Nonfiction: From Hardtack to Home Fries, Barbara Haber

From Hardtack to Home Fries: An Uncommon History of American Cooks & Meals
Barbara Haber
ISBN: 0142002976
Micro-history of American foods and cookery.
Read April 8, 2016

This was a cute little book rescued from a recent weed at a branch location - (don't worry, it's been sent off to keep living at the central library) that looked so interesting (and nicely short) that I just couldn't resist picking it up.

Basically, Haber's been fascinated with cookbooks and history her whole life, and she's parlayed that into a job keeping and furthering a collection of historic cook books and cooking-related books at the Schlesinger Library at Harvard's Radcliffe Institute.  Pretty nifty.  Haber has a moderate, readable, likeable tone that wanders between just slightly professorial (when something interestingly historical or consistently overlooked is under consideration) to happily chatty and casual.  The read feels like nothing so much as an afternoon porch visit or an evening out drinking with someone who is knowledgeable and secure enough in their knowledge that they enjoy discussing it, but don't feel that they need to convince anyone or prove themselves.  A very enjoyable tone for a nonfiction, especially a micro-history of something as interesting and overlooked as cooking and women's experiences with food and culture.

The whole book was fascinating, but I especially enjoyed learning more about:

Chapter Three: They Dieted for Our Sins: America's Food Reformers
Chapter Four: The Harvey Girls: Good Women and Good Food Civilize the American West
Chapter Five: Home Cooking in the FDR White House: The Indomitable Mrs. Nesbitt

The bits about the Irish immigrants and the potato famine, and about African American women re-claiming their heritage as cooks and creators of good food with American and African roots were also very interesting, but not as new or unexpected.

I could have done without the chapters on wartime deprivation and starvation (American Civil War nurses and Japanese POW nurses) and I didn't find the chapter on the interesting social-activism shop in Boston as compelling as I think I ought to.

Overall a cute little foray into American experiences and cookery.  A fun, enjoyable little microhistory that I didn't even know to look for.  I love when books come to me like that - so nice to have a fun unexpected discovery.

Juv Nonfiction: Book, My Autobiography "transcribed" by John Agard, illustrated by Neil Packer

Book: My Autobiography
John Agard, illustrated (b&w) by Neil Packer
ISBN: 9780763672362
Read March 7, 2016
Cute conceit of a thin book covering the history of the recorded word in print from the perspective of a book, looking back at the transformations of the past and present.

Lots of short chapters break up the history of the development of the written word.  We begin with oral storytelling and cave paintings, then move through the earliest surviving examples of physically-recorded information from several cultures.  Then we're into the developments of types of materials: rock walls to clay tablets to papyrus to parchment to paper pulp (a Chinese invention, which I did not know) and finally to modern e-books.  Then we look at styles of writing: cuneiform, hieroglyphics, the Phoenician, then Greek, then Latin alphabets (this section was sadly lacking in Eastern information), along with the writing process: wedge-shaped stylus to quills (with discussion of the various bird species and what their quills were considered good for) to the first block printing and then movable type and then again e-books with hyperlinks.

The "voice" of Book is wry and self-deprecatory and winking, passing information along as if it is just the coolest history in the world (which I personally agree with) and making even ancient history like the switch from papyrus to parchment seem relevant (caused, fyi, by a squabble over intellectual property (papyrus) which was barred from export out to a rival country).

The language is rich and varied and the presentation is quite adult - I had to check the CIP to see that it really was a juvenile nonfiction.  There are pull-out and pop quotes from authors and poets and influential people highlighted in almost every chapter that are relevant to the section, or are generally thought-provoking.  This would be an excellent "trial" biography for a young voracious nonfiction or micro-history reader - I can easily see them successfully reading through this and feeling empowered to move on to the very similar adult nonfiction or biographies.

A fun, quick, information-packed read, with a great narrative flow and a lovely narrative voice, with just enough black and white illustration and pop quotes to break up the many many many small chapters.    

Nonfiction (biography) Picture Book: Gingerbread for Liberty! Mara Rockliff & Vincent X. Kirsch

Gingerbread for Liberty! How a German Baker Helped Win the American Revolution
Mara Rockliff, illustrated by Vincent X. Kirsch
ISBN: 9780544130012
Gingerbread-iced cut-out illustrations liven up this adorable story of a very generous baker.

This is an adorable biographical story of Christopher Ludwick, who immigrated to America in the early days of the colonies, and baked for the armies, and persuaded the invading German Hessian troops that they really ought to be on the American side of the conflict.

Fascinating history, and a truly well-told tale of a wonderful life of service to his adopted country.

Juvenile Nonfiction: The Many Faces of George Washington, Carla Killough McClafferty

(Talk about an awesome name for our author!)

The Many Faces of George Washington: Remaking a Presidential Icon
Carla Killough McClafferty
ISBN: 9780761356080
Re-Read November 7, 2014

This one came back through the library system, and I actually took the time to read through it properly this time around, instead of simply admiring the artistry of the three mannequins that were created.

