October's Tiny List

The list is tiny, but two of these three were chunky tomes.

 1. What is the Story of Smokey the Bear? -Steve Korte-  Nonfiction. A laborious look at a long-lived American icon.

2. Time and Chance -Sharon Kay Penman- Novel. The second installment in the Plantagenet series covers the early days of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine's marriage as well as his bromance then fractured relationship with Thomas Becket as Becket moved from being Lord Chancellor to, at Henry's urging, Archbishop of Canterbury. The job switch backfired on Henry because instead of having a yes man in the church, Becket had a conversion and began to take his religious role seriously. Again, impeccable research combined with spellbinding storytelling. It's a huge cast of characters and Penman brings them all to life. Next up: The Devil's Brood, which covers the lives of Henry and Eleanor's children as well as Eleanor and Henry's growing disillusionment with one another.

3. Leave Her to Heaven -Ben Ames Williams- Novel. A bloated and overlong soapy novel from 1944 about a writer who marries a woman with severe issues concerning boundaries. Hollywood improved on the material a couple of years later with a movie of the same name. Watch that instead. It's a noir in Technicolor!  Gene Tierney is beautiful and icy and merciless, stealing the whole film from the rest of the cast until Vincent Price enters and steals it from Tierney, picking splinters of the scenery he's chewed from his teeth as he strides away.

In other news:

Still loving my book group. At the last meeting, we reported on historical fiction we had read. I talked up Sharon Kay Penman's Plantagenet series. Other books mentioned were Quiet Dell by Jayne Anne Phillips, Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker, and Sipsworth by Simon van Booy. I promptly put all of them on my TBR. For the next meeting, November 15, we will be discussing nonfiction we have been reading, and thinking up new names for the book group for a fresh reset after declaring independence from the original library program.

I'm really glad that the topic is nonfiction, because I'm doing a Nonfiction November. Here's what's on my nonfiction stack:

1. A Woman's View: How Hollywood Spoke to Women, 1930-1960. Jeanine Basinger.

2. The Noble Hustle. Colson Whitehead.

3. The Farm. Richard Rhodes.

4. Supercomminicators. Charles Duhigg.

5. Fire Lover. Joseph Wambaugh.

And finally...

Dreaming in Literature: The Weird Philip Roth Dream: 

Philip Roth came back to life and wrote a new novel. My first reaction was anxiety, because in dream-logic, I was compelled to read his book, like it or not. After picking it up and paging through, I felt better because the protagonist was female and the book was stream-of-consciousness like Ducks, Newburyport, and the main character constantly had earworms. At that point, I honestly wanted to read Roth's novel and remember feeling very tender and indulgent towards him.

It Was 20 Years Ago Today: Happy Birthday, Blob!

 20 years old! Surely this is forever in blog years. 1,184 posts. 

Here's that first blog entry dated March 11, 2004. Strangely, I remembered it as being a lot more interesting:

***

I'm a sucker for a good first line, but suddenly, I've got an attack of shyness and don't know where to begin. Earlier this week on the BBC website, there was a quiz on first lines in books. I got 6 out of the 10 -- blew an easy question by over thinking it. After the quiz, people were invited to write their own first line. I'll post mine here:

"Reminiscences just aren't for me. Over the years, I've found that looking back only aggravates my whiplash."

Actually, that's true and not true. When it comes to books, I'll reminisce till the cows come home. The book is the hook that throws my past into sharp relief for me. Recite a title and I can tell you when I read it, where I lived, what was going on in my life and other increasingly useless minutiae.

I'm crazy (not an understatement) about reading, but I like any kind of interaction with books. I'm really involved with bookcrossing.com right now, and have been "releasing" my books" into the wilds" of Central Missouri.

I recently applied for a part time job at a local bookstore, but didn't get the job. After many years, the manager is probably adept at recognizing unrestrained book lust. During the interview, when she asked if (!) I liked(!) to read, my response tone was somewhat similar to the Cookie Monster's. When asked about customer service, the fervor dissipated and I was once again mild-mannered Bybee, maybe a little vague: "Oh yes, customers. Well, they're uh, important, I guess." Naturally, this translated to: I'll wait on them if I'm not in the middle of a good chapter.
But never mind the bookstore. There's also the local library. And there's my own library, which would be an impressive start to any bookstore.

***

What the what?! I talked about loving books but didn't mention a single one! I talked about Bookcrossing??????? Good God, y'all. However, that was right on about enjoying any sort of interaction with books.

If I rewrote that first entry right now, I'd cut that first part about the book quiz and writing my own first line, and start with: "The book is the hook". AND THERE WOULD BE TITLES AND AUTHORS! AND CHARACTERS!!! I would also call the blog "The Book Is The Hook".

