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Articles in category "books":



Goodbye, Kilgore Trout

· Posted Wednesday April 11, 2007 by jamie

RIP Kurt Vonnegut, 1922-2007.


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Tacoma Book Club Edition 4: Going Where I Have To Go

· Posted Wednesday March 14, 2007 by jamie

It’s been a while, but we must not let it die: for this edition of our “Tacoma Book Club” we’ll be looking at Going Where I Have To Go: Essays from Within by Harold P. Simonson.

As seems to be the pattern for most of the books we’ve looked at thus far, this book is out of print. I’ll toss out the usual caveats: buy locally if possible from King’s or Tacoma Book Center; they may even be able to order you a copy if they don’t have it. You can always try the library. Failing that, there are several used copies available on Amazon:

First a bit of trivia about the title of this book, which itself has somewhat local connections. It is pulled from a poem by Theodore Roethke called The Waking, which begins “I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I learn by going where I have to go”. (Read it in its entirety here, or purchase The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke.) Roethke spend the last portion of his life teaching at the University of Washington before dying in 1953 of a heart attack while swimming in a friend’s pool on Bainbridge Island. The pool was later filled in and is incorporated into the Bloedel Reserve as a Zen rock garden. (One more literary note: the same poem features prominently into Slaughterhouse Five, by one of my favoritest authors, Kurt Vonnegut, as the impetus of the narrator to return to Dresden.) But enough with the trivia, let’s talk about the book…

Harold Simonson himself was born, raised, and now lives in Tacoma. He is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Washington, and previously taught for a time at the University of Puget Sound. Going Where I Have To Go is a set of essays reflecting on his life: boyhood, the “middle years”, and the looking back that can occur in old age.

Beyond this being a splendidly written memoir, this book has special significance for us because one of the “main characters” of the book is the house right next door to ours. Harold Simonson not only grew up in the house, but his father, a carpenter, built it with his own two hands in 1925. Thus, a good portion of the book reflects on Simonson’s experiences in the house: growing up there, walking to Grant School, going to the church around the corner, living through the Depression, and eventually later in the book living through the deaths of his parents. We even get a reference to playing catch while standing on the “Swansons’ property line”, referencing the former long-time residents of our home.

Other neat Tacoma details abound, also, most coming from long before my time. Tales of swimming at Sieverts and the Hi-Dive at Surprise Lake (and mourning over the condos and chain stores now dotting the area). Remembering epic horseshoe tournaments amongst the “old-timers” in the pits at Wright Park. Visiting the St. Paul and Tacoma Harbor Lumber Company sawmills, and when older working at the Wheeler-Osgood door factory. Watching the Tacoma Tigers at the Athletic Park on Sprague (now Peck Field) and playing golf at Allenmore. Racing trains while jogging on Ruston Way. Great imagery from times past and times present.

One more final bit of trivia: his own impressive accomplishments aside, Simonson is the father of renowned mountain climber Eric Simonson, and the book includes some great examinations of the anxiety that goes along with having one’s child scaling peaks such as Everest and Annapurna. So there’s a little something for the climbing buffs in this book as well.

I highly recommend this book: nice and short, very readable, great Tacoma memories, and wonderful reflections on life. Even if you don’t live next door to “the house”, I think you’ll enjoy it. Comments, as always, are encouraged!


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Tacoma Book Club Edition 3: Murder of a City, Tacoma

· Posted Tuesday November 7, 2006 by jamie

The book club is back, this time with Murder of a City, Tacoma by Jon Gold.

This is big time out-of-print, and used copies may be hard to find. (Though I did find mine at Kings Books, so there’s hope. And if you want to drop $50 bucks, there appears to be one copy used on Amazon right now.) Luckily, if you are interested, it is available through the Tacoma Public Library.

So this book is a little bit strange. I’m not even sure I recommend it. The topic is one of the first big fights against Tacoma’s City Manager form of government. I guess that if you are a junkie for Tacoma politics, you might find it worth a read. It is essentially one big piece of propoganda, circa over 30 years ago. But I guess it still has some implications to now, since the topic continues to come back up every so often. (Most recently in the post-Brame scandal.)

The author, “Jon Gold”, essentially spends the whole book railing against the then-new City Manager form of government and the manager of the time, David Rowlands. I cite the author’s name in quotes because in fact Jon Gold is a pseudonym for Fred Crisman, who is quite the interesting character himself. A Tacoma native, Crisman somehow pops up in various UFO and conspiracy theories all over the place, from the Maury Island Incident to the assassination of JFK (where one theory puts him on the famous grassy knoll). Additionally, some of his associates in the book were later implicated in the INSLAW scandal. In the chapter of his life captured in this book, Crisman became one of the early conservative talk radio hosts for a local call-in show (under the Gold pseudonym).

