Last year, after doing some research, I purchased Crocheted Scarves by Vogue Knitting. According to the people who had left comments on Amazon, this was the perfect crocheting book for me, with simple yet stylish scarf designs that I might actually wear. When I got it, I was very happy with my purchase. It is not a large book, very easy to handle while sitting in front of the TV, and it has lovely pictures and clear instructions.
I brought the book with me to a specialty yarn shop and purchased the materials needed for the Mohair Ripple Scarf on page 24. For the next few months, whenever I watched TV (which was not that often), I would have my hands occupied by my scarf project. Pretty soon, as one row after another was completed, the striped scarf began to take shape. An awkward, oddly uneven shape.
At least the scarf was scarf-shaped, long and thin—much thinner than the scarf pictured in the book was—but the ends were not straight. I had some trouble with the turnarounds. Each row of color seemed to be of a different length, but this was somewhat hidden by the tassels I guess.
It was then that I realized that I was in a bit of a bind. I live in California. About three times a year the temperature dips below forty degrees, but generally it is not that cold here. Not like New York, or Boston, where I spent my first 21 years of life. I don’t really need a scarf and don’t usually wear them. I had thought of making it a gift, but now, with its not-quite-right look, I wasn’t so sure.
I decided to do it anyway and sent it to M for Christmas that year. She lives in Connecticut where it might actually be useful, and the uneven ends and funny shape would just serve to highlight the fact that it was made by my own hands. Something made by a friend is more valuable, is it not?
When M received my gift, she was properly thankful, but not unusually so. A few weeks later, though, without my even bringing it up, she mentioned that she had gotten a lot of compliments on the scarf when she had worn it to work. Wow, she actually wore it to work! Now, that’s friendship. The compliments were gravy.
Wedding bells are in the air again. My best friend M got engaged the day after Thanksgiving, and we have been abuzz with phone calls and emails ever since. She has asked me to be her matron of honor, which sounds really fun, despite knowing that I will have to reach the high bar she set when she was my maid of honor.
M’s engagement ring is a traditional Tiffany Setting solitaire, which we enjoyed cooing snobbishly over because I also have a Tiffany engagement ring (“I’m so glad that you have one too, so we can talk about how much better our rings are than other peoples’!”). And all this talk about Tiffany and wedding planning reminds me, of course, of my own story.
One day in the summer of 2004, E and I were talking idly of ring shopping, and decided on the spur of the moment to stop into a jewelry store by our house to take a look. Not satisfied with that, we also went to two other stores in town, including the Tiffany branch in Walnut Creek. That afternoon, we discussed the merits of paying the premium for Tiffany, and agreed that the significance and mystique of Tiffany name was indeed worth the extra cost. Then E hit upon the idea of getting the ring from the Tiffany on 5th Avenue in New York City. This was a wonderful idea, as I am from New York, just outside the city, and I love it there. What a romantic idea. So that winter, we spent the week before Christmas in New York City. Our trip was busy— full of dinner plans with friends, Broadway shows, and destinations we wanted to visit. We decided to go to Tiffany on a Monday morning. On Sunday evening, E said, “we have to be in the hotel lobby at 9:00 tomorrow.”
“OK,” I replied suspiciously. E is not one to plan ahead, usually.
The next morning, as we reached the lobby, I could see a Town Car waiting at the curb, and E led me straight to it. The driver opened the door for me, and as an aside, told E that his “stuff” was in the trunk. They went around and took out a long cardboard box full of roses, which E presented to me inside. “Tiffany on 5th Avenue, please,” he told the driver, and off we went.
The Tiffany on 5th Avenue occupies an entire building. It has five levels full of the most beautifully crafted objects in the history of mankind. The engagements rings cover an entire floor of the building, and we took the elevator directly there. Once the elevator doors opened, there were the display cases, practically as far as the eye could see. As I approached the first counter with wonder, the saleswoman asked if she could be of assistance.
“Yes,” replied E. “We’re here to see Gary.”
That was when I knew I had been duped into believing that Monday morning was my idea. It was also when I knew whatever was going to happen was going to be good.
Gary welcomed us and led us to a small private viewing room off the main floor. We all sat down, and he began with a bit of a prepared speech, telling us about his years with Tiffany, his gemology education, and some of his experiences with celebrity customers through the years. Gary was Jackie Onassis’ personal jeweler! He also mentioned that he had met Audrey Hepburn once at a fundraiser, when, for the one and only time in the store’s history, they served breakfast at Tiffany. Then he paused. “Until today.”
Gary’s assistant entered, bearing a (Tiffany silver) tray upon which sat (Tiffany) china and (Tiffany) flatware, an assortment of pastries and fruit, and a (Tiffany) coffee service. And there, in a private viewing room on the engagement ring floor of the Tiffany building on 5th Avenue in New York City, we ate breakfast.
It didn’t take long to choose a ring after we had eaten. I have tiny hands—a size 3¼-- so I preferred a smaller stone, and there were only a limited number of small stones in the Lucida setting to choose from. And because it needed resizing, we were not able to walk out with our prize that day. So even though E’s actual proposal took place a few days later (a story for another time), our “Breakfast at Tiffany” is my romantic engagement story that I will enjoy telling for years to come.
The assignment was to choose an event in a book and tell how the situation was similar to something that happened in your own life. I present to you another essay written by one of my students.
