Sisters

I visited my mother this month, and she humored me by letting me wander for hours in a Barnes and Noble bookstore. She also wandered around, checking out various sections of the store.

Mom will read a book from time to time, but she's not obsessive like me. When I was in grade school, I listened uncomprehendingly as she told me that when she was in grade school herself, she got really mad when she got a book in a Christmas present exchange at school. She pronounced the word book the way I had pronounced underpants at a recent and unhappy Christmas present exchange of my own. I got the impression that she was still bristling about it even 25 years later: "That damned old REBECCA OF SUNNYBROOK FARM!"

Since Mom's not a big reader, I can remember with great clarity a lot of things she has read. When I was in middle school, she went through a phase of buying and reading nurse romance novels written by a woman named Arlene Hale, at least one a month. I read them because she read them. When I was in college, she (and I) read a novelization of the TV show Dallas, which was really good -- it had a lot of backstory about the Ewing family, like how Miss Ellie first met Jock. Mom also likes any book about the Kennedys. She read a biography of Bo Jackson once. (For some reason, I skipped that one.) She prefers nonfiction to fiction. For her, a book is a success if she feels as if she's "living every word of it."

Mom has a younger sister, KJ, who is a voracious reader. That's probably who I get my bookworminess from. I remember being very young -- maybe early grade school-- and absolutely dazzled by her huge collection of Perry Mason mysteries. I was frustrated that I couldn't read well enough yet; I really liked Perry Mason on TV.

Although our tastes in reading differ (she hated CHARLOTTE'S WEB and I loved it) with occasional overlap, (we both like reading about the Kennedys) I like to try and figure out what might appeal to KJ. I brought some books from Korea for her -- I suppose at some point, I'll find out if they're hits or misses.

Overall, KJ just has great bookworm attitude -- actually it's even better than mine. In her house, she has a little table near the toilet that has books and magazines within easy reach. Like any bookworm worth her salt, she's not going to let a reading opportunity pass her by. I don't know for sure, but I'd be willing to bet that she probably has (or has had, at some point in her life) one of those little bathtub trays to prop a book on while bathing. Because of this, when I want to conjure up an image of the perfect bathroom, KJ's bathroom is the one I see.

If Mom were a bookworm, she would be KJ. Their tastes are eerily identical. This extends to more than just books. For example, if Mom buys a recliner, you could walk into KJ's house within the next few months and see an identical recliner, also recently purchased. They never consult each other about what they're thinking about buying; they're just on the same wavelength continuously. Weird. There have been many times when one of them has had to make a breathless last-minute trip to return something so that my grandmother wouldn't receive two of the same item.

Anyway, Mom and I were circling the "New Releases" table at Barnes and Noble. She suddenly said, "This looks like the kind of book where I could live every word of it."

When she said that, my head snapped up. I always feel absurdly happy when she shows interest in books. Even if I think the book is a piece of crap and a waste of paper, I'm still happy.

The book she was looking at was COMING OUT by Danielle Steel. It has a picture on the front cover of the backs of two women, presumably debutantes, in beautiful long formals, talking to a man in a tuxedo. It's a really delectable cover. I have to admit that even though I'm emphatically NOT a Danielle Steel fan, I could be seduced into reading this book.

Mom had that look -- like she was thinking of buying the book. Seeing her look like I feel 90% of the time was a rare pleasure.

"[KJ]'s got this book," I told her.

"She does? How do you know?" my mother asked. After all, this was a brand-new book, and I hadn't seen KJ for about two years.

Duh! I thought. Because YOU like it!

"I just know. Trust me, she's got it. It's on her bookshelf."

A few days later, we visited KJ. I was right about her having the book, but wrong about the location -- it was actually on her kitchen countertop.

I could scarcely restrain myself from sounding like a gleeful 3rd grader: "You see? You see? I TOLD you she'd have it!" I can't remember the last time I felt that extreme level of smarty-pants and pleased with myself.

Even better, KJ had just finished the book and had liked it. (Of course.) She told Mom to take it home with her.

