The Bookdiva

MUST. WATCH.

2012-01-09T17:16:00.000-08:00

Tears of joy.

2011-12-22T22:26:00.000-08:00

Much as I don't like the idea of defacing books, this is simply amazing.

Why I Listen to (Some) Audiobooks, and You Should Too

2011-11-14T17:18:00.000-08:00

Gentle reader, you know I love books. Obviously, or this blog would not exist. I don’t just love READING, I love books, the actual physical stacks of ink-filled pages between cardboard or leather covers. I like the weight, the feeling, the smell of books. I’m never happier than when I have a book in my hand and another waiting nearby.

So it may surprise you to learn this post is about audiobooks. They are not, in fact, the enemy. Yes, some people (many people) listen to what used to be called books on tape, now downloadable audio files, in lieu of reading wonderful books, and that is sad. Some of these people have trouble reading at a very high level, don’t have the patience, or think they don’t have the time. (I say think because we all know that if you want to make the time to read, you will.) Of course, I wish they would drop the ear buds and pick up the book instead. But I’m here to tell you there is a time and place for a particular type of audiobook—as I have only recently discovered.

In the old days, when I used to take long walks for exercise, I started renting cassette tapes of John Grisham novels to relieve the boredom of walking around my neighborhood over and over. Even I can’t read a print book very efficiently while walking or exercising. Recently, I remembered how well this ruse worked when I began working out at the gym again, after a long hiatus. Although most days I meet a friend at the gym—in fact, this is the main reason I decided to give gym-going another try—some days she can’t make it and I am on my own, and quickly bored out of my mind. Since I received a tiny, adorable, bright-red iPod Nano last Valentine’s Day, when I burned through all the podcasts of This American Life and RadioLab that were available, I decided to look into audiobooks again.

This is what I discovered: it is a lot more fun listening to celebrities reading their own autobiographies out loud than it is to read them. This is the kick I’m on now. I started with possibly the most entertaining one on the market right now: Tina Fey’s “Bossypants.” I love Tina Fey and think she’s one of the smartest, wittiest people in pop culture, and she reads her book with appropriate verve. It was having a good long chat with your funniest gal pal. When it was over I told my husband, “I just want Tina Fey talking in my ear ALL the time.”

Next, a friend recommended Michael Caine’s book “The Elephant to Hollywood.” Caine’s life story is fascinating—I gasped out loud a couple of times—and hearing it in his own inimitable Cockney voice makes it feel more authentic and real. A delightful bonus from the audiobook that you would definitely not get from reading the print version is that he chuckles quietly at his own funny stories. That is priceless.

Excited by my first successes, I next downloaded Rob Lowe’s “Stories I Only Tell My Friends,” which was even more interesting to me because he is practically my contemporary. His stories about growing up in Ohio and moving to Malibu as a teen, becoming a world-famous movie star and debauched playboy, and his later redemption, are full of name-dropping of the biggest movie stars of our generation. He really can’t help it; it seems like everyone he meets later turns into a major star. These are all the teen idols I grew up adoring, so I was thrilled to hear his behind-the-scenes stories. Best of all, I discovered that Rob Lowe is a pretty good mimic. Who knew? The various voices he imitates include Cary Grant (hilariously), Tom Cruise already manic and in charge at a young age, Christopher Walken, and many more. I’d be walking my dog around the neighborhood and suddenly burst out laughing, to the confusion of my neighbors.

Of the audio-autobiographies I’ve downloaded so far, only one has been kind of a bust. I don’t watch “The Office,” so I only kind of know the young actress and writer Mindy Kaling, but I saw a couple of her funny interviews and downloaded her book, “Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?” on a whim. She’s funny, certainly, but at just 32 years old she hasn’t really had much of a life to introspect about. That might make me sound like an old fart, but writing one successful play and then being hired to write and act in one sitcom don’t make a rich career. Although she’s very successful, Kaling’s book would be good fodder for those who scorn the members of Generation X or Y or whichever it is for being endlessly self-absorbed. I wasn’t sad when it ended.

At this point I’d like to say that listening to audiobooks has not put a crimp in my print reading. I never listen to them in the house. When I’m walking in the neighborhood or working out at the gym is when I’ll pull out the iPod (and sometimes when I’m grocery shopping). And I don’t think I’ll ever get to the point where I’m listening to classic literature, or anything.

So what’s currently on my iPod? Craig Ferguson’s “American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot.” I’ve watched Ferguson’s Late Late Show and I think he’s smart and hilarious. The interviews I’ve heard or read with him make me think his life story will be both pretty interesting and hilariously retold. I expect my list of audiobooks will grow. After all, there’s no shortage of interesting celebrities out there telling their own stories.

Librarians Are Awesome, Part IV

2011-08-04T23:45:00.001-07:00

2011-04-09T21:18:00.001-07:00

I want a bed like this.

And a chair like this:

with apologies to Mark Twain

2011-02-28T22:18:00.001-08:00

2011-02-16T14:00:00.000-08:00

This made me LOL: better book titles.

2011-02-15T10:11:00.000-08:00

Immediately forward this to everyone who needs to buy you a gift in the near future.

Keith, John, and Jack: Part Two

2011-01-25T22:03:00.000-08:00

The John of whom I speak is John Sutter, and he has sorely disappointed me. It’s not all his fault. He’s one of the more popular creations of Nelson DeMille, creator of taut, bestselling thrillers with witty heroes who manage to wriggle their way out of tight spots, leaving a trail of bodies in their wake. If only John had been able to wriggle his way out of this book.

DeMille freaked me out so badly with his graphic descriptions of the gruesome effects of airline hypoxia in “Mayday” that I swore off his novels for good. (If you ever intend to fly again, DON'T read that book.) However, when I saw that his latest release, “The Gate House,” was a sequel to the very first novel by him I ever read, “The Gold Coast,” I thought I should give it a try. As is often the case with discovering a new author you like, their very first novel you read is the best. “The Gold Coast” was very enjoyable, mostly because the hero/narrator, John Sutter, was a smartass who could seemingly think and talk his way out of anything.

If, like me, you enjoyed DeMille’s early novels, do yourself—and him— a favor and skip “The Gate House.” It’s ten years after “The Gold Coast,” and far from being a man of action, John Sutter seems to have been strangely emasculated in this sequel, returning to the scene of the crime and drifting along from one encounter to another. The Mafia, the FBI, his family, his ex-wife: all seem to be able to manipulate and redirect him like a cue ball on a billiard table. He observes but doesn’t react. What might be intended as ironic detachment crosses the line into paralysis. I was willing to go along and see what would snap him out of his stupor, but when he reunites with his crazy (not in a good way), bitchy ex-wife—a murdering philanderer, let’s not forget—I pretty much gave up on him. His rote answers to her need for assurance that they are back together for good are so pat as to seem sarcastic, and I kept expecting him to snap out of it and tell her to take a hike in some delightfully snarky way, but no such luck.

As to what happens in the book—who cares? Whatever thin plot there is, it’s meant to simply provide a backdrop for John’s witty repartee and high jinks, and since there’s hardly any of the former and none of the latter, it doesn’t matter that the plot involves a Mafia don’s surviving son bent on revenge, a Persian businessman who might be the target of assassination (a red herring that goes absolutely nowhere, by the way), and a dying old lady’s secret history. There’s a lot of scenery, fabulous houses, shopping, yacht clubs, boats, and so on. It’s all tied up neatly and somebody dies in the end. It’s not John, or his wife, but by the time you get to the last pages you’ll wish it had been.

Next: Jack.

Keith, John, and Jack: Part 1

2011-01-24T22:48:00.000-08:00

So, I spent the last couple of weeks with three gentlemen (and I use the term loosely): Keith, John, and Jack. I liked two of them; the third frustrated and annoyed me a bit. Let me tell you a bit about them in case you want to spend some time with them too.

First and best, prepare yourself to spend a few days in the charming, laconic company of that great raconteur, Keith Richards. Yes, Keith Richards—he of the grinding guitar riffs, swashbuckling lifestyle, gorgeous women, and notorious addictions. That guy, the one everyone is amazed is still alive. You’ll be even more amazed about that when you finish reading his hugely enjoyable autobiography, “Life.”

By the time I was old enough to know who they were, the Rolling Stones were already an iconic rock ‘n’ roll band. I’m not a devotee; I like them fine and own the greatest hits but was never crazy for them. In fact, when I had the chance to see them live in Paris, I passed. I appreciate the Stones, of course, in their position as one of the formative bands of rock ‘n’ roll. But I never gave them much thought, and only casually noted news about the band members as they made headlines over the years.

Then Johnny Depp modeled a large part of his Captain Jack Sparrow after that real-life rock ‘n’ roll pirate, Keith Richards, and a bunch of people like me said, “Oh yeah, I see that. Huh. That’s funny.” We thought about Keith, if at all, with a kind of bemused affection. “That guy’s still alive? Go figure.”

Then I saw an interview with Keith, now living the life of the lord of the manor in semi-retirement, and who had decided to write it all down. The whole thing, soup to nuts—from his earliest childhood right up to present day. Keith came across as so warm and funny and self-deprecating in his interviews in the weeks before the book was released that although I am not usually very interested in celebrity autobiographies, I decided I had to have this one.

Well, he didn’t write it, exactly. He pretty much dictated it to his co-author, journalist James Fox, who has done a masterful job at crafting a coherent narrative of it without losing any of the delightful flavor of Keith’s storytelling. You feel as if you are actually sitting with him in the garden or his beloved library, listening to his stories. His voice is retained intact. Once you get used to the slang and the profanity and the rumination, it’s a delightful ride.

And what a ride. Let’s just say it up front—pretty much everything you’ve heard is true, up to and including the fact that Keith snorted some of his father’s ashes. There are some rumors he lays to rest, but the reality of Keith Richards’ life is so outrageous that it needs no urban legends to spice it up. The guy should by all rights be dead many times over, as he himself cheerfully admits. He is the first to assure you that had he not had the good fortune to have access to very pure government-issued heroin and cocaine, he’d be very dead. (Trust me, it’s true, and you’ll be amazed.) He describes in detail the horrors of going cold turkey—which he’s done many times—and insists you should NOT try this at home. For a teetotalar like me, the drug stories alone are fascinating, as he goes into some detail about the whole thing—how he got hooked, which drugs he did, their different effects, how he got them and how he used them, how he eventually quit. Let’s just say nothing I read changed my mind that my decision to never try drugs was the right one.

But there is so much more to Keith than the drugs (and by the way, he’s been clean now for 20 years). He is, I was delighted to discover, an intelligent, well-read, cultured, and witty man I could easily see myself spending a pleasant afternoon chatting with. He loves to read, especially English history (like the Patrick O’Brian novels, which I also love). He was from the start a natural-born leader, at school and in the Boy Scouts, and was very close to going to work for an advertising agency when instead he decided to give rock ‘n’ roll a try. He has never had any other job since. He attributes the success of the Rolling Stones in part to his ability to keep a group on track and working together (even if it had to happen on “Keith time”).

If you’re a guitar nerd, there is a lot in this book for you. Keith goes into great detail about his guitar playing: his influences, his style, how he modified or experimented with different tuning, stringing, and sounds (in musical terms I don’t understand), his favorite guitars, the various musicians he’s played with and who have joined the Stones lineup for recording sessions or tours, from the very first days to now. As with most talented artists, he was obsessed with his instrument from the first and loves his guitars above all. And he’s happy to share tips and tricks with aspiring guitarists trying to emulate his sound.

Then there are the women, and the spouses—first the gorgeous, magnetic, crazy, heavily addicted Anita Pallenberg; then the gorgeous, loving, stable Patti Hansen. (The tale of his ill-starred first visit with Patti’s very traditional American family will have you in stitches.) Before and in between, there were lots of women, of course, but Keith is charmingly self-deprecating when it comes to his irresistibility. He claims that he never “pulled a bird,” in his life, but always let them come after him. Women, it seems, have always wanted to take care of him, whether that meant sleeping with him, feeding him supper, doing his laundry, or just letting him crash at their place and delivering him safely back to the band in the morning. He is sweet about them all, even the crazy ones. He seems honestly bemused at their desire to be with him.

And there’s Mick Jagger. Oh yes, I count Mick Jagger as a spouse, as their relationship preceded and outlasted all the others (except Hansen, so far) and is more like a marriage than anything else. Keith pulls no punches when it comes to Mick, and Mick reportedly read the manuscript and had no problem with anything Keith wrote (except for one mention of the comparative size of Mick’s, shall we say, instrument). They are the products of postwar Britain, a hardy pair, generally down-to-earth and impervious to bullshit. They love each other, that’s for sure—deeply. And there were times they hated each other bitterly. Mick did go through a diva phase, and Keith has no patience for such antics. But he makes it clear that from the start he has considered Mick the greatest rhythm and blues singer alive, and side projects notwithstanding, he has never wanted to write for or work with anyone else. Like most married couples, they’ve settled into a relationship that works, even though they are no longer inseparable. They’ve grown up, but they haven’t grown apart.

There’s a lot more to love in this book—Keith’s recipes, his run-ins with the law, his beloved dogs, the cars he's owned, his friendships with other musicians like Gram Parsons and John Lennon, the surprising revelation that the closest he’s come to death was actually from falling off a ladder in his library and out of a tree in Fiji. But I'll let you discover all that for yourself. Get a copy of “Life,” and settle down for a few days with Keith. You’ll feel like you made a new friend, and you’ll never listen to the Stones the same way again.

Next time: John.

2011-01-06T16:26:00.000-08:00

This is cool: book art.

In the Stacks

2011-01-03T21:34:00.000-08:00

I’ve been volunteering in my daughters’ elementary school library for a few months now. I spend one hour a week alone in the library, shelving returned books. Those of you who know me at all can guess that this makes me very, very happy.

The school is a small one and so is the library. It’s in a basement room that also hosts the computer lab. The library is essentially a dozen bookshelves distributed around the perimeter of the room, some tables and chairs and rugs, and a large comfy chair for the librarian to sit in at story time.

I spent a lot of time in my various school libraries as a student, and in my mother’s bookshop when it existed. Bookshops are still slices of heaven to me, so shelving books in a quiet room is close to nirvana. I also welcomed the opportunity to reacquaint myself with the Dewey Decimal System. You know, just in case.

The school’s library is divided into three sections: Fiction, Easy Reading, and Non-Fiction (that’s where the Dewey Decimal System comes in). I’m glad to report that four months of shelving books KG through 5th graders choose to take home proves the old standbys are still favorites: E.B. White, Roald Dahl, Dr. Seuss, C.S. Lewis, Nancy Drew, and the Hardy Boys, are all well-represented. Add to that the new classics: Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, the Avalon series. I’ve learned the shelf locations of the Magic Treehouse, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and Goosebumps series by heart.

As for non-fiction, the big winners by far are the 590s: animals, closely followed by 636 (pets and pet care). However, I’m pleased to see that in 811 (poetry), Shel Silverstein’s books are out every single week. There is usually a good sprinkling of 790s (sports) and some 398s (folk tales).

There are trends in book desirability. The little ones sometimes pick out books together -- all the Angelinas or Miss Spiders will be out at once. You can also tell when certain kinds of book reports are assigned to the older students, such as when the 900s (biographies) were wiped out for a couple of weeks.

As I place the books back in their proper places on the shelves, I sometimes wonder if there’s a kid in one of the classes who’s like I was at that age –- fond of re-reading the same favorite few books, checking them out again and again even as the librarian gently urges her to try something new. For that little girl, spending hours among the stacks was just about the best thing she could imagine. Still is.

Books Read in 2010

2011-01-01T08:29:00.000-08:00

The Transit of Venus - Shirley Hazzard

Whale Done! - Ken Blanchard

The Uncommon Reader - Alan Bennett

The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup - Susan Orlean

I, Robot - Isaac Asimov

The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury

Through a Glass, Darkly - Isaac Asimov

The Girl Who Played with Fire - Stieg Larsson

Native Language - Carl Hiaasen

Little Money Street - Fernanda Eberstadt

That Old Cape Magic - Richard Russo

Zeitoun - Dave Eggers

Cheerful Money - Tad Friend

Tea Time for the Traditionally Built - Alexander McCall Smith

The Book of Joe - Jonathan Tropper

His Majesty's Dragon - Naomi Kovik

The Sins of the Wolf - Anne Perry

The Professional - Robert B. Parker

Slam - Nick Hornby

The Nasty Bits - Anthony Bourdain

The Book Thief - Markus Zusak

Juliet, Naked - Nick Hornby

The Last Jew - Noah Gordon

This year: read more books!

In 2011...

2011-01-01T08:26:00.001-08:00

Make at least one Indian meal.

Bake more.

Think Outside the Gift Box this Christmas

2010-12-08T09:23:00.000-08:00

Since I have two children under the age of 10, I think I can say on behalf of all parents worldwide: please don’t give my children any more toys for Christmas.

My spouse and I, and Santa, and our immediate relatives (hello, grandma!) have that covered. Really, we do. We live with these kids all year, we know what they have and what they don’t have, and believe me, we know what they want.

Kids love toys, yes. But kids, my kids at least, love experiences and outings more. Try thinking outside the gift box. Taking them to the beach for a hike and a picnic is a special day together they’ll remember for a long time. Throw in a disposable camera so they can document the day in their own way. There’s a theme park near you, surely – how about a day there? If hanging with the kiddos for a full day isn’t your style, look for museums and craft stores nearby that offer classes. Gift certificates for art classes or a backstage tour at the Zoo will be surefire hits, I promise.

If you’re a Martha type, or even a wannabe, put together a craft or baking kit with all the supplies needed, in an appropriate container. Included in the gift is your aid or supervision for the project, to make it a fun bonding experience with the child AND give the parents a break for an afternoon.

My kids love shopping, and gift cards to their favorite stores give them a thrill since they get to choose whatever they want and pay for it themselves! (A big hit with parents also.) Bookstores are always tops, but art supply stores, toy stores, and even kids’ clothing stores are all good choices. Try to avoid the big box stores and instead hunt down small local boutiques. Not only will you be supporting small local businesses, but there’s a chance the items the kids choose will be unique instead of just like everyone else’s.

Thinking outside the gift box works great for the adults on your list too. For out-of-towners, think of gifts that don’t require shipping. Gift subscriptions to magazines are always welcome, and give you a chance to really think about the recipient and their special interests. Right before the holidays, many magazines offer heavily discounted gift subscriptions.

Theatre tickets and restaurant gift cards in their area are a pleasant surprise. If you’re not sure about their tastes, choose a gift certificate to a popular theatre that allows them to choose which show to attend. As for restaurants, check out the dining guides in their area. There’s bound to be some hot new place they’ve been dying to try. Or look for tea shops that offer high tea, which everyone loves and rarely treat themselves to.

For women and men alike, I’ve never seen anyone disappointed to receive a gift certificate for a massage or mani-pedi. For the stressed working parent, a homemade coupon, offering a free evening of babysitting or an outing to the park, would be a gift indeed.

With a little thought and imagination, you can come up with gift ideas that are original, memorable, fun, inexpensive, support local businesses or nonprofit organizations, and don’t end up in the black hole of the family room to be quickly forgotten.

2010-12-03T17:34:00.000-08:00

Want! Purses modeled after classic books.

2010-12-02T12:32:00.001-08:00

We've seen a couple of these before, but check out these amazingly inventive bookshelves.

Music for a Spooky Halloween

2010-10-31T09:20:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween! Here's what I'll be playing on iTunes today:

Every Day Is Halloween -- Ministry

Abracadabra -- Steve Miller Band

All You Zombies -- The Hooters

Werewolves of London -- Warren Zevon

The Time Warp (Rocky Horror Picture Show)

Bela Lugosi's Dead -- Bauhaus

Thriller -- Michael Jackson

Rhiannon -- Fleetwood Mac

The Monster Mash

Witchy Woman -- Eagles

Love Song for a Vampire -- Annie Lennox (Bram Stoker's Dracula)

Hell -- Squirrel Nut Zippers

Ghostbusters theme

Ghost of a Texas Ladies’ Man -- Concrete Blonde

Dead Man's Party -- Oingo Boingo

Moon Over Bourbon Street -- Sting

(Don't Fear) The Reaper -- Blue Öyster Cult

Bat Out of Hell -- Meat Loaf

2010-09-13T16:16:00.001-07:00

Too cool: a library information desk made out of books.

Roommate Roulette

2010-08-20T11:54:00.001-07:00

I heard a version of this story yesterday on NPR: some colleges and universities are now letting entering freshmen use an online matching service to choose their own roommates before arriving on campus.

As this article in the Chronicle of Higher Education explains, “Students can use the application, RoomBug, to fill out forms about their preferences for living and qualities they'd like to see in a roommate. Students can then request a match, which the other incoming freshman must confirm.”

I think this is just a terrible idea. Such services clearly make it much easier for the college’s Student Housing office, whose staff would have to spend days or weeks otherwise decided which freshmen to place in rooms together, then would have to deal with issues and room change requests throughout the semester thereafter. This way most of their work is done for them and, at least at first blush, it would seem letting students decide whom to live with would prevent conflicts later on.

It may also seem like a good idea to the incoming freshmen themselves. Knowing ahead of time who your roommate will be and that you approved the choice may relieve one of the many uncertainties and anxieties about heading off to your first year of college.

Nevertheless, it’s a bad idea, and here are some reasons why:

1. Going to college is about experimentation, expanding horizons and meeting new people.

One of the most important things students learn when they leave home for college is that they will have to open their minds a little. The whole point is to leave your old life and at least part of your old self behind, and transition into a new phase of your personal growth and development. Meeting new people and making new friends is part of that growth. A mystery roommate may make you a little nervous, but meeting that person and learning to live with him or her will force you out of your comfort zone, at least for a little while, and that’s a good thing. In the event that it doesn’t work out, learning how to resolve conflicts and solve problems, such as dealing with the Student Housing office to switch roommates or rooms, is also a valuable lesson in growing up.

2. People are not who they seem to be.

Anyone who spends time online knows this to be true. You may find what you think is the perfect roommate for you, but this is based entirely on the image and information this person projects online. The reality can only be different, and may often be a disappointment.

3. The potential for rejection is huge.

Surely at least a few students each year will not be able to find a good match, and will be rejected by all those they ask to confirm them as a roomie. I can’t imagine a worse mental state in which to begin college life than branded a loser before you even get there because no one you asked wanted to room with you. Even if no one else will ever know, that’s a pretty crappy feeling.

4. People change.

Let me cite my own freshman experience as an example. My small, private liberal-arts college in the Bay Area placed me with a blonde beach bunny from San Diego who wore white leather miniskirts and had never been outside California. I, a foreign student from the Middle East, was moving to America from Paris, and my family moved to San Diego two months before I was to start college. Possibly this was the tenuous link between us that prompted the housing office to place us together; we could not have been more different otherwise.

Although bemused by each other, we got along OK. Our double room allowed us privacy. We had no classes together and quickly made completely different friends; after dorm orientation I don't think we spent a single moment together outside the room, and rarely saw each other even when we were home. She partied a lot; I studied a lot. She brought home lots of guys; I quickly found a steady boyfriend. There were no conflicts, but there was also no friendship.

