Blue-Hearted Bookworm

Buying Happiness

2013-05-23T13:52:00.001-07:00

Money isn't supposed to buy happiness and mere objects can't really make us truly happy. Still, there must be some correlation between the little sum I gave Amazon over the weekend and the squeeeeeee!-ness that I felt yesterday when I got to work and saw that I had mail.

I'm back to reading Germinal after a week's interruption.

So glad things are back to normal.

Oh, Kindle. I Hardly Knew Ye :(

2013-05-18T04:38:00.001-07:00

It was kind(le) of a rough week in Bookwormlandia. I was getting to the most dramatic part of Germinal, and my Kindle started acting crazy. At first, it was small things like not saving pages and frozen screens, but then it grew to more serious matters like instantaneous battery drain and disappearing archives and then vanishing books, including the aforementioned Zola book. I caught on pretty quickly that my Kindle wasn't just joking around with me. Troubleshooting efforts failed. Finally, horribly, I was confronted with the blank screen pictured above.

There was also a rough moment in which the Kindle was done for, I was at work, I'd finished my library book (The Game by Jack London) and I couldn't find a thing to read on the subway ride home. Madness!

Although I'd had my Kindle for more than a year, Amazon is sending me a new one that has been generously discounted. It will arrive sometime this week. I wish I knew why this one gave out after only 18 months. I did use it every day, but I was very careful with it and didn't abuse it in any way. It seems as if it should have lasted a little longer. Maybe I had too many books loaded on it? If that's the case, so much for whole library in my hands. I'm wondering if I do indeed need to invest in another Kindle, a backup Kindle, as my friend Teri suggested.

While waiting for the new Kindle, I've been ransacking my home library as well as the others in the area for shorter books that I can comfortably carry in my bag and read on the subway. This is also a prime opportunity to get back into audiobooks. In addition, it's a wake-up call to stock my office with some reading material so I don't get caught short again.

April 2013: And I Read

2013-05-08T06:32:00.000-07:00

I'd like to thank my friend Becka for sending me these earrings. I'm pretty sure they have accentuated my reading superpowers as well as making me look a trifle cuter.

1. One For The Money - Janet Evanovich. Count me in at long last. I'm a Stephanie Plum fan.

2. Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything - Joshua Foer. This book was fascinating. I thought it was going to be one of those "look at the weird thing I did for one year" books. While there was that element, Foer also delved into the history of memory-making, how a well-trained memory was once something prized, why it ended up getting a bad rap, and how we now have almost everything that used to be in our minds on some external source. Bring back memory training! What I really need is to build a memory palace that holds all my students' names. Not only do I have an ageing brain and lots of students, my students' names are 98% Korean with variations on a handful of one-syllable names. I'm sure it can be done, though. My first memory palace, which I built for the Pulitzer fiction winners, is still holding together after one month.

3. The Star Machine - Jeanine Basinger. I waxed eloquent about Basinger in an earlier post. Since then, I have learned of another movie upon which her commentary can be heard: Jezebel (1938) starring Bette Davis. Must watch and listen.

4. French Milk - Lucy Knisley. A few years ago, Knisley and her mother went to France and lived there for a few weeks over the holidays. Knisley recorded every detail -- the day trips, the museums, their apartment, the people that popped in to see them during that time, and most of all the food! Wow and wow. French Milk contains both photographs and drawings, so readers will appreciate her artistic talent even more. I could have done without the pages and pages of Knisley having her quarter-life crisis several years too early, but hey, that's also what happened during the trip. I'm looking forward to reading her follow-up, Relish. You go, Lucy. Keep that food theme going, and if you're worrying about getting close to 30 -- don't.

5. Silent Stars - Jeanine Basinger. I wish I could give myself a 1910s or 1920s brain so I could appreciate silent films more.

6. I Do and I Don't: A History of Marriage in the Movies - Jeanine Basinger. Was it Borges that said when an old person dies, it's like a library burning down? Probably not, but it sounds like something he would have said. When Basinger dies (way, way WAY in the future, I fervently hope) it's going to be like the most beautiful film palace in the world burning down.

7. A Land More Kind Than Home - Wiley Cash. Since I was still in silver screen mode when I read this book, my mind flashed to Robert Mitchum. In this horrific tale of religion gone terribly wrong, I imagined the crazy and controlling Pastor Carson Chambliss as a combination of two of Mitchum's characters: Harry Powell from The Night of the Hunter and Max Cady from Cape Fear. This is a damn scary story, and I admire Wiley Cash so much for his choice of narrators. It would have been more fun to have written from Chambliss' point-of-view, or the misguided young mother of Jess and Stump, or even poor, autistic Stump himself. Those choices would have been understandable, but it would have been too much heat and too much beating readers over their heads. I thought I was done with southern fiction, but Wiley Cash proved to me that I'm not.

