Renee's Book of the Day

Field Guide to Cookies by Anita Chu

2009-05-12T21:16:00.000-07:00

Two years ago, I discovered a blog called Dessert First, a beautiful and really cool blog about baking. I noticed, because I was especially interested in this blog, that the author was really fascinating: she went to pastry school in the evenings after work and after graduation, she eventually quit her job to work in a bakery-- one in Oakland that I had been meaning to visit. Not only that, but she lived in San Francisco and she had a Chinese last name. I felt a connection, though I realized that just because someone bakes, lives in San Francisco and is Chinese does not make one a kindred spirit. It's silly, but I had this vague idea that if I commented on her blog often enough, she would notice me among her hundreds (hundreds!) of other followers and we would become friends. Just like that. Of course that didn't happen.

A year later, I was taking an online writing workshop in feature article writing. One of our assignments was to write a profile of someone we did not know. That meant coming out of our comfort zone to ask someone we didn't know for an interview and then writing the piece. I thought that this would be the perfect excuse to meet this blogger, named Anita. And the perfect excuse to push me out of my comfort zone.

Since Anita is a very nice person, she agreed to meet me at a bakery for the interview, and we talked and ate and drank hot cocoa for about an hour. During that time, she mostly talked about herself, but I also said I was interested in baking and offered to share my lovely, big kitchen for any baking projects she had. She said she was baking out of a postage-stamp-sized apartment kitchen. I also offered to help her get information from Ten Speed Press about submissions, since I have friends there. We did that whole, "yeah, we should get together sometime" thing.

But I was persistent for once in my life. I made it happen. After a few months of email correspondence, we eventually spent a Sunday in my kitchen making cinnamon rolls and lemon bars. Then, I invited her along with me to go the Cheese School of San Francisco class I had been wanting to attend. I was being proactive!

Soon after that, Anita emailed to ask for advice. She had been approached by a publishing company to write a cookie cookbook, and I helped her negotiate her contract. Since the contract had a completely unreasonable deadline, she enlisted three of her friends to help test the recipes. Thus, I spent several months last year baking cookies and feeding my happy friends. Many, many happy friends. The book is Field Guide to Cookies, and came out last winter.

The pocket-sized volume is a brick packed with 100 cookie recipes from around the world, each with a short historical explanation and background information. It's really quite comprehensive, which is surprising for a cookie cookbook. A full-color section in the middle shows pictures of each cookie, and there are several photographs of cookies that I baked, packed in a shoebox, and handed over to Anita, who brought them on a plane to Philadelphia for the photo shoot! If you have a copy, check out the molasses spice cookies and linzer cookies. I made those!

Since she did such a great job on that book, Anita's publisher has asked her to do another Field Guide book for them. This one on candy. When she told me, I immediately offered to help test recipes again! And, well, that's another blog post entirely.

Field Guide to Cookies by Anita Chu

To My Dearest Friends by Patricia Volk

2009-04-30T15:48:00.000-07:00

I just got back from China last week. I was there for a week on some business in Hangzhou, and then stayed a few extra days to visit friends in Shanghai.

Before I left, it occurred to me to buy a Kindle, because it seemed like the perfect device for this sort of trip: one which would include at least 30 hours of travel time, none of which on red-eyes. 30 hours is a lot of books, and I didn't want to fill up half my suitcase with books. But $359 is pretty big expense, and it's not something I necessarily need. In the end, I bought the Kindle with the knowledge that I could return it within 30 days, and well, because I just wanted it so badly.

The Kindle is really as amazing as it advertises to be. In your hand, there is nothing surprising about it. If you have seen the descriptions of it at Amazon, you know all about it already: thin, light, easy to read, easy to use, EXTREMELY easy to load with books. Turned out my biggest problem was deciding which books to buy for it.

I don't buy books very often and I'm not very good at it, I realize now. The problem is that I'm overly risk-averse. I don't want to buy something if I'm not sure if I'll like it, especially if it's non-returnable. I get most of my books at wholesale cost, as review copies, free through Bookmooch, or from the library. But when I'm actually going to shell out money from my own pocket to buy a book, I want some reassurance that it's going to be worth the money. I know, this is a completely unreasonable position (it also might explain why I generally hesitate to go to the movies too). But there it is. I have issues.

Compounding the problem is the feeling that I'm not getting a tangible object in return for my money when I buy a Kindle book. I'm buying an experience. Sure, it's a reproducible experience, unlike movies or a restaurant meal, but still, it's not tangible.

Anyway, it took me a while to decide what to buy to load up my Kindle for the trip, and cost was a factor. I bought Stephen King's UR ($2.99), Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff ($8.76), and To My Dearest Friends by Patricia Volk ($9.99). I also downloaded a few Harlequin romances becuase they were free, and His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik, which was also free. I think I actually enjoyed the free books best, and not because of the price. I really did like them best.

To My Dearest Friends was on my wishlist already because I thought the premise was so intriguing:

Two weeks after Roberta ‘Bobbi’ Bloom dies, her lawyer calls her two best friends, Alice Vogel and Nanny Wunderlich, to his office. Why? Because Bobbi has given them keys to a safety deposit box. And now the lawyer has a letter for them from Bobbi. Alice and Nanny–who have nothing in common but their friendship with the deceased–go to the bank. In the box, they find another letter. A love letter. To Bobbi. Undated. With no further instructions.

Sounds great, huh? What I didn't know was that, at its core, it was a story about women in their late middle-age coming to grips with the twilight of their lives. Totally not my demographic. I suppose it was a good enough book, but I couldn't relate to a second of it. And @#%&*, I just spent $9.99 to download it. Now I can't sell it to a used bookstore, Bookmooch it, give it to someone who might like it, or even donate it. It was a total loss of $10.