There are some interesting snapshots of names that you still see in Tacoma, some positive and some negative: Tollefson, Cvitanich, Morgan (as in Murray Morgan), Moss, etc. The overall tone I get from the book as that Crisman would consider someone like me to be a crazy socialist or something. We’ll just say I’m not his sort of people.

One highlight of the book for me was a brief little police chase that apparently went right past my house. I guess some things never change: everybody and their mother just has to drive fast down our road.

Anyway, for a totally slanted look at a different time in Tacoma history, this book is at once bizarre, fascinating, and repulsive. Sometimes interesting, sometimes tedious, it may take a while to slog through, but I don’t necessarily consider my time spent reading it a waste. Read at your own risk.


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Banned Books Week Coming Up

· Posted Monday September 18, 2006 by jamie

The last week of September means Banned Books Week, which this year runs from September 23-30. King’s Books will be hosting several events in observation that should be worth checking out. Additionally Tempest on MLK has a Banned Book Club that meets the third Tuesday of every month. Tomorrow, September 19th, at 7pm, they will be discussing The Giver by Lois Lowry (available at King’s).

The following is a list of the 100 most frequently challenged books between 1990 and 2000, according to the American Library Association. I’ve bolded the ones I’ve read, and italicized those that I’m ashamed to admit I haven’t. I apparently have some reading to do. Feel free to flog me in the comments…

  1. Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
  2. Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
  3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
  4. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
  5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
  6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
  7. Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling (or at least a couple of them…)
  8. Forever by Judy Blume
  9. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
  10. Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
  11. Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
  12. My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
  13. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
  14. The Giver by Lois Lowry
  15. It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
  16. Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
  17. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
  18. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
  19. Sex by Madonna
  20. Earth’s Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
  21. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
  22. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
  23. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
  24. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
  25. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
  26. The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
  27. The Witches by Roald Dahl
  28. The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
  29. Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
  30. The Goats by Brock Cole
  31. Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
  32. Blubber by Judy Blume
  33. Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
  34. Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
  35. We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
  36. Final Exit by Derek Humphry
  37. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
  38. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
  39. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
  40. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
  41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
  42. Beloved by Toni Morrison
  43. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
  44. The Pigman by Paul Zindel
  45. Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
  46. Deenie by Judy Blume
  47. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
  48. Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
  49. The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
  50. Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
  51. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
  52. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
  53. Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
  54. Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
  55. Cujo by Stephen King
  56. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
  57. The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
  58. Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
  59. Ordinary People by Judith Guest
  60. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
  61. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras
  62. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
  63. Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
  64. Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
  65. Fade by Robert Cormier
  66. Guess What? by Mem Fox
  67. The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
  68. The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
  69. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
  70. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
  71. Native Son by Richard Wright
  72. Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women’s Fantasies by Nancy Friday
  73. Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
  74. Jack by A.M. Homes
  75. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
  76. Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
  77. Carrie by Stephen King
  78. Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
  79. On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
  80. Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
  81. Family Secrets by Norma Klein
  82. Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
  83. The Dead Zone by Stephen King
  84. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
  85. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
  86. Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
  87. Private Parts by Howard Stern
  88. Where’s Waldo? by Martin Hanford (huh?)
  89. Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
  90. Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
  91. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
  92. Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
  93. Sex Education by Jenny Davis
  94. The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
  95. Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
  96. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
  97. View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts
  98. The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
  99. The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney
  100. Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier


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Tacoma Book Club, Edition 2: Salmon Beach: The Narrows Camps

· Posted Tuesday September 5, 2006 by jamie






For our second Tacoma Book Club selection, we will be reviewing a little piece of historical fiction with a local slant, Salmon Beach: The Narrows Camps by Royal LaPlante.

As always, purchase if you can from a local bookseller, but you can purchase from Amazon via this link or by clicking on the image to the right.

(Amazon doesn’t have an image of the cover, so I took my own picture. Appreciate the beautiful rainbow-colors. Very strange. And if you’re lucky, you’ll get a signed copy like mine…)

So this book is a step down from our previous selection. That is not to say that it isn’t a good read, but just that it doesn’t offer the same level of literary merit.

