March 21, 2012

This is a children’s book for perhaps a 4th grade reading level.  I found it at Goodwill, and was intrigued by Elizabeth Ladd, a Maine author who grew up on an  Island in Penobscot Bay in the Gulf of Maine.  ”Meg’s Mysertious Island” was written in 1963, making it the third of Meg’s adventures.

Meg is a young lady of about 11, whose parents have died in an automobile accident.  As a result she lives with her eighteen year old brother, Allen, on his boat, which is moored at a dock in the town of Summerport, Maine.  Allen works at a boat yard for Bob and his wife Sally, but life is hard for the siblings and not stable enough for Meg to attend school full time as she should.  One day Meg gets into a fight on the beach with a town selectman’s son, Herald.  Herald calls Meg an orphan, and says he overheard his parents talking about how something needed to be done about Meg and her living situation.  At the same time, Bob has just announced he has to lay Allen off for the season.  Fortunately Allen is able to come up with a temporary job as winter caretaker for a cabin on an uninhabited island in Penobscot Bay 10 miles north.  Although the cabin is tiny, rustic, and isolated, it will remove the siblings from the attention of Summerport busybodies, and give them a chance to regroup and figure what to do next.

When Allen and Meg arrive on the island, they find a stranger has been living in the cabin.  Dody Hogton is dirty, rude, and acting suspeciously.  Hogton is hesitant to leave, but when Allen threatens to go for the authorities, he finally gathers up his belongings and paddles away in his dory.  After Meg and Allen give the cabin a thorough cleaning, they are delighted by how cozy their new home is.  They set about unloading their supplies and settling themselves in.  Unfortunately they haven’t seen the last of Hogton.  Two weeks later they take their boat to visit Bob and Sally to borrow a chainsaw so they can put up firewood for the winter.  While they are gone Hogton comes back with a friend, Foxy Tolman, who is equally as distasteful.  Meg and Allen arrive Just as Hogton and Foxy are trying to break into the cabin.  The siblings realize the two men must have been watching them, and begin to wonder what in the cabin is drawing their interest.  They find out one day when Allen discovers a hiding place under the floor filled with bags of money.

Winter is well upon the siblings when a blizzard arrives, and the next day Allen doesn’t return from a walk.  Meg goes looking for him when it is beginning to get dark.  She finds him with a bloodied head, and a badly sprained ankle from a fall.  She is able to get him back to the cabin, but has to take over all the chores including bringing in firewood to keep the cabin warm so they won’t freeze.  Things go from bad to worse when Hogton shows up again, and realizes Allen is in no condition to confront him…

This really is a great kids story.  It is full of mystery, suspense, and a capable young lady who reminds me of an adolescent Nancy Drew.  I give a thumbs up to Meg, and to Elizabeth Ladd.

March 18, 2010

I originally picked this book up at Goodwill because it was an uncorrected proof. Although it is only a paperback, in essence it is a pre first edition.  The second thing that sparked my interest, upon reading the inside flap, was that a good part of the story takes place in the Pacific Northwest, my original home.  Mystic is a fictional community, but the towering pungent evergreen trees, the swirling cool opaque fog turning into a downpour, the pervasive verdant vegetation, and towering mountain peaks which are constant companions serving as compass points from every location… these are the things that are elemental in my life, and which the author describes so well.

The story begins in Los Angeles with a time of transition in the lives of Blake and Annie Colwater, whose only child, Natalie, has graduated early from high school so she could spend her final quarter in London.  The Colwaters are wealthy.  Blake is a high powered attorney, and Annie a stay-at-home mom who married right out of college and had Natalie within a year.  Annie, not the typical corporate wife involved in clubs and myriad social activities, has made her family the focus of her life for the past 20 years.  This makes it especially difficult when upon arriving home from the airport after dropping Natalie off, Blake announces that he is in love with another woman and wants a divorce.  A week later Blake comes to the house to ask Annie to sign tentative settlement papers.  Annie is able to get him to agree to a 3 month trial separation instead of moving forward with the divorce.  