8. The Shoestring Girl: How I Live on Practically Nothing and You Can Too - Annie Jean Brewer. Ever since The Complete Tightwad Gazette came into my life, I've been a sucker for books like this. Annie Jean Brewer is the rawboned, cast-iron skillet of a gal version of Amy Dacyczyn. She doesn't seem interested in the 19th century farmhouse with an attached barn. Just the necessities, ma'am. It's a crash course in successful hardscrabble living in the 21st century. Many of her tips concerning technology are extremely helpful, not to mention up-to-date. You may not agree with everything Brewer suggests, but she provides plenty of food for thought. I admire her guts and gumption.

9. Bless The Beasts and Children - Glendon Swarthout. A group of misfits at an overpriced "cowboy camp" set out on a secret mission to rescue some buffalo that are being slaughtered for fun and profit. During their quest, the novel spirals forward and backward, giving readers a look at their backgrounds and their early and humiliating days at camp. I was surprised to learn that Glendon Swarthout wrote this book as an "answer" to The Lord of the Flies. (Boys left to their own devices doing something noble rather than something evil.) I am currently looking for a copy of another Swarthout novel called The Shootist. I remember seeing a copy a few years ago at What The Book? in Seoul and picking it up and ultimately putting it back on the shelf and going on. Do you suppose my forehead ever gets tired of me smiting it?

10. Two For The Dough - Janet Evanovich. I was happy to see more of Grandma Mazur. She was played by Debbie Reynolds in the movie version of One For The Money! I love Debbie, but it just didn't feel right. Anyway, kudos to Evanovich for bringing Lula back after her brush with death in the first book. Since it's early in the series, I am hopeful that the very attractive Ranger will get more page time and Morelli a little bit less.

11. Marbles - Ellen Forney. This graphic novel is Forney's chronicle of how she has struggled with being bipolar. She presents the manic side of herself first, and draws and writes about it so fetchingly and creatively that the reader begins to agree with her about being reluctant to medicate. I cannot lie -- I loved that version of Ellen and was sorry to see her disappear. That part of Marbles is the strongest and most vivid, but Forney's skill is even more in evidence as she presents the "down" side of her illness and in the subtle shadings of difference in the way she draws herself as she improves, then has a few frustrating setbacks, then improves again. Both educational and entertaining. I'm really getting into memoirs presented in the graphic novel format.

12. My Mortal Enemy - Willa Cather. I consider myself a Willa Cather fan, but I sure don't like this sour novella about a petty middle-aged woman's disillusionment. It should have stayed rolled up in Cather's typewriter or gone to its deserved rest in her wastepaper basket. Better yet, she should have sent it to Edith Wharton and let her straighten it out.

Talking 'Bout My Zoladdiction

2013-05-05T04:36:00.000-07:00

After reading beaucoup Zola during February and March, I got bogged down in His Excellency, Eugene Rougon at the beginning of April and couldn't continue past the third chapter. My mind steadfastly refused to engage no matter how much bookworm muscle I put behind it, and my eyes just slid off the page like they were greased.

Zola was not at his most vivacious when writing about politics. I also went into the book knowing that I have a zzzzzzzz factor when it comes to Eugene. His mom and dad (mere and pere, I should say) were interesting because they pulled themselves up from the lower classes by luck and finesse. Although Eugene's brother Aristide Saccard makes my skin crawl, at least he gets your attention with his sliminess. As for Dr. Pascal, the other brother, I can't keep my eyes off of him because he's so unlike the rest of the family. So far, he's not ruthlessly ambitious or an addict or batshit crazy. He's just a hell of a nice guy, even if his best intentions sometimes go badly.

Our Boy Emile seems a little workmanlike when he's writing about the Rougons. Politics is a rather intricate thing and he's got to labor to make sure all the pieces fit. Characterization seems to get sacrificed and since he tends to juggle a bunch of minor characters, they all run together like an anemic watercolor. This is especially true if you have (like me) been reading the Rougon-Macquart cycle out of order and you've seen him have a go at the Macquart and Mouret branches of the family. When he's with them, there's blood in his veins; there's a fire in the furnace. Although the action gets a little repetitive, the reader doesn't feel as if the action is on hold while Zola pauses to finickily arrange and rearrange his chess pieces.

I skipped ahead to Germinal, in which Zola examines the conditions of working in a coal mine and a subsequent miner's strike, and everything is going smoothly again. The R-M connection in Germinal is Etienne Lantier, who is the son of Gervaise Macquart from L'Assommoir, so it'll be interesting to see if (or how) he's messed up. I'm 6 chapters in and my interest is high.

