May, 2020 Reads

With a bit of a calendar flip, you're into the time slip and nothing will ever be the same...

Here's what I read long, long ago in May, 2020:

 The Brooklyn Follies - Paul Auster. Novel.
This was the very last 2  books I bought while living in Korea. A new English used bookstore called Ebony & Ivory had opened in Cheonan, and I couldn't find it and couldn't find it. Complained to my bookworm buddy Paul Cunningham and he took me there. I picked up The Brooklyn Follies and he commented that it was decent. I also purchased Ride the Pink Horse by Dorothy Hughes. I was charmed by The Brooklyn Follies. It feels kind of Damon Runyonesque but more for 21st century sensibilities. A large portion of the book takes place in a bookshop in New York City. Brooklyn. I think the novel was probably meant as a valentine to the last days before 9/11.

 Songs for the Missing - Stewart O'Nan.  Novel.
The story is not new, unfortunately. A young woman, just weeks away from going off to college for her freshman year, goes missing. While heartbreaking and horrifying, O'Nan concentrates on the grim, practical tasks that fall to her family, then the endless waiting for closure. Told in a matter-of-fact, muted style. It was even more effective than if there had been outbursts of emotion on every page. I almost DNF'ed it. A difficult read, but very well done.

Who Was Abigail Adams? - True Kelley. Nonfiction/Biography.
Abigail Adams is most famous for being the wife and mother to two U.S. presidents, but the voluminous amount of correspondence with John Adams she left behind shows that she was so much more. She was considerably more forward-thinking than the Founding Fathers, for she opposed slavery and supported women's rights. Raise a glass to the first Second Lady as well as the second First Lady! Damn, I feel as if I need to go and listen to 1776 again.

The Lost Landscape - Joyce Carol Oates. Memoir.
Oates writes with great respect and affection about her mother and father, Carolina and Fred Oates, and the positive impact they had on her life. Except for an early chapter (bizarre, humorous) about a chicken that toddler Joyce was attached to, this doesn't feel like an Oates book. Love and sunlight seem to radiate from every page.

Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years - Julie Andrews. Memoir.
This second volume of Andrews's memoir picks up as she is pregnant with her daughter, Emma and on her way to meet with Walt Disney about Mary Poppins. Since Andrews is expecting, she tells Disney and figures she's out of the running. Disney tells her that it's okay, they'll wait. The rest is of course, Hollywood history. Home Work covers a large portion of her Hollywood career and meeting and falling in love with director Blake Edwards, and their blended families. Much of the book involves traveling from location to location and all their homes -- Julie makes it sound quite stressful. Also interesting were allusions about her slightly dysfunctional birth family that make me want to read Home, the first volume of her memoir. Also looking forward to volume 3.

Redhead By the Side of the Road - Anne Tyler. Novel.
How do I love Anne Tyler? Let me count the ways. I love that every novel takes place in or around Baltimore. I love her quirky main characters with their real hearts and hurts -- they aren't just billboards for quirk. I love the up-to-the-moment feel of each book. I love the messy warmth and confusion of her families when they get together. I love the sideways, gentle, homely and often spot-on way the characters speak. I love it when the main character ruminates, and I love the unexpected character who is often a foil for the main character. All of this and more showed up in Redhead By the Side of the Road, Tyler's latest novel. Micah Mortimer, 40ish, is a self-employed tech expert who goes through life at a slight remove, trying not to make any mistakes. (I loved his ongoing commentary with Traffic God. I could relate.) But it's never that simple in a Tyler novel. His girlfriend breaks up with him for a careless remark, and a young man (the son of an his college girlfriend) who's convinced that Micah's his father shows up at his door one day. Being in the Tylerverse is never a bad thing, but it was even better in 2020. Speaking of 2020, Will Anne Tyler produce a book set during this time?

My Dark Vanessa - Kate Elizabeth Russell. Novel.
Vanessa goes away to boarding school in 2000 when she's about 15, and is drawn into an inappropriate relationship with her English teacher. They continue to communicate years after high school, and his unhealthy influence over her life finally gets some much-needed cracks in it when another student (by now it's the twenty-teens) armed with better knowledge about predatory behavior and more support brought about by changing attitudes decides to bring charges against the teacher. Vanessa slowly begins to realize that the teacher manipulated her skill in interpreting literature, urging her to apply nuance to a situation that should not ever be nuanced at all. Although My Dark Vanessa was an uncomfortable and often infuriating read, I read it all in one sitting.

Next: June, 2020

Bookworm Notes: The Fireman by Joe Hill

During July, I did a The Fireman readalong with Care and the usual suspects who make my online book loving life so agreeable.  I finished the book fairly quickly without doing a review or casting my impressions about on this blog. This is a job that needs to be done before I can move on and talk about other books in my life right now. But my short-term memory...yikes. Before everything about The Fireman fades away, I'm going to make a list:

1. I've only read this and Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill. The Fireman is the one I prefer.

2. I went into this book feeling as if I would be reading a Stephen King book. That impression changed very little. The thing that makes it feel not like a King book is that when Hill's characters curse, it's not as creative or funny; it's the way real people curse, which is not as much fun on the page.