A couple of months into the semester, however, I noticed changes in Elyse. She was spending a lot of time hanging out with the girls who lived in The Zoo, a wing of rooms in our dorm where lesbians and bisexuals congregated. The white miniskirt was replaced by torn jeans, biker boots, and flannel shirts. No more guys spent the night in her half of the suite. Right before she petitioned to move into a different room – nothing against me, she explained, but she wanted to be near her new friends – the beach-blonde hair was dyed inky black.

Well, I can imagine that had this been the person I chose as a roommate after spending hours online finding the perfect match, that would have been a shock and a half. It might have even traumatized me a little. As it was, I shrugged and enjoyed a double room all to myself for the rest of my freshman year; coming back for sophomore year I requested a double room with a roommate of my choice, a friend I made the year before.

High school seniors: trust me. Trust yourselves. Don’t try to control every aspect of your lives; you’re about to go on a great adventure. Even if you get to choose a roommate and everything goes swimmingly, people can change, especially college students. Nothing is guaranteed.

2010-07-25T09:00:00.001-07:00

Love this:

My July 4th PLaylist

2010-07-03T19:50:00.000-07:00

Happy Independence Day!

God Bless America (Kate Smith)

Albinoni: Adagio In G Minor

4th of July (X)

Independence Day (Bruce Springsteen)

America from West Side Story

America (Simon & Garfunkel)

Born In The U.S.A.(Bruce Springsteen)

American Boy (Estelle)

Breakfast in America (Supertramp)

Help Save The Youth Of America (Billy Bragg)

Living In America (James Brown)

Surfin' USA (The Beach Boys)

We're An American Band (Grand Funk Railroad)

My Hometown (Bruce Springsteen)

Rockin’ In the Free World (Neil Young)

America (Neil Diamond)

This Land Is Your Land (Woody Guthrie)

The Promised Land (Bruce Springsteen)

Jef (Jacques Brel)

4th Of July, Asbury Park (Bruce Springsteen)

Like a Rolling Stone (Bob Dylan)

Star Spangled Banner (Live At Woodstock) (Jimi Hendrix)

Mental Break: Classic Sci-Fi

2010-06-21T17:16:00.000-07:00

Last week the writer Susan Orlean started a Twitter hashtag that exploded in a matter of hours: #booksthatchangedmylife. I sent in a few submissions and then joyfully leapt to my bookshelf to pull out some old friends. I’ve been trying to read “Little, Big” by John Crowley lately, which came highly recommended but which I confess I find slow going. I took a short break to read Carl Hiaasen’s “Native Tongue,” which was fun but hardly edifying. I was headed for a weekend trip out of town, looking forward to hours in a chaise-longue by the pool, and thinking about books that made an impression on me, for Susan’s hashtag fun, made me realize just the mental break I needed: a few hours immersed in classic science fiction.

I’m not a big reader of current science fiction, mainly because so much of our modern existence is so advanced, fantastic, and strange that science fiction has to try very hard to outdo it. But as a young teenager I ate it up. I remember the very first science fiction I ever read: a book of short stories of my mother’s called “The Seeds of Time,” by John Wyndham. That’s one I pulled off the shelf last week, along with Isaac Asimov’s “Through a Glass, Clearly,” and Ray Bradbury’s “The Martian Chronicles.” All are slim volumes of postwar science fiction stories, with publication dates of 1950 (Bradbury), ‘56 (Wyndham), and ’67 (Asimov) – all before I was born. My copies are old, with frail yellowed pages and my name scrawled in ballpoint on the title page.

Any fan of science fiction knows these are three of the best writers the genre has produced. The stories are well written, although their language rings a little old-fashioned to our modern ears. My husband, for one, loses patience with classic science fiction; as an engineer, he can’t see past the knowledge that our technological evolution has left their speculations in the dust. I find it entertaining, albeit in a different way than the authors intended, of course. It’s amusing to see that has and has not turned out the way they imagined it could.

We have not, sadly, landed men on Mars, although we’re now fairly sure no ancient and declining civilization is living out its last years there in anticipation of our arrival. Domestic robots, automated houses, and teleporting Doors have not become an integral part of our everyday lives. But to me, what is the most interesting in all these stories is the confident assumption – bordering on certainty – on the part of the authors, who were fully immersed in the Atomic Age, that any day now humans would blow themselves up.

The anticipation of impending nuclear annihilation permeates every molecule of the classic science fiction of this era. Men go to Mars seeking to escape war, but once it happens and parts of Earth are destroyed, they must return to fight – or choose to stay, to renew the human race on a new planet. Scientists race to create a machine that will protect us from atomic blasts, only to find some mysterious force beyond our comprehension does not want them to succeed. A man holds the fate of the world in his hands – if he can just figure out how to stop an atomic explosion while time has temporarily stopped. These are just a few examples.

It must have been terrifying indeed to come of age in a time when mankind had created and seemed intent on using the most terrifying weapon ever known. John Wyndham died in 1969; he never had the chance to see us move past the Atomic Age to a time when, although there are dangers of many kinds, the specter of full-scale nuclear warfare seems to have receded. Isaac Asimov, who died in 1992, must have been filled with wonder at it. Ray Bradbury is still alive. How must he feel to observe that we seem to have survived the nuclear threat?

We wake up to bad news every morning; humans and the environment appear to be under constant attack from every direction. But spend a few hours immersed in the science fiction of the ‘50s and ‘60s and you can take heart in at least this: despite our many deadly faults, mankind has, at least for now, managed not to blow ourselves up. That’s something.

2010-04-22T08:18:00.000-07:00

Speaking of libraries and bookshelves:

Stockholm Public Library

and a cool idea if you have a lot of empty space in your house:

It's my library, and I'll shelve how I want to

2010-04-13T22:13:00.000-07:00

Book lovers: as you know, my favorite room in the house is my library. OK, so it’s technically the family room. The floor and some of the shelves in there are full of toys, but fully three walls are lined with Ikea Billy bookshelves, in beech veneer, and those are full of books. My books.

The former bookshop employee and wannabe librarian in me delights in the act of shelving my books. When we moved into this house and installed the shelves, I loved having the space to shelve all my books, and to be able to arrange them how I wanted. I love to sit in there and look at my books, run my fingers along their spines, pull one out occasionally and leaf through it, and add newly read books to the shelves. Which leads me to this question: how do you like to organize your books?

I grew up with the Dewey Decimal System, which categorizes books by subject matter and then alphabetically within those categories by author’s last name. Bookshops categorize their books approximately the same way. So it follows that someone with a personal library of any size would do more or less the same. But the beauty of being your own librarian is that you can create your own categories, and no one has to understand them but you.

I like to keep books by the same author together, and I like them to be the same print run, so they match, especially if they’re part of a series. I don’t alphabetize within categories; I don’t really have enough books to need to do that. My categories are for the most part pretty standard: biography/autobiography/nonfiction; mystery/thriller/espionage; fantasy & science fiction; children’s literature; travel/guidebooks; food/cooking; baby and child care; classics; poetry; historical fiction; and general fiction.

Within those categories are some idiosyncrasies of my own. For example, within biography I have a Bruce Springsteen section, since I’m a fan and have more than a few books about him. Within nonfiction is a section entirely for soccer. I chose to include biographies of David Beckham, Pele, and the great referee Pierluigi Collina in that section instead of the biography section, because the soccer aspect of those books is more important to me than the biography. Within fiction, I have a vampire section and a King Arthur section – again, because I have more than a few books in those genres and like to keep them separate. (I want to point out that NONE of my vampire books are by Stephenie Meyer. In fact, none of them were published within the last ten years.) And there’s a small but growing Flamenco section, reflecting my latest passion.

Harry Potter gets his own shelf, but since seven books, even thick ones, don’t fill the whole space, he rubs up against The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lord of the Rings, and His Dark Materials. I love that shelf.

My classics shelves hold more or less everything I read in high school and college literature classes, with a special shelf for French literature. (You have to tilt your head the other way – to the left – to skim those spines. Those crazy frogs!) This includes the massive Norton anthologies and other tomes I lugged around as a graduate student. James Joyce, the main object of my scholarly literary affections, takes up more than a shelf on his own, overlapping with books about or set in Ireland -- obviously.

Finally, there’s a quirk I throw in that no one could expect to guess by looking at my shelves. Remember in Nick Hornby’s fantastic book “High Fidelity,” Rob, the music store owner and LP collector, is constantly rearranging his record collection? Finally, in a stroke of genius, he spends all night arranging the LPs in a way only he would understand. Not alphabetically, not chronologically, not thematically. He arranges them by WHEN HE PURCHASED THEM. A more personal, idiosyncratic, and inscrutable system could not be devised. It shows the depth of his passion for his collection, as well as his phenomenal memory.

I don’t go that far, but there is one thing I do which baffles visitors. If you’re looking at my bookshelves and come across a batch of books in general fiction that appear to have nothing to do with each other, that are not by the same author, but seem to be randomly thrown together – most likely, those are three or four books, or more, that I bought on the same bookstore shopping trip. Piled one after another into my the crook of my left arm as I perambulated around the store, they nestled together in the reusable B&N shopping bag and sat together in a stack on my bedside table until, one after another, I read them. But I am loath to separate shopping bag buddies, as I think of them. I move them from the unread stack on the bedside table to the read stack on the dresser, and only when I’ve finished all the books in that one stack do I shelve them – together. And together they stay, unless there’s a good reason to separate one from the others (for example, if it’s the latest in a series I already own). Months and years later, my glance skims over a group of books and I remember with pleasure the bookshop visit that led them to my shelves. That may be weird, but hey, it’s my library!

How do you discover new books?

2010-03-28T22:56:00.000-07:00

Coming across a wonderful new book this week has left me wondering how my loyal readers go about the business -- or should I say pleasure -- of discovering books that are new to you.

For a voracious reader, one of the great ongoing pleasures of life is the quest for the next book. Fortunately, we live in a time when there are many ways for new and exciting publications to cross one's path.

Since the good old paper and ink version has not yet been eclipsed, let’s start with the traditional way to find a book: you go to a place where there are lots of them, some you haven’t even read yet, such as a library or a bookshop. You go when you have at least an hour to spare, and if you are like me, your gait slows the moment you get in the door. With your head in that delightful crick-inducing tilt to the right, you make your way up and down every aisle. You hit the tables loaded with new releases. You read the employees’ recommendations. You seek out authors whose other books you have enjoyed, in case they’ve published something new you haven’t heard about yet. You balance an ever-growing stack in your arms as you keep browsing for more: hardcovers on the bottom, trade paperbacks at the top. And you nearly always end up with at least four or five new books to take home.

Then there are the book reviews. Believe it or not, Entertainment Weekly magazine devotes as much space to books as it does to music and television, and its reviewers have decent taste; I’ve discovered quite a few wonderful new authors in those pages. The San Diego Union-Tribune, my local paper, is one of the last major dailies in the country to still contain a Book section, although most of the time I find it less than useful. Of course, the standbys for the whole country are The New York Times Sunday Book section and The New Yorker magazine.

That’s where the traditional methods end, but one of the great joys of the Internet is it has exponentially increased my possible exposure to new books. The very first website I ever visited on the World Wide Web was Amazon.com; the very first transaction I ever conducted was to order my first book from Amazon: “Cinderella and Co.,” about the mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli. I remember it well, the magical realization that with such a simple set of clicks a book – an actual book! – was winging its way to me. It arrived in just two short days in what is now that very familiar and beloved smiling cardboard box. That thrill has never waned.

There are many, many other booksellers on the Web today, but thanks to that first magical experience, and their good customer service, I have remained loyal to Amazon. They repay my loyalty with their excellent recommendations, which – especially in the case of Amazon.co.uk – have led me to a great number of wonderful authors I would otherwise never have heard of.

A more recent phenomenon is discovering a number of book lovers’ blogs to follow, and which have sometimes led to more discoveries. And finally there is Twitter, where accounts like Flashlight-Worthy Books regularly serve up themed lists that lead me from a well-known and beloved work to others in the same vein I might like.

It’s thanks to Amazon's recommendations that I ordered a delightful book I just finished: “The Uncommon Reader,” by Alan Bennett. This wonderful little volume – just 120 small pages – is a quick and joyful read for any book lover. I’ve heard of Bennett, of course, but never read him before. He’s best known as an accomplished playwright, but like every good Englishman he reveres his queen, and this novella speculates on what might happen should Her Majesty Elizabeth II, while in pursuit of an errant corgi, accidentally stumble across a traveling library on the royal grounds. On the advice of a kitchen boy (who’s perusing books about Cecil Beaton and David Hockney), she borrows one book, and then another, and soon her voracious reading leads her further and further astray from her traditional role, to the consternation of nearly all around her. Slyly humorous and irreverent while remaining affectionate, “The Uncommon Reader” is simply a must-read.

Next on my list: some of the books Her Majesty particularly enjoyed, in Alan Bennett's imagination. And after that -- who knows? I eagerly await the next new discovery.

What's Your Reading Diet?

2010-03-09T09:39:00.000-08:00

One of the most fun things about becoming active on Twitter in the past year has been following the wonderful writer Susan Orlean, who writes for The New Yorker and has written many books I love, including "The Orchid Thief," on which the film "Adaptation" was based. As you would expect if you've read her work, she's funny and perceptive and smart, and she's been nice enough to communicate with me occasionally both on Twitter and Facebook. Today she posted this interesting column about her reading habits.

What I liked the best about this is that Ms. Orlean's reading habits so closely mirror my own -- or would, if I were able to devote a little more time to reading in my daily schedule. My reading diet is a shrunken version of hers. I guess when you're a professional writer like her, it's easier to carve out time to read, but there's no excuse. Reading is one of the only truly guilt-free pleasures in my life, and I should do it more. Period.

2010-03-05T16:25:00.000-08:00

Dear readers: I was going to write a whole long blog post about why I don't own an e-book reader, like a Kindle or a Nook, and why I have no intention of buying one. (Because I know you are all burning to know.) But then I realized that with so many articles out there about the pros and cons of e-readers, you don't need another long treatise on the subject, even from me.

So let me cut to the chase: Books are cool. I love books. I love the words and the language inside them, but I also love the covers and the pages and the ink. I love to stack them on my bedside table and carry them around and stick bookmarks in them and sort on them my bookshelves when they are finished. And I love that when someone sees me reading in public, they can be amused, impressed, or horrified by the book I'm reading. And you know what? You can't do any of that with a Kindle.

Happy reading!

Whose voice is it, anyway?

2010-01-19T12:48:00.000-08:00

Have you ever been half-watching a show on television while doing something else, perhaps preparing dinner or folding laundry, when an advertisement comes on and the mellifluent tones extolling the virtue of Advil or AIG sounds really familiar to you? But it's just 30 seconds and before you can really place the voice, it's over. Have no fear, I'm here to help. Behold my ongoing and ever-growing list of...

Uncredited Celebrity Voiceovers in Ads

GM: Matt Dillon

AIG: Stockard Channing

Dunkin' Donuts: John Goodman

Ronald McDonald House: Paul Newman (these may not be airing any more)

Honda: Richard Dreyfuss

Nature Conservancy: Michael Douglas

Budweiser: George Clooney

Panasonic: Christian Slater

Toyota: John Goodman

Florida Orange Juice: Tom Selleck

Hyundai: Jeff Bridges

Go RVing.com: Tom Selleck

Applebee's: John Corbett

Coors: Sam Elliott

Beef: Matthew McConaughey

Ford F150: Denis Leary

VW: Thomas Haden Church

Kaiser Permanente: Allison Janney

Acura: James Spader

Adidas soccer ads: French actor Tcheky Karyo

USA Network: Tom Selleck

Chevron: Campbell Scott

Advil: Jeremy Sisto

Boniva: Nancy Giles

Mercedes: Jeremy Sisto

(I've been compiling this list for a few years, so some of these may no longer be airing. Also, obviously, not all ads for a particular company or product are voiced by the same person. So don't yell at me if you're listening for John Goodman or Nancy Giles in vain. Also, I'm not keeping track of ads in which the celebrity in question is onscreen.)

Sidebar: Um, Beef Council? No doubt you chose Matthew McConaughey because he sounds folksy and he's from Texas. But since he's famous for walking around without a shirt on, and not all of us think he's anywhere near as sexy as he thinks he is, perhaps go with someone a little less obvious and leave Matthew to the Cheesecake Factory.

By the way, can I just say how happy I am to hear Jeremy Sisto's sexy voice on my teevee more and more often? You may know him as Detective Lupo from "Law & Order," but I will always think of him as dishy but dastardly Elton from 1995's "Clueless." "Rollin' wid da homies, rollin' wid da homies..."

Feel free to add any celebrity voiceovers you spot to this list. I'll update it as needed.

Books I Read in 2009: The News is Bad, and I Blame Twitter

2010-01-01T17:00:00.000-08:00

The results are in, folks, and it’s not good.

At the end of each year, I publish a list of all the books I read that year. This year, I’m ashamed to say, it’s the shortest it’s ever been. In the past 365 days I have only read 23 books.

I basically read all day, but even taking into account the many newspapers, magazines, and web articles I read, that is a pitifully small number. Of course, I’m busy with work and kids and life and stuff. But not significantly more this year than in past year, not enough to account for this drop. So what’s the problem?

In a word: Twitter.

I signed up with Twitter almost exactly a year ago, in January 2009, but I only started using it actively in April. I quickly became addicted, and now I spend a lot of time reading posts and posting my own. Although part of this is for business – my own and my clients’ – part of it is just for fun. It is fun, and it is reading, of a sort. But I’m guessing a good hour or two a night that I could otherwise be reading, I’m Tweeting instead. That’s a lot of books going unread.

I enjoy Twitter, of course, or I wouldn’t be doing it. But I know I enjoy reading more. It remains my first love. There is a stack of books waiting next to my bed, and many more on my Amazon wish list. So although I planned not to make any New Year’s Resolutions this year, this is an easy one to make: read more books. Now, if you’ll excuse me…

Books I Read in 2009:

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz

The Appeal, by John Grisham

Brat Farrar, by Josephine Tey

Saturday, by Ian McEwen

Ysabel, by Guy Gavriel Kay

The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, Jennifer 8. Lee

The Toss of a Lemon, by Padma Viswanathan

A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin

Careless in Red, by Elizabeth George

Adopting the Racing Greyhound, by Cynthia Madigan

Just a Geek, by Wil Wheaton

Blood Sucking Fiends, by Christopher Moore

The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop, by Lewis Buzbee

The Miracle at Speedy Motors, by Alexander McCall Smith

The Spies of Warsaw, by Alan Furst

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson

The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein

Coyote Blue, by Christopher Moore

Interred with Their Bones, by Jennifer Lee Carrell

The Wordy Shipmates, by Sarah Vowell

While the Arab World Slept, by Claude Salhani

The Locust and the Bird, by Hanan Al-Shaykh

The Sweet Life in Paris, by David Lebowitz

In Defense of the TSA… Sort Of

2009-12-27T08:44:00.000-08:00

Like everyone else, I’m annoyed and frustrated by the Transportation Safety Administration’s knee-jerk reaction to the latest terrorist attack attempt on an airliner bound for the U.S. We can’t understand why they don’t realize how ridiculous it seems to immediately block certain behaviors AFTER they’ve been used to attack us, rather than before, as if every other would-be terrorist out there is going to copy them, now that they’ve been revealed.

Hijackers use box knives to divert planes, and now we can’t take nail clippers on board. Unsuccessful attempts with liquid explosives, explosives hidden in shoes, and (the latest) sewn into underwear mean we now can’t pack more than a few ounces of hair gel, have to remove our shoes at security checkpoints, and can’t use the airliner’s restroom in the last hour of a flight – even if we have to go REALLY BAD. Does anyone, the TSA included, really think these measures taken after the fact will keep us safer?

Well, yes, maybe they do. As I was thinking about this yesterday I realized that due to government neurosis, like parental neurosis, perhaps the issue is not whether they actually keep us safer, but whether they believe they do.

Consider this: the actual number of active terrorists in the world who will attempt to carry out an attack against the United States is tiny. A tiny percentage of all the people on earth who may talk about it, and a tiny percentage of those people may get together with other malcontents to talk about it together. Of those, a tiny percentage may actually begin making vague plans or trying to raise money to do it. And of those, a tiny percentage may actually try to carry out their plans. Most of those are caught before they can bring their plans to fruition.

Given that assessment, our fear of terrorism is vastly out of proportion with the reality of the threat. Fed by the government and the media, we now imagine other countries (or our own backwoods) are teeming with hordes of fanatical young men (and women) standing in line to try different creative ways to harm us. When this boils down to day-to-day annoyances like taking your shoes off at the airport, it begins to seem completely unreasonable to the average person.

It occurred to me that a comparable level of paranoia may exist only in the minds of frantic parents who navigate each day trying to keep their children safe. Most children’s lives in America today are circumscribed by precautions taken by the adults in their lives, primarily their parents, to keep them safe from accidents, abduction, and sexual predation. We know on an intellectual level that the number of incidents per capita involving abduction or sexual abuse of children is tiny (and that these are much more likely to be committed by people we know than strangers). The odds that anything like this will happen to your child are long indeed. But since they are our children, and the idea of someone abducting or abusing them is unacceptable to us, no odds are long enough.

Say you finally allow your ten-year-old daughter to walk to school alone, four blocks away on a lightly trafficked street. This works fine for months, then one day when she comes home she mentions that she thought a young man she does not know might have followed her part of the way home. What would you do? I’ll tell you what I would do in that situation: I would completely overreact. “Someone followed you home from school? Fine, you’re never walking to school alone again.” And that would be the end of it. Her life, and mine, would be inconvenienced for years because of one incident in which she might have been in danger.

I am unreasonably neurotic about the safety of my children in the same way, perhaps, that governments are unreasonably neurotic about the safety of their citizens. Perhaps there are political agendas in play, power grabs, corporate interests who stand to profit from more draconian security measures. But I would like to think that part of the reason the TSA and other government agencies overreact after terrorist attempts is that they see us as parents see their children, and no odds are long enough to try to keep us safe. If that’s true, it helps me be a little less impatient with their nonsense.

The Twelve Days of Tweetmas

2009-11-27T16:34:00.000-08:00

On the first day of Tweetmas, my true love gave to me:
A little blue bird in a brown tree.

On the second day of Tweetmas, my true love gave to me:
Two porn spam bots,
And a little blue bird in a brown tree.

On the third day of Tweetmas, my true love gave to me:
Three #tcot crazies,
Two porn spam bots,
And a little blue bird in a brown tree.

On the fourth day of Tweetmas, my true love gave to me:
Four #followfridays,
Three #tcot crazies,
Two porn spam bots,
And a little blue bird in a brown tree.

On the fitth day of Tweetmas, my true love gave to me:
Five fail whales!
Four #followfridays,
Three #tcot crazies,
Two porn spam bots,
And a little blue bird in a brown tree.

On the sixth day of Tweetmas, my true love gave to me:
Six foodies’ lunches,
Five fail whales!
Four #followfridays,
Three #tcot crazies,
Two porn spam bots,
And a little blue bird in a brown tree.

On the seventh day of Tweetmas, my true love gave to me:
Seven celebrities’ ghostweeters,
Six foodies’ lunches,
Five fail whales!
Four #followfridays,
Three #tcot crazies,
Two porn spam bots,
And a little blue bird in a brown tree.

