Empresses of Seventh Avenue by Nancy MacDonell: Historical Novel

 Fashion in Paris and New York City during WWII

 

Empresses of Seventh Avenue

World War II, New York City, and the Birth of American Fashion

by Nancy MacDonell, August 27, 2024, St. Martin's Press, NetGalley

Description

Fashion historian and journalist Nancy MacDonell chronicles the untold story of how the Nazi invasion of France gave rise to the American fashion industry.

The fall of Paris to the Nazis in WWII had a profound effect on the French Legend, the belief that all women in Europe and America wanted only French couture and fashion. With Paris shut down and shut off during the war, American designers came into their own. 

My comments:

When Paris was taken over by the Nazis in WWII, that famous capital of high fashion began a decline that was filled by American couturiers who had previously relied on the French to lead the way in fashion, no longer only copying their styles and looking to Paris for their inspiration, Starting September 1940, American designers began to shine on their own and by 1945 American fashion began to rival that of France, and New York began to challenge Paris as the capital of high fashion.

This amazing historical novel on the growth and emergence of American fashion shows the rise of "democratic" principles in the fashion world - American designers began creating couture for all types of women. Sportswear, ready-to-wear clothes, and mix and match outfits became the new styles for America and signaled a new era of fashion.

This book tells the story of how the Americans could move forward without Paris, for once disregarding the French Legend as the one and only source of haute couture. The first American designers of note are the "empresses of Seventh Avenue." These included Eleanor Lambert, first superstar fashion publicist; Claire McCardell, creator  of American sportswear; designer Elizabeth Hawes, among several others. 

An important book for fashion lovers and for those interested in this aspect of American history, the book details the lives and stories of little remembered designers and couturiers in America who were important to American fashion. A fascinating book that is well worth reading.

What are you reading/watching this week?

Memes: Paris in July 2024,  The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves

Illumination: A Guide to the Buddhist Method of No-Method by Rebecca Li: Sunday Salon

 

Title: Illumination: A Guide to the Buddhist Method of No-Method

Author: Rebecca Li    Publication: October 31, 2023 by Shambhala

Source: Wiley Saichek of Saichek Publicity 

My take on reading the Introduction and part of Chapter I, is that silent illumination means accepting and looking closely at your thoughts as they come while you sit in meditation. And not by trying to make your mind blank by focusing only on your breathing, etc. 

I have heard something similar to this meditation technique before. Allowing your thoughts to arise, examining them, seeing your reaction, and then letting them go. 

I will have to read more of the book to see how close that is to Rebecca Li's point. I am now curious!

From the Publisher's summary:

A modern guide from Chan Buddhist teacher Rebecca Li.

The practice of silent illumination is simple, allowing each moment to be experienced as it is in order to manifest our innate wisdom and natural capacity for compassion.

Rebecca Li shows us how we can recognize and unlearn our ... habits of mind that get in the way of being fully present and engaged with life. 

Illumination offers stories and real-life examples, references to classic Buddhist texts, and insights from Chan Master Sheng Yen to guide readers as they practice silent illumination.

Currently also reading:

For Book Club which I may or may not attend in December, I am reading, just in case I do go to book club, a novel on writing and plagiarism, 

Jean Hanff Korelitz’s The Plot  (May 2021) is a psychologically suspenseful novel about a story too good not to steal, and the writer who steals it. (goodreads) Was it okay for Jake to take his deceased student's plot and make it into his own novel, even though the student never wrote the book before he overdosed and died?

Lots to think about and discuss, especially since this is the third recent book with the same theme of writer plagiarism. The most recent was Yellowface by R.F. Kuang, which addresses plagiarism, stealing in the publishing world, and cultural appropriation. I reviewed this book in January 2023.

Review of novel on writer plagiarism reposted:

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang, May 2023; William Morrow
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I realized by a third of the way into the book that the title, Yellowface, refers to the old practice of using ethnic white actors to portray East Asian characters in film and on stage.

