Heaven is a used bookstore
Brattle Book Shop, downtown Boston, exterior (Photo: DY, 2014)
Over the weekend I made an extended pitstop at the Brattle Book Shop in downtown Boston. I was reminded once again how used bookstores have been a place of happy sanctuary to me, going back to my early adult years.
The Brattle, pictured above, is one of America’s oldest bookstores, and it’s one of my favorites. Inside, you’ll find two floors of used books and review copies, plus a top floor of rare books. Outside, at least when the weather is okay, you’ll find shelves and carts of discounted used books, marked at $5, $3, and $1. Lots of the $5 books are quality volumes that would be a boon to many a personal library, and there are plenty of great bargains among the $3 and $1 offerings as well.
The discounted books outside draw me in. The weekend stop, for example, started with a discovery from one of the $3 carts, The World of Charles Dickens (1997), a colorful, illustrated guide to Dickens’ works and times, by London popular historian and Victorian crime expert Martin Fido.
But then I went inside. Uh oh. Let’s just say that the books I found on adult education and on psychology ran up the bill to considerably beyond three dollars. They may have been real “bargains” as measured by their original prices, but they lightened my wallet nevertheless.
Favorite haunts
Especially with the decline of brick & mortar bookshops, I’m delighted and appreciative that Greater Boston still supports used bookstores. In addition to Brattle, Commonwealth Books, Raven Used Books, and the basement level of Harvard Book Store are among the stores that offer plenty of used book treasures.
Elsewhere in the U.S., the Strand in Manhattan, Powell’s in Chicago, and Moe’s in Berkeley are favorite haunts. (Not surprisingly, all are within close proximity of one or more major universities.) During a recent trip to New Orleans, I was delighted to find several used bookstores in the French Quarter. And on those fortunate occasions when I’ve traveled to England, I’ve always been on the lookout for used bookstores.
New York
New York City’s used bookstores hold a special place in my heart. By the time I moved there, its famous “Book Row” on 4th Avenue was no more. But during my years in New York (1982-94), the Strand was a classic, creaky, and vast used bookshop. I visited regularly as a law student, and during my stretch as a perpetually broke Legal Aid lawyer, I would make pilgrimages there on paydays when I felt (very temporarily) flush. The Strand has done some upscale remodeling in recent years and now sells a lot of new titles along with its storehouse of used books. Nonetheless, it remains a standard stop during my New York visits.
Another favorite was the Barnes & Noble Annex on 5th Ave. and 18th Street, across the street from the original B&N flagship store (which recently closed). The Annex was a multi-floored wonder, full of remaindered and heavily discounted new titles and used books. B&N would shutter the Annex sometime after I moved to Boston. I recall that when I discovered it had closed, I felt like a small piece of my New York life was gone too.
Book sale in a tent
The origins of my enjoyment of rummaging through piles of used books trace back to the summer after my first year of college. I was spending the summer at home in northwest Indiana, and my mom had clipped from the Chicago Tribune a small notice about a big used book sale in Wilmette, Illinois.
Later I would learn that the book sale was an annual, week-long fundraising event organized by the Chicagoland chapter of the Brandeis University women’s committee. It was legendary among many bibliophiles across the country, some of whom would rent camping vehicles to drive there and load up on good books for the year.
Anyway, I did the 90-minute drive to check it out. When I arrived, I could scarcely believe my eyes. The sale — offering some 250,000 used books(!) — was held in a huge tent that covered a big stretch of a mall parking lot. I spent just about every bit of spare change I had to my name. I filled several bags of books, and a few days later I would return to buy even more. Though I felt too silly to call it as such, this marked for me the beginning of a personal library.
Apparently some form of this book sale survives to this day. Hopefully others are deriving the same pleasure of visiting it and loading up on great discoveries. Maybe, like me, it will fuel a lifelong devotion.
“Grand Central”: Postwar stories from one of the old familiar places
I’ve just started reading Grand Central: Original Stories of Postwar Love and Reunion (2014), a newly-released anthology of short stories by ten writers, with the iconic train station playing a role in each one. Last night I read “The Lucky One” by Jenna Blum, author of two very successful novels, Those Who Save Us and The Stormchasers. I count Jenna among my dear friends, so perhaps I’m biased, but if her contribution is a harbinger of things to come, I’m in for a treat.
I began with Jenna’s story because, well, I saw it as sort of a test. WWII. Train station. Love and reunion. In the wrong hands, such a collection could easily become a soggy nostalgia fest, conjuring up images of a couple having a final embrace before the one left behind runs along the departing train. Because I’m a big fan of Jenna’s work, I figured her story would give me an idea of what to expect.