Now that I'm back on track with my Zolalove, I have a hankering to read a massive biography (800+ pages) of Zola by Frederick Brown. Sadly, it was ready and waiting for me for four years at my previous school's library. It's not at this school. Four years in which I could have read this book. How many times did I circle that shelf thinking that I might check it out? Even now, I can see it sitting there, its mylar dust jacket making it shine like a big piece of ripe fruit.

Forehead, I smite you, and call you vous.

Goodbye, Readathon

2013-04-28T05:07:00.001-07:00

Which hour was most daunting for you? The middle stretch.
Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year? You can't go wrong with the Stephanie Plum books.
Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year? No.
What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon? The challenges were a lot of fun.
How many books did you read? 4
What were the names of the books you read? Bless The Beasts and Children; Two For The Dough; Marbles; My Mortal Enemy.
Which book did you enjoy most? Two For The Dough.
Which did you enjoy least? My Mortal Enemy. I found it a bitter and brittle little piece that seemed to be straining to imitate Edith Wharton's work. In fact, Wharton could have covered this same ground much better.
If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders? No.
How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time? Very likely. I might try to read the whole time.

Readathon: 90 Minutes Left

2013-04-28T03:39:00.002-07:00

Not sure about squeezing in a fourth book, but with an hour-and-a-half to go, it seems foolish to sit and watch the sands run out of the hourglass. Let's see how far I can get with the Willa Cather novella My Mortal Enemy.

Food: Yeah, I'm going to have to deal with that. Starting to feel shaky. I think I'll go with my garden salad and some Oriental dressing.

Readathon: Third Book? Last Book?

2013-04-28T02:14:00.000-07:00

I'm enjoying Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo & Me, a graphic memoir by Ellen Forney. I'm nearly 100 pages in, and she's had a manic episode that lasted months and now she's in a depressive state. I love the way she draws herself looking like a cross between a grownup, sexier Nancy and Betty Boop. I'm also reminded of another graphic memoir artist I love, Alison Bechdel.

Marbles will be book #3 for the Readathon, but it's so good that I don't want to finish. I'm lingering on every page.

Snack: Another cup of tea. I'm thinking about dinner. Maybe a stuffed baked potato.

Readathon: Hour ????????????

2013-04-28T00:35:00.000-07:00

I finally finished Two For The Dough. Great stuff. I'm so glad that Grandma Mazur's role was expanded from the first novel. Thanks to her, I've figured out the kind of senior citizen I want to be. Anyone who can quote Clint Eastwood's "Do you feel lucky?" speech verbatim and under duress is OK in my book.

Almost forgot: Props to Janet Evanovich for bringing back Lula.

Snack: A few handfuls of dried cranberries.

I'm ready for my next book!

Readathon: Back On Track

2013-04-27T23:00:00.000-07:00

A couple of cups of tea and this delicious pastry have put me right again.

I'm almost finished with Two For The Dough.

Readathon: Do Real Bookworms Sleep?

2013-04-27T20:20:00.003-07:00

Oh VERY BAD!

After my 5-hour sleep, I continued reading Two For The Dough. Then I started having indigestion. I ate a couple of extra-strength Tums and continued reading (More Ranger, less Morelli!).

After I felt better, I felt sleepy again, and passed out for almost 3 more hours. So not happy!!!

I'm 22% of the way through Two For The Dough. Time for a cup of tea.

I will have a successful Readathon, if I have to claw the success out of myself with my bare hands.

Readathon: Halfway There

2013-04-27T16:38:00.000-07:00

Mid-Event Survey

1) How are you doing? Sleepy? Are your eyes tired? No, not sleepy, because I crashed for 5 hours. It's up to me to shine in the second half.

2) What have you finished reading? Bless The Beasts and Children

3) What is your favorite read so far? Same as #2

4) What about your favorite snacks? The nachos were a delight. A revelation. Now I need something more delicate, like fruit.

5) Have you found any new blogs through the readathon? If so, give them some love! Ding! One serving of love coming up! Becca at Lost In Books has a very cool feature on her blog, "Take Me Away Saturday" in which she chooses a country and takes an intense look at it via fiction, nonfiction and children's books.

Hour 5: Cheerreading

2013-04-27T10:07:00.000-07:00

During this hour, I've been visiting other Readathoners' blogs. As always, everyone's food looks better than mine, and everyone's reading stack makes for a richer reading experience. I'm taking furious notes about what I'm seeing.

Put down the pom-poms: Now I'm ready to start my second book, although my eyes are getting that crunchy feeling. A little dose of Visine, and they'll be back to good in no time. I'll resume my cheering duties in a few hours.

Which book, you ask? Two For The Dough by Janet Evanovich. I recently discovered Stephanie Plum, and I can't help loving her and wanting to see how things work out for her.

