Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Fannie Flagg -- April 2015

Fannie Flagg:  Readalikes

PERSONAL INFORMATION:
Original name, Patricia Neal; born September 21, 1941, in Birmingham, AL; Education: Attended the University of Alabama, the Pittsburgh Playhouse, and the Town and Gown Theatre. Memberships: American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, Screen Actors Guild, Actors' Equity Association, American Guild of Variety Artists, American Women in Radio and Television. Addresses: Home: Santa Barbara, CA; and New York, NY.

WRITINGS:

  • Rally 'round the Flagg (recording), RCA Victor, 1967.
  • My Husband Doesn't Know I'm Making This Phone Call (recording), Sunflower, 1971.
  • Coming Attractions: A Wonderful Novel, , 1981, published as Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man, Warner Books (Clayton, Victoria, Australia), 1992.
  • Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (novel), Random House , 1987.
  • (Adaptor with Jon Avnet) Fried Green Tomatoes (screenplay; based on her novel), Universal, 1991.
  • Fannie Flagg's Original Whistle Stop Cafe Cookbook, Fawcett , 1993.
  • (With Colleen Zuck and Chris Jackson) Daily Word: Love, Inspiration, and Guidance for Everyone, Daybreak Books (Emmaus, PA), 1997.
  • Welcome to the World, Baby Girl! (novel),  1998.
  • Standing in the Rainbow (novel), , 2002.
  • A Redbird Christmas (novel), , 2004.
  • Can't Wait to Get to Heaven (novel), 2006.
  • I Still Dream about You (novel), , 2010.
  • The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion (novel), 2013.
Fannie Flagg uses her unique storytelling voice to submerge readers in the atmosphere of the rural small town, spinning tales that are both heart­warming and heart­breaking. As a keen observer of human nature, Flagg illustrates the vast complexity of humanity in her strong and true ­to ­life characterizations. Her stories have a strong sense of place and are often nostalgic, giving them a regional and historical flavor. These factors, along with Flagg's strong heroines and her humorous storytelling style, appeal to readers across many genres. Start with: Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe.

Read-a-likes
1. Wells, Rebecca   Reason: Louisiana ­born Rebecca Wells will provide Flagg fans with piquant Southern settings, a historical flavor, and a focus on vibrant women and their relationships. ­­ Krista Biggs

2. George, Anne   Reason: Flagg readers may want to try Anne George's humorous Southern Sisters series, especially if they enjoy the mysteries to be found in Flagg's fiction. In George's Southern Fiction meets Cozy stories, the mystery itself frequently takes a back seat to local color and oddball characters, and George's style is often comic. ­­ Katherine Johnson

3. Smith, Haywood   ­ Reason: Fannie Flagg and Haywood Smith both write humorous fiction about sassy, mature characters. Their shared Southern settings and gentle sense of humor make their quick, easy reads memorable. ­­ Rebecca Vnuk

4. Dallas, Sandra   Reason: Sandra Dallas and Fannie Flagg are masters at writing heartwarming, character ­driven fiction about women's lives and friendships in small towns. While Dallas tends to take a more historical approach, neither author shies away from dealing with emotional hardship ­­ Rebecca Sigmon

5. Gulley, Philip  Reason: Fannie Flagg's small­ town setting and use of humor will remind readers of Philip Gulley's Harmony, Indiana, though Gulley's fiction is more explicitly Christian. ­­ Nanci Milone Hill

6. Jackson, Joshilyn  Reason: Joshilyn Jackson and Fannie Flagg both write stories filled with engaging and offbeat characters, vivid small­ town Southern settings, and a sense of nostalgia and charm. Family relationships (sometimes affirming and sometimes dysfunctional) figure strongly in the work of both authors. ­­ Victoria Caplinger
7. Gruen, Sara  Reason: Despite their weighty themes and occasional episodes of violence and tragedy, the novels of literary fiction authors Sara Gruen and Fannie Flagg are not at all ponderous. Their engaging stories move at a good clip, enlivened by memorable characters and colorful settings. ­­ Jessica Zellers
8. Ross, Ann B.  Reason: Ann B. Ross's Miss Julia novels will offer Flagg fans a familiar small­town setting, idiosyncratic Southern characters, gentle humor, and revelations about life hidden in everyday events. ­ ­ Katherine Johnson Read­alikes for Flagg, Fannie Find more read­alikes in NoveList.

9. Trigiani, Adriana Reason: A visit with Adriana Trigiani's idiosyncratic characters is certain to provide insight into the pathos, hilarity, and complexities of small town lives similar to those portrayed in Flagg's books. Trigiani captures the humor, affection, and concern that flourish in places so small that everyone knows their neighbor's middle name, territory familiar to Flagg's fans. ­­ Krista Biggs
© 2015 EBSCO Industries, Inc. All rights reserved.
author’s website;  http://fannieflaggbooks.com/

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Friday, February 27, 2015

Monuments Men -- March 2015 -- supplemental material

 At the same time Adolf Hitler was attempting to take over the western world, his armies were methodically seeking and hoarding the finest art treasures in Europe. The Fuehrer had begun cataloguing the art he planned to collect as well as the art he would destroy: "degenerate" works he despised. In a race against time, behind enemy lines, often unarmed, a special force of American and British museum directors, curators, art historians, and others, called the Monuments Men, risked their lives scouring Europe to prevent the destruction of thousands of years of culture.  Focusing on the eleven-month period between D-Day and V-E Day, this fascinating account follows six Monuments Men and their impossible mission to save the world's great art from the Nazis.book jacket

  1. The Monuments Men | Official Site

  2. www.monumentsmen.com/
  3. The Monuments Men were a group of men and women from thirteen nations, most of whom volunteered had expertise as museum directors, curators, art ...