I do remember the sting and burn of not getting that local bookstore job. Good reflection and self-awareness in recognizing where I went sideways at the interview. 

Egad, that last bit about "never mind the bookstore". Way to trail off and fade out of my first blog post.

I do hope the second post was better, but now I'm afraid to look. Instead, I'm going to catapult 20 years into the future and talk about what I read in February, 2024:

1. Friends, Lovers, and the Big, Terrible Thing (memoir) -Matthew Perry. Reading this memoir after Matthew Perry's death was an eerie experience. For those who read it before he died, it probably landed as a rueful survivor's tale, cautiously feel-good. On the other side, it reads as a stark warning, along the lines of Sir Gawain's "I know that I will not live a fortnight".

2. What Is The Story of Romeo and Juliet? (nonfiction) -Max Bisantz. Give me a break. How does a person write a 108 page book about the most famous star-crossed lovers in the world, detailing all their incarnations back to the beginning, and never once mention Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 film version? Even the 1936 version with ancient Leslie Howard and geriatric Norma Shearer playing the ill-fated teenagers got a mention. Boggles the mind. Still shaking my head. 

3.  Granny Smith Was Not An Apple (nonfiction) -Sarah Glenn Fortson. And that's right. She was Maria Ann Smith, an immigrant from England to Australia during the 19th century, who worked as an apple orchardist in both countries. She discovered an apple in Australia that was green and never turned red and was quite tart. She got to grafting, and finally produced an apple that was green but tart and sweet and perfect for pies. I thought of my book blogging friend Care while I was reading this informative and entertaining children's book.

4.  Eligible (novel) - Curtis Sittenfeld. A fun and frothy retelling of Pride and Prejudice, updated to the twenty-teens, and set in Cincinnati. I went into this one with some trepidation, but ended up liking it very much. The audiobook version read by Cassandra Clare adds to its sparkle.

5. Where the Crawdads Sing (novel) - Delia Owens. Read this one for book group. The nature writing in the novel is lovely, but the rest of it doesn't rise to that level. Skip the book and just watch the movie version, which is a bit more palatable.

6. I Must Be Dreaming (graphic novel) - Roz Chast. Since I've been keeping a dream journal off and on almost as long as I've been doing this blog,* I actively sought out Roz Chast's latest book about her dreams. To my surprise, we have a lot of the same dreams, like "Old and Pregnant", "I'm suddenly in charge of an infant", and "I can't find my hotel". In her book, she details dreams about Danny DeVito, Elizabeth Taylor and Henry Kissinger. At the end, she recommends some books about dreams and dreaming, including The Mind at Night by Andrea Rock, which has been on my TBR for about a year. Like Chast, I think it's cool that our brains generate these strange, kooky things while we sleep, and a graphic novel with dreams? So so cool. 

*In keeping with the theme of my blog, I have a series of intermittent posts labeled "Dreaming in Literature". 

RIP Mr. Roth

I thought Philip Roth would keep writing and living forever. He had an intensity for me that other writers didn't, even though I liked most of them much better. Philip Roth gave me an uneasy feeling that crept into my dreams. Here's an example from back in 2009:

My Strange Philip Roth Dream

Meet The New Post; Same As The Old Post

All of this may sound familiar:

I'm still reading and enjoying Grant by Ron Chernow and excluding all other books from my life until I'm finished.

I'm still doing NaNoWriMo. Now the writing is starting to feel unwieldy and that scares me. Then I remember that it's OK to let it get out of hand this month. Next month I can edit.

 Mom is still in the nursing home. The doctor wants her to stay through Christmas. Maybe it will help to break this crazy cycle of home/hospital/nursing home.

But what's new?

I'm dreaming of a Bonnethead Christmas! No, not the tin cup and the penny this time. Took a run through the local bookstore today and there are so many new and delectable books, fiction and nonfiction, about Laura and her world.

There's a million things I haven't done, but getting a 2018 calendar isn't one of them. Hamilton is going to grace my wall for a second year.  As soon as I saw it, I didn't hesitate; I exhibited no restraint.

After a certain notorious monster died recently, I decided that I'm finally ready after many years to read Helter Skelter. Some other library patron had the same idea, so I'm on the waitlist.

Recently, I discovered the Broadway channel on satellite radio and I am in love. Problem: I'm listening to show tunes during my commutes to work and the nursing home and that's messing with my resolution to always keep an audiobook on the go. I don't know if I'll start another one before the end of the year but if I do, it will be The Nix by Nathan Hill.