The title was fitting for this novel, I thought, as the main character and book narrator, June Hayward, not only stole the unpublished manuscript of her Yale college friend - acclaimed Chinese American author, Athena Liu - but also tried to claim to be Chinese by changing her name from June Hayward to Juniper Song. Her book photograph also made her seem to be Asian.
Athena's book detailed the World War I Chinese Corps of workers who went to Europe to help the Allies by doing the drudge work of war. June had to justify knowledge of that subject matter and appear to be an expert also on the Chinese and Chinese history.

This was a complex novel as it was told from only June's point of view. I didn't know whether to hate or to pity her for her devious strategies to gain fame and fortune from the stolen manuscript and to maintain her false identity as a Chinese writer. 
I saw the book had two purposes, however, to show the history of Yellowfacing and racism, and also to reveal the pitfalls of the publishing industry for writers. June felt the publishing world's need for diversity, which led them to focus on promoting promising authors like Athena Liu, giving extra publicity and help to get a book on its way.

I thought this novel was a brilliant addition to literary fiction and Asian American literature.

What's on your reading schedule this week and/or the rest of thejmonth?i

nly202

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Sunday Salon, Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday.

Book Beginning: Radical Love by Satish Kumar

 The Friday 56. Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% of your eReader. Find any sentence that grabs you. Post it, and add your URL post in Linky at Freda's Voice.

Also visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader, and First Line Friday

Radical Love by Satish Kumar, February 7, 2023, Parallax Press

Genre: self-help, nonfiction

About: To see peace in our lifetimes, we have to study love.

 

This is the radical message of this inspirational book .... Author and activist Satish Kumar is well known for his epic 1960s walk for world peace from India to Moscow, Paris, London, and Washington, DC

Book beginning:

Chapter 1- A Monsoon of Love

Life is a landscape of love, and love is the celebration of life. Love is the means and love is the end. Love is our path and it is our destination. Love is the goal. Love is a way of bveing. Love is a way of life. There is not way to love: love is the way. 

Page 56:

"Have I finished all that water?" Gandhi asked, visibly perturbed. 

Thanks to Wiley Saichek of Saichek Publicity for a feature/review copy of this book. 

Sunday Salon: New Asian American Memoir/Short Stories and a Book on Censorship

New Books:

I've discovered another memoir by an Asian American/Chinese American who grew up in a restaurant family in the U.S. (See my review of Curtis Chin's memoir set in Detroit in the 1980s) Jane Wong's book is set in Atlantic City, NJ.

 

Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City: A Memoir by Jane Wong

Publication: May 16, 2023, Tin House Books

Genre: memoir, nonfiction, Asian American literature

In her debut memoir, Wong tells a new story about Atlantic City, one that resists a single identity, a single story, as she writes about making do with what you have―and what you don’t.

This is a memoir about family, food, girlhood, resistance, and growing up in a Chinese American restaurant on the Jersey shore. (publisher)

See my review of Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City on goodreads. 

Afterparties: Stories by Anthony Veasna So

Published August 3, 2021; Ecco

Genre: short stories, Cambodian American literature, gay/lesbian fiction

I read the first three of nine stories so far, of the lives of young Cambodian Americans at home, school, work - their checquered  lives, many on the lower income level, their families surviving as relatively recent immigrants and refugees from the Cambodian Civil War and the Khmer Rouge in the mid 1970s, a war called the Cambodian Genocide.

This war and their family history are still alive among these families, as they try to find their way in a new country, sometimes worried about the past finding its way into their present and future. The stories are set in a community in California.

In the first story, "Three Women of Chuck's Donuts," a single mother of two girls works 24 hours a day in her donut shop, part of her divorce settlement from her Cambodian husband. 

The second story, "Superking Son Scores Again," has a badminton genius doing what he loves best - coaching the high school badminton team, while he does what he hates most, managing his parents' grocery store. 

In a third story, "Maly, Maly, Maly" a young gay Cambodian bonds with his cousin, but when she starts growing into a young woman following her traditions in the community, he is left feeling very alone.   

I'm eager to read the other stories by So, this talented,  award-winning Cambodian writer, who sadly died, possibly of drug complications, in his late 20s. 