I think what happened to me one day is similar to what happened to a mouse. This particular mouse is from the book The Tale of Despereaux, by Kate DiCamillo. Despereaux is a mouse that always seems to get into strange events. One of the events that happened to him is similar to something that happened to me. I was scared to do something, yet I was determined to go through the ordeal, just like Despereaux was.
One day, Despereaux wanted to save a princess who was hidden in a palace’s deep, dark, dungeon. He was determined to go to rescue her even though the dungeon was filled with rats that ate mice. On the other hand, I was determined, one day, to go through a haunted tunnel at a Halloween Carnival. I was with my friend and had enough courage to go through. I knew that I probably would be scared stiff, but I was determined to see how scary it really was.
As Despereaux walked through the dungeon, he kept careful watch of everything around him. He was discovered by a rat that led him to the princess because the rat wanted to see them suffer together. Similar to that, I followed the path of the haunted tunnel and was discovered by many scary people wearing costumes. I was pretty scared as I made my way through the tunnel.
Though many hardships, Despereaux was finally able to rescue the princess and escape from the dark dungeon. Like Despereaux and the princess, my friend and I successfully navigated through the haunted tunnel and made it out the other side. The friendly faces of family and friends greeted us as we came out of the tunnel. In the end, everything turned out to be all right.
Despereaux is very similar to me. We both were determined to go somewhere and made it out in one piece. We decided that we could overcome our fears and successfully finish our objective.
L is visiting! She's staying overnight and then going into San Francisco tomorrow to see an opera... a work-related trip, it seems. The LA Opera will be producing Manon Lescaut next year, so she and her boss decided to see the SF Opera's production.
We went out to a lovely dinner in downtown Walnut Creek this evening at Prima, and during dinner, I suddenly remembered to ask her, "Are you going to call my podcast?"
"Yeah, I keep meaning to do that. I was going to call and read a passage from Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris."
"Well, let's do it tonight."
"What, do you have the book at home?"
"Oh, no. I forgot about that part. Right."
"We could go buy one."
"Yeah, OK. Let's go to the bookstore after dinner."
So after we were stuffed, we strolled over to Bonanza Street Books, not two blocks away. They did not have Holidays on Ice, but they did have Barrel Fever, which includes, according to L, the best Christmas story ever: "SantaLand Diaries." As I walked around the store with the book in my hand browsing the displays, I marveled over how long it's been since I bought a book in an actual bookstore not my own. I imagined how other people get to walk around bookshops, looking for interesting finds and stumbling across something exciting. I liked the feeling of walking up to the counter and making a purchase. Maybe I should do it more often. Support the other bookstores-- I know how hard it is.
Now I'm going to get L to call the podcast line-- I do so want to hear about Sedaris' stint as an elf in Macy's.
[Don’t forget to call in with your thoughts on a Holiday Book for the Book Club Podcast, and vote on a title! (Look to the right for details.)] On your mark, get set… go! The holiday eating season has officially begun, and coincidentally, I just finished reading Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink, Ph.D. This hybrid of a book is both a wonderful study of the psychology of eating as well as a self-help book offering reasonable suggestions for changing our own behavior in the face of this information, resulting in more healthful eating habits and weight loss with little effort. What a great book.
Firstly, I can never get enough of reading about psychological experiments and case studies. Loved Opening Skinner’s Box, and anything by Oliver Sacks, loved the theories behind Why We Shop, A Perfect Mess, Blink—that sort of thing. Eat it right up. I found Wansink’s eating studies especially fascinating, since I love food and eating as well. He presents numerous studies where, by changing various factors such as bowl size or package labeling, they can measure how much food is eaten and make conclusions about how factors we may not even be aware of affect how much we eat.
Wansink then applies the information from these experiments to our own lives. The main idea behind the title of the book is that if we often mindlessly eat more than we should, then with a few changes, we can likewise mindlessly eat less and more healthily. If we were to cut our calorie intake by 100-200 calories a day using some simple “mindless” changes, we wouldn’t even notice. And by the end of the year we would be 10-20 pounds lighter than we would otherwise.
As I read, I found myself nodding, already in agreement with Wansink’s arguments. But even if I hadn’t been, I would have been convinced. Each chapter begins with the tale of an experiment or two to find how a particular factor affects the type of food and the amount people eat. Conclusions are drawn, then applied to everyday eating behavior. Each chapter ends with a concrete “reengineering strategy” that we can follow to make eating less and more healthily easy and unnoticeable. I think this combination of science and actionable suggestions is a great idea. Readers like me who are interested in psychology can enjoy the book as much as a person interested only in losing a few pounds.
While many of the studies seem obvious or common-sensical, it is still good to know that there is scientific evidence behind theories as simple as: if you hold a larger bowl, you will put more ice cream in it. Your brain will also not be able to tell the difference—after all, it thinks you just ate a bowl of ice cream. Armed with this simple information, you can actually do something to cut your calories without any sense of deprivation: use smaller bowls.
I have already enthusiastically promoted this “great book I’m reading” to many friends. It was such a fun read, and Wansink’s suggestions are, I believe, the only intelligent way to modify our eating habits for the better. Intellectual stimulation and self-help together—what better food for the brain and body?
