Minnesota: Do-Over

Right after returning from vacation, I wanted to do a rewind of Minnesota and do it up right, literary-style. It's true that I was riding on the Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Highway when I was in Sweet Valley, but I didn't stop at the Wilder museum there, nor did I visit Walnut Grove. I also wish that I could've seen F. Scott Fitzgerald's boyhood home in St. Paul and the Betsy-Tacy house in Mankato as well as Sinclair Lewis' home in Sauk Centre! Isn't there also a really huge bookstore out there somewhere? I won't say that I *hate* traveling with other people, but it's damn difficult to smother your quirks in the interest of harmony.

Speaking of Laura Ingalls Wilder, (well, kind of) I narrowly missed a chance to meet Alison Arngrim, who played Nellie Oleson on Little House on the Prairie. She was at the Mall of America in Bloomington, signing copies of her new book, Confessions of a Prairie Bitch on the 26th of July. Unfortunately, I was there on the 19th. So disappointing. Especially because, in my excitement, I misread the poster in the window. I rushed into the store precisely at 6 pm, hurried up to the cashier and fairly panted, "Where's the signing?"

"Signing?" The clerk looked uneasy.

"Yes, for..." I gestured at Arngrim's familiar smirking face.

"That's next Monday."

Oh. Shit.

Aloud, I said, "Oh, that's right! I'm on vacation, and I've completely lost track of time!" Then I fled into the fiction section to pout. By the time Alison Arngrim appeared at the bookstore, I would be back in Korea, sweating to death and serving up science to elementary and middle school children. For a moment, the prospect was almost too loathsome to contemplate, and when I was getting ready for work this morning, it still rankled a bit.

I didn't buy the book because I was pissed about not being able to get it autographed. I was very much pity party and FML. Sorry, Alison. If I'd gotten to meet you, I would've told you that Nellie's antics were the best thing about Little House on the Prairie, and kept both my father and me tuning in year after year.

I Believe I Can Fly...

...as soon as I've chosen my books for the 14+ hour airplane trip!

Everything else has been packed since last night, even though I don't leave until Sunday afternoon. It always comes down to the books, doesn't it? I've got 2 picked out for sure, but am plagued with indecision about the others:

Definitely

1. Korea: A Walk Through the Land of Miracles - Simon Winchester. I've been saving this up like a piece of candy. Shanna described the first chapter, which is Winchester's visit to Jeju Island, the number one honeymoon site for Koreans, and I could hardly stop laughing. Also, it's fun to read about journeys while on a journey.

2. Kon-Tiki - Thor Heyerdahl. Jeane read this one a while back and I was inspired by her review to run right out and buy it. Then it sat on my shelf for a while, but this last semester we had a short reading in the English Conversation book based on Heyerdahl's adventure which reminded me that it would be perfect travel reading.

Maybe

1. Interpreter of Maladies - Jhumpa Lahiri. I should work on reading more from my lovely Pulitzer collection. I'm pretty sure I'll be adding to it during my vacation.

2. Tinkers - Paul Harding. Usually I read the new Pulitzer on the block as soon as I find it. Don't know why I'm dragging my feet this time. Maybe we just need some quality airplane time.

3. To Serve Them All My Days - R.F. Delderfield. Bookfool gave me this one, and it looks as scrumptious as I envisioned. But do I want to tote a Chunkster along with my other selections?

4. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle - David Wroblewski. Jill from my BOOKLEAVES book group loaned this one to me months ago and I've been hankering to read it, but yeah, another Chunkster.

5. Bang The Drum Slowly - Mark Harris. I've got football fever, watching World Cup night after night after night. What better way to cool my blood and cleanse my palette than with a classic novel about baseball? Here's a bonus: No vuvuzelas!

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My decision seems even more crucial this time because I have a premonition that my luck has finally run out and I'm going to be cruising in the middle seat with strangers on either side of me during this journey. I need reading that will make me forget my plight. All of the above are strong contenders, but which will go and which will stay? Luckily, The Spawn is showing up this weekend (I presume to either bid me fond farewell or borrow my DVD player while I'm gone) so I may have him pull a title or two out of my St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap.

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I'm out of Blogland until late July, so happy reading and have a great summer.

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.