This is too much pressure. After spending $359 (plus another $30 for the cover) on the thing, now I have to worry about spending more money just to use it.

I have some other issues with the Kindle as well. Firstly, its proprietary format: while it wasn't a deal-breaker for me, it sure doesn't make me love it. I wrestled a bit with uploading the pdf of Stephenie Meyer's partial manuscript of Midnight Sun to it, with success, but that's about the extent of its capabilities. Also, in the end, I think I really enjoy holding a book and turning its pages. I also like having my books lined up on my bookshelf, their spines giving me just as much pleasure as their contents.

The Kindle's two biggest advantages are its capacity to hold a huge number of books in a very small device, and its instant gratification in acquiring a new book. While these are fun and useful under certain circumstances, they aren't enough for me, or for its $359 price tag. Once E finishes reading Bad Monkeys, I'm going to return it.

To My Dearest Friends by Patricia Volk

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

2009-02-02T22:02:00.000-08:00

Last year, E joined a group of UC Berkeley undergrads building a race car for the collegiate FSAE competition. The group built a Formula One race car, basically from scratch. That the team is comprised primarily of undergraduates with no formal training, university funding, or adult supervision, is to me quite an impressive feat.

The point, of course, was to enter the car in an international competition that takes place very year at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California. Fontana is just outside of Los Angeles. A suburb of LA, really.

We arrived for the four-day competition and checked into our hotel in nearby Ontario. After visiting the racetrack and the car paddocks, I left E with the team and began my vacation.

I wasn't really planning to take a vacation that week. I was going to work from the hotel room during the days and then head to the racetrack to watch the events. That was my plan, so I had only brought one book for pleasure reading. So much for plans.

What I ended up doing was taking care of a few pressing work matters each morning, and then swimming in the hotel pool, sitting in Starbucks, shopping, hanging with the team at the track, and basically just reading a lot. On the second day, I finished the one book I brought. I had a problem.

Did I mention that I currently have well over a hundred unread books on my shelves? Here I was, with three days left in my "vacation," and I had no book to read. The situation was dire-- I had to take desperate measures and go buy a book.

There is a Borders Outlet, of all things, at the Ontario Mills Mall. It is full of heavily discounted remaindered books, and the entire store held only one book that interested me: The History of Love by Nicole Krauss. (And score-- it was only five dollars!)

I loved this book. I would probably rank it among my favorite books of all time. According to Amazon,

"Nicole Krauss's The History of Love is a hauntingly beautiful novel about two characters whose lives are woven together in such complex ways that even after the last page is turned, the reader is left to wonder what really happened. In the hands of a less gifted writer, unraveling this tangled web could easily give way to complete chaos. However, under Krauss's watchful eye, these twists and turns only strengthen the impact of this enchanting book.
The History of Love spans of period of over 60 years and takes readers from Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe to present day Brighton Beach. At the center of each main character's psyche is the issue of loneliness, and the need to fill a void left empty by lost love. Leo Gursky is a retired locksmith who immigrates to New York after escaping SS officers in his native Poland, only to spend the last stage of his life terrified that no one will notice when he dies. ("I try to make a point of being seen. Sometimes when I'm out, I'll buy a juice even though I'm not thirsty.") Fourteen-year-old Alma Singer vacillates between wanting to memorialize her dead father and finding a way to lift her mother's veil of depression. At the same time, she's trying to save her brother Bird, who is convinced he may be the Messiah, from becoming a 10-year-old social pariah. As the connection between Leo and Alma is slowly unmasked, the desperation, along with the potential for salvation, of this unique pair is also revealed. "

This book is not for everyone. It is pretty difficult to follow because of its non-linear narrative and disparate styles. But that is exactly what I loved about it. Somewhere in the back of my mind, too, I made a connection between The History of Love and Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer. They both have that sensibility of intertwining disjointedness with an undercurrent of a darker tension, the Holocaust. It was after I read the book that I found out that Krauss and Foer are married. What a powerhouse literary couple they make.

I can't help but think that the similarities between the books are not coincidental. Yet, how can two people, no matter how close, transmit such a thing as a subconscious literary sensibility? Or is it that similarity that drew them together in the first place? Whatever the case, I for one am glad that they found each other.

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

Quick Escapes: Los Angeles by Eleanor Harris and Claudia Harris Lichtig

2009-01-24T21:40:00.000-08:00

E and I moved to Los Angeles in September. It was one of the most stressful experiences of my life. I was a wreck for two months preceding the move, and I was a different sort of wreck for two months after. But that is not the point of this story.

E is getting his Master's degree at UCLA, so this move should be temporary (let's not even begin thinking about the move back). And while there are many, many reasons why L.A. was the right choice for us, and why living here is comfortable and fun, I still have no love for the city itself and am looking forward to returning to the Bay Area.

One of the best things about L.A., though, is that my friend M lives here. We were roommates in college and, until last year, she had lived on the east coast. We used to see each other twice a year, if that. Now we sometimes see each other twice a week!

Before I moved, M gave me the book, Quick Escapes: Los Angeles by Eleanor Harris and Claudia Harris Lichtig, for my birthday. It features twenty itineraries for weekend getaways originating in L.A.. Most of the trips sound great, from Catalina Island and La Jolla to Cambria and Lake Arrowhead.

Alas, E and I haven't been able to use the book at all yet. E's schedule and copious amounts of schoolwork make going away for two days difficult, and when we have been able to get away, we have gone back up to the Bay Area. I'm sure, though, that in the next two years, there will be opportunities to take advantage of the book. Spring break, perhaps?