Because I am listening to the Broadway channel so much, I am dreaming books into musicals almost every night. A Little Life. Lincoln in the Bardo. Grant. Even my own fledgling...there was a showstopper called Squawk the Squawk. That's all I can remember. Bye-bye, Tony Award!

Dreaming in Literature: Hanging with Carly and Nora

This was the kind of dream that you wish could be recurring; not like the one in which you're late for school or a test or a job interview or work or your wedding and all you've got to wear is a burnt-orange half-slip. If you pull it up, your bottom is exposed and if you cover your bottom, your top shelf swings in the vigorous breeze made by people laughing and pointing.

No, this was a wonderful dream:

I was invited to a book group in New York City. I didn't know anyone, but I went anyway. At my knock, the door opened and Carly Simon was smiling hello and asking me to come in. Then I saw Nora Ephron and she offered to get me a drink. Then Nora and Carly side-hugged me at the same time, saying they were glad I had made it all the way from Missouri, was it? They smelled of expensive perfume, but also of a perfect day at the beach. We were entering a book-lined room when I woke up.

Damn.

No Such Book?

Last night, I dreamed that I was taking a sociology class.

To break the ice on the first day, the professor decided that the international students in the class would introduce themselves. No Americans. I thought I might play the "I lived abroad for 10 years, doesn't that make me kind of international?" card, then decided I wasn't a hog for attention.

Just as I made up my mind to sit tight, an older male student from South Africa came up to the podium. Instead of introducing himself, he held up a doorstop of a book. "I must recommend this book to everyone," he said. He began describing it, but his accent was thick and the plot seemed really convoluted. Everyone's eyes were glazed over by the time the bell rang.

I wanted to know more about the book, so I felt lucky when I saw that the South African student had left it behind. I picked it up and toted it to the student union, and opened it as I drank a coffee.

The book seemed to be a novel. It had a tooled leather cover and gilt-edged pages, and the first half of the book was in an alphabet I didn't recognize. Greek or Russian, perhaps. The second half of the book was in English, and I saw that it was a novel with Rocky and Bullwinkle, except they were detectives and it was very noir, suspenseful and full of foreboding.

My interest was piqued. I had to read the book immediately, but knew that giving it back to the South African guy was the right thing to do. I would write down the title and get my own copy. I squinted at the cover and the title page. Shit! The title was in that strange alphabet! Oh well, I would Google it. After all, how many noir detective novels could there be about Rocky and Bullwinkle?

Dreaming in Literature: Buttonholes?!

I woke up shaking from this afternoon nap:

In my dream, I had somehow landed in Walnut Grove or De Smet, Dakota Territory.  Anyway, I knew for sure I was in Laura-land.  I didn't know what else to do, so I went to school.  They were all on lunch recess.  There was Laura.  She was a teenager.  She didn't look like Melissa Gilbert.  She looked like this.

After all the girls found out that I wasn't living with my ma or pa, Laura decided that I needed a job.  "You can make buttonholes for Miss Beadle," she told me.

I thought Miss Beadle taught school, but I didn't say anything.  Maybe she sewed on the side.

Laura had everything arranged in minutes.  "You can start right away.  I've got chores, but Ma will be over to check your buttonholes."

Problem:  I had no idea how to make a buttonhole, and not even a ghost of an idea of how to begin.  Scissors?  Thread?  All of the other girls knew how to make buttonholes, except Nellie Oleson, who said she didn't care to know.  I didn't want to admit that I was anything like her.  

Suddenly, I was upstairs at Miss Beadle's, and I had a pile of shirts to buttonhole before suppertime.  Feeling nervous, I dropped the thimble several times.  I was still working out on which finger to wear the thimble, when Laura sent a message that Ma was busy but Mary would be over to check my buttonholes.

Mary?  Mary was blind, but obviously she knew her way around a buttonhole, too.  I could hear her climbing the stairs.  I was frantically looking for a shirt that had been finished.  She wouldn't be able to tell if I had done it myself or not, and that would give me time to figure it all out.  

Not a stinking shirt in that whole room had a single finished buttonhole, and Mary was getting closer.  I panicked and decided to sneak out on Mary and go ask Nellie's advice.  Maybe she wasn't so bad after all.  She couldn't be any worse than buttonholes.

Dreaming in Literature: Robinson Jeffers, Page 201

I lie and hear dark rain beat the roof and the night-blind wind...

In my dream, this line of poetry was spinning around in my mind like the last sock in the dryer of the universe.  Where was this from?  Did I write it myself?  There's always a chance, right?  Of course the answer was no.  So who wrote it?  Robert Frost?  Nope.  Sounded like Robinson Jeffers.  I'd look it up.

