BookOpinion

In Julia Flynn Siler’s comprehensive work “The House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty,” she does for winemakers what Laura Hillenbrand did for horseracing in her bestseller Seabiscuit. Her engaging, descriptive style envelops readers into the unfamilar world of Napa Valley vintners. If you have never had any interest in wine beyond drinking it, check out Flynn Siler’s reading at a recent Authors@Google presentation.

During her talk, the author details her difficulties in writing the book particularly the problems she had attempting to contact and interview members of the Mondavi family. In the end, she researched thousands of pages of court documents for the book and conducted more than 500 hours of interviews.

The result showcases the sometimes heartbreaking reality of a family-run business. Flynn Siler recounts a notorious incident that fueled the break-up of the family business:

“By one account the two brothers, both in their 50s end up rolling around in the dust. Robert throttles Peter and then when Mama Rosa sees the marks on her youngest child’s neck … she is outraged. It brings up all those feelings over the years about Robert not paying due respect to her baby. She banishes him from the family business. He goes about five miles down highway 29 and starts Robert Mondavi Winery.”

To watch the author provide more background for her book “The House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty,” check out the video.

With a movie spurring a resurgence, “Into the Wild” (originally published in 1996) has climbed atop bestseller lists. The book is currently No. 4 on Amazon’s bestseller list. The story is taken from the journals of Christopher McCandless, who feeling disenfranchised, and inspired by the works of Jack London, Leo Tolstoy and Henry David Thoreau, donates his entire savings of $24,000 to charity, destroys his identification cards, and cuts all ties to family and friends…and walks away into the wilds of Alaska. Four months later, he turned up dead.

Publishers Weekly summarizes more of Into the Wild’s plot: “His diary, letters and two notes found at a remote campsite tell of his desperate effort to survive, apparently stranded by an injury and slowly starving. They also reflect the posturing of a confused young man, raised in affluent Annandale, Va., who self-consciously adopted a Tolstoyan renunciation of wealth and return to nature. Krakauer, a contributing editor to Outside and Men’s Journal, retraces McCandless’s ill-fated antagonism toward his father, Walt, an eminent aerospace engineer. Krakauer also draws parallels to his own reckless youthful exploit in 1977 when he climbed Devils Thumb, a mountain on the Alaska-British Columbia border, partly as a symbolic act of rebellion against his autocratic father. In a moving narrative, Krakauer probes the mystery of McCandless’s death, which he attributes to logistical blunders and to accidental poisoning from eating toxic seed pods.”

The film, whose screenplay was written by Sean Penn, stars stars Marcia Gay Harden, William Hurt, Jena Malone, Catherine Keener, Hal Halbrook, and Vince Vaughn and was released this week. The following is a trailer for the film based on Into the Wild:

The actors talk about turning “Into the Wild” into the film:

…It took Penn a decade to realize the film after first reading the book, which made “such an impression on me,” Penn said at a press conference.

“This was a very raw, fresh wound for the family when the book first came out,” he explained.

“They felt very appreciative to Jon Krakauer for tracing steps that they weren’t capable of tracing at that time and answering a lot of questions.

“But they also felt that lightning may only strike once in terms of allowing someone into their tragedy.”

“I think they needed some more time,” he said.

The cast and crew met with the family and went to Alaska on four occasions in preparation for shooting the film, visiting the “magic bus” where McCandless’s body in a sleeping bag was found by hunters about two weeks after his death from starvation.

McCandless had lost his car in a flash flood, went kayaking alone down remote rivers, and eventually made camp at the abandoned bus along Alaska’s overgrown Stampede Trail Denali National Park.

With only a bag of rice, a hunting rifle, minimal equipment and a book of local plant life, he had hoped to live off the land, according to his journal entries covering 113 separate days.

Actor Emile Hirsch, who plays McCandless in the film, said he had first heard of his epic adventure while watching a US television news magazine when he was a child.

“I was flipping through the channels and was struck by the story of a guy with the courage to go into the wild, which for a young child was unthinkable.”

While researching the role, he said he spent a lot of time alone “to see what it was like.”

“I found that a lot of times when I was alone, a lot of the negativity that society can somehow filter down to you … really went away and I found a moral core that I think is within us all that had some of the dirt wiped off it,” Hirsch said…

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This is one of our favorites. Inside each edition of “Bed and Breakfasts and Country Inns” is a certificate good for a free night at a bed and breakfast, when you purchase the first night a the regular price. The savings ranges from $100-$650 depending on which property you choose.

