Hail to the Chiefs by Barbara Holland

 

Note:  In honor of Presidents Day, we are re-running this review done in 2013 by Nancy, whose reviews always delighted us with their humor.

Reviewed by Nancy

History can be fun. No, no, I'm not kidding. If you did not enjoy history in school, here's your second chance. You can have fun reading some history and there will not be a teacher lurking about, waiting to give you a grade.

The book you need to read is Hail To The Chiefs by Barbara Holland. Ms. Holland, who died in 2010, was an author and essayist who lived in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains.

If Ms. Holland had not been busy writing, she could have come down from the mountain and been our stand-up history comic. I am not kidding. Her book offers a summary of presidential mischief, quirks and accomplishments from George Washington to Ronald Regan. The book also includes entertaining tidbits regarding presidential wives.

Barbara Holland definitely had a way with words. A great deal of this book, which devotes a few pages to each president, is laugh out loud material. As she states in her discussion of Millard Fillmore, "in the nineteenth century, whenever anything happened the bystanders got together and formed a political party about it." Fillmore was a member of the Anti-Masonic Party, and the author sums him up in this way:  “He wasn't a bad man - in fact, he quite nice. He was just wrong a good deal of the time.” She further states, "In July of 1850 Millard Fillmore found himself President and hit his stride at being wrong."

Or try this tasty tidbit. "James Monroe is remembered for the Monroe Doctrine, which some consider John Quincy Adam's finest achievement."

On Abraham Lincoln she states, "Lincoln never had much fun being President because of the Civil War all the time. It was all ready to roll when he took office, and five days after it was over he was dead as a duck. He had the war, the whole war, and nothing but the war."

On James Buchanan, Lincoln’s predecessor, and the run up to the Civil War she gives us the following:  “He thought if he just sat still and kept his mouth shut, things wouldn’t fall apart until he could hand them over to the next man and run like hell.”

See?  History can be fun. Seriously, it would have been ok with me if this woman had taught half the history courses I ever had.

The fun just never stops. Here’s what Ms. Holland had to say regarding one world conflict: “I don’t recommend your trying to understand World War I unless you plan to make a career of it, and I don’t recommend that either.”

President James Garfield could write Latin with one hand and Greek with the other hand AT THE SAME TIME. I once worked with someone who could render backward cursive writing with her non-dominant hand, but I believe this may top that.

In the section on Ronald Regan, Ms. Holland takes five pages to render a summation of the plot of “Bedtime for Bonzo,” former President Regan’s most famous movie. I believe I have watched parts of that movie, but never the movie in its entirety at one sitting. Upon reading the plot summary I realized why. Even when I was eleven I doubt I could have gotten through it; however, I enjoyed Ms. Holland’s summary immensely.

I suppose it could be a sly “editorial comment of omission” from Ms. Holland that the movie summary constitutes the entire section on Regan. There is nothing about the Iran-Contra difficulties, John Hinckley, Jr.’s assassination attempt on Regan’s life, supply-side economics,  the invasion of Grenada, or any of the rest of his time in office.

If you think you don’t have the desire or the time to read this book, at least get hold of a copy and have a look at the portrait of Millard Fillmore. Mr. Fillmore resembles what current celebrity personality? Correct! Alec Baldwin. It's something about the eyes. Maybe also the mouth.

I felt I was astute to notice this and wondered if anyone else had, so I fooled around on the internet a little. Gee whiz. I'm not the first. If you've got a moment for some silly entertainment, plug "Alec Baldwin Millard Fillmore" into a search engine. The resemblance is uncanny.

As if the body of the text weren’t side splitting enough, most of the footnotes are a riot. I know I’ve gone on enough about all this, so I’m not going to start quoting footnotes, BUT there’s one you just have to read. It’s in the chapter on William McKinley. In the library copy of the book this is on page 174. Start midway through the fourth paragraph and read the text preceding footnote 14. Don’t worry about the context. Just read the last half of that sentence and then the footnote. HA!

I know if I can get this book into your hands you will not be able to keep from reading it, so you’d just better get in to the library and check out that footnote!

The Joy of Drinking by Barbara Holland

                                                          

Today we are re-running a review by a former staff member.  She read widely and had not only a wicked sense of humor but a wonderful way with words.  Enjoy!

Reviewed by Nancy


In her book, The Joy of Drinking, author Barbara Holland traces the history of fermentation from its earliest beginnings to the present. She relates the manner in which people in various parts of the world discovered that if they allowed certain organic substances to ferment, and then drank the liquid that was produced, it made them forget their troubles for a while.

