A Long Couple Days

Just a quick one this evening...

It's been a long couple days at work. Catching up after 10 days vacation and filling in for my supervisor - who's out sick. I haven't had a chance to finish reading The Family so will have to reschedule the first meeting of our book of the month club for this coming Sunday, January 10. 'Bout all I've got the energy for this evening is my exercise routine and bed.

More soon!

Slow Boat to China

Keeping this blog makes it possible for me to go back and figure out that it's been ten months since I was last under the weather. So I guess I'm overdue. I woke up the day after Christmas with a sore-ish throat and things have gone downhill ever since.

Well, I'm glad at least that the germs held off until after the holiday. I needed every last minute this year. One of these years - when my home and life are more fully organized - that organization and structure is going to be reflected in my holiday preparations. I am determined that at some point in my life I will know what it feels like not to be a harried, last-minute Betty during the days before Christmas! I dream of being the kind of person who takes steps throughout the year to prepare for Christmas so she has the time during the holidays to really pause and enjoy the fun stuff. The little things that can't be done in advance... Maybe the work I do on myself in 2010 will bring me another long step closer to being that kind of person.



Our book club will be meeting just one week from tomorrow, so I'm going to use this downtime to get some reading done! When I'm reading something set in a place I've never visited before, I like to do a little digging to get a better idea of the setting for the story. At some point, your imagination has to take over --- but I've always liked getting my bearings. Have any of you ever visited this part of China?

Mother kept a boardinghouse in the least fashionable and, therefore, the cheapest corner of the British Concession, which is situated along the Hei-ho River. In appearance the concession is quite European, and the white people immediately feel at home in its broad, well-paved, tree-bordered streets, among buildings of modern architecture. Yet, at intervals, one comes to high gray walls intersecting the row of buildings - a Chinese abode, belonging to some rich citizen, which towers like a fortress over the rest of the street... The farther one gets from the center of the concession the less English it seems; for the people of other nations are massed on its borders under the protection of the mighty British Empire. Often these folk cannot afford separate houses, and are obliged to live crowded in boardinghouses. The Family kept one such establishment on Long Street, Number 11, which scarcely paid, so each one of the Family tried to contribute his mite to the expenses.

Nina Fedorova's The Family (1940) is set in Tientsin, China when the scene opens in May 1937. Tientsin - today known as Tianjin - is a walled port city on the Peiho and Haihe rivers. Located at the head of navigation on these rivers, Tientsin was also the hub of several rail lines and a major canal. It was one of five Chinese cities declared an "open trading port" during the mid-19th century. Several powerful nations leased districts in Tientsin that were populated by merchants, bankers, diplomatic officials, and missionaries: Austria-Hungary, Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Russia. The presence of these "concessions" lent an exotic architectural flavor to the city. Somebody touring the city might come away with a feeling they had just visited a world's fair! The 992-acre British Concession - located about two miles from old Tientsin - included Victoria Park, the Astor House Hotel, Gordon Hall (the seat of the British consul), and all of Tientsin's major banks. By 1928, some 2,045 "foreigners" and more than 33,000 Chinese called the British Concession home.

Jitterbug's Book of the Month Club

He is always saying apologetically:

"I just can't find any time to read books!"

Yet ... if he spent (on average) only 30 minutes a day - before bedtime, or while traveling to or from work, or in other leisure moments - he could easily read every best-seller during the year, and a great deal more!

The Book of the Month Club used these words in 1940 to try and recruit new members to the fold. In the 14 years since its inception in 1926, some 250,000 American homes had become members of this club designed to promote the production of inexpensive editions of bestselling fiction and nonfiction. Once a month, members received word of the latest club selection. If they didn't respond by returning the slip printed, "Don't want it," the book would be sent - and billed - to them. Members were required to purchase a minimum of four books per year and could choose a free "book dividend" for every two books purchased.

I'm making another venture into the world of 1940s culture this month with a special new mission: Jitterbug's Book of the Month Club. These dark winter evenings and chilly temperatures have me spending more time indoors than I have in months - and just itching to curl up with a good book. Even the busiest of housewives would have found time occasionally to enjoy reading or a hobby like needlepoint. (Well, probably except those with small children!) The Manual actually allots time each day in the late afternoon for "Rest, Relaxation, Correspondence, Reading, Personal care, etc."