Even more slick, you can use this bed and breakfast search on their site to see which inns participate in the free night program. The web site also has thousands of additional bed and breakfasts to search from off the iLoveInns.com homepage.

We’ve been told by the publishers that the 19th Edition has just come off the presses. You can order it direct from the publisher now. It also makes a great gift item if you know anyone who loves bed and breakfasts or just needs a gettaway.

Mignon Fogarty, whose popular podcast on grammar rose up the charts of iTunes, now offers this quick, fun and easy-to-follow audiobook. An excerpt from “The Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips to Clean Up Your Writing” is now available on Amazon, here.

Amazon writes: “Are you a fool for mnemonics? If so, you’ll fall head over nubucks for Mignon Fogarty — a.k.a. the Grammar Girl — and her handy new audio guide to writing and speaking well. It’s chock-full of smart little anecdotes and memory tricks for felling the most common grammatical foes (who can ever remember the difference between ‘nauseous’ and ‘nauseated’ anyway?) and at just an hour long it’s the perfect turn-to resource for students and professionals alike.”

Listen to Amazon’s free audiobook podcast here.

There are surprisingly few books in print about the tenor. The two most popular sellers are the 25-year-old autobiography by Pavarotti titled “Pavarotti, My Own Story” and the more recent ”The King and I: The Uncensored Tale of Luciano Pavarotti’s Rise to Fame by His Manager, Friend and Sometime Adversary“.

No doubt, with the death of Pavarotti today, there will be more in print in the next few years. Until then, The King and I by Herbert Breslin will likely continue as the bestseller on the legend.

Washington Post describes The King and I as “both readable and entertaining in a bitchy sort of way.” That is probably as concise and to the point as you can get. More from the Post about the book:

…Breslin’s relationship with Pavarotti was the defining event of his life, and nothing in his recital of their years together remains sacred. Indeed, by the end of the book one has the sense that these two really deserved each other.

As Breslin describes the three stages of their relationship, the early years were those of closeness, collaboration and excitement. They were like family, and Pavarotti was a “dream client” with a natural gift for promotion. He loved interviews, charmed everyone.

In the second phase, the middle years, both were at the top of their respective professions, and they made each other rich. And finally the third phase — the last 10 years, featuring the Three Tenors concerts all over the world and countless more arena concerts — in which Breslin describes a very lazy divo, grossly overweight, reluctant to learn new music, willful and demanding, plus a messy, very public divorce….

…”Nobody argues that he makes beautiful music, and has a beautiful voice, and phrases the music he sings so gorgeously that your heart stops,” Breslin says. “But when it comes to things like sight-reading, or counting time so he knows when to come in, or any of the other technical things that make up the craft of musicianship, Luciano is a little bit challenged. It doesn’t help that he can’t read music.” Breslin adds that his client was not a great favorite with conductors: He always knew better and tried to correct the conductor’s tempo.

On the more positive side, Breslin repeats like a mantra that Pavarotti was the greatest tenor in the world — a statement with which some would argue. He also says that in all their years together, they never had a written contract. “Luciano was a straight arrow . . . he was a man of his word. As was I. And Adua, his wife, who looked after their financial affairs, ran a tight ship.”

Breslin also gives us a picture of the famous tenor outside the opera house — at home in Modena, Italy, where he was a great host, a man with a gargantuan appetite who loved to cook for his guests. He has a passion for horses. He loves to gamble and is a terrific poker player. He also had a healthy appetite for beautiful women. Adua, his wife of many years and the mother of three daughters, took this in her stride, but finally Nicoletta Mantovani, the singer’s secretary, caused their divorce and became Pavarotti’s second wife.

Although this excerpt touches little on Pavarotti, here is the opening from The King and I:

Here’s how not to begin your brilliant professional career. In 1957, I was thirty-three years old. I was married, with a child on the way. And I was working as a speechwriter for the Chrysler Corporation. In Detroit, Michigan.

Detroit, Michigan. Who would even want to think about it? Misery.

People suppose that to succeed in the classical music business you should be very highly directed. You should have experience as a performer, so you know what it’s like on the other side of the footlights. You should get your foot in the door early and work in a number of different areas so you get to know all sides of the performing arts. Ultimately, you’ll gather the experience you need to set up your own company and manage top-level artists.