Annie hasn’t been to her parent’s home in 10 years, but after padding around her empty, expansive oceanfront house, she decides to take the advice of a good friend and spend the next 3 months on the Washington State Olympic Peninsula in the tiny logging community where she grew up.  Her dad still lives in the two story farm house where he raised her, her mother having died in an accident when Annie was very young.  Once back in Mystic ensconced in her old bedroom, Annie renews the acquaintance of a high school friend, Nicky, who has fallen on hard times himself.  His wife has died, leaving him with a traumatized 6 year old daughter, an ever-shrinking world of grief and regret, and a burgeoning alcohol problem.  In addition, Nicky desperately needs to find someone to babysit his troubled little girl, Izzy, who has been kicked out of school.  Annie volunteers for the job, which helps to fill her empty life and gives her something besides her own misery to focus on.  As the weeks pass, Nicky and Izzy respond to Annie’s positive influence in their home and in their lives. Slowly, the three broken-hearted souls form a bond of love that helps them all to begin to recover.  Unfortunately two months into Annie’s trial separation she discovers the nausea, headaches, sleeplessness, and lack of appetite she has been experiencing are a pregnancy rather than depression.  It is Blake’s baby, and he has reappeared and wants her back.  Now she must choose between the path that she feels is right, and the path that she wants to take.

This is definitely chick lit, but was none-the-less written well and had a story that pulled me along.

March 16, 2012

If you are in the mood for something light, quirky, humorous, and heartwarming, “Mama Makes Up Her Mind” is the book for you.  Inside the paperback copy I found on my bookshelf, there is an inscription from my older sister to my younger sister.  It says “This is my favorite book at the moment - hope you enjoy this as much as I did”.  That’s what I love about both reading and gardening.  You have the opportunity to share something you love with others.  Most of my neighbors have perennials from my yard that I have divided and passed around.  Most of my friends and family have books from my library that I have enjoyed and passed on.  This is the true spirit of recycling!  

Bailey White was born in 1950 in Thomasville, Georgia.  She and her two siblings grew up on a farm in southern Georgia parented by their mother, while their father lived in California working as a writer in Hollywood.  After completing her education at Florida State University, Bailey moved to California and married her father’s best friend.  Eleven years later she moved back to Georgia and back in with her mother.  She lived with and cared for her mother for many years while working as a first grade teacher.  In 1999 she left teaching to concentrate on her writing.  Bailey’s mother died in 1994.

This book is classified as memoir/humor.  It is delightful to relive moments in Bailey’s life with her as she recounts memories of friends, siblings, vacations, school lessons, but most of all yarns about her mom… the woman whose husband left her because he had a low tolerance for a house that might have qualified for an episode of “Hoarders”; who traded libido encouraging herbs from her garden with her friend the octogenarian taxidermist who grew hot peppers in his; who found a tick doing gymnastics under her pantyhose on the way to a wedding, which was only part of a ridiculous story that made me laugh until I cried; who was dropped off in front of an Instant Care Facility for an appointment when she wasn’t feeling well one day, only for Bailey to realize later that Mama had mistook three butchers in white coats enjoying a smoke break on the sidewalk for doctors. Mama thought she had received a “sidewalk diagnosis” from surgeons, judging by the blood and brains on their smocks. This is the family who ended up with the bathtub installed on a screened porch as the result of a remodeling accident; who ate dead animals found on the road, so long as they were fresh; and who had an antique bed in the spare room that could be transformed into a large stand-up wall mirror,  which unfortunately tended to happen without warning in the middle of the night when guests were sleeping soundly…  

You will smile your way through this book as you get to know the characters, craving more when you turn the last page.  Thanks for the recommendation, Connie!

February 9, 2012

Reading this book was like biting into the salty explosion of caviar; sipping a complex merlot and rolling the flavors of plum and mulberry with notes of licorice and vanilla around on the tongue; breathing in the earthy goodness of mushrooms sautéing; or savoring the citrusy, sweet, oily delight of strawberries and cream.  Georges Auguste Escoffier was the chef of his time, the man who elevated cooking to an art form. This book is based on the facts of his life, but the author also freely admits she used artistic license to fill in the blanks.  