According to Ms. Holland, ancient people were motivated to stop roaming and cluster together in tribes so that they could grow crops for fermentation. Apparently it was more fun to ferment things and dance around together than it was to throw rocks at other families and forage for tidbits.

Apples, peaches, cashews, sugarcane, barley, rice, berries, honey, grapes, potatoes, milk, cactus, coconuts - there is a long list of organic substances that can be fermented, and mankind seems to have tried them all.

The milk mentioned in the previous sentence is mare’s milk (yes, as in horses) fermented by nomadic Mongolians in Central Asia into a beverage called airag. Fermentation was achieved by sewing the mare’s milk up tightly in a horsehide and beating it or tying it to a trotting horse. In modern times airag is made in vats which are stirred frequently by jolly family members and friends.

Marco Polo tried this beverage and maintained that it possessed “the quality and flavor of white wine;” however, a more recent traveler reported that it tasted like “warm sake filtered through a dirty horsehair sock.” I think maybe I don’t need to know the real truth on this one, and will not be traveling to Mongolia to find out.

The author, a resident of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains, leads us through the evolution of brews and the settings for consuming them, with descriptions of taverns, pubs, speakeasies, home beer brewing, Chinese rituals centered on the drinking of wine, Greek dinner parties and feudal mead halls.

Ms. Holland's musings on taverns and public houses in England made me sad that we live in a time in which many of us are so engrossed in our use of electronic devices that we barely need to look at one another, much less go to the tavern and get to know the neighbors. But, way back in the way back when that’s what people did. After a day of labor they flocked to the neighborhood tavern or pub to enjoy good companionship and beverages. Ms. Holland speculates that it was the need for companionship, rather than the desire for drink, that drove these individuals out into the night and across the empty countryside since they brewed beer at home and probably had plenty of it there.

We learn about the consumption of beer soup for breakfast in Germany; beer soup was the standard breakfast for German families until the end of the eighteenth century. I include here a summation of the beer soup recipe in case you want to try it at home. What a great way to fortify yourself before a taxing day. Say you have a job interview, or a court case; have double portions so you’ll be especially smart and strong, as well as relaxed.

Beat two eggs in a saucepan. Warm some beer in a separate sauce pan, adding a chunk of butter to the beer. Then pour cold beer into the warm beer to cool the warm beer (?) and add a small amount of salt. Next pour the beer mixture into the eggs and whisk again. Then pour that mess over bread or rolls or whatever starchy thing you have. The recipe states that you should use “a roll, white bread, or other good bread.”  I question the “good bread” part. Considering what you’re pouring over the bread, I don’t see how it could possibly matter whether or not the bread is good. At the final stage the whole affair can be sweetened with sugar to taste. Maybe the addition of the sugar is what pulls it into focus.                   

There is a chapter in the book, appropriately titled “The Following Day,” that covers various hangover cures, and also explains how the body metabolizes alcohol. Most of the hangover cures sounded pretty wicked to me. I offer one now, for your perusal. It was the favorite hangover cure of the English novelist, Evelyn Waugh. “Take a large lump of sugar, soak in Angostura (bitters) and roll in cayenne pepper, then drop into a generous glass and fill with champagne.”

I believe I would die if anyone ever made me drink this concoction.

I am sure most of us are familiar with the theory of hangover cure that involves “hair of the dog that bit you,” meaning, of course, “drink some more booze.” The National Insistutes of Health refer to this as re-administration, and do not recommend it. The next time you drink a bloody mary on the morning after, remember: you’re not just throwing down some more booze. You’re re-administrating!

Two handy appendices follow the text. Appendix A gives a few recipes for fruit wine, and Appendix B offers rudimentary instructions on how to build a still, just in case you want to make the stuff for yourself.

Bingo Night at the Fire Hall: The Case for Cows, Orchards, Bake Sales & Fairs by Barbara Holland

Reviewed by Kristin

Barbara Holland’s books have been featured in the BPL Bookblog in the past, notably when humor-minded Nancy wrote reviews of The Joy of Drinking in 2012 and Hail to the Chiefs: Presidential Mischief, Morals, & Malarkey from George W. to George W.  in 2013.  I had forgotten those entries when I picked up Bingo Night at the Fire Hall, but it was a pleasure to look back and laugh a little as Nancy regaled us with tidbits that had her snickering, if not downright rolling in the library aisles.

