Category: Non-Fiction

What, you say — a gardening book? Who sits down and reads a gardening book?  True confession time, I do.   This guide turned out to be ideal for my city-small garden and my raised vegetable growing beds.

The book opens with this great passage:

It’s a beautiful day. There’s not a cloud in the sky. The temperature is in the mid-80s. And there you are in your backyard, picking loads of vegetables from your own small garden tucked away in the corner of your property. Tomatoes, onions, corn, beans, you’ve grown them all—in fact, more than you ever dreamed possible from such a small space.
Impossible?

Of course not. That’s exactly what a postage stamp garden is intended to do and what you will learn to do in the next several chapters. The techniques outlined here allow you to double or triple the quantities of vegetables you might normally grow in any given space.

First published 40 years ago, in this newly revised edition, Ms. Newcomb introduces us to a radical style of gardening tailored for  “postage stamp” or small space gardens.  She advocates planting seeds much closer than recommended on the seed packets, with no neat rows and succession plant so you have crops all year round (depending on your location).

She goes on to explain the history of this technique.

 The history of this incredible gardening system began in the 1890s. Outside Paris, a few enterprising Frenchmen began raising crops using a new method they discovered. Over their land they spread an 18-inch layer of manure (plentiful in the day of the horse and buggy) and planted their vegetables so close together in this rich material that the leaves touched one another as the plants grew. Under this carpet of leaves, the ground remained moist, warm, and vigorous. During periods of frost, they set glass jars over the tiny plants to give them an early start. So good were the Frenchmen in devising fresh ways of growing things that they were able to produce nine crops a year. Such was the birth of the French Intensive method of gardening, an early form of what we now call intensive gardening.

The benefits of this technique, besides year-round vegetables, are quite attractive — you need less water (key here in California) and it requires less weeding (hear-hear!). Not to say that postage-stamp gardening doesn’t have it’s challenges – it does — but they are clearly and simply explained in this book.

She makes it easy to understand her concept of  “crop stretching” — that is, when succession planting in an area that has frost and winter (poor you) you should alternate your crops – early spring planted crops (spinach)  are replaced by later crops (beans).  Also, if you’ve just harvested slow-growing crops (broccoli) in late summer you now have a short growing season left, so plant a quick maturing crop such as green onions.   If your garden is in a temperate climate (like mine) you can plant the same crops in succession all year long (as with lettuce or spinach).  She goes on to explain “intercropping” — planting quick maturing crops between slower maturing crops.  You harvest the intercrops before the maturing crops have grown big enough to crowd the smaller plants out.  That’s getting double duty out of your postage stamp bed.

The author has given detailed drawings of sample garden layouts, (sorry for the poor photo) there are several designed to fit a 4×4 bed.  Look at all the produce! Click to make larger.

The last half of the book is filled with a vegetable by vegetable guide – Ms. Newcomb recommends heirlooms and gives a cute little postage stamp rating (1 to 4 stamps) to indicate which are best for postage stamp gardens.  And each section gives crop stretching advice — “you can follow beans with a planting of cabbage…”

There are additional sections covering:  Plants That Like Each Other; Herbs; Companion flowers; Composting and Pest Control.

After reading this book, I felt like a beginning gardener all over again.  Turns out I’ve been doing it all wrong — plant my vegetables once (or twice) during the year, always in neat rows, thin the small seedlings, and rejoice over what now appears to be very paltry results.

So, if you have a small garden or don’t want the work of a larger one, this is the book for you.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have seeds to plant.

While reading this book, I kept thinking of my sister.  From a very young age, she loved organizing and keeping things in order.  Her room was always neat as a pin with everything in its place.  She would put away the toys while we were still playing with them and loved organizing anything – mom’s kitchen drawers, my jewelery box…anything slightly messy was at risk of little sister putting it in order.

It’s no wonder I was reminded of my sister — Marie Kondo also grew up wanting to organize and tidy things – from her classroom, to her siblings rooms to her parents kitchen and has turned this lifelong passion (obsession?) into a phenomenon in Japan.

