Renee's Book of the Day

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

A Pirate's Life by Salina Yoon

2007-04-30T18:20:00.000-07:00

I just got home a few hours ago from Los Angeles, where I dragged E and L to the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. It was my first time, and I figured I had to make an effort to go at some point for a few reasons. One is that it is simply the largest book festival of its kind, and I have heard nothing but amazing things about it. The other was that I wanted to scope it out to decide if it was something Shen’s Books would want to get a booth at in the future.

While I was there, I stopped by to say hello to Rebecca Grose, a children’s book publicist I worked with last year. She was helping out her friend Salina Yoon’s booth, so and when I arrived, Rebecca introduced me to her. Salina’s booth was filled with colorful board books and picture books that she had written and illustrated herself. Even though they were published by Simon & Schuster and Penguin, Salina decided to buy a booth at the festival herself to do further promotion. Wow, are some authors dedicated!

I asked how sales were going, and Salina pointed to a stack of books on the end of a table, ten or fifteen copies of A Pirate’s Life. “I thought I had run out of those!” she exclaimed. “We were down to two yesterday afternoon, and I didn’t think I had brought any more. When I overheard a customer ask if there were any more of them, I said, ‘I’ll take one!’ and the customer grabbed the other one!”

“Well,” I said, “pirate books are big this year. I just saw a huge line for David Shannon signing How I Became a Pirate.” Everyone nodded sagely.

And then it was time to move on. I promised to keep in touch with Rebecca, and Salina urged me to email her if I had any questions about the festival. Again, again, I marvel at the truly kind and friendly people who populate our children’s book industry.

A Pirate's Life by Salina Yoon

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

2007-04-27T20:57:00.000-07:00

"If you take a book with you on a journey... an odd thing happens: The book begins collecting your memories. And forever after you have only to open that book to be back where you first read it. It will all come into your mind with the very first words: the sights you saw in that place, what it smelled like, the ice cream you ate while you were reading it... yes, books are like flypaper-- memories cling to the printed page better than anything else."

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

2007-04-26T21:45:00.000-07:00

A New Way to Read, Part II (Part I Here)

Armed with my photocopied instructions from The Well-Educated Mind by Susan Wise Bauer, a spiral notebook, and my copy of Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier, I set off to edify myself. Or at least appreciate what I was reading more than I could when I zipped through books as fast as I could.

I started out strong. As I read each chapter of Cold Mountain, I thought about the images, what they represented, and what the characters represented. I copied entire quotes into my spiral notebook. I noted particular details if I thought they might become important. And at the end of each chapter, I wrote a brief summary of the events that occurred.

It turned out that Cold Mountain was very conducive to this type of note-taking because each chapter alternates its point of view between the two main characters, Inman and Ada. In that way, the writing was episodic. I was able to work on one chapter at a time and then leave the book to do or read something else. I also noticed that when this happened and I returned to the book after a few days, I had no trouble recalling what had happened so far, or who the characters were. This was already a great improvement on my reading in the past, when I couldn’t read more than one book at a time, or take too long of a break between reading spurts without completely losing track of what happened.

However, as Inman’s journey wore on, I too began to lose steam. I would set down the book for longer and longer periods. The prospect of having to take notes and synthesize thoughts became something I dreaded, and I would find excuses to read something else, or not read at all. Before I knew it, I had stalled about three quarters of the way through the book and it had been months since I last picked it up.

Still, I hate to leave a book unfinished if I’ve gotten that far, so I finally decided that if it was the note-taking that was preventing me from reading Cold Mountain at all, it just wasn’t worth it. Maybe Cold Mountain wasn’t the best choice for note-taking anyway. Maybe the reason I lost interest was that there just wasn’t that much in it to note. So I allowed myself to abandon the plan and just finished the book without worrying about it.

In the end, I’m not sure whether I enjoyed the book more or less because of the extra baggage I imposed upon it. I certainly remember the beginning better than I otherwise would have, but I also don’t feel like I got particularly much out of it.

I am not ready to abandon Susan Wise Bauer altogether, however. My next attempt will be at something that is obviously more difficult both in terms of plot, character, and literary depth. How about Thomas Pynchon’s V?

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

The Well-Educated Mind by Susan Wise Bauer

2007-04-25T21:39:00.000-07:00

A New Way to Read, Part I

Every once in a while (every two or three days or so) I’ll read a blog post that changes my life. Maybe it shifts my perception of a book I’ve read, makes me think about my views of the world, or just introduces me to an addictive online game.