Except I couldn't look it up.  I was working in an elementary school in South Korea, and there were no computers around.  There was a library.  I'd look it up there!  I gave my students a couple of pages to color and some coloring pens.  When they got to work, I tiptoed out of the room and ran down the hall to the library.

The library was nice, but there was no computer and the books all seemed to be in Korean.  I looked, and finally I found a book about American poetry written in English.  I looked at the index.  Robinson Jeffers.  Page 201.  I turned the pages to find a single sentence: "Robinson Jeffers was an American poet."  I put the book back and returned to my class.

I was trying to teach the children the song "Big Rock Candy Mountain", but I lie and hear dark rain beat the roof and the night-blind wind... kept going through my head.  As soon as I got off work, I'd run into the nearest internet cafe. This couldn't wait till I got home.  Actually, it couldn't wait another minute. I needed to go back to the library and look at that book again.  Maybe I'd missed something.

I told the students:  "I have to visit another classroom.  Keep singing, but don't sing "whisky" or "alcohol".  Sing "buttermilk" instead.  Be right back."

Running back to the library, I grabbed the book again and checked the index.  Page 201.  "Robinson Jeffers was an American poet."  I knew that!

Maybe it was someone else.  Emily Dickinson?  No, I lie and hear dark rain beat on the roof and the night-blind wind didn't scan to the tune of "The House of the Rising Sun."  It HAD to be Robinson Jeffers.  Robinson Jeffers. Page 201.

Someone told me that the principal was on his way to my classroom, and he was mad about the students being unattended.  I knew I had to get back, but I couldn't stop myself from checking  the book again.  Robinson Jeffers.  Page 201.  Robinson Jeffers.  Page 201.  Robinson Jeffers --

I woke up.  It was raining.

Dreaming in Literature: Gore's Little Girl

For reasons aplenty, I've felt too fragmented to read much this week.  Almost as a consolation, I had a literary dream two nights ago.

In my dream, I was about 10 years old and I was Gore Vidal's daughter.  I lived with my mother (faceless and nameless) across a small bay of water from Gore Vidal's house.  To travel back and forth between Mom and Dad, I had to swim this bay, but it wasn't deep and the water was usually warm and calm.

Sometimes Mom couldn't take care of me, so I had to hang at Gore's place.  I tried to read his books, but they were all fattish novels about male disappointment and longing for status while living in small-town Pennsylvania.  Somehow Daddy Gore seemed like he was turning into John O'Hara.

One day, Mom (still nameless and faceless) told me not to swim over to Dad's place, but I went anyway.  When I stepped into the bedroom to change into dry clothing, there was a strange man lying on the bed.  He frowned and looked embarrassed.  I pretended I hadn't seen him, but I wondered who he was.

I wanted to ask Dad about this, but he was also frowning and in a hurry to go somewhere.  It was time for me to go to daycare, except that Gore Vidal didn't use daycare.  He thought it was a waste of time and money.  Instead, he dropped me, as was his custom, at a huge public library in a big city like Philadelphia or New York. I happily wandered around and read until he came to fetch me several hours later.

Hail To The...Goon Squad?

Last night I dreamed that the 2012 elections were finished and the United States of America had finally elected its first female president: Jennifer Egan.

Author? Title?

Last night, I dreamt I went to Archer City again. Larry McMurtry didn't seem to be anywhere around. Secretly, I was a little relieved. Hero worship was so exhausting and time-consuming. I didn't have much time, and it was best spent looking for books.

While browsing through a particularly lip-smacking stack, I found an older novel with a green hardcover. The plot was about this ordinary guy who was the victim of a set-up. Serious crime or misdemeanor, I don't know, but the set-up was so cruelly and brilliantly executed that there was no chance of this guy ever clearing his name. Flipping through the pages, I understood that the book would detail the rest of his miserable life as a series of harshly slammed doors leading into smaller and smaller rooms. The novel was written in that precise and inexorable manner reminiscent of Edith Wharton, but it also had a gritty underside and was honeycombed with brutality like something by Jim Thompson.

What an incredible read! I had to have this book! I was shaking with the bibliophile version of buck fever. What was the title? Who wrote it? I flailed endlessly through the pages (around 400) until I fumbled onto the title page. Missing! Copyright page? Blurred beyond legibility. The cover? The spine?

I was just turning the book around to read the spine when I woke up in my own bed, thousands of miles from Archer City. My hands were clutching at nothing and yes, it was too dark to read.

Dreaming In Literature: Faulkner in Pajamas

I dreamed that I was sleeping in what seemed to be the most comfortable bed in the world. I was warm and cozy, then I felt someone shaking my shoulder and nudging me to wake up. "You said you'd read him, but you haven't," said my husband in a reproachful tone.