Holland inherited a cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains in 1990, made the decision to leave her fast-paced advertising career in Philadelphia, and headed for the hills near Bluemont, Virginia.  Once away from the big city, she learned that there are degrees of isolation:  living in “town” in the valley is certainly not the same as living “on the mountain.”  Coming from away, as she did, Holland met a tight-knit community where everyone knew everyone else, as well as everyone’s parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and third-cousins.  Eventually she finds her place at the diner, the tavern, the newspaper office and the post office counter.

Just close enough to Washington D.C. to appeal to the city workers, Holland’s little piece of the country began to attract commuters.  The tug between the more developed eastern part of the county and the wilder western part became less balanced over time.  Living in the western mountains, Holland began to lose the desire to be among the suited commuters rushing to their all-important jobs from their suburban/rural homes.  A particularly touching passage describes this phenomenon:

“I go east less and less.  All my life I’d lived on the eastern edge of the country and all my inner compasses pointed toward the Atlantic.  Now I can feel the heavy pull of the interior of the continent, that great bulk looming between the coastal slices and widely believed to be unpopulated.  Flying over it, civilized people pull down the shade and watch the movie.  From here, it tugs at my shoulder blades from the other side of the mountain.  I can see it from my mailbox up on the road.  It begins to feel more familiar than the east.”

While I didn’t find any laugh-out-loud passages in this book—Holland’s mentions of her attempts at gardening, her adventures plunking herself down on a bar stool in one of those places where everyone knows everyone, her job writing flowery obituaries in the local paper—all those brought this volume together into a very pleasant read.  The chapters are shaped as essays describing the slow pace of life on the mountain, and what was being lost as residential developments crept further and further into the former fields and foothills.  Published in 1997, I can only imagine what the area looks like now over twenty years later.  Holland passed away in 2010, by all accounts a feisty old lady till the end.  May we all be feisty until our final days, and may we all find a place like Holland’s gentle mountains to be our home.

Nevermore: Peter The Great, 1775, and When All the World Was Young

Nevermore readers were hooked on history this week.  Peter the Great by Robert Massie is the Pulitzer Prize winning biography of a fascinating Russian monarch.  At age 10, Peter became co-tsar with his half brother.  He had a lifelong fascination with the sea and ships, and traveled Europe incognito.  He modernized Russian life, bringing in Western influences and restructuring government.  Massie has been praised for his thorough and readable biography, which also serves as an excellent book on Russian history and society of the 17th and 18th centuries.  Massie is well-known for his books on Russia; his first book was the acclaimed Nicholas and Alexandra, and his most recent is a biography of Catherine the Great.

1775: A Good Year for Revolution by Kevin Phillips was also lauded for its good style, which made it a very readable book about events prior to the American Revolution. Phillips, who also wrote The Cousins’ War, makes a convincing case that 1775 was the pivotal year, as the colonies organized themselves against the British.  Not only were the rebels mounting boycotts, they were acquiring arms and creating governments without British oversight.  By the time 1776 rolled around, the rebels were ready. This book was recommended for anyone interested in the Revolutionary War era, especially the background for the conflict.

Barbara Holland’s When All the World Was Young is a personal memoir about growing up in Washington, D.C. during the 1940s and 1950s. Holland has an eye for the incongruities of the times, and a sharp wit with which to comment.  She grew up with a mother who didn’t fit the mold of the 50s housewife and an autocratic stepfather.  As those who have read any of her other books know, Holland has a wicked sense of humor and keen sense of the absurd.  Holland also wrote a book about U.S. Presidents, Hail to the Chiefs , a book about extraordinary women entitled They Went Whistling: Women Wayfarers, Warriors, Runaways, and Renegades, and the self explanatory In Defense of Naps.  Her books come highly recommended from several Nevermore members, both for their insights and the wit.

Hail to the Chiefs by Barbara Holland

Reviewed by Nancy

History can be fun. No, no, I'm not kidding. If you did not enjoy history in school, here's your second chance. You can have fun reading some history and there will not be a teacher lurking about, waiting to give you a grade.

The book you need to read is Hail To The Chiefs by Barbara Holland. Ms. Holland, who died in 2010, was an author and essayist who lived in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains.

If Ms. Holland had not been busy writing, she could have come down from the mountain and been our stand-up history comic. I am not kidding. Her book offers a summary of presidential mischief, quirks and accomplishments from George Washington to Ronald Regan. The book also includes entertaining tidbits regarding presidential wives.