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up is a small book – purposely designed to take up very little space.  It has a calming clouds and sky image on the cover and easy to hold it in your hands. From the beginning I really warmed to the word “tidy” – such a sweet, old-fashioned word, which seems gentler and more approachable than many other guides and television shows focused on getting organized or how to clean out your awful hoarding mess things. This book is translated from Japanese, so some of the writing is a bit clunky, but nonetheless,  I gathered some new ideas, and shook my head at others, while making my way through this book.

She divides people who can’t stay tidy into three types:  “Can’t throw it away”, “Can’t put it back”, and “first two combined.” Well, that rang true right off the bat. Ms. Kondo goes on to bust the usual practice of cleaning one closet or one drawer at a time.  She advocates cleaning out things (not spaces) in a certain order – and not putting anything back until you’ve finished the process of discarding.  This may be practical in tiny Japanese homes, but I wonder how it would work for the multi-storied, many-roomed homes of America.  For example, Ms. Kondo wants you to take every single piece of clothing in your home and place it on the floor – the mere thought gave me an instant headache.  But it appears that’s the goal —  to overwhelm her clients with the staggering amount of clothing they posses and seldom (or never) wear. As a person who changes sizes with regularity (I have three sets of clothes: fit me now, maybe fit me soon, and in my dreams…) this is a very scary proposition.

Storage solutions (sorry Container Store) are poo-pooed as just a method to perpetuate hoarding.  OK that does make sense but Ms. Kondo goes too far when keeping a spare button box is discouraged because when a button falls off it is usually time to get rid of the clothing?  The question mark is mine.  Should we also not keep a sewing box to make repairs?

When it comes to childhood memorabilia and other things from the past – Ms. Kondo makes good sense with this advice;   “It is not our memories but the person we have become because of those past experiences that we should treasure.  This is the lesson these keepsakes teach us when we sort them.  The space in which we live should be for the person we are becoming now, not for the person we were in the past.”  Whoa — I had to write that down.

This book does point out that mess is often about unhappiness and that tidying can bring happiness – OK that, too is true.  I always feel better when I’ve cleared out a drawer or a closet.   But I’m not sure it’s linked to the spirituality that Ms. Kondo promises.  This little volume is packed with some pretty “out-there” suggestions – greet your home when you enter it.  Say thank you to items before you put them away. Folding clothes with an open palm transmits positive energy.  Do my clothes really need energy of any sort?

Stockpiling is obviously discouraged (sorry Costco, Sam’s Club) and once again I thought of my sister – when she uses one can of tomato sauce, she replaces it with one can of tomato sauce.  No impulsive buy 3 get one free sales for her.  Even though my house is tiny, I have a pantry.  I live in fear of running out of chicken broth. I just looked and currently have three cartons.

The book advocates only keeping things that truly give you joy – which I understand, but what about my the pragmatic things in your life?  My food processor is ugly, it takes up space in my cupboard and it doesn’t actually bring me said “joy” –but when I need it – wow is it practical.  Ms. Kondo lost me with her advice on clearing out books (natch),  She advocates taking each book off the shelf and deciding if the book in your hands brings you joy before deciding whether to keep it.  She feels books left on the shelves have a certain inertia and tend to stay there. Has she never wanted something to read, not sure what, and found the perfect book on your own shelf…now that’s joy.

I fear her OCD  (she empties her purse every single night, placing each of the contents in its own little place, and puts her watch into a little box every night so it can “rest” overnight)  — seeps into her advice, loosing credibility for the real world and the rest of us.    I agree with other reviewers that the book only talks of throwing things away rather than donating, recycling or selling items you’re discarding.  Does Japan have a bottomless landfill?

I shook my head over the impracticality of much of her advice. Ms. Kondo is obviously a single woman and able to keep everything she owns exactly in place …obviously she doesn’t live with messy children or a “I’ll find a use for this someday” husband. Her business is thriving in Japan and this book is a best-seller…but I must admit I only got a few good pointers from the book and overall I found it preachy and overly-simplistic.  So do as I did – get this book from your library – gather what you will from reading it – and then return to your library — no need to add this book to your clutter.

From The New York Times Book Review  “Nora Ephron was the person everybody wanted to hang out with, in part because she was funny and charming but more critically because she made the people she was with feel funny and charming . . . She was the one who listened and then finally tossed in the one fabulous line that brought everything together. Her best writing was exactly the same . . . It takes a particular combination of winning voice and brutal candor, of intimacy and objectivity, to turn what happens to you into a story that means something to the wider world . . . The Most of Nora Ephron gives her fans a chance to rummage through her desk . . . This is the kind of collection meant for snacking . . . She would want readers to meander, sampling things they had never tried or bits that look especially tasty. But I was surprised by how satisfying the big chunks are.” 

