Tag: books

Nancy Drew, Louisa Adams & other smart women

Do you ever have one of those times when disparate things start strangely fitting together in the larger scheme? I’m having a week like that, with amazing women stepping out of the shadows to challenge my thinking.

On the first Wednesday in May the Wheaton-Glen Ellyn, Illinois, branch of the American Association of University Women (AAUW) holds its annual used book sale. This is a fund-raising tradition more than 50 years old that supports national fellowships and local scholarships for women. It’s also a true labor of love for the women (and men) who have now spent decades collecting, sorting and storing used books every year in anticipation of the sale, then unpacking and arranging the books at the Glen Ellyn Civic Center for the sale itself.

So, this is the week.

Despite endless box-schlepping, aching backs, associated and inevitable dust, long hours, and often tedious sorting into various broad categories, many if not most of us are happy to dig in. It’s for a cause we deeply believe in, we get to catch up with friends we may not often see, and perhaps even make a few new ones. And, we haven’t found a better fundraiser! We know how to do this, and after 50 years we’re pretty good at it. Book lovers and bargain-hunters know to look for this sale.

Most important, we have met and talked with the women these proceeds help. This is real empowerment.

And then there is Nancy Drew.

Volume One of the beloved girl detective series, “The Secret of the Old Clock,” was published 87 years ago on April 28, 1930, using the pseudonym Carolyn Keene. The books, ghostwritten by Mildred Wirt Benson and later revised by Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, were “the Depression-era Pokemon cards” says Theodore Johnson in a celebratory essay on the The Mary Sue. “They were collected, traded, bought and sold on both secondary and tertiary markets to the point where any kid, even those who couldn’t afford new books, would very likely get to read every adventure starring their favorite character within a reasonable interval.”

But more important was what the books showed readers that girls could do. As Johnson points out, “Nancy gets into fights, drives a car, packs a gun and relies on herself to get out of tough situations. She is mechanically inclined and at the same time doesn’t act like most people in the 1930s would have expected a teenage girl to act.” Nancy Drew’s heroics were just as important to my friends and I reading in the 50’s and 60’s as they were to the first readers in the 30’s. I’m sure I never realized what a great character/role model she was; I just liked the books.

I encourage you to read Johnson’s essay, here to appreciate his complete examination of the series — including its relationship to subsequent fiction. If you haven’t read Nancy Drew, what are you waiting for? And if you have, you can go back and reread one for fun. That’s what I’m doing.

But wait, there’s more.

I was connected with yet one more really interesting woman this week.

I love to cruise the Recommended, New Releases and New in Paperback shelves and tables in bookstores. I always find something interesting, sometimes a title I have been looking for or an author I especially enjoy. Louisa by Louisa Thomas looked interesting, but I had not heard about it before. Well, it was a great find!

Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams was the the daughter of an American businessman living in London and his English-born wife; Louisa became the wife of John Quincy Adams and daughter-in-law of John and Abigail Adams. After spending the Revolutionary years in France (her father was not especially welcome in British circles during that time), the family returned to London where she met John Quincy, who by then was on a diplomatic mission for the U.S. President.

Though their life, which initially took them to Berlin, Prussia and the court of St. Petersburg, sounds glamorous, it was also outright dangerous and remarkably lonely. She spent years separated from her young sons and her family. The newly established United States was trying to establish its foreign credentials. Louisa and John Quincy were not necessarily welcomed with open arms. If anything, Louisa’s British background and her years in France gave her easier entree into palaces than did John Quincy’s pedigree.

But that’s just the start of the story.

Louisa led a remarkable and challenging life, including a heart-stopping journey from St. Petersburg to Paris to meet her husband and, later, guiding his election as the 6th President of the United States in a “campaign” so remotely different from current politics you will be wondering if it was really in America.

So yes, I am a history geek. And yes, I love biography. But Louisa has the added perk of being a biography of a strong woman who witnessed and played a leading role in the formative years of our country. Win! Win! Win!