On the eighth day of Tweetmas, my true love gave to me:
Eight white teeth secrets,
Seven celebrities’ ghostweeters,
Six foodies’ lunches,
Five fail whales!
Four #followfridays,
Three #tcot crazies,
Two porn spam bots,
And a little blue bird in a brown tree.

On the ninth day of Tweetmas, my true love gave to me:
Nine Nutella Twibe members,
Eight white teeth secrets,
Seven celebrities’ ghostweeters,
Six foodies’ lunches,
Five fail whales!
Four #followfridays,
Three #tcot crazies,
Two porn spam bots,
And a little blue bird in a brown tree.

On the tenth day of Tweetmas, my true love gave to me:
Ten breaking newsfeeds,
Nine Nutella Twibe members,
Eight white teeth secrets,
Seven celebrities’ ghostweeters,
Six foodies’ lunches,
Five fail whales!
Four #followfridays
Three #tcot crazies,
Two porn spam bots,
And a little blue bird in a brown tree.

On the eleventh day of Tweetmas, my true love gave to me:
Eleven greyhound anipals,
Ten breaking newsfeeds,
Nine Nutella Twibe members,
Eight white teeth secrets,
Seven celebrities’ ghostweeters ,
Six foodies’ lunches,
Five fail whales!
Four #followfridays,
Three #tcot crazies,
Two porn spam bots,
And a little blue bird in a brown tree.

On the twelfth day of Tweetmas, my true love gave to me:
Twelve dozen (and more) awesome Twitter friends,
Eleven greyhound anipals,
Ten breaking newsfeeds,
Nine Nutella Twibe members,
Eight white teeth secrets,
Seven celebrities’ ghostweeters,
Six foodies’ lunches,
Five fail whales!
Four #followfridays,
Three #tcot crazies,
Two porn spam bots,
And a little blue bird in a brown tree!

Merry Tweetmas everybody!

In Praise of Cruise Control

2009-11-04T17:00:00.000-08:00

I’m about to say something that will disappoint those of you who were under the impression I’m at all cool, especially if one of the reasons you think that is because I have in the past demonstrated an appreciation for fast cars and car racing. Please, bear with me until you’ve read through to the end. I am becoming a big fan of cruise control.

Yes, cruise control, that set of buttons in your car that no one ever uses. I’m a mom, and I commute, and at the beginning of the school year I started experimenting with those buttons. I think you should give them a try too. The results have made me a safer, calmer, more fuel-efficient driver. How’s that for motivation?

It happened like this: I read an article a couple of months ago in The New Yorker about a traffic school instructor in Southern California. It was a long article that covered a great many topics, but one thing stuck in my mind. The instructor, who does a lot of freeway driving, said he always uses cruise control on the freeway so he doesn’t have to worry about getting a speeding ticket. He gets into the second lane, sets the cruise control a couple of miles above the speed limit, and engages. He said, “Who’s constantly looking over their shoulder for the cops? Criminals, that’s who. You only have to act like a criminal if you’re doing something illegal.” (I’m paraphrasing, but it was something along those lines.)

This idea was in direct opposition to the advice given to my by another driving instructor, whose class I took after getting a speeding ticket many, many years ago (I haven’t had a ticket of any kind in more than ten years). At the time, that instructor told his class he knew we were going to keep breaking the law, so he was going to give us tips and advice on how not to get caught. Among these were to constantly check your rear and side view mirrors for cops, especially when passing by on-ramps. I’ve been putting this paranoid advice to good use ever since, but it’s exhausting and nerve-racking, as the guy said, to be constantly acting like a criminal.

I thought about cruise control before setting off on my next commute. Presumably, a bunch of brainy engineers at Honda had figured out how to let my car propel itself at a constant speed until I told it to stop. It sounded interesting. Why not give it a try? Once I figured out how it worked, I did exactly what the instructor in The New Yorker recommended. I eased into the second lane, got the speedometer up to 67 or 68 mph, and engaged the cruise control.

Once I got used to taking my foot off the gas, and no longer felt the need to constantly check the speedometer to make sure it was working, it was actually quite relaxing. I tested it for several days and gradually became convinced this is a system that’s going to work for me. Let me lay out the advantages:

Less chance of getting a ticket. When you’re in cruise control, you don’t have to wonder how fast you’re going – you know. You also know that you’re not breaking the speed limit (assuming you haven’t set the CC too high), so you lose the habit of starting in fear and feeling guilty every time you see a police car on the freeway.

Safer driving. In cruise control, your driving is smoother and more consistent. You’re not going to do much passing or make sudden moves that could take other drivers by surprise. You’re going to stay in your lane, and although some drivers (OK, a lot) will pass you on your left, you’ll also be passing some on your right. Under normal traffic conditions, you’ll have to do a minimal amount of adjusting to maintain your safety zone.

Also, freeing some of your attention from the speedometer means you are able to increase your awareness of other aspects of your driving conditions.

Calmer mood. Once you get used to the idea that this is your speed, you’ll develop a more patient, less aggressive attitude toward driving. This is especially true once you realize that you’ll get to your destination in about the same time as you would have had you been speeding up and slowing down all the way there, like you used to. I’ve noticed absolutely no delay in my arrival times, although I don’t leave for my destination any earlier. Calmer driving means less road rage, and less chance for accidents.

Better fuel efficiency. This is a no-brainer. Not only are you setting your CC at a fuel efficient speed (most new cars will tell you so), but breaking the cycle of speeding up, slowing down, and speeding up again is definitely using less gas than maintaining a constant speed for most of your drive.

Appreciation for automotive and traffic engineering. Okay, maybe this is a particularly nerdy reaction on my part. But I’m fascinated by how my car increases the throttle on the uphill (when everyone around me slows down a bit) and then brakes on the downhill (when everyone around me speeds up).

It spills over into your non-CC driving. Observing the speed limit on the freeway has encouraged me to do so more in other situations, like on- and off-ramps and city streets. It may seem obvious, but there’s a reason traffic engineers post different speed limits where they do. Observing how my car acts differently when I’m actually at the recommended speed limit on a tight curve or in other conditions has been revelatory. I’m more patient on surface streets, yield more often, and am more courteous to pedestrians and bicyclists. It sounds dumb to say it, but I’ve never in my life felt safer while driving. And since most of the time I’m on the road, I have my two kids in the car with me, that’s not an insignificant thing.

There are some things to watch for, of course. You can’t let yourself be lulled into a trance because you don’t have your foot on the gas pedal. You have to learn how your CC works, and be prepared to hit the brake at any time to disengage and quickly react to changing traffic conditions.

Okay, I hear those speed demons among you groaning and can sense you shaking your heads and gazing at me with pity. I’ve gotten old, you say, and also I don’t drive a “fun” car anymore. Well, perhaps both are true. I am no longer a wild young thing, and I drive a minivan. It’s the most powerful minivan on the market, but it’s still a minivan. Where has my love of fast cars gone, my need for speed? How can I settle into cruise control every day without going nuts? In our car-obsessed culture, isn’t it giving up a part of your youth, a sort of early death?

This much I have learned, though, in the 25 years I’ve been driving: it’s not enough to have a “fun” car to make you an ersatz speed racer. I am not a racecar driver and I never will be. Even in a fun car built for the purpose, I’m not in control at high speeds the way I should be, and on public roads that’s just irresponsible. There are a couple of people I know whom I would trust to drive me home if they had a few drinks, more than I would trust myself if I had not; my husband is among them. But he’s an actual racecar driver. He’s had, and is still having, training. I haven’t.

It’s fun to go fast, especially in a nice car. And sometimes you’re late and you really have to get somewhere on time. But 98 percent of the time that you’re speeding, you really don’t have any good reason to. And especially with kids or others in the car, there are so many good reasons not to. Exploring cruise control has given me a convenient way to change my whole approach to driving, and for now, it’s working for me.

Why I've Been Too Busy to Blog

2009-04-06T22:23:00.000-07:00

Gentle readers, forgive my long silence. I've been reading (of course) but a lot is going on. On Saturday, April 4, 2009, my family adopted a 3-year-old red female greyhound, recently retired from the Tucson, AZ racetrack. Read on if you're interested in the details; if not, I promise new posts soon reviewing books I just finished.

Greyhounds are one of the oldest dog breeds known to man, the ancestors of, or related to, many different breeds including the Afghan hound, saluki, borzoi, whippet, and Italian greyhound. Images of greyhounds appear on the walls of the pyramids of ancient Egypt. Originally bred to hunt hare, they are sight hounds, tracking their prey visually rather than by scent. They were highly prized by Arab and European nobility alike. In the late 1800s, the greyhound was first imported to America to help Midwest farmers control the jackrabbit population. Over the years greyhounds have been bred for size, strength, and speed, and today are bred almost exclusively for the purpose of dog racing, which is still legal in many countries including the UK, Ireland, and Australia, and 16 U.S. states. Greyhounds are the second fastest land animals in the world, bested only by the cheetah.

A greyhound’s racing career is over by the time the dog is about 4 years old. The best runners are kept for breeding, but the rest – tens of thousands each year – can be put to death or sold to research labs if homes are not found for them. Each state has its own laws and regulations to govern how greyhounds are treated at the track and what is done with them when they retire. Many tracks work with non-profit adoption groups to place retired greyhounds. There is a constant supply of mostly healthy, beautiful, and well-trained dogs needing good homes all around the country. Adoption groups help care and find homes for the greyhounds, who have a sweet disposition, are very sociable, and make very good pets.

Greyhound racing is not legal in California, but is in Arizona, where the closest racetrack is in Tucson. I first met a local adoption group called Greyhounds 2 Go about two years ago, and have worked with them at several events over the years, getting to know their volunteers and the dogs they foster and place from the Tucson track. I fell in love with these gentle and beautiful animals and the more I learned about them, the more I realized a greyhound would be a perfect fit for us. Finally I filed an adoption application about two months ago, and after visiting our house to get to know our family, Sarah and Jenny at Greyhounds 2 Go recommended a match for us.

Like racehorses, racing greyhounds are carefully bred and their pedigrees and statistics recorded in detail. As no two dogs can have the same racing name, their “official” names are often a bit bizarre. Our greyhound, named E’s Playmate, was born in June 2005 and began her racing career in 2007 at the racetrack in Wichita, Kansas, moving to Tucson soon after. She competed for two seasons, retiring in fall 2008 after spraining one of her rear legs. She ran in 84 races overall and won six of them, but more remarkably, she finished in the top three in 43 races, or more than half the races she ever ran! The top AVERAGE speed she clocked in some of those races was over 36 miles per hour.

E’s Playmate arrived in San Diego on April 3, 2009, and we were able to meet her the next day. She has fully recovered from her injury. We had seen her photos and heard glowing reports about her from Jenny and Sarah, so were ready to fall in love, and luckily we hit it off right away. She officially joined our family on that day, and is settling in beautifully. We are so happy and proud to be able to provide her a good home, and decided on Lola as her new name.

If anyone is interested in the details of E’s Playmate’s racing career, her pedigree and statistics are available online.

And if you are considering a new pet for your household, I urge you to look into greyhound adoption. Here is a link to adoption groups all over the world.

The Fortune Cookie Chronicles

2009-02-18T21:31:00.000-08:00

There has been for some years now a trend of publishing books about ever more specific food items, from salt and cod to coffee and hot sauce. No detail is too small for those food-obsessed types (like me) who are fascinated to read about how civilization would not have survived had not a small tribe of Norsemen discovered their local fish could be preserved in salt, or whatever.

Throwing her hat into this ring is the New York Times reporter Jennifer 8. Lee. An American daughter of Chinese immigrants (her middle name is a lucky number in China), she became interested in a story about a Powerball lottery that had a much higher number of winners than usual. Further investigation showed that the winners all used the same numbers that had been printed on the back of the fortunes they received in fortune cookies after eating Chinese food.

Lee decided to track down the different restaurants from whence came the winning fortune cookies, and the wide geographic distribution and varied nature of the establishments set her on a course to investigate and write about the Chinese food industry. Although in the main this is an interesting topic -- at least as interesting as many other highly specific food-related tomes I've perused in recent years -- she's not the best writer, given to abrupt transitions (perhaps a reflection of her journalistic training) and at times oddly misplaced enthusiasm for what seem like ordinary facts to me.

Naturally, Lee succeeds in digging up some interesting (if not entirely surprising) facts. It should shock no one that such classics of American Chinese cuisine as chop suey, General Tso's Chicken, and the fortune cookie itself were American inventions and only recently have migrated back to China, because tourists there demanded them. I was interested to find out that the Chinese illegal immigration problem rivals that of the southern border, with Chinese immigrants paying a lot more (sometimes up to $70,000 each) and enduring a much more arduous journey than most Latinos, all in order to slave in the back rooms of Chinese restaurants seven days a week or get mugged delivering Chinese food in inner-city neighborhoods.

I began to lose patience with Lee when she is assigned by her editor to identify the best Chinese restaurant outside of China, and complains about having to go to 23 different countries testing the best restaurants. First of all, gimme a break. Second, what a ridiculous premise. It's no more reasonable to expect anyone to be abel to identify one "best" Chinese restaurant in the entire world than it is to choose the best French restaurant or burger joint. It's a completely subjective assessment. The proof being that the restaurant Lee finally decides on as her pick for best in the world (Zen Fine China Cuisine, in Vancouver, British Columbia) is a not very upscale restaurant in an unprepossessing strip mall. Regardless of her other criteria, that blows it for me, because I happen to be a diner for whom the appearance and setting of a restaurant are an important factor in the quality of the meal.

If I had to sum up this book in one sentence, I would say it is way more than you ever wanted to know about the Chinese food industry, but that doesn't quite describe why it left me unsatisfied. Although Lee clearly developed enthusiasm for her subject matter, she never managed to engage me in her quest to the point that I adopted it as my own, at least for the course of the book.

Don't Read This Book

2009-01-11T09:55:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I finished the latest John Grisham paperback, “The Appeal.” I read Grisham once in a while just as a little break between weightier tomes. I know what to expect from him – a legal procedural, little guys vs. big guys, suspense, goodness triumphs in the end. This one was so bad I threw it in the trash. I threw it in the trash because it was so bad that I would not want to inflict it, even inadvertently, on anyone else. There’s no one I would want to give it to, and I wouldn’t want it to waste space in any library, used bookstore, or even Goodwill. I will hereby spoil the ending for you because I don’t want you to read it. Not only is it really badly and boringly written, not only are none of the characters sympathetic or even vaguely interesting, not only does the bad guy have a completely ludicrous revelation via Deus ex Machina, but – wait for it – the good guys don't even triumph in the end. I read a lot of books, and rarely do I feel so cheated when I finish a book that it makes me angry. This is one of those times.

Books I Read in 2008

2009-01-02T08:48:00.000-08:00

These are the books I read in 2008, more or less in chronological order. I may have forgotten a few, since I don’t always keep the list up-to-date in real time. Some I reviewed in this blog; some I didn’t, for various reasons: they were not worthy, I had no time, or I couldn’t think of anything to say about them. Asterisks indicate the best reads.

How was your year in books? Which was your favorite?

Gods in Alabama / Joshilyn Jackson
The Case of the Missing Books / Ian Sansom
The Ivy Tree / Mary Stewart
The Thirteenth Tale / Diane Setterfield
Darcy’s Story / Janet Aylmer
Eat This, Not That! / David Zinczenko
The Mission Song / John Le Carré
Then We Came to the End / Joshua Ferris *
The Post-Birthday World / Lionel Shriver *
Gilead / Marilynne Robinson *
Holy Fools / Joanne Harris
Arthur & George / Julian Barnes
The Lemon Table / Julian Barnes
The Translator / Leila Aboulela
Small Island / Andrea Levy *
One Upon a Time in the North / Philip Pullman
The Buddha of Suburbia / Hanif Kureishi
Loving Frank / Nancy Horan
Bridge of Sighs / Richard Russo *
The Return / Victoria Hislop
The Three Miss Margarets / Louise Shaffer
Educating Alice / Alice Steinbach
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union / Michael Chabon *
The Abstinence Teacher / Tom Perrotta *
Assassination Vacation / Sarah Vowell *
It’s All Too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff / Peter Walsh
The Scar / China Mieville *
Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates / Tom Robbins
Florence of Arabia / Christopher Buckley
The Partly Cloudy Patriot / Sarah Vowell
Thank You for Smoking / Christopher Buckley
Perdido Street Station / China Mieville
Outliers / Malcolm Gladwell *

Happy Holidays

2008-12-20T20:19:00.000-08:00

To read about my adventures in Spain, visit my new blog.

At the moment I'm reading "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell and "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by Junot Diaz. More on those when I'm done.

In the meantime, for your viewing pleasure, some video of my kids.

Hasta Luego

2008-11-17T18:12:00.000-08:00

Gentle readers, I leave this week for a trip to Spain which has nothing to do with books or reading, except that I expect to do a lot of it in transit. I'm taking a couple of tomes with me and will duly report on them upon my return. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Reviews: Florence of Arabia, The Partly Cloudy Patriot, The Scar

2008-10-30T23:25:00.000-07:00

“Florence of Arabia,” by Christopher Buckley

This is the first novel I’ve read by Christopher Buckley, son of the late conservative icon William F. Buckley, who has been in the news lately (Christopher has, I mean) for endorsing Barack Obama and consequently losing his column in the National Review Online. I enjoyed the film “Thank You For Smoking” a couple of years ago, and then found out it was based on a Buckley novel. Being raised as the ultimate Beltway insider, he has mined this rich lode to comic effect in satiric novels including “Little Green Men,” “No Way to Treat a First Lady,” “Boomsday,” and his latest, “Supreme Courtship.” To give you an idea of how tuned in he is to the zeitgeist, “Supreme Courtship” is about a lightweight president naming an attractive young female TV court judge to the highest court in the land. I can’t wait to read it.

I picked up “Florence of Arabia” as my first Buckley because of my background. Being born and raised in the Middle East and Persian Gulf, and having a working knowledge of Arabic, I’m generally able to immediately see through the efforts of an English-speaking writer about that part of the world if he or she has not done their homework properly. (Same with French, of course.) Nothing ruins a carefully constructed novel quicker than incorrect Arabic or factual errors. So I thought I would throw Buckley into the fire right from the start.

I was not disappointed. It’s clear to me from his writing (and his political choices, ahem) that Buckley is brilliant, funny, and erudite, and interviews I’ve seen with him since reading this book confirm this. He attacks every topic, no matter how controversial, and is unafraid to skewer sacred cows like religion and local customs and traditions. His Arabic is very good indeed, and appears to have a deep knowledge of the mores and customs of the Gulf states. And he has a fantastic ear for foreign accents, able to reproduce them so accurately on the page that you feel you are hearing the words out loud. The impression I formed is of a scholarly person endlessly fascinated with the minutiae of human variety, a sort of diplomatic Henry Higgins who rushes home from embassy cocktail parties to scribble down phonetic transcriptions of English expressions in French or Saudi accents, all the while smiling to himself in delight.

The Florence in question is Florence Farfaletti, Deputy to the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near East Affairs. She’s friends with one of the many wives of Prince Bawad of Wasabia, Buckley’s thin disguise for Saudi Arabia. (I’m not sure why Buckley felt the need for a pseudonym — perhaps he is afraid of becoming the target of the next literary fatwa?) When her friend is executed for a minor indiscretion, Florence, drive by guilt and a desire for revenge, comes up with a plan to free the women of the Middle East by creating a TV station in Wasabia’s neighboring country, Matar (read Qatar), with the tacit support of the U. S. government. The new TV station instigates a revolution with broadcasts that, among other things, encourage women to throw off their burkahs.

Considering the influence of Western media on the rest of the world, Al-Jazeera, etc., it doesn’t take much imagination to see that such a plan might actually have a chance at raising some heck in the real world. The machinations and outrages that ensue in Buckley’s novel had me in stitches at times, teeth clenched in outrage at others. Predictably, when things go wrong, they go very wrong, but it’s a fun ride. Reading Buckley is like sitting in a club chair with an after-dinner brandy, enjoying the tales of a man of the world who is also a witty raconteur. I’m looking forward to working my way through all his novels.

“The Partly Cloudy Patriot,” by Sarah Vowell

As you know, dear reader, Sarah Vowell is another author I’ve recently discovered, and I intend to suck up every word she’s published so far. I empathize with her thirst for trivial knowledge about strange topics that would put most people to sleep. There is very little I read or learn about in detail that does not fascinate me, if I did not know it before. Vowell knows there are people like me out there, so she is delighted to indulge us in her fascination with short essays on topics as weird and diverse as new German cinema, the relative merits of presidential libraries, Rosa Parks, the cafeteria at Carlsbad Caverns, and Canadians. Although I preferred the laser-like focus of her obsession with presidential killers in “Assassination Vacation,” “The Partly Cloudy Patriot” was an entertaining read. I’m getting Vowell’s latest book, “The Wordy Shipmates,” as soon as it’s available in paperback. After all, if anyone will be able to make the Puritans who settled this country interesting, it’ll be her.

“The Scar,” by China Miéville

As they say, and now for something for completely different. Back in August on a visit to New York, I met my brother’s girlfriend’s sister, a delightful young woman with a quirky sense of humor and dark choices in both clothes and books (apparently). It was a nice surprise upon returning home to find a book she sent me that she thought I might like, “The Scar,” by China Miéville. I just got around to reading it last week.

I read a lot of fantasy and science fiction in high school and college, and occasionally still dabble in it for a change of pace. I prefer it on the intelligent side, with a minimum of unicorns or large-breasted women in tight space suits. It's been a while since I entered into an alien world as completely and richly imagined — and deeply weird — as the one China Miéville has created in a trio of novels that can be read either as a series or on their own. “The Scar” is the second of this trilogy.

China Tom Miéville belongs to a group of writers sometimes called the New Weird, inspired by H.P. Lovecraft, among others, whose intent is to move fantasy away from commercial genre clichés. He holds advanced degrees in social anthropology and international relations from Cambridge and the London School of Economics, so it’s safe to say he’s a great deal smarter than you or me. For our purposes, this translates into an attention to detail and a fine understanding of the subtleties of human interaction, on a private and public level, that help elevate “The Scar” beyond the ranks of countless mediocre fantasy novels. As a writer myself, I’m also impressed by Miéville’s manipulation of language, the seeming effortlessness with which he creates scores of new words which are both perfectly suited to their alien meaning and at the same time familiar enough in their parts to be easily understood and richly evocative to the reader. He doesn't feel the need to define them, either — or, for that matter, to explain anything, assuming a certain level of intelligence and sophistication in the reader.

The world Miéville has imagined may be topographically and meteorologically similar to ours — oceans, continents, sunshine, storms — and there are humans on it, living in cities and other habitations, but there’s where the similarity ends. It’s hard to know where to start to describe the vast array of life forms added into the mix, thrown in casually just as you think you’ve got a handle on what’s going on. There is a strange race of amphibious ocean dwellers called the kray, whose upper halves are human while their bottom halves resemble giant crayfish. There are cactus people, and vampires, and horrifying mosquito-women who can suck a man’s body dry of all his blood in seconds. There are menfish, and there’s a sort of dolphin warden who delightfully defies all the touchy-feely stereotypes we have about his species (hint: his name is Bastard John).
And most fascinatingly, there are the Remade, humans who have had animal or machine parts grafted onto their bodies as punishment for crimes.

