Manolo for the Big Girl

Five minutes and 58 seconds into her amazing first Fat Rant video, Joy Nash points out that sometimes, we blame things on our fat that are really not about our fat, but about others of our flaws (we all have them), or about factors that have nothing to do with us at all.

And, when we finally admit that not everything revolves around our fat, it can be quite liberating. Paradoxically, admitting that we’re flawed and make mistakes and turn people off for reasons like, say, our bitchiness, is actually quite freeing and empowering . . . more empowering than blaming everything on being fat, just to avoid the pain of examining what else might be “wrong” with ourselves.

Here is Manheim’s take on this idea, from her book “Wake Up, I’m Fat!” (a.k.a. The Best Fat Girl Book Ever):

What if I stopped blaming [my anthropomorphized fat] for everything? What if I stopped using him as an excuse? What if I stopped hiding behind him and entered into a covenant with myself that if I failed as an actor or a lover, it was my fault, my responsibility? It wouldn’t be easy. I would have so much more at stake, which meant I was going to have to work harder, prepare more thoroughly, and redouble my commitment to my art. From that point forward I wouldn’t let myself off the hook so easily with a simple “They didn’t choose me because I’m fat.” No, if they didn’t choose me, it was because I didn’t wow them. I stopped relying on my ever-present alibi and put all my energies into wowing them. These were my first baby steps on the journey of self-acceptance. And a funny thing happened on the way to the self-love forum: I learned that confidence, courage, and a little bit of sass can be very seductive.

Francesca has mixed feelings about this idea.

On the one hand, it ignores the fact that there are many, many people who — consciously or subconsciously — do indeed deny jobs or service or love to fat people, no matter how confident, talented, and giving the fat person may be.

On the other hand, there’s no denying that confidence, talent, and generosity of spirit go a long way, and that sometimes, the reasons people deny us what we want are not about our fat. They are about something else entirely, like our messiness or lateness or our having blonde hair when the guy likes brunettes.

Or they are about the frown we put on, the negative vibes we emit, when we worry and fret about how much our fat might stand in our way, instead of focusing with a smile on our gifts.

Francesca is in Tel Aviv on a business trip, and in honor of her visit and her hosts and the pleasant weather, she will recommend five very different books by the Israeli writers! (Francesca thanks our internet friend Sarah for recommending these books to the Francesca, who enjoyed them very much.)
First we start with the Amos Oz and his memoir of life in Jerusalem in the 1940’s and 50’s, A Tale of Love and Darkness. His autobiographical account traces his family history from Ukraine to Palestine, through World War II and the 1948 War for Independence, Oz’s mother’s suicide when he was 12, and his decision to leave Jerusalem for the fresh air and freedom on a kibbutz. Oz was born in 1939, and the book weaves the story of his life’s beginnings with the beginnings of his nascent country. It is a stark and lovely work.

Francesca loves the exquisite and painful beauty of the poems by Yehuda Amichai and sincerely wishes she could read them in the original Hebrew. But when a translation must suffice, one turns to The Selected Poetry Of Yehuda Amichai, Newly Revised and Expanded edition.

Moving along chronologically, we come to an opportunity to include a female voice. Savyon Liebrecht enjoyed her heyday as a short-story writer in the 1980’s, but one can still purchase this nice collection of some of her best work from that period: Apples from the Desert: Selected Stories . The stories are not subtle, but Francesca finds that in their exploration of family conflicts (especially between mothers and daughters, and mothers and daughters-in-law), sexuality, and relationships between men and women, Jews and Arabs, the stories contain perspectives that can only be provided by a woman.

In the “easy reading” category is David Grossman’s The Zig Zag Kid. This is a coming-of-age story frequently taught in Israeli junior high schools; readers of Manolo for the Big Girl can finish this amusing story on a cozy Saturday afternoon in bed with hot cocoa. If you are looking for any deep messages about Israeli or Jewish culture or the regional conflict, you will be disappointed. Rather, this is a madcap tale of a bar-mitzvah boy, the son of a police officer, who is whisked away by a seasoned criminal to steal the near-mythical purple scarf of a famous actress. Along the way, the title character must decide where his allegiance lies: With his straight-laced police-officer father? or with his new criminal mentor? He goes back and forth, trying to reconcile the warring forces within himself (hence the idea that he “zig zags”). The story is crazy and a bit surreal, and Francesca is convinced that the title character has ADHD. The descriptions of his heroic efforts to control himself are funny and moving. Come to think of it, this book would be a great gift for a kid with ADHD, or a the parent of someone with ADHD.