Escoffier was born in Villeneuve-Loubet, France in 1846.  He had artistic inclinations, but his father didn’t think art a lucrative career choice.  So at the age of 13, Escoffier was apprenticed to his uncle who owned a restaurant in nearby Nice.  It was demanding work, but Escoffier labored hard and advanced. He eventually left his uncle’s restaurant to become chef at the famous Le Petit Moulin Rouge in Paris.  With the onset of the Franco-Prussian war, Escoffier was drafted and became an army cook.  Although his career was temporarily halted, he had the opportunity during his service to continue his education by studying the process of canning food.  After the war he went back to Le Petit Moulin Rouge, where he worked until he opened his own restaurant in Cannes, called Le Faisan d’Or (The Golden Pheasant).  In 1880 at the age of 34 he married poet Delphine Daffis.  Delphine was 21 at the time, and the courtship was unusual to say the least.  Escoffier and Delphine’s father, Paul, were friends and played a weekly billiards game.  None-the-less, Escoffier and Delphine had only glimpsed each other a couple of times.  One evening Paul came home and announced to Delphine that Escoffier had won her hand in marriage which had been staked on a game.  Paul urged his independent daughter to accept the arrangement, saying that he loved Escoffier like a son, and because Escoffier was successful, he knew his daughter would be well cared for.  Delphine could see no way around it, so when Escoffier came to collect his bride the next day she was ready with her trunks packed.  While Delphine may have been too independent for marriage proposals to be forthcoming, Escoffier had his own imperfections.  He was a very petite man, in fact the size of a young boy, which may have contributed to his single marital status up until that point.  He did tell Delphine when he came for her that he didn’t expect her to love him, that he knew he was a man compromised by nature, but that he thought she would find his heart agreeable.  

It appeared to be a good match, children were forthcoming, and Escoffier’s reputation grew.  Four years later the family moved to Monte Carlo, where Escoffier went to work for the Grand Hotel.  In due course Escoffier met Cesar Ritz, an expert in hotel management.  The two formed an unbeatable partnership, and were hired by the Savoy Hotel in London.  The Savoy blossomed under the culinary and management expertise of Escoffier and Ritz.  They were able not only to attract an elite class of clientele, but also to raise the acceptance and experience of dining out to an event in itself.  During this period of time Escoffier named some of his gastronomic creations after famous customers; Peach Melba and Melba toast  both in honor of Nellie Melba the Australian singer; fraises a la Sarah Bernhardt in honor of the American actress Sarah Bernhardt; Supremes de Voailoles Jeannette in memory of the crew of the 1881 failed expedition to the North Pole on the ship Jeannette; Tournedos Rossini in honor of the Italian composer Gioacchino Rossini.  In 1898 Escoffier and Ritz ventured out on their own, opening the Hotel Ritz in Paris followed by the Carlton in London.  In 1902 Escoffier published the second of what would become the eight books to his credit.  It was called Le Guide Culinaire (Guide to Cooking).  It is considered to be not only a recipe reference, but is still used as a textbook in many culinary schools today.

I have given a brief biography of Escoffier’s life.  This tale, authored by N. M. Kelby, weaves a love story around the facts.  It’s a story of romance and heartbreak, faithfulness and disloyalty, success and defeat, poverty and wealth, years of separation, but above all an enduring devotion that lasted 55 years.  This is a beautifully written novel that I highly recommend.

February 6, 2012

This book was originally published in 1919 and reprinted several times before the 2004 edition I picked up at Goodwill.  It was written as a sequel to the mystery “Parnassus on Wheels”, where the lovable middle aged book shop proprietors, Roger Mifflin and his wife Helen, were first introduced.  The tale opens in Brooklyn, New York, where there is a two story brownstone turned used bookshop, with a shingle on the building that reads “Parnassus At Home, R. and H. Mifflin, Booklovers Welcome! This Shop Is Haunted”. Not to worry, the haunting is by the ghosts of all great literature.  On this particular evening Helen is away, leaving Roger in charge of customer service at the shop for the extended evening hours.  Roger is happily smoking and reading a cookbook waiting for his next patron to make an appearance, for he believes with all his heart that his calling in life is to guide his fellow citizens in making interesting and informed book selections.  Roger’s gastronomic contemplations are interrupted by the arrival of a young man named Aubrey Gilbert.  Aubrey  has come out on this wet November evening to make a cold call, hoping to spark Roger’s interest in purchasing advertising.  Roger explains that he doesn’t do any advertising, because he relies on the authors of his books to take care of any advertising that is needed.  For if he sells a book and it delights the purchaser, then that book and its buyer become living advertising. Just to show there are no hard feelings, and because he is a jovial sort of guy who likes company when his wife is absent so he can expound on books, Roger invites Aubrey to join him for dinner in the back of the shop where he and Helen have a couple of rooms they call home.  