Quick Escapes: Los Angeles by Eleanor Harris and Claudia Harris Lichtig

Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold, Part II

2008-08-01T22:03:00.000-07:00

E and I met some friends for dinner at Flora's Diner in Oakland on Wednesday. Nice place, good food. Before I could turn my attention fully to the menu, I noticed the only piece of art on the one available wall: a huge framed poster in the early 1900's style, that looked eerily familiar. In huge letters across the top, it read, "Carter the Great."

Wait a minute...

"Hey! That looks like the cover of a book I have!" I could tell this was going to be one of those conversations. Where everyone looks at me like I've just arrived from outer space. "It's like one of my favorite books! Carter Beats the Devil!" They were all nodding just to be polite, it was obvious. I kept staring at it-- I'm sure it wasn't the same as the book cover. But then what what the explanation?

E caught my attention. "Look, they have a drink called 'Carter Beats the Devil." Curiouser and curiouser. Of course, I ordered it-- a no-brainer. (Excellent drink: spicy, with a kick.)

When I got home, I poked around the internet. I recalled that the book took place in Oakland, and I wondered if maybe Glen David Gold had anything to do with the restaurant. I couldn't find any links between them, though. Maybe the owner of the restaurant just really loved either magicians or the book, or both. Turns out that, according to Wikipedia, magician Charles Joseph Carter was born in 1874 in San Francisco.

Due to stiff competition from the number of magic acts on the American stages at the time, Carter opted to pursue his career abroad, where he achieved his greatest fame. Among the highlights of Carter's stage performances during his career were the classic "sawing a woman in half" illusion (an elaborate surgical-themed version with "nurses" in attendance), making a live elephant disappear and "cheating the gallows", where a shrouded Carter would vanish, just as he dropped at the end of a hangman's noose.

I also found a website that sold vintage magic marquee posters, and did offer the very same poster that was on the wall of the Flora's Diner. The book, Carter Beats the Devil, is a fictionalized account of his life. Glen David Gold also lives in San Francisco.

Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold

The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson

2008-07-25T17:54:00.000-07:00

I predict that The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson is going to be a hit. Unfortunately, it's coming out three days after Breaking Dawn so it won't get the media, but people will find it and they will love it.

An overview from the inside cover of my ARC: "Marianne Engel is a beautiful sculptress of gargoyles who appears in the burn unit one day and tells the narrator of this mesmerizing tale that they were lovers in medieval times, when she was a scribe and he was a mercenary. Is she simply mad? Or is she truly the angel of mercy who will save him from his suicidal despair?"

The first half of the book is incredible, in a visceral, shocking way. Plus there's a lot of mystery surrounding both the narrator's story as it is revealed, as well as Marianne's appearance and her story. It made for an amazing, exciting experience. My personal feeling was that there was no way Davidson could possibly keep up that level of tension and exhilaration for all 464 pages, so I wasn't too surprised when the emotions started to level out in the second half. I'm also not into the whole past-lives-fated-lovers thing. So I don't hold it against him. It's still a great read, even if I wasn't enamoured with the second half.

I got my copy at this year's BEA convention. E knew that I was interested in the book, so when he saw that Andrew Davidson was signing, he stopped and had Davidson sign a copy for me. "The inscription reads, "For Renee, Your husband is a lovely man... Andrew Davidson."

My favorite passage:

I once knew a woman who like to imagine Love in the guise of a sturdy dog, one that would always chase down the stick after it was thrown and return with his ears flopping around happily. Completely loyal, completely unconditional. And I laughed at her, because even I knew that love is not like that. Love is a delicate thing that needs to be cosseted and protected. Love is not robust and love is not unyielding. Love can crumble under a few harsh words , or be tossed away with a handful of careless actions. Love isn't a steadfast dog at all; love is more like a pygmy mouse lemur.

Yes, that is exactly what love is: a tiny, jittery primate with eyes that are permanently peeled open in fear. For those of you who cannot quite picture a pygmy mouse lemur, imaging a miniature Don Knotts or Steve Buscemi wearing a fur coat. Imagine the cutest animal that you can, after it has been squeezed so hard that all its stuffing has been pushed up into an oversize head and its eyers are now popping out in overflow. The lemur looks so vulnerable that one cannot help but worry that a predator might swoop in at any instant to snatch it away.

The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson

The Host by Stephenie Meyer

2008-07-24T13:34:00.000-07:00

Now that the release of Breaking Dawn is imminent-- IMMINENT, I TELL YOU-- I've been thinking a lot about Stephenie Meyer again. Firstly, let me reiterate once more how big a fan I am. I read each book twice. I stood in line for an hour at BEA just to get a Twilight tote bag. I read every outtake from her website. I am going to go to the midnight release party on August 1 at my local bookstore despite the hordes of giggling teens that are bound to be there. My point is, I'm completely on board.

So truly mean no disrespect when I say that Stephenie Meyer just isn't the best writer out there. I love her, but let's face it: her prose is not stellar. Now, I absolutely don't say this as an insult. It's just an observation. And in fact, what Meyer is able to do despite (or more likely, because of) her lack of English-major literary prose is far more important to me than simply impressing my professors: she cuts right to the emotional core of her characters and their relationships. The most important aspect of any story is precisely where her strength lies: connecting emotionally with her reader. Her plain writing allows us too meld the images so plainly laid out with all the emotional baggage and psychological imagery residing in our own heads. The result is nothing short of miraculous, given the widely disparate backgrounds of her readers.

I don't read much sci-fi. I think vampires are inherently ridiculous. So how is it that a book about body-snatching aliens so completely held my interest, and moved me emotionally, no less? I don't have anything to add to the multitude of reviews and opinions on The Host, except that I continue to be amazed. If it's not Shakespearean prose, what is it? What is this amazing ability that Stephenie Meyer has, and how can I get some?