Coming up to more recent years, the most “in” writer among Israel’s younger generation of literati is Etgar Keret, whose warped, somewhat bizarre, but frequently thought-provoking short stories have made Francesca both scratch her head sometimes and nod knowingly at others. Here is his first book: The Bus Driver Who Wanted To Be God & Other Stories.

Happy reading!

xoxo,
Francesca

Francesca says: It is almost the weekend, and you want to kick back with a good book. Something which is interesting but not terribly taxing. Francesca has a suggestion for you!

It is no secret that Francesca deeply appreciates magazines. The best magazines, the ones with the quality writing and reporting, provide fresh information and perspectives, in small, very digestible amounts. You read a quality feature article, you learn something, you say “that was a satisfying read,” and then you move on. Imagine a book which offers all the good feature stories, with none of the front-of-the-book fluff. This book can be yours . . .

Every year, one should buy the latest copy of The Best American Magazine Writing.

This series of books compiles the winning stories of the annual awards of the American Society of Magazine Editors. Just lie in bed and read entertaining and informative article after article after article; as many or as few as you want. Some are light, some are heavy; some are reported pieces, others are personal essays; most are true, but there is always the fiction winner. Here are the compilations from 2007 , 2006, and 2005 .

Happy reading!

xoxo,

Francesca

Perhaps, like Francesca, you like to include a little theater in your New Year celebrations. There is nothing like the thrill of finding one’s seat and perusing the playbill, waiting to see what delights one will enjoy when the curtain rises!

If you would like to be a more educated theater-goer, Francesca recommends a truly enlightening reference book — perhaps for your coffee table? — which will provide much enjoyment and useful information for the cocktail party chit-chat: History of the Theatre, Foundation Edition by the superfantastic theater scholar, Oscar Brockett.

This is the book which students of theater read when they embark on the careers in acting, or theater criticism, or directing, or playwrighting. Should not the readers of Manolo for the Big Girl be equally educated?

And if attending the theater is not in your plans right now, you can still bring the theater to you. Francesca recommends that you do yourself a favor and jump into the world of Restoration Drama. This is a style of theater which became popular after Charles II was restored to the British throne in 1660; he had spent the years of his exile in France, where he learned to appreciate life’s fanciful follies. For the first time in England women were allowed on stage to play female characters, and the plays began to feature quite bawdy plot twists, usually including adulteress women and several cases of mistaken identity. Restoration Drama was to Restoration Audiences what Three’s Company was to television audiences of the 1980’s; but because the language is a little bit difficult, people who read the plays now can enjoy the ridiculous plots and comedy while simultaneously seeming to be involved in high culture. You can be smugly pompous while also having fun, and is that not what life is all about? (Francesca jokes.)

Here is a nice anthology of Restoration Drama, which includes some of the best-known works of the period: The Country Wife, The Way of the World, The School for Scandal, The Rover, and The Man of Mode.

Oddly, the anthology is missing one of the classics of the period:She Stoops to Conquer. But for just $10.45 you can get that play by itself, pictured at right, from Amazon.

You may also wish to pick up an anthology of works by England’s first professional female writer, the superfantastic Aphra Behn, who wrote The Rover in the anthology above and many more very entertaining plays.

Francesca recommends The Rover and Other Plays over other collections of her work because it includes The Lucky Chance, which Francesca believes is Behn’s best work.

Happy reading!

xoxo, Francesca

Francesca has recently read the first two of a series of books about the crazy, unbelievable, completely surreal adventures of the fabulous character Ms. Thursday Next. All the books, by Jasper Fforde, have been New York Times bestsellers, but Francesca has only gotten to them now. They are delicious!

The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel

Thursday is a police officer in a parallel universe almost like ours. In theirs, the Crimean War is still going on; airplane travel sounds impossible but travel through the center of the earth is common; and it is possible to jump into works of fiction and hang out with Jane Eyre, Miss Havisham, and the Red Queen.

