Blue-Hearted Bookworm

Bookworm, Interrupted

2013-06-16T09:36:00.000-07:00

There was a bitch in the BEL (Busan English Library) yesterday, and it was me.

I'm usually mindful of the fact that when I am out in public, I'm not just me. I represent all Americans. It's up to me to make a good impression on the Koreans. It comes with living and working in another country, and I usually step up and try to be pleasant and helpful if someone wants to practice chatting in English or needs help with English homework.

Yesterday though, I didn't quite meet my standards. The Bookworm Inside Me refused to yield.

There I was, sitting in my proper section of the library (the Orange Corner), reading a book. I was pretty caught up in it when I felt someone plop down next to me and say "Excuse me".

I reluctantly dragged my eyes off the page and my brain out of 1910s Deep Valley (okay, I confess: I was reading a Betsy-Tacy book) and the woman launched into a grammar question about when it's appropriate to use a colon and when it's appropriate to use a relative clause.

I was supremely annoyed, and couldn't even force a smile. My thoughts probably showed on my face:

Shit. Nowhere to run to. Nowhere to hide.

Go away, I'm reading.

Give me a break! It's the weekend.

The nice part of me struggled for control: Aren't you ashamed of yourself? Look good for America!

I don't feel like explaining grammar! Now that I've finally got a proper library to hang out in, I want to relax and read without the threat of having to pull a mini-lesson out of my butt at a moment's notice!

You're reading a Betsy-Tacy book, for God's sake. It wouldn't kill you to break off for a few minutes. Quit acting like you're an animal and she's gotten too close to your food dish.

Grrrrrrrrr!

I couldn't bring myself to be entirely rude, but I was pretty terse with my explanation, and I served it up with a pleasepleasepleaseleavemealone expression. I also kept my book open, and as soon as she got up, I went right back to reading before she'd even walked off.

It's just like Julian Smith says:

If you ever interrupt me

You can bet you're gonna see

The nasty me, the nasty me, the nasty me...

During my next visit to the BEL, I've got to find a place where I can be concealed and still remain in my proper area of the library. Perhaps I could enlist the aid of the staff, but I think it would go like this:

The Library Situation: Busan English Library

2013-06-10T18:32:00.001-07:00

I had an inkling that The Library Situation in Busan must be pretty good when coworkers that didn't strike me as particularly bookish asked the newbie me if I had been to the Busan English Library yet. They spoke of their own visits. They gave me directions.

I was all hmmmmmmmmm?! but my expectations were low. In my mind was a sad-smelling little space about as big as a janitor closet equipped with a row of crumbling John Grisham paperbacks.

I couldn't have been more wrong, and I couldn't be happier about my wrongness.

It's a REAL library! It's nice: Spacious, clean, quiet, plenty of seating, technology and loads of books for children, young adults and adults. The Busan English Library is all that its name implies. 100% English books.

Of course, the BEL has been designed for the purpose of helping Korean kids get a leg up on English, but the very excellent by-product is that wayguk (foreigner) bookworms such as myself have a place to dwell. And dwell. And dwell. The operating hours are excellent: 9 am to 9 pm 7 days a week. Closed only on national holidays.

Here's a video that shows the inside of the library. See you in the Orange Corner!

May 2013: Getting Voracious with Fiction

2013-06-04T00:04:00.001-07:00

Looking back, my fiction reading for May seems quite dark:

1. The Orphan Master's Son - Adam Johnson. It's to Johnson's credit as a writer that I felt as if I were going crazy in a claustrophobic world as I read about Pak Jun Do, the orphan master's son, who everyone assumes is an orphan. I think it was the government public-service announcements that did it. North Korea is a bizarre place. Whatever Johnson has created can't be too far off the mark. I'm pleased that he won the Pulitzer for fiction this year.

2. Finn - Jon Clinch. Ever since I saw Neville Brand as Pap Finn in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1960), I've been frightened and disturbed by this lowlife presence. Jon Clinch doesn't do anything to improve on Finn's (readers only know him by his surname; his first name is alluded to but never revealed) reputation, although he provides some surprises. I'm relieved that he didn't decide to imitate Mark Twain's style or use of dialect. Actually, the mood of the novel made me think of Jim Thompson. The prose is dark, twisted and yet strangely beautiful.

3. Your Republic Is Calling You - Young-Ha Kim. Ki-Yong is a 42-year-old foreign film importer who lives in Seoul with his wife and teenaged daughter. Exactly half his life ago, at the age of 21, he was dropped as a sleeper agent from North Korea into the neighboring South. He assumes that the North has forgotten about him, then one day, he gets a coded email telling him that it's time for him to return. I liked the premise of the novel and found Ki-Yong and his situation intriguing, but was less gripped by the back stories of his wife, daughter, lover, and a plethora of other minor characters. Even so, I was entertained because the novel takes place in locales around Seoul that are fairly familiar to me. Young-Ha Kim is often compared to Haruki Murakami. I actually think he's better.

