The Butler Speaks {Book Review}

Title: The Butler Speaks: A Guide to Stylish Entertaining, Etiquette, and the Art of Good Housekeeping.
Author: Charles Macpherson
My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars



I would like to introduce to you a book I recently read: The Butler Speaks, by Mr. Charles MacPherson. It was a random find at the library but I really enjoyed it. If you haven't heard of Mr. MacPherson, (I hadn't), he has been a renowned butler of several dignitaries and celebrities for many years, and has now founded his very own butler school here in the U.S. I was pretty excited to read his secrets for keeping house (heaven knows I need 'em!). There is something comforting and classy about how he writes (but NOT hoity-toity!), and I love reading any kind of book that makes me feel like someone is confiding their greatest secrets of the trade.

I think my only disappointment was that some of the content was off for me. For example, there is an entire section on what foods to pair with wine, and I just didn't really care. He also discusses several items that were irrelevant to me, such as how to polish silver and how to care for crystal and fine china. (Hmmm...how about the mainstays ceramic dishware we ordered off of amazon?) Several of the items I read, such as how to cut different meats properly (complete with diagrams!), would be useful for special occasions, but I just don't cut meat regularly enough (err...ever, really) to make those parts feel particularly relevant. Also, I was really hoping he would talk more about laundry, and other than a couple of comments about starching and ironing, he didn't go into any great detail. Humph.

That being said, the things I felt were relevant, I absolutely loved. And there was definitely enough relevancy for me to scour the entire book, cover to cover. My favorite thing about this book is the feeling that I now have insider information about how to present food to guests, how to make introductions, how to make the perfect bed (3 key components and a handy step-by-step guide!), how to properly clean a room, and how to manage overall cleanliness of the home throughout the year. I have already referenced the step-by-step guide on how to clean a bathroom (he also provides guides on cleaning the bedroom and other rooms, if I am not mistaken). I also feel like I will definitely reference his year-long calendar in which he breaks down, by month, which "spring cleaning" items you should be doing in order to keep your house properly cleaned.

Oh, and tips on things I never even thought about! Like, did you know there is a right way to hand someone a business card? Do you know how to prepare and serve a cheese tray? How about folding shirts and hanging pants? Did you know there are right ways to do those things, too? MacPherson talks at length about some of the history of the service industry, which I found interesting. And if there was a take-home message for me, it was that good manners and entertaining are all about making others feel comfortable and anticipating their needs. The great thing about this book is that it provides you with practical tips to do just that, and that is confidence-building for me. The old me would have known I wanted people to feel comfortable and welcome in my home, but may not have considered where guests are going to hang their coats when they arrive. But thanks to Mr. MacPherson, I am a changed woman, I tell you. Come over to my house sometime, you'll see.

On Being Domestic

I've been reading Stephanie Nielsen's book Heaven Is Here. I used my amazon birthday money from Grandma to get it. I had read her blog a few times, and listened to her interview on the Mormon Channel once. Just listening to her enthusiasm for life and gratitude for what she has, despite severe physical pain post-accident (if this isn't ringing a bell, check out her blog), always makes me feel more grateful and content. Just happy for all the little things.

Another fabulous thing about Stephanie is that she completely glorifies motherhood and femininity and marriage. This lady loves her family. She loves being a wife and a mother.

It's a good book for me to be reading right now, because it totally builds on my excitement to marry the love of my life next month in the Manti temple. It also makes me feel like doing domestic things--or trying, anyway. I was home working on my thesis today, and since I had tons of blueberries I picked on Saturday, I decided to try jam-making for the first time. Maybe if I feel like it, I'll update you on how it turned out. I couldn't stop eating it while I was making it, because it was so good. We'll see if it sets up right and does what it's supposed to. Hope so!