[Don’t forget to call in with your thoughts on a Holiday Book for the Book Club Podcast, and vote on a title! (Look to the right for details.)] When I was in high school, I hated my English classes. I thought that the literature we were forced to read was deathly boring, and worse yet, the teachers always made farfetched claims about the authors’ intentions that couldn’t possibly be true. I distinctly remember sitting through an entire class period while the teacher recited every mention of boxes and the boxed-in motif in Of Mice and Men. My friends and I rolled our eyes, passed notes, and later ridiculed our teacher for his obsession with boxes. Sure, Steinbeck mentions boxes a few times in the book, but wasn’t it going a bit far to say that Steinbeck did this on purpose?
Luckily, my impression of literature changed completely in college due to a few great professors. I came to understand that there might be more in the text than just the plot and the surface details. I even managed to write a number of analytical papers that earned me pretty good grades, and developed a love of modern literature that will stay with me through my lifetime.
I noticed recently, however, that I hadn’t really learned how to approach literary analysis on my own. I had gone to lectures where the professor presented his or her own ideas, which I dutifully wrote down in my notes. I then used these views and strategies to shape my own reading and writing about the books. Now, the farther out of college I get, the more I realize I don’t know how to do this on my own.
I picked up How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas Foster on a bit of a lark. I thought it might be interesting, but wasn’t expecting it to really affect the way I read. It was too much to hope that I might learn from a book what four years at Harvard didn’t teach me. As soon as I started reading it, though, I was quite pleasantly surprised.
How to Read Literature Like a Professor is primarily concerned with symbolic and thematic analysis in novels. I thought that the structure of the book works very well: each chapter addresses one symbol or theme and explains how an author might employ it, either in a straight or ironic way. Foster also uses a huge number of real examples from literature to illustrate his ideas, which also serves to whet the reader’s appetite for the books he cites.
Essentially, Foster argues that being able to pick up on an author’s secondary intention through symbolism and allusion is a matter of pattern recognition. If you’ve seen the same images appear over and over again in different works, you begin to form associations for what those things might signify. Topics addressed range from the meaning of rain, seasons, and food to references to older works such as the Bible, Shakespeare, and fairy tales.
Most importantly to me, Foster addressed the question that I have had since high school: Did the author really put those details in on purpose? He consistently addresses this issue throughout the book, but also writes a separate “interlude” chapter called, “Does He Mean That?”
Along about now you should be asking a question, something like this: you keep saying that the writer is alluding to this obscure work and using that symbol or following some pattern or other that I never heard of, but does he really intend to do that? Can anyone really have all that going on in his head at one time?
While Foster concedes that no one knows for certain what is going on in an author’s head while she is writing, he makes the argument that writers are not only intelligent, but well-educated with literature of the past. And since they are the ones painstakingly putting together each sentence, it isn’t likely that they would naively use allusions and repetitive symbols by accident. On the other hand, any well-read writer might not be overtly using influences from the past. “By the time she writes her books, she has access to that tradition in ways that need not be conscious. Nevertheless, whatever parts have infiltrated her consciousness are always available to her.” I buy that.
In the end, however, Foster is practical. Whatever the author’s intentions were, he believes, what is most important is what we readers can discover in the work. He doesn’t insist that we readers be so knowledgeable that we recognize every instance of allusion or symbolism in everything we read. Rather, even a subconscious nod to these literary devices can make a text seem richer and more meaningful than simply reading for plot.
I just finished this book a few days ago, but I had been simultaneously reading Cold Mountain. I must say, the basic knowledge of authorial intention I have picked up by reading Foster’s engaging and interesting suggestions has made a huge difference already. Besides generally paying more attention to the text as I am reading, I am making associations, filing away images, and putting together a richer and more thoughtful picture of Cold Mountain as a whole, and I’m only halfway through. It definitely takes more effort and is slower going, but what I am getting out of the book has already exceeded my usual cursory read. I feel smarter already.
[Don’t forget to call in with your thoughts on a Holiday Book for the Book Club Podcast, and vote on a title! (Look to the right for details.)] Special Guest Blogger!
In late October, author Theodore Taylor passed away. He had written over 50 books for both children and adults, but the book that I, and many other children, know him best for was The Cay. I have asked a seventh-grade writing student of mine if I could post her essay on the book, and she agreed. So here it is.
This book is about a boy, Phillip, who lives in the Dutch Islands and the place goes to war. The boy’s father makes Phillip and his mother leave and travel to a safer place. The ship was torpedoed and few survivors were left. A man named Timothy got an emergency boat and pulled up all the people or animals nearby. Timothy rescued two living things. A boy named Phillip, and the cook’s cat, Stewcat. They boat to an island at last and settle there.
What would you do stranded on an island with someone you barely even know and a cat and the fact that you're blind from looking into the sun? If I were Phillip I’d try to find a way to survive and get off that island. But should you trust that old African-American man, Timothy? What would you do? Well, if I were Phillip, or in other words the blind boy stranded on the island, I would trust him. Surely he wouldn’t want his only human companion dead.
This is an award winning book and I think it’s because it teaches one that no matter what the color of your skin is, it’s what’s inside that matters. In this book, Timothy, an old black man, is a very nice and generous person. He helped the blind white boy gather food and created a shelter even after the boy slapped him and belittled him because he is black. This book shows that everybody is the same on the inside and that all should be treated equally. It is very surprising that a little boy would look down at a grown-up.