4. The Game - Jack London. An early novella of London's about a young boxer's last match, on the eve of his wedding. Primitive but effective.

5. Where the Lilies Bloom - Vera and Bill Cleaver. A YA novel set in Appalachia. 14-year-old Mary Call's dying father and remaining parent extracts from her an ungodly amount of unrealistic deathbed promises that she strives to fulfill. This novel has a wonderful regional flavor and it's slyly humorous in many places. With her steely determination and sometimes prim use of language, Mary Call reminds me a lot of Mattie Ross from True Grit. There was a movie based on this book that was also very well done. Whatever happened to Vera and Bill Cleaver? Their books were excellent, but they seem to be forgotten 40 years later.

6. Doc - Mary Doria Russell. John Henry "Doc" Holliday's life story, concentrating primarily on the time when he was in Dodge City with the Earp brothers and Big-Nose Kate. As I read, I could see Val Kilmer so clearly in my mind's eye. That is a very, very good thing. Mary Doria Russell feels compelled at times to introduce a 21st century sensibility to the story, but her touch is fairly light. I'll be seeking out more of her books.

7. Germinal - Emile Zola. This is one of the stronger novels in the Rougon-Macquart series, based on an actual coal miner's strike in northern France in the 1860s. Zola must have done an extensive amount of research to have written so convincingly and compellingly about the dangerous and squalid conditions in which the miners and their families were forced to live and work, generation after generation. Not a cheerful book by any stretch of the imagination, but pungent, powerful and a great read. I'm not sure what to read next in this series. I might revisit Nana.

May 2013: Getting Voracious with Nonfiction

2013-05-31T08:33:00.000-07:00

I read 13 books this month. For some readers that might be like spit in the ocean, but for me, it's a large amount -- especially since I'm not on vacation. I think the key to my success is that I only went to one movie (The Great Gatsby) in May.

I'll discuss my nonfiction reads here and talk about the fiction in my next post. Surprisingly, all but one of these were library books. Speaking of which, I must update everyone on The Library Situation here in Busan. It's good. It's very, very good.

1. Zanuck: The Rise and Fall of Hollywood's Last Tycoon -Leonard Mosley. The biographer does a good job of showing that Hollywood mogul Daryl Zanuck had a messed up childhood with rotten parents, but his maternal grandfather was a positive influence, so one's sympathy only goes so far. After that, the details of his disgusting and pathetic behavior turned me into a one-woman chorus of "ewwwww." Actually, I have some issues with the biographer as well. I can't help feeling that on some level, he admired Zanuck, especially in the womanizing department. There's something in his recounting of Zanuck's exploits/exploitation that's just a shade too breathless. Also a product of that generation in which men behaved badly and women were supposed to smile and be quiet, Mosley comes across as a callous and dismissive ass when he discusses a couple of troubled young starlets who, one way or another, ended up in Zanuck's clutches. I'm going to try to remember the few glimpses of Hollywood in the golden age and forget the rest.

2. Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You - Sam Gosling, Ph.D. Extremely entertaining look at how much we reveal of ourselves by our surroundings. Dr. Gosling lets readers in on the secret of how to be 'super snoopers' and learn home to home in on the essence of people's real personalities rather than being swayed by artfully placed objects meant to create a not-quite-accurate impression. Check out Gosling's videos on YouTube. He's hot in that mad scientist sort of way.

3. 117 Days Adrift - Maurice and Maralyn Bailey. One of the best survival stories I've ever read and easily my favorite read for the month. In 1973, a seafaring couple from England, Maurice and Maralyn Bailey were cast adrift when an injured whale damaged the yacht they had scrimped and saved for years to buy. Thinking quickly, they got as much food and as many supplies as possible into a life raft with a dinghy attached. During their ordeal, Maurice fell into despair. Maralyn found ways to keep their minds sharp and occupied with games and also plans for the future. She was also cool and inventive, creating fishing hooks from the spring action part of a safety pin. I was so pleased to read that it was a Korean fishing boat out of Busan, Weolmi 306, that rescued the Baileys and used every resource available to restore them to health.

4. Adrift: Seventy-Six Days Lost At Sea - Steven Callahan. Another true story of survival at sea. While the Baileys' book was more about what they did to survive, Callahan's book contains a great deal of what Callahan thought about during those two-and-a-half months lost at sea. He also shares what his parents and brother's efforts to find him when they didn't hear from him in an expected time frame. Luckily for Callahan, he managed to save a survival at sea book when he was forced onto the life raft. He had also read about others in the same peril, including the Baileys!

5. The Emperor of All Maladies - Siddhartha Mukherjee. A "biography" of cancer. Mukherjee, an oncologist, traces this disease back to its first mention in ancient Egypt. Most of the incidents related are from the past 100 years, as researchers made great strides in identifying causes and treatments were developed and fine-tuned. Although the science writing in The Emperor of All Maladies is often challenging to follow, everyone should read this book, since almost all of us are affected by cancer either directly or through a loved one an acquaintance. I actively sought out this book because my sister-in-law has been battling uterine leiomyosarcoma for several years.

6. Onions in the Stew - Betty MacDonald. Because of Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, I've always liked Betty MacDonald, but I fell a little bit out of love with her back in 2009 when I read The Egg and I. As I said at the time, I wasn't prepared to give up on her, so I was pleased to find Onions in the Stew available for Kindle. This is the fourth and final humorous memoir by MacDonald, detailing her second marriage (she dumped the jerk chicken farmer from The Egg and I and took the kids) and life on Vashon Island in Puget Sound, near Seattle. As always with Betty, life has its share of challenges, but most of her grousing is good-natured. The thing that really struck me was the huge amount of smoking that went on in this book. Even her adolescent daughters smoked! It was chilling to read, knowing that Betty MacDonald died of cancer at the age of 50. After I finished Onions, I went a little Betty-mad over at abebooks.com and bought The Plague and I, which chronicles her bout with TB and time in a sanatorium and Anybody Can Do Anything, her account of trying to find work during the Depression.

Literary Bonanza, Korean Style!

2013-05-26T22:12:00.000-07:00

...~~not to be confused with Gangnam Style, of course~~...
Oh no, did I really just write that? Ahem. I need a do-over.

How do you say jealous in Korean?

I have no idea! I asked one of my students, and he assured me that there was no word for jealousy in Korean, because Koreans never feel jealous of one another. According to him, they just say "Wow..." in an admiring tone. Since jealousy is one of those universal emotions, I was going to argue the point, but then again, I'm not Korean, so I let it slide.

Choose your language and prepare to find the word for jealousy, because I'm about to make you feel that way:

On May 25th, I went to the 10 Magazine book club in Seoul. The featured guest was Young-Ha Kim, the author of the novels I Have the Right to Destroy Myself and Your Republic is Calling You and Black Flower.

Krys Lee, whose book Drifting House is the best short story collection I've read in decades, moderated a discussion with Young-Ha Kim about writing and translation. Seeing them sharing the same stage was incredible. Kim has a wonderfully dry wit and a well-developed sense of irony. He also has a deft touch with answering audience questions, even when they are a bit on the cringeworthy side. Krys Lee must have been born asking thoughtful questions. She comes across in all her appearances as so caring and so respectful of other writers. No matter how well-known she becomes (which is a given) she will always have that sensitivity; she will never let it become all about her.

(Fun fact: Young-Ha Kim did a new and better translation of The Great Gatsby into Korean in 2009. The previous version apparently had everyone speaking to each other in formal language. He got the idea to do a new translation when he overheard some high school boys in a bookstore complaining bitterly about it. The book is now #2 on the Korean bestseller list, because of the movie version. Kim remarked that none of his own novels have cracked the top ten list yet.)

Young-Ha Kim also read a short excerpt from Your Republic is Calling You. I quickly found the passage in my copy and followed along. Maybe I should have just been drinking in his voice, but I enjoyed the double experience.

During the short break, I gathered my nerve and approached Young-Ha Kim, clutching my copy of Your Republic is Calling You. Having found out in the first part of the event that he also lives in Busan, I used that as my opening. "Where do you live?" I then said brightly. (Ooops, a little bit stalker fangirl. Tune it back a little.) I quickly named the sections of the city where I live and work and said how much I like the city. Young-Ha Kim admitted that he lives in Haundae, near the beach, then said since we are neighbors, when I see him, I should say hi. What a charming man. (I think I'll take a walk on Haeundae Beach next weekend, clutching a copy of Black Flower.)

Also on hand to dazzle my bookworm eyes was Charles Montgomery, who does the very excellent blog Modern Korean Literature in Translation. He is superhuman in his efforts to get Korean literature out there, translated and available to English-language readers. He needs to be; Korean publishers come across as clueless at best and recalcitrant at worst about promoting their literature to an international audience. They are so bad that when I got here in 2004, I just figured that there was no Korean literature, until I found a few slim volumes tucked on a shelf in Kyobo. Anyway: Charles. Good guy, good work. His blog is also the best place to check out photos and videos of the wonderful day I've been blathering on about: Go here. Run, don't walk.

As if all those fabulous people weren't enough to put me on permanent squeeeeeeeeeee!, there was one more surprise. There was a hot-looking Korean guy in the audience, listening attentively to Young-Ha Kim, who in turn wrapped up his appearance by introducing his "honored guest" Chang-Rae Lee. Lee, a Korean-American novelist, is the author of Native Speaker, Aloft, A Gesture Life and The Surrendered, which was one of the Pulitzer fiction finalists in 2011. Classy guy. I'm sure Young-Ha Kim would have gladly shared the stage with him, but Lee let it be Young-Ha Kim's show. I think that's the theme of my report here. All the principals involved in this event showed so much grace and class.

So yeah, three authors in one room at the same time.

Are you jealous of me?

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".