Would you like to join me in catching up on some of the bestsellers of the 1940s? (I promise --- I won't send you any of those dreaded return-this-or-else-you'll-be-billed-for-it slips.) I always feel so out of the loop when vintage radio programs make a joking reference to a current book or character and the audience roars. I want to be in on the joke! And many of these bestsellers were adapted for films that became classics in their own right. It might be fun to get to know what the screenwriters didn't have time to include about the backstory for our favorite silver screen heroes and heroines. You may have to hunt to find some of these titles. Bestsellers don't always stand the test of time and some libraries are unfortunately quick to discard anything with an aging cover these days. You may have to scour used bookstores, eBay, or the stacks at Amazon to find some of these titles. If you don't have any success, don't worry. You can drop in and drop out of Jitterbug's Book of the Month Club any time you like!

Without further ado, here's the selection for January 2010 --- The Family by Nina Fedorova (Boston: Little, Brown, 1940). The Family was the tenth bestselling piece of fiction in 1940 and won the Atlantic Fiction Contest that June. Here's a description from the publisher which sounds like it could've been plucked right from a dust jacket:

The Family is the story of a cheap boarding house in Tientsin, China. Granny, mother and the children are trying to make ends meet. They are White Russians. The olders remember days of wealth. The youngsters remember nothing but hand-to-mouth existence. The only assets are the family bonds of love and tradition. To this boarding house come an extraordinary assortment of mankind, a Bessarabian fortune teller, an English woman dipsomaniac, a Russian scientist with an urge to save the world, a Chinese scholar, Japanese spies, an American doughboy and his mistress, an abbess and two nuns and even - an English bulldog. There is much comedy in the story and its people but as it progresses, the family begin to show a depth of character and a resourcefulness which transfers the comedy into something deeper and more stirring. The laughter and oddities remain but under the surface one feels the pathos and the true tragedy of these wanderers. The story ends with the Japanese occupation of Tientsin.

Shall we convene the club by meeting one month from today to discuss the book? I'll call the meeting to order on Tuesday, January 5. Happy hunting!

The Egg and I

Have you ever poached an egg? I haven’t, so this morning’s 1945 breakfast menu was truly an experiment. I had no idea whether I’d end up with something edible or not. To start, here’s the menu:

Tomato Juice
Poached Free-Range Eggs on Toast

The menu originally included a serving of Prepared Cereal, but the first two courses were filling enough. I like my eggs over hard, so I knew it was going to take a long time for them to do more than just “set.” Thirty minutes later, they were still several shades less done than I like, but it was almost time for me to head to work and I had a living room to tend to this morning! (I think I should have used a smaller pan.) They tasted pretty good - a very rich egg flavor - but it’s probably going to take a while to get this recipe down.

Pick up and replace small articles belonging in the room, such as books, magazines…

My vintage housekeeping manual advises the 1940s housewife to treat each of the kinds of reading material she might find scattered about the living room in a different way. Newspapers were just “picked up” and probably soon recycled into one housekeeping use or another. Magazines were returned “to table or rack.” They could be enjoyed for several months and then cut up for Patty’s paper dolls or, for those with a penchant for saving things, tied up in twine and tucked away in the attic. Books, however, merited several pages of advice. And, in fact, the schedule even allots time in the late afternoon for every housewife to enjoy reading or another quiet activity before the rush of the dinner hour. Even the layout of your bookcases was broken down to a science:

Bookshelves should never be crowded, because, if the books are jammed together, bindings may be injured or even split, from pressure. On the other hand, books should stand straight on the shelves, and not be allowed to lean, no matter how much space there is, for leaning subjects the binding to severe strain. If the shelves are only partly filled, support the books with bookends. If books are too large to stand upright on the shelves, lay them flat. Never put them at an angle. The shelves should be several inches deeper than the books and the books should be set well to the front of the shelves, to allow circulation of air around them. Never stack books in unsteady piles from which they may fall and be badly broken.

Check out some of the titles you might find on the carefully stacked shelves of a ’40s home. These are the four bestselling novels of the decade:

The Robe by Lloyd C. Douglas (1943)
The Big Fisherman by Lloyd C. Douglas (1948)
Forever Amber by Kathleen Winsor (1945)
The Miracle of the Bells by Russell Janney (1947)

…and the four bestselling pieces of non-fiction:

The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald (1945)
Peace of Mind by Joshua L. Liebman (1946)
Speaking Frankly by James F. Byrnes (1947)
Under Cover by John Roy Carlson (1943)

Drat. Eggs again! I just can’t get away from them today. I’d better take a look at tomorrow’s menu.