On the run from the teeming city of New Crobuzon is Bellis Coldwine, a refreshingly ordinary human woman who hopes to hide out in the colony of Nova Esperia until whatever fuss she was implicated in back home dies down. Instead, the ship she’s on, carrying a motley assortment of passengers including Remade prisoners to the colony, is hijacked by pirates and assimilated into the giant floating city of Armada, cobbled together out of countless different ships over decades and now supporting a strange population of outcasts, former criminals, wanderers, and misfits, all led by a twisted couple simply called The Lovers, whose idea of mutual devotion is to carve matching wounds into each other after sex. In its motley and scavenged oceangoing existence, Armada is bizarrely reminiscent of the post-apocalyptic settings of films such as “Mad Max” and “Waterworld,” with a healthy dose of “Pirates of the Caribbean” thrown in (think especially of the half-men, half-sea-creatures who inhabit Davey Jones’ locker).

Bellis’s shipmates are press-ganged into service in Armada, but as this comes with a paid job and lodging provided, it isn’t such a bad fate for most of them, who would have been slaves or prisoners had they reached their original destination. Some take to their new lives better than others, like the Remade Tanner Sack (his punishment was to have tentacles attached to his chest), who finds life on the water so congenial he has himself operated on to become fully amphibian. Tanner’s friend Shekel, a mere boy on the original journey, comes into his own as Bellis, who’s been given a job in the library, teaches him to read and he falls in love with a Remade woman named Angevine (her bottom half consists of treads run by a wood-burning engine… don’t ask).

If this sounds weird, believe me, I’m just scratching the surface. The book is a potent combination of fantasy, science fiction, horror, action, adventure, and mystery that was slow going at first. It’s gory enough that I nearly put it down many times. But it’s so thoroughly imagined and well written that in spite of myself I got caught up in it. As you might expect, there’s a convoluted plot, involving the Lovers’ plans to harness a giant sea creature to tow the entire floating city somewhere they hope to tap into a source of great and unpredictable power. Not everyone wants to go along for the ride, plus there’s a bunch of bizarro monsters with strange powers from the other side of the world that are tracking Armada the whole time, waiting to get back something that’s very important to them.

There are political machinations, treason, and betrayal among many the different factions in the city. There’s an epic journey through the Hidden Ocean with all its dangers, a war with the navy of New Crobuzon, a stop on an island inhabited by the aforementioned nightmarish mosquito-women. And all along the way, there are Bellis’s attempts to figure out what the hell is going on, who her friends are, whom she can trust, and which side she’s on.

Confused? I should hope so. I can’t imagine a review of “The Scar” doing it justice. What you’ve read so far might put you off, and that’s fine. It’s not to most people’s tastes, I’ll bet. But if you like your fantasy dark and dirty, strange and bloody, highly detailed and deeply weird, then I recommend you give Miéville a try. Speaking for myself, after a suitable amount of time has passed and the dark visions he’s given me have faded, I’ll probably seek out the other two books in Miéville's trilogy. That’s the highest praise I can give to any author.

Eulogy: The Daily Paper

2008-10-01T22:18:00.000-07:00

Something strange happened to me this week. I passed a sad milestone. Without meaning to, or even realizing it, I stopped reading the daily paper.

Big deal, you say. Who reads the paper anymore? Only old people and technophobes. Everyone reads the news online, for free. For the most part, I agree. I spend a lot of time and read a lot of news online. But I also continue to subscribe to my local daily paper. For me it was important to do that, at least until recently, for three reasons.

1. I’m a newspaperwoman. I began writing for my school paper in high school, and was on the staff of my college newspaper. Here’s how old I am: when I was in college, we were still “laying out” the paper on drafting tables, using T-squares, blue pencils, hot wax, and Exacto knives. We cropped photos manually and then used proportion wheels to determine how much to size photos before sending them to the printer to make something called half-tones out of them. Our Exacto knives were so important that we each carried our own, like chefs, carefully sheathed in our pockets or pencil cases. The big innovation that came in my senior year was installing Apple computers in our newsroom, but even then we were not yet using them to lay out the paper digitally – we were merely able to typeset our columns digitally, which still saved us a whole lot of time since we were able to make corrections onscreen before printing up the column to be cut and pasted (yes, those words used to actually mean CUT with a blade and PASTED with glue or hot wax).

Having learned the newspaper business and earned a degree in print communication, then worked as a reporter and editor for six years, I have an appreciation and understanding of the physical characteristics of a newspaper that most don’t. It's important to me to see where the editors have decided to place each story on each page, how many column inches they devote to a story compared to the others, how large the photos and headlines are and where they are placed. How thick is each section? What is the ad space to editorial ratio? All these indicators mean something, and it’s not possible to get the big picture reading most papers online. On a newspaper’s website, every story is presented sequentially and each looks as important as the other. Some papers, like my local daily, offer the option to see how they laid out their front page in PDF format, but it’s a poor substitute for holding the real thing in your hands.

2. When I worked at my last job, I read three newspapers a day. My job was to find any stories relevant to our business, cut them out, make photocopies, and distribute them to senior staff. Naturally, my replacement doesn’t need to do that anymore – Google or a number of paid online services will do that for you.

However, in my current capacity as a publicist, I sometimes need to have access to my local newspaper’s archives to look up past mentions of my clients, or follow the stories a certain reporter has filed to detect a pattern of coverage. Without a paid subscription, online readers have no access to archives, at least at my daily paper.

3. The daily paper’s website does not include its comics pages.

Just over a week ago I was explaining all this to some friends, as I have many times in the past few years. As of four or five days ago, all that has changed. Why?

First of all, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation if I lived in New York, Washington, even Los Angeles. My local daily paper is a national joke. It’s never been a good newspaper, and in recent years, with circulation and ad revenue dropping, massive buyouts have slashed the editorial staff repeatedly until there are barely any reporters left. Each week it seems to get thinner as section after section is consolidated or eliminated altogether. The paper is now for sale, so cost-cutting is at a premium to make the balance sheet look good. The possibility that a prospective buyer might also be interested in the content of the paper does not seem to have crossed anyone’s mind.

After the latest round of buyouts and the departure of yet another raft of reporters, including the classical music critic of the past 24 years, something finally fizzled for me. There was no explosion, no camel’s back breaking. My interest in the paper expired not with a bang, nor even a whimper, but with a kind of resigned sigh. Instead of going to the door before breakfast every morning and laying the paper out on the table next to my cereal bowl, I now step over it on my way to the car to drive the kids to school, then throw it in the recycling bin, unopened, when I return.

It goes without saying that if the paper has lost its relevance, the archives are also less important. But for the sake of my business needs, when it’s time to renew my subscription, I’ll look into how to keep paying for access to the archives without actually receiving the print edition anymore. My recycling bin will be a lot lighter.

As for #3: as you might suspect, you can subscribe to your favorites online, for free, and they will show up in your mailbox every morning. Plus, there are sites online where you can put together your own comics page with just your favorites (see ya, Mary Worth! take a hike, Bible-thumping Jonny Hart!) and have that emailed to you.

Every morning, The New York Times sends me its top stories in an email. Over breakfast, I browse four or five news sites, and throughout the day, about a dozen blogs. Breaking news is emailed to me from a variety of sources. The print edition of the daily paper is obsolete before it even hits my doorstep.

So, it’s the end of an era. I. No. Longer. Read. The. Paper. I’m looking at these words and I feel nothing. Perhaps the reporter in me is well and truly dead.

But there’s still hope. I still subscribe to the Sunday New York Times, which it is my great pleasure to read slowly, page by page, saving the Magazine until the very end. Then I wash the newsprint off my hands and sit down to do the crossword puzzle. It’s not the same doing the crossword online – too easy to erase mistakes. I write the answers in ink, and my goal is to do it perfectly, without crossing out a single letter. I have come close, very close – last week, just one letter was wrong. But I haven’t done it yet. I hope that when it does, I won’t lose interest in that as well.

Goodbye, Paul Newman

2008-09-27T07:45:00.000-07:00

A New Election Blog

2008-09-19T09:52:00.000-07:00

My friend Melissa at Cords and Fleece has started an election blog and invited me to participate. Slide your mouse/trackball over to:

http://www.myelection2008.com/

Melissa is someone I consider a Very Smart Person and a good writer too, and I look forward to joining this discussion with her and others trying to put into words their thoughts, questions, concerns, and ideas about the election.

I'm still reading and writing, of course, but like most Americans (one can only hope) the campaign is consuming a lot of my brainpower these days.

More soon...

A Trio of Mini Reviews

2008-09-09T13:42:00.000-07:00

Assassination Vacation, by Sarah Vowell

Without even realizing it, I’ve become a fan of Sarah Vowell’s work over the years, responding to performances I didn’t even realize at first were hers. She’s a regular contributor to NPR and “This American Life,” Ira Glass’s quirky weekend audio magazine, and she was the voice of Violet Parr in “The Incredibles.”

However, I had no prior experience with Vowell’s writing, so picked up “Assassination Vacation” on a whim (okay, it was on the bargain books table at Borders). Having finished it in a few short days, wishing there was more (always a good sign), I plan to seek out her other books as soon as possible.

Vowell’s interests and her writing style are as quirky as her personality appears to be. She’s obsessed with American history, and particularly presidential assassinations. “Assassination Vacation,” as the title indicates, is a record of her pilgrimages all over the country tracking down sites, relics, memorials, and other ephemera of the assassinations of three U.S. presidents — Garfield, McKinley, and the granddaddy of all slain heroes, Lincoln.

If, like I am, you are a fan of useless trivia, this is the book for you. It was well worth the read for me, if only to learn the mind-blowing fact that Edwin Booth, the estranged brother of Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth, once unknowingly saved the life of Lincoln’s son, Robert Todd Lincoln, at a train station during the Civil War. In fact, Robert Todd Lincoln ends up playing quite a role throughout the book. Vowell endows him with the nickname “Angel of Death,” since he was present, or at least in town, for all three assassinations she covers.

Vowell delights in making the most unlikely connections between people and events, and firmly believes in checking things out in person, which leads her to roam far and wide, from the Dry Toptugas (where Booth’s conspirators were held in prison) to right next door on the streets of New York. And beware, her delight is contagious.

It’s All Too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff, by Peter Walsh

Quick: If you had to, right now, could you put your hands on (1) your car keys (2) your unpaid bills and stamps to send them with and (3) the latest copy of your home insurance policy? Can your kids easily find the one piece they need to complete furnishing Barbie’s dream house? Can they find their homework when they have to leave for school in the morning? Can you see the floor of (a) your family room (b) your closet (c) your garage?

If you answered yes to all or most of these, skip this review, because the book I’m writing about is not for you. But if, like me, you answered no to several of these questions, read on.

Perhaps you’ve seen “Clean Sweep,” the popular TV show in which a team of experts takes over someone’s cluttered house and tells them how to clean it up. Peter Walsh, the star of that show, has written a book based on lessons he’s learned and methods he’s perfected over the years. It’s no exaggeration to say that it’s one of the few books I’ve read whose influence is immediately visible in my environment.

Yes, I have clutter. Most of us do; it’s a 21st-century American affliction. Stuff is cheaper than it’s ever been, and marketers convince us we need it more than ever before. Some of us (guilty as charged) get a real rush from shopping. If only we could shop but not actually buy. But buy we do, and fill our living spaces to overflowing, even filling up rented storage spaces to take up the overspill. As Walsh explains, this is not only ridiculous, it’s actually bad for you – bad for your wallet, your house, your self-esteem, your family relationships.

Unlike many other self-help books and TV shows on this topic, Walsh isn’t interested in suggesting new ways for his readers to sort, rearrange, organize, and store their clutter. His goal is for you to just get about half of it out of your house, period. If you are thrifty and/or worried about waste, it will be difficult to follow his directives, because he firmly believes “the trash can is your best friend.” But his arguments in that regard, especially about the perceived value of an object versus its actual cost to you to keep it, are persuasive.

What especially appealed to me about this book is Walsh’s central thesis. Imagine your ideal life, he suggests, and then go through your house and examine each object in it. Ask yourself: Is this object helping me achieve that vision, or is it holding me back from achieving it? If the answer is the latter, get rid of it. Period. If you can ruthlessly answer this question about every single object you own, you will be on the way to de-cluttering your life.

Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates, by Tom Robbins

Tom Robbins is, for me, another great example of how the first book you read by a distinctive author will always be your favorite. No matter how many others you read by the same author, none will have the impact of the first one. In my case, it was Robbins’ “Still Life with Woodpecker” that blew the lid off for me. I had never read anything like it before – a writer’s voice so brash, smart, funny, and irreverent, put right out there in the middle of the narrative for all to see. Robbins and his narratives blend seamlessly together, and there’s never a question of who the omniscient narrator is. Every Robbins book is a romp through culture and language, and he weaves current events and the wildest philosophical ramblings in and out of his absurdist tales so effortlessly that you can’t help but want more.

That being said, reading Robbins can be exhausting. So it had been some years since I picked up one of his novels. On vacation at a relative’s home in New Hampshire, I finished the novel I had brought along and trolled their bookshelves looking for something to read. There I found “Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates.” Turns out I was ready for just the brand of insane eloquence that is Robbins’ specialty. The novel did not disappoint.

Don’t try to describe a Robbins book to anyone who has not read it, especially if they are generally of a literal mindset. The suspension of disbelief it takes to go along on Robbins’ flights of fancy are not for everyone. Hollywood has even tried to capture Robbins’ imaginations on film, and if you’ve seen “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues,” you know how successful an attempt that was (i.e. not very). Instead, try to gauge from what you know of the person if they are the type to appreciate such writing, and then recommend it to them, so you can talk about it later.

So I’ll give you this much: the eponymous protagonist of “Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates,” Switters (he has just one name), is a CIA operative who joined the Agency to (sort of) fight it from within. There are cowboys (viz. members of the Bush Administration) and angels (Switters and others who try to do the right thing), and he has made it his goal to score for the angels on his various assignments around the world. He has a fierce old grandmother on whom he is counting to inherit a cabin in the mountains and a Matisse painting, and a teenage stepsister with whom he is deeply in lust. When he is asked by his grandmother to release her pet parrot in the wilds of South America, a run-in with a local medicine man turns his life upside down, and things just get weirder from there.

If you’ve never read a Tom Robbins novel, and if you enjoy verbal gymnastics and are not hung up on things like believability when it comes to plot, I recommend you do so immediately. Pick one and jump in. “Fierce Invalids From Hot Climates” is as good as place to start as any.

"The Abstinence Teacher"

2008-07-29T12:47:00.000-07:00

It’s summertime, friends, and the reading is easy. Also mostly not blog-worthy. But I have just finished a good book, and before I go on vacation, I’ll tell you a bit about it.

Tom Perrotta first came to notice with “Little Children,” a best-seller that was made into a movie, just as his earlier novel “Election” was. His talent is to gaze unflinchingly into the lives of normal people and uncover all that is uncomfortable as well as admirable, and write about it in straightforward prose that leaps off the page and demands you to turn the page.

Just as in “Little Children,” which delved into the inner lives of parents of young children, his latest novel, “The Abstinence Teacher,” also scrapes deep into our psyches to touch a nerve – exploring people’s beliefs and prejudices, weaknesses and pain. In “Little Children,” a young mother has to make a decision about her affair with a dissatisfied stay-at-home dad, while the town where they live tries to deal with its prejudices about a convicted pedophile coming to live among them. In addition to adultery and the dissatisfaction of women on the mommy track, that book touched on the themes of addiction to internet porn, and men who refuse to grow up, among others, and I for one flinched many times while reading it, especially Perrotta’s dead-on description of the anthropology of young mothers and their children at the playground.

In “The Abstinence Teacher,” Perrotta takes on an even touchier subject – the meteoric rise of Christian evangelicals in this country and the effect they are having on the everyday lives of ordinary people. Talk about your hot-button issues. I have some strong feelings on the subject myself (surprise!) so I was a little wary of diving into this book, but from the first page Perrotta’s prose had me hooked, as usual. I didn’t like everyone in the book, and there were many I despised, but I found myself deeply vested in almost all of them and turning the pages as quickly as I could to find out what was going to happen to them.

“The Abstinence Teacher” begins with two well-meaning people making two big mistakes. Ruth, the titular high school health teacher, has been openly and frankly teaching sex ed to teenagers for years, but the tenor of the times has changed, and she finds herself in hot water after making a comment in class that is reported by a born-again Christian student to her parents, leading to a lawsuit against the school district. To add to Ruth’s troubles, she’s divorced, lonely, and has a difficult relationship with her daughters, one of whom is a budding soccer star, the other a budding Christian convert.

In the meantime, Ruth’s daughter’s soccer coach, Tim, is struggling to make peace with his situation – a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, also divorced, he’s found Jesus and married a good Christian woman who bores him to death, and he just can’t quite buy into the lifestyle he feels saved his life. He senses he’s a fraud even as he plays in the church band, goes to Promise Keeper meetings, and has an affair on the side. But his big mistake is to lead the soccer team (which includes a Muslim and a Jew, among other non-Christians) in a prayer after a particularly difficult game.

The chain of events these two errors in judgment set in motion, and the way these two lonely and confused people’s paths eventually cross, flows with a sense of inevitability that credits Perrotta’s ability to put his finger on the truth in people’s hearts even as they go through the motions in their lives. Who else would have you rooting for the hero to fall off the wagon and screw the floozy, and tell Jesus to take a hike?

So, it’s summer, and it’s time to honor an ancient tradition and take some mind candy to the beach or the pool. I’m taking some books on vacation, including the latest doorstop-sized novel by Jilly Cooper, England’s queen of trashy romance. I’ll let you know what I think when I return. Happy reading!

Five phrases I would like to see included in my obituary:

2008-07-16T10:13:00.000-07:00

“unlikely sex symbol”

“beloved grandmother and great-grandmother”

“late-blooming Southern California Flamenco star”

“successful inventor of various household items”

“passed peacefully in her sleep at the age of 101”

A Detour: My Favorite Sexy Movie Scenes

2008-07-10T12:05:00.000-07:00

Warning: Possible TMI

Don’t know why this has been on my mind lately, but maybe it's these long hot summer nights. (The Long Hot Summer, by the way – NOT on my list, although the 1985 remake starring Don Johnson contains one of the most laughable double-entendre lines in movie history: “Lady, people have been pointing guns at me all day. Now either use it, or let go of it!”) In any case, I started to think about scenes from movies that I found truly sexy, and that still provoke a response when I see them again. Some are key to their plot, but others show up in unexpected places. What’s your favorite? Keep it clean, please.

1. Out of Sight
George Clooney has made many good movies; Jennifer Lopez exactly one -- this one. She’s an FBI agent; he’s a suave crook. After she escapes being his hostage, he tracks her down by calling every hotel in the phone book (turns out its name starts with a W – he’s a patient, or obsessed, man). She’s having a drink alone at the hotel bar, watching the snow fall in the night sky outside. He joins her; they pretend not to know each other, do a lot of sexy flirting, and go back to her room for a night of passion. The editing, the soundtrack, the erotic repartee, the slightly embarrassed rush to disrobe, his skinny torso, her magnificent, un-skinny ass – it’s perfect.

2. Unfaithful
Despite being married to Richard Gere (hello!), bored housewife Diane Lane begins an adulterous affair with the exotically delish Olivier Martinez (ah, what would we do without the French?). The first time they make love is a spectacular scene – especially her face as he heads south – but even sexier, in a way, is the scene as she rides the train back home to suburbia afterward. The gamut of expressions that cross her face, from elated to embarrassed to sated to horrified, is a magnificent piece of acting. A great scene in what is otherwise a really bad film.

3. The Big Easy
Jolie laide Ellen Barkin is sent to investigate crooked cops in the New Orleans precinct of the painfully young and gorgeous Dennis Quaid, he of the mile-wide mischievous grin. Inevitably they end up headed for his bed. Flustered, she protests, “I’ve never had much good luck with sex,” and as he slides his hands up her thighs he replies in that delicious N’awlins drawl, “Cher, your luck is about to change.” Any red-blooded, straight woman who doesn’t feel a jolt go through her at those words is probably dead.

4. Yes
An unlikely couple, Joan Allen and Simon Abkarian, fill this odd little movie with an undeniable sexual charge, even more amazing if you consider all the dialogue is in iambic pentameter (huh?). She’s a married American scientist and he’s a Lebanese chef living in London. Their affair is a stormy one with emotional and political overtones, but in the middle of it all is a superb scene in a nearly deserted café where, in broad daylight, he slides his hand up her skirt under the table and… Just watch it.

5. Jerry Maguire
Before Tom Cruise and Renée Zellweger became Hollywood caricatures of themselves, there was this pretty good little movie they made together. She’s his devoted assistant who follows him when he splits to form his own sports agency. They go out to dinner and then he comes back to her house, having had a few drinks. What’s sexy about this scene is how familiar and exciting the scenario is to anyone who has been in that situation – her nervous anticipation and anxiety about screwing it up somehow, combined with a sense of disbelief that this gorgeous guy actually wants to sleep with her. The perfect moment comes when she goes into the bedroom to check her look, and opens the door to see him standing there. Reflexively, she shuts the door in his face. When she reopens it, he is still there, not a figment of her imagination, only he’s laughing at her. I loved Tom Cruise so much at that moment. How sad to see what he has become. But bless him, he is still in possession of that killer smile.

5. Raiders of the Lost Ark
Seriously! What could be sexier than that tough guy, Harrison Ford, tending to his various wounds on board Bantu Wind as he and Karen Allen share a rare quiet moment in between car chases and fist fights? She tries to touch him, but he’s sore everywhere. “Is there anywhere it doesn’t hurt?” “Here.” Kiss. “Here.” Kiss. “And here…”

Classics:
Risky Business (love on a real train)
An Officer and a Gentleman (love in a chair)
Ghost (love at the potter’s wheel)
A Walk on the Moon (love under a waterfall)
Thelma and Louise (love with a young Brad Pitt)
Bull Durham (love and painting your toenails)
Titanic (love in a real old car)
How Stella Got Her Groove Back (love in the shower)
Shakespeare in Love (love in iambic pentameter, again)
Wide Sargasso Sea (love in the tropics)

It must be acknowledged that the only actors who show up more than once on my list are Tom Cruise and Diane Lane -- twice each. Perhaps they should make a film together..?

Honorable mention:

Moonstruck: “I love you. Not like they told you love is, and I didn’t know this either, but love don’t make things nice -- it ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren’t here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. Not us! We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and die. The storybooks are bullshit. Now I want you to come upstairs with me and get – in – my – bed!”

Sports Fans, Rejoice - Sort Of

2008-07-07T14:22:00.000-07:00

It’s a sporting fan’s bonanza these days, what with the most exciting Euro 2008 championships ending with a satisfying drubbing of Germany by Spain, 1-0 (trust me, non-soccer aficionados, that does qualify as a drubbing). Then Rafael Nadal took both the French Open and Wimbledon from the all-but-unbeatable Roger Federer, and Tiger Woods had to play 91 holes on a broken leg to beat an upstart named Rocco in the U.S. Open right here at Torrey Pines. I’m not a golf fan, but even I got excited about that.

