Booklahoma And Everything After

Every month is a bookish month in my universe, but July was bookish-bookish. It's been a stressful spring and summer on the Mom front, so it's obvious that I sought solace and relief from stress in bookstores.

My Spawn (AKA my son AKA that bookworm I made that one time back in 1984) took me around to Gardner's when I visited Tulsa. I love the feel of Gardner's. It's so comfy and sprawling with that sweet smell of book dust but it's insanely organized. I always go in with the idea that anything is possible as far as treasure-finding goes.

He also introduced me to a new bookstore in the downtown area called Magic City Books. What can I say about perfection? I was reminded of another sublime experience -- my trip to Prairie Lights in Iowa City back in the late 80s or early 90s. Clean, pristine, tasteful, quirky...I loved it, and can't wait to visit again. I bought some books and the cool t-shirt pictured above. I offered to buy The Spawn one, but he turned me down. His bookish light shines so brightly, he has no need of apparel that accentuates the fact.

The following books are the deluge that was July.

 I must be stern with myself and rein in during August. 

Yeah, right.

True Grit - Charles Portis. The 50th anniversary edition. Now I have three copies of the novel. One of my great finds at Magic City Books.

Fevre Dream - George R.R. Martin.  Borrowed from The Spawn.

Conviction: The Untold Story of Putting Jodi Arias Behind Bars - Juan Martinez. This case happened while I was in Korea, so I'm not really familiar with it. All part of my True Crime reading spree. Bought at Barnes & Noble.

The Good Son - Jeong You-Jeong. I am over the moon when a Korean author breaks through and has a bestseller in English. Looking forward to reading it. Another purchase from Magic City Books.

Born a Crime - Trevor Noah. I can't say enough good things about this audiobook. Narrated by the author. Smart, sharp, funny, moving -- but those are just words. Have a listen for yourself. I'm loaning it to The Spawn when I see him again soon. Bought at Barnes & Noble.

Coming To My Senses: The Making of a Counterculture Cook - Alice Waters. This memoir by the godmother of the foodie movement is on my 100-book resolution list, so I was quite excited when I found it at Barnes & Noble.

The Potlikker Papers: A Food History of the Modern South - John Edge. I'd never heard of this book, but Magic City Books cast a spell over me and I had to have it. I love books about food. Someday I'm going to compile a list of all my foodie reads. The Potlikker Papers won the James Beard Award.

My Life in Middlemarch - Rebecca Mead. A BIG SCORE from Gardner's! I've been dancing around this book since it came out in 2014. Since I'll be reading Middlemarch again next year -- once every ten years since 1999 -- I might set this aside and make it my last book of 2018 or the first of 2019.

They Went Thataway - Malcolm Forbes. I got this 1988 capsule look at famous people's demises for a friend. He's been reading through, and was especially troubled about Hemingway taking his life with a shotgun. "There's no way a person could survive that!" he exclaimed. Well, no. That was probably Hemingway's take on it.  I'm going to borrow this book when my friend is finished with it. Found it  on Gardner's  bargain rack.

Cell - Stephen King. I wish I hadn't bought this audiobook. I quickly realized my mistake after a few chapters and bought Born a Crime. Usually I love to listen to Uncle Stevie on long trips. This time, no. Zombie novels aren't my thing. To make matters worse, I chose it over a book I really wanted to listen to. It was a memoir called Educated by Tara Westover.

Oh, well. Even bookworms can have missteps. I regret not buying My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh from Magic City Books. I haven't found it here in Sedalia. To add to the misstepping, I bought Eileen by the same author for five bucks at Wal-Mart and discovered when I got home that I have it on my Kindle. Read it last year and loved it. Enjoyable whiffs of Jim Thompson and Patricia Highsmith. So impatient to read the new one. Why did I pass it up? Whyyyyyyyyyyyyy? I had it in my hand, I opened it, I smelled it, I tasted...no, not that, but you get the idea.

Another thing I'm miffed at myself for is not checking out Gardner's audiobook section. I don't know for sure if they have one, because I went right instead of left when I came through their doors and stayed right. Which seems wrong now.

Returning home from Tulsa, my book-buying engine was still fired up. 

In addition to the abovementioned Eileen, I bought the children's classics The 101 Dalmatians by Dodie Smith and Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers. Both are on my 100-book Resolution list. They are on my Kindle. I never realized how much less expensive children's books are. Perhaps I should make it my main genre. Nah.

Browsing a book about the best of cult fiction, I came across the title Billy Liar by Keith Waterhouse. Are you there, Amazon? It's me, Susan.

Always on the hunt for an audiobook, I bought Dad is Fat by comedian Jim Gaffigan from Reader's World in Sedalia. I thought this was another bad buy, but after a sluggish start, it's growing on me. If you're a parent and you don't take yourself too terribly seriously, you'll enjoy this one. Especially as Gaffigan's five (!) children get older in his stories.

Right after finding Dad is Fat, I looked at the biography/memoir shelf and gasped aloud. Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood was beaming out at me with attitude. People have been recommending this book to me since it came out.  O my Fellow Readers, you know me. This book ticks all my boxes. Lockwood, a poet bends language into the most beguiling shapes and having an unconventional family to write about adds to the hilarity. I'm trying to read Priestdaddy slow, to savor it, but one chapter calls for another. My ribs hurt from laughing. My neck hurts from nodding in admiration for her quirky prose. It's not too often I get that pleasure/pain thing going on while reading.

My final buy was a book from Dollar Tree, Here and Now, a small collection of letters between Paul Auster and J.M. Coetzee over a three-year period. I like writers. I like it when they like each other.

I shopped more than I read, but I had a good month with that, too. Next post.

I Am Sale-ing, I Am Sale-ing

Ah, library sales! I have missed them, but I had quite forgotten that strange mix of feelings when I see a library book that has been discontinued:

Why, there's ___________! Oh, I've been looking for it for such a long time! Why are they throwing it out of their collection? How DARE they? But wait. That means that I can take ____________ home not just for two weeks, but forever!