Nora Ephron died in June of 2012 and her obituary, also by the New York Times is beautifully written HERE

I can’t top either the NY Times review or their obituary, so please bear with me while I uncritically just gush – I love Nora Ephron – always have, always will.

You know the question — which people dead or alive would make up your perfect dinner party. Well Nora was, and is, always on my list.  I’ve read almost everything she wrote and adore her films – Sleepless in Seattle , You’ve got Mail and Julie and Julia, just to name a few…

A friend gave me this hefty volume of almost everything Nora Ephron wrote.  It’s been next to my reading chair ever since and I’ve been making my way through it little by little.

The volume divides her work by her professions:

The Journalist:  Nora’s early essays from the 1970’s and most of which I’d never read before.  Her essay Journalism: A Love Story overflows with her delight of landing a position at the Post and the legends she encountered — never jaded or blase – she had found her true passion and was greatly in awe of the profession.  The Palm Beach Social Pictorial is a hysterical send-up of a Palm Beach newspaper for which her friend, Liz Smith often wrote a column.  Nora recounts sections from the paper – the goings-on-about town, the ladies who lunch wearing diamonds with their tennis whites, the older women with their younger men and then this – “Bill Carter (now UN ambassador to UNICEF) proved he really does love children by bringing his latest airline hostess”.

The Advocate:  Includes her inspirational  commencement address to Wellesley class of 1996 – contrasting both the sea changes and the backward progression of women’s roles since she attended in 1962.  Imploring the class to break the rules and make some trouble on behalf of all women.

The Profiler:  It’s well worth reading each and every one of these essays — her intimate and often colorful portrayals of the significant women of her age, including Dorothy Parker, Jan Morris, Helen Gurley Brown and Julie Nixon Eisenhower.  Her parody of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo called Lisbeth Salander, The Girl Who Fixed the Umlaut has been passed around among readers of the best-selling series.  If you’ve read any of Stieg Larsson series, you should read the essay HERE (Warning, like Larsson’s books – contains graphic language.)

The Novelist, The Playwright, The Screenwriter: Here this gargantuan book includes the full novel Heartburn, the play Lucky Man and the screenplay When Harry Met Sally.  I’ve already read Heartburn, dipped into Lucky Man but could not stick with it and skipped When Harry Met Sally (I couldn’t read it without replaying the film in my head).

The Foodie:  Nora appreciated food, the New York restaurant scene and the foodies in her life, but here she has to poke fun at it all. Some of her most giggle-worthy essays are in this section.  She reports straight-faced about the Pillsbury Bake Off — which makes the essay all the more funny and she rants about the absurdity of egg-white omelettes.

The Blogger:  Nora (see I feel like I can call her just Nora) was a blogger during the Bush/Cheney administration and her blog gave her full license to rant – with humor and political incorrectness.  Read it and cringe –or weep depending upon your politics.  Her blog also gave her license to finally reveal and confirm the identity of Deep Throat from the Watergate investigation…she self-righteously points out that she knew it all along, but wisely kept her mouth shut.

Personal:  This final section is the best with pieces taken from her other (much more lift-able) books of essays – I Feel Bad About My Neck and I Remember Nothing.  This section also includes my favorite essay Nora ever produced – called On Rapture, an essay about reading. You can read it HERE on Oprah.com  I had this essay ripped out of Oprah’s magazine where it first appeared, and in my reading nook for years.   In On Rapture Nora recounts her delight reading  The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michal Chabon which I promptly read and was (like Nora) simply transported away – please add it to your reading list.  Another essay in this section, Considering the Alternative talks about death, dying and the loss of her dear friend.  “I want to talk to her. I want to have lunch with her. I want her to give me a book she just read and loved. She is my phantom limb, and I can’t believe I’m here without her.”  True confession time – a few tears slipped down my cheeks.

The final two essays are lump-in-your-throat reading, as by this time Nora (and only one or two others) knew of her diagnosis.