The Formula One racing season is halfway over and it’s a three-way tie for first, which hasn’t happened in years. English upstart Lewis Hamilton blew away the competition in a spray of wet weather at his native grand prix at Silverstone yesterday, and the rain made for an exciting race even as across the channel 179 certifiably insane bicyclists plowed across Brittany on day two of the Tour de France in equally wet conditions (it would be 180, but some poor jerk broke his wrist in a fall on day one).

Golf aside, this should be my happy time of the year, sports-wise. We are what are euphemistically referred to in the United States as fans of “off-market” sports. We don’t dig baseball, American football, or basketball. We’ve been watching the Tour de France since before the rest of the U.S. discovered it thanks to a cancer survivor named Lance Armstrong. For seven summers he galvanized the world as he and his team trounced the competition on the highways and byways of la belle France. The most frequently and thoroughly tested man in professional sports, he never once failed a drug test, despite all efforts to prove no human could possibly achieve what he has.

Lance didn’t get caught… but it seems like everyone else did. So although I should be happy, I’m approaching this year’s Tour de France with trepidation. Like so many cycling fans, I’ve been badly burned in the past couple of years. Saint Lance aside, one after another the giants of the sport have fallen to the doper’s tests. For me, the final straw came when I watched Floyd Landis surge up a mountain by himself to recover his lead after bonking badly the day before. Instead of admiring the performance, I felt a sinking feeling as I realized that this, for sure, was not humanly possible. He’s a local boy here in San Diego, where his wife’s family had a popular restaurant for many years, so it hurt more than usual when Floyd’s final appeal was denied last week – he is officially a doper and his title will be forever stripped from him.

During Lance’s remarkable seven-year run as the King of the Tour, I read every book I could find on his life, the Tour, and the sport in general. His autobiographies, “It’s Not About the Bike” and “Every Second Counts,” are, as you would imagine, thrilling and awe-inspiring. There are many fascinating books about the history of the Tour de France, from which you can glean among many other interesting nuggets that doping is as old as the tour itself, beginning with alcohol and ether and running the gamut through speed and cocaine to today’s highly sophisticated blood doping and synthetic testosterone (the agent of Landis’ downfall). I amused myself reading insider accounts of the Tour written by various teammates, trainers, and team managers along the way. I read a badly written but entertaining murder mystery set on the Tour, and there’s even “Dancing on the Pedals: The Found Poetry of Phil Liggett, The Voice of Cycling,” which I bought because the inimitable pairing of English commentators Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwin is one of the main reason I enjoy Tour de France coverage each year. This little book collects some of Liggett’s best-turned phrases and entertaining exclamations from his years of commenting on the Tour. Here’s one gem:

He’s dancing on his pedals 
In a most immodest way.
- Tour de France, 1989

Liggett’s book is a refreshing break, considering the depressing picture that builds up from reading too many books about the Tour de France. Have any winners ever ridden clean in this race? This year, a new American team called “High Road” (renamed Columbia for the race) claims to be setting a new standard for clean riding, voluntarily testing all its riders continually to create a baseline of performance for each man against which any anomalies will instantly be noticeable. The team is led by a longtime Armstrong lieutenant, the American George Hincapie, riding in his 13th Tour de France, one of the most respected and popular riders on the Tour.

There are many reasons to watch the Tour – every year, it produces stories of heartbreak and triumph, and amazing performances, even if some later turn out to be artificially enhanced. The annual tour of France’s countryside and landmarks is a wonderful nostalgic travelogue for me (Look! It’s the Mont St. Michel! It’s an Alp! It’s yet another picturesque village! There’s a bridge! A castle! And a cathedral! And another cathedral! What – another cathedral?). And there’s Phil and Paul, who even when announcing the worst news can give it the gravity and depth it deserves without getting maudlin or sensationalistic.

Which top riders will fall to the dope tests, and whether Columbia can perform at the highest levels while keeping clean – if in fact they are as clean as they say they are – is the million-dollar question this year. I’ll be watching, even if it’s out of the corner of one eye and with fingers crossed. And maybe next year the book I’ll be reading is about how this was the year the Tour turned a corner and drugs left the picture.

Just Like the Old Man in That Book by Nabokov

2008-06-22T22:58:00.000-07:00

Many of my favorite musical artists take inspiration for their lyrics, either directly or indirectly, from literature. Here are some of my favorite examples. Do you have any of your own to suggest?

The Police: “It’s no use, he sees her, he starts to shake and cough/Just like the old man in that book by Nabokov” – Don’t Stand So Close to Me
A reference to Nabokov’s famous novel “Lolita,” in which a much older man enters into a doomed affair with a teenage girl. Sting taught English at the high school level before joining a band. What young student wouldn’t have had a crush on him?

The Smiths: “A dreaded sunny day/So I meet you at the cemetery gates/Keats and Yeats are on your side/While Wilde is on mine” — Cemetery Gates
Morrissey seems to be referring to the poets John Keats and William Butler Yeats (both aggressively straight), and the very gay writer Oscar Wilde. Morrissey, who’s gay, is trying to break the news gently.

The Doors: Jim Morrison named his band after the book “The Doors of Perception” by Aldous Huxley, describing his experiences taking mescaline. ‘Nuff said?

Bruce Springsteen: The Ghost of Tom Joad
The song and album of the same name refer the John Steinbeck’s seminal novel “The Grapes of Wrath,” about the plight of the migrant workers during the Dust Bowl era, through the Joad family. Springsteen’s focus in the album is modern-day migrant workers (mostly Mexican).

Springsteen and many other artists also refer to the Bible in many of their songs, such as Part Man, Part Monkey (Springsteen’s view of the evolution-creationism debate) and The Byrds’ Turn, Turn, Turn (Book of Ecclesiastes).

The Police: “With one breath, with one flow/You will know/Synchronicity/A sleep trance, a dream dance/A shaped romance/Synchronicity…If you act as you think/The missing link/Synchronicity” – Synchronicity
Refers to a principle created by the philosopher Carl Jung which explains meaningful coincidences, suggesting that mind and matter, along with past, present, and future, exist in a potentially meaningful continuum. Yeah, I don’t get it either.

David Bowie: 1984, from his album “Diamond Dogs,” inspired by George Orwell's dystopian novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four.” It was apparently originally intended for a never-produced stage musical based on the novel, like much of the rest of that album.

Honorable Mention: Elvis Costello, Every Day I Write the Book
“Don’t tell me you don’t know what love is
When you’re old enough to know better
When you find strange hands in your sweater
When your dreamboat turns out to be a footnote
I’m a man with a mission in two or three editions

Chorus: And I’m giving you a longing look
Everyday, everyday, everyday I write the book

Chapter One we didn’t really get along
Chapter Two I think I fell in love with you
You said you’d stand by me in the middle of Chapter Three
But you were up to your old tricks in Chapters Four, Five and Six

The way you walk
The way you talk, and try to kiss me, and laugh
In four or five paragraphs
All your compliments and your cutting remarks
Are captured here in my quotation marks

Don’t tell me you don’t know the difference
Between a lover and a fighter
With my pen and my electric typewriter
Even in a perfect world where everyone was equal
I’d still own the film rights and be working on the sequel”

Happy Bloomsday!

2008-06-16T12:57:00.000-07:00

It's Bloomsday, June 16, the anniversary of the day in 1904 that the Irish writer James Joyce went on his first date with his future wife, Nora Barnacle. Their first date was particularly memorable to him because she reached into his pants and gratified him by hand, which you wouldn't expect most good girls to do in those days, so he set his great novel "Ulysses" on that date to commemorate it. Since the first Bloomsday celebration in Paris in 1929, Joyceans all over the world have celebrated this day, named for the novel's protagonist, Leopold Bloom.

I had the good luck to be in Dublin for the centenary in 2004. Actually, it had nothing to do with luck - my mother and I, unrepentant Joyce fans, planned our trip at that time precisely to be there for the celebration. Dublin hosted a five-month-long festival that included academic conferences, literary walking tours, exhibits, pub crawls, and also the feeding of 10,000 people, free of charge, a full Irish breakfast of sausage, rashers, and Guinness, outdoors on Bloomsday. We were two of those people, and a good time was had by all.

On our trip to Ireland we visited the Joyce museum in Dublin and the Martello tower in Sandycove, where he briefly lived and where "Ulysses" (which the Irish pronounce YOO-liss-ees) begins. We also made a two-day trip to Galway and saw Nora Barnacle's childhood home, preserved as a museum. It's a tiny house where she grew up with numerous siblings, and I don't blame her for running away to Dublin, even if it was to end up spending her life as the mate (and eventually wife) of an irascible, half-blind, and nearly unintelligible writer who dragged her around Europe during wartime and fathered illegitimate children on her.

Being in Ireland on Bloomsday was quite an experience. In the rest of the world, being a Joyce fan (or in fact even knowing anything about him, or having read any of his works) puts you in a small and peculiar minority. In Ireland, on the other hand, now only has everyone read his works, but they act as if he still lives around the corner. He's treated as a combination of national hero and nearly harmless neighborhood eccentric. His image and works are everywhere, even in commercial advertising. It was exciting and a little surreal to find ourselves in the midst of such Joyce appreciation.

On Bloomsday, we joined the throngs for our free breakfast and the dramatic readings of sections from "Ulysses." A radio reporter from the BBC was roving the streets interviewing people and asked us where we were from. He was delighted to hear we'd come all the way from California to celebrate Ireland's native son (whom the Irish love, although he hated Ireland). As part of his interview, he asked me how I had come to read the works of Joyce and I was able to finally give credit in public to my high school English teacher, Michael Lynch, who not only introduced me to Joyce but turned me from a recreational reader to an academic one, and set me on the path to a Masters in English Literature. I sure hope he was listening.

To close, here is the most famous section of "Ulysses" for your enjoyment, from the "Penelope" chapter:

Molly's soliloquy ends, "O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibralter as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Morrish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes."

A Soccer Break

2008-06-11T11:03:00.000-07:00

You may not see too much from me these days, faithful readers (all 3 of you). That's because the Euro 2008 soccer competition is on, and I'm glued to the TV four hours a day watching Europe's finest battle it out for national pride and honor. I'm not about to bore you with this stuff -- either you are a soccer fan or you're not. I am, and here's one very good reason why:

His name is Cristiano Ronaldo, striker for Portugal, and he's the best footballer in the world right now, and don't bother emailing me to argue that point until Thierry Henry is healthy again. And yes, I know I'm old enough to be his mother. That just means I'm experienced and knowledgeable enough to appreciate a fine figure of a man when I see one.

In case you're interested in checking out this competition (Ronaldo is not the only looker in the bunch, believe me), the matches are live on ESPN2 (occasionally ESPN Classic or ESPN), every morning through June 22, then the semifinals are June 25 and 26 and the final June 29. Dare we hope Ronaldo will take his team all the way? We want to see as much of him as possible.

When a Speech Makes Your Heart Beat Faster

2008-06-10T18:15:00.001-07:00

How long has it been since you heard a speech that made the hair on your arms stand up?

Don't look at this as a political statement on my part. Consider it a tribute to a great speech from someone who has written a lot of them in the past and knows how hard it is.

In case you missed it, here is the transcript of the final moments of Barack Obama's speech in St Paul the night he became the Deomocratic presidential nominee. You can see the video on YouTube, and it is worth watching. Skip to 8:16 if you don't want to watch it all: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCd-4_tf_K8&feature=related>

"America, this is our moment. This is our time, our time to turn the page on the policies of the past...

... our time to bring new energy and new ideas to the challenges we face, our time to offer a new direction for this country that we love.

The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge -- I face this challenge with profound humility and knowledge of my own limitations, but I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people.

Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that, generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless...

... this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal...

... this was the moment when we ended a war, and secured our nation, and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth.

This was the moment, this was the time when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals.

Thank you, Minnesota. God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America."

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union

2008-06-02T12:19:00.000-07:00

I loved Michael Chabon’s novel “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay,” a beautifully written story of two men in wartime New York that drew a loving portrait of that era and the business of cartooning, and much more. He was so good at creating that world, and making oddball characters loveable. (It helps that it is also forever linked in my mind to another novel I read at the same time, Yann Martel’s “Life of Pi,” which I liked just as much.)

Then I read an essay written by Chabon’s wife, the novelist Ayelet Waldman, in The New York Times a couple of years later under the headline “Truly, Madly, Guiltily.” In it she wrote a woman should love her husband more than her children. She wrote that she and her husband were “the core” and the children “satellites, beloved but tangential.” She reveled in her marriage, extolled Chabon’s virtues, and added that she was sure she was the only mom in their circle who was “getting any” on a regular basis. As an example of slavish devotion it was fairly stomach-turning, and as a new mom myself at the time, I was horrified that she could feel more strongly for her husband than her children. (Her attitude was basically that if anything happened to her kids, she and him could make more, but he was irreplaceable.) Even if that’s how she really felt, it seemed like sheer provocation to say it out loud, much less print it in a national newspaper.

I read a couple of Ms. Waldman’s “Mommy Track” novels. They were bad. Combined with the annoying essay, this was enough to turn me against Chabon. What kind of man would be married to a woman like this? (Actually, I should have realized it’s probably every man’s dream to be married to a woman who worships him, dotes on his every word, and even puts him above their children.) I hoped he was embarrassed that his friends read his wife’s essay. As the years passed I forgot how much I loved “Kavalier & Clay” and let my antipathy for Chabon’s wife taint my admiration for his writing. I know this seems terribly unfair, not to mention childish and unreasonable, but in literature as in love, irrational crushes and personal biases pop up unexpectedly for the slimmest of reasons.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning Chabon is a darling of the literary establishment and it seems he can do no wrong. I read wondrous reviews of his latest novel, “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union,’ but the name alone was enough to put me off. I had suffered enough at the hands of Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, and the like sitting through modern American literature classes in college to know I was not very interested in stories about Yiddish society. But now it’s out in paperback, and I picked it up and started leafing through it at the store. I immediately remembered what I liked so much about Chabon’s writing.

Chabon has said that for him, novels are all about mapping and charting imaginary worlds. He has done that, literally, in this book, imagining and describing an alternate present in which the state of Israel failed in 1948 and the displaced Jews of World War II were given a temporary homeland to settle in Sitka, Alaska. Over the past 60 years they have created an entire Jewish community in all its variety, everything from Orthodox “black hats” to secular Jews like the hero of the story, police detective Meyer Landsman. Now “Reversion” is looming — the date on which their settlement will return to Alaskan rule. Tensions are high, and throw in the murder of an important rabbi’s estranged son, and you have a potboiler on your hands.

Choosing a policeman as your main character and giving him a crime to solve is a time-honored (not to say shopworn) device to take the reader into every nook and cranny of the society you’re describing. Thankfully, Chabon is a skilful enough writer that he is able to subsume the clichés of the detective novel (beginning with a murder on page one) without succumbing to them. Landsman, our hero, is almost washed up — divorced, alcoholic, on the brink of despair. He takes on as a personal challenge the task of finding out what happened to the equally washed-up, mysterious junkie murder victim who was his neighbor in the same fleabag hotel. The cast of characters he enlists or antagonizes in the land of “the frozen chosen” is endlessly fascinating, from Berko Shemets, his massive half-Jewish, half-native cousin, to her ex, Bina, whom he still loves, to the “boundary maven” whose job it is to delineate imaginary boundaries within the Jewish community to allow its residents to do things on the Sabbath that would otherwise be forbidden. (It’s my understanding that in real life, such men perform this exact same service in New York City and other Jewish communities.)

The book is full of delightful details emerging from the prospect of a Jewish Alaska. The “yids” call a cell phone a shoyfer; beat cops are latkes; guns are sholems. The first arrivals call themselves “Polar Bears” and more recent Jewish arrivals from the U.S. are nicknamed “Mexicans.” Relations between the Jews and the natives are strained; reference is made to a massacre early on in the history of the settlement. Within the Jewish community there is also tension, between the various sects, the Orthodox and non, familiar to Jews in the real world as well.

“The Yiddish Policemen’s Union” is a page-turner, for the mystery but mostly for the sheer enjoyment of the alternate world Chabon has created revealing itself in bits and pieces as the story unfolds. In the end the climax and resolution of the murder investigation is almost superfluous. I would have enjoyed reading Chabon’s novel just as much if it were simply “A History of the Jews of Sitka.” I look forward to the next imaginary world he invites us to enter.

The Perils of Emily

2008-05-25T22:37:00.000-07:00

As a blogger — although not an obsessive one — I want to comment on today’s Sunday New York Times Magazine cover story, about a blogger named Emily who became a Gawker contributor and became so addicted to exposing every part of her life online that it ruined two relationships, her job, and very nearly her life.

To which I say: waah. (If that’s how you spell whining cry of small child.)

Emily goes into detail about how she progressed from writing a personal blog, read by a few hundred people, to becoming one of the most commented-on editor/contributors on Gawker.com, a blog based in New York City that bills itself as “the source for daily Manhattan media news and gossip” and focuses on celebrities and the media with humor and sarcasm. She posts several times a day and maintains dozens of email and instant message conversations simultaneously, becoming addicted to information and gossip and the compulsive need to express her thoughts and opinions in public as soon as they are formed. After beginning an affair with a co-worker, breaking up with her longtime, long-suffering boyfriend, and putting all the most intimate details of her life online, she discovers — surprise, surprise — that she has become as public a figure as the ones she feels so free to comment on in her blogging, and she doesn't much like it. Ignoring her predecessor’s advice to not read the comments on her posts, she follows each thread obsessively and takes it hard when people don’t approve of her. Eventually, the inevitable happens. Dumped by her co-worker, she begins to have panic attacks and is afraid to leave her apartment. She resigns, and soon after her ex writes an article criticizing her in great detail for putting so much of their relationship online. She’s reduced to nearly a catatonic state and withdraws from the electronic world.

Well, boo hoo is all I can say. I guess this article is supposed to be a cautionary tale, as if the average person is too dumb to figure out that the more you put of yourself online, the greater the danger of exposing too much and regretting the consequences. I occasionally put personal details about myself in my blogs, and some bloggers I follow write exclusively about their personal lives. But speaking only for myself, I choose not to treat my blog like a diary, because I don’t particularly want strangers knowing that much about me and my life. Occasionally I feel the urge to unburden myself or share some titillating piece of gossip, which usually I suppress. No one is putting a gun to my head to (a) write it down, or, if I do, (b) make it public. The temptation to expose is great, and it’s not like I have hundreds of readers. But once you put something out there, you can never take it back. Emily experimented with taking down posts, but then always succumbed to the urge to restore them. She made some password-protected. But never did it cross her mind to simply not post the stuff in the first place.

It’s like the old quote about your good name — once it’s gone, you can never get it back. Bloggers like Emily who overexpose themselves seem to me part and parcel of the same generation of young women who think nothing of flashing their breasts for video crews prowling the parties during spring break — then SIGNING RELEASES to allow those video producers to sell the tapes without paying the girls a penny. What are those girls thinking? Well, first of all, mostly they’re drunk and not thinking much. But when they sober up — and sign the releases — partly they’re flattered at the attention, which is pathetic. And partly, they’re buying into the modern mythology that the women’s liberation movement has won them the right to feel empowered by being proud and aggressive with their sexuality. Somehow this translates into letting men see their tits for free.

This is the same ethos that holds up strippers and pole dancers as a standard of beauty and behavior. It seems like without fake breasts, flat blonde hair, a fake tan, and a Brazilian wax, no one can be considered sexy any more. Speaking as the mother of two young girls (see, there I go giving out tidbits of personal information), the current generation of teenaged and 20-something women frightens me. They don’t have relationships; they have hookups. They don’t have boyfriends; they have “friends with benefits.” They participate willingly in rainbow parties, where each girl wears a different color lipstick and each guy’s goal is to accumulate a rainbow on his johnson. Is this what awaits my daughters in a few years?

The girls claim everyone is getting what they want and as long as everybody is honest and up front about it, no one gets hurt. I’m no prude, and in my day had a fair bit of fun myself. But when I was single and in the game, even those of us who were “liberated” women didn’t make it quite so easy for the guys. It seems to me that the social and romantic environment of this generation has morphed into a teenaged boy’s fondest fantasy — all the sex you want, all the time, with absolutely no strings attached and no unpleasant consequences — all with the willing compliance of the opposite sex.

Wow, I sure climbed up on my soapbox for a moment, didn’t I. And what a grouchy old bat I sound like, as well. But maybe it takes someone older, and wiser, to realize that when your boss is reading your Facebook page, maybe it’s not a good idea to post photos of yourself getting stoned at last week’s party. If you’re trying to work things out with your boyfriend, maybe you shouldn’t keep the whole world posted about each argument and lovemaking session in real time. And if you don’t want to be treated like a whore, maybe you shouldn’t act like one.

What's Your Fantasy Camp?

2008-05-15T21:38:00.000-07:00

I just read a book called “Educating Alice,” by a former reporter named Alice Steinbach who quit her job, became a freelance writer, and decided to travel to different places around the world learning about random things that interested her. To say that I was filled with envy would be a vast understatement. Seriously, what would be better than having the money, time, and freedom to go wherever you want and do whatever you want? And then to write a book about it and have it published?

In Steinbach’s case, the things she was curious about included being a geisha in Japan, studying art in Florence and garden design in Provence, gourmet cooking in Paris, following in the footsteps of Jane Austen in England, salsa dancing in Havana, and sheepherding in Scotland. She managed to find people to teach her about all these things, meeting many other interesting people along the way. The diversity and range of her interests alone is impressive, and she’s motivated by deep curiosity. But for me, the content was much more interesting than the writing style, and Steinbach’s occasional letters to her presumed love interest served more as a distraction than adding any insight into her life or development. In fact, I was frustrated generally by the lack of depth in the book — Steinbach’s skipping from one country and subject to another means that you never get as much in-depth technical information on any one of them. In fact, the cumulative effect of the chapters seems to be more about Steinbach herself, in a self-congratulatory way. See how eclectic, interesting, and curious I am?, she seems to be saying. But at the same time, in-depth insight into the author, including more than a cursory sense of discovery of deeper truths about herself and her subjects, is lacking.

Nevertheless, reading this book was valuable, because it made me consider what I would choose to do if I were ever so fortunate as to find myself in Steinbach’s position. I’d like you to think about it too. If you could go anywhere in the world — not on vacation, but as a learning experience to learn something new — where would you go?

Here are mine:
1. Take Flamenco dance lessons in Spain. (Oh wait! I’m already going to do that!)
2. Learn to speak Italian in Italy. (Preferably from someone named Marcello.)
3. Study taiko with the Kodo Drummers on Sado Island, Japan. (Hey, this is FANTASY camp.)
4. Learn how to print and bind handmade books somewhere where they do that (England?).
5. Trace my husband’s family’s ancestry in Scotland.
6. Learn how to do magic tricks in Las Vegas.
7. Become a slinky nightclub chanteuse in a smoky New York club for an evening. (I even have a set list all worked out.)
8. Arabic calligraphy lessons somewhere in the Middle East.
9. Bob Bondurant racecar driving school.
10. Dolphin trainer at Sea World.

What’s YOUR fantasy camp?

Why do I love reading so much?

2008-04-27T14:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my seven-year-old daughter asked me, “Mommy, why do you love reading so much?”