Still feeling buoyed up at Mom showing an interest in reading, I decided to buy one for her that I'd read and enjoyed earlier this year: THE GLASS CASTLE by Jeannette Walls. I don't see how I can go wrong with this pick. It's nonfiction, the chapters are really short, and Walls' mother and father are shocking. If Mom decides to crack the cover, I think she'll live every word of it.

Give Me A Ticket For An Aeroplane...

Okay, I've already got the ticket for the aeroplane. Now here's the hard part: What books am I going to take with me to read on the eleven-hour flight and during my layovers in Tokoyo and Chicago?

I'm thinking small and skinny. I've been saving back some books. Here are the most likely suspects to make the journey with me:

1. THE STRANGER - Albert Camus
2. 21 STORIES - Graham Greene
3. PASSING - Nella Larsen
4. NEVER CRY WOLF - Farley Mowat
5. SHOGUN - James Clavell (okay, it's not small and skinny, but it's an epic story, and Clavell is a great storyteller. Plus, I am passing through Japan, even if it is just the Tokoyo airport and airport-hotel!)
6. THE POET AND THE MURDERER - Simon Worrall
7. Several true-crime books by Ann Rule
8. THE SEA - John Banville

Sigh. So far, nothing feels right. Oh crap -- am I going into one of my rare persnickety moods about reading material? Maybe I should put them all in my backpack, just in case!

Actually, I only have to worry about getting to Chicago. There's a nice bookshop at O'Hare, and I could buy something for my last layover and the short trip to Kansas City.

(At times like these, travel can seem so stressful, she thought wryly.)

Defending Joan Didion

I haven't even gotten started yet, and already I have to admit that the title of this blog is one of the stupider ones I've come up with over the past couple of years. This year's winner of the National Book Award, Joan Didion needs to be defended by me like I need a 1.5-pound bag of chocolate-covered Oreos, which is not at all. But as in the case of the Oreos, here I go anyway:

Back in late May, I read THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING, Joan Didion's latest book. It's a memoir of the year following her husband's (writer John Gregory Dunne) sudden death and the mysterious and ultimately fatal illness of their daughter, Quintana. A fan of Didion's writing ever since I was in high school, I had wanted to read this book for several months. After my father died, I only wanted to "spend time" with writers who were also somehow grieving, so I ordered a copy from amazon.com.

I read the book quickly. It hurt, but it also made me feel better. Didion was just as much in denial about her husband's condition as I was about my father's condition. I reread it immediately -- too much of a combination of good writing and grief to fully digest in one reading.

When I wasn't reading the book, I was thinking about the book. Some people might even say brooding, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Brooding gets a lot of unfair press, but many times, it's just another way for extroverts to slam introverts -- kind of like the "loner" label.

So anyway, I was thinking/brooding about THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING, and I followed my usual compulsion to go to Amazon and read reviews of the book. I went from brooding to ENRAGED in about 15 minutes!

Yes, I know. Reviews are opinions, and opinions are like...well, my father always said "noses" and my father-in-law cites a part a little lower on the body. Many of the reviews are favorable, but there are quite a number that are mean and stupid enough to have left me gasping.

These reviewers wrote that they didn't "believe that [Didion] was actually mourning". They wrote that she was "cold and aloof". Because Didion wrote of the lifestyle she and her husband shared and enjoyed over the years which included traveling to Paris, one reviewer said that Didion was more interested in "showing that she's better than other people". Another reviewer indicated that Didion was cool and calculating and merely using these sad incidents in her life "with an eye toward publication". A charge repeatedly leveled at her was that her memoir wasn't "inspirational".

Sometimes, I just really hate our society. Ever increasingly, it cannot and will not understand anything that's not totally and absolutely drenched in emotion. Not just emotion though -- it's got to be the kind of emotion that can be instantly perceived in the length of a 10-second video clip: Big salty tears, crumpled faces, runny noses, loud sobbing and a steady Run! Don't Walk! progress towards "getting over it" and wasting no time being an inspiration to others. If you're not doing all that, well sorry, you're not authentic enough. You're not really grieving.

