Battery Park Book Exchange

So while on vacation in May the Huz and I visited an amazing bookstore in Asheville, North Carolina. It's called the Battery Park Book Exchange and Champagne Bar and it was amazing! When you first go in you see a big wine bar area, then you climb the stairs and you can just wander for hours through the stacks.

Joyce reigns over the staircase and dogs are welcome throughout the shop! There are little corners everywhere with chairs and tables for people to sit and chat over their glasses of wine.

 Little tables in front of the bookstore. We grabbed a drink and sat out here people watching after the sun had set.

This area was packed with chairs and little tables. People were sipping wine and nibbling on cheese plates. The whole time other shoppers were browsing the stacks around them.

These were all rare books. There were so many great classics! I was incredibly tempted to buy a copy of Rebecca... but it was $300.

 The Huz browsed with me while I squealed at each new nook we discovered. I ended up buying a copy of Doctor Doolittle and Hemingway's The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories.

 The main wine bar area when you first enter the shop.

Even the front door is inviting. You can see the little coffee bar where a barista will ring up your books when you're ready to leave (although you never really are ready to leave). If you're ever in North Carolina I definitely recommend you check it out!

Classics Club July Question

 

Have you ever read a biography on a classic author? If so, tell us about it. If you had already read works by this author, did reading a biography of his/her life change your perspective on the author’s writing? Why or why not?

 

I have actually read quite a few biographies of authors. I’m always fascinated by the man or woman behind the pen. One of my favorites was Papa Hemingway by A.E. Hotchner. The author knew Hemingway personally in his later years and his portrayal of the author is a loving one. I’ve struggled with some of Hemingway’s work; I loved A Moveable Feast, but get lost in the misogyny of some of his novels. Seeing Hemingway through the eyes of a friend helped me temper my disdain a bit and try to understand the man on a deeper level.

 

Mockingbird by Charles J. Shields was another interesting one. To Kill a Mockingbird is such a beloved book and its author is so elusive. I loved learning more about not just Harper, but also her sister and father and the impact they had on her life. The book itself is a bit dry, but it did give me a deeper understanding of how Harper’s own life influenced her famous novel.

 

I read Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind, which is not a biography precisely, but more of a journey of a book. But it also gives an in depth look at Mitchell’s life before and after it was published and the grueling process of getting it written. Again, gaining more information about the author added to my appreciation of her novel.

 

Up next for me is the biography of Zelda written by Nancy Milford. My book club is reading it later this year and I’m so excited to check it out. Let me know if you’ve read it and what you thought!

Join in the fun at the Classics Club Blog.



The Garden of Eden

The Garden of Eden

by Ernest Hemingway

★★★☆

Newlyweds Catherine and David are enjoying an extended honeymoon while he tries to write his next book. As Catherine putters around the coastal town she begins to change both her appearance and her attitude towards her husband. Then everything in their relationship changes when she makes friends with a woman named Marita.

Such a strange book, published posthumously, and one that I never would have guessed was written by Hemingway. It contains his clean prose, but his characters are wildly different from anything else I’ve read of his. After A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls and other big Hemingway novels I thought I know what to expect from his writing. If it’s fiction there is usually a badly drawn female willing to do whatever the hero wants. This book is the polar opposite of that assumption. It makes me wonder if he only wanted to publish the incredibly masculine novels he wrote during his lifetime.

While Catherine and David are still attempting to find their footing as a couple, Marita’s presence throws them off kilter. They begin to reevaluate their roles in the relationship. Catherine carefully pushes and prods until David accepts Marita as a friend and then as a lover. The ménage à trois relationship sneaks slowly into their lives until it’s hard to remember what they were like as a twosome.

After reading The Paris Wife last year it made me wonder how much of this book was inspired by bits and pieces of Hemingway’s own life. His first marriage ended when a close female friend (Pauline Pfeiffer) slowly worked her way into the lives of both Hemingway and his wife Hadley. There are even some parallels with destroyed manuscripts, though in the novel it’s a malicious act and in real life the manuscripts were stolen while in Hadley’s possession.