Well, that’s all bullshit.

I came out of nowhere. I was smart. I was full of energy. And I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. All I knew was that I loved music.

How much did I love music? I’d been obsessed with opera since I was eight years old. The beauty, the glamour, the excitement, and the tremendous voices pulled me into another world. I had a huge collection of records I listened to constantly. I had scrapbooks of the performances I’d seen and the artists I loved. Whatever else was going on around me, opera served as my own private support system and gave me tremendous sustenance. So much sustenance, in fact, that it became my life.

The problem I had when I was thirty-three was that it had nothing to do with my life. Especially not my life in Detroit. There’s a little bit of music in Detroit, but nothing you would really want to seriously consider. I’m a New Yorker. I was starved for opera. I would get the New York Times and wistfully scan the cast lists at the Metropolitan Opera, which the Times used to print every Monday, for the two weeks ahead.

One week I saw that Renata Tebaldi was scheduled to sing Tosca, and I couldn’t help myself. Tebaldi was one of the greatest sopranos singing. People portrayed her as a rival of Maria Callas: Tebaldi’s pure vocal beauty against Callas’s dramatic brilliance. Myself, I liked Callas fine, but I was a fierce fan of Renata Tebaldi. Intoxicating things happened when the woman opened her mouth. It was enough to make you fly to New York. I said to my wife, Carol, “We’re going to see that Tosca,” and I bought tickets.
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“I can’t express in words — the gratitude I owe you for your kindness to me — for the first time in … years — I have come to love the darkness — for I believe now that it is part of a very, very small part of Jesus’ darkness & pain on earth. You have taught me to accept it [as] a ’spiritual side of your work’ as you wrote — Today really I felt a deep joy — that Jesus can’t go anymore through the agony — but that He wants to go through it in me.” — Letter from Mother Teresa to Rev. Joseph Neuner, Circa 1961

“Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light,” a book by the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, who is overseeing her cause for sainthood, looks to be an intriguing read into the spiritual journey of Mother Teresa. The book is already No. 3 on Amazon’s bestseller list with its release set for Sept. 4.

Her doubts in her faith and the darkness and emptiness she said she felt for many years are revealed in her letters printed in Kolodiejchuk’s book. “I am told God lives in me — and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul,” Teresa wrote. “I want God with all the power of my soul — and yet between us there is terrible separation.” In another letter she wrote: “I feel just that terrible pain of loss, of God not wanting me, of God not being God, of God not really existing.”

The book has naturally sparked much debate from both the religious and non-religious. Time magazine dedicated a lengthy article to the book this past week. Here are a couple of excerpts from Come Be My Light:

“Tell me, Father, why is there so much pain and darkness in my soul?”
— to the Rev. Lawrence Picachy, August 1959

Why did Teresa’s communication with Jesus, so vivid and nourishing in the months before the founding of the Missionaries, evaporate so suddenly? Interestingly, secular and religious explanations travel for a while on parallel tracks. Both understand (although only one celebrates) that identification with Christ’s extended suffering on the Cross, undertaken to redeem humanity, is a key aspect of Catholic spirituality. Teresa told her nuns that physical poverty ensured empathy in “giving themselves” to the suffering poor and established a stronger bond with Christ’s redemptive agony. She wrote in 1951 that the Passion was the only aspect of Jesus’ life that she was interested in sharing: “I want to … drink ONLY [her emphasis] from His chalice of pain.” And so she did, although by all indications not in a way she had expected.

Kolodiejchuk finds divine purpose in the fact that Teresa’s spiritual spigot went dry just as she prevailed over her church’s perceived hesitations and saw a successful way to realize Jesus’ call for her. “She was a very strong personality,” he suggests. “And a strong personality needs stronger purification” as an antidote to pride. As proof that it worked, he cites her written comment after receiving an important prize in the Philippines in the 1960s: “This means nothing to me, because I don’t have Him.”…

“Please destroy any letters or anything I have written.”
— to Picachy, April 1959

Consistent with her ongoing fight against pride, Teresa’s rationale for suppressing her personal correspondence was “I want the work to remain only His.” If the letters became public, she explained to Picachy, “people will think more of me — less of Jesus.”