Salmon Beach focuses on the the varied fictional adventures of Jim Gerber, who comes to Tacoma from the East Coast to work on a boat in the Sound. Following an injury, he ends up attending the University of Puget Sound (first at the original 9th and Yakima location, and later at Sixth and Sprague, both predating the current location). Eventually, he ends up becoming a fisherman (finding his “true true vocation”, according to the book jacket) and joining the first fishermans camps along the Narrows in the area that eventually developed into the Salmon Beach community.

Character development is not complex; Jim and other characters come across as basically flawless individuals. Some of the writing is a bit trite (like when Jim’s boss, a ships captain, gives an historical recap of the naming of Gig Harbor, complete with dates). And for some reason, there are multiple characters named Mary, which I found to be a bit confusing.

But complaints aside, I actually found this to be an enjoyable read. Many interesting historical and pseudo-historical details on the area were included, and the descriptions of boating around Puget Sound added an interesting geographical perspective. I would say if you are willing to approach this as a good diversion with a little bit of history, and not expect great literature, you will find Salmon Beach: The Narrows Camps enjoyable.


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Tacoma Book Club, Edition 1: The Streets of Tacoma by Billy

· Posted Monday August 7, 2006 by jamie

The time has finally come for the first edition of ThriceAllAmerican.com’s Tacoma Book Club. As announced earlier, our first selection is The Streets of Tacoma by Billy.

This title is unfortunately out-of-print, but used copies can easily be found using Amazon using the convenient link below. (However, I highly encourage you to check at Kings Books, the Tacoma Book Center, or another local bookseller before buying non-locally.)

So onto the real stuff. My hope for Tacoma Book Club is to raise awareness of literature with local ties, and hopefully encourage some discussion of said titles. So please, if you’ve read the book, jump in and provide your insights in the comment area. And if you haven’t read it yet, grab a copy and come back when you’ve finished it!

The Streets of Tacoma, in just a few words, is an account of Kid and Moon, two young men coming of age in Post-War Tacoma. It provides vivid details of their lives, their relationships, and of the atmosphere of the city at the time: music, boxing, organized crime, and just a general sense of liveliness.

I feel more than a little bit of the influence of Ken Kesey’s Sometimes a Great Notion in this book. Much as Kesey starts his book with a description of the (fictional) Wakonda Auga River, which becomes something of a character in the book, the prologue to The Streets of Tacoma follows the wind down through the passages of Puget Sound and eventually along the roadways of the city. Also perhaps borrowing from Kesey, the author chooses to tell the story with a changing point of view: always first person but from the perspectives of different characters involved. (However, these changes of perspectives are divided into chapters, unlike the drug-fueled randomness of Kesey’s tale.) If Sometimes a Great Notion aspires to be the Great American Novel (or at least the Great Western Novel), The Streets of Tacoma might be said to aspire to be the Great Tacoman Novel, and I think it really works.

I found the story to be engrossing, following Kid and Moon through their various ventures: musical, athletic, nautical, commercial, and romantic. But perhaps more fascinating were the descriptions of downtown Tacoma back in the pre-mall days when it was thriving. Hearing about the stores, clubs, restaurants, and such really provided an exciting perspective on our town. That sort of downtown may be something we will never have again, but still is an ideal we can strive for.

I’d highly recommend this book to anyone with a love for good literature and an interest in Tacoma. You may have to pick through a few typos (and I don’t think there was ever a second edition in which they might have been fixed), but it’s worth the effort for a good read.

So what say you, readers? Any comments?


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Introducing Thrice All American's Tacoma Book Club

· Posted Monday June 12, 2006 by jamie

Well, Melissa’s done with school for the quarter and things are simmering down here at Thrice All American headquarters, so I thought I’d announce a little venture we’ll be starting in the upcoming weeks: Tacoma Book Club.

There really are a remarkable number of books out there about Tacoma, both fiction and nonfiction. It is always fascinating to read about familiar places through someone else’s eyes: it helps to enhance our understanding of the places around us, and in many cases to place that in a historical context in a way that, say, my day-to-day writing can’t do.

We’re going to read as many of these books as we can find. We have a big stack at home to get through and will undoubtedly be finding more as we go. Some will be good, some will be bad, but we’ll be sharing our thoughts with you, and hope that you will think about reading the books and commenting with your own insights. Suggestions for books to include are also appreciated!

So without further ado, our first selection: “Streets of Tacoma” by Billy. This book appears to be out of print, but Amazon has several used copies, it is available at the library, and I imagine it is available in some of the local bookstores as well.

Look for our write-up in a couple of weeks.


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