Jenna’s “The Lucky One” is about a Jewish concentration camp survivor who works at Grand Central’s famous Oyster Bar restaurant. He sees a customer who looks like his late mother. . . .
Enough said. I’ll simply opine that “The Lucky One” is a superb, knowing, heartfelt contribution from a writer whose ability to tell a great story with nuanced emotional intelligence is one of her distinguishing gifts. It also is the work of someone who learned about the Holocaust by interviewing survivors for Steven Spielberg’s Survivors of the Shoah history project. Jenna has infused a lot of historical understanding into her short story.
Okay folks, I know I’m betraying my own limitations when I confess that I cannot recall ever diving into a volume of short stories with a cover showing a couple kissing in a train station! But I will be the loser if I don’t spend more time with this one. And I have a strong feeling that the next time I step into Grand Central Station, some of these tales will come to mind.
June 6, 1944: Why it matters for those of us born much later
Photograph of D-Day landings (from National WWII Museum, New Orleans)
Seventy years ago, Allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, signaling the beginning of the major campaign to reclaim Europe from Hitler’s Germany. If you’ve ever wondered how terms such as “D-Day” and “first wave on the beach” became parts of our cultural vocabulary, look no more.
The veterans of D-Day are aging, and many have passed on. But this remains a signature event in history. Had the invasion failed and the Allied forces been pushed back across the English Channel, the war likely would’ve gone on for years. Instead, it ended the next May in Europe and the next September in the Pacific.
German defenses watched Allied troops landing on Normandy beaches from these fortifications (from National WWII Museum, New Orleans)
Most of us have been spared the experience of armed combat, but if you want a sense of what it was like to be in that first wave of troops on the beach, the opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg’s 1998 depiction of a squad of American soldiers assigned to a special mission, is about as close as you’d want to get.
If you’d prefer popular historical overviews of D-Day, then Stephen Ambrose’s D-Day (1994) and Walter Lord’s The Longest Day (1959) are good book choices. The 1962 screen adaptation of Lord’s book (also titled The Longest Day), while very much a Hollywood war movie, tells the story well, too.
In my previous post, I observed that some of us would benefit by finding greater meaning in the common, ordinary, and mundane pieces of our lives, rather than always working toward or anticipating the next big event. Many of the men who returned home from D-Day and other places of battle understood that notion implicitly. They had seen enough of the world’s conflicts and drama; many wanted nothing more than to lead quiet, comfortable, and relatively uneventful lives.
I try to remember this whenever I look back at WWII, while simultaneously yearning for a greater sense of shared purpose in our fragmented society. It’s awfully easy to romanticize the war era through a rose-colored lens some 70 years old. But I can’t imagine anyone who survived the beaches of Normandy getting too soggy about a global war that left millions of casualties. D-Day matters for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is how it reminds us of the blessings of living in peace.
Jack Kerouac’s homebrewed tabletop baseball game
You may be familiar with Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) as the author of novels (e.g., On the Road) and poetry that established him as an iconic figure of the Beat Generation. But did you also know that he was a big sports fan who blended a love of baseball and a rich imagination to create a homebrewed tabletop baseball game? The game featured a league of fictitious teams and ballplayers that he played for years, well into his adulthood.
With baseball season moving into full swing, I’m delighted to highlight Isaac Gewirtz’s Kerouac at Bat: Fantasy Sports and the King of the Beats (2009), a colorful 100-page book about Kerouac’s fantasy sports world, including plenty of photos of Kerouac’s own baseball game and the voluminous league records he maintained. The book is published by the New York Public Library (Gewirtz is a curator there), and it’s listed in the NYPL’s online catalog.
Through his game, Kerouac created his own fictitious world of baseball, proceeding from season to season. During the earlier years of his baseball league, he named his teams after car brands:
Kerouac added journalistic touches to his baseball league. Here’s a write-up of early-season league action, including the nascent standings and a game summary:
Kerouac’s game slightly preceded the arrival of dozens of commercially marketed baseball board games, such as APBA and Strat-O-Matic, in which players recreate the performances of real-life major leaguers via game engines that blend assorted charts, player performance cards or rosters, and activators such as dice or spinners. Computer and videogame platforms have now brought baseball simulations into the digital age. (For those who want to check out the contemporary tabletop sports simulation scene, the Tabletop Sports game forum on Delphi is a good starting place.)
