By Sally Gracie
Mary Bean, wearing a “100 years” sash over her sweater, was feted at a fabulous birthday party on Saturday (Dec. 27). Months of organizing by Mary’s daughter, Jo Doyle, and others were evident in the decorations at the Methow Valley Community Center gym.
These included a guest-book table — the book was signed by more than 100 guests — hosted by a mannequin in an antique white dress and bonnet; luscious pink roses and gerbera daisies brought over from Seattle to make the center pieces; tables of carefully displayed memorabilia and photographs; bottles of peach Riesling carrying the Mary Bean label; and lots of banners, balloons and birthday cakes.
The Hottells provided music for dancing. The only thing missing was a family tree. Relationships from “grands” to “greats” are difficult for outsiders to keep straight with such a wonderfully large family.
Sonja Carson picks Naomi Klein’s newest book as one of the best of 2014. This Changes Everything: Capitalism for the Climate “touches on … the issue that faces every human on the planet today: learning to live in harmony with the earth that sustains us,” Sonja said.
“Many things have altered and shifted in the five years it took her to complete the book,” Sonja writes. “However, one point stands out clearly in my mind. The dialog that Klein opens to us is not about politics … not about who is right or wrong, who has the most money or who doesn’t. The issues we currently face as a species, Klein points out, are deeply personal.”
The changes we will need to make are radical. Still, Klein has hope that we will succeed.
Bill Hottell picks a 2011 Pulitzer finalist for a best (read in 2014). The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, by Nicholas Carr, “… is certainly one of the most important books published recently … Almost three decades of research is now completed,” Bill says. “What have scientists/neurologists learned? For anyone who uses the Internet for an appreciable amount of time, the person’s brain has been altered. The neurological circuitry of the brain has actually been re-routed and changed … The Internet user is less capable of sustained concentration, is less capable of following nuanced reasoning and debate positions [and] less capable of following complexity.
“So many Americans are frequently holding a cell phone, iPhone, iPad, Smart Phone in their hands that the hand-held device is becoming an extension of the person’s body (and mind) … This is beginning to seem like an evolutionary change in humans,” Bill concludes.
Kathy Ehrenberg loved The Good Lord Bird (National Book Award, 2013). And, she says, “a surprise literary novel for me this year was We Are Completely Beside Ourselves (Man Booker Prize 2014 short list) by Karen Joy Fowler. I’d read her Jane Austin Book Club, which I’d just considered a summer confection, so was a little unprepared but not totally surprised by the brilliance of this novel.”
Kathy thought two books by Lynne Olson are “relevant for our times.” One is Citizens of London: The Americans Who Stood with Britain in Its Darkest, Finest Hour (2010). Through Averill Harriman, Edward R. Murrow and Gilbert Winant’s experiences in wartime London, Olson shows how the strong U.S.-British alliance was forged. Kathy also recommends Olson’s Troublesome Young Men: The Rebels Who Brought Churchill to Power and Helped Save England.
Besides history book club titles, I bought three non-fiction books in 2014. Much touted by Washington pundits, John W. Dean’s The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It didn’t get me past page 25. The book includes transcripts of the Nixon tapes — most of them besides Rosemary Woods’ missing 18 minutes, a mystery that Dean finally explains. My take: It’s scary that a world leader and his compatriots are guilty of such loose gossip and cheap shots — not to mention sinister machinations — in their profanity-filled conversations.
For the first time in forever, I broke a cardinal rule: I gave up on a book without following the 50-page rule. I don’t blame a lack of focus for not completing Dean’s book. It is a tedious and boring tome. Better to reread All the President’s Men, Nixonland, or Dean’s own Blind Ambition: The White House Years (1976).
Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War, by James Risen, I bought because I wanted to support the author who, at the time, was threatened by prison because he wouldn’t give up his sources. I bought The Teacher Wars: A History Of America’s Most Embattled Profession because I was a sometimes-embattled teacher, and this book got great reviews.