Yes, I'm the big salty tears, etc. type, and I would win approval (although I spit on their approval) from these dumb-ass reviewers up to a point: I will not rush to get over my sadness, and I'll be damned if I'll be an inspiration. (I've come to hate that word now.) Every moment and every bit of my mourning --and Joan Didion's, for that matter -- is valid, and I bristle at anyone who would dare to tell me otherwise.

Even though I would have despised these reviewers for slamming THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING, I would have respected their opinions if they'd slammed it thoughtfully and intelligently. Instead, they sat down at the keyboard and typed out their cutting remarks without even taking into account 2 things:

1. THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING can't possibly be the type of book that these people think they require. Didion is, and always has been, -- at least, in her writing -- very cerebral. She owns up to this. She doesn't pretend to be a damn huggybear. This is one of the things that makes her such a powerful writer.

2. THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING can't possibly be the type of book that these people think is a "proper" book about grief. Didion is working from a position of extreme denial and shock. She's frozen with shock and grief -- so much, I guess, that it's been mistaken for "coldness" by people who can't understand mourning except in the way that's presented to them on Oprah each weekday afternoon.

I can read Joan Didion and understand that she's suffering. Does that mean that I'm cerebral? Of course not! Why can't people see the great effort that it costs her to detach so she can report and explain in scalpel-precise prose? Why is it that all they can see is the detachment? It doesn't take a genius or even particularly careful reading. Who could fail to be moved when Didion realizes that she's holding back a pair of her husband's shoes from the charity donation pile because when he comes back, he'll need something to wear?

All of this reminds me of Freshman Composition class almost 27 years ago. We were assigned to read Didion's famous essay about her life with migraine headaches, In Bed. (This essay is available online; all you have to do is a search with "Joan Didion" and "migraine" -- ordinarily, I'd do a link, but I'm in a bad mood, as you can see.)

In Bed turned out to be my favorite essay during this course. I read it repeatedly. From the first reading, I completely trusted the integrity of Didion's writing. I could feel her headaches. I got headaches reading about hers. In class, I was dismayed when my classmates dismissed the essay as "overwrought" and "self-indulgent" and "overreacting".

Then and now, it seems as if she's being accused of the same sort of thing: Her feelings aren't authentic enough. Why is she making such a big deal out of nothing? was the consensus back in my Freshman Comp class. Now, among the Amazon reviewers, it's changed to: She should be making a bigger deal out of this! Same song, new verse. It makes me sick.

In addition to the abovementioned insults, these "critics" of THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING whined that the book was "repetitive." This charge was almost laughably annoying, because the repetition is one of the great strengths of the book. Didion is in shock and denial. She's showing how her thoughts were turning and turning, trying to make sense of it all, and at first, getting nowhere like the hamster on its wheel. (When my father died, I felt that same sense of going round and round with my pain -- kind of like a pyschological Catherine wheel.)

Maybe people can't help it; they only know what they've been taught by the media. But I can't help it either! I get beside myself when I read the reviewer who wrote that she and her book group read THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING and "unanimously hated it". I'll never see them, but I imagine a group of glossy and carefully shellacked people aged 30-50, and if it were possible to crack them open, inside are brains like helium balloons and souls that resemble a single Raisinet. I cringe with fury at the reviewer who writes dismissively that it's not "moving" or "helpful" or "the best book on grief" as if you could possibly compare such things the way you'd compare laundry detergents!

My teeth clench and unclench and reclench. Actively despising these people is exhausting, but since I'm defending Joan Didion, it feels like a good day's work. To be painfully honest, I must admit that I'm probably more like those assholes than I am like Joan Didion. If I were more like Didion, this blog entry would be cool and contained instead of foaming and seething, and a hundred times more powerful because of its restraint.

It's like the wheel again -- I go round and round -- this time, stubbornly. I cannot comprehend why those other readers can't comprehend. Why can't they see? Even more, why can't they accept that grief is different for every person?