Perhaps newspaper reporter and APBA baseball fan Kenneth Heard is following in Kerouac’s footsteps with his terrific personal blog, Love, Life and APBA Baseball, in which he mixes game and league summaries with personal stories and observations about life.
Vintage edition of the APBA baseball game (From apbagames.com)
Kerouac’s fictitious tabletop baseball world also preceded Robert Coover’s The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. (1968), the tale of a man who invents his own cards & dice baseball game and becomes lost in the life of his fictitious baseball league. It’s considered a minor classic and one of the best books about the dramatic pull of baseball.
I’ve been playing tabletop sports games since I was in grade school. Last year I played the 1969 Chicago Cubs schedule on the iPad version of Out of the Park baseball. I was attempting to reverse the fortunes of a favorite team that, in real life, slumped badly at season’s end and lost the division title to the New York Mets, the eventual World Series champs. (I’m afraid that my management of the digital Cubs resulted in a much worse record!)
But I digress! You see, it comes easily for those of us who, like Kerouac, enjoy recreating a favorite sport with the mind’s eye. Even if we lack his gift for writing novels, we can build a world of legendary sports accomplishments on our tabletops.
Spring training: It’s time for “Who’s Who in Baseball”
My ongoing mind-over-matter battle with the winter elements has been buoyed by the annual arrival of Who’s Who in Baseball, a collection of lifetime records of active major league baseball players, at bookstores and magazine stands. The appearance of Who’s Who means that no matter how bad the winter has been, spring and baseball are not far away.
In addition, Who’s Who has a much deeper meaning to guys (yes, mostly guys) who grew up following their favorite big league teams and players back in the day. As you can see from the cover of the current edition, Who’s Who has been around forever. The 1972 edition pictured next to it goes back to my junior high days, when we followed baseball religiously.
Although baseball statistics are now big business — practically everything about the game that can be measured with numbers appears in print or online somewhere these days — the basic format of Who’s Who hasn’t changed much over the decades. A devoted Who’s Who reader from the 1970s could look at the page below from the 2014 edition and instantly recognize where it came from.
And oh, how we’d study those pages! I’m not alone in saying that even if I can’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday, I can still rattle off baseball stats from 40+ years ago. Who’s Who had a lot to do with that.
Fantasy baseball wasn’t around back in those days. But some of us played dice-and-charts statistical board games like APBA, Strat-O-Matic, Statis-Pro, Extra Innings, and Gil Hodges Pennant Fever, which allowed us to recreate player performances on our tabletops. These games were the precursors to computer and video sports simulation games today, and Who’s Who in Baseball was a key source toward informing us which players to draft for our pre-digital fantasy baseball squads.
The baseball stats explosion notwithstanding, I don’t need to know, say, how many times a guy grounded into a double play with two strikes on him. Hey, I’m a fan, not a big league manager. Instead, it’s more fun to flip through the pages of Who’s Who to trace players’ careers and to immerse myself in old-fashioned, plain vanilla stats like home runs, batting averages, wins, and ERA.
Enough snow. Play ball!
***
APBA and Strat-O-Matic are still in business, offering both board and computer versions of their baseball games. Even in this digital era, sports board game devotees form a hardy bunch, featuring a lot of Generation Jones members! I’ll have more to say about that hobby in a future post.
Earthy, historic, mysterious, delicious New Orleans
New Orleans has a mythology, a personality, a soul, that is large, that has touched people around the world. It has its own music (many of its own musics), its own cuisine, its own way of talking, its own architecture, its own smell, its own look and feel.
-Tom Piazza, Why New Orleans Matters (2005)
At least during those five months of the year when it isn’t unbearably hot and humid, I can’t think of a more fascinating American city to visit than New Orleans.
I’ve been in New Orleans for a conference, and it’s my first trip to the city in 15 years. Obviously NOLA (as they call it) has been through a lot in the post-Katrina years, but it retains the unique look and feel that Tom Piazza wrote about in his eloquent tribute to the city as it struggled to recover from the storm and flooding.
Lately my vacations have been limited to extended weekend trips and add-on days to work-related travel, and thus I tend to explore places I visit in short stretches. Fortunately I can dig into a city like New Orleans, especially its historic French Quarter, even if I have only a couple of days to do so. For starters, I took a great walking tour of the Quarter sponsored by Friends of the Cabildo, a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving Louisiana’s history. From that tour, here’s a shot of the St. Louis Cathedral, the oldest operating cathedral in North America:
Some of my college pals who read this blog know all-too-well how much our semester abroad in England and accompanying post-semester sojourns imprinted themselves on me. Ever since, I’ve welcomed opportunities to re-experience the adventure of youthful European travel, however briefly, and New Orleans allows me to do just that without need of a passport! Seeing artists displaying their work in Jackson Square reminded me of my first visit to Paris over 30 years ago.