What the hell? I thought. I don't have any husbands right now.

I rolled over and pulled the covers off of my face. Sure enough, it was no husband I'd ever had -- it was William Faulkner. We seemed to be in some kind of swanky hotel room and he was wearing blue-and-white striped pajamas and slippers. He was holding a glass with a toothbrush in it and he was shaking it at me.

"I've read Faulkner, I mean, I've read you," I said. I ran through the list in my head: As I Lay Dying. Light In August. Go Down, Moses. "A Rose For Emily". "That Evening Sun". What else? "I balked on The Reivers," I told him. "I'm sorry, I don't know why."

"Not me." Faulkner shook the toothbrush and the glass at me again. "Charles Henri Ford. You haven't read him."

"I have so! I like the Andre Breton poem. His collage poems are kind of cool. Can I go back to sleep?"

Secretly, I thought Faulkner was kind of hot in those pajamas with his silvery hair all messed up from sleep, but the prospect of bow-chika-bow-wow with him worried me a little. Plus, that damn toothbrush and glass routine was putting me off.

Faulkner's mind wasn't running in the same direction at all. "I've got every one of Charles Henri Ford's chapbooks in my suitcase out in the car. You need to go downstairs, get them and read them today."

"Today?"

"You're burning daylight," Faulkner said.

"Okay. Where are we?"

"New York City."

"New York City!? Oh my God. Can I brush my teeth first?"

Faulkner held the glass and toothbrush out to me. "Here, use mine."

.

I was caught between Oh yuck and He's one of the giants of American literature when I woke up.

Dreaming In Literature: Wait, I Know That Rat!

My friend and colleague Becka and I were walking home from the university. We were enjoying the warm autumn afternoon, the blue sky and the varicolored leaves on the trees surrounding us. We were both glad that it wasn't summer anymore with the oppressive heat and rats running like crazy all over the apartment complex.

Right on cue, a rat ran in front of us. After that first involuntary exclamation of disgust, we noticed something odd about this rat. He seemed familiar.

Becka was worried. "There's something wrong with him." She bent down for a closer look. The rat was just sitting there looking up at us. "He's got a tumor on his..." I looked in the direction she was pointing. Until that moment, it had never occurred to me that rats have uh, male equipment, but this one did. I also saw the tumor, oozy and sore-looking. I trusted Becka. Her first degree was something in science.

"He's a vertebrate, which means he's not as interesting as an invertebrate, but we've got to help him," Becka told me. "That tumor looks bad. He could die."

I nodded. I was still shuddering, but not as much as usual when I encountered rats or mice. Why not? And why was I all for helping this rat get a tumor lopped off of his johnson so that he could go forth and breed with impunity? Something wasn't adding up.

Then it hit me. OMG. Wait, I know that rat. "Yes, we've got to help him," I said decisively. "It's Templeton. From Charlotte's Web." I opened my school bag and bent down so that Templeton could climb in. He kind of limped in, poor fellow. A second later, I could hear him zeroing in on my lunch leftovers. Typical, I thought.

"Charlotte's Web? For reals?" Becka was excited. "We've got to find a good vet."

"How did he get all the way to Korea?" I wondered. "Wasn't the Zuckerman farm in Maine or New Hampshire?"

"I don't know. We need to hurry," Becka said and we started back down the hill with Templeton.

Dreaming In Literature: Hanging With Margaret Mitchell

"Peggy" and I were hanging out in her backyard in Atlanta. Ms. Mitchell was reclining on a chaise longue with a mint julep next to her. I was sitting in a lawn chair and kept jumping up to look at the landscaping. Everything seemed to be what you run across in southern novels.

"Is this cape jasmine? Are those magnolias? Is that a peach tree?" Peggy nodded. I wondered if I was giving it away that I wasn't a southerner. But I wasn't really a Yankee, either. After all, Missouri was terribly conflicted during the Civil War. I didn't like my mint julep. Too sticky. Maybe I was more Yankee than anything.

"I'm reading Toji," I told Margaret Mitchell. "It's the Great Korean Novel. Also written by a woman. Believe it or not, it's way way WAY longer than Gone With The Wind. Sixteen frickin' volumes, can you beat that? The problem is, there's really no one particular character I can warm up to, like Scarlett. Park Kyung-Ni jumps around like a..."

Peggy lit a cigarette. She had the loveliest little lighter, small and slim with a mother-of-pearl overlay. The little click it made was the most satisfying, perfect sound in the world. I vowed to start smoking immediately, just as soon as I found a lighter exactly like that.

