- Environmental overdraft
- Demand side management
- Illusion of top soil
- Realignment with the food chain
- Food Culture, or lack thereof
- Knowing the provenance of your food
- Self sufficiency as an act of patriotism, pointing back to Thomas Jefferson
- Amish values and the beauty of boundaries
- Agricultural agnostic
- Xantolo
- Culture being the property of a species, not just of the wealthy
- Growing pizza
- Life as a zero-sum equation (time management comment)
- The draw to garden again and again and again, despite hardship
- Economics of growing it yourself and the intrinsic rewards that overshadow this
- The differences between harvesting and killing
- The religion of time saving
- Food Security
Glimpsing Adrienne Sharp: Ballerina, Novelist, Inspiration.
Ms. Sharp’s laid back openness was like a warm blanket on my jangled nerves. I had so much I wanted to learn from her and had trouble reining in my eagerness, yet she was perfectly calm and easy going about the exchange. If you’re interested in my full review of the book, well here ya go.
Following is our emailed interview.
to someday visit Los Angeles and buy her lunch.
Honestly, I don’t know how I did it—except by many rewrites.
Espionage and the Ballerina*
Read this book. Read it in a cold month,
when you can brew yourself many pots of tea.
And read it while wearing as much perfume
and as many strands of pearls as you wish.
Do you own a fur jacket?
Wear that too.
Remarking on the reading experience itself, allow me to say that the first little section of the book establishes the speaker’s voice which proves to be very natural if a bit long winded. Page after page of compound sentences and unfamiliar (Russian) names and cities was a little daunting, but that first impression quickly evaporates in the warmth of the woman’s true voice. Mathilde has all the depth and elegance and color that young women crave but will never attain until their own old age, when they have amassed their own collections of stories and scandals. On a personal note, I imagined Mathilde wore my grandmother’s perfume, Youth Dew by Este`e Lauder.
Beyond style and implication, though, Sharp lays out almost Shakespearean patterns of love, lust, ambition, and politics. How she managed to excavate so much Russian and world history and then distill it into 400 pages of beautifully written prose is far beyond me. Between the love stories and the descriptions of families, wars, and ballets, the reader is teased with mention of names like Rasputin, Lenin, Stalin, Ivan the Terrible, Catherine the Great, and of course Czar Nicholas. I think maybe a person’s career could be based on the body of knowledge Sharp has managed to weave into the tapestry that became this novel.
So which imitates which; art to life or life to art? Do we have this answer yet?
This is a thorough pleasure to read. When Sharp spoke of Siberia, I was chilled to the bone. When she described the great imperial palaces I could hear imaginary echoes against clean marble. When she took me to the ballet, I could almost touch the velvet drapes. And the parental struggles of a mother giving birth to a child who was destined to leave her side, well… that hit so close to home that I read through tears and felt real compassion for this old woman I will never meet.
The book’s emotional scope is great, and its educating potential is impressive. By the way, I did notice some interesting common ground between the life of our ballerina and that of Nitta Sayuri in Memoirs of a Geisha. Both women were entertainers. Both were bound by custom but complicated by love. Both, with their beauty and charm, held unnerving power over important men and were hated by more proper women. To make that discovery even more intriguing, we learn in this memoir that these two great nations, Russia and Japan, were at war during the time frame in which both fictional women would have lived.
How’s that for exploring an alternate universe?? How I would love to be at the cafe table where Adrienne Sharp and Arthur Golden chat over a cup of coffee, comparing notes and dreaming up new stories.
Okay, you guys, if I continue writing I will soon be describing and summarizing every single delicious chapter of this book. Please find time to read it for yourself. Borrow mine if you like, remembering that my only condition for sharing books is that you write your name and a brief review on the inside cover.
Record Your Own History.
Learn About Someone Else’s.
xoxoxoxo
Happy First Anniversary, Book Club!!!
In our first year we devoured eight novels as a group and have shared many hours of great conversation with each other, exploring and debating the content of these selections. We’ve laughed, we’ve cried, we’ve made each other blush. We’ve challenged our belief systems. Thanks to a Los Angeles book industry hook up we have with one of our members (her name rhymes with Frulia) , we even conducted a telephone interview with Aimee Bender, the author of one of our books! DO YOU KNOW COOL THAT IS?? So cool it’s almost awkward.
Among the group we have 13 children and 4 grandchildren, ranging from infant to college aged.
Roughly one third of our members is married, one of them being half of a Derby Union. More on that another time.
Professions: By coincidence, a different one third of our members is in number-crunching professions. Accountants, analysts, IT whizzes, auditors, etc. Also in the group is a paralegal, a credit union manager, a college student/part time employee/ Mom of two teens, a literary publicist, a hair design student, a computer nerd, a social worker supervisor, a receptionist, a project manager for a major investment house, an oil & gas accounting/ payroll manager, a verification associate, and a dorky farmish blogger. We are a motley crew, and I love it.
These are the books we’ve read as a group so far, though we always find time to discuss our additional private reads along the way:
- The Manhattan Hunt Club by John Saul
- The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
- Hunger Games by Susanne Collins
- Catching Fire by Susanne Collins
- Mockingjay by Susanne Collins
- The Shack by William P. Young
- The Help by Kathryn Stockett
- Before I Go To Sleep by S. J. Watson
How Do We Choose Our Books? In the beginning we planned to take turns like nice, polite little ladies. I mean, there were four of us. It was easy. Then throughout the year, as membership grew, we started kind of stabbing in the dark, just sort of brainstorming over plates of food and deciding wildly what to read next.
It was working out alright, but last week we decided to take a slightly more orderly approach in 2012 and draw names two months out, that person being the one to choose our next title. We meet every six weeks, more or less, and we recently started meeting at different places! All of our 2011 events were here at the farm, which I loved dearly, but I also love going to other people’s homes, and fortunately our group is overflowing with willing hostesses.
How Big of a Deal is This, Really? Well, it’s a really big deal. It just is, you guys. One member (her name rhymes with Flacie) expressed that of all the activities in her busy life, if she ever felt pressed to sacrifice something, the last thing she would sacrifice would be Book Club. That speaks VOLUMES. ha-ha-ha-ha…
Another member (her name is definitely not Margaret) has been making six hour drives from Austin, Texas to join the fun. Still another member (her name rhymes with Blephanie) reluctantly picked up the burden joy of reading by joining the group for a book she had started three years prior but never finished. And guess what? She not only stuck with us; she hosted the next party!
Personally, I am amazed to discover so much depth and stimulation at such an easy price. The events plan themselves, really, because we are all so eager to see each other and spill our guts about the books. We definitely have found some kind of magic here, and I can see it lasting many years.
So Happy First Anniversary, Ladies!! You have each found a very special place in my heart because of this uncommon adventure. I have thoroughly enjoy getting to know everybody and stretching my reading muscles beyond what I would read on my own. Please stick around… 2012 is going to be incredible!
Much Love,
xoxoxo
Marie
Before I Go To Sleep (a book review)
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