a fire alarm fiasco, and other unrelated updates

Our fire alarm malfunctioned yesterday, at 5 in the morning. Actually, I think maybe it just needed new batteries. Unfortunately, neither my roommate nor I had an extra 9 volt battery on hand, and the alarm continued to shriek at me even after I took the old battery out. After fiddling with the thing for a good 20 minutes AND calling the "emergency" maintenance number (they have a lightning-fast turn-around rate of about 24 hours...I guess if there's ever a "real" emergency we'll call 911), and just as I had grabbed my keys and mumbled, "Well, I guess I could go to the store and get a battery," my roommate decided she had had it. "Maybe I should just rip it off the wall!" she said, and before I knew it, she had done just that. I stood paralyzed for the next few seconds as she marched straight out the door and threw the still-chirping alarm off the balcony. Probably just as well--I'm pretty sure the thing was possessed.

School is ending for the semester. I finished classes and finals last week, and have spent this week trying to feel okay about leaving clients for 2 weeks so I can go home for Christmas. Today is my paperwork catch-up day. Hooray!! (Not.)

I am reading an awesome book about the Sabbath by Senator Joe Leiberman. It is so interesting. He is Jewish, and I'm learning a lot about their Sabbath rituals. I have found it to be very applicable as it's gotten me thinking about how I can enhance my own Sabbath observance.

I made the best smoothie yesterday, and again today. I bought frozen cherries (the sweet kind) at the store. I blended those, a banana, soy milk, some ground flax seed, and some ice and YUM! I am in LOVE!

Tuesday is the big day--travel day. I can't wait. Chad and I are both flying out on Tuesday (he'll leave from Louisville, and I'll leave from Atlanta). We'll meet up in Houston, where we have a 3 hour layover. The great part is, his sister lives in Houston, so I think we're gonna meet up with her. For once, I'm excited about having a longish layover! Ah, and then we fly to Grand Junction. I can't wait to be home for Christmas. I've been dreaming about it non-stop for the past oh...month. At least.

Oh, one more update. I went to visit my friend Lauren this last weekend in Decatur, AL. We had so much fun. I'm gonna post a link to my favorite song I heard at the concert we went to. Happy December, and hope your Christmas is wonderful, wherever you are.

Book Reviews.

A few of the books I've read recently:

Freakonomics, by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner.



This book reminded me out Outliers, although I didn't love it quite as much. Lots of interesting stats and stuff, with an econ twist. Why do real estate agents sell their own homes for significantly more than their clients' homes? How corrupt is the professional sumo wrestling industry in Japan (because it is, you know)? Does the negligible number of lives saved by car seats each year warrant the millions of dollars pumped into the baby car seat industry? What's in a name--how do parents in different socio-economic groups differ in their baby naming tendencies? Hmmmm?

Stick Figure: A Diary of My Former Self, by Lori Gottlieb.



I really enjoyed this book. The author found her actual diary documenting her anorexic, eleven-year-old self, and published it. I loved the voice--it was authentically pre-teen, yet astonishingly observant and intelligent. The story, from the girl's vantage point, wasn't a battle with anorexia--it was a battle with her family for her freedom to control her own weight through dieting. Kinda scary. But the tone is light and humorous, sort of like a real-life Ramona the Pest.

Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell.



Another great one by Malcolm G. The book is about the human mind's ability to "thin-slice" situations--take in various bits of information about a situation in just a few seconds, much of it sub-consciously, and make a decision. Lots of people have mastered the art of this practice: for example, Vic Braden is a pro tennis coach who can predict with stunning accuracy when a player is going to double fault. Something about the way the serve is executed tips him off--but the crazy thing is, he can't identify precisely what about the serve tells him it will be a fault. John Gottman, a marriage researcher (who I actually heard speak at the AAMFT Conference last September!!) can predict with like, 95% accuracy whether a couple is going to divorce, just by listening to them interact for a few minutes. There are also examples of times when people jumped to very wrong conclusions in split-second decisions, either by over-analyzing and sort of dismissing misgivings they had, or by losing the ability to reason well in a high-adrenaline situations. I really liked this one.

