January 2010

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Night by Elie Wiesel – Social Justice Challenge

January 31, 2010 in book review, Challenge, community service, memoir by Kim | 6 comments

Sometimes I am asked if I know “the response to Auschwitz’: I answer that not only do I not know it, but that I don’t even know if a tragedy of this magnitude has a response.  What I do know is that there is “response” in responsibility.  When we speak of this era of evil and darkness, so close and yet so distant, “responsibility” is the key word.  – Elie Wiesel

When I read Holocaust literature as a teenager, I was always the strong determined character who beat the odds and survived.  Tragedy provided a background for my heroic actions as Miep or Corrie Ten Boom.  Motherhood changed all that.  Now I’m the mother who can’t stop the Nazis from forcing her child to dig his own grave.  The mother who trods with so many others in peaceful lines to the gas chambers holding my child’s hand.  Or the very worst, I’m Sophie and I have to choose.  Claire won’t read Holocaust literature anymore, it’s too painful.  I completely support her choice.  If a book comes up that deals with the Holocaust, I quietly warn her to skip it.  But as painful as it is for me to read these stories, there is a part of me that believes if millions of people had to live and die this horror, then the least I can do is witness it in some small way.

My greatest honor as an attorney was the opportunity to work with Bet Tzedek to assist Holocaust survivors in obtaining the “Ghetto Pension” [an aside, if you know if a survivor who has not applied for the 2,000 euro Ghetto Pension/ZRBG pension, please contact Bet Tzedek to determine eligibility, today].  From my limited exposure, it appeared that the survivors who were alive today were swept into the Nazi system late in the war when they were teenagers.  Not too young or too old to fall victim to the selections, strong enough to survive until the war ended within the next 12 to 18 months.  And they barely survived.  My teenage visions of bravery were more illusory than I thought.  Elie Wiesel’s Night supports my very unscientific theory.

The Nazis arrived in Wiesel’s village in Transylvania when he was fifteen.  His experience Read the rest of this entry »

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Franny and Zooey and Me

January 28, 2010 in book review, classics, RIP, short story by Claire | No comments

Why I Love JD Salinger

Kim gets news before I do.  So she shot me an email a few minutes ago, to tell me that JD Salinger had just died.  I’ve said to her in the past that his Nine Stories is probably my favorite book in the whole world, so she asked me if I wanted to write something about him, and maybe include my reasons for loving that book so much, since she didn’t have the same passion for it.  Salinger isn’t about Catcher in the Rye for me, I should be clear on that.  I read it once, didn’t like it, haven’t reread it.  But Nine Stories . . .

Best. Book. Ever.

How do you tell someone why a book gets to you on some deep emotional level?  It’s something both Kim and I have struggled with, I think, as we’ve written this blog and also tried to persuade each other to read certain books.  She loves Atonement; I couldn’t finish it (not because I didn’t like it, but because it was clearly going to be about someone making a false accusation and ruining someone’s life and I can’t bear that kind of a story.  The writing was beautiful).  Anyway, she tried to convince me to finish that and I never did.  So how can I convey to her how Nine Stories is more than just a collection of words to me?

It’s one of the books that made me want to be a writer, I know that much.  And I know that every time I write a patch of dialogue that feels real to me (not as often as I’d like), I think about JD Salinger and how no one has ever written more realistic dialogue, dialogue which sounds like what people might actually say–but resonates in ways that stay with you for a long time.

And then there’s the Glass family.  Or should I say, first and foremost, there’s the Glass family, who are more real to me than most of the people I know.  Seymour and Buddy and the twins and Franny and Zooey and Boo Boo.  Did I leave anyone out?  Probably.  They weave in and out of Nine Stories, sometimes front and center (“A Perfect Day for Bananafish”) sometimes off to the side but still influential (“Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut”).

Oh, god.   “Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut.”  What woman can read that story and not weep for what she thought her life was going to be as opposed to what it is?  In that story, Eloise remember being in love with Walt Glass (who died during the war) and then looks at her life now, married to a guy who’s nowhere near as sensitive or smart as Walt was.  Miserable, drunk, disgusted with what she’s become, she is suddenly, savagely cruel to her own daughter.  And then she says to her friend, desperately, tragically, “I was a nice girl . . .  wasn’t I?”

