October Non-Fiction CAT: The Arts

October Non-Fiction CAT: The Arts

What images pop into your mind when you think about "the Arts?" Many people think of visual arts, drama, dance, or music. However, an internet search for "the Arts" presents a mind-expanding selection of different creative endeavors.

"The Arts refers to the theory, human application and physical expression of creativity found in human cultures and societies through skills and imagination in order to produce objects, environments and experiences."

Major constituents of the arts include:

--visual arts (including architecture, ceramics, drawing, filmmaking, painting, photography, and sculpting)

--literary arts (including fiction, drama, poetry, and prose)

--performing arts (including dance, music, and theatre)

--culinary arts (including cooking, chocolate making, and winemaking)

The United States Congress, in the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities Act, defined "the arts" as follows:

The term "the arts" includes, but is not limited to, music (instrumental and vocal), dance, drama, folk art, creative writing, architecture and allied fields, painting, sculpture, photography, graphic and craft arts, industrial design, costume and fashion design, motion pictures, television, radio, film, video, tape and sound recording, the arts related to the presentation, performance, execution, and exhibition of such major art forms, all those traditional arts practiced by the diverse peoples of this country, and the study and application of the arts to the human environment.

If none of this information speaks to your heart, maybe you find an interest in art or literary criticism, coffee table books with colorful photos, guides to exhibits, and biographies, autobiographies, or memoirs of artists--or even "the art of war." There seems to be something for everyone in this category.

In August I read a couple of music books that I would recommend for this challenge.

This is Your Brain on Music, by Daniel J. Levitin
How Music Works, by David Byrne

This month I read Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz's memoir, Remain in Love, and have a book about The Clash that looks good: We Are the Clash, by Mark Andersen.

My bookshelves contain:

The Black Mozart, a biography of Chevalier de St. George

Can't Buy Me Love, which is a book about the "Fab Four"

A Devil to Play about playing the French Horn

Gold Dust Woman, a biography of Stevie Nicks

The Late Starters Orchestra, about an amateur string orchestra

Piano Lessons: Music, Love, and True Adventures, a chronicle of a year spent relearning how to play the piano

Where Snowflakes Dance and Swear: Inside the Land of Ballet, a full season inside the life of a top ballet company

Will and Me: How Shakespeare Took Over My Life, a memoir about how the Bard illumines our lives

However, I really want to read Old in Art School for this category. It has been waiting on my shelf for a long time.

I'm thinking of Forty-one False Starts, literary criticism by Janet Malcolm, because the ebook is available from the library.

When I was doing my planning at the beginning of the year, I thought I might read Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color that Changed the World by Simon Garfield.

>6 dudes22: I've read that. I enjoyed it.

>7 Helenliz: - Good to know..

>6 dudes22: I read that too - it was pleasingly nerdy :)

I'm planning on reading Seth Lerer's Prospero's Son: Life, Books, Love, and Theater for this month's challenge.

I started What to Listen For in Music a month or so ago - maybe I can finish it during October for this challenge.

>6 dudes22: I haven't read that one, sounds good. Simon Garfield is a wonderful author - such an eclectic mix of subjects that he writes. I always think of him as one of those 19th century gentleman who just researched whatever interested them as they had all the time in the world to do so.

>12 JayneCM: - True, Jane. There are a couple of others I think of too - Simon Winchester, and Bill Bryson spring to mind. Might make an interesting category or theme for a challenge.

>13 dudes22: It would!

I think I will read The Art of Forgery: The Minds, Motives and Methods of Master Forgers. Not sure why, but I find art forgery stories fascinating.

>15 JayneCM: Agreed! I have several books on art forgery. I also saw a film about wine forgery (entitled Sour Grapes), which I did not know existed! It was very interesting.

I am leaning toward either:

- The Venetian's Wife / Nick Batock
or
- Madame Tussaud: a Life in Wax / Kate Berridge

I plan to read Color: A Natural History of the Palette which I think fits this category. What are many of the arts without color?

My Shelterbox Book Club pick for October is Life as a Unicorn. As the author of the memoir is a muslim drag queen, I am expecting there to be something that will count for this challenge.

>16 LadyoftheLodge: I had never even thought of wine forgery happening. But I guess it is natural that anything that is expensive wil have people trying to pass of cheap knockoffs as the real thing!

>18 beebeereads: I love this book! It is very beautiful.

>19 Helenliz: I have heard great things about that book. Look forward to hearing what you think.

>20 JayneCM: Oh this is great to hear. I have it on my Kindle, but have ordered it from the Library as well so I can have full view of the illustrations.

>22 beebeereads: The Shelterbox Book Club's Facebook page has been posting pictures and Youtube video links of the author and some of their influences, if you wanted to see more as well as the book's illustrations.

>20 JayneCM: By report it seems more promising than the title and cover, which, when combined, would have ensured that I would never have picked up this book.

>4 LadyoftheLodge: I read Where Snowflakes Dance and Swear: Inside the Land of Ballet for an Art challenge a few years ago. I learned a lot about ballet.I was reading it on my kindle and had no idea it was over 900 pages. By the last quarter of the book I really started feeling a bit of a drag.

