Christmas Cookie Time

To complete the list, I feel a good fireplace would be in order.  Think I should send a note to Santa?

A Gallery of Photos: To France to Paint (Again): Vaison-la-Romaine

This is the third in a series of four, inspired by my recent trip back to France. Our local watercolor tour group had such a fine time there last year that half of us (five of us) put our names on this year's list of participants and returned to our base town, Vaison-la-Romaine, in Provence.  As lovely as ever.

Each day we were driven out to different neighboring villages where we set out folding chairs (or sat on stone walls), balancing paints and drawing boards on our laps, always opting for the shady spots since the temperatures reached the low 90's.

When traveling, watercolor materials are quite easy to transport--much better than oils.  You don't need an easel.  You don't need to figure how to carry home not-yet-dry paintings.  You don't need to take paints in tubes.  All watercolor requires is a brush or two, a small travel kit with small pans (as they are called) of paint, a small container for water, and watercolor paper--whether in loose sheets, tablet, or a spiral book.  As well, a light-weight drawing board of a size to fit into one's luggage comes in very handy.  (Mine is not quite 14" x 17.5"  See below.)  Plus some acid-free artist's tape (to tape down the paper) if you so desire along with some loose paper towels to sop up drips.  Of course, a pencil and eraser for quick, light sketches.  To my mind, that's all you need.  The less, the lighter.  And then it's all carry-on-able; none of it needs to go into checked luggage.

All that's really necessary to take

Light-weight drawing clip board

My rendering of the following photo

The Vaison-la-Romaine cathedral's cloisters

My travel journal's quick sketch--a view of Vaison's Roman ruins

Scenes taken during Vaison's weekly market.

Plus other Vaison scenes:

A wider view of the cloisters

I took the above photo during dinner at a local restaurant where, because of our numbers, the tables were set up directly outside the restaurant on the sidewalk.  As I looked up from my dinner, I was struck by the color of the sky, the last vestiges of light before absolute night fell.  I decided this beautiful deep blue was best described as lapis.  It was magical.