The two men enjoy their meal, an adequate but cheap glass of wine, and lively conversation, most of it revolving around authors, books, and book selling which would be an education and an entertainment for any book lover, including myself. During the course of their exchange the name of Mr. Chapman comes up, who is a well-to-do mutual customer for both men.  Aubrey writes advertisements for Mr. Chapman’s Daintybits prune company, and Mr. Chapman is a frequent customer of “Parnassus At Home”.  Roger reveals that Chapman has a daughter who has been off at finishing school where Chapman feels her head has been filled with ridiculous and snobbish rubbish.  Chapman is so enamored with the bookseller’s life, that he has asked the Mifflin’s if they would be willing to take in his daughter as a boarder to teach her the trade in hopes that being surrounded by books will put some sense in her head.  At this point their chat is interrupted by the jangling of the front door bell as a customer enters the shop.  Roger excuses himself by saying he really has to get back to the store, as the late evening is usually busy and his customers expect him to be available.  Thus Aubrey is taking his leave when he overhears a customer asking for a copy of Carlyle’s “Oliver Cromwell”, and more importantly Roger’s dismay at not finding it on the shelf where he knows he has just seen it.    

Within days Mrs. Mifflin returns from her trip, Titania Chapman arrives, Aubrey drops by and meets Titania which cements his interest in spending time at Parnassus At Home, and Carlyle’s “Oliver Cromwell” mysteriously appears and disappears several more times.  When Roger hosts his monthly meeting for a group of booksellers and discovers that several of his colleagues have also recently had requests for the book, and then reads a classified ad pleading for help in retrieving a lost copy of the same book, our amiable characters begin to wonder what game is afoot. Aubrey becomes involved in the Cromwell mystery by chance, but the conundrum turns dangerous when he is followed and then assaulted. Fearing for Titania’s safety, Aubrey sets about unraveling and solving the baffling elements of this misdemeanor, which in the end prove to be serious indeed.

This was a charming book with endearing characters and a successful if somewhat trivial mystery.  The true gem of this work was the combination of an enjoyable story intertwined with a late 19th and early 20th century literary education. Perhaps that should be no surprise, as this book was dedicated to Booksellers, “in affection and respect”.   

January 19, 2012

Irving Stone is a wonderful author who had a gift for transforming history into stories that come alive.  He wrote the monumental work, “The Agony and the Ecstasy”, a powerful and moving biographical novel about Michelangelo, and one of my all time favorite books.  He also wrote “Those Who Love”, the story of John and Abigail Adams; “Love Is Eternal”, about Mary Todd and Abraham Lincoln; and “Lust For Life”, the tragic story of Vincent Van Gogh.  Since these books were all written between 1934 and 1965, and I hadn’t run across an Irving Stone book in years, I was delighted to find a first edition copy of “The President’s Lady” at Goodwill, one of the few Irving Stone books I didn’t own and hadn’t read.  

“The President’s Lady” is about Andrew and Rachel Jackson, the 7th President and First Lady of the United States.  The story begins in about 1792 when Rachel was 21 years old. Her three year marriage to Lewis Robards of Harrodsburg, Kentucky was starting to unravel because of Robards insane and unfounded jealous fits resulting in a pattern of mental abuse. Over the next couple of years there were several blowups culminating in Robards repeatedly deserting Rachel or sending her home to her parents.  During this period of time Andrew Jackson came to live at Rachel’s family home just outside of Nashville, Tennessee.  He rented a cabin on the property with another man who became his law partner, and from where the two men conducted their practice.

Because life without a husband, position, status, or the possibility of children during the 18th century would be a tough life indeed, and because divorce was virtually unheard of at that time, Rachel continued to forgive her husband his indiscretions and reconcile with him.  When Robards sent for his wife after their latest eruption, however, Rachel arrived after a 4 day stagecoach ride to find him drunk, abusive, and in no mood for reconciliation.  Lewis’ mother told Rachel to escape while she could.  So with Mrs. Robards’ blessing, Rachel wrote home asking that someone retrieve her.  She waited in a state of high anxiety in her husband’s household for the week it took for one of her family members to come. While her husband was out drinking one evening a rider galloped into the front drive, but it wasn’t the brother she expected, it was Andrew Jackson whom her mother had sent to her rescue!  This made Rachel even more distraught, because if her husband found her leaving with another man no matter how innocent, the violence would be terrible.  She hurriedly grabbed her bag and cloak, and ran to the front yard where her horse had been saddled and brought around.  She nodded to Andrew, mounted her steed, and they were off riding with a purpose, her heart pounding in her chest with fear. 