About the writer: Anthony Veasna So was a graduate of Stanford University and earned his MFA in fiction at Syracuse University.  

In my mailbox:

Stifled Laughter: One Woman's Story about Fighting Censorship

by Claudia Johnson

March 14, 2023, Fulcrum Publishing

About: Pulitzer Prize Nominated Winner of the 1993 PEN/Newman’s Own First Amendment Award for Claudia Johnson’s extraordinary efforts to restore banned literary classics from Florida classrooms. 

Stifled Laughter is the story of one woman's efforts to restore literary classics to the classrooms of rural north Florida. 

Thanks to Wiley Saichek/ Saichek Publicity for a review copy

What are you reading this week?

 

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted byThe Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Sunday Salon, Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday

Sunday Salon: No More Thrillers for a Month

 Maybe my last thriller for a month or so....I've decided to concentrate on nonfiction books and more literary novels, moving away from psych thrillers and mysteries for a time. It's Lent and I have to give us something I really, really like! But maybe I'll be surprised and enjoy other genres for a change. 

In the Name of Truth is the 8th in a series of 9 crime novels, so far, by Viveca Sten, set in the Swedish archipelago and the island of Sandhamn. I have one more to read, the 4th,  before the next book comes out later this year. She has signed a contract for three more Sandhamn books, till 2023! 

Books I intend to read during the next month:

Savage Feast, February 26th 2019, Harper

Genre: family memoir

The Invisible History of the Human Race by Christine Kenneally, October 9, 2014, Viking
How the history of the human race shapes us as individuals

Genre: nonfiction, history

Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver,  October 16, 2018, Harper
Genre: literary fiction

Bread and Salt: Stories by Valerie Miner, September 5, 2020, Whitepoint Press

Climb: Leaving Safe and Finding Strength on 100 Summits in Japan by 

Susan Spann, January 2020, Prometheus Books

Genre: travel memoir 

 

Alexander von Humboldt: How the Most Famous Scientist of the Romantic Age Found the Soul of Nature

by 

Maren Meinhardt

Genre: natural history, biography

The Lost Boys of Montauk by Amanda M. Fairbanks, May 2021, Gallery Books

Genre: memoirs and biography, non fiction

Copy courtesy of Netgalley

What are you reading this week? 

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Sunday Salon

Sunday Salon: The Hidden World of the Fox by Adele Brand

New arrival:

The Hidden World of the Fox by Adele Brand, October 22, 2019, William Morrow

Genre: nonfiction, ecology

"Brand has studied foxes for twenty years across four continents—from the Yucatán rainforest to India’s remote Thar Desert, from subarctic Canada to metropolitan London. Her observations have convinced her that the fox is arguably the most modern of all wildlife, uniquely suited to survival in the rapidly expanding urban/wild interface."

Currently reading:

In the Shadow of Power by Viveca Sten, October 22, 2019, Amazon Crossing

The new summer house on Sandhamn Island in the Swedish archipelago is an architectural dream for its owner, Carsten Jonsson. It’s a nightmare for the locals. When a body is found, Detective Inspector Thomas Andreasson isn’t sure if it’s murder or a tragic accident.
~~~
On the home front, it's been raining for a few days now and windy and cold. We took a walk this afternoon in the park when it warmed up to the mid 40s, dressed in our winter clothes, of course. I may not be quite ready for winter!

The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Mailbox Monday and the Sunday Salon

Review: Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell

Talking to Strangers

Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know by Malcolm Gladwell, September 10, 2019, Allen Lane. Personal copy. 

INTRODUCTION"Step out of the car!"

In July 2015 a young African American woman named Sandra Bland drove from her hometown of Chicago to a little town an hour west of Houston, Texas. She was interviewing for a job at Prairie View A&M University, the school she had graduated from a few years before. She was tall and striking with a personality to match....

The chapter goes on to describe the verbal exchange between Sandra and a Texas police officer who had pulled her over for failing to signal a lane change. The end result is that upstanding, educated, and blameless Sandra was arrested, handcuffed and thrown into jail. Three days later, she took her own life in prison.

And so begins this book, Talking to Strangers, by Malcolm Gladwell, on strangers meeting and the misunderstandings and false assumptions that can sometimes result in  tragic outcomes. 

Misreading strangers can lead to a guilty Bernie Madoff being trusted by duped investors, to an innocent Amanda Knox being incarcerated for years and tried for a crime for which she was later exonerated. Spies high up in government have been misread by the CIA and trusted with secrets the spies regularly leaked to a foreign power. And it goes on...

A fascinating book that I read cover to cover in just a few days, intrigued by the facts the author presented to make his case. People are not as transparent as they may seem to us. They may be something completely different.

Most people will give suspicious people the benefit of the doubt, which is good for society to run smoothly, in general, but which can be disastrous when their judgment is wrong. This is part of Gladwell's conclusions on this topic, and just a part of what the book has to say about how we interact with and interpret the actions and behavior of a variety of strangers. 

Page 57:

The next three chapters of Talking to Strangers are devoted to the ideas of a psychologist named Tim Levine, who has thought as much about the problem of why we are deceived by strangers as anyone in social science.... 

The book is persuasive, well researched, and thought-provoking. It will make you think twice or three times about the validity of your initial reaction to a stranger, positive or negative, whoever they may be.

Memes: The Friday 56. Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% of your eReader. Find any sentence that grabs you. Post it, and add your URL post in Linky at Freda's Voice. Also visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader

Book Tour: Close Encounters of the Traveling Kind by Amanda Jayne

Extreme travel with near-death experiences

Close Encounters of the Traveling Kind by Amanda Jayne

Publisher:  Waldorf Publishing (July 1, 2018)
Category: Essays, Travelogues , Travel, Adventure
Tour dates: Oct-Nov, 2018
ISBN: 978-1642556797
Available in Print and ebook, 140 pages

This collection of near-death (and a few almost-near-death) stories take you on adventures in Africa, South America, Nepal, Japan and Thailand. Close Encounters with an angry snake, the edge of an abyss, an unfriendly African tribe, a fake guide or two, a mean Dutch man, a magic whirlpool, a nasty case of Typhoid and a severe case of mountain stupidity are told with the confidence of a traveler who has discovered that no matter what happens, everything works out in the end.

Amanda Jayne never wanted to live a normal life, which she has achieved with resounding success so far. She realized books were magic and could take you to other places, times and universes when she was very young and wanted to become an author immediately. However, she waited several decades so she could do other things first.

Her love for travel began with a six month South Africa trip at age 18 and continued with short jaunts in Eastern Europe during the years she worked in the mental health field.

As soon as she realized offices, rules and regulations were not her thing, she left her job and her native England to find out more about the world and the amazing array of people living in it. She spent 10 years living and travelling in various countries and finally returned to the UK in 2009 after gaining a masters in Spiritual Psychology in the USA and walking 1,200 km around the 88 temples pilgrimage in Shikoku, Japan.

These days she teaches Jikiden Reiki, makes websites and writes books. She’s sometimes quite busy. Some of the things she loves are trees, art, being with friends, making up stories for her nephews, karaoke, cats and dark chocolate, not necessarily in that order. She lives in a quiet corner of Kent in the UK and tries, but usually fails, to stay there for long periods of time.

My comments:

I know people from South America and Thailand, so I was eager to read Amanda Jayne's experiences in those countries, among others. 