The Host by Stephenie Meyer

The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen

2008-06-11T10:38:00.000-07:00

I just read The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen (loved it), and it occurred to me that the YA genre today is so very different from what it used to be when I was in high school. In fact, one might argue that it hardly existed at all. I'm thinking, in this case, specifically about romances. In the 1980's and 1990's, there was pretty only Sweet Valley High, and even I could tell it was mindless drivel. My friends and I read Harlequin and Silhouette romances instead.

If we were teenagers now, we wouldn't have to. Today's YA romances are plentiful, varied, and well-written. Not only do they have great romantic characters, but they are thoughtful and address timely and meaningful issues. Which is more than I can say for most Harlequins.

(OK, this is a little unfair. Times have changed, and Harlequin now publishes Red Dress Ink, and chick-lit abounds across the publishing spectrum. We are all, whatever ages we happen to be, more sophisticated now than before. At least that's what we would like to think now; wait until the next generation looks at what may well be considered our era's quaint pulp fiction.)

I think I may enjoy YA romances more than adult romances these days. There's something about being on the edge of adulthood, the problems associated with a newfound consciousness and all its associated feelings, that is so much more compelling to me than reading about young women my own age dealing with careers and finding Mr. Right. High school is not about finding Mr. Right-- it's about finding yourself.

The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen

Attack of the Theater People by Marc Acito

2008-05-22T16:39:00.000-07:00

Heh, look. Marc Acito has a new book out.

Attack of the Theater People by Marc Acito

How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read by Pierre Bayard

2008-05-16T18:14:00.000-07:00

This book has completely changed my life! I am liberated from the constraints of my own flawed personality, my weak intellect, and time itself!

According to my records on Library Thing, I am currently in possession of 147 books that I haven't read yet. I read, on average, one book a week, so this comes to... almost three years of reading. This is, of course, assuming I don't acquire any more new books, but that is a ridiculous proposition in itself.

While this Sisyphean situation would have, at one time, depressed me beyond measure, now that I have read How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read by Pierre Bayard, it bothers me not one whit. Nor does it bother me anymore that I can't remember anything about any book I read more than two weeks ago. It's just not a problem anymore.

Pierre Bayard is a brilliant, brilliant man. How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read is not only a life-altering literary self-help book, but it is at the same time witty and irreverent, and so dead-pan funny that I want to hug it.

You don't actually need to read the book to experience it (Bayard wouldn't want you to). Reading the back cover will give you a good idea of what's inside, and you can even go so far as to read the foreword and introduction. I recommend reading the intro, looking at the charts, and skimming the rest of the book. Read this blog post, too. With all that information, you'll be well-prepared to hold your own in any conversation about it, and even recommend it to your friends.

While Bayard addresses a number of non-reading issues such as why it is better in most cases to not read and what to say to an author whose book you haven't read, he introduces one main underlying idea that is so simple yet so profound, that made the biggest impression upon me:

"It is all the more difficult to reflect on unread books and the discussions they engender because the concept of non-reading itself is unclear, and so it is often hard to know whether we're lying or not when we say that we've read a book. The very question implies that we can draw a clear line between reading and not reading, while in fact many of the ways we encounter texts sit somewhere between the two."

For example, in my case, what if you've read a book but have completely forgotten it? What if you haven't read the whole book, but only some of it? What if you've skimmed the whole book? What if you're heard so much about it that you know it? Certainly, having heard something about a book is still more than having forgotten everything about it.

Who is to say that your non-reading or skimming of a book does not yield more insights than another's close reading of it? Because reading is not a black or white issue, there is no reason you shouldn't be able to speak intelligently about any book you have at least heard of.

This idea absolves me of the terrible inadequacy that I feel when I can't remember the details of a book. I can still act as if I do, because it's the same as talking about any other book, whether I've read it or not. I also don't have to read any of the 147 books on my shelf if I don't want to. What a liberating feeling!

I probably will keep reading all those books though, just because I like to. I'll simply tell everyone that I've read them all. They've been there so long, I practically have already.

How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read by Pierre Bayard

How I Paid for College by Marc Acito

2008-04-17T20:42:00.000-07:00

I was talking to Walter (the Giant Storyteller) Mayes at the Otter Dinner a few weeks ago, and for some reason he mentioned his Facebook profile. I remarked that I was also on Facebook. Walter practically hopped up and down. "Friend me! Friend me! Friend me!"

As in real life, I am a bit shy when it comes to "friending" on Facebook (I fear rejection, but even more, silent ridicule). However, with such an exuberant directive from Walter, I immediately looked him up and friended him the next time I was online.

Once we were friends, the first thing I did, naturally, was see who Walter's friends were. It wasn't a huge list, and I recognized many names and faces from our little universe of children's literature: publishers, writers, illustrators. Then I noticed someone named Marc Acito. Hey!

At that very moment, disk three of How I Paid for College by Marc Acito was sitting in my car's CD player. Out of all the BILLIONS of books in the world, I was listening to one by a Facebook friend of Walter's-- and it wasn't even a children's book, nor does Marc Acito live in California (which begs the question of how the two even know each other...). But think about it-- the odds are staggering! That was a library audiobook, for pete's sake!

OK, maybe this is just a really tiny little coincidence. But I don't know why, but these things floor me every time they happen to me. They're so fun and silly, they make me happy for weeks.

[By the way, I never did finish the book. I abandoned it somewhere on disk four and returned it to the library yesterday. Today I got an email from a librarian asking very kindly if I still had disk four, since it wasn't in the case. Gah! Anyway, the book wasn't bad, it just wasn't my thing. I couldn't really relate, and it was all a little too mad-cap for me. I hope Walter, or any of his friends, don't hold it against me.]