Barbara Holland definitely had a way with words. A great deal of this book, which devotes a few pages to each president, is laugh out loud material. As she states in her discussion of Millard Fillmore, "in the nineteenth century, whenever anything happened the bystanders got together and formed a political party about it." Fillmore was a member of the Anti-Masonic Party, and the author sums him up in this way:  “He wasn't a bad man - in fact, he quite nice. He was just wrong a good deal of the time.” She further states, "In July of 1850 Millard Fillmore found himself President and hit his stride at being wrong."

Or try this tasty tidbit. "James Monroe is remembered for the Monroe Doctrine, which some consider John Quincy Adam's finest achievement."

On Abraham Lincoln she states, "Lincoln never had much fun being President because of the Civil War all the time. It was all ready to roll when he took office, and five days after it was over he was dead as a duck. He had the war, the whole war, and nothing but the war."

On James Buchanan, Lincoln’s predecessor, and the run up to the Civil War she gives us the following:  “He thought if he just sat still and kept his mouth shut, things wouldn’t fall apart until he could hand them over to the next man and run like hell.”

See?  History can be fun. Seriously, it would have been ok with me if this woman had taught half the history courses I ever had.

The fun just never stops. Here’s what Ms. Holland had to say regarding one world conflict: “I don’t recommend your trying to understand World War I unless you plan to make a career of it, and I don’t recommend that either.”

President James Garfield could write Latin with one hand and Greek with the other hand AT THE SAME TIME. I once worked with someone who could render backward cursive writing with her non-dominant hand, but I believe this may top that.

In the section on Ronald Regan, Ms. Holland takes five pages to render a summation of the plot of “Bedtime for Bonzo,” former President Regan’s most famous movie. I believe I have watched parts of that movie, but never the movie in its entirety at one sitting. Upon reading the plot summary I realized why. Even when I was eleven I doubt I could have gotten through it; however, I enjoyed Ms. Holland’s summary immensely.

I suppose it could be a sly “editorial comment of omission” from Ms. Holland that the movie summary constitutes the entire section on Regan. There is nothing about the Iran-Contra difficulties, John Hinckley, Jr.’s assassination attempt on Regan’s life, supply-side economics,  the invasion of Grenada, or any of the rest of his time in office.

If you think you don’t have the desire or the time to read this book, at least get hold of a copy and have a look at the portrait of Millard Fillmore. Mr. Fillmore resembles what current celebrity personality? Correct! Alec Baldwin. It's something about the eyes. Maybe also the mouth.

I felt I was astute to notice this and wondered if anyone else had, so I fooled around on the internet a little. Gee whiz. I'm not the first. If you've got a moment for some silly entertainment, plug "Alec Baldwin Millard Fillmore" into a search engine. The resemblance is uncanny.

As if the body of the text weren’t side splitting enough, most of the footnotes are a riot. I know I’ve gone on enough about all this, so I’m not going to start quoting footnotes, BUT there’s one you just have to read. It’s in the chapter on William McKinley. In the library copy of the book this is on page 174. Start midway through the fourth paragraph and read the text preceding footnote 14. Don’t worry about the context. Just read the last half of that sentence and then the footnote. HA!

I know if I can get this book into your hands you will not be able to keep from reading it, so you’d just better get in to the library and check out that footnote!

Nevermore: DNA, Top Ten Books, Joy of Drinking & Botany

The Seven Daughters of Eve by Bryan Sykes caused quite a stir when it was published back in 2002.  Using genetic analysis, he postulated that all humans descended from one of seven “clan mothers.” Now Sykes has a new book, DNA USA.  Since the United States is one of the most genetically diverse countries, Sykes was curious to see how the various lines appeared in a modern population and how that matches us with the way the individuals identify themselves.  For example, some Spanish Catholics were found to have some Jewish ancestors while European DNA was apparently introduced to some Native American tribes as far back as 10,000 years.  Our reviewer is finding it a fascinating book.

Have you ever wondered what books your favorite author would choose? You may find the answer in The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books, edited by J. Peder Zane.  Zane asked 125 well-known authors to name their favorite ten books. Those responding included Lee Smith, Stephen King, Annie Proulx, Michael Chabon and Alexander McCall Smith.  Zane provides plot descriptions of the books in a separate section, listing the authors who selected each title.  Some author even provided insights on a particular choice, such as Louis Rubin’s appreciation of Eudora Welty’s short stories.

The Joy of Drinking by Barbara Holland is a history of distillation as only Holland can provide.  The facts are all there but it’s the author’s voice that makes them memorable.  Two reviewers praised the book for its humor and wit, and intend to read more of Holland’s work.