Rachel decided her husband had committed the final insult, and that she was through with him even if it meant she would have to spend the rest of her life alone.  Lewis did follow, however when word reached Rachel that he was coming, she fled south to get away from him and his influence over her.  She decided to undertake a dangerous and arduous journey almost 2000 miles down the Cumberland, Ohio, and Mississippi rivers, most of the way inhabited by hostile Indians, to stay with friends of the family where she would be safe and welcome. As it turned out, a boat was leaving within days, but the Captain wouldn’t assume responsibility for Rachel unless an experienced Indian fighter was along. The Captain suggested none other than Andrew Jackson, and made the arrangements for him to join them without Rachel’s knowledge…  Rachel and Andrew fell in love during that trip, but knew the only hope for their love would be if a divorce could be obtained back home.  So with heavy heart, Andrew left Rachel in her new location to return to Tennessee and pick up with his life.  

Two months later Andrew raced back to Rachel with the news that Robards had obtained a divorce, and that Rachel was free to marry!  This news was bitter-sweet for Rachel when she learned the divorce had been granted on the grounds of her adultery.  She knew herself to be innocent, and was crushed by the allegations of her wrongdoing.  None-the-less she did love Andrew, and he convinced her to marry him on the spot.  After their honeymoon the Jacksons returned to Tennessee, only to find public opinion against them.  Robards had mounted a smear campaign that Andrew would spend the rest of his life fighting to defend against. Thus begins a love story, interwoven with a legal battle over Rachel and Andrew’s honor, wrapped around a political struggle to reach the highest office in the country.  This is a courageous, dangerous, frustrating, exciting, beautiful journey to the White House.

January 13, 2012

I love it when I run across a book that has some significance.  I once found a history volume that had been presented to the great historical novelist Kenneth Roberts by the City of Portland.  It not only contains a bookplate from the Maine Genealogical Society, but Kenneth Roberts’ bookplate as well.  Even more exciting are the numerous underlines on important passages throughout the book, and the notes Mr. Roberts wrote in the margins when he was researching one of his many chronicles.  I of course purchased it immediately!  

Another book of some significance is this review’s volume, which I couldn’t pass up when I noticed it at a second hand bookstore.  It is a first edition hardback copy stamped on the inside cover “with compliments of Doubleday & Company, Inc”. Further, there was a note that fell out of the pages as I was flipping through on the letterhead of The Chinook Bookshop in Colorado Springs, Colorado written by the proprietor, Dick Noyes. The note says “Dear Paul, The Doubleday representative from Denver (Mr. Bob O’Connor) left this copy with us — I knew you’d want to see it. We’ll be most interested in your thoughts of it”.  It is signed “Dick” and dated 8/18, which must be 1966, the publication year of the book.  In addition, there is a fascinating outline of an opinion of the book written on the title page in cursive which includes “References to Briand p.3”. When I turned to page 3, there was an underlined passage which referred to Air Force Captain Briand. The name “Briand” also is written on the inside cover of the book in cursive, and the writing matches the writing of the opinion on the title page.  When I looked up Captain Briand on the internet, I discovered that Briand’s first name was Paul, and that he also wrote a book about Amelia Earhart called “Daughter of the Sky”.  I am certain this book belonged to Captain Paul Briand, who died in 1986.

Fred Goerner, the author of “The Search For Amelia Earhart”, worked for CBS when his story begins, doing an evening news radio program for KCBS in San Francisco. While searching for interviewees to include in his nightly show, he saw a newspaper story in the San Mateo Times about a Mrs. Akiyama who lived in the South Pacific on Saipan Island in 1937. She had since moved to the United States, but as an 11 year old she remembered two white American fliers who fit the descriptions of Earhart and Noonan.  They landed their airplane in the water near Saipan, and were taken into custody by the Japanese. This article piqued the interest of Goerner, an amateur pilot himself, who spent the next 6 years researching the story.  His investigations took him on 4 trips to the islands in the South Pacific and included thousands of interviews with islanders, military personnel, Earhart family members, Earhart’s flight mechanic, and Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz.  This was an absolutely fascinating story, very readable, which reveals a surprising and tragic ending for the celebrated aviatrix and her navigator. Not at all the ending we think we know.  I highly recommend this book.