This is a great book but I didn’t like Phillip at first. I thought he was rude, selfish and stupid. He never treated Timothy well until the end a while before Timothy died of a fever. My favorite character is Timothy. He is very generous and has a great character. He is nice and was always very polite. Although he couldn’t read or write, he had taught survival skills to Phillip. If Timothy didn’t teach Phillip those skills, he probably wouldn’t have ever left the island or lived more than a day.
In the end, an airplane found Phillip and brought him and Stewcat to Phillip’s parents. His parents sent him to a doctor to fix his eyes and he ended up being able to see, although he had to wear glasses. The war was also over so they lived happily ever after.
Have you called the podcast line to tell us about a holiday book yet? You still have a few more days, and believe me, I sure could use your call. Don’t be shy, please! Please.
I have been wanting to create a podcast ever since I got this book, Promoting Your Podcast by Jason Van Orden at BEA. I met the author, who signed my book, and since there wasn’t anyone else waiting, I got to chat with him for a moment. He explained that this book is not your usual podcasting book, because it does not teach you how to make a podcast. Rather, it assumes that you already have a podcast, and focuses on how to promote it to gain listeners.
Since the technical details of podcasting and blogging are very similar, I have already used the information from several of the chapters to promote my blog. I was able to do simple things like list my blog on the main directories get involved with the community, which is the best way for people to find out about your blog.
But now that I am on the cusp of actually podcasting, I have started to read this book more seriously. But the very first chapter stopped me in my tracks. Item number one on the list of must-haves “for standing out in the podcast crowd as if you were wearing a polka dot shirt with striped pants” is a gripping podcast title. According to Van Orden, this title should not only sound good, but it must also “1. Give the listener an idea of what your show is about,” and “2. Entice him to click and give it a try.”
Oh no! "Renee’s Book Club" doesn’t really tell you everything you need to know about this podcast, does it? I mean, the most important thing about the podcast isn’t really Renee, it’s YOU, the contributors. So I came up with some other possibilities for a title. I’m not wild and crazy about any of them, but I do have a favorite that I’m leaning toward. However, I thought it would be fun to conduct a poll to see what YOU, the actual sources of this podcast, think. Even if you don’t actually call in and leave a message, please vote!
[Don’t forget to call in with your thoughts on a Holiday Book for the Book Club Podcast! (Look to the right for details.)] It’s true what they say on Cheers: there’s nothing like going to a place where everybody knows your name.
The California School Library Association conference began today. I set up our booth and opened for business tonight at the evening exhibits reception. I had been pretty stressed about this conference all week, but now that the first day is over, I’m pretty jazzed despite my fatigue.
I always seem to forget, in the intervening year between conferences, how enthusiastic all these attendees are and how wonderful it is to watch people walk up to the booth, look upward to read the banner, and then exclaim, “Shen’s Books! I love Shen’s Books!” Most of these librarians already receive our catalog in the mail, and most of them have bought books from the catalog in the past.
One group of librarians from San Jose were particularly enthusiastic, and we talked about hosting a librarian’s field trip to our store for them. One of the librarians had visited us recently and told all her friends about how great our selection was, and especially raved about a particular book that Shen's Books publishes, The Day the Dragon Danced by Kay Haugaard and illustrated by Carolyn Reed Barritt. The Day the Dragon Danced is great because it is a Chinese New Year’s parade story, but it features a little black girl as its main character. The girl takes her grandmother to see the parade, where she explains what she learned in school about Chinese New Year. Her father is a member of the dragon dance troupe, along with other ethnically diverse friends from the community. It is bright and colorful, and I think it really represents the diversity of our nation, and how we have taken traditions from other cultures and made them our own.
That librarian convinced two of her colleagues to buy copies right then and there. I think it’s so great to watch customers do the selling. It reminds me of how passionate readers are about sharing books we love.
[Don’t forget to call in with your thoughts on a Holiday Book for the Book Club Podcast! (Look to the right for details.)] I'm a big David Lebovitz fan, ever since I got his book, Room for Dessert many years ago. So when Ripe for Dessert came out in 2003, I got it immediately. This book features only desserts made with fruit-- the subtitle is "100 outstanding desserts with fruit inside, outside, alongside." The chapters are divided by fruit types, from apple-and-pear types and citrus to tropical fruits, berries, stone fruits, and dried fruits. Every recipe looks, of course, incredible.
My favorite so far, simply because of its ease and practicality, is the Peach and Amaretti Crisp. The body of the crisp is composed, of course, of peaches. That in and of itself is a nice change. But the topping (as always) is the exciting part. Instead of an oats-based streusel, this topping is made primarily from crushed Italian amaretti cookies, almonds, and brown sugar. It's wonderful.