Michael Pollan is well known for his books about food such as The Omnivore’s Dilemma.  In The Botany of Desire, he examines how four plants (tulips, marijuana, apples, and potatoes) have fueled four human desires (beauty, intoxication, sweetness and control).  He demonstrates how humans and plants have evolved a relationship of mutual benefit through the centuries. 

Joy of Drinking by Barbara Holland

Reviewed by Nancy


In her book, The Joy of Drinking, author Barbara Holland traces the history of fermentation from its earliest beginnings to the present. She relates the manner in which people in various parts of the world discovered that if they allowed certain organic substances to ferment, and then drank the liquid that was produced, it made them forget their troubles for a while.

According to Ms. Holland, ancient people were motivated to stop roaming and cluster together in tribes so that they could grow crops for fermentation. Apparently it was more fun to ferment things and dance around together than it was to throw rocks at other families and forage for tidbits.

Apples, peaches, cashews, sugarcane, barley, rice, berries, honey, grapes, potatoes, milk, cactus, coconuts - there is a long list of organic substances that can be fermented, and mankind seems to have tried them all.

The milk mentioned in the previous sentence is mare’s milk (yes, as in horses) fermented by nomadic Mongolians in Central Asia into a beverage called airag. Fermentation was achieved by sewing the mare’s milk up tightly in a horsehide and beating it or tying it to a trotting horse. In modern times airag is made in vats which are stirred frequently by jolly family members and friends.

Marco Polo tried this beverage and maintained that it possessed “the quality and flavor of white wine;” however, a more recent traveler reported that it tasted like “warm sake filtered through a dirty horsehair sock.” I think maybe I don’t need to know the real truth on this one, and will not be traveling to Mongolia to find out.

The author, a resident of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains, leads us through the evolution of brews and the settings for consuming them, with descriptions of taverns, pubs, speakeasies, home beer brewing, Chinese rituals centered on the drinking of wine, Greek dinner parties and feudal mead halls.

Ms. Holland's musings on taverns and public houses in England made me sad that we live in a time in which many of us are so engrossed in our use of electronic devices that we barely need to look at one another, much less go to the tavern and get to know the neighbors. But, way back in the way back when that’s what people did. After a day of labor they flocked to the neighborhood tavern or pub to enjoy good companionship and beverages. Ms. Holland speculates that it was the need for companionship, rather than the desire for drink, that drove these individuals out into the night and across the empty countryside since they brewed beer at home and probably had plenty of it there.

We learn about the consumption of beer soup for breakfast in Germany; beer soup was the standard breakfast for German families until the end of the eighteenth century. I include here a summation of the beer soup recipe in case you want to try it at home. What a great way to fortify yourself before a taxing day. Say you have a job interview, or a court case; have double portions so you’ll be especially smart and strong, as well as relaxed.

Beat two eggs in a saucepan. Warm some beer in a separate sauce pan, adding a chunk of butter to the beer. Then pour cold beer into the warm beer to cool the warm beer (?) and add a small amount of salt. Next pour the beer mixture into the eggs and whisk again. Then pour that mess over bread or rolls or whatever starchy thing you have. The recipe states that you should use “a roll, white bread, or other good bread.”  I question the “good bread” part. Considering what you’re pouring over the bread, I don’t see how it could possibly matter whether or not the bread is good. At the final stage the whole affair can be sweetened with sugar to taste. Maybe the addition of the sugar is what pulls it into focus.                   

There is a chapter in the book, appropriately titled “The Following Day,” that covers various hangover cures, and also explains how the body metabolizes alcohol. Most of the hangover cures sounded pretty wicked to me. I offer one now, for your perusal. It was the favorite hangover cure of the English novelist, Evelyn Waugh. “Take a large lump of sugar, soak in Angostura (bitters) and roll in cayenne pepper, then drop into a generous glass and fill with champagne.”

I believe I would die if anyone ever made me drink this concoction.

I am sure most of us are familiar with the theory of hangover cure that involves “hair of the dog that bit you,” meaning, of course, “drink some more booze.” The National Insistutes of Health refer to this as re-administration, and do not recommend it. The next time you drink a bloody mary on the morning after, remember: you’re not just throwing down some more booze. You’re re-administrating!

Two handy appendices follow the text. Appendix A gives a few recipes for fruit wine, and Appendix B offers rudimentary instructions on how to build a still, just in case you want to make the stuff for yourself.