December 14, 2011

Rosamunde Pilcher is one of my favorite authors.  Her writing is as comforting as the interiors she describes with the fire lighted, the slightly worn chintz cushions fattened, the velvet drapes pulled against the cold night air, and the drinks table ready with glasses polished.  This story begins with the 62 year old eccentric Elfrida and her dog, Horace, who move from London to the countryside to begin their retirement years as well as escape sad memories after the death of Elfrida’s lover, Jim. In her new location Elfrida takes a little cottage and becomes familiar with the locals. Her closest friends are a couple named Gloria and Oscar Blundell, and their 12 year old daughter, Francesca.  

As fall approaches a catastrophic event catapults the main characters north to Scotland to try to make sense of life and find solace to heal.  As the days proceed and settle into a routine, the predictability of life’s daily events begins to contribute to a gradual renewal of crushed spirits: evenings around a crackly fire with an amber glass of scotch, walks with the dog on a nearby pebbly beach, watching the snow change the landscape into a softer reality, shopping at the nearby market, beginning the first hesitant conversations of friendship, afternoon tea by the roaring stove in the kitchen, and the daily visits of the capable Mrs. Snead who comes to push around the Hoover and change the sheets. As Christmas approaches and the tiny Scotish town is teeming with activity, our main characters decide not to celebrate this year.  Then the house unexpectedly begins to fill with a collection of others who for various reasons are all carrying their own baggage of sadness, abandonment, loneliness and grief.  

This story is about the reawakening of unhappy hearts, the healing that time and routine can have on a crushed soul, and the spark that companionship and affection can ignite in the spirit of humanity.  This is also a story about complex relations, and how really simple they can be when distilled down to love.  There are very few books I have read more than once, but this one I try to make the time to pick up each December to renew my spirit.  The end in particular, makes my heart soar with gladness.  

December 8, 2011

It was the beautiful, delicate, exotic flower in the title of this book that attracted me like a bee to pollen.  Not only do I love to look at orchids, but I love to grow them as well.  I have a bay window above my kitchen sink loaded with my lovelies. This was an interesting story, actually non-fiction, based on a January 23, 1995 magazine article the author wrote for The New Yorker.    

The premise of this story is obsession, the obsession of orchid growers in general, and the obsession of John Laroche in particular.  John Laroche is the main character of “The Orchid Thief”.  At the time the story begins he is a tall, thin, intelligent 34 year old who is living in Florida and has been successfully growing, propagating, and selling orchids for the past 12 years in his own nursery.  Through a variety of mishaps; a devastating frost, a bad batch of fungicides, and Hurricane Andrew, Laroche lost his plants and his greenhouses.  Rather than giving up, Laroche applied for a job with the Seminole Tribe of Florida who were looking for an expert to start and manage a nursery for them.  He got the job, but rather than purchase plants to start the nursery, Laroche became obsessed with the idea of collecting rare, endangered orchids from the wild.  Since these orchids were currently only available on the black market and difficult to propagate, his plan was to figure out how to cultivate them, then flood the consumer market thus protecting the plants in the wild, destroying illegal trade, and making a killing in the process. The only problem was that Laroche had to poach the plants from their natural habitat before he could begin his scheme.  He thought he had found a way around this by researching past legal cases involving Native Americans and their exemption from laws concerning plant gathering.  So one December day in 1993 Laroche and three Seminole men from the Tribe set out for the Fakahatchee Strand, a South Florida swamp rich in cypress trees, humidity, bugs, venomous snakes, alligators, snapping turtles, poisonous plants, wild hogs, boggy water, sinkholes, but also unusual and exquisite orchids.  Laroche and his crew were detected, and a ranger was waiting for them when they came out of the swamp laden with pillowcases and garbage bags full of protected plants.  Thus began a legal battle which piqued even the interest of the American Orchid Society.