3. I know other readers brought up the title. Why that title? I guess The Nurse wouldn't have worked. Dragonscale would have made the book seem like fantasy. Well, I'm fresh out of ideas.

4. I had to stop reading and go listen to that Dire Straits song John and Harper kept referencing.

5. Back to Dragonscale. What a beautifully imagined disease and lovingly described.  An almost enviable condition. Very J.K. Rowling.

6. The book could have been a little shorter. Some of the scenes dragged.

7. I hated Jakob at first, and roared when Harper/Hill savaged his lame hidden novel, Desolation's Plough. (Nice extra jab...plough instead of plow) I felt as if this send-up was an affectionate shout-out to Uncle Stevie's On Writing. After a while, Jakob became so cartoonishly evil that I couldn't muster up anything but yawns for him.

8. The sheer bounty of references to other books, novels, authors, movies, songs, etc. made me so happy that I damn near glowed with Dragonscale. I am dreaming of the day when The Fireman is annotated. Please, O Publishing Gods, let it be soon! Don't make me wait too long.  I feel the stirrings of certainty that somewhere, this project is already underway.

9. Maybe it's because I'm under the influence of Hamilton, but I am seeing this book as a potential musical.

10. There's going to be a sequel, isn't there?

11. The supporting characters in the compound. I loved them, especially Renee (?) The characters' names are starting to slip away from me. The young girl/woman (name?) reminded me a bit of Katniss Everdeen and also of a character in one of King's recent novels. Doctor Sleep, I think it was. Carol was disturbing. Not over-the-top like Jakob, because the reader could uneasily understand her motivation.

12. Although The Fireman has a bleak setting and the world is in peril, the tone of the book is anything but bleak and flat. No Cormac McCarthy here. Instead, there is hope and humor. It seems odd in a dystopian horror novel, but I like it.

All Day and All of the Night

Last Update!

End of Event Meme:

1. Which hour was most daunting for you? Hour 9 settled my hash for a while.
2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year?  Roddy Doyle's quartet of novels about the Rabbitte family of Dublin -- The Commitments, The Snapper, The Van and The Guts.
3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year?  No
4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon?  Firming up deadlines. Switching out hosts.
5. How many books did you read? 2
6. What were the names of the books you read?  Dispatches From The Edge by Anderson Cooper and The Homesman by Glendon Swarthout.
7. Which book did you enjoy most?  The Homesman.
8. Which did you enjoy least?  Both books were first-rate.
9. If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders?  N/A
10. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time?  I'll be in a different place next spring, where people will be puzzled and/or offended that I would take 24 hours 'just to read books', but I am a bookworm, and bookworms always find a way.  I'm cooking up a scheme even as I write this.

***

5th Update:
Only 90 minutes left.  Powered by a chocolate bar, I just finished The Homesman, a deserved Spur Award winner back in the late 1980s.  All that reading's got me hungry.  I'm thinking about my homemade chili.

***

4th Update:
Mid-event survey:

1. What are you reading right now?  The Homesman, by Glendon Swarthout. 

2. How many books have you read so far?  I'm on book #2.

3. What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-thon?  The Homesman is a little twist on the pioneer stories I love, and there's a strong female lead character, so I'm looking forward to finishing it.  Supposed to be a movie version soon.  Great!

4. Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those?  Conditions are ideal, but I got k.o.'ed by The Sandman for 5 hours.  I chafe at my limitations...oh well, this means I'll be sharp when others are weeping with fatigue.

5. What surprises you most about the Read-a-thon, so far?  Can't think of anything.  It's all good.

***

3rd Update:
SEVEN hours in?! Really!  I haven't read anything since my last update.  I haven't slept, either.  Just puttering around and charging my Kindle, which I forgot to do before we got started.  I also ate an apple. Now the Kindle is showing a green light, so back to reading.

***

2nd Update:
4 hours done.  I just finished Dispatches From the Edge.  Not an easy read, so I'm not sure what to read next.  I've got to make a decision soon, because I'm starting to feel the familiar tiredness. My mind and body are telling me to go for the pajamas.  They're telling me the softness, most snuggly pair.  No, I won't do it.

***

Update:
2.5 hours in.  Page 125 of Dispatches From the Edge.  It's not a long book and it's written in straightforward language, but Cooper's themes are personal loss, war, natural disasters, starvation, and disaster, so it's not the sort of book one breezes through.  I decided to stop and make myself some tea, which somehow became hot chocolate.

***

OK, now it begins!  Here's the opening meme from the Readathon hosts:

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?  Busan, South Korea.  It's 9 pm, straight up!

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?  Not sure yet.  I'm beginning with Anderson Cooper's memoir "Dispatches From the Edge".

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?  Apples...and chocolate.

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!  Oooh, having an attack of shyness.  Don't know what to say!  I'm a longtime Readathoner, since the days of Dewey.  I still miss her.

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?  I've been having trouble staying awake the last few Readathons, so I banned pajamas and a pre-Readathon hot shower this time.  And bananas.   Maybe that'll help. ETA: I'm also doing updates on Twitter for the first time @susanandbooks

Readathon My Mind

It's getting closer and closer...the Readathon is almost here!  Next weekend.  Awkward start time for those of us in Asia, but you know what?  After all these years, I'm starting to develop an affection for beginning at 9 pm on Saturday night.  When I move back to the USA next spring, it won't feel natural to pry open my concrete eyelids at what?  5 am?  On a Saturday?  That's some hardy stuff.  I'll have to get in touch with my inner pioneer.