Well, now I’m crying.  Salinger has that affect on me.  Seven words, that’s all it took.  Seven words–something someone might actually say–and an entire tragic life is summed up, right there. Read the rest of this entry »

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Greenlight Bookstore – Brooklyn, NY

January 27, 2010 in bookstore by Kim | 1 comment

How to open a bookstore with a splash heard all over the country?  Follow the example of Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn, NY.  Two women with a dream to own a bookstore found each other and crafted a thoughtful plan to make it work (okay, maybe I’m spending too much time watching Tim Gunn with my daughter).  I wrote about them in detail on the Bookshop Blog the day of their official opening.  Here they tell their own story:

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Whitewashing

January 24, 2010 in young adult by Kim | 3 comments

Bloomsbury’s cover of Magic Under Glass by Jaclyn Dolamore features a white girl when the protagonist is a girl of color.  This misrepresentation of the main character’s ethnicity caused an uproar throughout the book blog world.  Colleen at Chasing Ray outlined the development of the controversy.  Some bloggers advocated boycotting Bloomsbury; others argued that authors shouldn’t be punished for the actions of a publisher, especially since most authors have little control over the cover art.   Vassilly at 1330V articulated her reasons for boycotting Bloomsbury until the publisher issued an apology:

To whitewash is to erase; to erase a whole community of people who look a certain way. Whether unintentional or not, it’s cruel. When you say that boycotting is not the answer because it hurts the author and that instead I should buy the book, you are telling me that money is more important than integrity. You may not know that’s what you’re saying, but that’s what I hear. By boycotting, I’m taking my power as a consumer and giving my money to another publisher.

Vassilly’s post includes links to several others concerning this issue.  Amy  at My Friend Amy talked at length about growing increasingly aware of racism.  Personally, I regret the hurt feelings caused by Bloomsbury’s actions and some the discussions, but I firmly believe that racism prevails in silence.  Discussions such as the ongoing ones over the last 10 days are important to spotlight and prevent insidious forms of prejudice.

Late last week, Bloomsbury issued the following statement:  ”Bloomsbury is ceasing to supply copies of the US edition of Magic Under Glass. The jacket design has caused offense and we apologize for our mistake. Copies of the book with a new jacket design will be available shortly.”

Want to stay current on the issue of whitewashing?  Consider joining the group Readers Against White Washing on Facebook.  They are “committed to public criticism of publishers who misrepresent characters.”  Publishers and readers will be more aware the this issue if people join together to advocate an end to whitewashing.

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It’s a Library. No, It’s a Bookstore. No, It’s Both!

January 22, 2010 in bookstore, used books, young adult by Claire | 6 comments

Finding some (extra) bliss in Laguna Niguel

Things weren’t going so badly.  My extended family had decided to have a reunion over the holidays and the east coasters readily agreed to come west for the sunny weather.  (Remember sunny weather?  As I write this, it’s been raining nonstop for the last five days.  But normally we DO have sun here in L.A.)  My sister, the master negotiater, had managed to get us a group rate discount on club floor rooms at the Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel in Dana Point, and we were, as the saying goes, sitting pretty: the Club Room offered us five food “presentations” a day–not meals, presentations–although they hadn’t realized who they were dealing with and we certainly showed THEM, managing to make three to four full meals a day out of itsy-bitsy sandwiches and teeny-weeny canapes.

After a few days of sitting and eating our way through the morning, afternoon and evening, we needed a break.  It was time to leave the hotel and tear ourselves away from the chairs in the Club Room which were beginning to take on the curves of our butts.  Someone in our group suggested we walk to town, do a little shopping, work off a little of breakfast (Food Presentation #1) before we committed ourselves to moving on to lunch (Food Presentation #2 although it did occasionally bleed into Food Presentation #3.).  So off we set to go to “town”, like the intrepid explorers we were.

Only problem was: we had no idea where town was or how far.   Or even what it was called: were we going to Laguna Niguel, Laguna Beach, or Dana Point?  Were they all towns?  And which direction were we supposed to go, anyway?  After wandering around aimlessly for a few minutes, we spotted a local library branch and I said, “Oh, I wanted to see if I could check out some books for a day or two.”  So we crossed the street and as we neared the library we saw a sign that said “Book Sale.”

Now, I love library book sales.  Our local Palisades branch does one every couple of months or so and I’ve both donated to it and bought from it (which illustrates the property of either equilibrium or status quo, I’m not sure which).  So my pace quickened with the thrill of the hunt.

As we came toward the entrance of the library, I faltered, a little disappointed: there seemed to be nothing special about this book sale: a few shelving units spread near the entrance of the library with the usual assortment of junky vacation novels for 25 cents a pop, all turning a faded color from being out in the sun.

And then my sister said, “Hey, look.  There’s a real bookstore here.”

And sure enough, there was.  It even had its own entrance, off to the left.  I’d almost missed it.  We went inside and there we found a really really good used bookstore, well stocked and well-priced, run by the Friends of the Dana Point Library, with the proceeds going to the library. Read the rest of this entry »

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