But that isn't even the best part. The greatest thing about the topping is that you can freeze it. Then, whenever you feel like having some amaretti crisp, you can cut up whatever fruit you have in the refrigerator, break off a chunk of frozen topping, and whip up a really quick seasonal dessert. This is especially great for us who have only a few people in our household. I've done it with peaches, pears, plums, and apples. In fact, I just popped two individual-sized ramekins of apple-amaretti crisp into the oven, and in half an hour, E and I will have our fall flavors and play some Mille Bornes. Ripe for Dessert by David Lebovitz
[Don’t forget to call in with your thoughts on a Holiday Book for the Book Club Podcast! (Look to the right for details.)] I'm little late on responding to this meme, but hey-- better late than never. (via Chicken Spaghetti)
1. Grab the nearest book. 2. Open to page 123. 3. Find the fifth sentence. 4. Post the text of the next four sentences on your blog along with these instructions. 5. Don't you dare dig around for that "cool" or "intellectual" book on your shelves. (I know you were thinking about it.) Just pick up whatever is closest.
I've had Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules, a book of short stories selected and edited by David Sedaris, sitting on my desk for months. I've been reading it at a snail-like pace, but I will finish eventually. Probably. So here's what I found:
"Ten years of letters, of extravagant alcoholic phone calls. The continual measure they took of each other. Their vanished precocity, reluctantly cast aside at age twenty-five or so. Ten years which established Ted's increasingly self-conscious, increasingly offhand reports of publications, recognitions."
[Don’t forget to call in with your thoughts on a Holiday Book for the Book Club Podcast! (Look to the right for details.)]
I couldn’t resist putting this book up even though I haven’t read it, just because I love the title. And, well, there’s another reason. In the interest of full disclosure, I must confess that I did not receive a review copy from the publisher. I did, however, get a really great gym bag that says, “I Hate the Gym” on one side and “Simon and Schuster” on the other, at BEA a few years ago. That bag is the only reason I even know about this book, so I’m not endorsing it or anything. [I jest, but there really is a thoughtful and provoking discussion about blog disclosure at Reading Matters.]
But today’s story is not really about I Hate the Gym, the book by Jessica Kaminsky, as you might have guessed, but about the I Hate the Gym, the gym bag.
Remember about my whole yoga thing? Well, I decided that the tension in my back and shoulders from all my work stress had finally gotten to the point where I should do something about it. Plus, I had noticed that I was getting a little soft around the middle. So I started looking into yoga studios by my house. After researching yoga styles, reading websites, and visiting a studio, I came to the conclusion that I should do it, even though it would be a fairly significant cost each month.
That was Friday.
On Saturday, it occurred to me that gyms usually offer yoga classes and if I joined a gym, I could not only take yoga, but I could also use the other facilities. A better value, right? With the days shortening and the rainy season upon us, working out in a gym seems much preferable to jogging in the wet and dark. So I spent the day researching fitness centers and visited the Renaissance Club Sport, the closest one to our house, to get a tour and a sales pitch. This place is S-W-A-N-K. It’s like going to a spa rather than a gym. In fact, there is a spa there. And a hotel and restaurant and bar, a full-size basketball court, full-size volleyball court, three racquetball courts, three squash courts, four group class studios, 25-yard lap pool, group class activity pool, outdoor hot tub, and separate men’s and women’s Jacuzzi, sauna, and steam room. The place was quite seductive, despite the fact that I don’t play basketball, volleyball, or racquetball.
It is, of course, breathtakingly expensive. But they supply the towels! And the hairdryers! And you get a 15% discount on all spa services!
Well, I got my seven-day trial pass on Saturday, and I went on Sunday to take a beginner yoga class. Then I got up early this morning to go swimming and sit in the hot tub before work. That was quite nice. I brought with me my I Hate the Gym bag, courtesy of Simon & Schuster, to remind me that I really do hate the gym. No matter how beautiful, sparkling, and spacious it is, I really do hate the gym. A month from now, when the sparkle has worn off, I will still hate the gym.
(For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about: A while back I proposed to put together a “book club podcast” of sorts, where I encouraged anyone who had read the book Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro to call a voicemail number and leave a message talking about any aspect of the book they pleased. My plan was to take the voicemail recordings and create put them together into one podcast.)
What happened was, only one person called and left a message. (Thank you so very much, Mr. Anonymous caller.) So there wasn’t really enough of a response to create a podcast episode. But since I know you’re all curious, here is the recording:
There are some animals that are inherently funny: penguins, platipi, ostriches… and wombats. Last year, my parents went on a vacation to Australia. They had a wonderful time, of course, and had to buy a suitcase full of gifts for everyone back home. I got a leather purse and a stuffed koala bear. My niece (actually my cousin’s daughter), who was not even one year old yet, got a bib with a cartoon wombat on it.
“Oh! Oh! A wombat!” I exclaimed when my mom showed it to me. “That is sooooo cute!”
“You know what a wombat is?” she asked, surprised.
“Of course. I’ve read Diary of a Wombat. Wombats are so cute.” Then I had to explain about the absolutely cutest book of 2002: Diary of a Wombat by Jackie French. And then I had to buy a copy of it to give to my niece along with the bib.
You get the idea from the cover art. The paintings are spare, but they perfectly convey the personality of this intrepid food-and-sleep-seeking wombat. The text is printed in a child-like, handwritten font, as if the wombat himself had written the book.
“Tuesday. Morning: Slept. Afternoon: Slept. Evening: Ate grass. Night: Ate grass. Decided grass is boring. Scratched. Hard to reach the itchy bits. Slept.”
On Wednesday, our wombat discovers that he has new neighbors: humans. He then proceeds to innocently intrude on human life, first battling a flat, hairy creature (their welcome mat), then demanding a reward for his victory. “Received a carrot. It was delicious. Evening: Demanded more carrots.” And wombat has parked himself in front of the family’s door.
