March, 2022: Sideswiped

The last day of March found me as an unwilling and unwitting participant in a fender-bender. Doesn't that sound like too cute and trivial of a phrase? The impact really REALLY rattled my cage. I think it rattled all the words out of me. But up till then, March was a stellar month, especially for reading. I can't think why it decided to give me the finger on its way out. 

What I read:

And Never Let Her Go - Ann Rule. Nonfiction/True Crime.

The Lincoln Highway - Amor Towles. Novel. (audiobook)

Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana, and the Stoning of San Francisco - Alia Volz. Memoir/Cultural History.

Mrs. March - Virginia Feito. Novel.

The Dressmaker - Kate Alcott. Novel.

Born With Teeth - Kate Mulgrew. Memoir.

What Were The Salem Witch Trials? - Joan Holub. Nonfiction.

Half-Empty - David Rakoff. Essays/Memoir. (audiobook)

My very favorite read for March was Home Baked. No one recommended it to me; I found it while browsing the shelves at the library. It's perfect. If I see this book in a bookstore, I will buy it. Alia Volz expertly weaves her own family history into the larger canvas of 1970s and 1980s San Francisco. Her writing is beautiful and audacious just like her mother, Meridy Volz who popularized selling marijuana brownies. She first got San Francisco stoned in the 1970s, then used the brownies to bring pain relief to AIDS patients in the 1980s.  I know that Home Baked will be one of the re-reads of my life.

What's The Matter Here?

That title has nothing to do with the 10,000 Maniacs song about child abuse. It has everything to do with my neglect of this blog.

What's the matter, Bybee? I asked myself. Don't you want to blog?

Yes.

Then, BLOG, damnit.

Well, okay, then.

***

Since I last checked in 6 weeks ago, I've been to Chicago once (almost-almost met Unruly Reader!) and my mom has been in the hospital twice. Now she's back in the nursing home for yet another short convalescence. We are on a crazy carousel ride: Home, hospital, nursing home. She wants to come home soon, but I'm not seeing any real strength built up yet. I say stay a little longer and she tells me tales of my cruelty. Wash, rinse and repeat.

In spite of all this and a mean work schedule, I am still reading. It's the rope ladder I cling to with a bulldog's intensity. Here's what I've completed since we last met and I talked about my reADDing problem:

A Gentleman in Moscow - Amor Towles. I wasn't sure about this novel, but I buckled down and finished, and was rewarded for my efforts with the sudden whiffs of Casablanca-like intrigue. Towles' writing is gorgeous in that way that black-and-white movies are -- silvery and shimmery.

See What I Have Done - Sarah Schmidt. The atmosphere in this book about the Borden family in the days of the infamous murders is so thick you would need a machete to cut it, but take away the atmosphere and all that's left is excellent research and a shell of a story. I wanted to love this novel much more than I did.

I bailed on Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz. Just wasn't feeling it.

A Good Marriage - Stephen King. This novella about a wife who finds out who and what her husband really is after almost 30 years is a trifle, a mere whisper of King's real narrative power. I enjoyed it as an audiobook.

Harriet Tubman - Kem Knapp Sawyer. A biography from the D-K series written for young adult readers. Very well done, although some of the material added for breadth and to put Harriet's world in perspective sometimes seems tangential. I am so glad that Harriet Tubman is going to be put on the $20 bill. I want to see her face nearly every day and rejoice in her bravery and badassery.

You Don't Have to Say You Love Me - Sherman Alexie. Alexie's memoir of his mother isn't just about her, but he circles and circles and comes back continually. His wife commented that the book is pieced together like a quilt, which is an apt observation. It has a raw and improvised feel until you start to perceive its patterns. I'm always excited to see triangulation in memoirs. Both funny and heartbreaking. Recommended.

I'll Be Damned - Eric Braeden. I'm a longtime fan of The Young and the Restless and Victor Newman is my favorite character. I'd love to experience this memoir as an audiobook with Braeden doing the honors, of course.

A Little Life - Hanya Yanagihara. There is so much wrong with this book, yet I'm still thinking about it every single day. It's awkward, it's overwritten and under-edited and yet I was compelled to finish. I read it everywhere: the hospital, drive-in, cafeteria at work, in bed at night and in the mornings, in the car. It was intense and remorseless. I wanted to scream. Still sitting here staring down at a huge box of feelings in my lap.

Dark Victory: The Life of Bette Davis - Ed Sikov. My favorite parts of the book were the ones in which Sikov discussed Bette Davis' films at great length. He has a witty, acerbic style that matches his subject almost perfectly. When I finished the book, I longed to see a marathon of Bette Davis movies. I still do. Pass the popcorn.