  

BOTTOM LINE: A strange look inside one couple’s marriage. A crucial book to read if you think you really know Hemingway’s work, but not a must for those who just want a taste. I’d highly recommend his nonfiction book, A Moveable Feast, about his time in Paris to provide another aspect of his writing style.

Roof Beam Reader’s great review of the book prompted me to check this one out.

  

I read this as part of Allie's Modern March event. 

Wild Nights!

Wild Nights!

Stories About the Last Days of Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James, and Hemingway

by Joyce Carol Oates

★★

I was really disappointed with this one. Part of it is my fault, because I thought (from the title) that this was a nonfiction book about the listed authors’ final days. Instead it’s a fictional short story collection with Oates’ imagined accounts of their later days.

Each of the five stories deals with one author. Poe’s story never seemed very focused to me. Twain’s story was incredibly creepy and I wasn’t a fan. I’m hoping Oates doesn’t believe he was actually like the way she wrote him, because her version of Twain in disturbing. James’ wasn’t bad, but again, there was no real spark. Hemingway’s story was probably the closest to reality and I think that’s why I liked it best.

The Emily Dickinson’s section isn’t actually about her at all. It’s about a live mannequin, called an EDickinsonRepliLuxe, that’s created to look and act like her. A husband and wife purchase it so they can interact with her in their own home. This story reminded me so much of Ray Bradbury’s style, particularly his short story “Marionettes, Inc.” from The Illustrated Man.

BOTTOM LINE: The whole collection is better in theory than in actuality. Skip it and find a nonfiction account about your favorite authors.

The Paris Wife

The Paris Wife
by Paula McLain
★★★★

I was fascinated by this book. I’ve said before that I’m not the biggest fan of Ernest Hemingway. I enjoy his short stories, but most of his novels just don’t work for me. In A Farewell to Arms and For Whom the Bell Tolls, the women come across as empty pictures of one man’s idea of what a perfect woman should be. Hemingway himself was as chauvinistic as they come and that doesn’t appeal to me.

Yet despite my mediocre reaction to those books, I’ve always been intrigued by his life. When I read his nonfiction memoir about his time in Paris, A Moveable Feast, I was completely in love with it. It was the first thing I’d read of his that rang true for me. I adore reading about Paris in the ‘20s. I would have loved to visit the City of Lights when some of the great authors and artists of the century were gathered together there. So when I heard about this novel, a fictionalized account of that same time period from his wife Hadley’s point-of-view, I couldn’t wait to read it.

I think that it was because of all the background that I enjoyed this book so much. There were constant references to his novels and it helped that I had already read them. Hadley’s view of Hemingway, as her husband and closest friend, softens him a bit in my eyes, but at the same time I just wanted to smack him. His actions are so selfish and cavalier, it’s hard to watch him break her heart. It must have been so difficult to share your life with someone so volatile. He was such a child in so many ways. He needed to be coddled and loved, but never discouraged.

I can’t imagine how lonely it was for Hadley. Think about living with a group of friends made entirely of artists and writers, but to not actually be one of them. You’re always on the fringes, not quite up to their level of talent. I think Hemingway also made her feel that way and over time she began to lose her feelings of self-worth.

There was never a question in my mind on how it would all end because I’d read a biography on him before and knew of his multiple wives. So it was a bit like watching a train wreck in slow motion. I read it more to see it all unfold from a new angle. The writing was beautiful and even though I don't see myself in Hadley, I still felt connected to her.

I don’t think this one is for everyone, but if you liked A Moveable Feast, you should definitely read this. If you haven’t, you should read that first. Also, if you like that book or this one, check out Woody Allen’s latest movie, Midnight in Paris. It’s so much fun.

“We clung hard to each other, making vows we couldn’t keep and should never have spoken aloud. That’s how love is sometimes.”

“To marry was to say you believed in the future and in the past, too—that history and tradition and hope could stay knit together to hold you up.”