Wombat makes himself comfortable in his neighbor’s yard, scratching himself on their stuff, banging on their “large metal objects” until more carrots are offered, digging a nice hole to sleep in. When he gets tired of carrots, he tries chewing some other things before being offered a bowl of oats. In the end, he comes to a conclusion: “Evening: Have decided that humans are easily trained and make quite good pets.”
The art is what really makes Diary of a Wombat so delightful. And though my niece’s bib has quite a different type of wombat drawn on it, it too is too cute for words. Last Saturday was my cousin’s birthday, and we met for a big family lunch. When it was time to eat, she pulled out a bib for my niece, and—“Is that the wombat bib?” I exclaimed.
“Yeah,” she replied as she fixed it onto her daughter’s neck.
I was poking around the internet today and stumbled upon the website for the Chicago Public Library (don't ask-- I can't even remember). It was there that I noticed a new program where you can "check out" audiobook downloads. But since I do not live anywhere near Chicago and don't have a CPL library card, I couldn't use the system.
Naturally, the next thing I did was look on the Alameda County Library website to see if we had something similar, and we do! The Northern California Digital Library Consortium offers audiobooks, ebooks, and music as downloads for library users. All I needed to do was enter my library card number to access the online catalog and browse the titles.
The program is run through a company called OverDrive, and requires you to download their software to access the audio. Then, the only way to listen to the books is through Windows Media Player on your computer or a compatible mp3 player (iPods are not), but you can burn CDs of your downloads (and then upload them to your iPod if you're a very patient person).
Despite the hoops, I decided to try it-- after all, it's like going to the library to check out an audiobook without actually having to go to the library, and I downloaded Faking It by Jennifer Crusie. I haven't spent too much time browsing the catalog, but it looks like OverDrive offers a pretty good selection. Just in the A's of fiction, I saw The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay as well as The Anansi Boys.
Once you download, the audiobook is "checked out" for three weeks, and I guess other patrons can't download it until the three weeks is up. It sounds like a pretty complicated system all around, but definitely worth the trouble if you enjoy audiobooks and are computer savvy. After all, it's a free service brought to you by your public library. If you're interested, you should see if your local library offers this service. Many major library districts do, including Chicago, Cleveland, New York, Denver, Phoenix, San Jose, and a surprisingly huge number of others.
So far, I'm impressed. We'll see how Faking It goes.
When E and I went to Asia this April, we spent three days in Hong Kong. We had with us the Lonely Planet Best of Hong Kong, which was the perfect resource for this short stay. I can’t tell you how happy I was with this book. It is the first time I have used a book from Lonely Planet’s Best Of series, and I will definitely consider them in the future.
It could be that because Hong Kong is such a small place to cover in a guidebook, the Best Of format works well. The book is fairly thin at only 128 pages, so it fit easily in my purse or E’s pocket. This was almost unnecessary, as we would be practically fighting over who would get to carry it. At any given moment, one of us would have our nose stuck in the book, either examining the very helpful maps, reading a walking tour aloud, or looking for our next destination.
I found almost all the sections immensely useful, especially the chapter of highlights that offered a full-page description of each major sight in the city. With not even three days to sightsee (we were there for my cousin’s wedding and much of our time was already planned), the highlight sections was not only a practical way to choose which places to visit, but the lengthy descriptions were all little sales pitches, making us want to see everything, and excited to do things even before we arrived.
We also found many interesting tidbits in the more traditional chapter on sights and activities, and followed one of the walking tour suggestions. We used the shopping guide to find the interesting antique shops that we exploited as museums rather than places to purchase things.
We didn’t have too many opportunities to eat on our own (when Chinese families get together, well, you can imagine), and we got a taste of the nightlife with my cousins and their friends, so we didn’t use those sections of the book as much.
Looking back, I am amazed that we were able to pack so much sightseeing into what little free time we had. We took the tram to the top of Victoria Peak, we took a walking tour of the Central district, rode all the way up the world’s longest chain of escalators (designed for hillside dwellers commuting to and from work in the financial district on lower ground). We rode the double-decker trams, went shopping, took the ferry to Kowloon and had high tea at the Peninsula Hotel. We accidentally took a wrong turn into a suddenly peaceful and quiet park where old men sat at stone tables playing Go. We visited the tea museum and got foot massages.
E keeps talking about going back to Hong Kong. I hadn’t thought much about it, but now that I’m looking through my Best of Hong Kong again and writing about our trip, it’s starting to sound pretty good.
Speaking of Chip Kidd, did you know he wrote a novel in 2002? It’s called The Cheese Monkeys: A Novel in Two Semesters. It’s about a young man who goes to art school, and what follows are the usual university satirical hijinks: a cruel professor, meaningless classroom exercises, a love interest. To tell you the truth, there wasn’t much in the way of content that was memorable to me, despite its positive feedback from the critics and other readers.
I am proud to say that I own a first edition hardcover of this book, and I love it because, well, imagine if Chip Kidd wrote a book and then got to design an entire book however he wanted. You’d have The Cheese Monkeys.