Simple as it was, her question gave me pause. I don’t believe anyone has asked me that particular question before. Not that I didn’t have an answer, but mindful (and hoping) that my words might influence her own feelings and stay in her memory for a long time, I wanted to choose my response carefully.

After a long pause I replied, “Every book is a new world. Every book takes me somewhere I’ve never been before. It’s my way of escaping to new places and other times for a little while each day. At the same time, in every book I find someone I can relate to, someone who’s a bit like me, or who is in a situation I have been in, or feeling something I have felt before. That makes me want to read more. So every book is both new and familiar at the same time.”

She nodded as if she understood, so I quickly added: “There’s something else. I’m a writer, and I love language. I love words and how they go together. So how a book is written is as important to me as what it says. If a book is really beautifully written, sometimes it doesn’t even matter what it’s about, because I love to read the language, like poetry. That’s why I love reading so much.”

Here are some worlds I’ve visited recently:

Small Island, by Andrew Levy
Is Jamaica the small island of the title, or is it England? That’s one of the hard questions asked in this remarkable story that follows the loves and fortunes of Jamaican immigrants and the English during and after the Second World War. The portraits of Jamaican life as a British colony, and the different views of racism in England and the U.S., are never less than revelatory, often infuriating, always touching. Twining through this is a love story with an unexpected twist and a heart-rending ending. At least to me, Levy’s rendering of Jamaican patois seems to be spot-on, including the delightful word “niam” for eating up good food. (Niam niam!)

Once Upon a Time in the North, by Philip Pullman
This short but delightful prequel to Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” trilogy tells the story of how the Texas balloonist Lee Scoresby first met Iorek Byrnison, the armored bear. Beautifully bound and illustrated, it’s a fitting beginning and a reminder of why I loved the trilogy so much. Pullman is a master at creating whole worlds out of thin air and making their denizens completely believable, and at least to me, the visceral attraction of having a real live animal “daemon” is instant and undeniable. (What would mine be? I often wonder. A cat would be too easy; everyone wants a to be a cat. Snake? Ferret? Lizard? Hamster? Giraffe? Coyote? Heck, I don’t know.) If you know and love the trilogy, it’s a given that you have to read this book. If you haven’t read the trilogy, read this and be happy in the knowledge that it's just an appetizer, and three more full-length books await you.

The Translator, by Leila Aboulela
Visits to other worlds continue with this story of a Sudanese widow, Sammar, living in Aberdeen, Scotland, and working as an Arabic translator for an Islamic scholar named Rae. Her feelings for him slowly bring her out of the near-stupor she’s experienced since her husband died and she sent her infant son home to Khartoum to be raised by her husband’s aunt. It’s clear Rae feels the same, but since she is a traditional Muslim, their only hope to be together is if Rae converts to Islam and marries her. As a trip home looms, the tension builds and she finally forces the issue. I’ll leave it to you to read the book to see how it turns out.

Could there be two countries less alike than Sudan and Scotland? As much as you shiver with Sammar as she sloshes through snow and slush under what passes for a weak Scottish sun, you feel your bones and joints relax in the African heat when back home in Khartoum. Yes, there may be constant power and water shortages, dirt and dust, corruption and illiteracy in Sudan, but there is also family, community, color and flavor, tradition and custom. Perhaps it is only through a period of separation from Rae — and Scotland — that Sammar can come to realize and appreciate what she left behind in Sudan.

What I also like about this book is that unlike many novels with Islam as a primary plot point these days, Sammar’s religion is crucial to the plot but is presented entirely neutrally. There is nothing negative about it — it is not indicted or condemned for its repression of women or the fringe elements giving it a bad name. It is simply there as a guiding presence and comfort in her life. Rae tells Sammar he likes the headscarf she wears because it is secretive. He doesn’t urge her to stop wearing it. Sammar yearns for Rae to convert, but it’s not a political statement. Will he or won’t he? That’s the question.

Next blog: Two books by Julian Barnes.

Bookdiva in the "News"

2008-04-19T16:26:00.000-07:00

Read This Book: "The Post-Birthday World"

2008-04-02T18:26:00.000-07:00

Unlike many book critics, “tour de force” is not a phrase I like to bandy about when writing about books. I am pretty sure I won’t ever use it in reference to, say, John Grisham’s latest novel, or “The Very Hungry Caterpillar.” And although I admire anyone who can get a book published — any book — I am rarely professionally jealous of authors on the visceral, I-wish-I-could-write-like-that level. But I just read a novel that has everything I would want to put into a novel if I could — a truly original and exciting premise, with universal appeal; a page-turning plot; well-fleshed-out and believable (if not always sympathetic) characters; and so well written that when it’s over, you wish you hadn’t read it so you could read it again and not know what was in store, discovering it all over again.

Strong praise, you say. Well, I’m not the only one who thinks so. I bought “The Post-Birthday World” because it was on several lists at the end of 2007 as one of the best novels of the year, and it sounded interesting. (And I saw it at Costco yesterday, so you know it’s gotta be good. Kidding. Sort of.)

Thousands and thousands of novels (and screenplays and scripts) each year start out with an interesting premise or really good idea, but the writers can’t figure out how to bring them to a satisfying conclusion, and they just fizzle out. “The Post-Birthday World” is not one of those. That’s what makes it so good, and so unusual.

To begin with, the premise is brilliant. Think back on your life, the last five or ten years, and try to recall one moment when you made a decision that, either at that time or with the benefit of hindsight, turns out to have been one that changed the course of your life. Perhaps it was choosing to accept one job offer over another, or not calling back someone for a second date who could have ended up becoming your spouse. Now imagine what your life would have been like had you made the opposite choice. Everyone plays this “what if” game, whether you’re a bored housewife, a harassed mom, a wage slave or an office drone, a movie star, or the most successful entrepreneur on the planet. Don't you wish you could somehow see how your life would have unspooled on that different, but parallel, track? But you can’t. You’ll never know. Some people are driven mad just thinking about it.

Author Lionel Shriver (despite her name, a woman) has taken this daydreaming exercise as the premise for her novel. In the first chapter, we meet Irina McGovern, an American of Russian origin, a moderately successful children’s book author living in London with her long-term boyfriend, Lawrence. They have a good relationship and a comfortable routine. Maybe it’s become a little too routine, but that’s to be expected, nothing to worry about. An author colleague of Irina’s, Jude, invites them to dinner to celebrate her husband Ramsey’s birthday. He is a bit of a superstar, a champion professional snooker player (a more sophisticated form of billiards, very popular in England), but a little rough around the edges. It becomes a tradition for Irina and Lawrence to have dinner with Jude and Ramsey on his birthday each year, and then Jude and Ramsey divorce. Lawrence finds himself out of town on the next birthday, and not wanting to make Ramsey feel neglected, Irina agrees to go out to dinner with him alone.

Are your warning bells going off? Yeah, mine were too. But Irina, having never found anything very interesting about Ramsey before, isn’t prepared for the sparks that begin to fly between them over dinner. Invited back to his apartment, she comes to a fork in the road, a key moment over his basement snooker table when she has to make a decision. The chapter ends, and the reader does not know which path she chose. But unlike the rest of us non-fictional characters, Irina gets to have it both ways.

The next chapter begins as if she made one decision. The chapter after that, as if she went the other way. And so alternates each chapter, with stunning precision and detail, tracing the two alternate life paths of the three people in this triangle: Irina, Ramsey, and Lawrence. I will not spoil it for you by telling you what happens in each case, because I want you to read the book. Shriver masterfully juggles the chronology and details in each story line, and the parallels and paradoxes pile up without ever being so confusing that you can’t keep them straight. Even more impressively, Shriver finds enough sympathy in Irina’s character in both scenarios, even though each decision changes her into a very different person. At least for me, as I assume for Irina, it is never crystal clear throughout the book which one was the right decision for her to make.

Which brings us to the final chapter, which is so well crafted as to inspire me to imitate Wayne and Garth in “Wayne’s World,” when they find themselves in the presence of greatness: “We’re not worthy! We’re not worthy!” What Shriver has done, and I almost can't believe it even though I read it, is construct a final chapter that not only fits seamlessly in with either of the two book-long story lines she’s written, and is equally satisfying either way, but — wait for it — resolves the story without the reader having any idea which decision Irina actually made. No, tour de force is not too strong a word to use to describe this literary sorcery.

I read an interview with Shriver in which she said she wrote the novel in the same order as it is printed. In other words, she did not write out each version first and then intersperse them afterward, but went back and forth chapter by chapter. If this is true, then it is truly amazing that she was able to keep track, and keep each story fresh and original before switching back to the other.

I do have one tiny nitpick, a common one for me when reading novels written about Americans by English writers (and sometimes vice versa). It seems to be very difficult for English writers to avoid putting typically English words or expressions into the mouths of Americans who would never use them, regardless of how long they have lived in England. Shriver at least seems to be aware she is doing this, and tries to fudge it by leaning on Irina’s Russian background, and even has Lawrence comment on Irina’s use of English idiom, but I don’t buy it. An American would never say “rubbish” instead of “trash,” and so on. It's a small thing, but it can break the suspension of disbelief just long enough to remind you you’re reading a book instead of being immersed in someone else’s life.

There are a lot of other things to like in this novel, like the wealth of detail about Irina’s evolution as a home cook, her experiences as the daughter of Russian emigrants (her ex-ballet dancer mother, Raisa, is worthy of a book of her own), and the intricacies of professional snooker, which I found more fascinating than most Americans would, since I have played snooker and used to watch it on TV when I lived in England, so some of those names are actually familiar to me. In addition, Shriver’s painfully detailed descriptions of romantic partnerships and marriages and Irina’s various emotional states throughout hit so very close to home, no matter whether you’ve been in a happy relationship for 25 years or are just getting over an ugly divorce, whether you would never dream of cheating on your spouse or fantasize about it daily. I can’t wait for enough time to pass that I can read this book again with a fresh sense of discovery. But it has made such an impact on me that I’m afraid that will take a very long time.

Then We Came to the End

2008-03-22T00:17:00.000-07:00

Anyone who has ever worked in an office must read this book. Just like the average office job, it’s brilliant in its pointlessness, humane in its soullessness, and utterly crucial in its almost total lack of importance. Author Joshua Ferris must have paid a lot of attention (and took notes) when he was working in an office, because you can’t nail it this perfectly unless you’ve been there.

Ferris’s first stroke of genius is to create an anonymous plural first-person narrator, an amorphous blob that hovers around the office in question, that of an advertising company, like a modern-day Greek chorus. Forever observing the action and thriving on the gossip, but never showing any initiative on their own, the “we” of the narrator cannot exist except as as a group. Who "we" are doesn't matter, as its identity is defined but what it sees and hears and how it responds.

Ferris’s description of the endless meetings the employees must endure in planning ad campaigns for their clients is so dead on that it is completely hilarious. If you’ve ever watched a mind-bendingly stupid ad on TV (talking toilets, anyone?) and thought to yourself, “Someone was paid a lot of money to come up with that?”, well these are those people. In between meetings, they hang out in each other’s offices, described lovingly down to the last cheesy family picture and mock-philosophical quote pinned on the corkboard, around the copier, in the break room, and wherever else they can to talk and talk and talk, mostly about nothing that could be construed as even vaguely important.

Gossip is rife. Who is sleeping with whom, who is about to “walk Spanish down the hall” (their expression for being fired), how badly the company is doing in the post-dotcom bubble downsizing, who has stolen whose office chair after they were “shitcanned,” and whether the boss has cancer. The reader at first can’t believe the annoying pointlessness of these highly detailed conversations, but Ferris’s second stroke of genius is to suck us in until we are as vested in these insanely trivial matters as the protagonists. Just like the newest employee to join the company, the reader slowly gets to know each of these characters, and eventually to care deeply about them.

One employee is ill and surprises them all after his slow and painful death. Another’s marriage is so dreadful he becomes addicted to painkillers. Yet another starts to come apart after the abduction and murder of her young daughter (readers who are parents, beware). Again Ferris hits all the right notes as “we” find inner resources of decency and strength to pull together and rally around their afflicted colleagues, even as their unseemly curiosity tortures their boss, who is unable to deal with the reality of her medical situation.

As things get worse and more employees walk Spanish, each reacts in his or her own way. It becomes very important to plan exactly how you will react when your moment inevitably comes. Some break down and cry, some rage and break things, some simply refuse to accept it and keep coming to work. “We” live in fear that our moment will come. I won’t tell you what eventually happens to the company, but I can promise you if you read this book you’ll be as vested in the outcome as if you were working there yourself.

My Thoughts Exactly

2008-03-14T13:29:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Melissa for this awesome pic.

(License plate blurred to protect someone's privacy.)

Tag! You're It.

2008-03-11T19:52:00.000-07:00

My friend Melissa at Cords and Fleece recently tagged me through her blog, meaning she divulged seven random facts about herself and then dared me to do the same. As befits a blog about books and reading, here are my seven random facts:

1. My mother and I have been working on a joint mother-daughter culinary memoir, writing stories from our family history interspersed with relevant recipes. We alternate chapters. For example, one of my chapters tells about my paternal grandmother’s death and my most vivid memory of her, making lemonade for us grandkids in her kitchen, straddling a metal tub and kneading five pounds of cut-up lemons with her bare hands in water and ice and sugar. We’ve been working on this manunscript for a while and are currently taking a break. But if you’re a publisher and interested, email me.

2. The second most influential person in my reading life (after my mother, who, after all, started the whole reading thing) was my high school IB English teacher, Michael Lynch. Under his influence I developed from a recreational (if voracious) reader to a Reader, and realized books and writing in some form would be my passion and vocation for the rest of my life. Thanks to him I discovered how to really properly read a book, and also fell in love with the work of (among many others) James Joyce. More than 20 years later, now with a Master’s in English Lit, I found myself (with my mother!) in Dublin on June 16, 2004 – the centenary of Bloomsday, the most holy day in the Joycean calendar. We were in a city where Joyce is both revered as a national hero and treated as the guy next door, a daily presence in people’s lives in a way I had never experienced before. On the day itself, there was a big party on the streets of Dublin with actors reciting parts of “Ulysses,” and BBC 4 Radio did a woman-on-the-street interview with me to find out where I was from and what on earth a Yank like me was doing there. I gave Mr. Lynch a good shout-out in that interview. I hope he heard it.

3. When I was a kid, one of my favorite books was a collection of American folk tales called “Yankee Doodle’s Cousins.” Not yet an American citizen, I was attending American school overseas, and fascinated by this compendium of tall tales from the American frontier. It included stories of all the famous folk heroes like Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Paul Bunyan, and Johnny Appleseed, and many more besides, whom I had never heard of. I must have checked it out of the school library 20 times. Thirty years later, when my own children were born, I couldn’t wait to buy the book and read the stories to them. It’s been out of print a long time, but I found a used copy on Amazon.com, and when it arrived it even looked exactly as I remembered. I was beside myself with excitement.

Then I started reading it again. And I was horrified. A more revolting collection of offensively racist, sexist and outdated claptrap you will never find. Never in a million years would I let my girls anywhere near this stuff. To say I was disillusioned would be a gross understatement. Thus does the glitter of our childhood memories fade and tarnish over time.

4. I read “Endless Love” when I was 12. I still can’t believe my mother let me. Certain scenes from that book are as vivid in my mind today as they were when I first devoured them. Sure, there was the explicit teen sex, but there were also the parents who took drugs with their children, and lots of other weirdness that was completely outside the realm of my experience. I still try to breathe “with botanical silence” when I fall asleep, just like the mother in the novel. Weird, I know.

5. Thanks to Anthony Bourdain’s eye-opening book “Kitchen Confidential,” I will never again:
- eat swordfish or shark, ever!
- eat seafood at a restaurant early in the week
- eat Sunday brunch at most hotels or restaurants
- eat out on major holidays like Mother’s Day, Easter, or Valentine’s Day
- be rude to a waiter or bartender (not that I was much before)
- take restaurant kitchen or waitstaff for granted

6. Time to plug another book I wrote. It’s a kid’s book called “Lionel the Seasick Seal,” about a harbor seal who can’t wait to hang out on the buoys in San Diego Bay with his older brother Oliver and Oliver’s cool friends. But when the day comes that his mother allows him to swim out to the buoys with his brother, he hauls himself up there only to discover, to his great embarrassment, that he suffers from seasickness. He spends the rest of the book figuring out how to live with it. Every kid I've read it to loves it. I sent it to one publisher. They rejected it. I gave up. Wow, there’s some can-do spirit for ya.

7. The most thought-provoking and life-changing book I’ve read since college is “The End of Faith,” by Sam Harris. My regular readers know I don’t generally discuss politics or religion in my blog, since I don't want to offend any readers, so let’s keep this brief. Before reading this book, I knew I was not traditionally religious, but thought I was an agnostic with some sort of vaguely mystical belief system that there was “some force out there” greater than ourselves, etc. After reading this book, and spending a few sleepless nights turning it over and over in my brain, I came to the stunning and life-altering realization that I am, in fact, an atheist, and it does not do me or anyone else any good to deny it. In addition, Sam Harris makes a good argument that everyone else should be atheists too, if modern civilization is to survive, and remain civilized.

This is not a realization that comes lightly. Being an atheist is hard. It’s terrifying. It’s also exhilarating in a shades-lifted-from-the-eyes, live-each-day-like-it’s-your-last sort of way. Just like reality. Just like life.

So there you have them, my seven random book-related facts. Feel free to share some of yours and tag some of your friends.

Going Goth

2008-02-29T10:03:00.000-08:00

To be honest, there is a whole genre of fiction I have not explored a lot — the Gothic novel. This does not mean books written by teenage girls wearing spiked dog collars and heavy eye makeup. Gothic fiction, thought to have originated in the 18th century, usually floats somewhere between romance and horror, combining as it does melodrama, love affairs, fantasy, and elements of terror and horror. Probably I’ve avoided a lot of it because of the latter, horror not generally being an area of interest for me. Of course I’ve read my share of the classics that fall into the Gothic romance category, like “Wuthering Heights” and “Jane Eyre,” and the genre also includes works by Edgar Allan Poe, “Frankenstein,” early vampire novels, and such gems as “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” But I can’t say these have become treasured favorites.

It was with some surprise, then, that I tore through both “The Ivy Tree” and “The Thirteenth Tale” recently. Had I not read one right after the other, I might not have thought of them as very similar. “The Ivy Tree” is much less dense and atmospheric than “The Thirteenth Tale,” although both contain elements of the Gothic novel that led to my linking them in my mind. I’m sure you have found, as I have, that certain books remain linked together in your memory long after you have read them, usually because you read them at about the same time, or maybe thematically. For example, I will always think of “Into Thin Air” and “The Perfect Storm” as two parts of one story, because I read them one after the other in the space of a week, and they both fall into a category I call “disaster porn.”

I read “The Ivy Tree” first, because it’s set in England and written by Mary Stewart, which is about all I usually need to go on. It is, however, unlike any other book by Mary Stewart I have read. It’s not very long, and its setting is contemporary, to begin with. It’s also a mystery, with sort of a romance thrown in, with dark secrets from the past and hidden identities. Who doesn’t love that?

And yet, once the climactic denouement was over and all was revealed (which I am certainly NOT going to give away here), I was strangely unsatisfied. It wasn’t until I jumped into “The Thirteenth Tale” immediately after that I realized what I had been missing.

“The Thirteenth Tale” has all the elements you would crave in a gothic novel. Two mysterious protagonists, both with dark family secrets to hide. A creepy old country manor shrouded in mist and withy secrets of its own. A tumbled-down half burned ruin and a mysterious stranger who lurks. Adultery, incest, jealousy, and murder. And ghosts. Many ghosts.

Honestly, I would say this book is the perfect Gothic novel. It’s suspenseful and a little scary but never enough to keep you up at night. Its story is suspended enough in time that it could be happening today or 100 years ago. Secrets are revealed in bits and pieces, keeping you jumping from page to page. Although the narrative device is an old and tired one – young writer listens as older person narrates her life story – that’s because it’s an economical way to tell a story that works well in the hands of a good writer. In this case it’s broken up by enough subplots and detective work to keep it interesting. The personae are fully fleshed out, though, with no character too minor for a complete picture of their inner lives to emerge.

I don’t want to give any more away. Just read it.

Get Thee Behind Me, Multigrain Bagel!

2008-02-13T10:09:00.000-08:00

As my regular readers know, I’m a fan of food and books about food. I recently dribbled angst all over you after reading Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.” I’m over that now, mostly, but there’s a new book I just picked up I just have to tell you about.

David Zinczenko is editor-in-chief of Men’s Health magazine. Maybe because he’s a man, he thinks (knows?) diets are useless and boring. Because he’s a magazine editor, he definitely knows simple ideas and lots of colorful illustrations are a great way to get people’s attention. So he’s come up with a great little book, “Eat This, Not That,” subtitled “The No-Diet Weight Loss Solution!” Zinczenko’s idea is beautiful in its simplicity: since it’s really hard to avoid eating your favorite foods at your favorite restaurants, why not try to make better choices at those places and avoid the real fat and calorie bombs?

Zinczenko’s strategy consists of comparing and contrasting, and he mercilessly skewers every fast food and restaurant chain in America as well as most well-known brand names. The results may surprise you. For example, almost everything at McDonald’s is relatively healthier than its equivalent at Burger King, like the illustration on the cover of the book: Big Mac, 540 calories, 29 grams of fat; Whopper with cheese, 760 calories, 47 grams of fat.

It doesn’t take a genius to guess that Ben & Jerry’s sorbet is healthier than their full-fat dairy ice cream. But I for one was surprised to hear that at Arby’s, a Super Roast Beef sandwich serves up less than half the calories and fat grams than the Roast Beef and Swiss Market Fresh Sandwich that’s loaded with fresh salad makings.

Zinczenko and his collaborators did tons of research, and when the companies they surveyed wouldn’t release their nutritional content information, they had the food analyzed by labs. The book is divided into extremely useful sections and you can flip through it quickly, as the photos are mostly accompanied by headlines, sidebars, and graphics. In addition to making smart choices at your favorite restaurants, Zinczenko lays out what to eat at special occasions like Thanksgiving, good choices to make at the supermarket, when picking from a variety of drinks, and best foods for better health.

One of the most interesting sections is his “menu decoder,” in which he dissects generic examples of different restaurant menus and explains what all the terms and dishes mean in terms of fat and health. For example, at a Mexican restaurant, any dish served “mojado” is usually drowning in melted cheese and a rich, salty tomato and chili sauce, adding to the sodium and fat content. Eating Indian? You may think it’s mostly vegetarian and healthy, but avoid the “pakora,” which are vegetables battered and deep-fried. As for dessert, the Chinese restaurant wins the battle, with fortune cookies just 40 calories apiece.

Most well-read and observant eaters will consider a lot of this book to be common sense, but it’s still a jolt to see some of these statistics up close. Starbucks addicts, beware – that Venti White Hot Chocolate with whipped cream weighs in at a whopping 640 calories with 28 grams of fat (18 of them saturated) and 76 grams of sugar. That’s twice as much sugar as a can of Coke. And if you think that Bran Muffin with Nuts is a great healthy choice, think again – at 890 calories and 37 grams of fat, you’re much better off choosing the Black Forest Ham, Egg and Cheddar Breakfast Sandwich, with only 510 calories and 16 grams of fat (or at least, you would have been, until Starbucks discontinued their breakfast sandwiches this month). At Dunkin’ Donuts, the innocuous-sounding Multigrain Bagel with Lite Cream Cheese packs 500 calories and 15 grams of fat, compared to the Ham and Cheese English Muffin Sandwich, with only 310 calories and 10 grams of fat. Who knew?