Lost in a Good Book (Thursday Next Novels)

The books are fantastic, both in the sense of “imaginative” and of “excellent.” They are entertaining, witty, and imaginative romps for the bibliophile. Francesca cannot wait to read the third installment, The Well of Lost Plots, and the fourth, Thursday Next: First Among Sequels.

Happy reading!

Our internet friend Sara writes:

Help me!

I live in upstate New York and I was not prepared for the winter weather they have here! It snowed over a foot in only a day, and I have to walk to and from classes and work in it! I need to find comfortable, wide-calf snowboots that can handle a foot or more of snow, and I need them affordable (preferably under 70$) because I’m on a tight budget. Do you have any recommendations at all?

Sara

At Manolo for the Big Girl, we do not recommend boots for under the $70, because such boots are likely to fall apart in 3 minutes, especially under the abuse of heavy snow from the outside and sweat on the inside! However, Francesca understands that this is perhaps your first snow-boot purchase and you are a student and therefore you must do the best you can with what you have.

Here are a few wide-calf boots which are either waterproof or can be made so (bring them to any local shoe store and ask them to treat the boot with waterproofing material), and which have low or sturdy heels (since stiletto heels in snow and ice is dangerous and ridiculous). They are not under $70, but they will not break your bank either, and they will help keep you warm and dry until you can afford boots which will last for a lifetime.

The “Sharona” by Fitzwell (best if your feet are not too wide)

The “Gateway” by David Tate

And here is the cozy warm Hush Puppies Corvina, which have a narrower calf than the boots above but are worth a look for the Sara.

Best of luck!

xoxo,

Francesca

With Christmas approaching, perhaps your in-laws, your own parents, your kids, your brother, and your Uncle Merve are “driving you crazy.”

Put your problems into perspective with these three moving, classic books which explore the emerging world of clinical psychiatry:

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1964) by Joanne Greenberg is the semi-autobiographical, first-person tale of Deborah, a 16-year-old diagnosed with schizophrenia, who is institutionalized. Can her doctor help her quell the many cruel voices in her head? What sort of world will she re-enter when she eliminates the swirling ones in her mind?

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey (1962) Remember this book from high school? It may be time to revisit it. Francesca recently did, and found that it was richer than she remembered. Kesey was inspired to write the book based on his experiences as an orderly in a psychiatric facility. The story, narrated by one of the patients, tells of Randle McMurphy, a sane man (played in the 1975 film by Jack Nicholson) who has himself transferred from a work farm to the mental-health facility thinking it is an easier way to wait out his prison term. There, he enters into a power struggle with the control-hungry Nurse Ratched, and helps the other patients regain their sense of dignity in ways their doctors fail to do.

Dibs in Search of Self (1964) This fictionalized story of a real patient, by psychologist Virginia Axline, inspired countless readers to become play therapists. Five-year-old Dibs is silent and withdrawn, refusing to play with other children or to speak. How can his doctor bring him out of his shell? (Francesca says: when reading this book, keep tissues nearby.)

Happy reading!

xoxo,

Francesca

Wrapping up our recommendations of mysteries by Agatha Christie, here are two of Francesca’s favorites which feature neither Hercule Poirot nor Miss Marple, but are in any case gripping mysteries (don’t start reading them the night before a big meeting; you can’t put them down!)

And Then There Were None (also titled Ten Little Indians) (1939) Ten strangers are invited to an island, where one by one they are killed. Who has brought them here, and why?

This books was made into a play and many film versions. Here is a good one from 1945.

Ordeal by Innocence (1958) Jacko Argyle is imprisoned for murdering his own mother, insisting that he is innocent. Years later, after he has died in jail, the man who can corroborate his alibi suddenly appears. Indeed, Jacko was innocent. But then who killed Mrs. Argyle?

And . . . as you might expect, Francesca, as a mystery buff, LOVES to watch CSI. She is addicted to all the CSI franchises. Whaaaaat? You do not watch this show? We must catch you up!

C.S.I. Crime Scene Investigation (CSI: Las Vegas) - The Complete First Season

C.S.I. Miami - The Complete First Season

C.S.I. New York - The Complete First Season

Happy reading and happy viewing!

xoxo, Francesca

Last week I recommended mystery novels featuring Hercule Poirot. This week we turn to books starring Miss Jane Marple, another of Agatha Christie’s famous detective creations.