The first thing you notice about the book is its dustjacket. Instead of wrapping around the entire book, this sleeve slips onto the front cover only. According to Kidd in Chip Kidd Work: 1986 – 2006, every one of these sleeves had to be slipped onto the covers by hand. The titling is hand-lettered by Chris Ware. When you slip the jacket off, the cover design is different underneath: there is just the word “the,” a drawing of a wedge of cheese, and a drawing of a few monkeys.
Without having opened the book yet, you might then notice ink on the fore-edge (the edge opposite the spine). If you bend the pages one way, there is one message. If you bend the pages the other, you read a different message. There is also text printed on the very edges of the hard cover, which are Kidd’s acknowledgements.
Inside, the copyright information is printed in a single horizontal line that runs for eight pages. Then comes the title page, which takes of three pages. You have to turn a page to read the entire title. The body of the book is more straightforward, although it still definitely does not look like a normal book layout. The margins are huge, the page numbers quite prominent, and the text runs all the way onto the last endpaper.
The whole thing is very unusual, striking, and attention-getting. It’s a wonderful art piece to have on my shelf, even though I can’t remember what the book was about. These days, designer furnishings are all the rage. This is a true work of art.
I very much enjoyed True Notebooks by Mark Salzman. Not only do I have a personal thing going on with Salzman, but he is a great writer and I always enjoy reading about inspiring teachers. This book is a true account of his experience as a volunteer writing tutor at Central Juvenile Hall in Los Angeles County. Despite his own reservations about teaching writing and the absurdity of a well-off white man thinking he can walk into a detention center for kids who have committed the most heinous crimes and teach them “art,” he and the boys come away from the experienced changed for the better. Only most of the boys leave the Juvenile Hall only to move to an adult penitentiary.
At any rate, I thought it was a good book when I read the Advance Reading Copy, but I didn’t hear much about it later. I guess it wasn’t that popular.
Recently, as I was reading Chip Kidd Work: 1986-2006, I came upon a page showing this cover design. I had not known it was by Chip Kidd. Kidd writes a little bit about each cover image and how it came about, and many of them are accompanied by a written excerpt from the author himself, talking about the cover. This page had a box of text written by Mark Salzman. I found it a bit enigmatic, and a maybe a little disturbing.
“Chip Kidd can make or break a book with his cover designs; that’s how powerful they are. In the spring of 2000 he designed the cover for Lying Awake, my book about a group of people (nuns) who sleep in cells, have no personal possessions, eat in silence, wear identical uniforms, and who cannot leave their walled community except by special permission. In the spring of 2003 he did the cover for True Notebooks, my book about a group of people (incarcerated juveniles) who sleep in cells, have no personal possessions, eat in silence, wear identical uniforms, and who cannot leave their walled community except by court order. Both books were poignant, thought-provoking, and life-affirming. Lying Awake flew out of the bookstores; True Notebooks sank like a stone.
How can we explain this? For the cover of Lying Awake, Chip selected a black-and-white photograph of a stark hallway in a convent, with a ghostly figure of a nun at the far end of the hall. You can’t quite see her face. For True Notebooks, he chose a black-and-white photograph of a stark hallway in a prison, with a ghostly figure of an inmate at the far end of the hall. You can’t quite see his face. Both beautiful images, both perfect representations of the themes encountered in the books. So far, so good. But what style of lettering did he choose for the titles? For Lying Awake, he used fragile, vulnerable letters in white, red and gold, evoking both the material world and the spiritual one, the sacred and the profane. They say to the reader: this is a book that goes right to the heart of the human condition. For True Notebooks, he used plump, jaunty lettering in colors reminiscent of childhood: cherry red, sky blue, lemon yellow. Set against the harsh prison image, they say to the reader: this book is about complexity. Was he right? Yes. Was he right to advertise this on the cover? The sales figures show that acknowledging complexity did for True Notebooks what it did for John Kerry.
Thanks, Chip Kidd.”
I agree with everything Salzman wrote in the first two paragraphs, but the last line bothers me. I don’t know whether it was intended to be a condemnation, a joke, or what. Was he blaming Chip Kidd for the poor sales of his book? You can see the two covers for yourselves. I personally do not like the cover design of True Notebooks, and I don’t think it does the book justice. In my opinion, saying that the rainbow lettering evokes complexity is being a bit generous. I think it looks childish. But how much really do the covers affect the sales?
Chip Kidds writes a response to Salzman, in which he explains that the similarities truly were a coincidence. He had simply found two very appropriate images for each book when he needed them, and did not notice the similarity until Salman pointed it out. About the sales, he writes, “Though I take umbrage with his theory on why the numbers on the titles were so disparate. He’s wrong… Two words I learned long ago: Nuns. Sell.”
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn is one of the craziest, most intense reading experiences you will ever have. After all, any book that takes place within a traveling carnival and features a family of sideshow freaks is pretty much going to be a psychedelic experience. Dunn’s triumph, however, is that she is able to convert the reader’s strong visceral reactions to the monstrous images and events into an equally strong emotional bond with the fabulous and shocking characters.