There’s some good news snuck in with all the fear and loathing. For example, at Chick-Fil-A, not a single sandwich on their menu tops 500 calories. (Of course, Chick-Fil-A is such a Christian company that they don’t even open their stores on Sundays, but that’s a topic for a different blog.) Even at Krispy Kreme, that haven of sugar and fat, there’s a Whole Wheat Glazed Doughnut that I’m betting tastes just as good as the regular version and clocks in at just 180 calories and 11 grams of fat. But whatever you do, avoid Outback Steakhouse, where almost everything on the menu could choke a horse’s arteries, but especially their Aussie Cheese Fries with Ranch Dressing, voted by Zinczenko the number one worst food in America. At 2,900 calories and 182 grams of fat per serving, Zinczenko says, “even if you split this appetizer with three friends, you’ll have downed a dinner’s worth of calories before your entrée arrives.” Yikes!

When it comes to food, Americans are good at alternating between lazy, self-indulgent, and rationalizing (“I’m so stressed, I work so hard, I deserve a treat,” is my favorite), and fanatical, self-abegnating and self-righteous. Zinczenko wants us to stop trying to pretend we can change our eating habits overnight and stop going out with friends and colleagues to eat at our favorite places. Instead, he’s trying to get us to be smarter and think about our choices when we do find ourselves at a fast food restaurant or national chain, most of whom offer some healthier alternatives if you dig deep enough into the menu. Consistently making these choices, he claims, can help you lose 20 or 30 pounds over the course of a year. Maybe so, maybe no – your results may vary, as they say. This great little book is almost small enough to fit in your purse if you need to take it along for last-minute consultation. But just reading through it gives you enough food for thought to make trips to restaurants interesting, and a little less depressing.

Those Darned Princesses

2008-02-09T19:16:00.000-08:00

Anyone out there have kids? Specifically, girls age 8 or under?
You'll appreciate this.

Words to live by

2008-02-07T17:17:00.000-08:00

Those of you who like Domestic Irritation as much as I do -- follow Melissa to her new blog, Cords and Fleece.

As you can see (left), she and I have both been having fun at Image Chef.

I promised I'd blog about "The Ivy Tree," and I will, but immediately after I finished it I began "The Thirteenth Tale," and since they have a lot in common I think I'll wait and blog about them together. You remember from high school - compare and contrast.

Back soon...

2008-02-05T10:46:00.000-08:00

I don't want to get political on this blog very often, but I have to say, what a day.

Although I literally did not know until I filled in the box this morning which one I was going to vote for, what a fantastic thing it is to be torn between the inspiring multicultural black man and the strong, smart woman. Good for us, is all I can say.

Bookdiva says:
If you haven't yet, go VOTE.

Only 349 days left of the Bush presidency.

Some Recent Reading

2008-01-31T17:34:00.000-08:00

On July 9 I began making a list of the books I had read. This was motivated by curiosity on my part; I wanted to keep track of what I was reading and also get an idea of how many books I was able to read over a period of time. I thought it would be interesting to look back at the end of the year (and every year) and see what books had passed through my brain.

I did not bother to try and list all the books I have read in the past. My personal library has about 1200 books in it (that's my rough estimate) and I have read many more that did not stay in my library. Someday I would like to inventory my books with one of those excellent programs like Delicious Library or Book Collector. Someday when I have a lot of spare time.

So, since July 9, just out of interest, I've read 48 books. That works out to just over one and a half books per week, on average. Some were much quicker, some took weeks, but overall that feels about right. I must say it's quite a bit off my average from those halcyon days when I was single and childless and would put away three or four books a week. But still, compared to the 16 percent of Americans who said in a 2007 survey that they did not read a single book for pleasure in the past year, I guess I'm doing OK.

The first book I put on the list was "I Feel Bad About My Neck" by Nora Ephron, which was about exactly how you would expect -- funny and depressing at the same time. There were quite a few best-sellers, the last Harry Potter, "The Grapes of Wrath" and "The Great Gatsby" (hello, book club!), and several books about the non-existence of God and the ludicrousness of religion. Some books on food, and some murder mysteries.

People often ask me how I find books to read. Many of them are baffled when it comes to knowing what book to pick up at the bookshop or library when they want to read something. I reply that my bigger problem is figuring out what not to read right now because I already have such a big stack of books next to my bed, waiting, and a list of dozens more in my notebook I'd like to purchase or borrow. Here's how I find them:

1. Reviews.
Each week I read the New York Times Books Section and (for what it's worth) the San Diego Union-Tribune's sadly truncated books section. Add to that the New Yorker and Entertainment Weekly's surprisingly good book section, and there are at least two or three books a week I add to my wanted list.

2. Browsing, both online and in real life.
What can compare to the pleasure of browsing at the bookshop? About once a month I go check out the latest releases. I also take "staff picks" seriously, as people who spend a lot of time around books get to be pretty good at picking out some good ones. Online browsing (my site of choice is Amazon) isn't as fun, but you can do it late at night in your pyjamas. Amazon's Personalized Recommendations and their "Listmania" feature, when used judiciously, can also yield interesting results.

3. Personal recommendations.
People recommend books to me all the time. Mostly my mother and I trade books back and forth; our tastes are very close. My brother and I also recommend books to each other, as do various friends and acquaintances. I discovered one of my favorite authors, Mark Helprin, through a recommendation from a photographer who worked for me.

4. The canon.
There's the list of books EVERYONE, especially an English major, should read in their lifetime -- the classics of ancient, classic, Romantic, and modern fiction that comprise the repository of much of human culture and knowledge. I haven't read them all. I want to. I try to intersperse them in between the best-sellers and other contemporary works I call "mind candy."

5. Reading the shelf.
That's how I refer to working your way through an author's entire oeuvre, or else an entire section of one genre of writing. You hit upon an author you like and oh joy! he or she has written 23 other books. Better read them all. Or you read one book on why the French are so much better than everyone else and decide you should really read every other book about the French just to be fair. Beware: like a cascading family tree or a game of six degrees of separation, this method of reading can go on indefinitely.

So what I have read lately?

"Gods in Alabama" - a "throwaway" paperback my mother passed to me. A quick and entertaining read about a young woman forced to go home to Alabama and face some hard secrets that have caused her to make major changes in her life, only to discover they aren't even the same secrets she thought they were all along. Along with the whodunit aspect, which was quite well constructed, the best part of this novel was the detailed descriptions of the characters inhabiting a small southern town, in the sardonic voice of the narrator, Arlene, told mostly in flashback to her high school years. The various inhabitants of the story ring very true in each small detail, from her addled pill-popping mother to her strong and strict aunt to her dazzling cousin and the golden boy/bad boy quarterback. And the scenes that ensue after ten years of absence when she brings her lawyer boyfriend home to meet them all are priceless -- I'll let you discover why when you read the book.

"The Case of the Missing Books." This one was a bit of a disappointment for me because it seemed so promising -- a mystery story starring a librarian, and part of a series at that, so if I liked it I would have a lot more to look forward to. No such luck. The librarian in question, a neurotic and unattractive wimp named Israel, never inspired my sympathy, and his fish-out-of-water story trying to track down 15,000 missing books in a small Irish town seemed contrived and condescending. Yes, the Irish are colorful people and country folk can be rough around the edges. Is this really new territory to explore? Don't bother with this one.

I'm a few pages away from finishing "The Ivy Tree," a page-turner by Mary Stewart, and will blog about it when I finish. But I can already tell you I recommend it.

Happy reading!

Bookdiva

2008-01-15T19:47:00.001-08:00

"The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals"

2008-01-13T16:19:00.000-08:00

Thanks, Michael Pollan. Thanks a lot. Because, you know, I needed more to worry about.

I finished reading “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” today, and thanks in part to the efforts of its author, Michael Pollan, found myself fraught with confusion while unloading groceries in my kitchen after a trip to my local farmers’ market and Ralphs. My frustration was perfectly explained by the fact that in order to outfit my kitchen and my family’s needs for the next few days, I had to visit both ends of the spectrum in the same 90-minute period: the crunchy, green, wholesome, politically and ecologically correct farmers’ market at one end and the shiny, convenient, inexpensive, industrialized and homogenized supermarket at the other.

As the title of the book suggests, Pollan offers no solutions in carefully detailing what he terms the omnivore’s dilemma. Because we humans can eat everything, we have to choose what to eat (unlike, say, koalas: eucalyptus good, everything else bad). Not content to rely on other people’s research and impressions (although his excellent bibliography extends to 16 pages), in exploring why and how Americans eat they way we do, Pollan made it a point to visit and work on the various farms he writes about; tried to personally visit as many CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) he was allowed to (precious few); turned himself into a vegetarian in order to be able to more objectively assess arguments for and against animal rights; and finally grew, hunted, and gathered his own food for a complete meal.

This hands-on research makes it impossible to dispute many of his findings, which are, in a nutshell, these: 1. The America dependence on and subsidizing of corn and its ubiquity in all its various forms in our diets is literally killing us. 2. CAFOs are inhuman and inhumane, bad for animals and people alike. 3. Small, sustainable organic grass farms are quite possibly the perfect system for raising animals we eat. 4. Having to grow, collect, kill, and slaughter your own food makes you much more aware of what it represents.

No marginally intelligent or aware person in America today can say they do not already know, or can guess at, most of what Pollan is writing about. We’re aware, in a vague but uncomfortably sure way, that animals raised for slaughter in CAFOs are treated really, really badly. We know the more processed food is, the more full it is of chemicals and other undesirables, and the less healthy it is. We know, even as we’re putting it into our mouths, that fast food is unhealthy. We know large food manufacturers and the government that is supposed to regulate them do not have our best interests at heart.

Nevertheless, it’s the depth of detail, the piercing descriptions, and the sheer numbers Pollan serves up that is overwhelming. Don't read this book if you ever want to eat CAFO-produced beef, pork, or chicken again with a clear conscience and a calm stomach. And don’t read this book if you’re the type of person, like I am, who cares passionately enough about things to let them upset me, but too often not enough to spur me into action.

Ah, therein lies the dilemma. My dilemma, at least. Once you read this book and many others of its ilk, or see “Fast Food Nation,” or “King Corn,” or simply read a few labels on the prepared or frozen foods in your pantry and freezer, you really only have two choices, to paraphrase Pollan: change your habits, or be prepared to defend them.

My first goal would be to feed my children healthier food. Second, I would like to support alternative farmers and producers of food that is not industrialized. But, as a mother of two small children who also runs her own business from home, one of my major goals in life is to save money, time, and effort whenever possible. I’m sure many, many people are in the same boat.

After finishing Pollan’s book, I tried experimenting with the food chain. I picked up two grass-fed rib eye steaks at Trader Joe’s. They cost a little under $5 each, but they were from Australia, and I shuddered when I thought of the energy costs of getting them to my local store. We cooked them the next night and they were very good, but the grainier texture and the flavor, deeper and gamier than corn-fed, richly marbled commercial beef, would take some getting used to if we were big steak eaters.

Then, last week, I made my first trip in a long time to the farmers’ market. It was a pleasant experience all around that put me in a good mood for the rest of the day. The weather was nice; everyone was friendly. I felt delightfully European as I selected produce and declined plastic bags, having had the foresight to bring along my Trader Joe’s reusable bag. I handed out cash (cash!) and received beautiful fruit and vegetables in exchange. A beautiful bunch of fresh flowers completed the picture. The words “farm fresh,” “local,” and “organic” surrounded me on all sides. When I was done shopping, I purchased some Thai chicken curry to take home for lunch, and practically sang as I unloaded my purchases in the kitchen. I felt – there was no other word for it -- virtuous.

Exactly one week later, I was frazzled and tearful. Why? What had happened in the intervening time? Reality, that’s what. Reality set in, as it always does. The shine quickly wore off my farmers’ market experience. The produce I used immediately was fresh and delicious. The few items I did not use in the first couple of days, devoid as they are of added preservative agents, rotted rapidly. Even the flowers barely lasted four days, whereas the ones I buy at Ralphs or even Trader Joe’s usually last for almost two weeks.

Then there’s the other reality. A family like mine cannot obtain everything it needs for its daily life at a farmers’ market. I still had to go to the supermarket for all kinds of things, ranging from diapers and shampoo to yogurt and brand name cereal. I found myself going without certain things I knew I could find at the farmers’ market on Sunday, which meant that for the last few days of the week we had no eggs, very few vegetables, and no bread in the house. We’re not living in Europe, after all, so when you run out of something in the middle of the week, what are you supposed to do? Go without, or buy at the supermarket.

There are other alternatives, of course. In our area, there are metropolitan produce buying clubs, ethnic groceries, and other ways to satisfy a desire for clean food. But coming right after the farmers’ market expedition, the shopping trip to Ralphs also hammered home another realization: I was paying a lot more for some of that produce.

Pollan addresses this issue spectacularly well in “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.” Yes, “clean food” (the catchall name for non-CAFO, non-agribusiness product) costs more at the point at which you pay for it. But the other kind of food, although it seems cheap, actually costs us more as a society and as a species, when you factor in the damage to the environment, the huge cost of tax subsidies to farmers, the tremendous expenditures of energy, and the psychic toll of all that suffering caused by highly unnatural practices. The reason we don’t count those costs is that they don’t appear to be coming out of our wallets at the point of purchase. Unfortunately, the here-and-now hole in the wallet hits a lot closer home than the unseen cost of cheap beef and tomatoes.

So Sunday rolled around, and I returned to the farmers’ market. In addition to produce, I wanted to pick up some eggs, maybe some cheese, a loaf of bread. But this time my experience was not as idyllic. For the first time I noticed some of the stands had disclaimers: some of the product they were selling was not grown locally. I already knew from my reading that the word “organic” has lost all meaning since being appropriated by the government. And I now know that legally, an animal can be labeled “free-range” if at some point in its short and unhappy life it was given the opportunity to go outside for few minutes. So, really, what did this all mean? I was also feeling the sticker shock. Was I paying nearly $3 for a dozen eggs not very much different from those that cost me about 80 cents at Ralphs?

Some timid enquiries yielded mixed results. The mushroom lady told me the criminis I bought were picked at 4am that morning on her farm in Escondido. The egg man informed me the eggs I was buying had been laid on his farm in Fallbrook “in the past 30 to 40 hours.” But at the stand where I found most of the vegetables I needed, the seller either did not speak enough English, or pretended not to, when I wanted to know more about the produce. (My husband pointed out later that was one of the stands with a disclaimer.)

There was no cheese, and the only bread available was from a well-known San Diego artisanal bakery. Although their bread is good, I knew there was no way my kids would eat it in sandwiches at school. On the way home from the market, we stopped at Ralphs to buy diapers and so I was able to pick up a loaf of bread and some cheese. Stepping into the giant supermarket after having just left the farmers’ market was a shock to the system. The two sides of my dilemma were brought into sharp relief. As a mother, what should be more important to me: the health of my kids and the planet, or a bit more time and money saved? And really, if I’m stressing myself out chasing down the healthiest food and shopping in four different places several days a week (burning gas to get there), and it has a negative effect on our already tight budget, can that possibly be good for my family? All this and more roiled through my mind as we drove home, and suddenly there I found myself, standing in the kitchen, thinking about millions upon millions of miserable pigs and cows and chickens in their tiny, filthy cages; about the 28 ingredients (some of which are actually toxic chemicals) which are apparently in my kids’ McNuggets; the ten teaspoons of high-fructose corn syrup in my husband’s can of Coke; and the time and energy it would require for me to figure out ways to replace or avoid these terrors. On top of everything I’m already worried about.

I eagerly read to the end of Pollan’s book, hoping that after posing the big questions he would have come up with an equally big answer. No such luck. Pollan begins the book with a McDonald’s meal eaten by his family in their car. He ends the book with a meal consisting entirely of food he had grown, gathered, killed, slaughtered, prepared, cooked, and served himself. He makes it clear that, to him, these are two extreme ends of the spectrum. Neither is the way we should all eat every day, he affirms. Somewhere in between is a happy medium, where people are conscious and thoughtful about the food they buy and eat, aware of what it takes to get to their table, and willing to spend a bit more time, trouble, and money, to improve their choices.

Somewhere is the happy medium. If you find it, please let me know.

Vrrrrroom

2008-01-06T16:53:00.000-08:00

My husband is building a sports car in our garage. He started more than two years ago and it looks to me like it will be at least another couple of years to completion (if ever). I like cars as much as the next girl, but reading this book has given me some useful insights into the pile of metal and rubber and electrical wiring sharing my home:

“Roadster: How (and Especially Why) a Mechanical Novice Built a Sports Car from a Kit,” by Chris Goodrich

In his mid-30s, journalist Chris Goodrich decides there's something missing in his life and decides to build the most retro of sports cars, a Lotus Seven, from scratch, from a kit. He's hardly a gearhead - in fact, he's never done anything like this before. This delightful little book is, as its subtitle suggests, a description of both how he did it and why, which would be entertaining enough on its own. There's an unexpected bonus as you work your way through the book, though. The journalist in Goodrich lets no detail go unnoticed and answers every question an inquisitive reader might have, taking many side trips along the way. In this manner we get not only the history of the Lotus Seven and the company which currently distributes them in the U.S., Caterham; we also get long musings on the appeal of the strange little car, with quotes from publications and other books. We get chapters on the Ford Motor Company and the effect the development of the assembly line has had on modern society and industry. Everything is grist to Goodrich's mill: the television show "The Prisoner," Robert Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," the early life experiences and philosophies of Simone Weil, Thoreau's "Walden," Aldous Huxley, Zen philosophy -- the list goes on.

Throughout, of course, the Lotus gets built, with all the frustrations, hilarities, and minor and major accomplishments such a project would suggest in a novice car builder. Readers who have experienced owning a classic British car will ruefully recognize the motley crew of philosopher-mechanics, sellers of obscure and outmoded parts, and fanatical fellow owners who populate the pages in which Goodrich painstakingly assembles the gigantic jigsaw puzzle which will be his new Lotus. When I first met my husband, he owned an MGB in working condition, and an MGA, a bug-eyed Sprite, and a Mini Cooper S which were not. I can assure you that Goodrich's half-humorous, half-reverential portrait of the British car ownership subculture in America is dead on. Take, for example, this passage from the chapter in which Goodrich need to tighten some suspension bolts:

"Minor trouble, at first: The differential's breather tube, which prevents differential fluid from becoming overpressurized, broke off when I tried to install it. Why? Maybe because I could never find the tube's 'pips,' which are supposed to align with... well, the manual never said. Which at least was consistent, since the pips - a word I associate with apples and Sherlock Holmes, and which my dictionary defines as 'spot; speck' - seemed to be non-existent, too. Chris sent me another breather tube, and more importantly, an installation hint. Slip the breather tube through the hole in the back of a good-sized wrench socket; the socket provides purchase on the tube without stressing its sealing flange. A crafty maneuver, eminently logical, and just the sort of inside dope you're not likely to pick up on your own, that makes expertise expensive."

Even if you didn't understand most of what was just said in this passage -- and there were plenty of times when I didn't have a clue what Goodrich was talking about, mechanically speaking -- the humor and insight comes through loud and clear. You don't have to be an amateur mechanic or even interested in car engines to enjoy reading this book. There's plenty in it in the way of musings on modern life and the way people's minds and emotions work to keep readers interested even as Goodrich is up to his elbows in grease. The thrill of victory when he fires up the engine for the first time -- an engine he assembled himself -- is something anyone can relate to who's surprised themselves by accomplishing something they didn't think they could. The personal voyage Goodrich experiences through building the car is one every intellectual person who lives a life largely of the mind dreams of achieving through an act of manual labor and creation such as this. The difference is Goodrich actually did it, and was able to communicate in the pages of his book all the excitement, apprehension, uncertainty, joy, frustration and, yes, triumph he experienced along the way.

2007-12-24T07:50:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year -- time for shopping and cooking, traveling and hosting guests, planning and attending parties, baking and wrapping, listening to and singing carols, playing games and watching Charlie Brown TV specials. We don't always have time to read, or to write about reading.

When I say I don't have time to read, that isn't technically true. I always have time to read, and if I don't, I make time, usually at the expense of sleep or personal hygiene. What I mean is I don't always have time to read the books I blog about, because my daily minimum reading requirement includes a couple of newspapers (yes, they still exist) and the latest issues of the New Yorker (which I consider required reading for life), Vanity Fair, Entertainment Weekly (the best way to keep up with pop culture), and Newsweek. It adds up, and sometimes the book or books I'm currently embroiled in are set aside for a day or two. Having dealt with affairs of state and the affairs of the rich and famous, I can then get back to my true love -- the novel.

This is quite literally my favorite time of year. Yesterday, Dec. 23, is my favorite day of the year. More than Christmas Day, you ask? Well, yes, actually, because on Dec. 23, generally, work is done, school is out, but it's still not Christmas. It's that delicious day of anticipation and excitement, when the goodwill-to-all glow starts taking over and people smile at you in the street. Most of your gifts are wrapped and the pile is growing under the tree. Maybe you have one last gift to pick up, but that's fun too, braving the crowds at the decorated mall and watching babies burst into tears as they're plonked on Santa's lap. You've shopped for the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day meals, and the ingredients are overflowing the refrigerator and pantry shelves, waiting for you to chop and slice and mix and blend into specialties you only make once a year. It's cold enough for your favorite scarf, but here in Southern California the sun is shining brightly.

All this is to say, I have been too busy to finish the novel I'm currently reading to blog about it. (I'm not the only one -- my favorite blogger, Domestic Irritation, hasn't posted since Thanksgiving!) But the good news is, it's vacation time. Once the craziness of Dec. 25 is over, ten glorious days stretch ahead of us with almost nothing to do but visit with family, watch movies, take visitors sightseeing, and -- READ. So watch this space.

I wish very happy holidays to all, peace on earth, goodwill towards life forms of all kinds. (Except maybe those ants marching across our bathtub. I would feel more goodwill toward them if they would just leave.) And remember -- you don't have to be religious to be nice to people, and you don't have to be nice to people just one day a year.