Being the bookstore hound that I am, I had to seek out a few of the city’s bookstores. Here’s Beckham’s Bookstore on Decatur Street, a great used bookstore with piles of books next to filled-up shelves that, well, sorta reminded me of my condo!
Beckham’s comes replete with its own resident cat, who apparently commandeers whatever space is convenient in order to get in a well-earned nap.
NOLA is home to some incredibly talented musicians. Here’s a great jazz band playing on Royal Street.
They’re so good, I picked up one of their CDs, pictured here with the Piazza book:
NOLA’s history has its ghastly side that, not surprisingly, sometimes turns ghostly. For example, pictured here is the house of Madame Delphine Lalaurie, who is said to have committed horrific acts of torture on her slaves during the 1830s. Though some claim that she has been unfairly indicted in the court of history, the most authoritative book that I’ve encountered on the topic, Carolyn Morrow Long’s Madame Lalaurie, Mistress of the Haunted House (2012), sides with the accusers. Naturally, the house is a favorite stop on the countless French Quarter ghost tours, and though I didn’t encounter anything supernatural when I was clicking away with my camera, I wouldn’t be eager to spend a night there.
Not all of the historical offerings are uniquely local. New Orleans also is home to the impressive National World War II Museum, co-founded by noted historian Stephen Ambrose, who taught at the University of New Orleans and whose books about D-Day and the European Theatre inspired the HBO series “Band of Brothers.” The museum, which continues to expand, includes a large hall containing vintage aircraft. Here is a B-17 “Flying Fortress,” an iconic U.S. bomber plane of the era.
Of course, a visit to New Orleans typically involves good food. The city has a collection of fancy restaurants, but I ended up being a repeat customer at less expensive eateries, including The Grill, pictured here…
…and Jimmy J’s Cafe, whose wonderful cinnamon French toast is pictured here.
I think an order of French toast is a good way to conclude this blog post. Enjoy!
***
For a short piece on the psychology & law conference that brought me to New Orleans, go here.
All photos: DY, 2014
A bookstore visit triggers memories of meeting an intellectual hero
This afternoon I stopped by the venerable Brattle Book Shop, my favorite used bookstore in Boston and one of the nation’s oldest booksellers. The frequent turnover of their stock means that new discoveries await with each visit. Today’s brief sojourn introduced me to a newly-arrived row of books authored by John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006), the renowned Harvard University economist, public intellectual, and bestselling author of books on public affairs.
Galbraith cared passionately about economic society, but he never lost sight of the bigger picture. He understood that smart, sensible liberalism was not about advancing single issues to the exclusion of all others, but rather embraced a broader, inclusive agenda covering many priorities. He valued intelligent discussion over cheap slogans and didn’t hesitate to exchange ideas with those who disagreed with him.
Among the titles available at the Brattle were his most well-known works, including The Affluent Society (1958), The New Industrial State (1967), and The Great Crash, 1929 (1954). Many were signed by him, and when I opened the volumes I saw a signature that looked familiar to me. And herein lies a story…
I discovered Galbraith’s writings as an undergraduate during a semester abroad in Cambridge, England. There I attended a debate featuring Galbraith waxing eloquent about economic policy. Suitably impressed, I devoured several of his books during that overseas semester, and he quickly became one of my intellectual heroes. For years I thought to myself, gee, it sure would be great to meet the guy someday.
My assignment
Galbraith was a co-founder, leader, and ongoing supporter of Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), a longstanding liberal advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. In 2001, I joined the ADA’s board of directors. I became active in the organization’s fundraising efforts, and in 2006 I was dispatched in this role to visit with him at his Cambridge, Massachusetts home to solicit his statement of support for a fundraising campaign. He replied promptly to my letter requesting a meeting, and I arranged to meet with him at his Cambridge family residence.
On the appointed day I arrived at his home, where he was confined to his bed. I had not known that his health was in a sharp state of decline. It quickly became apparent that he was in the final chapter of his long journey. My nerves about this first-ever private chat with a man I had admired for so long were exacerbated by my awkwardness over meeting him in this condition. But I gathered myself, explained why I was visiting, and asked for his support for ADA. Although his attention waned at times during our talk, he promised to provide me with a testimonial for ADA and added that he’d send me a copy of the latest edition of The Affluent Society.