A few days ago, I DNF'ed The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz. The premise -- that we have too much choice with everything and it doesn't add to our happiness -- was interesting, but I felt bogged down with dull writing as well as all the research and studies that seemed to act as padding for the book.

Annie Oakley - Chuck Wills. Another in the D-K biographies for young readers. This time, when the author added some breadth for context, it didn't feel so much like he had to struggle to bring it back to Annie. Lovely photographs. The soundtrack in my head has played Annie Get Your Gun for days, although the real Annie wasn't much like Ethel Merman.

My current read is Unf*ck Your Habitat by Rachel Hoffman. I'm such a sucker for decluttering books. Hoffman is not as charming as Marie Kondo, but she's effective. I haven't finished UfYH yet, but I suspect that her influence led me here to unf*ck my blog. Will it stay unf*cked? Stay tuned.

P.S. It's my Spawn's birthday. Born in 1984, (no, I didn't plan that) he's a kickass bookworm in his own right. He's reading Carry On by Rainbow Rowell.

My My July

How do people 'bookworm' in the United States? It's such a distracting place! So much is coming at people all at once, over and over. I'm still reading (with both eyes and ears) but it's by sheer force of will. I will be a bookworm, dammit! I will!!!

Here's what I'm reading now:

Bossypants - Tina Fey. Audiobook. I could've read this a few years ago, but someone told me that the audiobook was the way to do it. Thanks, whoever you are! (Teri?) That was good advice! Even better: I've finally made (early morning!!!) exercise and reading fit together. Was it that hard? Well, awkward is the word. I feel like a chimp at my first fire.

Wish You Were Here - Stewart O'Nan. My Stewart O'Nan summer nearly floated out to sea, but I reeled it back in. There is also going to be a Stewart O'Nan autumn.

Coco Chanel - Justine Picardie. This book is gorgeous. So many photos. Drool.  I love how Picardie is so obsessed with Chanel and she's not afraid to let it show.

Here's what I just finished reading:

Hissing Cousins (Sorry, blanking on co-authors, and I'm not going to stop to look because I will finish this blog post; I will be a blogger again, dammit! I will!!!...wait! I've got it: Marc Peyser and Timothy Dwyer. Whew.) - A puckish biography of Eleanor Roosevelt and her first cousin, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, who was Theodore Roosevelt's oldest child. Cleverly and clearly written and no history is left behind. I loved this book so much!

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up - Marie Kondo. I've read it twice on my Kindle. I bought a copy for my bookshelf of greatest hits. For my third outing with Ms. Kondo, I audiobooked it. Round and round the apartment complex I went, sweaty and illuminated. This book never gets old. There's something so dear and fresh, even in repeated readings. Excuse me. I need to go fold the things in the dryer.

Lose the Clutter, Lose the Weight - Peter Walsh. I've already been thoroughly Kondo'ed, so this book felt a little repetitive and there wasn't that piquant charm. Still, I appreciated his breaking it all down step by step. I took one of his flow charts to heart. There's also a soft spot in my heart for his old show Clean Sweep.

Here's what I'm not going to read:

Go Set a Watchman - Harper Lee. I'm not going to go into all my reasons here, but I will say that the book has made me feel uncomfortable from the moment last year that all of this came to light.

Here's what I'm going to read pretty soon:

What To Do About Alice? - Barbara Kerley. A children's nonfiction book about Alice Roosevelt that was the genesis for Hissing Cousins. My library lost/misplaced their copy, and I got all Veruca Salt and decided that I must have it NOW!!! I'm expecting a package from Amazon in a couple of days.

I know this post looks like my bookworming is still full speed ahead, but that's not what it feels like. My book group dream went belly-up earlier this month, so I've got to start from scratch again. Carving out a life here often feels more like the space is being carved for me and I must find a way to fit in it. I have to believe that bookworm power will prevail.

Bookworm Transitions

One month home, and it's gone by in a blur. Shortly after my last post, Mom and I went to Tulsa to visit The Spawn, and she fell ill. Scary stuff. Somehow, we got her into the car and back here. Her doctor took one look at her and said, "Hospital." One week in the hospital has now turned into 2 or 3 weeks of physical and occupational therapy in a nursing home. Looks like I showed up in the U.S. at just the right time.

In other news,  I have finally gotten the Bybeeary unpacked and organized:

Nonfiction on the left, fiction on the right

Pulitzer fiction winners

As you can imagine, reading has taken a back seat. No, that's not right. Reading isn't even in the car. If anything, it's clinging to the back bumper.

This seems like a running joke, but I'm still reading A Game of Thrones.  I'm also reading Without You, There is No Us by Suki Kim and Let's Just Say It Wasn't Pretty by Diane Keaton.

Book buying: I picked up a copy of the newest Pultizer fiction winner, All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr and I couldn't resist a hardcover copy of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo.

