Chronicle of a Last Summer

“Chronicle of a Last Summer” stands out for its modern structure. Rather than writing about what happens in the book, I can write what is in the book, since events are secondary to periods of time. The narrator, whose name never surfaces, lives in Cairo in a family house she describes as being like a castle, in relative socioeconomic privilege. The house is unchanged through all the nameless revolutions and power turnovers from one dictator to the next, through all the family deaths and disappearances.

Country Editor's Boy

What struck me most in “Country Editor’s Boy” was how much this memoir read like fiction, in style. Because Hal Borland was a writer by profession, he might have had a tendency to notice and remember more than his peers – or, he could have done supplementary research to tell his own story, told somewhat removed, as if another person. Because it's not fiction, it's not quite as interesting, but has the elements of any coming-of-age story. Most notably owing to the dialogue, it doesn't feel like the distant past, but breathes as if you stepped back in time and got to see firsthand how things were in Flagler, Colorado, just about 100 years ago. Written when he was an adult, he'd had the time to see the perspective he may have lacked as a youngster.

Sweet As Cane, Salty As Tears

Thirty years after arriving as a 20-year-old in New York City, time rushes back towards Katherine Fontenot. She tried to run from her family in Louisiana, but if she loses her job, if her sister dies, what is she going to do? Her younger sister, “the sane” one, gets gored by a rhinoceros, which after escaping the zoo where Karen-Anne was looking after it, was shot and killed. Much more than her work, the Fontenot family is the heart of this book, and the family lore – the same stories that get told every time, but still make people laugh – get told yet again, for the younger generations to inherit. But more personally, about a third to half of “Sweet As Cane, Salty As Tears” is actually flashbacks, Katherine seeing something, hearing or smelling or sensing, remembering what she left behind.

A Buzz in the Meadow

Dave Goulson is a fine natural history writer, and an important conservationist. His work centers around the less glorious taxa, the insects that underlie the world’s ecosystems yet receive less attention. He has a talent for expressing scientific results, when too often the findings are confined to a bubble where only people specializing in a certain field will read and understand the results. Books like “A Buzz in the Meadow” are needed if you feel you don’t know enough about large groups of life forms like plants and insects. However, if you don’t like thinking about insect parts and reproduction (or that of animals in general), know that this is not for everyone. Still, Goulson is a very good communicator, and this is an excellent book.

Dog Gone, Back Soon

When you need something light and entertaining to read, a book like “Dog Gone, Back Soon” is sure to do the trick. Set in a small town in Vermont, the story of veterinarian Cyrus Mills returning to take over his late father’s practice fits the bill – funny and a good time. There are a lot of subplots that get the narrator into more and more of a pickle. There’s the move to the cold winter from the South,  which can be enough for some people as-is; add to that the challenge of making a second date, a tight budget, a ridiculous and unnecessary threat of competition from the next-town-over’s vet practice, and of course all of the patients he takes on.

Creating Jazz Counterpoint

I love jazz. If you know me, you probably already knew that. I did not, however, know much about the origins of this music, in terms of the first musicians and early songs. “Creating Jazz Counterpoint” fills in some gaps in this knowledge through excellent research and effective communication. Although more of an academic book, Vic Hobson’s writing is clear and concise, and objectively reconstructs what may have happened, based on the sources available.

The Best Gig in Town

Following Edward Allan Faine’s “Ellington at the White House 1969,” “The Best Gig in Town” details the biggest jazz events held at the White House during the Nixon administration. Nixon is not the first president that would come to mind for making jazz a regular feature there, but he hosted several significant events for this genre. Relatively moderate by today’s standards, Nixon presented artists with political affiliations from both sides, always seeking political gain. Because these events had to be planned as carefully as possible, they are well-documented, allowing the author to tell about the lead-ups, the unfolding, and the reaction that followed, sometimes lasting years, as in the Ellington case.

The Evolution of Mann

Herbie Solomon, known as Herbie Mann, made room for the flute as a lead instrument in jazz, and went to the sources of world music to offer a taste of many cultures. Herbie Mann could play bebop with the best of them, but was interested in exploring other subgenres of jazz, and music from all over the world. The flautist went through phases, notably Brazilian bossa nova, and Afro-Cuban before that, both of those before Middle Eastern, Japanese, R&B, and, infamously, disco, among others.

Albina and the Dog-Men

Having read Alejandro Jodorowsky’s “Where the Bird Sings Best,” I was prepared for the weirdness in his second translated novel, “Albina and the Dog-Men.” Weirdness aside, inside, this is a good, entertaining story, a journey, like any good road trip. Quite often I was reminded of Indiana Jones looking for the Holy Grail, and even the Temple of Doom. The three main characters are named for their characteristics, but see transformations that bring out their true names. Crabby, who walks hunched over like a crab, rejected her given male name of Isaac, and later turns this into Isabella. She finds and names amnesiac Albina in the first chapter, and they run from the authorities together, hitting the road. Just when they need help, they join up with the hat maker, Amado Dellarosa, making for a strange kind of love triangle.

Conversations in Jazz

Ralph J. Gleason was a co-founder of “Rolling Stone” magazine, but was also very hip to the jazz scene. “Conversations in Jazz” is a collection of interviews between this man and some of jazz’s greatest artists (all happen to be men). This book very helpfully provides brief introductions to the artists, not just their career highlights but what they were doing around the time of the interview. Gleason seemed to know how to catch them at interesting moments of transition, and mutual trust and respect brings out some honest, open dialogue.