Meanwhile, that will be then and this is now.  This time,  I'm going to change up how I do the Readathon.  This may hurt, but I've decided to provide myself with healthy snacks.  It's funny; just as I put this down, the longing for combination pizza pierced my soul.  There's a growling -- oh wait, that's my stomach.  Since this is something that doesn't come easily, I'm taking suggestions for healthy snacks.  Don't get too California with me, because it has to be a snack that is procurable, and there's only so much healthy that this poor body can take. Thanks in advance.

My other big change for the Readathon is that I'm not going to do a bit of it in pajamas.  Pajamas are sleepwear and sleepwear leads to sleep in most cases.  I have found myself nodding but not reading as early as 2 am (remember my awkward start time?) and it could be that I'm just a little too comfortable.

 Ditto for the pre-Readathon shower and shampoo.  Although clean hair makes it feel as if the words are getting into my brain so much more efficiently, there seems to be a relaxing side effect that comes back to haunt me when I wake up from an unexpected snooze with my nose in a book tent.

I had considered going in the opposite direction and dressing up as if I were going to work (even shoes, jewelry and makeup) but that seems too extreme.  Besides, if my beloved St. Louis Cardinals are still in the championship race, I'll need to wear my baseball shirt.

As always, what to read?  What are other people going to read?  I made a reading list for fall, but am feeling the urge to deviate from it.  Saturday morning will probably find me at the Busan English Library making a stack.  

Of Blogs, Books and Brownies

BLOGS:

Dear Bloggy Blog, My Own Dear Blob,

Look at you, all neglected.  Nearly starved for a lack of words.  No excuses.  I'll make it up to you.  We'll celebrate your 10th birthday in style.  From now on, "loquacious" is my middle name.

There, there now,
Bybee  xoxoxo

BOOKS:

I'm off to a slow start -- I just don't have the same focus when I'm in America, but I've read 15 books so far this year.  Currently, I'm working on Bill Bryson's One Summer: America, 1927, which is turning out to be one of his best.  Bet he had one hell of a mind map going on when he was first putting it all together.

New discovery that has made me all squeeee:  George Moore.  Moore (1852-1933) was an Irish novelist who started out wanting to be a painter.  He went to France to learn his craft but it didn't work out and he met and was influenced by Emile Zola, which makes me a happy Realism-reading camper.  So far, I've read two of his offerings:  Albert Nobbs (1918), a short novel about a middle-aged waiter with a secret, and Esther Waters (1894) a novel about an unwed mother in which I can really see Zola's influence.  Looking forward to reading A Mummer's Wife (1885).

Sadly, I've already got one DNF to report:  Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell and Know by Alexandra Horowitz.  I love dogs and wanted to learn more about them, but the introduction seemed long, tedious and occasionally cloying.  I just couldn't carry on.

My Spawn is staying with me for a month, and he's got two books for me to read:  A novel called  Rain of the Ghosts by Greg Weisman (the main creator of Gargoyles) and a graphic novel, Madison Square Tragedy: The Murder of Stanford White by Rick Geary.  Speaking of the Spawn, he's curled up on the futon as I write this, reading True Grit.  My boy!  No insightful comments yet, but I'm sure they are forthcoming.  If not, I have ways of prying them out; I'll get that English teacher mojo going.

BROWNIES:

While in the US, I watched the Olympics every night (unless Mizzou was playing basketball) and baked up batches of cobbler and my favorite brownie recipe.  I meant to take a picture of a freshly baked pan of the latter, but there was cutting and eating and by the time I thought to get the camera, there were merely crumbs to be enjoyed.

Katherine's Brownies
[Katherine was a woman who lived in my grandmother's hometown.  Apparently she could bake like a boss.]

1 cup of butter or margarine
4 eggs
2 cups of sugar
3/4 cup of cocoa
1 cup of flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1 cup of nuts [I used pecans]

Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes.

November: A Plan Called Reading

I don't usually plan my reading.  It's purely a mood thing, but this month I joined a couple of challenges.  Plus, there are some other books I want to get to.  As a result, November finds me with a tidy little reading list:

1. Johnny Cash: The Life - Robert Hilburn.  I pre-ordered this book on August 28, then practically stood over my Kindle until I got the notice via email on October 31 that it was ready to be downloaded.  Then I devoured it in hungry gulps over a three-day weekend.   There are some scandalous bits about Johnny Cash's life, but for Hilburn, the music is the main thing.  He seems impatient when Cash is concentrating on endeavors (he's especially scornful of Cash's acting, calling it "wooden", which I thought was mean) other than honing his artistic vision.  The part in which Cash decides to become a Branson performer but almost simultaneously goes to California and meets producer Rick Rubin reads like a suspense novel.  Even though I knew how things came out, I was still all whew and wiping my forehead.  Devoted fans and more musically-minded, critical readers should both be pleased with this thoughtful, in-depth examination of The Man In Black.  It's obviously a labor of love.  I found myself favorably comparing Johnny Cash: The Life to Peter Guralnick's excellent two-volume biography of Elvis Presley, Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love. (Kindle)