The conceit of Miss Marple is that since she is very old and dresses in an old-fashioned way, and sits around knitting, those around her tend to vastly underestimate her mental prowess. They do not realize that while she knits, Miss Marple listens extremely carefully. When she gardens, she sees everyone who passes by in her “little village of St. Mary Mead” (which has an extraordinary amount of crime, I must say). The lessons she learns about human nature in her village she then applies to solving murders.

These are my favorites:

Murder at the Vicarage (1930) Colonel Protheroe is despised by everyone in town. When he is found dead in the vicar’s study, two people confess to the crime. Which of them did it? And why does Miss Marple think it was neither one?

The Tuesday Club Murders (also titled The Thirteen Problems) (1932) A collection of 13 short stories in which friends of Miss Marple gather to tell of thrilling mysteries they have encountered in the past. Could it be that the unassuming old lady knitting in the corner will figure out the answer to every puzzle?

Sleeping Murder (written 1946; first published 1976) Gwenda Reed is recently married, and is in England for the first time searching for a house. She chooses a home which she immediately connects with. However, over the next few weeks, her feelings of connectedness become spooky, as she knows secrets about the house: where a door used to be before it was moved, and what the wallpaper was like in a certain room before it was painted over. Has she been here before, or is she simply going crazy? And what do her memories mean, of a woman who had been killed in the house?

According to People magazine, J.K.Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, is “[s]lowly creeping up on Agatha Christie as the most read author not named Shakespeare.”

Francesca loves a good mystery, and has 2 bookshelves devoted to the work of Agatha Christie. Christie (1890-1976) produced 80 superfantastic mystery novels, most of which take place in England, France, or in what was formerly the British Empire. Francesca finds that her work from the 20’s and 30’s is most entertaining.

Christie created two of the most famous and beloved detectives of all time: Hercule Poirot and Miss (Jane) Marple.

Today we recommend the mysteries of Hercule Poirot! He is Belgian! He is little and has an egg-shaped head, and a huge mustache! He is exceedingly prim and neat and obsessed with symmetry! He uses his “little grey cells” to produce order and logic! He has a tremendous ego! He is Hercule Poirot!

Here, in order they were published, Francesca’s favorites:

Murder on the Links (1923) A Frenchman begs Poirot to come to him, but by the time Poirot arrives it is too late: The man has been killed, and his body dumped near a golf course. His wife has also been attacked; the son is in South America; the only male servant was recently dismissed; the female staff heard nothing. What is going on?

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd(1926) Considered a masterpiece of the genre. Mrs. Ferrar was suspected of having killed her husband. Now she, too, is dead. And then her fiancee, Roger Ackroyd, dies as well. Who among the multiple suspects is the killer?

Murder on the Orient Express (Also titled Murder on the Calais Coach) (1934) Traveling home by train from Istanbul, Hercule Poirot cannot sleep . . . he sees and hears much activity throughout the night . . . and in the morning, the man next door is dead, with multiple stab wounds. The evidence points wildly in many different directions - to 13 suspects in all! Can Poirot tease out the truth?

Death in the Clouds (Also titled Death in the Air) (1935) Once again Poirot is on his way home, this time from France to England by aeroplane, when a woman across the aisle and just a few seats behind him is murdered! Someone has killed her, practically under his nose . . . if only he hadn’t been snoozing in order to still the effects of air sickness! Which of the passengers has blood on his, or her, hands?

Death on the Nile (1937) Poirot really shouldn’t travel so much; everytime he goes away, he encounters murder. This time he’s on a boat, and the beautiful, recently married Linnet Ridgeway is found in her bed, with a bullet wound to the head. Has her former best friend, Jacqueline, lost her mind out of jealousy for the man they both loved? Or does someone else on the boat have a motive to get Linnet out of the way?

Five Little Pigs (Also titled “Murder in Retrospect”) (1942) Sixteen years after a woman is convicted of killing her husband, their daughter approaches Poirot and asks him to clear her mother’s name. Can Poirot solve a mystery based purely on witnesses’ testimony, with no extant physical evidence?

Happy reading!

xoxo, Francesca