Pursuits : Elizabeth Thomsen

Diners : People and Places
Photographs by Gerd Kittel; Introduction by Richard F. Snow

This is a slim volume of color photographs of classic diners, mostly in New York and New England, taken by German photographer Gerd Kittel. It’s a lovely book, in its way, and there are some interesting photographs here, including many interior shots, some including customers, waitstaff and cooks. Each photograph is only identified by name and place, and the book would have been much more useful to the diner-lover if it also included three other pieces of information: the diner’s manufacturer and and year of manufacture, and the year the photograph was taken. The book was originally published in 1990, and I bought the updated second edition from 1998, so all the photographs were taken at least nine years ago, but it would be helpful to know when.
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America by the Yard: Cirkut Camera: Images from the Early Twentieth Century by Robert B. MacKay

This is a hefty book that’s over fifteen inches wide, and that weighs nearly six pounds, an inconvenient size for putting on a bookshelf, carrying around or reading in bed. But it’s a beauty, and the size is necessary to properly display the fascinating panoramic photographs taken by the Cirkut camera.
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Dog Years is poet Mark Doty’s story of his two dogs, Arden and Beau, and their shared joys and sorrows.

Mark and Arden are living alone with Mark’s lover Wally, who is dying of AIDS, when Mark decides to get another dog. It’s really the last thing they needed, at that point.

In Doty’s words:

My friends think I’ve lost my mind. You’re taking care of a man who can’t get out of bed, and you’re adopting a golden retriever? They do have a point, but there’s a certain dimension of experience at which the addition of any other potential stress simply doesn’t matter anymore. Oh, say the already crazed, why not?

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Born on a Blue Day is the story of Daniel Tammett, a young man with an extraordinary mind. He has a rare combination of Asperger’s Syndrome and synesthesia, a condition which blurs the usual distinctions between the senses. In his own words:

I see numbers as shapes, colors, textures and motions. The number 1, for example, is a brilliant and bright white, like someone shining a flashlight into my eyes. Five is a clap of thunder or the sound of waves crashing against rocks. Thirty-seven is lumpy like porridge, while 89 reminds me of falling snow.

Daniel is the firstborn child in what will become a very large family. His parents had limited education and resources, and his father suffers from a debilitating mental illness, but as parents, they were patient and supportive of the unusual son. Daniel was different from the start, and suffered from frightening seizures as a child. As with any child on the autistic spectrum, his social skills were limited and he craves solitude and a predictable routine, things not easy to find for a boy growing up with a large family in small, crowded homes in London.
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Fame Junkies: The Hidden Truths Behind America’s Favorite Addiction — by Jake Halpern

Jake Halpern grew up in the unglamorous Rust Belt city of Buffalo, New York, where he briefly found himself fascinated by Robin Leach’s celebrity show Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous until his parents gave the television away. This book is a journalistic journey to examine the role and meaning of fame in America today.

Like Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous , which showed the homes and possessions of the famous, rather than the famous themselves, this is a book is not about celebrities themselves, but about those who want to be famous, used to be famous, or want desperately to be associated with the famous.
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George and Sam: Two Boys, One Family, and Autism — by Charlotte Moore

Charlotte Moore is the mother of three sons, George, Sam and Jake. George and Sam both seem bright and healthy as babies, but eventually their behavior raises questions and first George, and then Sam are diagnosed as autistic. Jake, born after his older brothers’ diagnosis, is neurotypical, not affected by autism.
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The Culture of Our Discontent: Beyond the Medical Model of Mental Illness by Meredith Small

I’ve been interested lately in books like The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down and Unstrange Minds: Remapping the World of Autism that look at different cultural perspectives on mental illness, impairment and communication disorders that Americans tend to see and treat with a medical model, and, increasingly, with medication.

Anthropologist Meredith F. Small’s book is an overview of different perspectives on mental illness, including insights from evolutionary psychology, primatology, nutrition and other cultures. I found this interesting, but pretty basic. The book is perhaps too brief to cover such a range of topics in any depth.

Lonely places, according to Pico Iyer, are the places that don’t fit in, “the places that have no seat at our international dinner tables.”

Falling Off the Map : Some of the Lonely Places of the World is a collection of Iyer’s experiences and impressions visiting some of these places. It was published in 1993, and of course many things have changed since that time, even in the lonely places.
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Made to Stick : Why Some Ideas Stick and Others Die, by Chip and Dan Heath
This is a bright and readable book about how to express ideas in a way that sticks in the mind and spreads from one person to another.
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Bowling Alone : The Collapse and Revival of American Community — By Robert D. Putnam

Putnam writes about the decline in America’s social capital, the sum total of the formal and informal connections among members of a society. The book is filled with statistics on personal involvement in all types of organizations, from bowling leagues and bridge clubs to political, social and civic organizations. We even go on fewer picnics and spend less time in bars like “Cheers” where everybody knows your name.
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