The book pictured above, The Cheerleader by Ruth Doan MacDougall is an excellent portrayal of high school life in the mid-1950s. Lots of details -- it's like a time capsule!

Snacks: I'm still sipping on my Coke.

What's new or different? I felt an extreme desire to change into pajamas. Coinciding with this feeling was also the extreme need for it to be bra o'clock right then and there.

Readathon: Hours 3 and 4

2013-04-27T08:48:00.001-07:00

Books read: 1

I finished Bless The Beasts and Children. Excellent YA fiction (I didn't realize this was a YA novel!) and Glendon Swarthout was the supplest of writers. Although I know it was necessary to spell out what was happening to the buffalo, and why the boys were compelled to rescue them, I chafed at the obvious author intrusion. Also, the biblical allusions were a little too heavy-handed for me. The way the novel was structured with the flashbacks to the boys' lives and their previous experiences at camp was perfect, though. Glendon Swarthout is a writer whose other novels I'll be actively seeking.

Snacks:

I'm drinking a Coke.

Challenge! Book Spine Poetry

2013-04-27T06:26:00.001-07:00

Melissa at Scuffed Slippers and Wormy Books has challenged Readathoners to create poetry out of titles on book spines. Here's mine:

In case it's difficult to read, I will recite. I wish I had a wingback chair and a glass of sherry:
*Ahem*

"My Mortal Enemy

Adrift

117 Days Adrift

Close to Spiderman"

April, 2013 Readathon

2013-04-27T06:04:00.001-07:00

SECOND HOUR

Book:
Bless The Beasts and Children

Pages read:
23

Snacks:
The nachos. Living in Korea, it isn't always easy to find proper cheese, so I used Tesco cheese slices. Too late, I remembered that sometimes the liquor section has little blocks of Cheddar next to the wine. Serves me right for not being a lush.

FIRST HOUR

Book:
Bless The Beasts and Children (1970) by Glendon Swarthout

Pages read:
73

Snacks:
A few glugs of water

Readathon Intro: Assembling Reading Stacks and Reading Snacks

2013-04-27T04:56:00.000-07:00

I'm very yay! and yippee! to be doing Dewey's Readathon again. Although this is my 8th or 9th time to participate, I've only been awake for the whole 24 hours once. The Sandman reminds me of that bully on the beach in the old Charles Atlas advertisements. I guess you know who that makes me.

I'm reading today (and tomorrow, because it's already 9 pm on Saturday here) from the totally excellent city of Busan, South Korea. The book I'm most looking forward to is Marbles by Ellen Forney. It's a graphic novel, and I'm going to try to save it for that delicate space in which I'm tired but not yet hallucinating.

I've gathered some snacks, and I'm most eagerly anticipating a plate of the nacho chips topped with my homemade chili and some cheese. I'll also be visiting other blogs in the guise of a Readathon Cheerleader and providing encouragement (and getting ideas for new stuff to read and eat).

In real life (as opposed to "read life"), I'm an English as a Foreign Language instructor at a university in Busan. The students (mostly Korean with a few Chinese) are great, which means they bring a lot of confidence, goodwill and energy into the classroom with them, which makes my job easier. It's difficult to be strict and hardnosed about "proper" grammar, because I'm dazzled by all the different ways the language can be manipulated and even changed to suit needs and reflect culture.

Back to the business at hand: I changed up my reading strategy for this Readathon. For the past year or so, I was reading children's books, but I lost the heart for that genre. I'm mixing it up this time, and we'll see how it goes. I don't expect to get to all of these:

The two books I've selected from my Kindle are Onions In The Stew by Betty MacDonald and Two For The Dough by Janet Evanovich.

Those eggs are hard-boiled. I tried to get a good mixture of savory and sweet.

That's it. I'm ready. Read-y.

Read & Reel Part 2: Reading Jeanine Basinger

2013-04-25T07:33:00.000-07:00

Anyway, as I was saying in my last post, I was missing that David Shipman book so bad; I was missing it like hell. I woke myself up one night sniffing the air because I imagined I was leafing through the book and smelling the pages. (Kind of a combination grade school paste-and-vanilla odor.) I had it bad. I needed at that moment to read about movie history/criticism.

That's when I thought of Jeanine Basinger.

I first encountered Basinger a couple of years ago when The Spawn and I were watching a DVD of Sergeant York. Basinger was doing the commentary, and we both enjoyed her insights. I actually blurted out in the middle of the movie, "Who is that woman? She's fantastic!" Had she written any books? I checked. She had. I filed the information away for future use.

