EX LIBRIS

“Mark Twain: Man in White,” by Michael Shelden, 484 pages, with illustrations. Twain’s final years were full of drama, deaths and voyages that are here described in loving detail and give us a full and sympathetic view of the friends and the times that surrounded him then. It is not surprising to find among them Woodrow Wilson, Helen Keller and Henry Rogers, Head of Standard Oil, who helped Twain out of some of his more disastrous business ventures and remained a stalwart  companion until his own death. The narrative’s striking detail has been well documented by the archives of the Bancroft Library in Berkeley, where researchers continue to discover a trove of original material. A book to be enjoyed – check it out.
“A Slap in the Face: Why Insults Hurt – and Why They Shouldn’t,” by William B. Irvine. A curious investigation into the subject by a pedantic author who has been attempting to incorporate the Greek Stoics into his own life and gives us some cases where it seems to work. While his opinions scarcely qualify as valid findings, he does make a good case for Stoic philosophy; the book is easy to put down.
“Tom: The Unknown Tennessee Williams,” by Lyle Leverich. 644 pages, with illustrations. Thomas Lanier Williams was born into a sadly dysfunctional family, his beloved sister, Rose, committed to an institution with severe schizophrenia; from this milieu he was able to transmute his experience into his first great success, “The Glass Menagerie.” Along the way he adopted the pen name Tennessee Williams. This book gives us the painful details of his transformation, including a time spent at the MGM studio in Hollywood, along with Faulkner and Hemingway, each fully frustrated by the system in place there. The author draws upon letters and journals to give a sympathetic picture of Tom as he makes his progress through the world of theater at a time when the country went into depression followed by World War II. Check it out.
“J.D.Salinger, The Escape Artist,” by Thomas Beller. 181 pages. Salinger’s biographers are often left with no more than the discussion of how difficult it is to uncover information on his secluded life. (A court decision concluded that he was correct in claiming exclusive rights to all words in his letters wherever found.) This book is no exception, larded as it is with conjecture and spurious critical readings of his literary work to support biographical notions without real evidence. It seems Salinger has escaped again from his pursuers.
“All The Light We Cannot See,” by Anthony Doerr. 530 pages, and you wish there were more. “The feral energy of orphans” is one of many perfect images Doerr is capable of in his brilliant diamond of a book that draws on our collective memory of the last war in France perpetrated by a misbegotten Aryan tribe following the madness of their leader. As its protagonists converge at the close of their adventures, I could not turn the pages quickly enough, yet savoring its splendid prose and endearing characters. A walk-in copy is available courtesy of the Friends of the Healdsburg Library. Check it out soon.
– Simon Jeremiah