How I Paid for College by Marc Acito

Neck Deep and Other Predicaments by Ander Monson

2008-04-03T09:50:00.000-07:00

Obsession, Part IV
(See Part I here, Part II here, and Part III here)

"And there is the pleasure of obsession itself, immersion in the world of esoteric detail in spite of (or maybe because of) the derision of the patzers who just don't understand what it is to lose yourself so completely in something, and who cares, finally, what that is?"

Neck Deep and Other Predicaments by Ander Monson

Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer

2008-03-29T16:50:00.000-07:00

Obsession, Part III
(See Part I here and Part II here)

On Stephenie Meyer’s website, she has posted the first chapter of Midnight Sun, a book she is working on that tells the Twilight story from Edward’s point of view (according to the web site, she intends to publish this after Breaking Dawn; this potential book, more than any other, makes me dizzy with anticipation).

In the excerpt, one idea snagged itself into my mind: Edward complaining how bored he was pretending to be a high school student for the umpteenth time.

This got me to thinking.

If you’re immortal, looking perpetually seventeen is a problem. You can go through high school and college only so many times before you wish you could shoot yourself. And don’t even hope for a career. A job, maybe, but you wouldn’t be able to keep it for long before people started to ask questions.

I began to wonder what I would do if I were immortal. Would I keep my job? I don’t think so. I can’t imagine it being fulfilling for all eternity. But what would I do? Is there anything that would stimulate me intellectually while sustaining my spirit for as long as I could conceive of time? What would I do to keep me going, and to keep me from going insane? Here, I envied Carlisle, the vampire doctor. He has just such a purpose in life that sustains him in the most important way. It seems like too much of a cliché, but on the other hand, I can’t imagine spending eternity worrying about my petty little selfish daily-grind issues.

(But look what I’ve done—I’ve just distilled a ridiculous musing about vampires into the age-old existential dilemma: What’s the point, anyway?)

After some thought, I came to the conclusion that if I were truly faced with the idea of forever stretching out in front of me, I would have to find something to do that was not only meaningful to me personally, but would make the world better too. I was surprised at the simplicity of this thought—was this the answer all along?

And then I had my epiphany.

Rather than living our lives, as the cliché suggests, as if each day were our last, we should be living our lives as if we were immortal.

If we were faced with everlasting life, I think we would quickly learn to separate the petty, inconsequential things from the important things. We would strive daily for the most satisfying and fulfilling lives on a deeper level, in order to combat the spiritual abyss of a meaningless eternity.

Daily decisions become easier. Don’t like your job? It’s never too late to change careers—you have all eternity to figure it out. Not in a fulfilling relationship? You have plenty of time to find a better partner, or work on the one you have. Put on a little weight? Well, think about it for a second. Do you really want to be a tad pudgy for all eternity? Always wanted to take up painting, or scuba diving, or beekeeping? Why not? You’ve got forever to learn.

Big decisions also become easier. You simply would stop caring about the majority of short-terms issues, and long-term goals and accomplishments begin to carry more weight. How your actions affect the people around you and the world at large gain more consideration.

I’m not saying that I’m suddenly going to quit my job, lose ten pounds, learn how to sail, and move to Africa to combat poverty. I’m just saying that maybe we should pay a little more mind to the big things that are important to us. Don’t be afraid of change; it’s never too late to do something meaningful. A little bit of immortality in our everyday lives wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer

New Moon by Stephenie Meyer

2008-03-22T13:46:00.000-07:00

Obsession, Part II
(see Part I here)

Naturally, I have spent a lot of time at Stephenie Meyer’s website. Surfing author websites is another thing I never used to do, but given my obsession with the books and the actual amount of great content on her site, it’s easy to waste hours at a time there. I especially love how she so openly and generously shares her outtakes and brainstorms—sections of her manuscript that didn’t make the editorial cut or material she intended to write just for fun.

Stephenie Meyer also writes about herself and her writing process. Again, this is not something I usually seek out, but I am continually charmed and fascinated by all her anecdotes. I already love her writing voice, and outside of Twilight, she is more casual, self-deprecating, and funny.

Writing about the genesis of Twilight, she says that a scene from what became the middle of the book came to her fully formed in a dream one night. She felt compelled to write it down, and, over the next three months, wrote the rest of the story. The part that fascinates me is this: “All this time, Bella and Edward were, quite literally, voices in my head. They simply wouldn't shut up.”

I have often heard authors talk about their characters as if they were completely out of the writer’s control. I love this idea, of a character with a life, a history, and a personality totally separate from the author’s. Many times, writers will say that they were completely surprised to find that a character of theirs was really such-and-such, or that “it turned out” a character had this or that background. I love this idea of the fictional having so much control over their creators.

Stephenie Meyer’s story of how New Moon came about is filled with this sort of thing.

[A]s I began to sketch out New Moon, I went back to Bella's senior year of high school and asked my little cast of characters, ‘What happened?’ I swiftly regretted asking them for the story. Because they gave me a story I wasn't expecting. More specifically, Edward told me something I didn't want to hear.

I should probably mention here that I am not crazy (that I know of), it's just that I am a character writer. I write my stories because of my characters; they are the motivation and the reward. The difficulty with strong, defined characters, though, is that you can't make them do something that is out of character. They have to be who they are and, as a writer, they're often out of your control.

As I started plotting New Moon (untitled at that point), it became clear that Edward was Edward, and he would have to behave as only Edward would.