"You know," she said. "I'm getting really tired of Nineteen." She pronounced "tired" like "tide". I wished my students could check out her accent.

"What's Nineteen? Is that a book?" A slight nod. "Do you mean Gone With The Wind?" I thought maybe she was talking in code.

She shook her head.

"Is it a new book? Why do you call it Nineteen?"

No answer.

"Is it because it takes place in the 1900s? Is it about Scarlett's family? Oh no...uh, Peggy? I don't think you've heard about Alexandra Ripley; this is really going to piss you off --"

"Everybody better keep their cotton-pickin' hands off Nineteen."

"Where is it? How long is it? Can I read it?" I was trembling. Home from Korea just in time to be part of literary history! Toji would have to take a back seat.

"Get your goddamn feet out of my azaleas," Peggy told me. "No one can read Nineteen. I'm tired of it."

Dreaming In Literature: Bookworm Prisoner

North Korea's military invaded South Korea before the United States military had a chance to come in and rescue all the expats, as planned. We all decided to make the best of it and thought maybe the North Koreans would want some English lessons as well.

Actually, the North Koreans didn't really care for anyone non-Korean being in the country and started coming up with any possible excuse to deport foreigners. Somehow they found my blog, got an eyeful and decided that what I read and discussed was in direct opposition to their philosophies.

Next thing I knew, the police were at my door in full riot gear -- sticks, shields and all. Since they looked as young as my students, I wasn't really worried. One of them even bowed a little and began discussing the problem with me in English that was pretty impressive. I praised him for his diligence about studying.

He waved off my compliment. "Your book list. It is unacceptable." He gave me a piece of paper. "This is our list of banned books. You have read eighty percent. Unacceptable."

Damn, I thought. I'm going to be deported. Crap. I never learned how to make kimchi. Why didn't I buy Good Morning, Kimchi! when I saw it at Kyobo all those years?

"When do I have to leave?" I asked. "You see, I've got all these books -- " I gestured at my shelves. "I need to get them home."

"You don't understand," he said. "Your reading list is bad, very bad! We are going to put you in prison. No deportation. Prison! Do you understand?"

"You mean like jail? Lock me up?"

"Yes. Our list and your list..." One of the other policemen had somehow found my reading journal on the top shelf, next to the Little House books. "This list is bad. You are going to jail!"

"How long?"

No response.

"When? Can I take a few things?" I'd grab the Pulitzers, if I could, but I had a feeling that the collection would be stalled for a while at 38.

"You go to prison tomorrow. Goodbye." He and the other police bowed and left.

I quickly called as many of my expat friends as I could and explained my situation. They instantly showed up at my apartment. Surprisingly, none of them had been singled out for this particular crime.

"I'm going to try to get all the Pulitzers in my suitcase. And my toothbrush. Screw clothing -- I bet they'll make me wear some ratty uniform."

"You probably won't have time to read," Diane pointed out. "I heard that North Korean prisons work you in the fields from dawn to night."

"Well, they can't work people twenty four-seven. I bet the prison library only has books in Hangeul. Will you guys send me some books?"

"No way." Talya said. "We might send the wrong ones and get thrown in jail, too."

"Good point." I sighed. "I should call my family. I can just hear them saying 'I-told-you-so.' I'll just act like it's no big deal. That way, they won't worry or have the satisfaction of being right."

"They already know," Shanna said. "Obama got on the news and said that he's sorry for you since he's a reader himself, but the United States can't give in to North Korea's unreasonable demands."

"Shit," I said. "Did you know that I voted for him?" Everyone nodded glumly.

.Leigh wanted to know if she could borrow The Zahir. "It's Paulo Coelho. Keep it forever," I told her.

The riot police showed up again at suppertime. "You go to jail now."

I lost my patience. "Now!? You said tomorrow! Damn it, these last-minute schedule changes are something that have gotten under my skin for years! I need to go to E-Mart!"

"Go to E-Mart, then come back here and go to jail."

Unaccompanied, I left the apartment and walked to the subway station. As I stood on the platform, I thought this might be a good time to make a run for it, but wait! My red suitcase (with all those Pulitzers inside) was back at the apartment. Damn.

Dreaming In Literature: Philip Roth Comes Calling

As soon as I opened my door and saw that it was Philip Roth, the first thought that flashed across my brain wasn't OMG! It's Philip Roth! or Did he do a book tour of Korea and I somehow missed reading about it? No, what came to mind was a panicky: Oh shit...I haven't read American Pastoral yet!

.

I let him in -- him and his little dog, too-- for he was carrying a yappy little white dog. I think it was a Maltese. He said that its name was Daphne. I told him that I once had a dog named Daphne, too. I didn't. I was lying to Philip Roth.