Here are some of my recent finds:

1. The Life of Irene Nemirovsky - Olivier Philipponnat and Patrick Lienhardt.  Nemirovsky was the author of Suite Francaise, who died at the hands of the Nazis. Her daughters smuggled that manuscript and others out of occupied France. One dollar.

2. Drama - John Lithgow. Lithgow got my attention more than 30 years ago when he played Roberta Muldoon in The World According to Garp. I also loved him in Terms of Endearment as Debra Winger's shy Iowan lover. I'm really looking forward to his memoir. One dollar.

3. The Reader's Encyclopedia c. 1970. - Stephen Benet. I love The Reader's Encyclopedia, Especially the older editions. Not only do they define all things literary, there are capsule descriptions of novels and novelists who were popular at the time but have now fallen into obscurity. These delectable tidbits swell my wish lists. One dollar is not too much to pay for a book that contains so much treasure and is also sturdy enough to serve as a doorstop or prop open a window in an emergency.

4. The Late George Apley - John Marquand.  BIG SCORE, as this is the Pulitzer fiction (then called Pulitzer novel) winner from 1938. Even better, it's a hardcover copy! One dollar!!!

5. Alice Adams - Booth Tarkington. Another big score, Pulitzer nocvel winner in 1921 or '22.  I've been looking for Alice for years. Fifty cents!

Which Coco Bio?

I don't know what comes over me, or why.  Book madness, I suppose.  Bookstruck, as if I'd stood and stared at the spines on the shelves for too long without blinking.

Somehow, I got it in my head today that I wanted, no, that I must read a biography of Coco Chanel.   I went charging off into the internet only to find that there are a great many books about her.  A dazzling array.

Now I'm confused: Which bio should I buy-o?

Maybe I should just dab on some perfume and lie down until this mood passes.

New 19th Century Crush: George Gissing

Move over, Emile Zola.  Step aside, George Moore.  (Stay where I can still see you gentlemen, though!)

 There's a new fellow in the Bybee bookiverse.  George Gissing.  I've only read one complete novel so far -- The Odd Women -- and I'm about 15% into another -- The Nether World -- but I'm a fan.  Look at me, dashing like Emily Dickinson.  Yep, I'm smitten.  How did his work escape my notice for so long?  Or did it?  A long time ago, before most of your blogs were born, we had an Outmoded Authors Challenge.  Did I see his name there?  A memory stirs...

Anyway.  How do I love George Gissing?  I won't count all the ways, but suffice it to say that he hits my literary sweet spot.  He's like George Eliot and Emile Zola combined.  One foot in Victorian literature (but not the fainty, fussy kind -- the spirited, intellectual discourse kind that really takes its time about developing characters. Yes, I'm looking at you, Middlemarch!) and the other foot in Naturalism. His characters go off the rails on a crazy train from time to time, but then they go home and have a cup of tea and think about it.

 Furthermore, his prose is so intensely readable. [Rant about Henry James removed.]  I'm afraid to read him on the subway; I'm going to miss my stop one of these times.  Also, the way he creates characters!  I wanted to smack practically everyone in The Odd Women upside the head, but it's only because Gissing made me care so much about their lives.

Of course, this in no way plays into my hero-worship, but Gissing's books are free.  Thanks to Susan at Pages Turned, who mentioned him on Goodreads, I hunted them down and snapped up five -- The Odd Women, The Nether World, New Grub Street, Eve's Ransom, and The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft.

It's going to be a George Gissing summer.

P.S. He was cute, wasn't he?  I tried not to say it, but there you go.  

Bybeeary in Busan

Behold, the newest incarnation of the Bybeeary.  Since I'm in a studio apartment, this is what I see each morning when I open my eyes.  It's still very much a work in progress.  I'm trying to get the fiction in alphabetical order.  The nonfiction is always a challenge.  I might go with Dewey Decimal order.

The 1st bookshelf (left):
Shelves 1-3: Pulitzer fiction winners
Shelf 3 (right): Flashman books
Shelf 4 (left): Little House series
Shelf 4 (right): Noir collection
Bottom shelf: Baseball books

The middle bookshelf:
Shelves 1-2: Fiction
Shelf 3: Graphic novel collection
Shelves 4-5: Fiction

The 3rd bookshelf (right):
Shelf 1: Books about food, books about musicians, misc. nonfiction
Shelf 2 (left): Books about South and North Korea
Shelf 2 (right): Assorted nonfiction
Shelves 3 and 4: Assorted nonfiction

I'm pleased to have gotten the books packed, moved and unpacked.  I'm also pleased that I was able to get rid of some of the books and get the collection under 500 again.  It's overwhelming when the books spiral out of control, but I think I'd be uneasy if the collection got too small. After all, books furnish a room.  If I didn't have books, I'd actually have to learn something about interior decorating!

Book Swap: Unload and Reload

My bookshelves were getting all bulgy again after I culled them down during my move to the new apartment earlier this year. What better way to return to that streamlined look than to put a few books in a plastic bag and head for the Seoul Book Exchange in Itaewon?

9:30 am:  I walked out the door.  I had six books to swap.  Except I wasn't going to swap, I was going to dump these and come home empty-handed.  Maybe I would daintily select one from the proffered pile.

6 pm:  Honey, I'm home.  Oh, that's right, I'm not married anymore, so there's no one to see me upend the plastic bag and spill the contents onto the sofa.  Nine books.

So much for streamlining.

Here's what I brought home, in no particular order:

1. Clock Without Hands - Carson McCullers.  When I was a freshman or sophomore in college, I read a biography of Carson McCullers called (what else?) The Lonely Hunter.  Then I reread it.  Carson McCullers became one of my girl-crushes ever after.  I thought about her constantly, imagining her days at Yaddo, drinking sherry from a thermos.  In that first fervor of obsession, I tried to read everything of hers that I could get my hands on.   I cut my bangs short.  I tried sherry and discovered that I didn't like it too much.  In the middle of all this adoration and being and becoming, I somehow neglected to read Clock Without Hands.  I'm gonna fix that now.

2. Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West - Stephen E. Ambrose.  Something's missing from that subtitle.  Clark!  I was intrigued.

3. Cogan's Trade - George V. Higgins.  I've really warmed up to crime fiction a lot in the past couple of years.

4. American Scream: The Bill Hicks Story - Cynthia True.  A biography of the stand-up comedian who died of pancreatic cancer in 1994 at the age of 32.  He was 5 days younger than I am, born on December 16, 1961. I can't help but feel a connection, however morbid it may be.

5. Satori - Don Winslow.  A long, long time ago, I had a friend who had a boyfriend.  I would tag along with her to his apartment and sit in the living room while they went off and did their own thing.  Awkward.  Strangely, I never thought to bring along something to read to while away the hours.  Dude had no TV.  No records or record player.  To this day, I can't imagine why my friend was attracted to him.  Luckily, he had a small library.  One book: Shibumi, a 1979 spy novel by Trevanian.  Not my type of reading, but I grabbed onto it as if it were a life raft and found myself engrossed.  I've completely forgotten my friend's boyfriend's name, but I'll never forget Nicholai Hel.  Satori doesn't seem to be a prequel or sequel, so I'm a little confused.  Gotta give it a try, though.  Guess I'm feeling sentimental.

6. Jackson Browne:  His Life and Music - Mark Bego.  Speaking of sentimental, when I was in high school, I wanted a boyfriend who looked and sounded just like Jackson Browne. I couldn't resist this book, but it's going to drive me crazy because it's got the same problem as that Kinky Friedman book I tried to read:  blow-up quotes on every frickin' page!  Why do publishers do that?  Are these books for people who don't like to read, or they're too stoned to remember what they just read?  I'm framing an irate email to Citadel Press, even as I type this.

7. The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence - Victor Marchetti and John D. Marks.  There is no way in hell I'm ever going to read this book.  Why did I bring it home???

8. Canadian Inventions: Fantastic Feats and Quirky Contraptions - Lisa Wojna.  Finally, something with which to both taunt my Canadian friends while impressing them with my knowledge!  My neighbors to the north invented some great things like insulin and basketball, but also some decidedly odd things like square bullets and a mechanical skirt lifter.  From a cursory look at the back cover, poutine is considered to be in the "What were they thinking?" category, but I'm decidedly in favor of poutine, and will debate this with anyone -- preferably while chowing down on a plateful.  Speaking of great ideas, Canadian author Lisa Wojna had one when she researched and wrote this book.  I know I'm going to love it.

9. Black Swan Green - David Mitchell.  I haven't read Cloud Atlas yet.  I want to, but still feel too intimidated.  I'll read this novel first, then I'll work my way back.

TBR Double Dare: Pieces of April

So far, so good.  I'm nearly through week 1 and I've only read things that have been mouldering on my to-be-read shelf.  There's a richness nearly beyond compare stacked up on that 7-foot wooden structure.

 There are hundreds of choices, but of course this contrary bookworm wants what she doesn't have and can't read until after April 1 if the TBR Double Dare is to be successfully completed.

Friday found me poking through a box of book giveaways at the office.  I came home with:

Dust To Dust - Timothy Findlay.  Canadian author!
Salads (recipe book).  Maybe this book will turn my eating habits around forever.  Nah.
The Black Monk - Anton Chekov.  I can never resist those cute little palm-sized Penguin 60s.
Siddhartha - Herman Hesse.  I tried to read Hesse in high school because he was so "meaningful", but quickly lost interest.  I'll go back and see if my lost interest was justified or just the mark of an immature reader.

A day before that, my friend Teri gifted me a Kindle copy of The Gathering by Anne Enright.  I heard that this Man Booker winner is grim and depressing -- everything I love in a novel.

Last night, I went wild on Amazon, in search of Taylor Caldwell books.  I ordered two:  Wicked Angel (1965) and Captains and the Kings (1972).  I also wanted a nice hardcover first edition copy of A Prologue to Love, but the bookseller wouldn't deliver to South Korea.

"All of this is off limits till April 2."
 Repeat as necessary.

I've got pieces of April...it's a morning in January.

TBR Yikes!

Yikes! is right.  There's no other word for my TBR shelf.

Did I say 'shelf'?  It's time to unpack my plural forms.

Final TBR count:  298 books.  Yikes.

July 2011: Book (Nook) Buying

So much to confess this month!  This isn't chronological order, but I'll get the big purchase out of the way first:  I went into Barnes & Noble a couple of weeks ago and bought a Nook.  I'm totally charmed with it (I mean charmed with her, for she is a girl and her name is Dorothy as in Parker, Gale, Hughes and Thompson).  There's something so close to magic about sitting in Starbucks, McDonald's or Taco Bell (places with wi-fi in this particular town) and suddenly getting a desire to read something and being able to make it appear within a couple of minutes. 

Dorothy came into my life bearing three books: Little Women, Pride and Prejudice and Dracula and the capacity for so many more.  Of course, I had to test that out immediately.  Over a marvelous tea lemonade in Sedalia's Starbucks store, I made my first e-book purchase:  The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.  It arrived so quickly that I nearly squeeeeeed in public.

After a few days, I wanted to do the magic again.  I'd just been to Hannibal, Mark Twain's hometown, and had a hankering to read Life on the Mississippi.  Off I went to McDonald's to nurse a $1.00 sweet tea and shop.  By the time I got down to the ice at the bottom of the cup, I not only had LOTM (for 99 cents!), but I had also bought The Autobiography of Mark Twain, The Prince and the Pauper and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.  I was supposed to read that last one over 25 years ago in Mr. Shanahan's American Novel class, but didn't get around to it, and still felt a little guilty about blowing off the assignment.  Never too late.  (In a related note, I nearly named Dorothy Larry after McMurtry and Shanahan.)

I am slightly touched with new techie fervor, but  I could not let the sweet paper bundles be.  Here's what I toted out of Real Live Bookstores during July:

1. Unbroken - Laura Hillenbrand.  Still mourning my lost-on-the-subway copy, I purchased another as soon as my plane landed in Dallas.

2. The Wilder Life - Wendy McClure.  Purchased at my local indie bookstore because I am a big fat Bonnethead and proud of it.

3. Here If You Need Me - Kate Braestrup.  I found this treasure at the local used bookstore.

4. Please Don't Shoot My Dog - Jackie Cooper. I love books about Old Hollywood.  This one also came from the used bookstore.  Smells so good. The store, I mean.

5. A Stolen Life - Jaycee Dugard.  My mom wanted to read this book after she saw the interview with Dugard on 20/20, so I found it for her at Wal-Mart.

6. Valley of the Dolls - Jacqueline Susann.  This one is my friend Doreen's fault.  It's her favorite campy movie, so she urged Katie and me to watch it right before my trip to the States.  That damn theme song by Dionne Warwick is turning out to be a forever earworm.  I don't take Doreen's cruelty to heart though; every bookworm summer should feature at least one Classic Trashy Read.

7. Little House on the Prairie - Laura Ingalls Wilder.  After Mom found out that Laura and her family lived for a short time in the same county she was born and brought up in, she decided that perhaps there was merit in my being a Bonnethead.   I used the opportunity to run back to the used bookstore and introduce her to the series.  I wanted to start with Little House in the Big Woods, but it wasn't there.  I toyed with the idea of getting my favorite, The Long Winter, but settled on the one with the same name as the TV show.

May 2011: Book Buying

April 30, 2011:

Dear Book Spending Journal,

I am seriously going to hold down my book spending this next month. Enough is enough. Too much is too much.

May 1, 2011:

Dear BSJ,
An early Mother's Day lunch with The Spawn. We went to Outback in Cheonan and tore with hearty appetites into New York strips. Delicious as the food was, I couldn't help being distracted by the glimmering at the edges of my vision. Almost directly across the street was a Kyobo bookstore.

Spawn: Where to now?

Me: You know where.

Spawn: Yeah, the bookstore. I went yesterday, but c'mon.

[at the bookstore]

Me: This selection isn't doing a thing for me.

Spawn: I knew you'd be disappointed.

Me: Except...there's a copy of 127 Hours. I kind of want it.

Spawn: Did you watch the movie?

Me: Not yet. So that's a good reason to buy the book. I could read it first then watch the movie.

Spawn: I guess. Look, someone tore the cover of the Obama book. Do you think it was _______?

Me: No, because Obama's face isn't torn.

Me: [thinking] This Kyobo sucks, but it does exist. What if I couldn't get to Seoul or get online? Also I've lost my library card, so one of my options is gone. I should show this store some appreciation...

Me: [aloud] I've got my discount card. I can get the book for less than 10.


May 9, 2011
Dear Spending Journal:
Val came up with the brilliant idea that Cracked Spinz should read an Enid Blyton book. She was practically raised on EB, and I've never even read one page. Were her books even in the libraries I frequented? Anyway, I charged Val with finding the perfect title, and she came up with Shock For The Secret Seven (1961). What about that publication date? Nice work, eh? After that, it was run, don't walk to abebooks.com for a nice copy that was published in conjunction with the centennial of Blyton's birth.

May 11, 2011
Dear Spendy,
It's all Paul's fault. He lent me Hardboiled Hollywood, which discusses how the book and film versions of certain detective/crime/noir classics differ. I was doing fine until I got to In A Lonely Place by Dorothy B Hughes. I saw the movie with Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame years ago and thought it was just OK. Then I read that the book is wildly different. Then I read that Dorothy Hughes was right in there writing noir with Chandler, Hammett, Cain and holding her own at a time when ladies just didn't do that. Then I read that Hughes was from Kansas City. Then I saw the gorgeous Penguin cover, which is a crisp b&w still from the movie. That did it. I'm not made of stone. Back to the internet. The seller hesitated. I can't ship to North Korea, due to postal concerns, she wrote in an email. Can't blame her. It's like I always say: The Republic of Korea sounds like the stern, unfriendly one and The Democratic People's Republic of Korea sounds rather approachable, damn near cuddly if you didn't know better. Happily, I wrote back, I live in South Korea. The book should be here soon, but I'm good for the rest of the month. I've spent enough on books already. This will do me for a while.

May 16, 2011

Dear Spendthrift Journal,

Last month, my co-worker, Megan, recommended a book to me. I almost forgot about it until I walked into her office today and saw a copy of it: Madeleine Is Sleeping by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum. Her class is reading it this semester, and there was that one copy left over. I quickly gave Megan the money for it. What if she'd given it away to someone else? I like reason and logic as much as the next person, but that lone copy was there because I was meant to read it.

May 22, 2011
Oh Spendy --
Honestly, I only meant to get one book at What The Book? today. Last night on the EBS late movie, they showed the 1957 version of A Farewell To Arms with Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones. It was too Technicolor-y and Cinemascope-y and Jennifer Jones seemed a trifle too old, but it made me want to read Hemingway's novel again, since I can't remember it well enough to know what was left in and what was taken out.

Picking up that one book started a chain reaction. I went a little mad and also picked up Room by Emma Donoghue. I have the impression that I can read Room and count it for the Canadian Challenge. I might have the wrong book. Oh, well. Too late. I started reading it on the train and it's unputdownable. Of course I knew I'd be captivated the way I was in 2004 by her novel Slammerkin.

In addition, I decided to replace my old, beat-up, glued-together mass market copy of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao with a nice trade paperback edition for my Pulitzer shelf. I think I lent the old copy to someone at work who kind of likes to read but not really, so it's gone. I was tired of that forlorn gap between The Road and Olive Kitteridge on the shelves.

Stumbling into the EFL/ESL section of the store, I found the perfect book I need to teach a graduate class of Korean would-be English teachers next semester: How to Teach English by Barry Sesnan. It's got everything the chairman of my department says he wants me to cover. Thanks, Barry-- wherever you are. You've saved me a lot of headaches.

All in all, a good day's work, but spending must end. Really. Enough is enough. I am seriously going to hold down my book spending this next month.

84, Charing Cross Road

Helene Hanff and I don't have the same taste in books, but I can totally see myself in her book-shopping shoes. I also see myself making friends with a bookstore staff in post-war London and shipping them tasty treats and other small luxuries at Christmastime.

.

.

84, Charing Cross Road is the result of twenty years of Hanff's correspondence with Marks & Co. Booksellers. Reading this slim memoir from a vantage point of more than 60 years onward, the prices made me smile. Hanff has a taste for the old and rare, and she sends Marks & Co. a five dollar bill and gets a stack of books so ancient that Dickens and Thackeray probably used them for booster seats when they were children and somehow, she ends up with two bucks credited to her account.

.

.

The most enjoyable parts of the book are her feisty letters to the company. No matter how obnoxious or strident she gets, she always gets a gentlemanly response from the patient manager, Frank Doel. I’m more than ready to treat myself to another viewing of the 1987 movie version starring Anne Bancroft as Hanff and Anthony Hopkins as Doel.

I Had A Little Gift Card & I Stomped That Sucker Flat

Actually, the gift card was HUGE. Generous, by anyone's standards. A (totally undeserved) reward from the other members of last fall's Writing Center pilot program. We snickeringly referred to ourselves as the Fundamentals for Universal Communicable Knowledge and just barely managed to keep that out of our final report. We had vision and we had fun.

A gift card?! Wow. Just wow. Careening through What The Book? like a hog on ice was a thing of joy forever. Thanks, Team [Acronym]! Here's how I spent your hard-earned money:

1. Unbroken - Laura Hillenbrand. I loved Seabiscuit, and I know I'll feel the same about her latest offering.

2. Cake Wrecks - Jen Yates. I got this one for the Foodie Challenge. My choice is my old friend Vicki Cheatwood's fault; she got me addicted to the website.

3. Easy Livin' Microwave Cooking - Karen Kangas Dwyer. Another for the Foodie Challenge and a chance to prove that I can turn out meals that make people gasp (in the preferred way) without breaking down and buying an oven.

4. Happy Birthday Or Whatever: Track Suits, Kim Chee And Other Family Disasters - Annie Choi. I wonder if she pronounces her name Choy, like it's spelled or Chae, like my students do. Anyway, a humorous memoir about her Korean-American family.

5. The Grifters - Jim Thompson. Oooooh my favorite noir guy. I saw this movie several years ago and liked it.

6. A Hell of a Woman - Jim Thompson. Can't go wrong here. This was originally published in 1954, when Thompson was on fire.

7. The Boys of Summer - Roger Kahn. Kahn grew up "in shouting distance of Ebbets Field" during the 1930s and 40s, then for a couple of years in the 1950s, he covered the Brooklyn Dodgers as a young sportswriter. For my baseball shelf.

8. The Rookie - Jim Morris. AKA The Oldest Rookie. Jim Morris was in the minors for a while, then gave it up for coaching high school baseball. At age 35, he got another incredible chance to be in The Show. A true story and a movie by Disney starring Dennis Quaid. Also for my baseball shelf.

9. The Inner Circle - T.C. Boyle. This time, Boyle takes on sex studies pioneer Alfred Kinsey. After having such an enjoyable time with The Women, I can hardly wait.

10. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down - Anne Fadiman. I will always love Anne Fadiman (read that last phrase while hearing in your mind's ear a complete string section backing Whitney Houston's vocals) because of Ex Libris, her quirky memoir about being a book lover. In this nonfiction work, Fadiman looks at a terrible culture collision between a Hmong family who has a daughter with epilepsy and American doctors at a small hospital in California.

11. The Road Past Altamont - Gabrielle Roy. Yay! I discovered another Canadian author! Take me to Tim Horton's and set me up with a double-double.

12. From Here To Eternity - James Jones. Time for another World War II novel. This is my first outing with James Jones, although I've seen the movie version two or three times. I'm imagining that the book will be sort of like Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead. This beat-up mass market paperback edition with that divine aged-book smell clocks in at 955 pages.

February 2011: Book Buying

After acquiring a huge load of (I lost count after 30) books last month for free, you're probably thinking: No. She could not have possibly gone out and bought books. Well, of course I could and did. You must be thinking of someone else. I almost made it through the month without opening my wallet, but books happen. Two of them this time:

1. The Sum and Total of Now - Don Robertson. I bought Robertson's wonderful The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread back in April, 2008 and gobbled it down almost as fast as the object in the title. I never meant for three years to pass before buying the rest of the trilogy. One night about a week ago, I woke up with the sweaty dreadful conviction that the new edition of The Sum and Total of Now was going to become as difficult to find and as expensive as its hardback ancestor from the late 1960s. To hell with that. I made my move.

2. The Greatest Thing That Almost Happened - Don Robertson. Bird is the word. A body in motion tends to remain in motion. Plus, my Inner Completeist Bookworm was clamoring for me to complete the trilogy. I had to. Buying the second book and not the third would have been like playing only the first three notes of Beethoven's 5th.

I suppose I should feel ashamed of my book gluttony, but when I think of those two books winging their way across the ocean to be with me, I can't help but feel pleased. In fact, I would like nothing more than to set up a lawn chair in the lobby of my apartment building and spend the days with my eyes trained on the wall of mailboxes until they arrive.

It's Raining Books, Hallelujah

This continues to be my lucky month. Last week, my co-worker Mike came back from Canada "with a shit-tonne of books". He immediately sent out an invitation to friends and neighbors to come over and grab the old books he'd culled from his shelves to make room for the new. Since Mike's collection (as well as his sub-collections) is fresh and winsome with beguiling whiffs of quirkiness, I headed over there with The Spawn, who came to visit for a few days.

Although culling is becoming more and more of an elusive concept for me to grasp, never let it be said that I don't help out my friends in their time of need. Here's what I brought back to the now dangerously bulging Bybee-ary:

1. Mike Nelson's Movie Megacheese - Mike Nelson. Funny, funny guy. I already peeked into this 2000 collection and read his review of The Bridges of Madison County. It made me laugh in that embarrassing way that comes out all snortified.

2. Race Matters - Cornel West. I've heard a lot about this book and also read a couple of excerpts from it over the years.

3. Gang Leader for a Day - Sudhir Venkatesh. What began as a graduate school project turned into several years of friendship with a gang leader and an inside view of gritty life on the street.

4. How Right You Are, Jeeves - P.G. Wodehouse. My first Wodehouse book. Yes, that's a tear of joy.

5. Meridian - Alice Walker. I've only read her short stories and The Color Purple, so I'm eager to check out her early novels.

6. Music for Chameleons - Truman Capote. Except for In Cold Blood, I've never read any Capote. This looks like a nice mix of fiction and non-fiction in one volume.

7. King Solomon's Mines - H. Rider Haggard. Ever since reading The Lost City of Z, I've wanted to read some Rider Haggard.

8. Me Write Book: It Bigfoot Memoir - Graham Roumieu. I thought this was a children's picture book at first, so I grabbed it for the Children's Lit class I'll be teaching in now less than a week (eeeee!). Ooops. Here's an excerpt from near the front of the book: Stink Yes, everyone know Bigfoot smell like shit. Please make effort not to point out every time you see Bigfoot. Thank you. Oh well. Still looks like fun, and there's a bonus I just discovered: I was hoping that since Mike is Canadian and Roumieu looks like a French name, that Graham Roumieu was Canadian. Yes, he is! Yay, another one for the Canadian Book Challenge! Maple Leaf me!!!

9. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark. A nice Penguin copy with a still from the movie on the cover.

10. Of Human Bondage - W. Somerset Maugham. I already have a copy, but I love the Bantam Classic cover.

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11. Love Me: A Novel - Garrison Keillor. Not sure about this one, but Mike, that silver-tongued so-and-so, glibly persuaded me to take it. I have a big culture gap concerning Lake Wobegon and Keillor, but he's from Minnesota, my new favorite state, so yah, you betcha, gotta give it a go.

Good thing I brought The Spawn along. I only meant for him to experience Mike's collection firsthand (he was mesmerized by the graphic novel subcollection), but he proved to be effective as my beast of burden. After that, he rested up and went to Suwon the next day to meet a former exchange student from his alma mater for lunch. Somehow, they drifted into a bookstore. That's my boy. He came back a few hours later with a copy of The Mist by Stephen King for himself and a copy of Carrie for me! That's my boy!

People Go Away But Their Books Stay

People are moving out of my apartment complex in droves this month. Happens every year. It's the expat way. People get that anywhere but here feeling and go in search of their 'real life' which is either beckoning them seductively from a new and mysterious locale or standing on a back porch in their own native country screeching imperatives. People start packing, then they get that other feeling: Damn. Books are heavy. Enter Bybee, with a tear in one eye and a gleam of anticipation in the other. Thanks to my wanderlusty compatriots, I've picked up about 30 books in as many days. Here's my haul from last night:

1. The Pythons Autobiography By The Pythons. All about Monty Python. 359 pages of photos and fun. A must for fans. The best kind of coffee table book. Heavy as hell because of that slick paper, so this won't be going with me on the subway.

2. The Eyes of the Dragon - Stephen King. Dan K., the previous owner of most of these books, had a lot of King. I was looking for Carrie, but any King is good. There's a lot I haven't read yet.

3. Catch Me If You Can - Frank Abagnale. I liked the movie.

4. Hearts in Atlantis - Stephen King. King takes on Vietnam. Hmm...

5. Insomnia - Stephen King. I've been wanting to read this.

6. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert. Maybe time for a reread.

7. Myths and Legends of India. Looks like fun.

8. Aquariums of Pyeongyang: Ten Years in the North Korea Gulag - Kang Chol-Hwan and Pierre Rigoulot. Sandra loaned me her copy of this one. I haven't gotten around to it yet, so I can get her copy back to her and keep this one on the TBR.

9. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle - David Wroblewski. Same thing, except change Sandra to Jill.

10. The End of the Affair - Graham Greene. I really need to read some GG. It's one of my literary gaps.

11. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen. About three or four years ago, every single blog was Jane! Jane! Jane! Now that everyone's moved on to the Brontes or Edith Wharton, I can assert my contrarian streak and enjoy Austen's greatest hit again. I like that I found the Oxford edition. All those explanatory notes in the back are great, geeky fun.

12. My War at Home - Masuda Sultan. The author's parents immigrated from Afghanistan to the United States when she was five. At seventeen, they married her off to a doctor. After three years, she was able to get a divorce, which was almost unheard-of. This memoir is about that as well as an examination of being a Muslim in America and her trips back to Afghanistan. The style is really engaging. I'm looking forward to reading this and loaning it to my friends.

13. First, They Killed My Father - Loung Ung. I borrowed this book from one of my coworkers back in 2005. Harrowing reading. I learned a lot about Cambodia and the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge. Everyone should read this and also Wild Swans.

14. When Trumpets Call: Theodore Roosevelt After The White House - Patricia O'Toole. TR had an eventful life. I'm sure his emeritius years were just as fascinating, or maybe more.

15. Confessions of an Econimic Hit Man - John Perkins. I'm not sure why I picked this up. The fever was upon me, no doubt.

16. His Excellency - Joseph J. Ellis. A biography of George Washington. His birthday's coming soon.

17. Nothing Like It In The World: The Men Who Built The Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869 - Stephen E. Ambrose. I didn't realize that some of this construction went on during the Civil War.

18. John Adams - David McCullough. I've been circling this one for a while. I want to read it then watch the miniseries starring one of my main crushes, Paul Giamatti.

19. Truman - David McCullough. OH MY GOD YES!!!!!! I'm so happy to find this biography! I started a library copy back in 1997 after visiting the Truman Library in Independence but didn't finish it before it was due. I've seen it in several bookstores here, but even patriotism couldn't induce me to overcome my laziness and tote the 1,117-pager home. Now it's mine and I will finish! Probably not a subway book, though. Of course, it's been so long since my last attempt, I'm going to have to start over.

Thanks so much to Faulkner Guy, Alex, Arlene, Amy and Dan. I'll miss you all like hell, but I've got your books here to comfort me.

January 2011: Book Buying

13 books bought this month. This bookworm in overdrive is starting off with what promises to be a bad trend -- I'm acquiring faster than I'm reading. Gotta slow it down. It could have been worse, though. During a recent visit to What The Book? I saw two Jim Thompson novels I haven't read yet: A Hell of a Woman and The Grifters. Also, I wanted a copy of Stephen King's Carrie and have had no luck finding it, which I find a little odd.

Sorry To Be So Cheerful - Hildegarde Dolson. While I was reading We Shook the Family Tree in December, I became achingly nostalgic for Dolson's 1955 follow-up about her life as a "spinster" living in Greenwich Village, so I ordered a copy from Amazon. I can hardly wait to get reaquainted with Dolson's adventures as a "true drab blonde", her encounter with etiquette queen Emily Post and I'm especially eager to reread the hilarious chapter 'Say Hemlock and Flop' in which Hildegarde, who is suffering through a stubborn bout of insomnia gamely tries out all her friends' sure-fire cures. Paul Galdone's witty illustrations are the icing on the cake.

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Elmer Gantry - Sinclair Lewis. This one is Abebooks' fault; they sent me a coupon for 10% off. I'm not made of stone! I actually bought EG for The Spawn. He saw the 1960 movie, and I told him the book is even better. I even treated him to the Dell Books movie tie-in with Burt Lancaster on the cover. I don't think he will, but if The Spawn rejects this book, I won't have any problem taking it back for a fun reread.

The next seven books...well, that's Alex's fault. He recently moved back to the UK, leaving an Alex-sized hole in my Cracked Spinz book club. (Faulkner Guy had also departed a few days earlier. Ouch.) Right before he left, Alex invited people to his apartment to take what he was leaving behind. This counts as book-buying because I felt guilty about leaving with such a large armload for free that I gave him all the money I had in my pocket, which was approximately $4.00 (USD). Here's what I got:

Grimms' Fairy Tales - Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. Cute little pocket edition with illustrations by Arthur Rackham.

The Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux. I've never seen the movies, the play or the musical. You could drive a tank through this gap in my cultural learning.

Democracy In America - Alexis De Tocqueville. This looks daunting.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Alexander Solzhenitsyn. I haven't yet found a Russian author that I can warm up to, but maybe it'll be Solzhenitsyn. My other reason for picking up this book is that Solzhenitsyn and I share a birthday -- Solzhy and me and Brenda Lee.

Tristram Shandy - Laurence Sterne. I tried this when I was younger, but got bored quickly. Am I still that same reader?

Veronika Decides to Die - Paulo Coelho. I know, but it's short. Maybe I can muscle through and rack up some international author points.

The Dante Club - Matthew Pearl. Lit Detectives! This looks like fun.

Then I went to Seoul and you know how that always goes:

Freedom - Jonathan Franzen. This is the pick for Bookleaves' March meeting. I hope I like it better than The Corrections.

Book Lust To Go - Nancy Pearl. America's favorite librarian recommends books based on location. Her chapter titles -- states, cities, countries, continents -- had me bursting into an off-key, lyric-mangling but spirited rendition of I've Been Everywhere. Good stuff. How can I say no to Nancy? Don't answer that.

Buy Buy 2010

After a year of tracking my book purchases, this is what my lunacy looks like:

93.

During 11 of the 12 months, I ranged between 3-8 books a month. In July, though, I went a little mad: 33 books. The good news is that I'm reading faster than I'm acquiring. Also, the majority of the books were used.

Looking back, I was surprised about how many books were bought for work or for other people. For example, I bought 7 in December, and three of those were gifts:

A Fable - William Faulkner. For the Pulitzer pile.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth - Jeff Kinney. I bought it for myself, but also with an eye towards the children's literature class next semester.

The Lost City of Z - David Grann. Christmas gift.

Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women - Harriet Reisen. I'm always up for anything Alcott: Stories? Sure. Bio? You bet! Trip to Concord? Let me pack a few things.

The Best of Everything - Rona Jaffe. I bought it to fill that Mad Men-shaped hole in my heart.

Storyteller: The Authorized Biography of Roald Dahl - Donald Sturrock. Christmas gift.

Leonard Maltin's 2011 Movie Guide - Leonard Maltin. Christmas gift.

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Although I've exposed myself as the bookmadwoman that I am, I still find that this was a useful exercise and I'll continue monitoring my book purchases in 2011.

November 2010: Buying

During November I didn't do much bookstore-hopping so I made up for it by ordering online. Most of these selections are for work. Since I'm going to teach Children's Literature next semester, I'm looking for a suitable text. Also slated is a children's camp at my university that will run for three weeks in January. I'll be teaching Newspaper. Upon hearing this news, I scrambled for some books about kid journalism. Here's the entire haul:

1. Harriet the Spy - Louise Fitzhugh. I needed this one for book group. It's really great that the movie tie-in cover has almost disappeared and the "classic" cover is back to stay. Also, I'm pleased to have Harriet M. Welsch on my shelves again. Makes me hungry for a tomato sandwich.

2. Anna LMNO - Sarah Glasscock. I have a copy of this novel about a small-town Texas hairdresser in my U.S. collection -- I bought it at Larry McMurtry's bookstore in Archer City -- but I feel rather sentimental about the book, so I bought a copy for my collection here. Back when this 1988 novel was brand-new, I read a library copy and liked it a lot. When the trade paperback appeared in stores, I wanted it really bad, but it was close to Christmas. I didn't have much money and had to buy presents, so I bought it for one of my friends who lived in another state. A couple of weeks later, she sent me a thank-you note that included her lengthy and scathing review. She tore Anna LMNO apart. I shredded her note but at the time, I believed that her opinion was infinitely more valuable than mine, so I felt uneasy about loving the book. Most of that uneasiness has worn off though, but there's still a residual feeling of defiance and protectiveness.

3. Kids in Print: Publishing a School Newspaper - Mark Levin. Some of the technological information is outdated, but I've got to be ready for anything, especially if the supplies committee tells me we won't have any computers at our disposal. Where's my chisel?

4. Children's Literature, Briefly - Michael O. Tunnell, James S. Jacobs. Upon hearing about getting the children's literature class, my first wild impulse was to totally steep the English majors in everything. Fortunately for them, I dialed it back a bit and decided on this 320 page text which promises to hit the high points. I can't wait to see it. If it's not enough, I'll supplement with some material that Faulkner Guy used last year and offered to share with me. I also had a brainwave about featuring Linda Sue Park's books in the class, but that's another shopping trip, isn't it?

5. Create Your Own Class Newspaper: A Complete Guide to Planning, Writing and Publishing a Newspaper - Diane Crosby. You can probably tell that I feel a little nervous about teaching newspaper to kids. Especially in an EFL situation. I want to have an abundance of materials in case something tanks. Two hours is a long time and if things aren't going well in the classroom, it can be an eternity.

6. School Newspaper Adviser's Survival Guide - Patricia Osborn. Yes, I'm over preparing for camp, but I can also use this book in the future. The English department is thinking about offering journalism classes and starting their own newspaper. Plus, there's something so cozy and comforting about building a resource library.

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7. Into the Woods - Tana French. BOOKLEAVES is reading this for the December 12 meeting. Ordinarily, I don't like mysteries, but I've been pleasantly surprised. I'm enjoying the suspense and the psychological aspects of this story.

I haven't yet counted up exactly how many books I've bought. I'm a little scared to look, but next month, I'll see the evidence of my book gluttony. It's been an interesting experiment.

October 2010: Buying

Only three this month. I can restrain if I want to, but it's a hateful business. .

1. True Grit - Charles Portis. My copy -- the 1969 movie tie-in with the folk art painting of the girl and her horse on the front cover and Kim Darby and Little Blackie on the back cover (left) -- is back in Missouri. Impatient to re-read the book before the new movie comes out on Christmas Day in the US, I ordered a newer edition (right) from Amazon. Much to my relief, Mattie, Little Blackie, Rooster, LaBoeuf and the rest of the gang arrived safely on Thursday. I was worried that it would get stolen from my mailbox and flung about like my Flashman books did last summer. I prepared myself. Had it gone missing, I was planning to knock -- no, make that POUND -- on every damn door in this apartment complex. 2. Jazz English Book One Workbook - Gunther Breaux. Only $4.00 (USD) and a steal! Jazz English is my very favorite textbook for English conversation. People borrow it from me and forget to return it and I go out and get another copy. I got to meet Gunther Breaux at the recent (October 16-17) KOTESOL conference, and I hope I didn't totally gawp and burble. Professor Breaux gave such a great motivational talk about how to test speaking ability that I went all the way from wanting to puke if I had to teach another conversation class all the way to raring to get at them and wishing that my schedule could be nothing but conversation classes. 3. Jazz English Book Two Workbook - Gunther Breaux. Yes, I'm a fan! Go Professor Breaux! Yes, I want to apply for a job at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies so I can breathe the same air....okay, gotta stop. I'm starting to remind myself of Annie Wilkes. Not. Good. Atall. . It's a little early to report/confess my buying, but I'm done for October. I'm not going anywhere near a bookstore until early November.

August, 2010: Buying

I haven't added up my total purchases for the year. I keep telling myself, "Not yet, not yet." I keep reassuring myself that I can't be up to 100 books yet, but after last month's crazy (but oh-so-enjoyable) binge, I'm beginning to get the feeling that I might be closing in on that old triple digit.

Although I meant to approach this month with austerity, my obsession with Harry Paget Flashman showed no signs of waning after I read Flashman and Royal Flash, so I found myself at Amazon one evening ordering these books:

1. Flashman at the Charge - George MacDonald Fraser. At the charge of the Light Brigade, of course. I thought that this might be the one in which Tom Brown's School Days is published, but I was mistaken -- that's Flashman in the Great Game.

2. Flash For Freedom! - George MacDonald Fraser. Flashy spent quite a bit of time in America, which should make for interesting reading. According to his "biography", he fought on both sides of the American Civil War, but those "papers" were never found.

3. Flashman and the Redskins - George MacDonald Fraser. An un-PC title to go with an un-PC character. Flashman is at Little Big Horn in this one, I believe.

I told myself that the Flashman buying binge was my reward for teaching science to children at summer camp. Then, after camp was all finished, I realized that I hadn't made my acquaintance with the new What The Book? store yet. Once I was in the much improved new location, I had to express my delight (about camp ending and the nice new bookstore) somehow:


4. You Gotta Have Wa - Robert Whiting. An examination of Japanese baseball, or as they say, besuboru. One of these days, I've got to hie myself over to Tokyo or Fukuoka during baseball season and watch a few games.

5. Winter's Bone - Daniel Woodrell. This is the second time I've bought this book. I picked it up at the request of my former colleague Pablo back in 2006 or 2007 during my trip to the US. I remember that wanted to read it before I passed it on to him and collected the money, but decided that it wouldn't be good manners. This will be my first Woodrell novel, although as a novelist from Missouri, he's been in my peripheral vision for several years. I liked the movie version --Ride With The Devil -- of his novel Woe To Live On. After I read Winter's Bone, I hope to see the movie, which has done very well critically.

6. Dead Poets Society - N.H. Kleinbaum. Eeek, a movie novelization! I used to read novelizations a lot when I was a teenager. My favorite place to buy books was the TG&Y store in Lawton, Oklahoma. I remember the rack being thick with them. Gradually, I moved on to reading actual books before they were made into movies.

So why have I regressed? This semester, I have an Intermediate English Conversation class that meets 2 times a week for 2 hours at a time. That's a lot of face time, so I'm going to build a book group into at least one of those hours. Since many young Koreans seem to really identify with this movie/book or are at least familiar with the storyline, I'll try it on for size. We'll finish the semester with a viewing of the movie.
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7. The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd. Same reason as #6, except that it's for my Beginning English Conversation class. Not one of my favorites, but I think the students will like the book, which came out well before the movie.