This was an interesting story, regardless of the fact, or maybe because of it, that I had to sometimes cock my head and furrow my brow as I read certain passages about the audacity and arrogance of the main character.  What I really enjoyed about this book was the author’s inclusion of the annals of orchids and orchid collecting.  There was a wealth of fascinating information for example; orchids are one of the few things in the world that can live almost forever, orchids have no natural enemies except bad weather, viruses, and owners who don’t know how to care for them, it takes 7 years for a pollinated orchid seed to become a flowering plant, Charles Darwin studied and was fascinated by orchids, orchids originated in the tropics and have since spread throughout the world, orchid seeds are so tiny they can be carried by air currents, a hurricane can transport billions of seeds thousands of miles, orchids belong to the largest flowering plant family on earth, and orchids are also the most highly evolved flowering plants.  I have only scratched the surface of the remarkable facts about orchids that Susan Orlean skillfully wove into her narrative.  It was not lost on me that Ms. Orlean concluded about orchid collecting that it is almost impossible not to get caught up in the passion surrounding it.  She noticed that many enthusiasts she spoke with while researching this book said they started with one orchid in their kitchen window, soon they had many, eventually becoming a greenhouse in their backyard. This lead to many greenhouses, collecting trips to Asia and Africa, and an ever enlarging budget spent on accumulation and maintenance.  Eventually the hobby became a fervor to acquire the most unusual and expensive specimens which could only be appreciated by a collector - like plants that bloom once a year for only a day.  As for myself, I feel that I am in no danger of such extravagance.  For any of you who are willing to throw caution to the wind and tempt fate, however, I would recommend you read this book, and then start your own collection with a Phalaenopsis orchid.  They are easy to find, easy to grow, and come in a variety of beautiful colors and patterns.

December 7, 2011

“Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip,
that started from this tropic port, aboard this tiny ship.
The mate was a mighty sailin’ man, the skipper brave and sure,
five passengers set sail that day, for a three hour tour, a three hour tour…
The weather started getting rough, the tiny ship was tossed,
if not for the courage of the fearless crew, the Minnow would be lost,
the Minnow would be lost…
The ship set ground on the shore of this unchartered desert isle,
with Gilligan, the Skipper too, the millionaire and his wife, the movie star, the Professor and Mary Ann, here on Gilligan’s Isle.”

Who doesn’t have fond memories of that catchy little ditty from the fall of 1964. I know I do, and by the way, I typed it as I sang the words from memory! Whether you watched and laughed hilariously with abandon as a child growing up, enjoyed it and guffawed with your children, or sniggered along as an adult home alone, there is something timeless about Gilligan’s Island.  Something that draws us in, makes us giggle, helps us to forget the seriousness of life.  

I was pleased to run across this book recently at Goodwill.  I would certainly have bought it new in 1993 if I had known it had come out.  It was written by Russell Johnson, more affectionately known as the Professor, and is chock-full of tidbits of information about the show, the actors, and life after Gilligan.  For instance, did you know that the name Gilligan came from the Los Angeles phone book, chosen because if sounded happy and funny?  Did you know that Gilligan’s Island only ran for three seasons, but holds the re-run record?  Did you know that the pilot for Gilligan’s Island was filmed in Kauai, Hawaii on the beach at Moloa’a Bay?  Did you know that Jerry Van Dyke was originally pursued for the part of Gilligan by Sherwood Schwartz, the creator?  Did you know that President Kennedy was shot on the last day of filming the pilot?  If you watch the first season show opening, which was recorded in black and white, you can see a flag at half mast as the S.S. Minnow steams out of the harbor during the theme song. And finally, I know you don’t know this… The Professor now lives on another tiny island surrounded by the cold lapping waves of Puget Sound in Washington State… That would be my hometown, Bainbridge Island.

This was a truly delightful book, one that took me back to my childhood when my sisters and I would come home from school and watch Gilligan’s Island every day while we were waiting for our parents to come home form work.  In fact reading Mr. Johnson’s book gave me so much enjoyment, that I went out and purchased all three seasons of Gilligan’s Island on DVD, which I am now watching with my son.  I have just scratched the surface of the gems of information that are awaiting you inside the covers.  Have fun on your visit down memory lane!

“So this is the tale of our castaways, they’re here for a long long time,
they’ll have to make the best of things, it’s an uphill climb.
The first mate and his skipper too, will do their very best,
to make the others comfortable in their tropic island nest.
No phone, no lights, no motor cars, not a single luxury,
like Robinson Crusoe, as primative as can be.
So join us here each week my friends, you’re sure to get a smile,
from seven stranded castaways, here on Gilligan’s Isle!”