When my silver screen need sat on my chest and throttled me, my thoughts turned to Jeanine Basinger. I wondered if her books were on Kindle, since I needed them NOW. Joy! Three of them were available in that format: The Star Machine, Silent Stars and I Do and I Don't: A History of Marriage in the Movies. I grabbed 'em all, spending a shocking amount of money and I'm not a bit sorry. I'm not even using my customary rationalization, "Well, I don't smoke or drink..."

If I had bought these books just for the movie stills, they would have been well worth the money. Gorgeous pictures, page after page. (This is also the point at which I learned that my Kindle can zoom in and make images larger.) But there's also Jeanine Basinger, a film history professor at Wesleyan putting everything in historical Hollywood context, and giving it all that extra something that comes from being a lifelong movie addict. She can do the scholarly thing, but she's mostly warm and accessible and she knows and knows and KNOWS about movies. One of the things that amused and delighted me was that since she worked as an usher at her hometown movie theater, she saw movies multiple times and remembers years later what audiences reacted to strongly.

The relationship between the actors and the audience is a theme that Basinger refers to often. Something else I found interesting is her assertion that viewers would build up 'knowledge' about an actor or actress (based on personality and types of roles they've played before) and apply this to the current film. The movie makers knew this and were thus able to rely on a sort of shorthand in telling the story.

And the movies! I had to stop reading and make lists and actually go view a couple of the films (The Power And The Glory (1933) and Dodsworth (1936) which I found on YouTube. I watched those while I was reading I Do and I Don't, her newest book, which was published earlier this year.

While I enjoyed the performer profiles in Silent Stars immensely, when I tried watching clips of some of Basinger's recommendations, I fidgeted when I had to watch for more than a few minutes at a time. Although I've tried to fight the feeling, I find silent movies very hard going, except for a handful like Laurel and Hardy comedy shorts, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Sunrise, Greed, The Passion of Joan of Arc and Lon Chaney movies. I remember digging my nails into my palms at an Oklahoma State University filmathon and forcing myself to sit through all of Birth of a Nation.

The Star Machine, which was published in 2007, is a fascinating examination of the Hollywood Star System of the 30s-50s. All the actors and actresses were put through this 'machine' with a variety of success. Many of them thrived. Some were destroyed, and a few got a bellyful of it and walked away without a backward glance. One of the funniest parts of The Star Machine was reading highly critical studio notes about a young actor in the early 1950s that was being groomed for stardom, but was found wanting. His horseback riding skills were appraised as needing more work, among other things. Finally, he was released from his contract because he just wasn't showing promise. It was Clint Eastwood.

I could blather for days about Jeanine Basinger's awesomeness, but this clip of her speaking about I Do and I Don't will serve you so much better.

Read & Reel Part 1: The Great Movie Stars: The Golden Years - David Shipman

2013-04-23T10:33:00.001-07:00

Since I moved next door to a cinema almost three months ago, I've had movies on the brain. Old movies, new movies -- it doesn't matter. I started missing this book, which is safely (?) in my U.S. collection:

The Great Movie Stars: The Golden Years (1970) is a big, heavy hardcover film encyclopedia crammed with mini movie bios of stars that made it big before 1945. There are also beautiful black-and-white movie stills on every page. The copy I have in the United States is actually my second copy, which I found at Larry McMurtry's bookstore in Archer City, Texas.

My first copy was bought at a Stars & Stripes bookstore in Germany. I was 12 years old, and for some reason, I was in there with both my parents and my brother. I think we were killing time before going to a movie. Anyway, I took one look at this book and thought -- no, knew -- that I would love it. I had just seen a re-release of Gone With The Wind and was attracted to the picture of Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh as Rhett and Scarlett on the dust jacket. Problem: it cost 12 dollars! I can't remember how I convinced my parents to buy it for me. Perhaps it was close to my birthday or Christmas because I went home with it, and read it over and over again.* It was mesmerizing. I carried it to school and showed it to my uninterested friends. Well, one girl said that she liked Ingrid Bergman's dress in the Saratoga Trunk still. Otherwise, it was a boring book.

The Great Movie Stars: The Golden Years helped me define how I would educate myself about movies. From late middle school and all through high school, I went through TV Guide and circled the movies I wanted to watch the following week. I had two rules:

1. No movies newer than 1945.

2. If the movie was newer than 1945, it had to be in black-and-white.

When I was in 9th grade, we had an assembly and the principal announced that we were going to watch The Hunchback of Notre Dame. As he droned on about appropriate behavior while the first reel was being loaded onto the projector, I cast my mind back to Shipman. Let's see. There were two versions of this movie. One came out in the 1920s and was silent and the other one came out in the 1930s and started Charles Laughton. (It would be years before I realized that his name was pronounced "Law-ton" rather than "Laff-ton".) Older was better, but either of these versions would be acceptable. I leaned forward expectantly.