And this has been my week. Smart, resourceful women paving the way for more smart, resourceful women.

How’s your week going?

See you next time!

Keeping my books, an anniversary, and FaceBook

I have recently come to a de-cluttering decision: I am keeping all of my books.

We have a lot of books at our house — on shelves, in cabinets, piled on side tables and chairs. Sometimes they even migrate to the floor. In the past I have agreed with my husband (who has actually bought a number of these books) that some books must go. However, I am an English major, a one-time English teacher, a writer and editor, and a devoted reader. My book collection is what it is. And it is part of me.

I have been known to cull popular beach reading from the shelves along with outdated textbooks, as well as some musty, frankly moldy books from the basement. (Mold, after all, is contagious — it just spreads from book to book!) But, absent certain specific conditions, I am keeping my books.

I never fail to find a “forgotten treasure” when I take the time to empty a shelf and dust it and the books.

And my books include some of my mother’s and father’s books. I’ve moved them around with me for decades, and I’m not giving them up now either. I recently opened one that included an inscription to my mother from a co-worker. The book must have been a gift; finding the inscription was a gift to me, like having Mom back however briefly to talk about what we were reading. (And the best reason ever to start inscribing gift books to the recipient, at least with a date and the occasion.)

Although I have an e-reader and also read on my iPad, for the most part I continue to read traditional books, words printed on paper. That’s a bit old-school and contributes to my clutter issues, but I can’t stop. I dog-ear the pages, the spines get funky from leaving them face down, opened to the current page. Most of them bear coffee stains and the occasional smudge from snacking while reading. (Although, I am very careful with borrowed books!) I am never offended by these violations. I make my books my own.

A love of books and reading is a gift. One of my fondest childhood memories is of spending summer afternoons, sprawled on the floor, reading a book. Or reading late into the night, because the book was just too good to put down. Or going to the library to find something new. When my son and daughter were in elementary school, the PTA had a program that allowed each child to choose a book on their birthday to add to their home library. Despite the fact that Doug & Mags had lots of books at home, they were glowing on the days they came home with a new birthday book.

Remember how Marie-Laure LeBlanc treasured her Braille copy of Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea in All the Light We Cannot See? She read it again and again.

Don’t you just love how good you feel about making the right decision?

My love/hate thing with FaceBook

I have been thinking about “when FaceBook was fun.” I don’t spend a lot of time on FB; lately even less. Remember when it was just vacation pics, new babies and funny things you saw on the way to the office?

FaceBook is more work today. That’s not all bad. After all, one post launched the Women’s March in January. Pretty powerful stuff. It set so much in motion.

This — social media — is now a primary way to acquire and manage information. But for me it treads a very fine line. I’m a little tired of getting yelled at in all caps, “READ THIS” and “DO THIS NOW” although surely those posters find it important. And the language and name calling…yikes! What would your mother say about the language you used in that comment?

Most of all I wonder if we can really sum up the complexity of various issues in one post? Should we even try? There are so many conversations we need to be having, so much news to sort out, so many sources to evaluate. Can we just leave it to FaceBook (or another social media site) where we can say what we want, hit post and walk away? What merits a greater effort? Social media has its role, but I don’t think it ever replaces traditional communications (though many might disagree).

Finally, it’s been a year…

It’s been a year since I wrote “Ivy and Ironstone is the name of this blog because neither ‘Antique Silver & Zinnias’ nor ‘Hostas & Transferware’ had the alliterative cachet of ‘Ivy & Ironstone,’ and I am a writer at heart.” That was the introduction to my first post, and like so many bloggers, I am loving every minute of this occasional conversation with my readers and friends. I have even made new friends via the blog, certainly one of the best reasons ever to celebrate a year of blogging.

Thank you so much for joining me, for your thoughtful comments, for sharing my posts with your friends. I can’t wait to see what’s ahead.

See you next time!