Several weeks later, Galbraith passed away. I hadn’t heard from him, and I realized that his condition did not allow him to follow up on our conversation. Nonetheless, I was enormously grateful for the opportunity to finally meet him.
In the mail
But I was in for a stunner: A few days after his death, I checked my mailbox at work, and there was a package with Galbraith’s Harvard University return address.
Hands shaking, I opened it, and on top was a note from his assistant, apologizing for the delay in following up on our meeting and explaining that mailing the package was delayed by his passing. Underneath was a dictated letter from John Kenneth Galbraith, dated 12 days before his death, which included his eloquent testimonial in support of ADA’s fundraising campaign.
There was one other item in the parcel. It was a copy of The Affluent Society, inscribed to me with a much scratchier version of the signature I saw in those books today at the Brattle Book Shop.
Years later, it still gives me goosebumps to think about it.
Libraries are a geek’s paradise
Bates Hall reading room, 2nd floor, Boston Public Library, Central Branch (photo: DY, 2011)
I love libraries. Over the years they have served as both workshop and sanctuary for me, and the most beautiful libraries embody an almost sacred quality.
The Central Branch of the Boston Public Library, located in the city’s Back Bay neighborhood on Copley Square, is one of my favorite places. The McKim building of the Central Branch, the site of the photos here, is deservedly a tourist attraction.
The gorgeous Abbey Room, used for book readings and other events, 2nd floor. (Photo: DY, 2011)
You might think that my affinity for libraries is all about my being an academic. However, in my experience most professors prefer to work in their offices or homes, rather than join the masses in a public or university library.
In fact, when I peer around the stunning Bates Hall reading room of the McKim building, few of the denizens “look” like professors — that is, assuming that profs have a giveaway appearance! Instead, I see a lot of young folks and adults from varying walks of life, at least based on the books, papers, and gadgets they have piled about them.
John Singer Sargent Gallery, 3rd floor (Photo: DY, 2011)
You won’t see many books in these pictures! The McKim building houses the research collection, which for the most part can be accessed only by request. The lending library adjoins the McKim building — it is big and serviceable but not nearly as architecturally appealing.
The library’s Italianate courtyard, peaceful and lovely. (Photo: DY, 2011)
Today’s lending libraries are a multimedia treat for borrowers. Books, DVDs, audiotapes, and even e-books are now part of the treasure trove. Especially for folks on a tight budget, a library card can be a ticket to adventure, enlightenment, and entertainment. That $25 bestseller at the bookstore? It’s free to read from the library! (And if you read the first chapter and find that the book doesn’t float your boat, it doesn’t cost a cent to return it — unless you’re like me and return it overdue.)
And at some libraries, you can even refuel with some coffee and a morsel, though it’ll cost you.
Map Room cafe, serving tasty sandwiches, soups, and pastries. And, of course, lots of coffee. (Photo: DY, 2011)
For researchers and writers working on their latest articles and books, libraries are repositories of accumulated knowledge. Even if one isn’t doing research at the library, it provides a place of solitude to contemplate the task at hand. When I sit at the long tables at the Boston Public Library and imagine what other patrons are working on, I feel a quiet sense of shared purpose among our diversity of projects.
When I depart from the library and step out into the heart of the city, it feels like I’ve left a contemplative, cloistered space to rejoin the hurly-burly of urban society. I happen to like cities, so that’s not a bad thing for me. But it does make me look forward to my next visit to the library.
McKim building’s Copley Square entrance (Photo: DY, 2011)
Has the Kindle Paperwhite pushed e-reading devices over a tipping point?
Kindle Paperwhite, e-book cover
Over the years, I’ve owned several incarnations of the Amazon Kindle e-reader, and though I’ve found it especially useful while traveling, ultimately I’ve been happy to return to the real things. However, the latest Kindle offering, dubbed the “Paperwhite,” has crossed a major technological line in terms of clarity and lighting. It won’t replace the books in my library, but it’s a darn good Plan B.
Basically, it boils down to the reading experience. The Paperwhite stands out with the sharp clarity of its text and its excellent lighting feature, the latter so good that you can read in bed with all the lights off. This photo of the text screen doesn’t do it justice, but maybe it’ll give you an idea:
Kindle Paperwhite e-text
Currently the most inexpensive version of the Paperwhite is selling for $119. That’s not exactly a cheap initial investment, even for an avid reader. But this is the first Kindle upgrade that, at least for me, provides a reading experience good enough not to make me long to have a book in hand. And with all the traveling I sometimes find myself doing, it’s a treat to be able to bring a few dozen books with me via an e-reader that makes reading a pleasure.