2. If on a winter's night a traveler - Italo Calvino.  This is one of the challenge books I'm reading with Care and Avid Reader.  So far, not so good.  This is my subway book, and it's got me dreading my rides to and from work.  I like Calvino's ruminations about being a reader, but this post-modern stuff of novels breaking off one after another is getting on my nerves.  I know I'm "supposed" to love it and think it's brilliant, and that I don't makes me feel all grumpy, unwashed and Philistine-like.  Still, I'm going to see it through till the end.  I want bragging rights, the snob cachet, and I also need more international authors on my year-end list. (Kindle)

3. The Caine Mutiny - Herman Wouk.  There's a group on Goodreads who is tackling the Pulitzer fiction list, and The Caine Mutiny (which won in 1952) is up for this month.  I've seen the Humphrey Bogart movie several times, so I'm wondering how it will differ from the book.  I don't know where I got it, but I seem to have a first edition of the novel.  It's got no dust jacket, and the spine has a water stain, but it's in pretty good shape.  I like the endpapers:  (Hardcover)

4. Shadow of the Moon - M.M. Kaye.  The last time my reading buddy, the fleet-of-eyeball (and apparently swift of eardrum too, since she's taken up audio books with great success) Teri came to visit, she brought this novel with her.  I can't remember if she said it's her all-time favorite, or among her all-time favorites.  From the looks of this volume, it's obviously got to be in her top five:

I've never read any of M.M. Kaye's work, but I'm confident I'll like Shadow of the Moon.  Teri has an excellent track record for recommendations.  Chocolat, Flannagan's Run, and In This House of Brede were all books she pressed into my hands that I enjoyed tremendously.  My only worry is that I'll misplace one of the sections of this book, or it'll come apart even further.  (Hardcover)

5. The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien.   They've got some tall, tall bookshelves in my university library; I'm guessing the top shelves are at least two feet above my head.  One day, I got tired of craning my neck and squinting to no avail, so I grabbed a step stool and found The Things They Carried, a book I've been meaning to read since it came out in 1990.  I've a little shy of it because it's gotten so much praise, but I'm ready now.  (Paperback)

6. An Abundance of Katherines - John Green.  The latest Rainbow Rowell novel, Landlines, doesn't come out until July of 2014.  My strategy is to make do with John Green novels until then.  (Paperback)

7.  The Memory Keeper's Daughter - Kim Edwards.  I got this book from my friend Val.  I've been reading it on an occasional basis.  The writing is beautiful, but it's very much a "women's novel". (Paperback)

8.  Jenny & The Jaws of Life - Jincy Willett.  I found this one at the November Busan Book Swap. It's a  collection of short stories first published in 1987 and brought back into print 25 years later, thanks to the hearty endorsement of David Sedaris.  If Sedaris likes these stories, that works for me.  I also couldn't resist this cover: (Paperback)

Who knows what other books will creep onto this list between now and the 30th?  Not that I want to deviate, but what *should* creep onto the list?  Whaddaya got?

Singing a Different Readathon Song

I'm singing a different Readathon song this time.  Since the participants living abroad have the awkward start time of 9 pm Saturday night, I've decided to just do what I can on Saturday and Sunday and try to make it add up to 24 hours.  A strict accounting of my reading time will be logged, and who knows?  Maybe I'll do better than I would with one sustained 24 hour effort.  My past few Readathons have involved humiliating and lengthy encounters in which the Sandman has made me curse and cry and say Uncle.

Here's what's on the Readathon shelf:

1. Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell.  It's been so difficult for me to stop myself from reading this one.

2. In the Nick of Time: How Joseph S. Hall discovered the truth about "Appalachian English" and rescued Smoky Mountain music, to boot - Ted Olson.  Linguistics and music!  I have such high hopes.

3. Maggie, a Girl of the Streets - Stephen Crane.  I'm doing pretty well on my resolution to read 100+ year old books.  25 is the goal.  I'm on #17 right now (Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass) The Readathon is an opportunity to work one more in.

4. Man's Search for Meaning - Viktor Frankl.  Recommended to me by my new friend, Nancie.

5. The Silent Wife - A.S.A. Harrison.  I've heard it compared to Gone Girl.

6. Black Water - Joyce Carol Oates.  I've been on a JCO kick for a couple of months now.  I'm even following her on Twitter.

7. The Thin Commandments: The Ten No-Fail Strategies for Permanent Weight Loss - Stephen Gullo.  I've got a theory that self-help books might be the way to go for a long reading siege.  We'll see.

My Real Life friends Teri and Val will be joining me.  Nancie's not sure, or as my Pirate English Facebook tells me, "[Her] Gut Be Uncertain!" Teri organized an all-weekend event on the Readers of Kindle Books Facebook page, and so far, about 60 people have been making bookish plans.

 Teri will be reading (since she reads so fast, I should say "cutting like a laser through") "...the next one in the #1 Ladies' Detective Agency and listening to the third in Jeff Shaara's WW2 series."  

Val will be reading "Cookoff ....and some book about being fat in America."

 I hope to see many of my Read Life friends as well. Good luck and happy reading!