The movie started. The credits came up. Lon Chaney! That meant we had the silent version! Excellent! (I had seen Chaney in the 1930 movie The Unholy Three the year before at another school, and admired his work.) The teachers and students caught on a few minutes later when they didn't hear any talking and there were title cards. The students started rumbling and the teachers and the principal got into a huddle with Oh, fuck! looks on their faces. I think I was the only one in the auditorium that was happy.

That happiness was short-lived, because the movie stopped and the principal returned to the podium. There was a mistake; they'd gotten the "wrong" movie, and we all had to go back to class. Everyone looked disgruntled. I was late getting back to class because I stopped off in the girls' restroom to cry. Why was a silent movie anathema? Didn't they realize that this movie was like...history? I couldn't believe that I was being thwarted. Never mind. I blew my nose on a long strip of toilet paper and flailed around for some icy dignity. I had David Shipman and TV Guide. I would educate myself.

A few weeks later, we 9th graders were herded back into the auditorium* to watch House of Usher with Vincent Price. Since it came out in 1960 and was in color, both of my rules were broken, but I watched it anyway.

*The book stood up to my constant handling for a while, then the binding gave way and the volume broke into sections. At some point, I lost track of it.

**This determination to foist a film based on a classic upon the 9th graders must have been a way of meeting a district/state curriculum requirement.

Pulitzer Fiction, Making My Predictions

2013-04-14T01:30:00.000-07:00

It's almost Pulitzer time again, and I hope things don't go the way they did last year. If they do, it might just break my reading mainspring forever. I can see myself on the subway, staring vacantly ahead, a bit of drool gathering...but no. No. Things won't go that way again. We will have a new Pulitzer for fiction.

Which book will I be adding to my collection? As always, I can't just sit still in my fancy dress clothes, my hands neatly folded in my lap, waiting for the announcement. No, I must predict; the compulsion is too strong.

I'm going with Canada by Richard Ford. It's true that Ford won back in 1996 for Independence Day, but in the past, the Pulitzer committee has honored authors more than once. Ford is solid. Canada was one of my favorite reads in 2012.

If Canada doesn't win, I won't be unhappy if The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson gets the award instead. I haven't read it yet, but I've heard nothing but good things, and it's got my endorsement because of the Korea connection. If it's on their shortlist, I hope the committee wouldn't get all cringe-y and self-conscious about choosing a book that takes place in a country that's all over the news these days and decide to pass it up.

The awards will be announced at 3 pm on Monday, April 15, which is 5 am on Tuesday, April 16 for me because of the time difference. I hope I can sleep. I'll be excited and worried until I hear that a book has been chosen.

Darling, You Vend Me, Honest You Do, Honest You Do

2013-04-10T08:39:00.001-07:00

I see this lovely sight every evening while I'm waiting for the subway to come and take me from Hadan back to Beomnaegol:

The one on the right needs no introduction. The one on the left is a book vending machine.

All of these books cost approximately 2 or 3 dollars. Since all the titles are in Korean, I can't tell you what is featured here.* I'm assuming some light reading like chick lit and perhaps some self-improvement. BOA is a Korean pop star, so maybe that's her biography/memoir.

I never see anyone putting money in the machine and buying a book. That's disappointing, because I worry that these machines might go away if no one uses them. While I can't appreciate them firsthand, due to the language barrier, I appreciate them for being there for my fellow commuters on the Busan Metro.

Maybe I should buy one anyway. So what if I can't read it? I've got plenty of students who would be willing to give me the gist. Then I could hunt through it, looking for words I recognize and the Koreans on the train would see me "reading" and they would be all wow and wow.

While it's true that book vending machines are in bus terminals and subway stations all around Korea, standing next to *my* machine every evening as I wait for my train is one of the things that delights me about my everyday life and makes me happy to be here.

*Edited to add: After another long, laborious look, I made out that the third book on the top row is called "Ramen". The fifth book in that same row with the red question mark is titled "Why".

March Reading: Reading Is On The March. (Not To Mention The March Sisters)

2013-04-03T08:19:00.002-07:00

My subway stop. I've got the Kindle out and ready to go as soon as I see the steps.

Only 8 books for March. I started a new job, and you know how that can throw a reader out of whack. I am loving the hour of subway travel Monday-Friday which has helped carry me farther into the 19th century than I've been since 1986, when I took both "The Novels of Jane Austen" and "The American Renaissance" classes during the summer semester. That was painful and almost unmade me as a reader, but this has been great, because I'm always briskly happy when I start a new reading project and manage to maneuver into an end seat on the subway.