Gawain: "I tell you that I shall not live two days."

That refrain she chose was both beautiful and cruel in its perfection. It hurts my heart to read it, but it's a pain I would not do without. I believe Joan Didion. I believe her grief.

Successful Pilgrimage!

"How innocently life ate the days."
- John Updike


And that's what was happening. I was letting life innocently eat my weekends while continually and somewhat willfully putting off the trip to Seoul and the pilgrimage to WHAT THE BOOK? the fine new/used bookstore located in Itaewon.

This went on for a couple of months. Then, one morning last week, I woke up and had a moment of clarity:

"[Bybee]," I told myself. "You are a bookworm. That is your identity. Who would you be if you were not reading, talking about, writing about, hunting for books? Why, you'd be a shell. If you let your fear of traveling in Seoul overshadow what you truly love, you're taking the first step towards becoming that shell."

I can only listen to myself for so long before I get a little funny in the head. I threw the covers back and jumped up.

2 hours later, I was in the train station buying a ticket to Seoul.
3 hours after that, I was telling the taxi driver "Itaewon," and trying to sound poised, as if I had been there millions of times.
15 minutes after that, the taxi driver set me down in Itaewon.

I paid the driver, climbed out of the taxi, and began asking every foreigner I saw where to find WHAT THE BOOK? No one knew for sure. What the hell? Then what were they doing in Itaewon? Surely there was no other reason to be there, was there?????????????????????


Sigh. Although I'd vowed to have this adventure on my own, I needed to call Pablo for directions. (I'd embarked on my quest so swiftly and impulsively that I didn't even bother to stop at the WHAT THE BOOK? website to double-check their location.)

Pablo seemed a little surprised that I'd finally gotten some guts, but he recovered quickly and provided me with impeccable directions. Turned out that I was already right on top of the joint. All I had to do was click my heels together 3 times and say to myself, "there's no place like WHAT THE BOOK?, There's no place like..." Ooops, I mean that all I had to do was turn right at the espresso bar, walk up a slight hill, cross the street, and there it was!

It was beautiful. This is one time I regret that I don't have a digital camera so I could show you this bookstore. Books line the walls all the way to the ceiling, all the way around the room. Then, in the space between these walls are aisles and aisles chock full of books neatly shelved.

Fiction was on the walls. Nonfiction was in the aisles. I was in Heaven, breathing in the mingled scent of new and used books. If they could only bottle that scent, I know what I'd be dabbing behind my ears and on my wrists each and every morning!

I haven't been that happy since I went to Archer City, Texas a few years ago, to Larry McMurtry's bookstore. For a moment, I briefly considered crying with joy, but decided that tears in my eyes would interfere with a close perusal of book titles.

I gave the used fiction a good going-over, except for the M's. Some expat parked his butt on an upholstered ottoman really close to those shelves, and I couldn't get close without getting in his personal space. He's forgiven though, because of course I have to start building my rationale for a return trip in the near future. Also, extra points to WHAT THE BOOK? for having places to sit down and look through books. Not that I sat. Not for a moment. No, I had to keep moving!

The nonfiction didn't get the same scrutiny as the fiction, but that's just another reason that I must return. Actually, it was difficult to check out the nonfiction thoroughly because there were a lot of customers in there, and that's where they seemed to be clustered. It would have been nice to roam the store inimpeded, but I was more than happy just to be among my own kind.

I can't believe I did it, but I walked out with only 11 books, 2 of them gifts for Pablo because he helped me finally get there, both physically and psychologically. Here's what I bought:

1. Devil In The White City - Erik Larsen -- (nonfiction) For Pablo, but of course, I have no shame. While presenting this book as a gift, I was thoroughly looking ahead to the day I'll borrow it from him.

2. The Global Soul - Pico Iyer -- Also for Pablo. See the above comment.

3. My Left Foot -Christy Brown --mistakenly filed in fiction, but who cares?

4. The Hiding Place -Corrie Ten Boom -- also in fiction, again, who cares?

5. Andersonville -MacKinlay Kantor -- YES!!!! BIG SCORE!!!!!! I'd walked in hoping to find this massive novel about a Civil War POW camp.