The particularly holy are no less prone than the rest of us to misjudge the workings of history — or, if you will, of God’s providence. Teresa considered the perceived absence of God in her life as her most shameful secret but eventually learned that it could be seen as a gift abetting her calling. If her worries about publicizing it also turn out to be misplaced — if a book of hasty, troubled notes turns out to ease the spiritual road of thousands of fellow believers, there would be no shame in having been wrong — but happily, even wonderfully wrong — twice.

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The Associated Press writes that in the book, Teresa had doubts until her death.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who has been put on the “fast track” to sainthood, was so tormented by doubts about her faith that she felt “a hypocrite,” it has emerged from a book of her letters to friends and confessors…

…Her smile to the world from her familiar weather-beaten face was a “mask” or a “cloak,” she said. “What do I labor for? If there be no God, there can be no soul. If there be no soul then, Jesus, You also are not true.”

Mother Teresa, who died in 1997 and was beatified in record time only six years later, felt abandoned by God from the very start of the work that made her a global figure, in her sandals and blue and white sari. The doubts persisted until her death.

The nun’s crisis of faith was revealed four years ago by the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, the postutalor or advocate of her cause for sainthood, at the time of her beatification in October 2003. Now he has compiled a new edition of her letters, entitled, “Mother Teresa: Come be My Light,” which reveals the full extent of her long “dark night of the soul.”…

…Rev. Kolodiejchuk maintains that Mother Teresa did not suffer “a real doubt of faith,” but that, on the contrary, her agonizing demonstrates her faith in God’s reality.

“We cannot long for something that is not intimately close to us … Now we have this new understanding, this new window into her interior life, and for me this seems to be the most heroic,” he said.

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The Religion News Service also writes about the impact the book may have:

…The book will likely challenge the characterization many people had of Teresa as a simple, pious woman, said the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest who wrote the best-selling My Life With the Saints.

“I think that this is a real treasure for not only believers, but even doubters and skeptics,” Martin said. “I think it also makes her much more accessible to the everyday believer. It shows that even the saints struggle in their spiritual lives and that they don’t have it easier than we do. They sometimes have it harder than we do.”…

…Before 1946, Kolodiejchuk said, little was known about Teresa’s spiritual life. “She says in a letter, ‘I came to India with the desire to love Jesus as he has never been loved before,’” he said. “She was a woman passionately in love with Jesus.”

Yet no sooner did Teresa start her work in the slums of Calcutta than she began to feel the intense absence of Jesus - a state that lasted until her death, according to her letters.

“The paradox is that for her to be a light, she was to be in darkness,” Kolodiejchuk said…

…Catholic saints typically experience a “dark night of the soul” in the words of 16th-century priest St. John of the Cross, Martin said, but never as long as the “whole working life” Teresa experienced.

“She moves into the ranks of the greatest saints,” Martin said. “There are very few who have suffered such an extended dark night.”

But Martin stressed that Teresa’s belief in God never wavered - just her feeling of connection to Jesus, especially after her intense mystical experiences.

“It’s one thing to feel that God is not with you. It’s another thing to believe that God doesn’t exist,” he said.

How all this may affect her bid for sainthood remains unclear. Some say that it makes her even more impressive. Although her spiritual loneliness became known during the canonization process, Kolodiejchuk said that this is the first time the arc of her inner spiritual life is compiled in one place in her own words…

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Last week, we reported that Barnes & Noble would not distribute the O.J. Simpson “If I Did It” book that the Goldman family will now be publishing. “Our buyers don’t feel there will be enough of a demand to carry it in our stores,” Barnes & Noble spokeswoman Mary Ellen Keating told The Associated Press. The bookseller has now changed its tune in light of sales estimates., and the book is currently available on both Barnes & Noble and Amazon, listed under nonfiction.

“We’ve been monitoring the pre-orders and customer requests and have concluded that enough customers have expressed interest in buying the book to warrant stocking it in our stores,” Keating told the Associated Press. “We do not intend to promote the book but we will stock it in our stores because our customers are asking for it.”

This is similar to the stance taken by the Borders Group Inc. last week.

The book, now titled “If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer” by the Goldman Family is currently listed as No. 15 on Barnes and Nobles bestseller list. The book is currently at No. 52 on Amazon bestsellers and No. 15 on its list of new releases. The book contains 14,000 words of additional key commentary.

It is scheduled for release Sept. 13 and now available for pre-order.