.

Preparing a cup of honey lemon tea and a plate of little dessert cookies for Roth and a dish of water and a plate of canned tuna for Daphne, I really felt the sweat coming on. I've read three or four of Roth's novels, but I've also given up on a couple. I tried to read Portnoy's Complaint back when I was in high school. I was bored by it, and quit. I suspect that some of Portnoy's uh, preoccupations went over my head. In any case, I couldn't relate at 15 or 16. Then, somewhere around 20, I tried to read The Breast, which is a novella about a guy named David -- I think he was a professor, but I'm not sure -- who completely turns into a breast. I hadn't read any Kafka yet, and I thought it was the stupidest and grossest thing I'd ever read in my life. That put me off Roth for years. Even later, I never really could warm up to his writing. But now that he was sitting in my apartment, I couldn't tell him that.

.

I was hoping that Roth would enjoy looking at my shelves, (Larry McMurtry would have!) but no, he wanted to get right to the point. How many of his books had I read and how did I feel about them? Deep breaths. I suddenly had a flash of insight: Everyone wanted to talk to him about Portnoy's Complaint, right? He was probably bored to death by that! Okay, then. I wouldn't mention Portnoy.

.

Pablo...I had to get my bookish buddy Pablo from Gumi on the phone. Last year, he'd been asking me about Roth, and I told him that for me, Roth was like the little girl with the curl, so he asked to borrow what I had, and returned those novels raving with delight. Somehow, Pablo needed to get a train and get here in a hurry. He'd read American Pastoral. After that, he went out and bought Everyman, and was delighted by it. Best of all, Pablo had an English accent. Philip Roth would be impressed.

.

I tried to slip off to the bathroom to call Pablo, but Philip Roth kept talking to me, his dark eyes boring into me over his tea mug and I couldn't manage to politely excuse myself for a couple of seconds. Maybe I could offer to take Daphne for a walk? Philip Roth brusquely told me to sit down. I was screwed. If I dared to bring up Claire Bloom, would he storm out?

.

I stammered out that I had completed four of his books: Goodbye, Columbus, When She Was Good, The Human Stain and The Plot Against America. I decided to dwell on When She Was Good, since hardly anyone ever mentioned that book. But I couldn't remember the details! I couldn't talk about Goodbye, Columbus, either. I hated it; I couldn't imagine how it helped make his literary reputation. Feeling desperate, I was about to ask him if The Plot Against America was going to be made into a movie. My mouth was utterly dry. Then I noticed that Philip Roth was glaring at my copy of American Pastoral. Then he glared at me. Then I woke up.

.

In case this is a recurring dream, I've got to go ahead and read American Pastoral.

Feverish Bookworm

The Library Situation is all settled now (definitely an early Christmas gift), but work has kicked into overdrive and illness is showing its dingy yellow fangs.

I think I'm going to make it to 100 books -- I'm on books 98 and 99 right now. I managed to reread The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread when I was lying in bed last weekend.

I've been dreaming in literature, but it's crazier than usual. In one dream, I was in New York, and agents and publishers kept mixing me up with Susan Issacs, Susan Sontag, Susan Fromberg Schaffer and Lynne Sharon Schwartz (????).

Last night, in another dream, I had the whole plot of a southern Gothic novel all dreamed out and ready to transcribe. I was certain that this was the creepiest novel ever and I could lay down my EFL mantle permanently. When I woke up, the whole novel crumbled to dust. All I can remember is something about an umbilical cord buried under a tree that was sending messages to a young boy. Bye, bye Pulitzer Prize!

Book Dreams: A Guy Walks Into A Bookstore

In this particular dream, it was 1980 or 1981 and I was living in Denver, Colorado. My job was at a cool comic book store that was sort of like Mile High Comics. The atmosphere was relaxed and genial, and I had lots of time to write and illustrate (in this dream, I could draw like Alison Bechdel!) my own fanzines. Strangely but happily, modern desktop publishing was at my disposal, so I was able to "pub my ish" and have it available for sale within hours.

One day, a rangy, good-looking guy about my age came into the store and stayed for hours and hours, looking mostly at comics and fanzines. Friendly guy -- really different from the geeks and nerds that made up our usual clientele -- great conversation skills. He settled himself on the floor with a comic book box full of past issues of my zine, which was called In Today's Room. I tried not to watch him as he read my stuff, but occasionally sneaked a peek from behind a Rolling Stone magazine with Jackson Browne on the cover.