See? She even admits that what the characters do is out of her control. Sometimes I think that was separates the great storytellers from the rest of us. I, at least, may be too much of a control freak to write fiction. I mean, this would never happen to me:

Something happened then that I didn't expect. Jacob was my first experience with a character taking over—a minor character developing such roundness and life that I couldn't keep him locked inside a tiny role. (Since Jacob, this has reoccurred with several other meant-to-be-minor characters. I really love it when this happens, though it often destroys my outlines.)

A character taking over! Wrestling the plot from the author and taking it in a whole new direction without the author’s consent! It sounds like the stuff of fiction, right out of Inkheart or something, but that’s how it works. I bet this is how it works with most fiction writers, too. And while I have no experience at all with this, I love thinking that in any creative endeavor, there are things that are simply out of our control—that’s what makes it art.

New Moon by Stephenie Meyer

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

2008-03-15T17:45:00.000-07:00

Obsession, Part I

I am thirty-something years old; I am self employed. I am married, and I own real estate. By all normal reckoning, I should be considered a mature adult. So it is with more than a little chagrin that I admit my full-fledged, heart-pounding, passionately-consuming, brain-melting, fanatic obsession with Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series.

Without going in to the entire history of how I came to check out the audiobook version of Twilight from the library, or how, during the two weeks of car rides it took to listen to the book, I walked around in a foggy daze, my mind completely absent from my own life here in sunny California (my brain deep in the lush, wet forest of Forks, Washington), I will simply relate one anecdote that will illustrate Twilight’s unnatural hold upon me.

[Those of you who know me well will find the following quite shocking. Those who don’t should read this.]

When the final disc of the audiobook came to an end, I sat in the silence for a moment, speeding down Interstate 680 heading home. I put the disc back into its case (I have become quite adept at doing this with one hand, blindly), thought for a moment, then stuck disc one back into the player.

I'll say that again. I stuck disc one back into the player.

And then, when I got home, I ordered the paperback from our retail distributor, so that it would arrive the next day. When it came, I read it again. It was like an alien had abducted Renee and replaced her with… a re-reader.

Now, I have read a good number of romance novels in my day—mostly in high school, when I was supposed to be reading YA novels—but not a single one of them seized me the way Edward and Bella’s story kicked me in the gut and turned my brain to puddly mush for two weeks. Maybe I was just in the right frame of mind at the right moment. Or maybe I should just come to terms with the fact that I have the mentality of a fifteen-year-old. Maybe I’m OK with that.

After all, as Sheryl Crow sings, if it makes you happy... it can’t be that bad.

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

It's Time...

2008-03-10T16:08:00.000-07:00

I don't think I can stay away much longer. The voices inside my head are threatening mutiny if I don't let them out soon-- I never imagined that I'd miss blogging this much, or feel the loss as a physical pressure inside my skull pushing outward.

This time, I hope that the voices and I will get along better, or at least for a longer period of time. I'd like to shoot for a sustainable level of blogging, so I just need to set some new ground rules for them. For example, "Book of the Day," doesn't have to mean a book for every day, it could just mean book of the day-it-happens-to-be. Whenever I feel like it. And if I have more than one thing to say about a book, it can be a book of more-than-one-day. Whatever. More rules, fewer rules. My rules.

Stay tuned. Something's bound to show up here soon.

Psst...

2007-06-26T17:26:00.000-07:00

(Hey!)

(psst...)

(I'm still blogging...)

(Meet me here...)

Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life by Wendy Mass

2007-06-04T20:19:00.000-07:00

“An old man is teaching his grandson about life. ‘A fight is going on inside me,’ he said to the boy. ‘It is a terrible fight, and it is between two wolves. One wolf is evil. He is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other wolf is good. He is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. This same fight is going on inside you—and inside every other person, too.’

“The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, ‘Which wolf will win?’

“The old man replied simply, ‘The one you feed.’

“Even as children, we have the power to create our own lives. We choose which wolf to feed, and this creates who we become, how we see the world, what we do with the brief amount of time allotted to us. From my 13th birthday forward, I basically grew up with a deadline over my head. I thought, what if this woman was right? If I only had 40 years, how many more times would I eat chocolate cake? (Turned out to be a LOT.) How many more times would I see a sunrise over a beach? Four or five? How many more times will I listen to jazz? Ten times? A hundred? How many more times will I hug my son good night?

“I made sure to pay attention to everything I was doing. To be fully in the moment. Because that’s all life is, really, a string of moments that you knot together and carry with you. Hopefully most of those moments are wonderful, but of course they won’t all be. The trick is to recognize an important one when it happens. Even if you share the moment with someone else, it is still yours. Your string is different from anyone else’s. It is something no one can ever take away from you. It will protect you and guide you, because it IS you.

“What matters is holding tight to that string, and not letting anyone tell us our goals aren’t big enough or our interests are silly. But the voices of others aren’t the only ones we need to worry about. We tend to be our own worst critics. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: ‘Most of the shadows in this life are cause by our standing in our own sunshine.’ I found that quote on a scrap of paper stuck to the back of that mongo grandfather clock. (I wonder if your mother finally got rid of that thing as she always threatened!) Wisdom is found in the least expected places. Always keep your eyes open. Don’t block your own sunshine. Be filled with wonder.”

Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life by Wendy Mass

100 Classic Hikes in Northern California by John R. Soares and Marc J. Soares

2007-06-01T17:40:00.000-07:00

Well folks, things are winding down around here. Monday is my birthday, and it also marks the one year anniversary of Renee’s Book of the Day. When I began this blog, I told myself that I would stick with it for a year and see what happened. I had no idea what to expect out of either the blog or myself.