  4. The True Story of the Monuments Men | History | Smithsonian

  5. www.smithsonianmag.com/.../true-story-monuments-men-1...
  6. Smithsonian
  7. Feb 7, 2014 - "Without the [Monuments Men], a lot of the most important treasures of ... They summoned the only Monuments Man for the job, George Stout, ...
  9. In-depth articles

  10. The Art Army

  12. Harvard Magazine
  13. The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History, by Robert M. Edsel, with Bret Witter, narrates the background, actions, and achievements of these soldiers.
  14. ‎Explore: monuments

  15. Monuments Man in War, Conservator in Peace

  17. The New York Times‎ - Mar 2014
  18. BY now, much of the moviegoing world is familiar with “The Monuments Men,” an art-historical film that sees George Clooney, Matt Damon and other stars swashbuckling around ...

  19. Monuments Men: A Baltimore writer learns her father ...

  21. The Washington Post‎ - Jun 2014
  22. This time he told me George Clooney was working on a movie titled “The Monuments Men,” which focused on the recovery of art plundered by the Nazis. Wells, a leading authority on ...
  23. + More in-depth articles



Archives of American Art

Monuments Men: On the Front Line to Save Europe's Art, 1942–1946

February 7 to April 20, 2014
Washington, D.C. at the Lawrence A. Fleischman Gallery
Join us for gallery talks about the exhibition: March 13 and 28, at 1:00 p.m.
During World War II, an unlikely team of soldiers was charged with identifying and protecting European cultural sites, monuments, and buildings from Allied bombing. Officially named the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA) Section, this U.S. Army unit included art curators, scholars, architects, librarians, and archivists from the U.S. and Britain. They quickly became known as The Monuments Men.
Towards the end of the war, their mission changed to one of locating and recovering works of art that had been looted by the Nazis. The Monuments Men uncovered troves of stolen art hidden across Germany and Austria—some in castles, others in salt mines. They rescued some of history’s greatest works of art.
Among the holdings of the Archives of American Art are the papers of Monuments Men George Leslie Stout, James J. Rorimer, Walker Hancock, Thomas Carr Howe, S. Lane Faison, Walter Horn, and Otto Wittman. These personal archives tell a fascinating story.
This exhibition complements a project to enhance access to the Archives’ collections for World War II provenance research funded by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.
Related blog posts:

Voices of the Monuments Men

Audio excerpts from the Archives’ oral history interviews.
Otto Wittmann on the Art Looting Investigation Unit and postwar restitution work:


Art: surviving war, fraud, & theft

AUTHOR       Brey, Ilaria Dagnini
TITLE        The Venus fixers : the remarkable story of the Allied soldiers
              who saved Italy's art during World War II
Documents the contributions of a motley team of art historians, curators, and passionate amateurs who were appointed by Allied forces to save master works of European art from destruction during World War II, describing the volatile conditions under which they safeguarded thousands of years worth of masterpieces at the risk of their own lives.

AUTHOR       Dolnick, Edward,
TITLE        The forger's spell : a true story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the
              greatest art hoax of the twentieth century
As riveting as a World War II thriller, The Forger's Spell is the true story of Johannes Vermeer and the small-time Dutch painter who dared to impersonate him centuries later. The con man's mark was Hermann Goering, one of the most reviled leaders of Nazi Germany and a fanatic collector of art.

AUTHOR       Edsel, Robert M.
TITLE        Saving Italy : the race to rescue a nation's treasures from the
              Nazis
Describes two Americans in Italy--one an artist, the other a scholar--who tracked down and protected historic artwork worth billions by Michelangelo, Donatello, Titian, Caravaggio, and Botticelli in advance of the approaching Nazi army in 1943

AUTHOR       Felch, Jason.
TITLE        Chasing Aphrodite : the hunt for looted antiquities at the
              world's richest museum
            Drawing on a trove of confidential museum records and frank interviews, Felch and Frammolino give a fly-on-the-wall account of the inner workings of a world-class museum and tell the story of the Getty's dealings in the illegal antiquities trade. Fast-paced and compelling, "Chasing Aphrodite" exposes the layer of dirt beneath the polished facade of the museum business

AUTHOR       Kirkpatrick, Sidney.
TITLE        Hitler's holy relics : a true story of Nazi plunder and the race
              to recover the crown jewels of the Holy Roman Empire
When covert Nazi agents take the Crown Jewels of the Holy Roman Empire during the waning days of World War II, Generals Eisenhower and Patton task Lieutenant Walter Horn with recovering the ancient treasure before its possessors can use it to revive the horrors of the defeated regime


AUTHOR       Mould, Philip.
TITLE        The art detective : fakes, frauds, and finds, and the search for
              lost treasures
A leading authority on British portraiture and expert for the BBC's Antiques Roadshow shares favorite stories from his career while imparting professional insights into detecting and restoring valuable art, in an account told through chapters that focus on significant painting discoveries.