May 2013: Getting Voracious with Nonfiction

I read 13 books this month.  For some readers that might be like spit in the ocean, but for me, it's a large amount -- especially since I'm not on vacation.  I think the key to my success is that I only went to one movie (The Great Gatsby) in May.

I'll discuss my nonfiction reads here and talk about the fiction in my next post.  Surprisingly, all but one of these were library books.  Speaking of which, I must update everyone on The Library Situation here in Busan.  It's good.  It's very, very good.

1. Zanuck: The Rise and Fall of Hollywood's Last Tycoon -Leonard Mosley.  The biographer does a good job of showing that Hollywood mogul Daryl Zanuck had a messed up childhood with rotten parents, but his maternal grandfather was a positive influence, so one's sympathy only goes so far.  After that, the details of his disgusting and pathetic behavior turned me into a one-woman chorus of "ewwwww."  Actually, I have some issues with the biographer as well.  I can't help feeling that on some level, he admired Zanuck, especially in the womanizing department. There's something in his recounting of Zanuck's exploits/exploitation that's just a shade too breathless. Also a product of that generation in which men behaved badly and women were supposed to smile and be quiet, Mosley comes across as a callous and dismissive ass when he discusses a couple of troubled young starlets who, one way or another, ended up in Zanuck's clutches.  I'm going to try to remember the few glimpses of Hollywood in the golden age and forget the rest.

2. Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You - Sam Gosling, Ph.D.  Extremely entertaining look at how much we reveal of ourselves by our surroundings.  Dr. Gosling lets readers in on the secret of how to be 'super snoopers' and learn home to home in on the essence of people's real personalities rather than being swayed by artfully placed objects meant to create a not-quite-accurate impression.  Check out Gosling's videos on YouTube. He's hot in that mad scientist sort of way.

3. 117 Days Adrift - Maurice and Maralyn Bailey. One of the best survival stories I've ever read and easily my favorite read for the month.  In 1973, a seafaring couple from England, Maurice and Maralyn Bailey were cast adrift when an injured whale damaged the yacht they had scrimped and saved for years to buy. Thinking quickly, they got as much food and as many supplies as possible into a life raft with a dinghy attached.  During their ordeal, Maurice fell into despair. Maralyn found ways to keep their minds sharp and occupied with games and also plans for the future.  She was also cool and inventive, creating fishing hooks from the spring action part of a safety pin.  I was so pleased to read that it was a Korean fishing boat out of Busan, Weolmi 306, that rescued the Baileys and used every resource available to restore them to health.

4. Adrift: Seventy-Six Days Lost At Sea - Steven Callahan.  Another true story of survival at sea.  While the Baileys' book was more about what they did to survive, Callahan's book contains a great deal of what Callahan thought about during those two-and-a-half months lost at sea.  He also shares what his parents and brother's efforts to find him when they didn't hear from him in an expected time frame.  Luckily for Callahan, he managed to save a survival at sea book when he was forced onto the life raft.  He had also read about others in the same peril, including the Baileys!

5. The Emperor of All Maladies - Siddhartha Mukherjee.  A "biography" of cancer. Mukherjee, an oncologist, traces this disease back to its first mention in ancient Egypt.  Most of the incidents related are from the past 100 years, as researchers made great strides in identifying causes and treatments were developed and fine-tuned.  Although the science writing in The Emperor of All Maladies is often challenging to follow, everyone should read this book, since almost all of us are affected by cancer either directly or through a loved one an acquaintance.  I actively sought out this book because my sister-in-law has been battling uterine leiomyosarcoma for several years.

6. Onions in the Stew - Betty MacDonald.  Because of Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, I've always liked Betty MacDonald, but I fell a little bit out of love with her back in 2009 when I read The Egg and I.  As I said at the time, I wasn't prepared to give up on her, so I was pleased to find Onions in the Stew available for Kindle. This is the fourth and final humorous memoir by MacDonald, detailing her second marriage (she dumped the jerk chicken farmer from The Egg and I and took the kids) and life on Vashon Island in Puget Sound, near Seattle.  As always with Betty, life has its share of challenges, but most of her grousing is good-natured.  The thing that really struck me was the huge amount of smoking that went on in this book.  Even her adolescent daughters smoked! It was chilling to read, knowing that Betty MacDonald died of cancer at the age of 50.  After I finished Onions, I went a little Betty-mad over at abebooks.com and bought The Plague and I, which chronicles her bout with TB and time in a sanatorium and Anybody Can Do Anything, her account of trying to find work during the Depression.

April 2013: And I Read

I'd like to thank my friend Becka for sending me these earrings. I'm pretty sure they have accentuated my reading superpowers as well as making me look a trifle cuter.

1. One For The Money - Janet Evanovich.  Count me in at long last.  I'm a Stephanie Plum fan.

2. Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything - Joshua Foer.  This book was fascinating.  I thought it was going to be one of those "look at the weird thing I did for one year" books.  While there was that element, Foer also delved into the history of memory-making, how a well-trained memory was once something prized, why it ended up getting a bad rap, and how we now have almost everything that used to be in our minds on some external source.  Bring back memory training!  What I really need is to build a memory palace that holds all my students' names.  Not only do I have an ageing brain and lots of students, my students' names are 98% Korean with variations on a handful of one-syllable names.  I'm sure it can be done, though.  My first memory palace, which I built for the Pulitzer fiction winners, is still holding together after one month.