Finally, he came up to the register with several copies of In Today's Room. I charged him a dollar apiece. As he gave me the money, he said, "Hey, are you that Susan?" and gestured towards the pile of zines. I nodded.

He smiled. "Would you do me a favor? Could you autograph all of these for me?"

"Really????!!!!!" (Be cool, girl.) "I mean, sure, of course, but only on one condition: When you write a book, you'll autograph a copy for me."

"No problem."

I felt like I could talk to this guy all day. Damn, he had to be the quintessential example of the word charisma! "What's your name?"

"Barack. Barack Obama."

"Sleep won't be sleep without any book dreams," grumbled Bybee

In this latest book dream, I had a day off but I had stopped in to do some copying and was hanging out in the Professors' lounge, when the secretary came in. "Would you agree to do a presentation at [something] Women's University?"

"Where's that?" The secretary gestured at a map. "Far from here?" she nodded. "Okay, sure. Why not? When?"

"You have to leave now." With that, she took my arm and propelled me outside and onto a waiting bus.

"But -- but I'm not dressed right!" I was wearing my usual -- the Missouri Tigers sweatshirt and jeans. "Wait! What am I supposed to talk about in my presentation?"

"Little Women!" The bus roared off.

Although the bus ride was over sooner than I would've liked, I had a little time to think. Luckily, I had read Little Women since coming to Korea, so I felt fairly fresh. Too bad my Modern Library copy was back at Dorm Sweet Dorm. Surely everyone at the presentation would have read it or have a nodding acquaintance with Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy and Marmee.

When I got to the university, no one involved with this presentation had ever heard of Little Women. I ran through several dorm-like corridors until I found the university bookstore. The English-language section was as big as your thumb. No copies of Little Women.

What to do? Maybe they'd seen the 1994 movie with Winona Ryder as Jo. I could also mention the other movie versions -- the 1933 version with Katharine Hepburn and the 1949 film with June Allyson (!) in the same role. If I could just find a computer, I could print out a brief synopsis of the novel and maybe a short biography of Louisa May Alcott for them to read and follow as I spoke. Maybe also a photo of Alcott.

Then I got the idea that I was going to build myself an "odd shelf" and it was going to consist of All Things Alcott: her novels, her nonfiction, her A.M. Barnard stuff, her sister May's art and even stuff by Bronson Alcott and anyone connected with him that was a Transcendentalist. What a great idea for an odd shelf! Why hadn't I put this together years ago?

As the dream ended, the time for my presentation was only moments away, but I was running up and down those corridors again, looking for a copy of the Martha Saxton biography of Louisa May Alcott that I first read in high school.

Book Nightmares

My dreams have been uneasy lately, but they've also been bookish.

Book Nightmare #1: I traveled to Itaewon to visit What The Book? When I finally got to near the top of "Hooker Hill", I saw that it had closed its doors for good, and a seedy-looking bar was in its place. In shock and not knowing what to do, I went in and sat at the bar and drank a couple of beers and ate some anju.

For some reason, my Korean comprehension was perfect in this nightmare, and I overheard some whores sitting near me, talking about how they were just as glad that What The Book? was gone because the guys who had come out of that bookstore were always loaded down with heavy books and had never seemed really interested in what the whores had to sell. "This place better, because guys here want satisfy! No reading!" I wildly looked around at the male clientele. None of them seemed like they'd be a bit interested in joining BOOKLEAVES. Damn.

Book Nightmare #2: I was Jane Eyre. Mr. Rochester and I had just gotten married. His eyesight was fine again, but he'd picked up a nasty gambling habit. He spent all of our income at every gaming-house he passed. When I realized how bad things were, I started hiding a few pounds from him so we'd have enough for grocery money. Also, I was about 6 months pregnant.

Mr. Rochester discovered my hiding places, then he'd reproach me for hiding money from him: "Ah, Jane! You thought to hide money from me because you trust me not. How could you think so little Jane? I thought you loved your Edward!"

"I do love you," I told him. "But we must have something for victuals."

"And you thought I'd gamble away our money for sustenance? Jane, I would not do so. Give me the money. I promise I'll bring home a feast."

Long story short, he gambled away the grocery money, then complained about his reused teabag and stale bread with no butter.

I got a job as a substitute teacher in a middle school, and all the students were hellions. Most of the time, I was able to reason them into halfway decent behavior. One of the male students resembled both in looks and actions my unfortunate cousin John Reed. He didn't like the idea of detention, so he hit me across the stomach.

I was mightily sick of all this unpleasantness and began to wonder: "What would Bertha do? What would Bertha do? WWBD?" I wished that my predecessor were alive again and could attack all these troublesome people. Maybe she'd escaped the fire after all. One could hope.