I have to say, I have been pleasantly surprised along the way by my own thoughts (every once in a while), the online community I discovered, and the serendipitous crossing of paths precipitated by posts on my blog. I met new friends, reconnected with old ones, and even had some authors pop in to say hello. It’s been a great journey.

At the same time, however, I never felt the love of blogging that others have written about. Many have said that they miss it when they’re away, or that it is a soothing and/or invigorating part of their daily rituals. To me, it was hard work. The payoff was great, but it still felt like a daily chore.

So June 4th will be the last official day of my blogging year. I have no idea what I’m going to do next. I may migrate my blog to another domain (I promise to keep you updated). I may try a broader approach to my blogging topics. I may stop blogging entirely. Who knows?

Though I’m sad to see Renee’s Book of the Day come to an end, I’m exciting at the possibilities for What to Do Next. Instead of blogging for a few hours each day, I might take a writing class. I may do some more music writing or volunteer somewhere. Maybe I’ll read more.

One thing is for sure, I’ll be hiking more over the next few months. We’re still training for Mt. Whitney in August, so we have hiking plans almost every weekend. We used 100 Classic Hikes in Northern California by John R. Soares and Marc J. Soares as a reference last weekend and found the most amazing area on the way to Lake Tahoe, where there are campgrounds, lakes, and trails up the alpine hillside. We live smack in the middle of the area this book covers, and every hike looks amazing. I can’t wait to try more.

100 Classic Hikes in Northern California by John R. Soares and Marc J. Soares

Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time by Lisa Yee

2007-05-23T21:36:00.000-07:00

I finished Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time by Lisa Yee on Sunday morning while waiting for customers to show up (none did until late afternoon). It was another fun read for a long weekend of sitting around, but I read it right on the heels of Dairy Queen, so it seemed pretty fluffy in comparison. That’s OK, though. Some books are meant to be light, and some aren’t.

School Library Journal again:

From birth, when his father named him for his alma mater, great things have been expected from Stanford Wong. When his lack of interest in academics causes him to fail sixth-grade English and lands him in summer school, his star status on his school's basketball team is endangered. It is a summer of turmoil and family tension. Stanford's father is working longer and longer hours to try for a promotion, and a host of other changes are occurring. Stanford must come to grips with missing out on basketball camp, grit his teeth through tutoring sessions with Millicent the genius, see his beloved grandmother moved to an assisted-living facility, and try to hide his summer-school attendance from his buddies. His observations on his overachieving father and sister can be hilarious, and the loving close-up of his grandmother's dementia is wonderfully drawn.

The funny story about this book is that I acquired it through Bookmooch. No, that’s not the funny part. It’s that I requested the book sometime in early March, and the kind bookmoocher who was offering it put it in the mail right away. Media Mail.

If anyone is familiar with Media Mail, it is the cheapest way to send books. Before last week’s postage hike, you could send a book for about two dollars, and you could send an entire box of books for about five. However, you can never really be sure how long it will take to reach its destination, or that it will reach it at all. But sometimes, it takes only a few days to get across the country. You just never know.

Four weeks after she sent Stanford Wong, the bookmoocher emailed me to see if I had received it. Nope. Four weeks is not a good sign for Media Mail. I was pretty sure the book was lost in the mail. And then one day, my friend EJ called me to ask whether I wanted to meet up before Lisa Yee’s appearance in Walnut Creek that evening. I had totally forgotten about that, and I had no book.

I was not about to buy another copy of the book at Barnes and Noble, because, dammit, I had one coming to me. Maybe.

So I don’t know if Lisa Yee noticed, but when I introduced myself that evening, I did not ask her to sign a book for me. I felt sort of bad about that.

Three weeks later, Stanford appeared in my mailbox. Sometimes I just hate the post office.

Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time by Lisa Yee

Dairy Queen by Catherine Murdock

2007-05-18T20:46:00.000-07:00

I think it’s been about fifteen years since I read an entire book in a single day. And it’s hard to believe with everything going on right now, but today I read Dairy Queen by Catherine Murdock. I started around 11:00 this morning, and just finished it. Of course, I haven’t been reading it continuously for nine hours. I was, in fact, at work.

Today was the first day of our three-day moving sale extravaganza. We are opening the doors to our office and hoping that people will come to buy every thing that is left—from books (at only $5 per hardcover and $2.50 per paperback) to bookcases (ranging from $5 to $50), to desks and chairs. To couches and refrigerators. To stuffed Eeyores and Paddingtons.

I was initially afraid no one would show up, but at 10:00 on the dot, two librarians were already waiting to come in. And then there was a pretty steady stream of shoppers all morning. Everyone seemed to enjoy browsing the books so much that I didn’t have much to do at the cash register until someone wanted to check out. So I read.

It’s a testament to how good a book Dairy Queen was that I was able to just read and read, stop to ring up a customer, then continue reading without wandering off to do something else. Every single moment of the book held my interest, and so many different strands of D.J.’s life and her thoughts became entangled with my own that I was caught.

From School Library Journal:

After her father is injured, 15-year-old D.J. Schwenk takes over the lion's share of work on her family's small Wisconsin dairy farm. Between milking cows, mucking out the barn, and mowing clover, this erstwhile jock takes on training Brian, the rival high school's quarterback. A monster crush and a tryout for her own school's football team ensue. D.J., a charming if slightly unreliable narrator, does a good deal of soul-searching while juggling her grinding work schedule, an uncommunicative family, and a best friend who turns out to be gay.

Dairy Queen reminds me of an old, old book I first read when I was in high school by Ann Rinaldi called Term Paper. I have since looked for it, but I think it’s out of print now. However, I still have my original copy, which is so tattered that it’s almost falling apart. While the specifics of each girl’s situation is different, and the issues they are dealing with are different, the two main characters have so much in common that it’s spooky. I love it. Term Paper was one of my favorite YA novels of my own youth, and now Dairy Queen takes its place as one of my favorite in adulthood.