About six months ago, I came across a post at Classical Bookworm, where blogger Sylvia wrote about her neurotic note-taking on the books she read. Check out her post, because she included a picture of a page out of her notebook—it’s amazing. This picture of her meticulous notes was the first thing that caught my eye, and then, as I read on, I realized how seriously she kept her records for both fiction and non-fiction books.

This is the part that changed my life: “It certainly does require time and effort but with my swiss-cheese brain I would have a hard time remembering and grasping the overall import of what I read if I didn't write it down in one place.”

That hit home. Is that why I can never remember anything about the books I read? I go through them so quickly that I don’t properly think about them or fully digest them. I would love to be able to appreciate the depth of the writing and the breadth of the thematic material in every book I read—or at least the good ones.

Luckily, Sylvia gave a quick overview on her note-taking method and also referred readers to the book that it is based on: The Well-Educated Mind by Susan Wise Bauer. Here’s a brief description of the book according to School Library Journal:

Written in a straightforward style accessible to most students, this readable book provides solid, step-by-step advice on how to read some of the world's great books with discipline and comprehension. The first four chapters explain the author's well-thought-out three-step program, how and why it works, and how to prepare to use it. The remainder of the volume devotes a chapter each to analysis of novels, autobiography/memoirs, history, drama, and poetry. The system involves reading each book three times: once for the facts, once for analysis, and once for an informed evaluation of the author's ideas. Readers are encouraged during this process to mark up their books with comments and questions in the margins (or use Post-Its), and to keep a journal of quotes, summaries, questions, and ruminations.

Within a week I had borrowed The Well-Educated Mind from the library and read the section on fiction (it’s best to start small, right?). In fact, I photocopied the section so that I could follow Bauer’s note-taking strategies. I figured it would take at least one book to get the hang of the system and figure out my own note-taking preferences, so I chose a cheap spiral notebook (didn’t want to invest in a Moleskine quite yet) and a fairly moderate book to read on the literature scale: Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier.

… to be continued…

The Well-Educated Mind by Susan Wise Bauer

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares

2007-04-23T21:23:00.000-07:00

I own the whole series of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares. In hardcover. I really like the way they look on my bookshelf—their sherbet colors, jaunty font, smooth, rounded spines. I really like the idea of the series too, since it reminds me of me and my two best friends from high school. We were like that back then.

Given my terrible memory, I can never recall the details of any one book, but overall they give me a warm and fuzzy feeling, and I have a particularly vivid image in my mind of the night I finished reading the first book, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

I was living in a studio apartment in Oakland near Lake Merritt. The one room held, on one end, my bed, nightstand, and dresser. On the other end was a futon, a coffee table, and a television set. While lying in bed, I could reach over and touch the arm of the futon. The kitchen was in fact a separate room that utilized the narrow space along the front of the building that bordered the stairwell. It was no more than five feet wide, but it felt luxurious.

The image is simple: me, sniffling into a wad of tissues in a small pool of light cast by my IKEA bedside lamp at three in the morning.

I try not stay up reading. I often force myself to put down a really good book because if I finish a great book at night, I can’t sleep. I’m so hyped up, or still weepy, that it just compounds the problem. Funny how I don’t remember what happened in the book, but I can picture myself reading in bed as if I was a bystander in my own life.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares

So Totally Emily Ebers by Lisa Yee

2007-04-19T20:55:00.000-07:00

I literally just walked in the door from meeting Lisa Yee at the local Barnes and Noble. I don't often go to author events in stores, but last week my friend EJ told me she would speaking only a few miles from my house. I have been reading Lisa Yee's blog and have been charmed by her wit and enthusiasm and, most importantly, her Peep Wars, so I did want to meet her and introduce myself.

Lisa Yee stopped at our Barnes and Noble as part of the book tour for her new novel, So Totally Emily Ebers. If you're familiar with Millicent Min and Stanford Wong, you will know that Emily Ebers is the third book in this series, and that you will find out what happened during that single summer from Emily's point of view.

Tonight, Lisa tried a little something new: reading passages from each of the three books that portrayed the same events from different characters point of view. That was fun. The audience consisted of about twenty people, filling the nook that Barnes and Noble made available. Besides me and EJ, there was a group of Asian students from a literature class, a few families, and one girl who had her hand up between excerpts, asking questions or making astute comments about the characters.

After the reading, the small group asked a surprisingly large number of questions. Actually, I'm not sure why I was surprised. I don't know how many questions people usually ask. And then, of course, people had Lisa sign their books. At the end, I introduced myself and was pleasantly surprised that Lisa seemed familiar with Shen's Books. When famous people know of you, does that make you famous too?

So Totally Emily Ebers by Lisa Yee