105 Things A Mom Says Every Day

2007-12-06T20:59:00.000-08:00

Repeat as necessary:

Rise and shine!
Wake up.
Time to wake up!
Are you up?
Get up, please.
What do you want for breakfast?
Don’t spill.
Be careful.
Hold it with both hands, please.
Eat some more.
Two more bites.
Okay, one more bite.
Just one more bite.
Just taste it.
Finish your juice.
Finish your milk.
Clear your plate.
Brush your teeth.
Did you wash your face?
Wash your face.
How can you brush your teeth and not wash your face?
Let’s go.
Now!
Hurry up.
We’re going to be late.
Hurry up.
Do you have your homework?
Do you have your lunchbox?
Do you have your jacket?
Take your jacket.
It’s chilly outside.
No, really, you’ll be cold.
OK fine. Let’s go.
Wait for me, please.
Don’t run into the street.
There could be cars coming.
Wait, please.
I said wait!
Get in the car.
Get in your seat.
Are you buckled in?
Okay, go get your jacket.
No, we won’t leave without you.
We’re going to be late.
Quiet, please.
Don't tease your sister.
Don't bother your sister.
Don’t yell at your sister.
Don't poke your sister.
Share, please.
Be nice.
There’s enough for both of you.
Quiet, please.
No yelling.
No screaming.
No fighting.
If you don’t stop fighting, Mommy is going to start screaming and she won’t be able to stop.
Thank you.
Have you done your homework?
Do your homework.
Is your homework done yet?
Do your homework.
Finish your homework.
Please finish your homework.
Stop bothering your sister.
Don’t distract your sister.
Is your homework finished?
No, you can’t have a snack.
No, you can’t have candy for dinner.
No, you can’t have cereal for dinner.
Eat your vegetables.
Eat one vegetable.
Eat four bites.
OK, three bites.
OK, two bites.
Just take one bite.
Just taste it.
What kind of cereal do you want for dinner?
It's bath time.
Get in here.
Take off your clothes.
I said get in here.
If you're not in here in one minute…
No splashing.
No splashing!
Please don't drink the bathwater.
No drinking the bathwater!
Stand still.
Bend over.
Look up.
Sit down.
Stand still!
Get in here.
Get in here!
Good night.
I love you.
Who’s my baby?
You’re my baby.
Who loves you?
Mommy loves you.
You’re the best.
You’re the cutest.
You’re the smartest.
I love you.

“The Flamenco Academy,” by Sarah Bird

2007-11-26T18:07:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine who knows I began taking Flamenco dance lessons this year gave me this novel for my birthday, and with the lust of a new convert I read it immediately. It’s a good book, well written and interesting. But if you’re not particularly interested in Flamenco, there’s way too much Flamenco in this book. On the other hand, if, like me, you can’t get enough, then maybe it takes too long to get into the Flamenco and doesn’t go into it deeply enough.

To be fair, I should probably read an in-depth history of Flamenco as well as an illustrated Flamenco encyclopedia, the poems of Federico Garcia Lorca and many other sources noted in this book and others. I intend to, but for the moment the background story in “The Flamenco Academy” is the richest source of Flamenco information I’ve read so far.

Couching all this Flamenco lore is a fairly traditional love triangle featuring a refreshingly untraditional cast of characters. There’s Rae, the heroine of our story, a brainy but socially inept teenager whose sweet father is dying of cancer. She faces the horrible prospect of life alone with her psycho mother, whose solution to her severe neuroses is falling in with a reactionary Christian cult. At the cancer clinic Rae meets Didi, and the only thing they appear to have in common is Didi’s father is also dying, leaving her to the casual care of her Filipino mother, who is more interested in selling off all her dead husband’s possessions on eBay than taking care of her outrageous daughter.

Rae and Didi fall into a symbiotic friendship – Rae helps Didi pass school and keep a job, while Didi brings glamour, excitement, and even danger into Rae’s life. All Didi wants is to be famous, and all Rae wants is to be loved. Rae knows from the start this will likely end in tears, but what does she have to lose, especially after her own mother abandons her to go live with her fellow Christian crazies?

It’s as they’re muddling through their weird routine that Rae meets someone who will change their lives forever. Acting as wingman to Didi at a party, she stumbles across a gorgous and mysterious young man playing the guitar in a way unlike she has ever heard before. The music transports her, the man hypnotizes her, and she is instantly in love with both. It’s at this point the Flamenco finally comes into the story.

She doesn’t know his name, but they spend a few amazing hours together and before he disappears he tells her that it is the worst night of his life. Reluctantly, Rae confides in Didi, and together they discover the mystery man is Tomas Montenegro, rising young star of Flamenco guitar. With this discovery, Rae’s life takes on a new focus. Before she can find Tomas and make him her own, she must turn herself into someone worthy of his love.

Rae learns everything she can about Flamenco and enrolls in the University of New Mexico’s Flamenco program (which actually exists), where her first teacher is – coincidence! – Tomas’s aunt. In the course of turning herself into the best Flamenco dancer in the program, Rae is absorbed deeper and deeper into Tomas’s world – the world of Flamenco, with its centuries-long history rooted in the gypsy diaspora, its arcane and revered traditions, its specific musical and rhythmic patterns, and its reliance on the baring of the most painful depths of the soul to achieve the ultimate artistic expression of emotion.

Rae’s headlong fall into Flamenco is marred by one detail – at first she tagged along only to support her friend, but soon Didi is immersed as well, and outshining Rae. Where Rae is technically perfect, Didi is sloppy, but she’s really good at the soul-baring part. She sees the opportunity to combine Flamenco and poetry into a hybrid performance art she can make her own, her ticket to the stardom she has always craved. By the time Tomas comes back into both their lives, the stage is set for a collision.

When I began Flamenco lessons, my joy at discovering this amazing new world and wanting to become a part of it was infectious. But I quickly learned to stop babbling about it to all my friends and instead start guarding my secret jealously. I found that I could not bear to share Flamenco with anyone else, that I wanted it all to myself. So I acutely felt Rae’s pain when she realized Didi was horning in on her new obsession – and beating her at it. Were I younger and childless, I could easily see Flamenco becoming an obsession. I wouldn’t want to share it either.

"Playing for Pizza," by John Grisham

2007-11-20T11:05:00.000-08:00

Grisham should stick to lawyering.

OK, I know it was foolish of me to expect too much from John Grisham, who was just barely above a hack to begin with and has plummeted into complete hackery in the past ten books or so. But I admit it, I’m a sucker for fish-out-of-water, let’s-move-to-Europe stories, and the cover was pretty. Well, we all know what happens when’s that your criteria.

The most recent fad in books about moving to Europe really started with Peter Mayle’s “A Year in Provence,” which he has turned into a cottage industry. Frances Mayes’ “Under the Tuscan Sun” sealed the deal, and since then budding writers have descended upon more and more obscure Old World villages, hoping to find a broken-down shack to remodel into a palace while getting to know the colorfully eccentric locals and be accepted as one of them. Accordingly, property values in Provence and Tuscany have soared and those locals are now adept at wringing every dollar they can out of gullible house hunters.

Because I lived in Europe for three years and hope to do so again some day, I really enjoy this genre of books. Some are better written than others or have better stories to tell. In both these areas Grisham’s novel falls resoundingly flat. And yet, the idea has promise. Rick Dockery, a third-string quarterback in the NFL with what seems to me a perfectly reasonable fear of hard tackles, gets hammered in an important playoff game after throwing three consecutive interceptions to lose the game. Battered and humiliated, he’s cut from the team and no one else wants to sign him. He’s receiving death threats from irate fans and even his own family doesn't want him to come home. His agent manages to swing him a paying job with the Parma Panthers, a semi-professional American football team in the land of pasta and soccer, so off he goes to Italy.

It's at this point that the book starts to deflate. Grisham, who if nothing else understands the nuances of America culture and business and the mind of the American male, is very good at setting up the story as long as Dockery is still in the U.S. Once he arrives in Italy, the colors in the picture begin to flatten, as if Rick is seeing Italy through a foggy lens. This is especially disappointing since in books like these the opposite generally happens. An unreconstructed U.S. male, Rick is unimpressed by most of what Italy has to offer. He learns to drive a stick shift on the narrow streets. He discovers the joys of Italian food (here, at least, Grisham seems to have done his homework). He sees an opera for the first time. All go by leaving little mark on his soul.

In one of the most bizarre episodes in the book, Rick meets and pursues a beautiful Italian opera singer (yes, they do exist). They have a few date; she has a mysterious boyfriend who makes her unhappy. It all seems set for a dramatic denouement, but instead, after she stands him up, he ends it with a text message, of all things, telling her ungallantly, “I’ve been stiffed by better women.” Is this supposed to make him more likable to us?

The football scenes are well crafted – again, something Grisham presumably knows a lot about. Each of the Italian players, and the expat Americans as well, has the potential to be an interesting character, as are the American coach and Italian owner. But again, Grisham seems to viewing them through a scrim. Details are not forthcoming.

Rick meets an American student spending a year in Italy and they fall into a relationship that starts with casual drunken sex and develops into her dragging him against his will to endless museums and cathedrals he has no interest in. As with every other character in this book, Livvy is a mystery that is never solved. She has family problems and doesn't want to go home. These problems get so bad a private investigator shows upon Rick’s doorstep one day looking for her. She’s not there, Rick tells them so, and they go away. What are her family problems? Grisham doesn't think it’s very important for us to know.

Rick’s agent tells him an arena football team in Canada wants him. It’s a lot more money and closer to the real thing. Will Rick leave Italy? Dramatic tension, such as it is, is also provided by the natural structure of a football season – will the Panthers make the playoffs? Will they go to the Italian Super Bowl and beat historic rivals Bergamo? Will Rick overcome his fear of pain and learn what it means to really put it on the line for your teammates? I mean, really -- what do you think? And honestly, at this point, what do we care?

Reading this book was like eating the bread without being offered the oil and vinegar to dip it in. It was like pasta without Parmesan cheese, or melon without prosciutto. It was like… you get the idea.

If you want to read some good books about travel and living in Europe, check these out:
"A Year in Provence," by Peter Mayle
"A Year in the Merde," by Stephen Clarke
"Under the Tuscan Sun," by Frances Mayes
"Paris to the Moon," by Adam Gopnik
"The Innocents Abroad," by Mark Twain
"A Small Place in Italy" and anything else by Eric Newby
"Notes from a Small Island," by Bill Bryson
"Ciao, America!" by Beppe Severgnini
"The Reluctant Tuscan," by Phil Doran
"Italian Neighbors," by Tim Parks

Quick Reviews: "Wild Fire" and "The Whole World Over"

2007-11-13T20:29:00.001-08:00

“Wild Fire” by Nelson DeMille
I am a big fan of Nelson DeMille’s thrillers, which are usually well researched, well-written, fast-paced, and suspenseful. Through him I have learned a lot about Soviet spies (The Charm School), the Mafia (The Gold Coast), biological warfare (Plum Island), plane crashes (Night Fall), terrorism (The Lion’s Game), the Vietnam War (Up Country), military justice (The General’s Daughter), and even, God help me, how to fly a gigantic airplane full of brain-damaged people with a big hole in it at 60,000 feet (Mayday).

I was a little disappointed that at the end of “Night Fall,” the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, brought an abrupt stop to the proceedings, a plot device more and more authors seem to be relying on, which we’ll see later in this review. So I approached “Wild Fire” warily, and have to say that DeMille has not won me back with this book. As usual, it’s full of technical detail and suspense, and Detective John Corey, now working with the Anti-Terrorism Task Force, is fond of ripping off sardonic one-liners, even (or especially) in the face of death, that make you laugh out loud. But DeMille has clearly been watching too many James Bond movies, and one-liners notwithstanding, I don’t mean that as a compliment.

First, when Corey’s friend and colleague Harry Muller stumbles onto a right-wing loony bin plotting to secretly explode a nuclear “suitcase bomb” in an American city in order to set off the government’s preprogrammed massive response and annihilate the Muslim world, DeMille makes use of the oldest cliché in the book. Although they know they’re going to kill him, the bad guys spend a great deal of time explaining to Muller in excruciating detail every nuance of their evil plan, lamely justifying this by claiming they “need to hear it for themselves, out loud” so they know what they’re getting into. Having spent about a quarter of the book exploiting poor Harry as an substitute for exposition, DeMille promptly kills him offstage, and enter John Corey and his wife to investigate.

That part moves along quickly and is more or less believable, and entertaining. (I loved the moment when Corey casually scares the crap out of a tough-looking security guard with an air horn upon entering the property for a visit.) But then comes the denouement of the entire novel, and I trust I will not spoil anyone’s fun by revealing that it all hinges on – get this – a COUNTDOWN CLOCK. The minutes tick by to annihilation as our heroes struggle to free themselves, etc, etc, and I was just about ready to puke. Need I tell you they succeed with JUST SECONDS TO GO?!? I mean, please.

“The Whole World Over” by Julia Glass
This is the first novel by Julia Glass I read, and I found a lot to like in it. She’s good at sketching characters with salient details, and exploring human emotions in a fairly deep and insightful manner. Her cast of New Yorkers, revolving around Greenwich Village chef Greenie Duquette, is wildly complex and some are even mysterious. But it’s a basic error of storytelling to not reveal the secrets, somehow or other, by the end of the story. Glass may feel she has done so, but I for one was left unsatisfied.

Greenie and her therapist husband, Alan, are having troubles, and so on a whim she escapes with their son to become the private chef of the governor of New Mexico. Also left behind is Greenie’s gay friend, restaurateur Walter, who is dealing with issues of his own in relationships and mentoring his teenage nephew, Scott. Into all their lives stumbles Saga, a mentally damaged young woman with a mystery she and the reader both try to solve.

Although it did keep me turning the pages, one of the problems I had with the book was that some of the characters I think I was supposed to find sympathetic I emphatically did not. Chief among these, and most troublesome, is Greenie’s bereft husband, Alan, and I was delighted when she fell in with an old flame she ran into in New Mexico, and the odious Alan appeared to be finally out of the picture.

Other characters develop in one direction and then take a sudden turn in another, like Saga’s kindly old uncle, who at first appears devoted to her welfare and their bizarre but peaceful cohabitation, but then appears to do a complete about-face upon hearing he is about to become a grandfather. I know people act like this in real life, but in a novel I like my surprises to be pleasant ones.

Nevertheless, I was going along for the ride, eager to find out whether Greenie would find love, Walter would get back together with his old boyfriend and keep his nephew on the straight and narrow, Saga’s life would take a turn for the better, and then…

That’s right, the planes hit the Twin Towers. And everything changed.

* sigh *

Look, I have no doubt that on that terrible day life did in fact change for a great many people, especially those living in New York (and Baghdad, too, by the way). I am not unsympathetic to the myriad possibilities offered to writers by this ex machina scenario that literally falls into your lap. But how many New York writers are going to mine this plot twist for all it’s worth? At least in this novel, it was too easy. The towers fell, and suddenly everybody is different. Problems are resolved too easily, and not always satisfyingly. Is this what life is like? Maybe for the people in New York still reeling from the aftereffects of the attack. The rest of us want to move on. Is that so wrong?

"The Harsh Cry of the Heron," by Lian Hearn

2007-11-04T10:09:00.000-08:00

In this fourth installment of Lian Hearn’s "Tales of the Otori," the epic story of Lord Otori Takeo comes to an end. It clocks in at 631 pages and includes a wide sweep of characters, both living and undead, politics, religion, war, the supernatural, and family drama. If you read the other three books in this series, originally intended for young adults, then this is the book that ties them all up, mostly satisfactorily. If you haven’t followed Takeo’s story to date you’ll start out hopelessly confused. But the plot lines in this novel quickly take on their own lives and spin together toward a dramatic conclusion.

Takeo is a character who bridges many worlds. Born into poverty, he is now the wealthy and powerful ruler of the Three Countries. He is at once one of the Hidden, a secret sect that follows a religion much like early Christianity, and a member of the Tribe, a warrior sect with supernatural powers. These various worlds collide in him as all lay claim on his loyalty and favor, while he tries to govern wisely and do his best for his family, his beloved wide Kaede and their children. Mindful of an early prophecy that only his own son could kill him (reminiscent of the legend of KingArthur), he is more than usually grateful to have only daughters by Kaede, even though two are twins, normally considered bad luck in feudal Japan.

The large cast of characters can be confusing at times, especially if you are not used to Japanese names. Kaede’s family as well as members of the Tribe plot against Takeo, and ally themselves with Barbarian missionaries from Portugal who are making first contact in the far east, spreading their knowledge of technology and weaponry as well as their religion. Even the Emperor’s tacit blessing cannot protect Takeo from those trying to undermine him. He doesn’t help his case by refusing to force his eldest daughter, Shigeko, to marry a powerful nobleman, insisting instead that she will inherit his realms. Takeo desperately tries to avoid war, placing his hopes on diplomacy and negotiation even as he is being betrayed.

As for the twins, Miki and Maya, the populace’s fear of their twin-ness is not alleviated by the growing realization that something is very wrong with Maya – not only can she kill people and animals just by looking in their eyes, but she seems to absorb their spirit into herself, which becomes particularly troublesome when a cat’s spirit gives her the power to transform into a larger version of the animal itself.

Animals play a large and symbolic role throughout the novel. The peace and prosperity of Takeo’s realm is symbolized by the houou, legendary birds who are once again nesting at Terayama, and a mythical beast called a kirin (most likely a giraffe) is brought to their shores first as a gift for Takeo and then later as a gift for the emperor. This gentle animal inspires wonder wherever it goes, and its fate turns out to be closely tied to Takeo’s.

Hearn is good at adding twists to what could be a fairly conventional adventure fantasy story in a foreign place and time. Instead of being stock characters, his have many shades of personality. The good guys are not always likeable, the bad guys often understandable. Near the end of the book, for example, Takeo’s saintly wife Kaede takes an unexpected turn that shocks the reader even as you see it coming. And considering the many sacrifices that have to be made for the peace of the realm and to secure Takeo’s legacy, the ending cannot be described as a fully happy one.

The most frustrating part of this book is how long it took me to read it – I could not turn the pages fast enough to reach the bittersweet conclusion. Hearn’s next book, “Heaven’s Net is Wide,” billed as a prequel to "Tales of the Otori," is already in publication. I, for one, can’t wait to read it.

No retreat, no surrender

2007-10-30T12:27:00.000-07:00

An old love affair was rekindled last night.

No, I didn't run into an old college flame. Well, actually, maybe I did.

A few weeks shy of my 40th birthday, I had a busy day. I made breakfast and packed lunches and drove my kids to school, cleaned up the house and put up Halloween decorations, and then worked all morning while doing a few loads of laundry. Sometime after lunch, I finally closed my laptop, took a long shower, and spent more time than I usually do getting dressed and doing my hair. I even put on a tiny bit of makeup. I put on black pants and boots and a slinky top. I picked up the girls from school and dropped them off at their grandmother’s house. Then I stopped by the ATM for some cash, gassed up the minivan and pointed it toward Los Angeles.

Alone, I drove past the recent burn zone around Camp Pendleton, through Orange County, and past the refineries to the Los Angeles Sports Arena in delightfully picturesque (not!) downtown L.A. I parked, stretched, and walked inside, showing my ticket and allowing my purse to be searched. Having not had enough time to pick up something to eat along the way, I spent a ridiculous amount of money on a truly foul chicken burrito and a gigantic bag of kettle corn, of which I ate about one-eighth. I visited the souvenir booth and spent more cash on a concert t-shirt. (They make them in girlie styles now, thank goodness.)

Finding my seat, I finally had some time to sit and look around. The L.A. Sports Arena is a lot like the San Diego Sports Arena – both about the same size and age, designed for hockey. The seats are old and battered and a faint aroma of sweat and mildew hangs in the air. As the beginning of the concert approached, more fans filed in and took their seats. I grew faintly depressed. Were these my peers? Potbellied hippie types, slick-looking middle-aged men, carefully preserved frosted blonde women or tough-looking former biker chicks with fading tattoos. Some brought their kids. There were many retarded adolescents with graying ponytails, high-tops, and t-shirts from other concerts. They all checked their Blackberries constantly and talked about their kids and health insurance, or babbled about “the new album,” which I actually don’t like that much.

As another half hour passed, I sent a text to my husband to check that he and the girls were OK. Ridiculously, I found I missed them. He didn’t answer, which made me faintly worried. I started yawning. My bedtime was approaching. I felt old and tired. What was I even doing here? All dressed up, ridiculous. Like he’s going to see me from the stage. Some fans sitting in my section looked at me curiously as they made their way to their seats. What was I doing there, alone? I began to feel pathetic. I thought about the long drive home, late at night, how tired I would be, how dangerous it was to drive under those conditions, how irresponsible when I have two little girls waiting for me at home. I became convinced this was all a big, expensive mistake. I even thought about getting up and leaving.

The crowd became restless, and started chanting and clapping. In spite of myself, the surge of sound and emotion raised the hair on my arms a little bit. I was in the middle of another yawn when the lights went out and the roar came up from the crowd. Band members filed onto the stage and the crowd roared louder as each recognizable figure took his or her position. When the leader of the band – the boss, if you will – arrived, I knew my ears would be ringing for days after this concert was over.

OK, yes, I have been a Bruce Springsteen fan since 1980. (Do the math. I was 12 years old when I first heard “Hungry Heart,” and that was that.) I was particularly immersed in his music during my college years. I won’t bore you with well-worn paeans to his authenticity and integrity, the genuineness of his music and his love of this country and its people. But I will say this – anyone, Bruce fan or not, can tell you that there are few performers on earth who give a better live show than this man and his band. Starting when I moved to the U.S. in 1984, I’ve seen every show he’s given in whatever city I was living in at the time. I don’t know how many shows that makes in total… maybe 20?

Thanks to a friend of a friend, I was sitting closer to the stage than I ever have before. (How do those people in the very front actually GET there, anyway? I hated those people when I was eighteen, and I still hate them now.) It was close enough that I spent more time watching him than watching his image on the giant video screens, which at an arena is quite an achievement. If you could ignore the other 24,999 people in the room, it felt quite intimate. From my vantage point at the side of the stage (Loge 27), I could watch him dash back to the drum riser and sip water from plastic cups, and douse himself down with a sponge full of cold water.

The man is nearly 60 now. The show is just over two hours now, instead of nearly five hours as used to be in the old days. He appeared to have a cold (eewww -- don’t ask how I could tell). But he hasn’t lost his touch. The set list was a good mix of songs from his new album “Magic” and golden oldies. Most of the crowd, including me, stood still or even sat during most of the new songs, and leapt to their feet and roared along for every syllable of the old songs. The irony of this cannot be lost on Bruce, or us. Do we, the 40- to 60-year-olds on stage and in the audience, still ride on the backstreets? Are we still dancing in the dark? Do we still believe in the promised land? Do any of us, for goodness’ sake, still work on the highway or even feel any solidarity or sympathy for the poor sap who does? And are we still tramps, who were born to run?

Of course not. But that isn’t the point. I once read a review of a Bruce concert in which the writer tried to neatly sum up the appeal of Springsteen on stage: “When Bruce is singing, every man is his brother, every woman his lover.” Springsteen has that quality shared by all charismatic superstars, from Bill Clinton to Placido Domingo: no matter the size of the room or the size of the crowd, he makes you feel like you are the only other person in the room, alone with him in a rare moment of intimacy. At every Bruce show I’ve ever attended, even when I was sitting so far away I may as well have been in the next county, I have always felt he was singing directly to me. Every fan in the arena feels the same way, which is why after all these years we get in our minivans and SUVs and pickup trucks and BMWs and Volvos and VW Beetles (the old ones as well as the new ones) and gather at these smelly arenas.

Last night, after the crowd brought the band out for its set of encores, Bruce paid us the highest compliment possible. We had called to him not with indiscriminate clapping and yelling, or even the familiar mating call of “Bruuuuuuuuuuce” which sounds so much like booing to the uninitiated, but with the final lilting “Woah-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh” chorus from “Badlands,” which we chanted over and over until the band reappeared. Shaking his head in admiration, he said into the mike, “Man, that was old school!” I’ve never been referred to as old school before, and I never thought I would want to. But I’ll take old school over just plain old anytime.