Here's how it all went down:

1. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott. I love Little Women. Primally, permanently. For some reason though, it got on my nerves a bit during this reading. My hackles rose at Jo's family acting all sniffy about her scandal sheet writing. She was only doing it to bring in money so Marmee could take sickly Beth to the seashore in the summer! They spent her money then told her she should direct her energies towards something more wholesome. It's funny how I have different reactions to the book each time. When I read it in 2005, I was dazzled by the Marches' frugality.

2. The Fortune of the Rougons - Emile Zola. This novel is the first one in the 20-volume Rougon-Macquart series. Zola thought it should be subtitled "The Origin" since readers first come to see how the highly ambitious Pierre Rougon splits with his widowed mother and his younger brother and sister who are the products of his mother's love affair with a smuggler. Zola is also interested in heredity and assiduously notes how Pierre's mother's mental problems manifest themselves in her children and grandchildren. The Fortune of the Rougons is also a political story, detailing the 1851 coup d'etat that marked the beginning of The Second Empire. The greedy, grasping Rougons are waiting and watching, determined to come down on the right side, be it with the republicans or the royalists.

3. Quiet: The Power of Introversion in a World That Can't Stop Talking - Susan Cain. With every page I read of Quiet, I felt more and more fascinated and also very relieved. Here's a clip of the awesomely-steeped-in-awesomeness author Cain, giving some of the highlights of her book. She has also done a wonderful TED talk.

4. The Kill - Emile Zola. The Rougon-Macquart connection in this novel is Aristide Rougon, who has renamed himself "Saccard". Aristide is the youngest son of Pierre Rougon. In the first novel, he was an inept young journalist, working for an equally unimpressive newspaper, The Independant (sic). A few years have passed and he's sharpened up a little and made a fortune in real estate. To keep up appearances, he lives in wasteful luxury with his young second wife, Renee and his son from his first marriage, the debauched Maxime. The two young people have an affair that kicks off in the family hothouse. Zola almost makes it seem like the flowers made them do it. The Kill was made into a movie in 1966, directed by Roger Vadim and Jane Fonda. The title is The Game is Over. Annoyingly, Vadim made the decision to update modern-day Paris.

5. The Belly of Paris - Emile Zola. Zola gets all foodie and the results are divine. There are two R-M connections in this novel: Lisa Macquart, who is the daughter of Antoine Macquart, Pierre Rougon's half-brother and Claude Lantier, a painter who is Lisa's nephew. (Claude's mother is Gervaise, the main character in L'Assommoir.) Lisa is married to Quenu and they run a charcuterie in Les Halles, the huge food market in Paris. The plot involves Quenu's brother, Florent who was a prisoner on Devil's Island. Although he has served his time, he still has revolutionary dreams despite the firmly bourgeois Lisa's attempts to get him settled. Sometimes Zola gets a little weighted down with too many characters and endless pages of description, but it all works to his advantage here.

6. Blonde - Joyce Carol Oates. Oates' subject for this novel, Marilyn Monroe, and her glass-shards-in-your-skin writing seem fitted for each other. Oates dispassionately relates her version of events based on Norma Jeane's life and inexorably shows how everyone around her was mesmerized by her beauty, but since it was a curvaceous and sexual kind of beauty, it was only a matter of time before they (photographers, Hollywood brass) figured out a way to make it into a product for consumption. Meanwhile, inside there's a smart girl, but she's too trusting and too nice, and the abuses pile up. Unsurprisingly, the character that comes off the best is "The Playwright", based on Arthur Miller, Monroe's third husband.

7. The Conquest of Plassans - Emile Zola. A poorly dressed priest with a dubious past suddenly blows into Plassans, the Rougon-Macquart hometown one day with his devoted mother. The pair rent a room on the upper floor in the house of Francois and Marthe Mouret, who are cousins and both related to the R-Ms. (Pierre's mother is their mutual grandmother.) Although the priest is an object of mockery at first, slowly everyone in town falls under his spell. It's fascinating to watch Zola do crazy, but this novel had too many minor characters and too much small-town politics for my taste. I almost packed it in, but Zola came through with a delightfully savage ending and did Naturalist literature proud.

8. Abbe Mouret's Transgression - Emile Zola. I wish I could read French because I have a feeling that Zola's first translator, E.A. Vizetelly, bowdlerized the text unmercifully. There's a dank, soap-opera feel to the whole thing. The title character, Serge Mouret is a priest and the younger son of Francois and Marthe Mouret. Zola gives the impression that the streak of craziness that runs through the family coupled with a life of chastity seem to be responsible for Serge's high-strung temperament. When Serge cracks up, the cage match between religion and nature is on. In this book, the bulk of Zola's descriptive powers go towards an impossibly fecund garden that is supposed to remind readers of Eden. The cast of characters is much smaller and it's a fascinating group peopled with grotesques. Serge's uncle, Doctor Pascal (the only sane person in the whole bunch) makes an appearance, torn between trying to help and standing gobsmacked, watching the nuts fall out of the family tree.