6. In America - Susan Sontag --Ditto on the big score; I'd been thinking about this book for months. Many critics find her fiction a little uneven, but most agree that she got it right in this novel.

7. The Poet And The Murderer - Simon Worrell. -- I'd never heard of this nonfiction/true crime book before, but if the poet in question is Emily Dickinson, how could it miss?

8. Plainsong - Kent Haruf -- I've been hearing about how great this midwestern author is for about 10 years now. There's a sequel to Plainsong, so I've got to get this & then hunt the sequel (Eventide) & read them consecutively. Strive to always set new goals, isn't that what they say?

9. Culture Shock! Korea -- A handy resource for obvious reasons.

10. The Remains Of The Day - Kazuo Ishiguro -- I haven't seen the movie with Antony Hopkins, but I really enjoy his acting, and know I'll have fun picturing him in my mind's eye as I read the story of Stevens, the "perfect" butler who is looking back on his career.

11. From The Terrace - John O'Hara -- I read O'Hara's 1934 classic novel, Appointment In Samarra earlier this year and was bowled over. I went into WHAT THE BOOK? hunting for more O'Hara and was gratified to find this deliciously huge (900+ pages) novel, first published in the late 1950s.

What I had in my hands and regret leaving behind:
A book of essays and short stories by Terry Southern, and a book of essays about children's literature by Alison Lurie. Maybe they'll be there when I go back. Can I count on people NOT to buy them? My sense of the average expat's reading taste is pretty accurate, but ...things happen. If someone actually did buy "my" books, I'd respect them for their good taste. (I'd hate them, but I'd respect them.)

Anyway, great bookstore. I'll be back soon. The owner tried to encourage me to shop online as well, which I just might do, but there's nothing like direct contact with the books. If you're an expat in South Korea, and you are seriously craving bookstore, go there, or at least visit their webpage: http://whatthebook.com But why choose? Do both!

My Father's Ghost

My father died on April 6th of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia, complicated by diabetes. He was 70. I was lucky to find out on April 7th. The woman with whom he lived the last decade-plus of his life (I'll call her Dagmar) leaked the news to only one relative, a distant cousin in her 80s. I didn't know he'd been so ill, so the news came as a shock. Only 24 hours earlier, I had received a short letter from him that made no mention of illness.

Dagmar and I share a mutual antipathy. Who could blame me? I met her back in 1988. The second time I ever saw her, she said to me: "Your mother's terrible. She doesn't deserve your father. I'd dearly love for him to be my companion." It took her until 1991, but she waged a steady campaign and in the fall of that year, my father packed his belongings in his van, and drove to Dagmar's house on the other side of town.

I loved my father so much, and I missed his presence. When we were together, we usually had good conversations, but we didn't really need to talk because it was almost as if we could follow each other's thought patterns without missing a beat. (I've always been disappointed that in my love relationships we could never get to this level of communication. Manfred, Sr. found my expectations frustrating and announced on several occasions that he WAS NOT a mind-reader.)

I missed Dad so much, but I just couldn't bring myself to pretend to be civil to Dagmar. Even if I had pretended, she was always on the lookout for even the slightest whiff of dislike. A vain and shallow woman who thrives on drama and conflict, Dagmar is always at odds with one or another of her own five children. "You're disowned" is a phrase that comes easily to her lips. (In contrast, my mother operates more in the vein of: "Disown, hell! I'll be damned if I'll disown you! I'd much rather keep you around and make your ass suffer!")

Although I thought my father's involvement with Dagmar showed an appalling lack of good judgment as well as good taste, I realized that he loved her. What I hoped was that he and I could continue to have a good relationship and I could avoid Dagmar. I wanted us to spend time together, meeting in neutral places. Well, I underestimated Dagmar. She insisted that my father CHOOSE, and he chose Dagmar. I was upset, but kept writing to him at holidays hoping that we would eventually work through our troubles.

About 9 years after my father moved in with Dagmar, she kicked him out one day. She drove him to a motel and dropped him off. The first person he wanted to contact was me. I could scarcely believe this turn of events. Suddenly, he was back in the family, living nearby, going on trips with my mother and showing up at holiday dinners. I was so happy, but I had the constant sensation of holding my breath, thinking it was all too good to be true.

It was all too good to be true.

Dagmar decided she'd made a mistake, and started working her way back to my father. That time, it took one-and-a-half years. He moved back in with Dagmar in the spring of 2002.

I begged him not to go back:
Me: "She won't let me see you, Dad."
Dad: "This time it'll be different."

It was different, all right. It was worse. From that time, I only saw him when I chanced to meet him out in public. He summoned me over to Dagmar's house once, but I wasn't allowed in the house. Instead, we talked in the garage for a short time. I didn't stay long; it was December, and really cold. We were shivering as we talked, and our breaths came out frosty.

A few months after the garage encounter, I read a memoir by science-fiction and fantasy writer Suzy McKee Charnas called My Father's Ghost: The Return of My Old Man and Other Second Chances. Charnas' father, Robin McKee, had left his wife and child when Suzy was very young, to pursue his dream of being a successful artist. This dream was never realized. Years later, when Suzy was middle-aged, she realized that her father couldn't live independently anymore. He was in New York, and she was in New Mexico, and she couldn't afford constant plane trips to check on him, so with some trepidation, she invited Robin to come live in the "mother-in-law" cottage next to her house, and slowly, sometimes frustratingly -- Robin was strong-willed and eccentric -- father and daughter got to know each other again before Robin died a few years later in a nearby nursing home. He went there only after Suzy was completely unable to care for him unassisted anymore. In his last days, he found happiness with a fellow resident of the nursing home, a warm and wonderful woman named Jane.

There's a part in Marilynne Robinson's novel, Gilead, in which the narrator says that his wife was reading a copy of The Trail of The Lonesome Pine, and she was so engrossed she "just melted into the book." That was how I felt; I just melted into My Father's Ghost. For me, it was the sweetest of fairy tales as well as a blueprint for the future. This is how it'll be, I thought. Dagmar will get another wild hair and kick Dad out again, and he can come live with me. Furthermore, our situation would be better than Robin and Suzy's because my father's and my personalities were both easygoing and peace-loving. Finally, if he went to a nursing home, maybe he'd meet a nice woman. Even better, he could hook up with my mother again!

I was confident that we had plenty of time to acheive this scenario. After all, my father's father had lived to be 83! Using that as measurement, it seemed as if my own father was light-years away from death. Sure, he had CLL, but hadn't the oncologist told him that the disease would annoy him for decades rather than kill him? As for me, I had plenty of time to go off to South Korea -- a country in which my father had also lived and absolutely loved -- and teach for a few years.

I was mistaken. Even back when I read Charnas' memoir, we were already running out of time. When I got on the plane to go to Korea almost a year-and-a-half ago, the clock was ticking ominously. I had no idea.

Finally, time ran out, and I didn't even know. Twelve hours after my father died, 4 hours before I got the news, I was standing in line at the post office, holding a postcard addressed to him, and imagining a day far off in the future when we'd be sitting at my kitchen table together, drinking coffee and swapping stories about life in Korea. Talking, and even better, not talking, just keeping company with our thoughts.

I keep thinking of My Father's Ghost. I really loved that book. Would I be able to stand reading it again? The experience could not possibly be the same. Before, I found it reassuring. Now, I think every page would be painful, but perversely, I want to feel pain. I think I fucked up. I was a bad daughter. I want my heart to break.

I'm still holding my breath, waiting for my father to return, and trying to strike a bizarre bargain: If I suffer x amount, can you come back? No, he can't come back. I really need to stop holding my breath once and for all, but if I breathe anytime soon, it's going to hurt too damn much.

WHAT THE BOOK?

I can't believe I haven't made a blog entry for so long! Anyone would think I'd forsaken books! Never happen! In my defense, I must say that making piles and piles and piles takes up time.

I'm studying on a field trip to a bookstore called WHAT THE BOOK? Here's their website: http://whatthebook.com This field trip will be good for me for two reasons:

1. I'll get more books! DUH!

2. I'll overcome my fear of traveling in Seoul alone. Not sure what ails me. Busan presents no problem. I feel comfortable there, but when I think of strolling around in Seoul, my self-confidence is somewhere down around my ankles. Especially when I think of taking the subway from Seoul Station to their store in Itaewon...and having to change lines???

Gulp. But I'll do it all, and more to get to WHAT THE BOOK? I'll be so proud of myself for being independent and brave. I've come to notice lately that generally, it's not worth my time and energy to be independent and brave unless it involves something to read. Bookwormishness has the damnedest by-products at times!

I know intellectually that I'm equal to this adventure, but the craven & cowardly part of me is whining piteously and wishing to find a friend that's middle-aged, female and bookwormy to a fault. Someone who knows Seoul like the back of her hand and will guide me/us to the books.

Snort. My chances of that are as remote as those of waking up tomorrow morning with an autographed first edition of The Great Gatsby under my pillow and Larry McMurtry and Anne Tyler standing over my bed fighting about which of them is going to bring me an Egg McMuffin.

In an attempt to jack up my own morale, I repeatedly remind myself that WHAT THE BOOK? supposedly has around 20,000 titles in stock. And it's not just the new bullshit that *everyone* is reading -- like The DaVinci Code, for example. No, WHAT THE BOOK? also has a nice selection of used books, so many reading treasures await me.

Yo, Bybee! Listen up!

Are you going to let almost twenty thousand books lay around unopened, unread, unsmelled (or worse, bought up by someone with courage!) while you sit around quivering because you might get lost on the subway?!

Happy Book Year!

I made New Year's resolutions, but only one of them pertains to books or reading: I resolve to read more authors from other countries besides the United States, Canada, and England. Going back over my lists of what I've read since 1999, I was shocked that in some years, I read nothing but American authors. Not that that's a bad thing; I plan to read many, many American books this year. I was just under the mistaken impression that I was a well-rounded bookworm.

So far in 2006, I've read 1 book by an American and one by an English author. The books are The Human Stain by Philip (I'm-like-Henry-James-but-horny) Roth, and The Two of Us: My Life With John Thaw by Sheila Hancock.

I'm not sure about the third book --A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute. He was English, but moved to Australia about 10-15 years before he died, allegedly disillusioned with his home country. Do I count him as English or Australian? I'm tempted to go with the latter, just because it would make me look good regarding my New Year's resolution, but I have no wish to cheat.

Thanks to Pablo and some of my other co-workers, last year's reading was a little more varied. I read a nonfiction book by a Russian author, a novel from Viet Nam, and a memoir by a Cambodian woman. There was also a French novel by Colette. Speaking of the French, I'd like to try some Balzac this year. I read somewhere that he can be counted as part of the school of naturalism. Did I also read that about Zola, or did I dream it?

I found out today that a person from bookcrossing.com is sending me a couple of boxes of books! Yee-Haw!!! Promptly getting nosy, I looked at her 'reserved' list to see what she's sending me. (Don't try this at home; it's a lot like spoiling your Christmas by rummaging around looking for presents.) Anyway, this kind and generous bookcrosser is helping me stick to my international reading resolve by including a memoir written by a journalist who is from Uruguay, Eduardo Galeano.

Also, I recently purchased a book called Korea Unmasked by a Korean author/artist named Won-Bok Rhie. Rhie's book is a graphic not-novel (what I mean is that it's graphic and nonfiction; I don't know the proper term) detailing the history and culture of Korea. I've read quite a bit of it, but haven't finished it yet. Korea Unmasked is *extremely* entertaining, and has helped fill in many of my information gaps and lessened my head-scratching when encountering certain aspects of Korean culture (....ooooh, that's why....).

I know that at least 1 other person besides myself reads this blog, so if you have any ideas about books/authors/countries for me to try, please leave me a comment.