March Was A Six-Book Month

1. The Boys in the Boat - Daniel James Brown. (nonfiction) Damn, this guy can write! I'm mad at myself for shying off of this book for several months. This is the true story of the scrappy University of Washington rowing crew that made it to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Another example of specimens from The Greatest Generation. Even better: Hugh Laurie's father makes a cameo as part of the British team! Such a great read. Damn, this Daniel James Brown can write. Okay, I already said that. Can't wait to read his next book.

2. Mess - Barry Yourgrau. (nonfiction) Barry, a writer and artist living in New York City, was a hoarder. Or was he? His apartment was messy, and when he wouldn't let his longtime girlfriend in, things got a bit tense. He decided to make a Project of his cleanup, which involved research. His writing style is sly, hip, witty -- I loved all of that. What annoyed me was his constant refrain that he took pictures of his mess. The book has no pictures! [Edited to add: Correction -- there is ONE picture. While duly doing his research about hoarders, Barry found out that he has an unfortunate?A hilarious? resemblance to the King of all Hoarders, Langley Collyer.] Also the bit about his girlfriend's pseudonym got a bit grating. I actually cringed whenever she appeared in the book. Use your real name or go park yourself somewhere less messy, girl.

3. Lucky - Alice Sebold. (memoir) When Sebold was a freshman in college, she was brutally beaten and raped one night when she was coming home from a party. This was only the beginning of her ordeal, as she has to deal with the police and her family and friend's reactions. I felt profoundly upset, especially at an unforgivable question her father asks her, right to her bruised and bloodied face, and I wasn't sure I could continue reading. Glad I hung in there, because her calm and cool testimony at the trial when the defense attorney is trying to make her look bad, was inspiring. Maybe that's the wrong word. I'm thinking of something like that, but much, much fiercer.

4. Chocolates for Breakfast - Pamela Moore. (novel) Published in 1956 when the author was just 18 years old, this novel has aged very well.  The book follows two years in the life of Courtney Farrell, ages 15-17 while she negotiates life on two coasts, disinterested parents and a cast of seedy and/or pathetic characters. It's brilliant in its frankness and tackles subjects that one assumes were off-limits in the mid-50s. Because of Moore's tragic and early end, it was tempting to read Chocolates for Breakfast as a sad road map. Happily, I got caught up in the story and didn't do that very often. This is a lost classic and it's good that it's been rediscovered. Now I want to know if Sylvia Plath read it when it came out. I have a strong sense that she did.

5. Ten Thousand Streets Under the Sky - Patrick Hamilton. (3 novellas, published as one novel) I'm still puzzled how Hamilton could be such a lush but still so observant. I suppose alcohol heightened his powers. Of course, this trilogy was written early on and published in 1935. This overlapping narrative of three young people who work at or frequent a pub called "The Midnight Bell" reminded me of both Dickens and Zola, except with Hamilton, there is no padding, no wasted words. He chronicles what he sees and gets right to the point. His other career as a playwright stood him in good stead. Highly recommended.

6. The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea - Yukio Mishima. I'll be honest; I didn't know what I was getting into. I only knew that I have loved the very title of this book for years and was fascinated and repelled by the author. And now? The novel reminded me of Lord of the Flies and The Stranger. The translation is impeccable, one of the best I've ever read. Although the story is off-putting, I couldn't stop reading and it's whetted my appetite for more Japanese literature. Not Murakami, though. I must explore and take suggestions.

November: Reading and Writing Cage Match

So, November was National Novel Writing Month.  Reading was to take a back seat, or perhaps get out of the car and take a bus.  But you know what? Reading did not go quietly.  When Reading saw an opportunity to triumph over writing, Reading was not shy about pressing the advantage. Here are the highlights:

1. Hangover Square - Patrick Hamilton.  Hamilton had me jumping every which way in this black comedy that's sort of like Mr. Hyde and Mr. Hyde.  George Harvey Bone, the main character, is an oversized alcoholic who idly spends his days at the cinema waiting to drink again in London with a particularly nasty bunch who barely tolerate his presence. His chief attraction to this group is Netta, a would-be actress whose beauty is only just skin-deep.  George Harvey Bone is also mad. With a click, he goes into "dead moods" in which he realizes how badly he's being treated by Netta and makes meticulous plans to kill her.  I didn't know which way to turn! Part of me wanted George to stay in his dead mood and finish off the despicable Netta and her equally horrible friends, and the other part of me wanted him drop that crowd and go towards the few people who appreciated him.  This unease about the character is heightened by the setting of the novel:  England is but months from war with Germany.  Neville Chamberlain has just made the "Peace in our time" speech.  Hamilton's writing is freakish and brilliant.  I couldn't leave this book alone till I finished it, NaNo or no.

2. Friends with Boys - Faith Erin Hicks.  YA Graphic novel.  Maggie, a homeschooled young girl in maritime Canada with three older brothers enters high school.  With all the awkwardness of starting high school and public school, she also is haunted by the ghost of a 19th century sea captain's widow. I love Hicks' art, that very clean looking black and white ink style.  I loved the family dynamics. I loved their Canadian-ness.  I loved that I had a library I could walk to and get away from my computer and NaNo.

3. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up - Marie Kondo.  The Japanese decluttering expert has a system for ridding one's life of clutter: Make categories (clothes, books, etc.) and individually handle each item asking: "Does this spark joy?"  If it doesn't, throw it out.  Sounds weird, but it works. Kondo herself has a weird sort of OCD charm.  Her favorite book is Alice in Wonderland.  It shows.  Oddly relaxing, like lying back with a cool cloth on my forehead after spewing words hour after hour after hour during NaNo.

4. The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath - Sylvia Plath.  What a pair we made, Sylvia and I.  Running away from NaNo and my writing block, I fell upon the futon and started reading about SP's writer's block which seemed to leave her when she journalled. She always had plenty of words to beat herself up about not writing.  And this, always this as a refrain: "Learn German."  The only time she seemed quiet(er) in her mind was when she was observing something in nature. Maybe being a scientist would have saved her, although that is a preposterous thing to say 50 years on.

5. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up - Marie Kondo.  At this point NaNo was going reasonably well, but I still felt the need.  The need for read!  Especially on the subway.  So I read this again and basked in the idea of having so few belongings and so much space that things could be stored vertically. Even folded things like shirts and socks and underwear.  Then I would get off the subway and fly into a tidying frenzy. Even as I write this, I want to get up and start tidying now. This book is strange, and sometimes a little cheesy, but it got under my skin. Worth the Kindle price of $9.99.

6. The Slaves of Solitude - Patrick Hamilton.  In this novel, the war is on and rationing is making its painfully pinching self felt. Miss Roach has moved into a boarding house in a small town near London to escape the Blitz. Life is a series of small aggravations growing larger and larger, like the pompous old boarder with whom she has to eat dinner each night who has decided that she's fair game for his hateful remarks. There's also the American Lieutenant who sees all of England as his very own pub and brothel, and may or may not be Miss Roach's sweetheart.  Then there's Miss Roach's acquaintance, the German-born Vicki, who becomes the very definition of "frenemy".  As in Hangover Square, there is lots and lots of drinking, except with rationing, whiskey is in short supply, so it's mostly gin served up every conceivable way.

7. How Koreans Talk - Sang-Hun Choe and Christopher Torchia.  I was using this as a reference during NaNo since that project is set in Korea, but when the writing was going slowly, I ended up reading huge chunks and eventually finished it.

Still working on:
Insomnia by Stephen King.  I dipped into this novel at intervals, trying to absorb King's storytelling technique.  Trying to figure out how he avoids adverbs, only to find them cropping up here and there.  I was reassured.  More often than not, after a session with Uncle Stevie, I felt like I could NaNo again.

Maruzen Kinda Rhymes With Susan

I haven't been blogging much lately here. There are two reasons:

1. I started another blog, Bybee's Bookish Past. It's my reading history since 1993, which is as far back as I can go. At this writing, I'm up to 1997. It's astounding and humbling to see how much I've read and forgotten.

2. I took a little jaunt to Fukuoka, Japan. I was tagging along with my son, who was getting his work visa.

26 hours in Japan isn't really enough time to see the sights, so I decided to do what I do best and go bookstore hunting. If I had to walk a bit, I wasn't fussed about it. Walking down the sidewalks in Fukuoka (and maybe the rest of Japan?) isn't quite as tension-filled as walking in Seoul and other cities in Korea. There's absolutely no shoving or bumping, and there are just as many pedestrians. So I could wander in my somewhat dreamy fashion, looking for a particular location.

At first I couldn't find the place I sought, but bookworm is my name and bookstores are my game, so it was bound to happen. While standing at a crosswalk, I finally saw the sign across the street from Tower Records*: MARUZEN. What a nice name -- it almost rhymes with "Susan". Definitely a good omen.

Spanning 3 floors, Maruzen's foreign books section was located on the 5th floor. There was a really nicely organized section of books about Japan and Japanese fiction. I was looking for some Murakami nonfiction, but no joy. I also couldn't find the Yukio Mishima novel I wanted, The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea. I moved on to the main English-language books section.

Just for fun, I decided to stop by the audiobooks, and I found a treasure I'd been hunting for: Great Expectations read by Hugh Laurie!!! Yes, it's abridged and I know what I said about abridged books, but it wasn't a hard call to make. You'll never catch me leaving Hugh Laurie to languish on some shelf. Besides, Dickens can take a little trimming and still come out all right.

The fiction section ranged from trashy bestsellers to pretty nice literature. Most of the selections were things I'd already read, but I was pleased to find a copy of Janet Frame's posthumously-published novel, Towards Another Summer. She wrote the novel in 1963, but considered it too personal to be published during her lifetime. If you've ever read Frame's autobiography, that's pretty hard to imagine.

Exploring further, I found a series of books called Rough Guides and happily seized The Rough Guide To Classic Novels. How could I resist that cute picture of Marilyn Monroe reading Ulysses? This list is impressive, staggeringly so. The usual suspects are present and Simon Mason suggests literature from a total of 32 countries. Thumbing through the book at the store, I saw a mention of Icelandic literature, and knew that he was really casting the net wide. Satisfied, I added it to my pile. Like the cherry on top of a perfectly assembled banana split, Mason adds a screen adaptation tie-in. Perfect for the Read The Book, See The Movie challenge.

What I liked best about Maruzen was the Penguin Books section, which was a mixture of old and modern Penguin classics. This is where I could really see how Japan goes more for the British angle when it comes to literature -- I saw a good many authors that I haven't seen in my bookstore roaming here.

While I was blissfully combing the shelves, the sweetest little announcement came over the PA in English. A woman's soft voice cozily welcomed customers to Maruzen, detailed which books were located on which floor and wished us a pleasant shopping experience. I smiled broadly and even my Tough & Cool Inner Bookworm's innards got all marshmallowy with delight.

When I went to the cashier to pay for my three books, she had me fill out a form for a discount card. "No, she lives in Korea," my son protested. The cashier and I both smiled: So what? While I was writing down my information, she folded book covers onto my books that have a map of Japan and all the different places Maruzen is located.

As you can probably see, I'm feeling the urge to go back to Japan soon -- does anyone else want a tag-along on his or her visa run?

* I also bought something at Tower Records: A Woody Guthrie compilation. I've got some Depression-era reading on the TBR and I thought Guthrie's music would make a suitable musical accompaniment.