The moving sale will last through the weekend, so if you live in the Bay Area stop by and say hello. The address is 40951 Fremont Blvd. in Fremont, and I’ll be there between 10:00 and 5:00 Saturday and Sunday. I can’t wait to pick the book I’ll bring to work tomorrow. I still can’t believe it—I finally get a chance to read all day, and it’s at work!

Dairy Queen by Catherine Murdock

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

2007-05-14T23:16:00.000-07:00

In all this craziness, I forgot that L was driving up to Northern California last weekend with her mom and sister, who are visiting from the east coast. On Saturday morning, E said, “Hey, aren’t we supposed to have dinner with L tonight?” Oh yeah!

The three of them arrived at our house that evening, and it was such a treat. I haven’t seen L’s mom or her sister since we graduated from high school, fifteen years ago. L’s sister was only twelve then, and look at her now! So poised and mature at 27, and so much like L too. I showed them around our house. L spotted a copy of The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold lying on my desk.

“I L-oooved this book,” she breathed. I made a bit of a face. “What? You didn’t like it?”

“I’m only halfway through, but, I don’t know… it’s really depressing.”

“Yeah, it is depressing.”

“I mean, it’s really depressing.”

I finished The Lovely Bones yesterday, and while it does get more uplifting in the second half, I don’t think I liked it that much. I liked the writing; it certainly kept my attention throughout the book, and was a quick read while still being beautiful. But I didn’t care much for the subject or the way Sebold let out bits of information that never led anywhere or were oddly disconnected to the fabric of the story.

I don’t mean that the plot was disjointed—well, it was, but that’s what I liked about it. I mean that there were many instances where small events and clues were never followed up on. I understand that things in real life do not always fall so neatly into the resolutions that we expect of novels, but why write about them if they don’t go anywhere?

The Lovely Bones also reminded me very much of Peace Like a River. There was something lovely about the spiritual nature of the characters in both novels, but both of them, I felt, crossed the thin shimmering line between the beauty of a mysterious spirituality and hokey-ness. No, I didn’t like the ending of either.

Sometimes I think L and I have the opposite taste in books (she loved Cold Mountain too). But I keep recommending books to her, and I keep reading books that she recommends. Sometimes we get a good one, so we keep trying.

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

The Berenstain Bears' Moving Day by Stan and Jan Berenstain

2007-05-08T18:06:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the spotty posting, but it's all coming to a head this week. We move our office on Thursday, and I'm completely overwhelmed. For the time being. It feels like an endurance marathon and once I finished, I will feel so triumphant it will all be worth it.

I was just going to slap up The Berenstain Bears' Moving Day by Stan and Jan Berenstain and be done with it, but then I remembered that I do have a memory attached to this: when I graduated from high school, one of my friends gave this book to me. You know, moving out, moving up. I'm glad I thought of it. It makes me smile.

The Berenstain Bears' Moving Day by Stan and Jan Berenstain

Hug by Jez Alborough

2007-05-03T21:08:00.000-07:00

It is 9:00 and I'm still at work. 'Nuf said.

Hug by Jez Alborough

The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron

2007-05-01T18:29:00.000-07:00

The LA Times Book Festival is exciting because so many authors attend. No matter what time it is or where you’re standing, there is always some booth within twenty paces that is featuring an author signing. I don’t recognize most of the names, and the famous writers tend to group near the Barnes & Noble tent or the Target tent, but I was passing the Simon & Schuster booth when I saw a small sign on a table that read, “Susan Patron: The Higher Power of Lucky.” Sitting next to the sign was a woman who I could only assume was Susan Patron.

“Oh my God!” I elbowed L. “It’s Susan Patron! She won the Newbery Award this year!” L nodded blankly.

“Do you want to get a book signed?” E asked.

“No, no, that’s OK.” I didn’t want to spend any money (and totally regret that now, in retrospect). I started to walk away.

That’s when I noticed the long line of people leading up to that little table. And then I noticed that there were other authors sitting at it. One was David Shannon, and sure enough, everyone in the line was waiting for him. Susan Patron was sitting there, right next to the hubbub, twiddling her thumbs, looking very unlike a famous Newbery-Award winner ought to look at a signing. No one getting The Higher Power of Lucky signed? That’s outrageous!

L said, “Look, she’s sitting there all by herself. Even if you didn’t get a book signed, you could still say hello, tell her you loved her book. She’d like that.”

I lowered my voice to a loud whisper. “But I didn’t read her book yet!”

“Oh.” L was nonplussed, but only for a moment. “You could still say hello and tell her you didn’t read her book yet, but you will. She’d like that.” And she pushed me toward Susan Patron. That’s what friends are for.

And there I was, face to face with Susan Patron (with no book in hand). “Hi,” I smiled. “I haven’t read your book yet, but I wanted to stop and say congratulations.” She made some nicety-nice remarks back, thanking me. I went on: “Also, I hope you’re doing well in the midst of all this controversy.” She said she was holding up, yes. “I mean, I really hope this controversy gets more people to buy your book.”

I think I stopped listening at that point because I was trying to figure out if I had just said something really stupid, and then next thing I remember, Susan Patron was saying, “Well, I hope you enjoy the book.”

“Oh, I definitely will,” I replied. And we said our goodbyes and that was it.

I’d like to think that even if a person has won the Newbery Award, they still like to have total strangers express interest in their book when they’re sitting at a signing next to a long line of kids who want to learn how to become a pirate. I’m going to think that L was right. That’s what friends are for.

The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron