7 Sunday Reading Ruminations

1. I'll read whatever I want, and that includes Children's Literature and Young Adult books.  No embarrassment here.  It's true that I could hide behind my job (...just looking these over in case one of my students asks me to recommend something good with a manageable English level, heh heh...) but that's not necessary.  You see, I worked this all out back in 1993 after I read Ramona Forever and my spouse suggested that it was not eligible for my reading journal because it was a children's book.  I chewed on that for a couple of days, then entered it, defiantly pressing down with my pen.

2. Speaking of Children's Literature, I don't remember the nonfiction of my childhood --except for biographies-- being as captivating as the juvenile nonfiction I see these days. A fine example is a 2001 book I just finished reading. It's called Black Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine, 1845-1850.  The book is beautifully researched, and the author, Susan Campbell Bartoletti, writes intelligently and not down to her intended audience.  Black Potatoes weighs in at 192 pages and there's not a word wasted nor did I feel skimped on information. 

3. I love and am so grateful for The Busan English Library, but one drawback is that graphic novels can't be checked out.  Initially, I chafed at this, but now I've turned it around and used it to carve out quality time at my library.  I grab a graphic novel, grab a table by a window in the Orange section (Adults) and sit down and read the whole thing.  This interlude has proved to be so pleasant that I wouldn't take a graphic novel home even if they suddenly reversed their policy.

4. Speaking of orange, I finally got on board and started watching Season 1 of Orange Is The New Black. Everyone was right.  It is good.  Piper Kerman's book is still fairly fresh in my mind, but I have plans to reread it and compare it with Brother One Cell by Cullen Thomas, a prison memoir about a young teacher who got busted for attempted drug smuggling in South Korea.

5. After Maya Angelou died, I decided to reread I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.  While reading, I realized that I had never read the whole book -- only excerpts. Hypnotized by her writing voice, I quickly moved on to her next book, Gather Together in My Name, which covers the next three years of her life.  My new goal for 2014 is to read all the memoirs.  One thing about Maya Angelou:  She was not afraid to look the facts of her life calmly in the face and relate them, even the most cringeworthy ones.  A lesson for us all.

6. I always notice what people, both factual and fictional, are reading, and Maya Angelou was no exception.  In her late teens, she developed an appreciation for Dostoevsky, but she also mentioned a writer named Ann Petry in passing.  The name rang a bell.  Petry was the author of a children's novel called Tituba of Salem Village, which was based on the Salem witch trials.  Petry was also the author of a novel for adults called The Street.  Published in 1946, it was the first novel by an African-American female writer to sell more than a million copies.  I found a copy of The Street at the BEL and started reading it yesterday.  Petry isn't as gritty as Richard Wright, but she is unflinching.  Major book score. I'm never quite so happy as when I discover a new 1940s American novel.

7. Another author I discovered while roaming through the stacks at the BEL is Wright Morris.  His 1980 novel, Plains Song: For Female Voices is a beautifully laconic narrative featuring three generations of Nebraska women.  I was intrigued with the way Morris "mixed" the novel.  The high notes, the dramatic moments were layered deep, almost buried in the story.  Another interesting thing is the way he plays with time.  It seems to stand still or move excruciatingly slow, then unexpectedly, it speeds up, and a decade or more passes in just a paragraph or two.  Plains Song is illustrated with one photograph that appears at the beginning of each chapter.  It's an odd but fitting choice that enhances the atmosphere of the story and nearly becomes a character.  This is the most authentically Midwestern novel I've ever read.

Lost List - 1990 reads

While culling through my USA book collection those last few days at home, I squealed with delight at one point to find Inside Oscar.  I loves me some movie history, but this is also the book that contains the list of books I read during 1990.  I used to write my book lists in the backs of books until 1993 when my son and husband gave me a reading journal and broke me of that nasty habit forever.

Looking back at this 21-year-old list, I'm reminded of how I was very much into the short story form.  Also, 48 seemed like a great amount of books back then; now it seems paltry.  I was working the night shift at a grocery store and did most of my reading before work and on breaks.  During the day, I always felt as if I was in a sleep deficit. Daytime felt gray and oppressive or jaggedy and too-bright.

I've forgotten many of these titles, but one thing I know for sure:  Most of these were library books.  These were the days when I would carry out piles and piles. I could rock a library card like nobody's business.

BOOKS READ IN 1990

1. Peachtree Road (novel)- Anne Rivers Siddons.  I don't remember this book at all.  I really don't remember any of Siddons' books except the very good Heartbreak Hotel and the uneven Fox's Earth. Library book.

2. 50th Anniversary GWTW (nonfiction) - Herb Bridges.  All the trivia about the book and the making of the movie.  Lots of photos.  Everything a fan like me could desire.  Library book.

3. Some Can Whistle (novel) - Larry McMurtry.  Danny Deck, from All My Friends Are Going To Be Strangers, meets up with his long lost daughter.  Not one of my favorites, but time spent with McMurtry is time well spent.  Library book.

4. Elizabeth Cole (novel) - Susan Cheever.  I have no memory of this book. I'm sure it was a library book.

5.  Believe Them (short stories) - Mary Robison.  Ooooh, good stuff.  Minimalism.  I love Robison. I bought this book.

6. The Lost Sister (novel) - Robert Love Taylor.  I don't remember anything about this book.  Must have been from the library.

7. This Boy's Life (memoir) - Tobias Wolff.  One of the best memoirs out there.  Gold standard.  I bought this book.

8. The Silent Storm (novel) - Marion Marsh Brown.  This is a fictional biography of Annie Sullivan, Helen Keller's teacher.  Good stuff, especially the early days depicting Annie's impoverished childhood in the poorhouse.  I'm pretty sure this was a reread.  Library book.

9.  Picturing Will (novel) - Ann Beattie.  I don't remember this book, but I remember wanting to try it because Ann Beattie is also a short story writer.  Library book.

10. Pretty Girls (novel) - Garret Weyr.  This doesn't even ring a faint bell.  I'm sure it was from the library.

11. In Constant Flight (short stories) - Elizabeth Tallent.  Tallent was another short story writer I admired very much.  I still reread her short-short "No One's A Mystery" from time to time when I see it republished in anthologies.  Where is she now?  Library book.

12.  The Chinchilla Farm (novel) - Judith Freeman.  I don't really remember much about this book except that the main character is Mormon, and there was some talk about the sacred undergarments, which always intrigued me.  I also have a vague memory of it being a "road novel".  Library book.

13. Prehistory of the Far Side (cartoons) - Gary Larsen.  Fun.  I would say that I miss The Far Side, but the cartoons are so good, they never seem to lose their freshness.  Library book.

14.  A Period of Confinement (novel) - Moira Crone.  I'm sure I liked this book, but I don't remember much about it except that it was a little dark and the main character's name was Alma. She was an artist of some kind.  Library book.

15. Endless Love (novel) - Scott Spencer.  This was a reread of one of my favorites.  I'm surprised that I wrote down the rereads.  Back then, I didn't think it really "counted" if I had read it before.  I bought this book.

16. Escapes (short stories) - Joy Williams.  Williams was a happy discovery for me during 1990.  I love this collection, particularly the title story and "Rot".  She's like Carver but a little more surreal.  I bought this book.

17. Anna LMNO (novel) - Sarah Glasscock.  Anna is a hairdresser in East? West? Texas and she's saving up to buy the shop from her boss.  She's twice-married, once to a wife abuser and currently, in the novel, to a guy from South Africa who needed a green card.  Her best friend, Jo, has health problems.  I loved the flat quirky voices of the characters, although some of the things they said and did didn't always make sense.  A library book that I later purchased.  Three times.


18. Me and My Baby View the Eclipse (short stories) - Lee Smith.  Smith's short stories are always a pleasure to read.  Gotta love that title, too; there's a whole world and plenty of poetry in those six words.  I love the juxtaposition of the grammatical error with the more formal "view".  Library book.

19. Wedlock (novella, short stories) - Mark Spencer.  In the title story, Pamela, a former high school cheerleader and beauty queen works at McDonald's to support herself and her strange second husband, Bobby who spends his days hunting for old toys to sell and with his wall-eyed mistress who works at the DMV. ("She's so ugly, she could be on television," Pamela observes.) Lon, Pamela's jock first husband comes back to town after bombing out in the minor leagues after a promising high-school career.  This novella and its sequel, Love and Reruns in Adams County are definitely worth a look.  I bought this book.

20. Dove (memoir) - Robin Lee Graham.  Graham left school at 16 and sailed around the world for 5 years.  The title of the book comes from the name of his boat.  During this time, he met the woman he wanted to marry, so it's a bit of a love story as well. I often wonder what became of Robin, Patti and baby Quimby in the years after the book ended.  I bought this book.

21. Best American Short Stories, 1989 -Margaret Atwood, guest editor.  I'm sure I liked this volume.  I was in my heyday as a short story reader and Margaret Atwood was at the helm.  Library book.

22. Louder Than Words (short story anthology) - I think the proceeds from this collection were meant to benefit the homeless.  I also recall that the first story was by Anne Tyler, which led to me buying the book.

23. Ordinary Love &Good Will (novellas) - Jane Smiley.  I remember liking the first novella better than the second one, but can't remember much about either.  I like Smiley's writing though, and some of her odd choices. Library book.

24. Like Life (short stories) - Lorrie Moore.  Yay, I love this!  I love Lorrie Moore, and I simply adore one of the stories in this collection, "You're Ugly, Too."  Library book.

25. Reflections in a Jaundiced Eye (essays) - Florence King.  I love the play on Carson McCullers' Reflections in a Golden Eye.  This is the book in which she says that John Updike reminds her of Jane Austen and Herman Melville -- trying to do needlepoint through whale blubber, or something like that.  I'm an Updike fan, but that was so funny, I had to forgive her.  Updike probably did, too.  A friend of mine got hooked on Florence King while reading The National Review and she loaned me this book.  I was reading it on break at work and a customer came through my line and asked me if I was "an intellectual or something."

26. Once Upon a Time on the Banks (novel) - Cathie Pelletier.  I don't remember this book, but I remember checking it out from the library.

27. The One True Story of the World (novel) - Lynne McFall.  I think I know which book this is, but not sure.  I'd like to try it again.  Library book.

28. A Thousand Benjamins (novel) - Michael Kun.  Benjamin's wife divorces him after many years of marriage, then he meets a young woman who has had heart surgery.  This novel reminded me of Anne Tyler.  Library book.

29. The Shoplifter's Apprentice (short stories) - Ellen Lesser.  The title story was all right, but I liked one of the other ones better, about a woman who goes to visit her old friend from college and now the friend is married with a baby and they're all vegetarian and back-to-the-land-ish.  I thought Lesser did a great job of exploring that awkwardness caused by time and distance.  I bought this book.

30. Rock Springs (short stories) - Richard Ford.  Another happy discovery in 1990.  Love at first story.  This is a really good collection.  I bought this book.

31. Goodbye Without Leaving (novel) - Laurie Colwin.  I didn't like this as much as earlier Colwin books like Family Happiness, Happy All the Time and Another Marvelous Thing.  I wonder: Will  Colwin will end up being remembered best for her fiction or her food essays? Library book.

32. Squabble (short stories) - John Holman.  I don't remember this book.  Library?

33.  When Sisterhood was in Flower (novel) - Florence King.  Florence King, you make my heart sing!  You make everything groovy...best part: the main character goes to work for a porn novel publisher and learns how to crank 'em out.  Hilarious. Library book.

34. Wildlife (novel) - Richard Ford.  I love this book, but I hate the title.  Why is it called Wildlife?  I keep wanting to call it "Wildfire" because the main character's father volunteers to fight a forest fire in Montana.  I'm not the type to go on and on about beautiful sentences, but Ford's writing brings that out in me.  This short novel and Rock Springs are my favorite works by him.  Library book.

35. Anagrams (novel) - Lorrie Moore.  It took me a while to track down this book (pre-Internet days) and when I finally got it, I couldn't stop reading it.  One of my favorites.

36. Lump It or Leave it (essays) - Florence King.  I remember the picture of Florence King on the cover with a gun and her annoyance with having to review crap books, but not much else.  My favorite of hers is With Charity Towards None: A Fond Look at Misanthropy. Borrowed from the above-mentioned friend.

37. Taking Care (short stories) -Joy Williams. This 1985 collection is a gem. The story about the woman whose dog died wrung at my heart, especially when her insensitive boyfriend, tired of her mourning, decides to provide her with perspective. Library book.

38. An Amateur's Guide to the Night (short stories) - Mary Robison.  One story calls for another.  I bought this book.

39. Available Light (novel) - Ellen Currie.  I remember thinking that the first chapter was engaging then it all went downhill pretty fast.  A gift from the Florence King-reading friend.


40. The Funeral Makers (novel) - Cathie Pelletier. All I remember is a suicide at the end, and the chilling, matter-of-fact way that it was carried out.  Library book.

41. Wild at Heart (novel) - Barry Gifford.  I saw the movie first, then the book reviewer in The Kansas City Star raved about the book.  I bought it.

42. Family Pictures (novel) - Sue Miller.  I always feel terrible because I can never remember anything about any of Sue Miller's novels except The Good Mother.  Library book.

43. Presumed Innocent (novel) - Scott Turow.  I read this because a co-worker urged it on me.  It was OK, but I've never read anything else by Turow.

44. Chilly Scenes of Winter (novel) - Ann Beattie. I remember bit and pieces of this book: the main character is suffering from unrequited love, one of the characters mentions that food tastes better since she stopped wearing lipstick and there was a rather spirited discussion between two guys about "brasseries".  I remember liking it and feeling that it was closer in spirit to one of her short stories.  Interlibrary loan.

45. The Gasoline Wars (short stories) - Jean Thompson. I don't remember this book, but I must have liked it because I went out and bought her follow-up collection, Who Do You Love?  Library book.

46. With or Without (short stories) - Charles Dickinson.  I don't remember this book.  Library book, I'm pretty sure.

47. A Long and Happy Life (novel) - Reynolds Price. In his first novel, Price tells the story of the 6-month courtship of Rosacoke Mustain and Wesley Beavers. Beautiful details about the way of life in the south.  Except for his memoir, this is my very favorite of Price's books and I would definitely read it again.  Interlibrary loan.

48. Rabbit at Rest (novel) - John Updike.  In spite of the title, in spite of Rabbit's serious health problems during this novel, I refused to believe that anything bad had happened to him.  At the end of this book, he was still conscious of things going on around him and I was convinced that he would rally and appear in a fifth book.  My friend said she cried and asked me if I did.  I didn't see any reason to until I was absolutely sure.  Finally, in 2001, Licks of Love with the novella "Rabbit, Remembered" came out and I had to accept it.  Library book.

Naked Without Salad (and Stonecrop)

I'm reading 3 books right now and I'm not terribly thrilled with any of them, so I'll turn my attentions elsewhere -- meaning to food.

My eating habits are really bad. How bad? About 8:30 in the evenings, I develop a nasty taste and a feeling that life is a little sad and ineffably difficult. I begin to wonder why I became an EFL teacher, and wonder just how it is a lesson plan is constructed. Then I look at my TBR and wonder if I'll ever complete another book ever again. I begin to puzzle about how people manage whole novels -- even short ones, like Newbery winners.

Then it hits me: Oh yeah! Sweet roll and coffee for breakfast, coffee for coffee break, coffee for lunch and another coffee for that 3-4 pm slump. Dinner? Forgotten. Upon remembering, I start out with a first course of a whole can of Pringles and a Coke and go from there to anything else readily available for consumption for the rest of the evening, pretty much in the same way the Big Bad Wolf went to each of the Three Little Pigs' houses.

In 2011, I decided that I would not leave myself to my own boneheaded devices. So far, so good. I haven't bought a can of Pringles or even eaten one in over a month. I banished Coke from the house but I'm allowed to drink it off the premises. Water and teas are my only beverages on hand at home. I'm also taking a new look at salad. The really green stuff. Life beyond Iceberg.

I went grocery shopping yesterday, making sure that I hadn't eaten yet so that the nutritious stuff would look yummy beyond compare. At E-Mart, the food section is on the first level of the store. Luckily, right off the "down" escalator is the produce section. In another bit of related luck, for the past year or so, the store brand has started putting the name of the food on the package in English in small letters below the Hangul.

I studied the packaged and (allegedly) pre-washed greens:

Chard. Very green. I've heard it's healthy, but the name always makes me laugh. It's like an alternative nickname if Richard doesn't like being called Rich or Ricky. I passed for safety's sake. What if I started laughing while I was eating?

Leaf lettuce. Very dark green, almost greenish black. Ew. The stems were kind of woody. Ew again. But the 2011 Pringle-shunning side of myself pitched it into the cart. There's vitamins in them there leaves and stems.

Chicory. Paler green, but still green enough and it was sort of pretty. All curly and feathery-looking. Cute name. I couldn't remember anything about it except that in Gone With The Wind, people used chicory root for coffee when they couldn't get the real stuff. Because it was pretty *and* made me think of GWTW, I grabbed a bag.

Endive. It looked fine. Very healthy and approachable, but the name annoyed me. I didn't know if it was pronounced "N-Dive" or "on-deev". How could I brag about my sudden good habits if I couldn't pronounce what I was putting in my mouth? I didn't buy it; but I had good intentions of consulting dictionary.com which pronounces the word as many times as you'd like. (I made a mental note to look and listen up "chard" while at that site.) After I'd scratched my linguistic itch, I'd pick endive up next time.

Stonecrop. This was really cute, like a plump and friendly little weed. I'd seen it somewhere before. Of course. At the Korean vegetarian restaurant down the road. I almost didn't recognize it because when I had it at the restaurant, it was smothered in red pepper paste. There was something familiar about it, I remembered thinking. I remembered liking the texture coupled with the spicy sauce. I liked the name. All good. I added it to the cart.

So much for the greens. I added some little pinkish-red radishes to my pile. They're very hard to find and terribly expensive. I don't even want to tell you what I spent on a total of five little radishes, but I will -- approximately $1.30 (USD). I didn't care; I'd been missing radishes like hell. They started me thinking about Gone With The Wind again, (Scarlett gets sick after she eats a radish on an empty stomach) but I shook it off and went for a couple of carrots and cucumbers, a bag of cherry tomatoes and some button mushrooms to round out my salad.

Back at the apartment, I grabbed my biggest bowl and started washing, slicing, chopping and cutting. I'd almost forgotten how it was fun, in a sort of Zen way, to mess around with preparing food. I doused my salad with a few squirts of Wishbone Italian salad dressing, which assured me brightly on its back label that not only would it make my salad taste delicious, it would actually assist in helping me absorb more of the nutrients in the salad. Whatever. It had me at taste. I tossed the ingredients around for a couple of minutes then shoved the bowl in the refrigerator and pulled it out again 2 hours later for dinner.

Result: Nice. Maybe there was something to healthy eating after all. The only thing I didn't really care for was the greenish-black leaf lettuce. Bitter stuff. If I were one of those people who have that extra taste bud that makes ordinary vegetables taste soapy, this would have been intolerable. What I think I'll do with the remainder of the leaves is drown them in red pepper paste and sprinkle the mixture with some toasted sesame seeds.

I was enchanted with the interesting texture the stonecrop gave to the salad. At first bite, it seemed like it would be bitter, but then it turned some kind of gustatory corner and came across as slightly sour and peppery, not at all unpleasant. I tried a sprig of it entirely devoid of salad dressing to verify this.

What other ways were there of preparing it? Googling, I found out that stonecrop is also known as sedum, and that it's usually used as ground cover. So that's where else I'd seen it! Recipes? I didn't find any, and I even visited those vegan VEGAN sites. The ones where the participants might beat the crap out of you if they saw you even glancing at an egg or a sliver of cheese.

.

One of the many gardening sites said that gardeners didn't particularly have to worry about animals or children eating the attractive ground cover -- it wasn't poisonous and it didn't taste too great, either. Finally, Sturtevant's Notes on Edible Plants (1919) -- courtesy of the Oregon State Food Resource page -- tersely allowed that "sedum" is a plant of Europe and North Asia (hey!) and "the leaves serve as a salad". (hey again!)

Naturally, I feel very smarty and pleased with myself and very cutting-edge. I have brief fantasies about M.F.K. Fisher and Julia Child asking/begging me to share my ideas with them and hazy, pleasant daydreams about the Food Network. Even though I know I'm in no way a vegetable vanguard, I'm going to have so much fun doing different things to stonecrop. Stay tuned.

Book Presents

Another book birthday in Korea has rolled around, but surprisingly, I didn't run amok in the bookstore this year. I ran, but not amok. This will be really hard to believe -- I emerged from What The Book? with exactly ONE book. I didn't even pick it out -- My Tough & Cool Inner Bookworm did: Lady Audley's Secret (1862) by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Tuffi loved that 19th century date and I have to concur that it looks like great fun. Although I'm dutifully working my way through The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens right now, Tuffi's bound to get pissy in these next few weeks about my pre-1900 reading totals for the year. If I don't get Lady Audley's Secret read by the end of 2009, it'll be something to stuff in Tuffi's cake hole at the dawn of the new decade.

But yeah, weird of me to hit the bookstore in such a restrained manner, right? I confess that I was a bit distracted and I was in such a good mood that I probably would have let Tuffi talk me into Pierre by Herman Melville, a novel that I actively love to despise -- it's my 19th century Atlas Shrugged. Tuffi could have pulled all sorts of classical bull and it wouldn't have mattered; I was an extremely happy bookworm.

Why so happy? Earlier that afternoon, I had gone to the book swap at my beloved Wolfhound and discovered a whole new author. Todd, the heart and soul of the book swap, had brought a copy of Ask The Dust by John Fante. I'd never heard of Fante, but when I saw that he was an American whose first novel, Wait Until Spring, Bandini was published in 1938, I was instantly captivated. Ask The Dust is part of Fante's "Bandini Quartet". How has Fante escaped my notice up to this point? I adore feeling like Magellan, but I'm also appalled and a little worried about what I don't know and what I haven't discovered yet -- what I may never discover.

My interest in Fante was piqued because of his time frame and also because Charles Bukowski viewed him as a mentor. Bukowski discovered Ask The Dust at the library when he was a young and starving drunk and writer, in that order. He was at the library because he was hiding from his landlady who wanted back rent. He said that finding Ask The Dust was like ""finding gold at the city dump" and that from that moment, Fante became "a lifetime influence" on his writing.

Later, when Bukowski got some acclaim, he urged Black Sparrow Press to bring Fante, long neglected, back into print. I've always kind of liked Bukowski, and now I like him even more because of that story. (There's no way to work this tangent in gracefully, but I feel compelled to mention that the reason I first became interested in Bukowski was because Mickey Rourke played a version of him in Barfly, and when I was young, Mickey Rourke excited my tenderest feelings, not all of them literary -- although when he played The Motorcycle Boy in Rumble Fish, that sealed the deal all the way around.)

Anyway, I'm really thrilled about my new discovery. I'm trying to keep myself from peeking at random pages in Ask The Dust, but it's really difficult. I tried putting it away from me, but somehow it has ended up wedged between my left hip and the La-Z Boy chair I'm sitting in right now. I've got to make seriously giant strides with Dickens this week since BOOKLEAVES is meeting on the 20th. What if I put Fante's novel in the freezer? Just for a few days. In a Baggie. Do you suppose it would be okay?

Hazy Bookworm

I want to blog, but am having trouble putting together a real post. For now, we'll all have to be content with hazy thoughts that have floated through my mind this past week -- all bookish, of course.

1. Determined to work on my Pulitzer challenge a little more this year, I started reading Angle of Repose (1971) by Wallace Stegner and I'm in book love again. Roll over, Robertson Davies and give Nick Hornby the news. What took me so long to discover this author? He's like John Steinbeck with a bit of F. Scott Fitzgerald thrown in. Even better, when he was a lit professor, his specialty was the American realism/naturalism period: Twain, Garland, Wharton, Crane, Dreiser, Norris -- many of my favorites. I must hit Kyobo bookstore next time I'm in Seoul and grab Stegner's autobiographical novel, The Big Rock Candy Mountain (1943). I'm a giddy bookworm; nothing pleases me more than discovering a past literary treasure.

2. Speaking of discovering fine authors from the past, I'm happier than ever that this seems to be my predisposition. Trish's unpleasant encounter with a new author distressed me greatly -- so much so, that if I had any inkling about reviewing new authors, all of that is gone now. It would be thrilling to discover some wonderful new talent all by my lonesome, but oh, well. Let other bloggers and critics and time sort them out.

3. I got curious about Mt. TBR and counted 'em up: 210 unread books! My library is flourishing, but it's gonna get harder and harder to convince people that I'm a poor little expat in dire need of reading material. In addition, I guess it would be poor form to complain about having to move all those books! from Gumi to Seoul in a couple of months.