I'm hoping to read:
Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad
Sylvie - my newest Early Reviewers book, by illustrator Sylvie Kantorovitz

I had planned to listen to Beastie Boys Book, but I started and finished it already. It was so much fun to listen to I never found a good place to stop and save the rest for October.

>24 VioletBramble: I have that ballet book on my Kindle but did not read it yet. Thanks for the heads up about the length. I was into reading books about ballet a few years ago, when I downloaded that one, but I did not get to it.

Now planning on Malcolm Edwards' The Golden Age of Murder, which I have just borrowed through Overdrive. Might read Forty-one False Starts another time.

>26 pamelad: I also have The Golden Age of Murder on my shelves...thanks for reminding me that it would work for this challenge! Or I could read the similarly themed Talking about Detective Fiction by P.D. James.

I had just barely started Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art by Madeleine L'Engle for the September challenge. Luckily, it works for this one, too.

I finished Seth Lerer's Prospero's Son: Life, Books, Love and Theater today. To be honest it is more a memoir of his family, with some literature and plays occasionally interspersed, but I couldn't see anything more immediately suitable for this CAT on my TBR pile, so will still count it.

I planned on reading The Hare with the Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal but I just couldn't stand his grandiose writing style. As a result I wasted most of today trying to get interested before abandoning it.

>30 VivienneR: I gave up on it too. The people were interesting, but the netsuke? No.

>31 pamelad: I'm so glad I'm not alone, Pam. It seems most readers give it rave reviews.

Finished Life as a Unicorn. It's not one I could recommend. There's a story here, but it's not told terribly well.

I have two audiobooks of poetry that will be my choice for this category. I've started listening to the Dylan Thomas, which is excellent.

Dylan Thomas at the BBC by Dylan Thomas
The Flame by Leonard Cohen

>34 VivienneR: I have an audio CD of Dylan Thomas reading A Child's Christmas in Wales along with some other poetry of his. I love it and listen to it every year.

>35 LadyoftheLodge: That's a very familiar story. I've listened to it or read it so many times I know most of it off by heart. Wonderful story.

Finished The Golden Age of Murder, which was long on speculation, but short on substance.

I've finished and reviewed the two books mentioned in #34. Both are excellent, especially the Dylan Thomas.

Think I’ll count The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson for this one since it featured the Pack Horse Library Women.

>39 LittleTaiko: Is it non-fiction?

>40 pamelad: Oh, oops it’s not. Completely forgot which challenge I was posting in!

>41 LittleTaiko: But there are others that are non-fiction about the pack horse librarians! Try Down Cut Shin Creek by Kathi Appelt.

I ended up with the culinary arts for this challenge. The Secrets of Jesuit Breadmaking by Rick Curry. This book contains recipes from all over the world, and is divided up by seasons of the church year. Each recipe is accompanied by anecdotes about people, origins of the bread, notes from Jesuit literature, or personal memoirs of the author. There are many recipes in here that I would love to try. Baking bread is a great stress reliever and makes one's house smell heavenly (pun intended).

I used to be a prodigious bread baker, especially when I had a bread machine. However, we do not eat as much bread now, so making these lovely recipes would mean having too much to consume responsibly before the bread became moldy, since the homemade loaves lack preservatives found in purchased commercial breads.

For my bookclub I'm reading The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and the Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson about a serial killer who preyed particularly on young women who came to Chicago to work or to the 1893 Columbian Exhibition (i.e. world's fair) in Chicago. The book contains a lot of information about architecture (buildings, etc.), landscape architecture, and exhibits of various kinds.

I also hope to finish reading The band that played on : the extraordinary story of the 8 musicians who went down with the Titanic by Steve Turner.

I've left a message for luvamystery65, asking whether she's OK to set up the November CAT. If I don't hear from her today, I can set it up, unless someone else would like to?

>45 pamelad: It is not yet the 15th of the month in the United States, the "traditional" day for cat threads to be created. I think that we should wait several days past the 15th before anyone else creates the thread -- probably through the weekend.

>46 sallylou61: I'm on Australian daylight saving time, which is 11 hours ahead of GMT, so it's Thursday morning here. Will wait a few more days. Has anyone seen luvamystry65 recently?

I picked Die 101 wichtigsten Fragen : Deutsche Literatur from the shelves hoping to learn more about German literature. Did not live up to my expectations but I took some book bullets for 18th century classics.

And one failed attempt to educate myself in a subject I know little about: Die Kunst der Spätantike was chaotic, boring, full of unexplained technical terms and subjective judgments on pieces of art from Roman antiquity. It read like the author was taking his colleagues on a tour of his favourite pieces and talking only to his peers.

I actually read 2 books this month that qualify, both about other books:

My Life as Laura: How I Searched for Laura Ingalls Wilder and Found Myself by Kelly Kathleen Ferguson is a mixture of travel writing, literature homage, and self-examination, which works better than you might expect.

Son of Gun in Cheek by Bill Pronzini is a humorous look at bad crime writing--bad as in poorly written or plotted. Pronzini has read the bad books and turned them into amusing bits.

Thanks to everyone who participated in this month's challenge. We got to read some fun and interesting selections.