I suppose I ought to start from the beginning.  So everyone's seen dollar bills, and we all know what George Washington looks like - old, grouchy, and sort of fat-faced.  Except, that's only what he looked like after he WAS old, grouchy, and sort of fat-faced (most likely caused by inflammation due to those awful dentures).  So - what did the people who VOTED for our very first President see in him?  Sadly, we really haven't had any pictorial evidence - all of his portraits are from after he was old and tired, and the one life-cast taken of him was never really used for references, outside of the one specific statue that had commissioned it.

So a mixed group of awesome people got a truly stupendous grant to research this famous man, to use all the artistic and forensic and re-creative tools at our disposal to figure out what he most likely looked like at three different important points in his life: as a nineteen-year-old "nobleman" surveyor, as a forty-five-year-old General at Valley Forge, and finally at fifty-seven years old, taking the very first American Presidential Oath of Office.  Pretty cool, right?

The absolute stand-out here is the care and dedication and EFFORT put into making these representations as perfect and accurate as possible for each age.  It's a truly multi-disciplinary approach, and it is amazing how lifelike and much more interesting the results are than the boring old portraits on our currency.

Fair warning, if mannequins or uncanny-valley representations of faces and hands creep you out - steer clear!

Halloween Read: Who Was Dracula? by Jim Steinmeyer

A strange Frankenstein's-monster mash-up of three genres in one; literary criticism of Dracula, biography of Bram Stoker, and microhistory of the settings and characters of Stoker's life.  Despite some strange seam-lines and jumps in topic, I thought it was a clever and fairly adept combination, providing apt analysis of the author, the writing, and the nature of the character of Dracula through different perspectives and possibilities.

Who Was Dracula? Bram Stoker's Trail of Blood
Jim Steinmeyer
ISBN: 9780142421888
Finished Oct. 30, 2014

First off, you'll only like this book if you like all of the components therein: biographies (of Stoker, and of other characters from the time-period: Walt Whitman, Henry Irving, Oscar Wilde...) micro-histories (mainly of the theatre, but we get a bit about Jack the Ripper, and about American tours of theatrical companies, and a view of the theatrical/artistic set's socializing and infighting) and literary criticisms (No, Dracula as a character wasn't an attempt to exact revenge on Irving, and can we get over how Dracula is about sex?  We all KNOW it's about sex, we have eyes, we read the book already).

If none of those make you roll your eyes out of your head, then you're in for a treat.  We stick with each non-book subject long enough to get into it (and sometimes long enough to think, "wait a moment, this is really interesting stuff about Stoker's other books/Irving and the Lyceum/Jack the Ripper/Oscar Wilde, but I don't think I've seen anything about Stoker or Dracula in the past four chapters") and then in the next chapter, you're back to Dracula again.

It wasn't at all what I expected, and aside from a cringe-worthy quotation from the author responsible for glittery vampires excusing her not having read Dracula, it was better than I expected; more history, less supposition.

I will say that the underlying question remains mostly unanswered, although hints drop that Steinmeyer tends towards the "it was a composite of lots of influences" school of thought, rather than "it was meant to strike back at Irving" or "It was Jack the Ripper!" suppositions.

I liked the 'coda' towards the end explaining how Stoker's widow used her tenacity and a timely membership in an Author's Society to fight back against Nosferatu (although I'm so glad she failed in destroying it) and to stage critically awful and popularly brilliant versions of Dracula across England and the USA in order to keep herself in mint.  Stoker would have been proud.

Nonfiction: The Woman Who Would be King, Kara Cooney

Hey look!  I read grownup books too!

The Woman Who Would be King: Hatshepsut's Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt
Kara Cooney
ISBN: 978030795767
Finished October 23, 2014

This one has taken a while to read - usually I'm faster than this, but then usually I'm reading light "pop" nonfiction, or reading on topics I'm already pretty familiar with (education, neurological science) and this was way outside my area of familiarity.  I started it about two weeks ago, and have been slowly working my way through, and now it's over and I wish there was more!

I loved it.  I know enough about archaeology to know that most of the "suppose" thises and "perhaps" those other things and "maybe" this or thats are way unusual for the field (and I think actually frowned on) but for a historical figure like Hatshepsut, where there's really no chance of us really learning about how her life really was, I don't see the harm, and I agree with the author that there's really no other way to write about her without it being a dry-as-dust textbook listing of the artifacts found and their significance and implications.

Now, I do wish that there had been room to write a few "alternate history" accounts, especially in sections that had to be total conjecture like working relationships and palace life, or in places where there are competing and roughly equal interpretations of how events took place (for example: after her death, when we deal with the destruction of her monuments and the obliteration of the mentions of her daughter and head official).

I learned so much, and now I want to know so much more.  I've not read the footnotes or the references yet, but I'm planning on it (they're impressively long) and I hope that some of my questions will be answered there.  Regardless, I'm sensing a resurgence of my elementary school passion for Egyptology.

Here's hoping that Cooney writes another one!