I know that many regard the printed book as sacred and the e-book as a sacrilege. I’m not out to change anyone’s mind on this question, other than to say that all things being equal, I’d still rather have an actual book at my side. Nevertheless, I’m currently on an extended out-of-town visit with some friends, and the new Kindle has proven to be very handy.
Plus, it is pretty cool to turn the lights off and still be able to read. It’s sort of the grown up edition of reading a book under the covers with a flashlight.
The Winds of War: Over and again
Do you have a book, movie, or mini-series that you’ve read or watched over and again, and will continue to as long as you’re here on terra firma? I have several, and one of them is Herman Wouk’s The Winds of War, both the 1971 novel and the 1983 television mini-series adaptation.
The Winds of War starts in 1939, as war clouds are swirling about Europe. It follows the fortunes of the Henry family, headed by U.S. Navy officer Victor “Pug” Henry, along with his wife Rhoda, sons Warren and Byron, and daughter Madeline.
Joining them as major figures are famous Jewish author and retired professor Aaron Jastrow and his niece, Natalie, who are living in an Italian villa. Their journeys also become focal points. Also prominent is Pamela Tudsbury, a young British woman who travels the globe helping her father, foreign correspondent “Talky” Tudsbury, as well as foreign service officer Leslie Slote.
With the novel weighing in at some 880 pages, and the mini-series clocking in at seven hefty episodes, The Winds of War qualifies as a sweeping epic. It opens with Europe on the brink of another war, and it continues on through the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Throughout the story, the major characters and others cross paths, move apart, face life-threatening danger, and fall in and out of love, in places as disparate as London, Berlin, Italy, Portugal, Washington D.C., Hawaii, and the Philippines, among many others.
Major historical figures such as Roosevelt, Churchill, Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin all make their appearances. (In story turns that are somehow believable, our trustworthy, no-nonsense Captain Henry meets all of them.)
My introduction to The Winds of War came via the mini-series. I missed it when it first aired, but during a holiday trip home to see my family many years ago, I discovered it at a local video rental store and dove in.
Robert Mitchum stoically plays Pug Henry, with Polly Bergen as wife Rhoda. Among the Henry siblings, young Byron (Jan Michael-Vincent) is featured most prominently in the mini-series, along with Natalie Jastrow (Ali McGraw) and uncle Aaron (John Houseman), Pamela Tudsbury (scrumptious Victoria Tennant), Leslie Slote (David Dukes), scientist Palmer Kirby (Peter Graves), and German general Armin von Roon (Jeremy Kemp).
Contemporary reviews of the casting decisions were mixed, with Ali McGraw bearing the brunt of the criticism. However, the story lines were compelling and the cinematography won a well-deserved Emmy, among three garnered by the mini-series.
Now Winds is on DVD, and I’ve watched it at least a dozen times over the past ten years. You know how a character in a story just resonates with you? Well, for some reason I feel that way about multiple figures in Winds. I keep imagining myself in their world, living their adventures and challenges.
If you want more evidence of my obsession, here it is: I even tracked down a used copy of a “making of” published diary put together by publicist James Butler. It’s a cheaply produced, spiral-bound paperback featuring profiles of leading cast members and Butler’s reminiscences of filming Winds around the world in 1981. It’s an affectionate remembrance. For example, notwithstanding Ali McGraw’s uneven performance as Natalie Jastrow, we learn that she was a down-to-earth class act in working with the production crew and interacting with the public on location. And a lot of the guys had major crushes on her.
The photo above is a page from Butler’s on-location diary. At bottom left are Robert Mitchum and Victoria Tennant. At top right are director Dan Curtis and actor Howard Lang, who made for a pretty good Churchill.
And yes, I even have the mini-series soundtrack:
Wouk would complete his panorama of the Second World War in War and Remembrance, notable especially for its brutally authentic depictions of Nazi death camps. It, too, appeared first as a novel (1978), followed by a mini-series (1988-89) that included scenes filmed at Auschwitz. I’ve devoted repeat viewings and readings to Remembrance as well, but The Winds of War has captured my primary affection among Wouk’s two mega-works.
So, at some point during the next year, I’ll pull out the Winds DVDs, and lose myself in a tumultuous world of some 75 years ago.
Musings of a Gen Joneser 
Recent Comments