AUTHOR       Müller, Melissa,
TITLE        Lost lives, lost art : Jewish collectors, Nazi art theft, and the
              quest for justice
A book with 200 color and black-and-white photos and illustrations relates the tragic stories of 15 Jewish art collectors whose art and lives were stolen by the Nazis, as well as the gripping drama of their heirs' attempts to recover their inheritance.

AUTHOR       Nicholas, Lynn H.
TITLE        The rape of Europa : the fate of Europe's treasures in the Third
              Reich and the Second World War
Describes the systematic looting and destruction of Europe's vast art treasures, by the Nazis and the ravages of World War II, and examines the salvage and restitution efforts of curators, citizens, and "monuments officers" following the war.

AUTHOR       Scott-Clark, Cathy,
TITLE        The Amber Room : the fate of the world's greatest lost treasure
When the Nazis invaded Russia, they removed and hid the legendary Amber Room built by Catherine the Great in her St. Petersburg palace. Immersing themselves in Cold War intrigues, London-based journalists traveled widely to investigate this lost treasure's fate. Maps and b&w photos situate the geographic and historical contexts.



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Saturday, August 9, 2014

La's Orchestra Saves the World


*Starred Review* McCall Smith, author of the wildly popular No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, makes his first foray into historical fiction in this delightful stand-alone novel. Lavender ("La") is a divorcee in her thirties living alone in the English countryside at the outbreak of World War II. With little to occupy her time, La devotes herself to the war effort, first working as a "land girl" for a local egg farmer, until Felix, a Polish refugee airman, replaces her. Again at loose ends, she starts a morale-boosting effort that makes her famous—an amateur orchestra. Originally intended to perform only until the Battle of Britain was over, La's orchestra sticks together until V-E day,... Highly recommended for fans of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2008), McCall Smith's numerous fans, and historical fiction readers of all kinds. Copyright 2009 Booklist Reviews.


Drowning out the sounds of war with music
By Eugenia Zukerman
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
LA'S ORCHESTRA SAVES THE WORLD
By Alexander McCall Smith

According to George Bernard Shaw, "Hell is full of musical amateurs," but Alexander McCall Smith's new book defies that assessment. One of the most popular writers of our time, McCall Smith has seen his books translated into dozens of languages. His work as a professor of medical law at the University of Edinburgh and as a participant on international bioethics committees may have informed his popular "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" series, but perhaps it was his amateur bassoon playing that inspired this new work. Not content with merely founding the Really Terrible Orchestra in Edinburgh (which brings really great fun to its audiences), McCall Smith has established an opera house and opera training center in Botswana. Clearly, his love of music has been translated into action and now into a stand-alone novel called "La's Orchestra Saves the World."
Set in England at the onset of World War II, McCall Smith's new tale is a metaphor for the transformative power of music. The story centers on a woman named Lavender, La for short. When we meet her, she appears to be intelligent but naive, all duty and no daring. At Cambridge she "joined a music society, and played the flute in a quartet" and also received from her tutor some heavy-handed feminist lessons, such as, "All these intelligent girls come to us and then leave, more or less promised to some man. And they go off and marry him and that's the end. What a waste. What a criminal waste." Although La vows that she has come to school "to be taught how to think," she marries her first ardent suitor, who ends up betraying her, leaving her and dying just as war breaks out.
In a show of real pluck and purpose, La goes off to live alone in an inherited country cottage in Suffolk, where she grows vegetables in her garden and helps an arthritic neighbor with his farm. McCall Smith captures England's wartime atmosphere of terror, courage and defiance, and his heroine discovers how music can be an antidote to the horrors of battle. "Music was her refuge," McCall Smith writes. "There was madness abroad, an insanity of killing and cruelty that defied understanding. . . . La thought that music disproved this. Reason, beauty, harmony: these were ultimately more real and powerful than any of the demons unleashed by dictators."
La has a chance to test this idea when an air force officer named Tim Honey sees her flute on the kitchen dresser. Once an "indifferent trumpet player," Tim suggests that there are "chaps at the base who would love to play in a band." And so La's orchestra begins, with our heroine as conductor.
The musicians give a rousing victory concert in 1945, but it is during the Cuban missile crisis, when La decides to "hold a concert for peace," that McCall Smith drives his point home. In truth, La wants the concert because "she believed in the power of music." She chose "Bach for order; Mozart for healing. This was the antithesis of the anger and fear that could unleash the missiles; this was music showing the face of love, and forgiveness."
"La's Orchestra Saves the World" is crafted with the author's usual wit, wisdom and grace. Like a pianist putting listeners at ease with the opening phrase, McCall Smith immediately makes us feel confident that this is a true and resonant tale.
Zukerman is a flutist, the author of four books and the artistic director of the Vail Valley Music Festival.
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