3. The Star Machine - Jeanine Basinger.  I waxed eloquent about Basinger in an earlier post.  Since then, I have learned of another movie upon which her commentary can be heard: Jezebel (1938) starring Bette Davis.  Must watch and listen.

4. French Milk - Lucy Knisley.  A few years ago, Knisley and her mother went to France and lived there for a few weeks over the holidays.  Knisley recorded every detail -- the day trips, the museums, their apartment, the people that popped in to see them during that time, and most of all the food!  Wow and wow. French Milk contains both photographs and drawings, so readers will appreciate her artistic talent even more.  I could have done without the pages and pages of Knisley having her quarter-life crisis several years too early, but hey, that's also what happened during the trip.  I'm looking forward to reading her follow-up, Relish.  You go, Lucy.  Keep that food theme going, and if you're worrying about getting close to 30 -- don't.

5. Silent Stars - Jeanine Basinger.  I wish I could give myself a 1910s or 1920s brain so I could appreciate silent films more.

6. I Do and I Don't: A History of Marriage in the Movies - Jeanine Basinger. Was it Borges that said when an old person dies, it's like a library burning down?  Probably not, but it sounds like something he would have said. When Basinger dies (way, way WAY in the future, I fervently hope) it's going to be like the most beautiful film palace in the world burning down.

7. A Land More Kind Than Home - Wiley Cash.  Since I was still in silver screen mode when I read this book, my mind flashed to Robert Mitchum.  In this horrific tale of religion gone terribly wrong, I imagined the crazy and controlling Pastor Carson Chambliss as a combination of two of Mitchum's characters: Harry Powell from The Night of the Hunter and Max Cady from Cape Fear.  This is a damn scary story, and I admire Wiley Cash so much for his choice of narrators.  It would have been more fun to have written from Chambliss' point-of-view, or the misguided young mother of Jess and Stump, or even poor, autistic Stump himself.  Those choices would have been understandable, but it would have been too much heat and too much beating readers over their heads.  I thought I was done with southern fiction, but Wiley Cash proved to  me that I'm not.

8. The Shoestring Girl: How I Live on Practically Nothing and You Can Too - Annie Jean Brewer.  Ever since The Complete Tightwad Gazette came into my life, I've been a sucker for books like this.  Annie Jean Brewer is the  rawboned, cast-iron skillet of a gal version of Amy Dacyczyn.  She doesn't seem interested in the 19th century farmhouse with an attached barn.  Just the necessities, ma'am. It's a crash course in successful hardscrabble living in the 21st century. Many of her tips concerning technology are extremely helpful, not to mention up-to-date. You may not agree with everything Brewer suggests, but she provides plenty of food for thought.  I admire her guts and gumption.

9. Bless The Beasts and Children - Glendon Swarthout.  A group of misfits at an overpriced "cowboy camp" set out on a secret mission to rescue some buffalo that are being slaughtered for fun and profit. During their quest, the novel spirals forward and backward, giving readers a look at their backgrounds and their early and humiliating days at camp.  I was surprised to learn that Glendon Swarthout wrote this book as an "answer" to  The Lord of the Flies.  (Boys left to their own devices doing something noble rather than something evil.)  I am currently looking for a copy of another Swarthout novel called The Shootist.  I remember seeing a copy a few years ago at What The Book? in Seoul and picking it up and ultimately putting it back on the shelf and going on.  Do you suppose my forehead ever gets tired of me smiting it?

10. Two For The Dough - Janet Evanovich.  I was happy to see more of Grandma Mazur. She was played by Debbie Reynolds in the movie version of One For The Money!  I love Debbie, but it just didn't feel right. Anyway, kudos to Evanovich for bringing Lula back after her brush with death in the first book.  Since it's early in the series, I am hopeful that the very attractive Ranger will get more page time and Morelli a little bit less.

11. Marbles - Ellen Forney.  This graphic novel is Forney's chronicle of how she has struggled with being bipolar. She presents the manic side of herself first, and draws and writes about it so fetchingly and creatively that the reader begins to agree with her about being reluctant to medicate. I cannot lie -- I loved that version of Ellen and was sorry to see her disappear.  That part of  Marbles is the strongest and most vivid, but Forney's skill is even more in evidence as she presents the "down" side of her illness and in the subtle shadings of difference in the way she draws herself as she improves, then has a few frustrating setbacks, then improves again.   Both educational and entertaining.  I'm really getting into memoirs presented in the graphic novel format.

12. My Mortal Enemy - Willa Cather.  I consider myself a Willa Cather fan, but I sure don't like this sour novella about a petty middle-aged woman's disillusionment.  It should have stayed rolled up in Cather's typewriter or gone to its deserved rest in her wastepaper basket.  Better yet, she should have sent it to Edith Wharton and let her straighten it out.

Readathon Intro: Assembling Reading Stacks and Reading Snacks

I'm very yay! and yippee! to be doing Dewey's Readathon again.  Although this is my 8th or 9th time to participate, I've only been awake for the whole 24 hours once.  The Sandman reminds me of that bully on the beach in the old Charles Atlas advertisements.  I guess you know who that makes me.

