By abebooks.com, I Sat Down And Wept...

Oh hell, I'm all over the place when it comes to my reading life right now: What I'm reading, what I'm sort of dipping into, and what I'm jonesing for.

WHAT I'M READING:
All 5 Harry Potter books. Not at once. I just finished HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE last night. Now I'm reading HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS.

I got interested in Harry Potter when Shanghai and I took the ferry to Japan & back & they showed THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS. Both ways, so although I dozed through both showings, if you put it all together, I did see the whole movie.

A day or so later, bookcrossing.com mentioned that J.K. Rowling had just delivered the newest manuscript to the publisher, so my interest leaked out verbally to Shanghai, who just happens to have all 5 of the published books on her shelf!

A few years ago, when the Harry Potter craze was starting to really go full-tilt, I started to read HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE. In those first pages, in which Harry's horrible relatives, the Dursleys, are described, I became really annoyed because it seemed so much like Rowling was ripping off Roald Dahl. I'm usually pleased when I detect an influence (Don Robertson/Stephen King), but this time I was just annoyed, so I put the book down.

Meanwhile, Manfred, Sr., who usually votes in the Hugo (best science fiction novel) selection, was also reading a Harry Potter book because it was on the ballot. I have a vague memory of him acting as if it were time wasted.

Thinking of Manfred, Sr. of course leads to thoughts of Manfred, Jr.: I don't know if he's read all five books or not, but I do know he's read at least two or three. (I miss knowing Manfred, Jr.'s reading habits intimately. All the way from babyhood up to sixth grade, we read almost everything together in the evenings.)

Anyway, I'm on the second book now, and I'm not so annoyed by the obvious Dahl influence anymore.

WHAT I'M SORT OF DIPPING INTO:
HERE ON EARTH by Alice Hoffman. This is also from Shanghai's bookshelf. It's true that I still have stuff of my own that I brought that I could be reading (AMISH SOCIETY, FIGHT CLUB) but since the nearest bookstore with English-language books is more than a frickin' half-hour away by train, it's emotionally therapeutic and soothing to browse Shanghai's shelves without even having to get dressed. Besides, I won't be staying with her forever, and when I come to visit, wouldn't it be rude to ignore her and focus monomaniacally on the contents of her shelves?

But back to the Hoffman book. I'm annoyed that the main character has a funny first name (March), but the writing is very nice, not too much description, nicely broken up with chunks of dialogue. We'll see how it goes. I started a Hoffman novel a few years ago called TURTLE MOON and got sidetracked by another book. Since it was a library copy, I had to take it back after the second or third threatening note OR when the librarian denied me access to other books; I can't remember which.

WHAT I'M JONESING FOR:
By GRAND CENTRAL STATION, I SAT DOWN AND WEPT. A novel by Elizabeth Smart, Canadian author, (1913-1986), not to be confused with the young kidnap victim from Utah, who was born in 1987.

BY HEART: A LIFE OF ELIZABETH SMART. A biography of the author by Rosemary Sullivan. I think it was published in 1991 or 1992.

ON THE SIDE OF ANGELS. A documentary about Elizabeth Smart. Directed by Maya Gallus. Also came out in 1991.

God, I was so hoping that this longing, this jonesing wouldn't happen to me in a foreign country, where getting books feels so difficult. It's bad enough when I'm in the US with many well-stocked bookstores, both new and used in comfortable driving distance. Not to mention reasonable mailing rates/receiving times. And I'm trying not to think about the library and interlibrary loan.

Oh well...if you're gonna jones for a book, why not make it two? Why not throw in an already hard-to-find documentary, just for interest? I can make myself so miserable in a literary way, but in a perverse way, it feels natural, normal, and yes, even nice.

Thanks, Teeter!

I went back to the bookstore last Wednesday night and pounced on their only copy of A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN. I finally finished it last night. I would've finished it sooner, but I went to Japan with Shanghai and left the book behind because I didn't have enough room for it in my backpack. It was like an amputation. I took NEVERWHERE by Neil Gaiman as a substitute, but it was no TREE. I ended up not reading at all, and I did have some down time.

Anyway, as I wrote, I finished TREE last night. I haven't been able to start another book today because I feel like nothing will be as good as it was. Being in this sort of mood about books isn't good.

One of the greatest things about A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN is that Betty Smith created in painstaking detail what it was like to live in a tenament in turn-of-the-century Brooklyn. It's like Steinbeck and his books with that anthropological detail. Another great thing is the characterization. I think this stems from Smith's many years of being a playwright. The dialogue she writes makes the characters realize and define themselves. Their thoughts are also written as dialogue, except interior dialogue.

I haven't seen the movie (but now I really want to!) but I have read that it's a well-done effort by Elia Kazan, and also his first picture. Contributing to its success no doubt was the episodic way the novel was written. Although it's a novel, it has the strong feel of a play without feeling stagey. It's really the perfect combination of a novel and a play. All of this surely lent itself well to cinematic adaptation.

I hardly know how to praise the book. It's like being in love; you want to go on and on, but it starts to sound like romantic burbling. Was Teeter right or what? I should let her pick out all my books for me!

I noticed, Steve! I noticed!!!

I'm really excited. I've been reading CHRISTINE by Stephen King, and I found where he paid homage to Don Robertson. One of the minor, yet meaningful characters lives in Paradise Falls, Ohio! Paradise Falls is Don Robertson's fictional town and also the title of what many feel is his best book. It's probably his biggest, and pretty damn good too, but my vote for best is the Morris Bird III trilogy.

Anyway, I love how writers will slip stuff in just to see if anyone noticed. I noticed, Steve! I noticed!

Today, as far as novel-reading is concerned, I feel like DA BOMB!!!

Drooling Dreams Of Book-Buying

The woman I'm staying with until my apartment is ready (I'll call her "Shanghai" in this blog) made a stunning announcement last night: She's going to the United States next month, and she has vowed that she's going to spend $500 on books! She'll buy books then mail them to herself here in Korea. 500 bucks! You go, girl!

This sum sounded like it would translate into a mountain of books, but then Shanghai and I got out the calculator and did the math. If every book she bought was around 15 bucks, she could buy 33 books for $495. Now, thirty-three's a lot, but it's not a mountain. As she pointed out, "At one book a week, that would only last me about 8 months." She was allowing for a couple of more books to make it an even 35, because she said she didn't mind going a little bit over $500. Damn, me neither...if it were my $500, I mean.

The thought of Shanghai's book quest made my head swim and my resolve firm. I, too, will return to the US one day and allow hundreds of dollars for book shopping. I'll go armed with a list. I'll sprawl on the floor of the biography section, eyes upward, mouth slack and just let all the book covers and their titles wash over me. I'll go to every used bookstore in my path and breathe in the scent of old glue and paper until I'm intoxicated. I'll buy books in a fever till the money's gone, mail them to myself in Korea, then approximately 6 weeks to 2 months later, I'll open up my packages, completely and utterly happy.

Happy Bookstore Birthday

Today was my birthday, my first alone in a foreign country. What's a booklover like me to do? I took the train to Daegu, which is about 30 minutes away. Daegu is a desirable location because there is Kyobo bookstore, a huge bookstore with a small but really nice English language books section. I was in heaven. I've been feeling so bookstore-deprived that I didn't even mind the crowd in that particular section and the fact that there's nowhere to plant your butt to read a few pages.

I dithered among several books, but finally chose CHRISTINE by Stephen King. It's one of his that I haven't read yet, and I think it'll be fun. Then I'll probably put it in a book swap at the next ESL teacher meet up on January 8.

They did have A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN as well, but I'm being stingy with myself so that I can make another trip to the bookstore soon and buy another book, which will most likely be A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN.
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Other books that I saw that I'm considering are: THE BROTHERS KARAMOTZOV by Dostoyevsky, THE WARDEN by Anthony Trollope , ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand , THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES by Sue Monk Kidd, GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING by Tracy Chevalier, and PASSING (1929) and QUICKSAND (1928) both novels by Nella Larsen, an African-American writer who was popular during the height of the Harlem Renaissance. This writer is a new discovery for me & I'm really quite excited.

Self-Help

I've been reading self-help books lately because Shanghai (the woman I'm staying with until my own apartment is ready) has quite a few of them. Also, she seems to be of the very firm opinion that I could use a little help.

Thinking back over my own beloved collection of books, now sitting in boxes in my mother's garage in Missouri, I can't recall any self-help books in it. Sure, there's a diet book or two, stuff about finding a new job, embarking on a new career, saving money...you bet...but real self-help? Of the self-esteem variety? Nope.

Since I like to think about why I do and don't read or buy certain books, I grasped onto this new wrinkle in my bookloving psyche with great enthusiasm. Here's the truth: I do read a self-help book every now and then. I either check it out from the library or read it in the bookstore. When I do the latter, I'm tucked away at a back couch or table so no one can see what I'm looking at. Then: (this is very bad, I know) I leave the book where it is for the store staff to find and reshelve.

The last self-help book I looked at on my own was YOUR OWN WORST ENEMY: BREAKING THE HABIT OF ADULT UNDERACHIEVEMENT by Ken Christian. I looked at the book in one of those unfortunate bookstores where there's no place to park your butt. I was reading along & I heard footsteps come up behind me, so I closed the book and hastily returned it to its proper place. Taking one seemingly-casual step over to the right, I found myself in the cookbook section, where I began to scrutinize the casserole recipe books.

So, why the reluctance to buy a self-help book, much less handle it as little as possible?

When I'm trying to figure out the inner workings of my mind, sometimes a song will float through it. This is often the key. As I was thinking about it, strains of Billie Holliday filled my head. She was singing "Nobody's Business". "...nobody's business/nobody's business/nobody's business if I do..."

Okay. So that means that I don't want anyone to know what? That I might be concerned with a character flaw that I'm hoping to correct? That I have the character flaw in the first place? Am I worried that if I take a book up to the counter to pay for it, the clerk will arch an eyebrow and think: "Yeah, she looks like she NEEDS to read this book!"

You gotta admit: Those self-help titles are really kind of revealing! Stuff like: HOW TO (then in really BIG letters) TAKE CARE OF THIS PROBLEM!!!! It's the printed equivalent of a megaphone, as far as I'm concerned. Especially when you get them home, read them, and put them on the bookshelf. Then people can come over, arch an eyebrow and go, "hmm..."

If I seem squeamish about regular self-help books, imagine how I am about self-help sex books. I bought one, once. This was in 1981, when I began dating Manfred, Sr. I wanted to bring myself up to speed on the subject. After all, Manfred, Sr. was four and a half years older, and a man of the world. The title of the book was THE SENSUOUS WOMAN by "J". I smuggled it home and read it cover to cover. Then, somehow, I lost it. I'm sure that I hid it from possible prying eyes so well that I hid it completely and forever from myself. A few years later when HOW TO MAKE LOVE TO A MAN came out, I knew I could never buy it because of that title. I was up to my usual tricks, peeking and reading furtively in the bookstore. Not a bad book, but it does cover a lot of the same material as THE SENSUOUS WOMAN.

I'll read my friend's self-help books, then that'll be my quota for the next few years. I'll read the ones she prescribed, and sneak looks at the sex ones, making sure that when I put them back on the shelf, they're lined up exactly with their shelf mates. In fact, if I really want to preserve my privacy, I could pull out another book slightly over the edge, to make it look like I was really reading about something else.

There it goes again, the raspy refrain: "nobody's business/nobody's business/nobody's business if I do..." Sing it, Billie.