What I Won’t Miss:  Dry skin, Email, Bras, Fox (News), Small Print

What I Will Miss:  Waffles, The concept of Waffles, Fireworks, Laughs, My Kids, Dinner with Friends, Pie

I totally enjoyed this book and am very grateful to have it.  (The full length novel, screenplay, and play notwithstanding).  The Most of Nora Ephron will have its hefty place on my shelves, for awhile at least.  I may need to go back and re-read certain essays.  Also, I know I’ll be talking with someone and say – “oh but Nora wrote the best essay on that…here let me get it for you”.  That’s Nora for you.

If you want the collection of most everything Nora has written and you’ve been lifting weights – then this is the book for you. Otherwise go for her books of her most recent essays I Feel Bad About My Neck and I Remember Nothing.

OK I’m done gushing – I just love Nora Ephron and she would have a place of honor at my imaginary dinner party…along with

Ruth Reichel, John Adams, Julia Child, Eddie Izzard, Deborah Cavendish (the Duchess of Devonshire), Dame Judi Dench, Sir John Gielgud, Paula Poundstone, Molly Ivins, Maryalice Fischer, Pat Conroy, Maggie Smith, Jane Heath Donohue…and others.

My cast of characters may change over time, but Nora will always be on the list. 

Photo courtesy of Toad Hall Bookstore

As many of you know I volunteer with THIS organization where they allow me to work in their Readers Bookstores, shelving books, helping customers, working the register – all pure bliss for me.  When working with used books, it seems there is an unwritten rule that any items left in the books stay with the books.  But that doesn’t stop us from examining and commenting on what we find.

There is the expected – bookmarks, airline boarding passes, the store receipt from where the book was purchased and shopping lists.  Then there are photographs – seems dangerous to me to use a favorite photo as a bookmark – only to accidentally leave it in the book when you pass it on.  Handwritten letters or postcards from loved ones – the voyeur in me always reads them before putting them back in the book with a sad sigh as I’m sure the owner never meant to leave them behind.

It’s a fascinating subject – things left behind in books  –so I must introduce you to Michale Popek who has a wonderful blog aptly named Forgotten Bookmarks.  I’ve been a fan since 2007 when Mr. Popek, a bookseller, started his blog to showcase the oddities he found in books.

As his blog header states:  “I’m a used and rare bookseller.  I buy books from people every day.  These are the personal, funny, and weird things I find in those books.”

The blog turned into the book in 2011

Forgotten Bookmarks by Michael Popek

From the back cover:  It’s happened to all of us: we’re reading a book, something interrupts us, and we grab the closest thing at hand to mark our spot. It could be a train ticket, a letter, an advertisement, a photograph, or a four-leaf clover. Eventually the book finds its way into the world-a library, a flea market, other people’s bookshelves, or to a used bookstore. But what becomes of those forgotten bookmarks? What stories could they tell?

A friend gave me a copy of this book as soon as it was released, knowing my penchant for used books and used bookstores — just in time too, because I was about to buy a copy for myself.

The book has full color plates of all the items and is categorized into sections:

• Photographs

• Letters, Cards and Correspondence

• Notes, Poems, Lists and Other Written Ephemera

• Receipts, Invoices, Advertising, and other Official Documents

• The Old Curiosity Shop: From Four-Leaf Clovers to Razor Blades.

 Here’s just a sampling from his collection on the blog — click to view larger or better yet go to his blog HERE:

What stories these items have to tell. Is that a teenage girl’s diary key? Imagine a beautiful summer day, the children playing, collecting four leaf clovers and then carefully pressing them into a favorite story book.  The last photo above is significant, because Mr. Popek has collected so many recipes that he now has a new book:

Forgotten Recipes By Michael Popek

A Booksellers Collection of Curious and Wonderful Recipes Forgotten between the Pages. 

One of the best things about either the blog or the books is that Mr. Popek has taken the time to transcribe the letters, recipes and other hard-to-read,  hand scrawled materials.
So go have fun on his blog or better yet buy his book(s).  You’ll enjoy leafing through, imaging the stories behind each “forgotten” bookmark while you take a break from reading.  Just as I am doing while I strive to finish THIS BOOK– a very mixed review to follow.

• Have you even lost anything by leaving it in a book?
• What’s the most interesting thing you’ve found in book?