Dewey's Readathon: I missed it, as I suspected I might, but it never dawned on me that I would MISS IT miss it as in not even being aware that it was going on until I saw some posts on social media. I hope that part of my life isn't truly gone. Let's see what October brings.

Read Life and Real Life seem poles apart, but I'm slowly finding my way back. Today, I have errands to run and a meeting with my new boss, but first, I want to stop in here for my library fix.

My beautiful hometown library in Sedalia

Finding My Feet

I have been in the United States for two weeks and fourteen hours. There's still a bit of an unreal quality to being here. I feel happy, but unsettled. The days pass in a whirl. My watch is still set on Korean time. Last night, as I went to sleep, I mentally walked from my old apartment to the Beomnaegol subway stop then back the other way. I tested myself to see if I had forgotten any landmarks. So far, so good. This morning at breakfast, I was talking to my mother and referred to Busan as "home". Ooops.

Read Life has definitely taken a back seat to Real Life. At the present, I'm still bashing my way through A Game of Thrones. My inner Bonnethead and Nerd Girl are both enthralled with Pioneer Girl.  All those footnotes! Squeeeeee! I'm also reading a memoir by Ingeborg Day called Ghost Waltz in which she explores the elephant in the room as she was growing up: Her father was a Nazi police officer. It's well-written, haunting, disturbing. I've only finished one book since I arrived back: Unworthy by Anneli Rufus. It's part memoir, part self-help about the self-loathing that lurks in so many of us. What led me to read it was research. I'm working on my next novel and that is my main character's chief characteristic, so I needed to understand that more clearly.

And what of the Bybeeary? It's sitting in several boxes in the living room, half-unpacked. All the boxes arrived safely.

My mom is telling everyone we meet that I wrote a book. Last night, she was strong-arming a relative into buying a copy of Even if the Sky Falls Down:

Mom: Have you got Susan's book on your Kindle yet?

Relative: Book?

Mom: Yeah, she wrote a book. You can read it on your Kindle or on the computer.

Relative: What kind of book is it?

Mom: It's about Korea.

Relative: Is it about your experiences there?

Me: Uh, it's a novel. Mom, quit pressuring Carol!

Mom: Tell her the title.

Me: Even if the Sky Falls Down. I can't believe you're strong-arming people.

Relative: What, are there copies piled up in your garage, Judy?

Mom: It's not a real book. It's on the computer. [A close friend] read the whole thing, and she said it's good enough to be a movie.

Me: I don't....she's really nice.

Relative:  Yes, she is. Even if the Sky Falls Down?  Okay, I'll look for it.

I don't know whether to laugh, cry, cringe or hire my mom as my publicist.

Shelf-Medicating

It's been an irritating week: The toilet broke down; the entire Korean roach kingdom has decided that I've got swell digs; my computer at work has a virus; I've got approximately $40 to live on till payday in 2 weeks; it's been raining and nastily humid so I'm drenched all the time one way or another and the laundry always feels clammy and damp even after three days of drying; I'm being stalked by a 39-year-old woman who says she's a student from nearby Sun Moon University (founded by the same guy who founded the Moonies) and my dreams of an easy, early menopause are not only eluding me, they're openly sneering.

All of it is nothing that amounts to a hill of beans in this crazy world, and luckily, I understand. Everything's temporary -- the toilet and the computer will be fixed, payday will come, the roaches will decamp when the students move back in and with a little patience, the weather and I will see big changes.

The stalker doesn't seem like she's going to go gentle into that good night (or at least, back to Sun Moon University) -- she found me and pounced when I went into the library for a cocktail of air-conditioning and shelf-medication on Monday -- but I've since located a side entrance where I can sneak right past her and directly into the stacks. Which is what I did today. Once I was there and breathing in the book dust, the palliative effect kicked right in. I took four books and feel so much better:

1. The Moon and Sixpence - W. Somerset Maugham. Another try for this one; I didn't get it read when I checked it out last spring.

2. The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories - Ernest Hemingway. Maybe it'll cool me off to read something with "Snows" in the title.

3. Howards End - E.M. Forster. I haven't read anything by Forster for more than 20 years now, and I liked the look of this Longman Cultural Edition.

4. Some Champions: Sketches & Fiction - Ring Lardner. I'm interested in Lardner because he's from that group of humorists that included Robert Benchley and Dorothy Parker. I glanced at the foreword by his son, Ring Lardner, Jr. Not-so-fun-fact: Lardner died when he was 48. I'll be 48 in a few months. (Aaaargh. I did this last summer, except with Edith Piaf.)

No, I really didn't need more reading material but yes, I would have been a snot-slinging, tear-streaked mess by nightfall if I hadn't visited my library this afternoon.