My plans for April include making more progress with Zola, including tracking down a biography of him. I've also discovered a series of a different kind -- Stephanie Plum. If the Rougons and Macquarts start getting to me, Stephanie will be my palate cleanser. Plum sherbet.

Zoladdiction!

2013-04-01T08:00:00.001-07:00

I like the colors in this picture, but my favorite shots of Zola are the ones in which he's wearing the pince-nez and his hair is all rumpled.

I've spent the last month diligently working my way through the 20-volume Rougon-Macquart series. So far, I've read 7 out of the 20. I'm going in publication order.

Even though Zola is my new literary crush, I was starting to feel a little too much of a muchness, so I'm glad about this challenge. It will get me back on track toute suite. Meanwhile, I'll try to assemble my jumbled feelings and impressions into a manageable post sometime in the near future.

Happy 173rd birthday to Emile Zola on April 2nd!

Lost Title Finally Found

2013-03-20T00:25:00.000-07:00

It only took 4 years, but I finally remembered the title of that historical YA novel I read back in 6th grade.

Here's a review. I was close on several details:

KIRKUS REVIEW

The first half of the book is about Quick Eagle, the son of a respected Miami chieftain, and the person who seemed most likely to qualify in the future to assume leadership. The second half deals with John Cutchen, the name Quick Eagle took after he discovered in horror that he was really white and had been kidnapped as a baby. This is a very personal study of his agony which lasted for a two year stretch right after his attainment of manhood. His complete loyalty to his tribe and its traditions are made very clear and are particularly signified by the very close relationship between Quick Eagle and his adored father. But he could not reconcile the fact of his tainted blood with life as an Indian so he severed himself from the tribe and went to live in solitary among Americans. After he learned who his true father was he agreed to be a translator for Clark's expedition. His suffering came from being an outcast of two completely opposing ways of life, neither of which was per se right or wrong and his personal reconciliation eventually came when he recognized himself as a man rather than as an Indian or a white person and when he realized that he could function as a ""bridge,"" a trader and a go-between for the two sides. It's an excellent portrayal of human relations, and one which will suit the idealism of teenagers.

It's only 4 pm on Wednesday, but I feel like I've accomplished a week's work.

(Don't keep me waiting so long next time, Memory, because I WILL get all Javert on your elusive ass.)

Bookworm in Busan

2013-03-17T07:17:00.003-07:00

I've been checking and re-checking just to be sure, and it's official: This city was made for me.

It's a marvelously elastic place -- room for the boisterous, athletic types who must hike up the mountains by day and bathe themselves in the neon glow of bars by night and there is also space also for sedentary bookworms who like nothing more than to sit at the beach(es!) reading with shoes and socks off and toes stuck down in the cool sand. There's also cutely-themed coffee shops with quiet corners and chairs with comfortable cushions to squish down into.

Deliberate calculation is not something I excel at, but before this somewhat reluctant (I can't believe my ambivalence now) move to Busan, I decided to place myself near the center of the city since I had to find my own apartment anyway. Worked like a charm. I'm exactly 30 minutes from my workplace by subway. I'm not that great at math, but I managed to work out in a flash that going there and back home again = one hour of reading time. A few extra moments can be squeezed in if I start while waiting for the train to arrive, and use the time on the shuttle bus that goes to the university.

Going the opposite way, I'm approximately 30 minutes from the aforementioned beaches. At the closest beach, Gwangalli, there's a sweet little New-Zealand themed bar called Beached, and this bar is the home of the Busan Book Swap, which has been going strong for about two years.

In a perfect world, there would be a book swap every single weekend, right? But this is Busan, my almost-perfect world, and what better consolation than the English used bookstore/cafe/bar, Fully Booked, which is about 20 minutes away by subway? They have a fresh and quirky selection of used books, and it's also a popular hangout for people to meet and play board games. Book browsing and game playing can make a person hungry, which the owners of Fully Booked fully understand, so they also offer delicious paninis. Since the weather was still a bit chilly when I arrived, I was most appreciative of their mulled wine, but now that it's warming up, I'm getting even fonder of their sangria.

That's my sangria. Delicious. It had raspberries in it. And I found The Dud Avocado, which I've wanted to read for years. Successful visit!

Gotta say, I'm a pretty happy bookworm.

Happy 9th, Blob!

2013-03-11T00:00:00.000-07:00

Wow, my blog is 9 years old today. Blob wants a party, but I said that we'd save fireworks and the big retrospective till next year. There will be cake, though.