I’ve read almost everything by Ann Patchett (Magicians Assistant is one of my all time favorite novels) so I was clambering to read this collection of her essays.

I was surprised to find it available for checkout as an ebook though the S.F Library system – Score!

It’s lovely to have this collection of her personal essays from various sources (New York Times, Harpers, Granta, etc.) all in one place.  As I hoped, the essays give an insight into the author;  her writing career, her marriages, her dogs, her discovery of opera and her bookstore -Parnassus Bookstore in Nashville, Tennessee.  If you’re an Ann Patchett fan you will definitely enjoy this.

However, there was one essay “Do Not Disturb” which disturbed me.  She has a house full of guests getting on her nerves, so she ditches them to her husband’s care and flies to LA to check into the Bel-Air – seriously? She is a successful author and can certainty afford it, but this seemed over the top.

Otherwise these essays are fun, insightful, not too sticky-sweet and very readable.

Some favorite quotes:  “Playing the cello, we’re more likely to realize that the pleasure is the practice, the ability to create this beautiful sound, not to do it as well as Yo-Yo Ma, but still, to touch the hem of the gown that is art itself.”

“The love between humans is the thing that nails us to this earth.”

“There can be something cruel about people who have had good fortune. They equate it with personal goodness.”

(On her husband Karl) “He encouraged me in everything I did.  His answer to every question was yes.  He was proud of me, and he never found a way to undermind my success or spoil a happy moment.”

From Abandonment to Zestlessness – 751 Books to Cure What Ails You

Advance Review Copy from Penguin Press

This is a  fun and wacky reading guide.   It’s a browsing book and, if like me, you’ll keep it next to your reading chair and dip in for short 3-5 page reads.  It categorizes books for us bibliophiles — but not in a way I’ve ever seen before.

The book gives book recommendations by ailment categories such as Constipation – (Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts) to Road Rage – they recommend audio books to dissipate a driver’s fury  – to the best books to read in a hammock .  This book surprises, delights and slightly irritates.

While some of the categories/recommendations are expected – under Racism is Invisible Man, Being Short lists The Hobbit, the book surprises with titles placed in unlikely categories — to offset Loneliness they recommend Tales of the City by Maupin so you can feel a part of a gang of neighbors.  Under Hating your Nose is Perfume by Patrick Suskind.   Sometimes the book irritates with many cross-references, over-zealous use of parenthesis, and some shallowness.  Also, the proof copy lacked page numbers for the much-needed indexes at the back.  The actual book will be much improved with that feature.

For wackiness  – investigate the the section labeled Diarrhea which recommends books for the bathroom.  And some categories are contrived – as in Hemorrhoids – nothing more to be said there.

The book synopsis vary widely – ranging from well-written and poignant to flippant and shallow.  This is not the Guide to English Literature, nor is it a great literary work – but I don’t think authors meant it to be.

I found the “Reading Ailment” sections inspiring as they focus on the reading life, book collecting  and advice —  – “Depletion of Your  Library Through Lending”, “Being Seduced by New Books” (my weakness) and “Reading to live more Deeply”.

One of my favorite of the reading ailments was Finishing, fear of:

You have been delighted by the books, befriended the characters in the books, wolfed down the book, dreamed about the book, missed the book, cried with the book, made love to the book, thrown the book across the room, been dead to the world outside the book – and now you are about to finish the book. We’ve all been there: it is a terrible gutting moment.

But do not despair.  You do not have to leave the world of the book behind.  As soon as you’ve finished the book, read around the book — reviews, literary criticism, blogs, whatever you can find.  Talk to other people who have read the book.  Watch the film of the book. Read the book in another language.  And then, finally, re-read the book.  The best books, by the greatest authors, will stand up to being reread many times in a life and indeed give back more each time. In this way you will never finish the book.  You will become the book, and it will become a part of you.  You have not reached the end.  You are, in fact, just beginning.

Finally, in the Reading Ailment section labeled “Overwhelmed by the Number of Books in the World” I discovered  I’ve missed my calling – becoming a bibliotherapist – is there a course for this? Sign me up!:

Consider booking a consultation with a bibliotherapist who will analyze you reading tastes, habits and years, as well as where you’re at in your personal and professional life, then create a reading list tailored especially for you.