I'm reading today (and tomorrow, because it's already 9 pm on Saturday here) from the totally excellent city of Busan, South Korea.  The book I'm most looking forward to is Marbles by Ellen Forney.  It's a graphic novel, and I'm going to try to save it for that delicate space in which I'm tired but not yet hallucinating. 

I've gathered some snacks, and I'm most eagerly anticipating a plate of the nacho chips topped with my homemade chili and some cheese.  I'll also be visiting other blogs in the guise of a Readathon Cheerleader and providing encouragement (and getting ideas for new stuff to read and eat).

In real life (as opposed to "read life"), I'm an English as a Foreign Language instructor at a university in Busan.  The students (mostly Korean with a few Chinese) are great, which means they bring a lot of confidence, goodwill and energy into the classroom with them, which makes my job easier.  It's difficult to be strict and  hardnosed about "proper" grammar, because I'm dazzled by all the different ways the language can be manipulated and even changed to suit needs and reflect culture.

Back to the business at hand: I changed up my reading strategy for this Readathon.  For the past year or so, I was reading children's books, but I lost the heart for that genre.  I'm mixing it up this time, and we'll see how it goes.  I don't expect to get to all of these:

The two books I've selected from my Kindle are Onions In The Stew by Betty MacDonald and Two For The Dough by Janet Evanovich.

Those eggs are hard-boiled.  I tried to get a good mixture of savory and sweet.

That's it.  I'm ready.  Read-y.

Readathon Hours 1 and 2: Off To An Improper (but fun) Start

I promise, I got everything ready well ahead of time.

Stack:

Snacks:

My friend Val generously set me up with some of her garlic-and-vegetable pasta salad and some cornbread:

With a couple of hours to spare before the readfest, I went out and had a couple of drinks with a couple of friends at our favorite watering hole here in Erewhon. The start time floated right by me on rivulets of beer foam. But I'm back now and ready to read and blog. Hope everyone's having a good time so far.

Everything Edith

Bookworm Meets Bookworm has a great idea, and I'm in. This read-along starts on February 2 and goes until March 2. The Age of Innocence is the 1921 Pulitzer fiction winner, so this fits neatly into my reading plans.

Suddenly, I've got this longing for Everything Edith. My plan is to warm up for the read-along by reading Wharton's 1913 novel, The Custom of the Country. During the read-along I'll be inexplicably pining away for things that I don't actually want in my real life -- a pompadour, a bustle, an evening gown trimmed with lace and feathers and fur accessories.

At least I can comprehend my gnawing within to be in possession of Wharton's biography by the absolutely brilliant Hermione Lee. Also, who could blame me for my desire to sit here and read? Gorgeous. I love the subtle grouping by color, but that one book leaning irks me a little.

The Road To The Readathon

About 15 minutes till the trouble begins -- so far, I've had a couple of setbacks, but they've been minor.

Yesterday, I went back to my library to pick up The Complete Novels of Dashiell Hammett and Clear Pictures, a memoir by Reynolds Price. When I got to the self-checkout machine, she turned against me in my time of need. Apparently, She Means Business about the 10-book limit.

Since the Readathon begins at the end of the day here instead of the beginning, I have to make sure that the day before consists of plenty of rest, so I stayed up till dawn reading Sea of Poppies and watching The Trouble With Angels, then slept most of today. I regret that I didn't get out to get Brie or Asian pear, though.

After I woke up in the late afternoon, I watched more TV and played online Scrabble. I caught most of The Crucible and then saw that Twilight had just started on another channel. While doing this, I started the hardboiled eggs. Unfortunately, I got interested in all of these activities and didn't monitor the boiling/cooling time on my eggs, so they're a little mangled but still edible.

I've never seen or read Twilight before. I'm following Alex's reading of the book on youtube, and I thought he was just being delightfully snippy, but no. It's not my thing at all. The vampires have just played baseball during a thunderstorm and had an encounter with...other vampires? Evil dark forces?...but never mind. I'm done. Goodbye, Twilight, hello Readathon!

Get It On, Bang A Gong, Readathon

Twelve minutes to go. I'm writing an introductory post while waiting for the clock hands to pirouette their way up to the appointed hour.

I'm starting with this book: When My Name Was Keoko by Linda Sue Park. Chapter one, page one...or whichever page has been designated as the start page. Quick peek...yes, it's page one. Good.

Snack choice: Sunflower seeds and a bottle of water. There's a Coke in the fridge beckoning me to drink it with some chipped ice, and half of a Twirl bar sending out its own siren song, but I'm going to try and hold off from those treats until the wee hours. Have you ever eaten a Twirl? This is chocolate. This is what Hershey's wishes they could do. I need to look into moving to England. An assortment of thanks and curses to Val for introducing me to this little bit of perfection and getting me started on another obsession

Okay, it's about that time. Happy reading to all 300+ of us. I wish Dewey were here as well.
See you in an hour.

I Am So There

"Ain't nothing gonna break my stride, I'm running and I won't touch ground

Oh no, I've got to keep on moving..."

