In Dinners with Ruth, Nina Totenberg has written a memoir of what life was like in the ‘70s for women interested in professions other than teaching or nursing. She includes reminiscences of the important political events of the times and her friendship with Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
For those of us who lived through the times, the book brings together in one place memories of the first women in an area to do things – the first woman lawyer in an office or the first journalist for a newspaper – and the obstacles they faced. Totenberg tells us that those first women stuck together; friendships were important.
She and Ruth Bader Ginsburg became friends before either became famous. Totenberg was a reporter covering Ginsburg when she asked the Supreme Court to declare discrimination on the basis of sex unconstitutional. Over the phone, Ginsburg answered her questions, tutored her on the subject, and a friendship was born.
Although the title names Ginsburg as the dinner partner, Totenberg describes, sometimes with too many gossipy details, lunching, wining, and dining with many others in the Washington D.C. circle of power. A large part of the book is about Totenberg’s own life and her climb to prominence.
But it is a pleasant straight forward read, nostalgic for an older age group and informative for a younger.
Why would anyone want to read an out-of-date book about Hawaii birds? Not for the most current information about bird behavior; scientists have learned so much in the last eighty years.
But Birds of Hawaii by George Munro, published in 1944, paints a portrait of what the Hawaii bird world was like almost a hundred years ago, and tells by implication how much it has changed.
The bittersweet fact that comes through is the vast abundance and variety of birds and the expectation by birders, that although conservation was needed, the birds would be ok. There were so many nene (Hawaiian geese recently on the endangered list) that they were commonly hunted, even by Munro himself. Kolea (plovers) were served on toast. Munro is not especially worried about the endemic Hawaiian forest birds, so many of which, not quite 100 years later, are not ok at all, but are endangered or gone.
Munro was fine with the introduction of foreign birds into Hawaii’s environment. There was even an organization, Hui Manu, dedicated to doing just that. They recognized that the native birds had fled to the hills and they missed their songs in the backyard. (How many people today in their headsets would even notice?) Birds were brought in from elsewhere to take their place.
Maybe Hui Manu was right. Many of the imported birds have flourished while the native birds have been unable to cope with habitat loss, disease, predation, and climate change. At least we have some study survivors to enjoy and may yet come to love the rock doves (pigeons) and mynas.
Reading an older book puts into sharp focus the changes that have occurred. I think about the bounty of that time, the optimism, the can-do attitude, and find it hard to recognize. Today, although there are some success stories about Hawaiian birds, much of the information, especially about endemic forest birds, is dire.
Escaping to a tropical island is often the daydream of the harried and overworked. But how about an island far removed from the tropics? In The Unseen, Roy Jacobsen tells us about Barroy, an island off Norway where it is so cold that one year the ocean freezes.
The island is just large enough to support the single family that lives there, as are many other islands in that archipelago.
Jacobsen brings to life three generations who know the land intimately, revel in its harsh offerings, and sustain themselves in often brutal conditions. The children are the most interesting characters, remarkable in their self-sufficiency as they take on adult chores.
The islanders, producers of what they require, and poor, are not consumers sought after by the rest of the world and are thus “unseen.” But the author teases us with other possible meanings for the term. At the very beginning, a visiting priest looks back across the water at his home parish and realizes he has never seen it from this perspective. Father and daughter ponder messages in bottles, cast up by the ever-present storms, about lifestyles they will never know. A convict arrives on their island and “steals something they didn’t know they had.”
The Unseen reminded me of Sweetland by Michael Crummey. Both memorialize hard physical ways of life passing out of existence even on remote islands. Both have characters who are marginalized in broad society but flourish in the rough agricultural, fishing environment.
Here’s a feel good story. Friends and I were walking through a botanical garden the other day when a family with two small boys caught up with us. The two boys were jabbering away.
What were they talking about? They were debating the merits of various libraries – which had the better selection of children’s books. All is not lost yet.
I’ve ordered “The Unseen” and look forward to the read!! Jane
You always write such comprehensive reviews. Enough facts to satisfy a reader of your chosen books, plus plenty to encourage reading something new. I may have to read about Hawaiian birds now.