A quick run-through of the premise: The Binewskis are a carnival family who save their traveling “Carnival Fabulon” from bankruptcy by giving birth to their own stable of freaks—the children born to Lil Binewski after she ingest drugs, insecticides, arsenic, radioisotopes, and the like. Each member of the family, freakish in his or her own way, follows an inevitable path forged by his own inescapable character. Publisher’s Weekly describes the result much better than I could:
"This audacious, mesmerizing novel should carry a warning: 'Reader Beware.' Those entering the world of carnival freaks described by narrator Olympia Binewski, a bald, humpbacked albino dwarf, will find no escape from a story at once engrossing and repellent, funny and terrifying, unreal and true to human nature. Dunn's vivid, energetic prose, her soaring imagination and assured narrative skill fuse to produce an unforgettable tale… This raw, shocking view of the human condition, a glimpse of the tormented people who live on the fringe, makes readers confront the dark, mad elements in every society."
My own emotional relationship with this book is strengthened tenfold by the circumstances under which I came to own it. No less bizarre, really, when you think about it, than the outlandish events within the novel.
The year was 2000, and I was “managing” a recording studio in Oakland (it being my first studio job, I was ostensibly more learning than managing). The owner of the studio was an heir to the fortune of a prominent industrial manufacturing company, and my guess is that the money funding the studio came from this source, because there sure weren’t enough customers to pay for the top-of-the-line equipment and facilities we had. The parent manufacturing facility was a few blocks away from the studio, and we often ran over to “the offices” for FedEx drop offs and office-related services. It was there that I met my boss’ older brother, who was handling the (real) family business.
The brother was everything my boss was not. While my boss was a solidly built, red-meat-eating man’s man who would have preferred a boxing match to a game of Scrabble, his brother was thin and wiry, quick-witted and sophisticated. And he was missing an arm.
Having only one arm didn’t seem to slow the brother down at all. He seemed perfectly competent to run the entire manufacturing operation without it, and in his relationship with my boss, he was definitely the dominant of the pair. Not only was he older, but he was running a successful business. The unspoken understanding was that he thought his little brother a dilettante, playing with his little recording studio while he did the real work and brought in the family’s money. He was very friendly to me, however, and stopped by the studio to hang out every once in a while. I did notice that as the holidays approached, he was coming by more and more often.
It was right around that time that I gave my two weeks’ notice. The shallow, materialistic music industry culture was getting to me, and the woman who was hired to be my mentor refused to work with me cordially after the first day we met, when, in response to a few of my interruptions, she snapped, “Stop asking so many questions. You don’t learn from asking questions. You learn from listening.”
Thus it was that I had two weeks left in December at the job when my boss’ brother asked me if I wanted to have lunch with him. I honestly don’t remember what went through my mind at that moment, but I sure wasn’t doing anything at work, and he was nice enough. I knew that I wasn’t interested—he was way too old for me—but I think he was making an effort to keep it friendly, so I said yes.
At lunch, we talked a lot about the studio and my boss. He felt that my boss was just playing at running a company, as evidenced by my botched mentoring experience, losing me as an employee, and not getting the customers in. He was so disgusted that, after most of our lunch hour had passed, he suggested we cross the Bay Bridge into San Francisco to get a drink at a great bar in North Beach.
The next thing I knew, we were parallel parking on Columbus, and we walked past City Lights to the nearby bar called Vesuvius. We had a drink, chatted some more, and then headed back up the street to the car. “Wait,” he said as we approached City Lights. “There’s a book you have to read. Let’s see if they have it.” We went into the famed bookstore and he found what he was looking for right away: Geek Love. He bought it for me.
As we approached his car, his cell phone rang. “It’s my brother,” he said, looking at the caller ID. He ignored it. I looked at my watch and saw that we had been gone for almost two hours. A few minutes later, as we navigated the city streets, the cell phone rang again. “It’s my brother again,” he muttered as he answered it.
“Yeah, she’s here,” I heard him say. It was one of those conversations where you didn’t need to hear the other end. “Oh, lighten up. It’s just lunch.” Pause. “Just chill, OK? I’ll get her back when I get her back.” He hung up and looked at me. “Don’t worry, I can handle him. He’s just being an ass about it.”
Now I was a little uneasy. Sure, I was on my way out the door, but I did still work for the studio. There was, however, a little comfort in that I was with the only person who had some sort of personal authority over my boss. As I mused, the phone rang again. “What?” is all he snapped into the phone. He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, what are you going to do about it? Oh, please… what sort of important work am I keeping her away from?” Nothing, really. I didn’t do much there and he knew it. “No, that is the point. I’m going to hang up now. We’ll get there when we get there.”
I couldn’t believe I had gotten myself into this situation. He tried to reassure me that my boss was just blowing smoke, and really, he wasn’t mad at me at all. It was a brother thing. And as he said that, the phone rang again. He didn’t answer it this time.
When we pulled into the parking lot of the studio, my boss was waiting outside, livid. But his brother was right: he wasn’t angry at me. I slipped past into the building, still clutching my book, and let the two duke it out between themselves. I was too embarrassed to stick around.
I spent the rest of the two weeks keeping a low profile, trying to avoid both my boss and his brother as much as possible. I have never talked to either of them since, but this incredible novel, Geek Love, will forever remind me of my boss’ one-armed brother.
Last year, after doing some research, I purchased Crocheted Scarves by Vogue Knitting. According to the people who had left comments on Amazon, this was the perfect crocheting book for me, with simple yet stylish scarf designs that I might actually wear. When I got it, I was very happy with my purchase. It is not a large book, very easy to handle while sitting in front of the TV, and it has lovely pictures and clear instructions.
feed me