book review: The Zookeeper’s Wife (Diane Ackerman)

Wow, what a great read!

McCullough-style biography: details, details, details. Like when reading McCullough’s work, I learned a lot while reading Ackerman’s book about how to bring in additional information about weather, people’s appearances etc. from external sources rather than trying to depend on scant details from the individual. She really brought Antonia’s story to life, while providing a fresh perspective on what it was like to live in Warsaw in WWII, on the other side (outside) of the ghetto walls. So besides being a great learning tool for a non-fiction writer, it was just such an interesting read in itself. Bravo!

dry cleaners in Boston

Maybe dry cleaners are this way all over the world, but did you know that it’s almost impossible to find out dry cleaning prices in the Boston area online? I mean … hello!?!?

Now I feel like it’s my mission to seek out all of the local cleaners and post their prices for the poor victim consumers who just want a freshly pressed skirt or whatever. I mean, they’ve got you, right, all the way there with your hands full of stuff to be cleaned. Are you actually going to leave and find another place if you find out once you get to the desk that they charge too much? How much is too much? The only way you’d know is to call all those cleaners up or drive around town and stop in at them.

So I did that. Well, not exactly all the local cleaners, but a couple at least. The funniest was Anton’s.

Anton’s is a chain that had some good reviews online – it came up in a “Best Boston dry cleaners” google search. People commented on clean items (I hope so!) but not so much on prices. Anyway, there was one pretty convenient to me, so I stopped in, my arms laden with shirts, sweaters, and even a down comforter.

When I plopped my stuff on the counter, the older teenager behind the desk looked over from where he stood chatting on his cell. A shorter pre-teen stepped up to do the work.

I look up above his head, hoping to see a menu like in Burger King. Shirts $1.00, Sweaters $3.00. Combo meal (shirt, sweater, pants) for $5.00.

OK, I’m allowed to hope, right?

“Do you have a price list?”

Pre-teen looks around nervously, not prepared for such an odd question. “Price list? No, we … hey, do we have a price list?” He turns to teen-on-cell.

“No.”

“OK, how much is it for a shirt?” I motion to the pile on the counter.

“They’re $2.20 each.”

“Really?” Sounds like a lot to me. “Can you just get them pressed, not cleaned? How much is that?”

Teen-on-cell and pre-teen look at each other. “No, I don’t think … no.”

No I need to dig deeper. “OK, so how much is a sweater?”

Teen-on-cell closes his phone. “Listen,” he says, “it’s really expensive. It’s like $6.50 a sweater. I wouldn’t bring my stuff here. You should go to, like, some small place.”

Are you for real? I ask myself, as I watch pre-teen nodding, confirming everything teen-on-cell said.

“OK.” I am unsure what else to say. “Thanks,” I tack on, as I pile everything back up and lug it back to my car. Wow, who knew?

On to the next joint! I had also read about a mom-and-pop place nearby that people seemed to like. Comments mentioned the friendly couple who owns and runs the place, and talked about how clean everything came back, and how reasonable the prices were. Ding, ding, ding!

The wife was there when I entered, and wow, the comments were right on. Super-friendly, and she helped me work through what would be the best way to treat some of the stranger pieces I had. Like pressing and not cleaning a silk shirt, and washing instead of dry cleaning a pretty dirty comforter. They were also much cheaper than Anton’s, that’s for sure. $1.40 for each shirt, and $3.95 for sweaters or pants. $20 for the down comforter – not bad. I’m picking stuff up later this week, so we’ll see how clean it all turns out! But so far it seems like the right choice.

I guess dry cleaning is usually one of those things that – once you decide to do it – it doesn’t really matter how much it costs. Would you drive across town to get something done for $4 instead of $6? Maybe not, if the expensive place is around the corner, and you only bring in one or two things at a time. And since none of them post their prices anywhere, how would you even know that it’s cheaper somewhere else? Riiiight …

coming up: Billy Wilder festival

Another one of those scratching-my-head moments: “Aaaah, that name sounds familiar – who was that guy?”

My husband mentions the movie “One-Two-Three” – one of my favorites! and “The Apartment” and others I wanted to see. So I look him up, and, holy cow, was he a somebody!

Elevator biography: Born in Austria-Hungary in 1906, emigrated to the US (family died in Auschwitz), became a great Hollywood director in the 1930s, died in 2002 after a long and amazing career. Credits include:

Ninotchtka (Greta Garbo, with her famous kissing line: “Again …”)

Double Indemnity (co-written with Raymond Chandler, film noir, gotta see this!)

The Lost Weekend (another on my must-see someday list – I’ve gotta get cracking!)

Stalag 17

Some Like it Hot, The Seven Year Itch, Sabrina (good, good, good!)

The Apartment (another to-see!)

movies to see: Oscar winners from the 80s

Still to see:

1989 – Driving Miss Daisy. Although I don’t really have a lot of interest in seeing this one, I have to see it before I can see how it stacked up against the rest that year, bother.

1983 – Terms of Endearment. Another one I hadn’t really been interested in seeing, but I guess I have to now …

1981 – Chariots of Fire. OK, I’ve definitely seen bits of this when it’s been on TV, and I remember the song that went along with it of course, but I guess it deserves a full viewing before I render further judgment.

1980 – Ordinary People. Ah, this one I kind of want to see. I think I remember hearing about it, in the “this movie is too grown-up for you” sense.

Already saw:

1988 – Rain Man. Hmmm, not a Tom Cruise fan, so it made it hard to like this movie, although it was a great script and well done overall. My preference that year would’ve been for Dangerous Liasons.

1987 – The Last Emperor. Oooh, tough call. Nice, grand sweeping picture, but I have to say that Hope and Glory was just so well done that it would’ve gotten my vote.