I started reading Eat, Pray, Love yesterday but I don't know if I can stand it. I might give it another chance, though. Any other suggestions?

Book Reviews

I thought it would be fun to review a few of the books I've read lately.



A Northern Light, by Jennifer Donnelly. I just finished this one today. It was a quick read (I bought it Saturday, and it kept me busy for one train ride and part of one flight, plus some in-between time). It's a fictional, coming-of-age story with a tragic, historical event woven in. Mattie, the heroine, is ambitious and smart but confined by a promise she made her dying mother to help raise her sisters and take care of the farm.

Before I read the book, I read the following from a review by The Christian Science Monitor: "...Honest and unflinching in its portrayal of loss, poverty, racism, and pregnancy..." The book has won several awards as "young adult literature," so I cringed a little when I read that review, imagining that the book would feel pedagogical or jerky in its attempt to cover so many buzz-word topics. I mean, loss, poverty, racism, and pregnancy? I almost laughed when I read that, and then I wondered if I'd feel like a teenager sitting through health class as I read the book. And I can honestly say it didn't come across that way. Some of the efforts to be educational are pretty transparent--Mattie chooses a word-of-the-day and often defines it in the context of what is happening in the story, for example--but I was able to embrace that aspect of the book (yay for learning new words!).

The storyline is pretty good, with several interesting tangents to the murder mystery (which isn't much of a mystery, by the way). Mattie is faced with plenty of tough choices that require her to choose whether she will be true to herself. It sounds like a pretty predictable premise, but I really wasn't sure what she'd choose until the end.



Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell. Okay, if you haven't read Outliers, just go read it already. I've been hearing about this book for awhile now, and it's no wonder--this book is great. I have been filled forever with anecdotes and statistics. Ones I actually care about because they're fascinating. Did you know that way more professional hockey players in Canada are born in January than in any other month? Did you know that on average, it takes seven consecutive mistakes for a plane to crash--and the mistakes are usually communication errors, not the highly technical kind. Have you ever wondered why Asians seem to be smarter and better at school than Americans? Or why Southerners tend to be more territorial? You can find the answers to all this and more...

I loved this book. Okay, next.



Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough, by Lori Gottlieb. The title gets people riled up, I have found. The word "settle" is pretty controversial, turns out. No one likes it. It's unromantic. It doesn't jive with all the get-your-man, happy-ending movies and books and music we've pumped into our systems. But as one of my guy friends pointed out, "Isn't settling what we all do when we get married?" He's right.

I heard Lori Gottlieb interviewed on the radio show This American Life, and she told a funny story about desperately wanting to meet a particular columnist because she was sure he was "the One." She actually lied to him--sent him a note asking if he remembered meeting her in the airport several years earlier--and he lied, or reconstructed a false memory, or something, and said he did remember and would like to meet up. Anyway, she ends up meeting him and is ultimately unimpressed. I liked listening to her and figured if reading her book was like listening to her talk, it would be entertaining.

Mostly the book was a collection of informal interviews she conducted with therapists, social scientists, writers, match-makers, single and married friends about current trends in dating and marriage, as well as her own stories and insights regarding the search for love and matrimony. Despite the hated term "to settle," I think she makes her point well--women, in particular, are becoming increasingly picky and often delay marriage in favor of holding out for Mr. Perfect. She poignantly but humorously tells her own story of passed-up opportunities and regret, and her shifting mindset as the years pass and she longs for the stability of marriage (she's like 41, I think, in the book).

It was a good read. Although, if you're interested, you could also just read the article she published in the Atlantic. It's everything she said in the book, only without repeating herself 10 million times. Sometimes feeling like the book was too repetitive was my only gripe. An interesting theme, though.

Next up on my to-read list: Freakonomics; Stick Figure: A diary of my former self (by Lori Gottlieb again); Brown Face, Big Master; the other Malcolm Gladwell books (Tipping Point and Blink), and I think I want to re-check out These is My Words from the library so I can finish it. Any other suggestions? Tell me what to read!