I've been wondering if I would be able to fully participate in the upcoming Dewey's Readathon (October 24-25) and today, I know for sure: YES. I signed up to read and cheer, but I don't know how I'll divide my duties yet. In the past, read 8/cheer 8/read 8 has worked well.

.

What to read? I've been saving back some things. I've got plans dancing in my head like sugarplums, except the noise they make is like the crackle of pages turning fast enough to self-ignite:

• Finally finish Toji


• Read Maus and Maus 2


• Read Persepolis 2


• Finally finish Seabiscuit, which I abandoned midway sometime in 2004 because I was stressed.


• Beg & grovel until Alex from my Cracked Spinz book group lets me borrow his audiobook of Hugh Laurie reading Three Men In A Boat. That'll keep me awake because my heart will be racing like crazy.


• Read my library loot


• Read When My Name Was Keoko by Linda Sue Park, which is a glimpse into a sad part of Korea's history from a young brother and sister's perspective.


• Select something from my humor section that I haven't read yet


• Read one of those D-K YA biographies that I haven't gotten to yet.


• Read Julie & Julia by Julie Powell and My Life In France by Julia Child.

What to eat? This time, I resolve to eat at least one healthy thing. Suggestions? Sugar, salt and caffeine are wonderful things, but not for the long haul. Speaking of snacks, that's the beauty part of cheerleading -- often readers will discuss what they're noshing on, some in loving detail with photos.

What to wear? My softest and most comfortable pair of pajama pants and one of my St. Louis Cardinal t-shirts, since they should still be in the playoffs and well on their way to the World Series by then.

The downside is that I'll miss the meeting with Talya's book group. Talya, I'm sorry...as my students often say, "Please understand my mind!"

Readathon Hour 22: Instead Of Books

Hour 22 page count: Goose egg.

Instead, dinner. And an episode of The Big Valley. Nick was wolf-bit and he didn't want his family to know, so he left Stockton and went and hid out in the Napa Valley in case he was dying of rabies. Poor Heath was sworn to secrecy. Back when this show was originally on TV (1965-1969), there was also a comic book.

Back to David Sedaris!

Readathon Hour 19: The Secret Weapon

I finished the biography of Diana and felt so sad at how foolishly her life ended. Then, when I was sad, I began to feel fatigued. Then I reached for the Sedaris book. Smart move to save his book for this late stage of the game.

Hour 19, pages read: 32.

Readathon Hours 17 and 18: Reading Again

I was so engrossed in the Princess Diana biography that I forgot to blog on the hour as I meant to. Instead, I got 100 pages read during this time. This YA biography, published by Dorling-Kindersley and aimed at the 10-12 and up age group is well-done, with a large assortment of photographs and boxed paragraphs on nearly every page that explain the cultural milieau Diana lived in. It's refreshing to read the life story of a celebrity told simply without a lot of trash and other innuendo while also striving to present a balanced portrait of a complex woman with her share of flaws. I'll finish the book very soon (Diana is in Paris with Dodi Fayed) then start on When You Are Engulfed In Flames.

Mr. Bybee has reassured me that I look very tired. That may be, but I actually feel clear-headed and ready to go the distance.

Readathon Hour 16: Putting Away The Pom-Poms & Pulling Out The Paperbacks

Congratulations to joemmama for winning my challenge! Those lines were from Endless Love by Scott Spencer. As joemmama pointed out -- really good novel, really bad movie.

I have fully discharged my cheerleading duties. I visited most of the readers' blogs. If I didn't leave a comment, it's because I couldn't leave one for some unreasonable computerish reason. Some blogs I couldn't get into at all. Difficulties were rare, though, and I enjoyed seeing what you've read and I REALLY enjoyed seeing what you've eaten. When you're an expat, food is like your porn. With that in mind, I must tell Dewey with the greatest respect that if her husband sets foot anywhere in Asia, I'm claiming him. The snack plate he made was a thing of joy and beauty forever.

I'm back to being a reader now. My original plan was to crack open the Sedaris book, but I suddenly remembered that biography of Princess Diana, and now it's driving me crazy and I must read it first. Sigh. I've got to go fetch it from Dorm Sweet Dorm. Double sigh.

Readathon Hour One: Game On!

"I'm comin' out, so you'd better get this party started..." -Pink

Just a quick note to say hi, I'm here and ready to read. The good news is that I'm not drunk in another city for start of this Readathon, but the bad news is that it's after 9 pm here and I've been awake since 9:30 this morning, so things might get a little rocky later. But on the bright side, I've got a brand-new haircut for the occasion. And a snack. And books:

The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz. I'm on page 87 already. I love this book!

When You Are Engulfed In Flames - David Sedaris. This will be my secret weapon. I'll pull it out when my brain turns to mist.

How Koreans Talk - Sang-Hun Choe & Christopher Torchia. This has been on the bedside table for a while, and my bookmark is at the halfway point. Korean idioms and expressions and the history behind them.

Books - Larry McMurtry. I love McMurtry, I love books, McMurtry loves books, I love that McMurtry loves books. How could I go wrong with this choice? Answer: I can't.

The Innocent Man - John Grisham. This will be my first John Grisham read since I abandoned A Time To Kill back in the early 1990s.

Ready...Set...Read!