1986 – Platoon. Yes!! Awesome flick. ‘Nuff said.

1985 – Out of Africa. Yawn. Too boring for me. I wasn’t thrilled by any of these choices as a best picture, although I liked The Color Purple (probably more because of the great book than the movie though) and Witness was pretty exciting.

1984 – Amadeus. Oooh, I adored this movie. But then again, I’m a huge fan of Mozart, Vienna, and the like. The Killing Fields was another amazing movie that year, so it would have been a tough call for me.

1982 – Ghandi. I vaguely remember seeing this and liking it, although E.T. definittely sticks in my mind more!

book review: Speak (Laurie Halse Anderson)

I’ve wanted to read this, for a while years after all the hype. (I’m not one of those mid-hype readers.)

Finally I got my motivation, since the author is coming to speak at the NESCBWI conference this April. I’ve already read her historical fiction novel “Fever: 1793” about the yellow fever in Philadelphia – wicked good read.

But I wasn’t too excited about a contemporary high school story. Another girl on the outside, feeling left out etc. etc. etc. But that’s about all I knew about it, and man, was I intrigued as the story unfolded.

This one has it all – it’s an “issue” book, but totally character-driven,  and what characters indeed! Multi-dimensional and very realistic.

Makes me glad I didn’t grow up in Syracuse …

book review: Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child (Marc Weissbluth)

When you’ve got twins, you might not remember sleep. I’m hoping to get some again at some point in my life. In the meantime, I read books about what you’re “supposed” to do to get your kiddies to sleep (ignoring the ridiculous claim that 6 hours of sleep is technically sleeping through the night -bah!).

This particular one was a pretty good one – it was actually recommended by Elizabeth Lyons in “Ready or Not – Here We Come!” about the first year with twins.

We are in the fifth month without a real night of sleep, and yet it seems we are doing all the “right” things and are on the right track. So we’ll see when the little girls finally tire of seeing  out sleep-deprived faces in the middle of the night …

book review: Vita Brevis (Jostein Gaarder)

Yes, Life is Short.

The subtitle of this book is “A Letter to St. Augustin,” and so, yes, I had to have it. That plus one of my favorite authors wrote it. I’ve been slogging through the Confessions for a while now (guess I should add that to the “what Kip is reading” list too!), mostly because Sophie Scholl and her circle of her friends were pretty obsessed with them way back when. More on Sophie Scholl another day.

Vita Brevis was a little hard to track down actually, and I can see why. Thanks to my husband for tracking down a new copy from an online bookseller!! I pretty much dropped the rest of my reading list when this one showed up on our doorstep, and it was well worth it for me.

Not for everyone though. It was a little out there, and it had that “is it fact, or is it fiction?” blurring of the lines that strikes my fancy and drives other people nuts. Like other Gaarder titles, it draws on philosophy, Latin, classics, and historical times, things that amaze and interest me to no end.

I read some of the amazon.com reviews by readers, and was interested to see that everyone assumed that the forward by Gaarder – that he finds the letters in an antiquarian bookshop in Argentina – was fact. For me, this was as potentially fiction as the rest.  And part of the draw to delving right in, I must add.

On the negative side, it didn’t have the same huge page-turning appeal as Sophie’s World or some of his other works. For me, it was more of a personal interest in St. Augustine’s life, and the fresh perspective from the letter of his former lover Floria – a letter which may or may not be a forgery. Nice.

What Kip is reading

I have too many books I’m reading now (help!). Here is my current list:

  • The Omnivore’s Dilemma (Michael Pollan)
  • The Boy Who Dared (Susan Campbell Bartoletti) – DONE! Need to review …
  • The Silenced (James DeVita) DONE! Need to review …
  • A Drowned Maiden’s Hair (Laura Amy Schlitz) DONE! Need to review …

Stay tuned for reviews as I finish them!

movies to see: Oscar winners from the 90s

Still to see:

No way! I’ve actually seen them all! I can hardly believe it myself …

Already saw:

1999 – American Beauty. Definitely a winner in my book.

1998 – Shakespeare in Love. This must have been a wicked tough year for the judges! I was pulling for Life is Beautiful that year, which at least won for Best Foreign Film, and Benigni won Best Actor. But I did also really like Shakespeare in Love, Elizabeth, and of course Saving Private Ryan.

1997 – Titanic. Definitely a good movie, but a bit too Hollywood-y for my tastes. I would have picked the much more Bostonian (a-hem) Good Will Hunting, which grabbed Best Original Screenplay.

1996 – The English Patient. Can you say “barf”? Or perhaps more appropriately “gag”? To this date, I have not seen a movie with that woman (Kristin Scot Thomas, barf) or that man (Ralph Fiennes, gag) which has not made me barf or gag. A much better movie in my opinion was Fargo (you knoooow?).

1995 – Braveheart. OK, this was a good one. Nice historical picture with a ton of action. But of course I was pulling for the much more literary Il Postino, based on the exile of Pablo Neruda.

1994 – Forrest Gump. I’m not denying this was good. But a bit too schmalzy for my tastes. I much preferred Pulp Fiction. My favorite line: “But bacon tastes GOOD.” (10 points if you know which character said that)

1993 – Schindler’s List. Finally, one that should have won! Enough said.

1992 – Unforgiven. Way to go, Clint! Another very deserving movie that actually won.

1991 – The Silence of the Lambs. No way! I actually didn’t remember that this one won. A thriller – how thrilling! This movie scared me silly, but of course, I’m a major wimp in that department. But looking at the other choices, I don’t see that there was much of anything better that year, so I’d have to agree.

1990 – Dances With Wolves. Tough call. This was good, but I was pulling for Good Fellas, which is, after all, one of the best gangster movies of all time (although I now have a softer spot for The Departed).