The stories from Bolivia, three of them to be exact, warns the traveler to be wary of eating street food and to watch out for unreliable tourist guides, of making sure you see a qualified doctor if you ever get something like typhoid or stomach problems, and being extra careful when biking or riding down the Road of Death, a narrow winding mountain road with fabulous views of the jungle but a harrowing ride if the road is crowded with trucks and/or other vehicles. 

The Thailand rafting experience on a small river in the north could be exquisite, a communion with nature, unless a rafting guide decides to hit a snake out of its resting place in a tree overhanging said river. In Jayne's experience, the snake tried to get out of the water and climb onto their raft, causing panic among the raft riders. 

There are other interesting survival stories: climbing Mt. Fuji in Japan with the wrong schedule, white water rafting in the Himalayas, getting on the wrong bus and landing up in the wrong place in Lesotho, Africa. 

None of the narrow escapes made me want to avoid most of these countries. In fact, the stories could whet the appetite of travelers who would swear they would be able to avoid the pitfalls Jayne experienced.

You can read the short essays in any order, which I did. It was fun, enlightening, and great even for armchair travelers.

Website: https://www.amandacjayne.com/author

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/amandacjayne. Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/amandajayneauthor. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amandacjayne/

Virtual Author Book Tours organized this book tour and provided a review copy of this book.

Page 56:

It had all been worth it despite the guide who wasn't a guide. 

Meme: The Friday 56. Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% of your eReader. Find any sentence that grabs you. Post it, and add your URL post in Linky at Freda's Voice. 

Sunday Salon: Powell's Books in Chicago

On a trip to Chicago in April, we stopped at a favorite used books store in Hyde Park on the south side, Powell's Books. I came away with three books I'd not have bought anywhere else....such was the atmosphere of the place that it made me want to read them.


Fluke by Joseph Mazur, March 15, 2017,  paperback by Oneworld
A look at coincidences, their probability and frequency. The book tries to analyze how coincidences work, that they are not so unusual after all. So you meet your next door neighbor while you are both at the Louvre in Paris during the month of May. Surprise! Amazing! Or is it?


The Invisible History of the Human Race by Christine Kenneally, October 9, 2014, Viking
How the history of the human race shapes us as individuals

The third book I'd have bought anywhere -


Man's Fate by Andre Malraux, September 3, 2009, Penguin Classics
Shanghai, 1927, and revolution is in the air. As the city becomes caught up in violence and bloodshed, four people's lives are altered inexorably....

What books are you reading this week?

The Sunday Post  hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer,  It's Monday, What Are You Reading? by Book Date., and Mailbox Monday.

High-Risers by Ben Austen: Book Beginning

High-Risers: Cabrini-Green and the Fate of American Public Housing by Ben Austen

Genre: nonfiction

Publication: February 6, 2018, Harper

High-Risers braids personal narratives, city politics, and national history to tell the timely and epic story of Chicago’s Cabrini-Green, America’s most iconic public housing project.

Book beginning:

Portrait of a Chicago Slum

Tucked into the elbow where the river tacks north, just beyond the Loop and a mie from Lake Michigan, it is as historic a neighborhood as there is in Chicago.In 2016, it was named one of the city's best places to live. A couple of generations earlier, and more than a century after the banks of the Near North Side were settled, surveyors from the Chicago Housing Authority walked its narrow streets, confirming with every step their belief that it was a slum beyond salvation. 

(This quote is from an uncorrected proof. The final copy may differ).

Memes:  visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader

Book Beginning: The Making of a Dream by Laura Wides-Munoz

The Making of a Dream: How a Group of Young Undocumented Immigrants Helped Change What It Means to Be American by Laura Wides-Munoz, January 30, 2018, Harper

Genre: nonfiction

Book beginning:

It would only be a few weeks. 

That's what Hareth Andrade-Ayala's parents told her when they planned he trip to Washington, D.C. Eight-year-old Hareth and her little sister would travel from La Paz, Bolivia, with their grandparents. Their parents would join the girls later. 

Hareth's grandparents had lived with the family as long as she could remember, always game for her bits of theater, jokes, and dances, all the stuff her parents were too tired to sit through. She'd traveled to visit relatives with them before. This would be another of their adventures.

Page 56: 

What was she? She was an undocumented immigrant. She was also a hard-driving honors student whe'd been high school swim team captain and had dreamed of going to college. 

Book description: A journalist chronicles the story of a movement and a nation, witnessed through five young undocumented activists who are transforming society’s attitudes toward one of the most contentious political matters roiling America today: immigration. (publisher)

I'm interested in reading about the experiences of these real life young undocumented immigrants who are succeeding in their lives in the U.S. Quotes are from an uncorrected proof ; the final copy may differ. 

Memes: The Friday 56. Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% of your eReader. Find any sentence that grabs you. Post it, and add your URL post in Linky at Freda's Voice. Also visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader