Last weekend was the annual Reading the World conference at the University of San Francisco. As usual, we spent the weekend selling books in the book market to the hundreds of educators and multicultural book lovers that attend the conference. The conference is amazing: with keynote speakers like Jane Yolen, Joseph Bruchac, Yuyi Morales, and others, there is no shortage of talent walking around the hallways. Yet at the same time, the conference is small enough to feel cozy and make the authors seem more like real people than celebrities, and very approachable.
Every year, the NCCBA sponsors its Otter Dinner on the same weekend so that Reading the World attendees can share in the other celebration of children’s books. The Otter Dinner has its own amazing lineup of speakers each year, and this year they were Robert Sabuda, Matthew Reinhardt, and Robert San Souci.
E and I arrived at the dinner after we closed up the book market and found our name tags with our table assignments. As I approached our table and looked for a seat with a good view of the podium, I glanced at the woman who was already seated. Of course, I looked for her name tag immediately and accidentally exclaimed too loudly, “I’m at Jane Yolen’s table!”
Jane Yolen must get that all the time. She widened her eyes, mimicked my gesture, glancing at my own nametag, and cried, “And I’m at Renee Ting’s table!” Such a good sport she is.
I don’t think I said another word to Jane Yolen all evening. I’m not good at making small talk with strangers to begin with, and I didn’t want to say anything else that would make her feel self-conscious. My friend EJ, who is Jane Yolen’s biggest fan, couldn’t believe my story when I told her a few days later. EJ is the type of person who might go ahead and engage a famous author in conversation, but I can never think of anything to say.
I am racking up an alarming number of these types of stories. I hope I don’t look back years from now and regret that I had missed so many opportunities to engage with interesting people.
This story is about a young house-born cat named Rusty. He couldn’t enjoy his life as a kitty pet, and at he couldn’t resist. He went into the forest, met some Thunderclan cats, and decided to join them. Some cats jeered, teased, and laughed at him, but he kept his cool. Later, he was made an apprentice and was give a new name- Firepaw. The newly named Firepaw did many deeds and, at the end, was given a new name- Fireheart, along with his best friend, Graypaw, now known as Graystripe. Then they were made warriors by Bluestar, their leader.
I would recommend this book because it is an action-packed book. It has lots of action, such as the battle fight, the Gathering, and more. It has descriptions so vivid it feels like you are in the story.
I would also recommend this book because it has a strange magic to it- it makes you want to read on and on without stopping. It has silent magic. It works upon you secretly. It’s like you are eating ice cream- you want more and more. You eat it fast and happily- nothing can stop you.
Lastly, because it is exciting it also teaches you something: struggle hard, bear not the pain that cometh to you, and you will surely succeed. It is exciting; it draws you on and on. This book is the best book I have ever read (so far).
A few weeks ago, I got one of those ubiquitous Macy’s advertising circulars in the mail. I scanned through it quickly, and noticed a set of 300-thread-count sheets on sale. The price was amazing, and I pointed it out to E, saying, I want that! Since I say those words at least four times a day, usually with no resulting action, he replied, in his usual unflappable manner, “So go get it.”
The following weekend, I was at the mall for an unrelated item and remembered the Macy’s sale. I thought I’d go take a look at the sheets, though I was far from committed. When I got there, I saw that most everything in the bedding department was on sale. Not only were the 300-thread-count sheets on sale, but so were the 100-, 200-, and 400-thread count sets. There were also two or three different styles in each thread-count, and each had a different palette of colors available. I looked at every single option, touched them all, imagined them all on our bed, compared prices and value, weighed pros and cons. I spent half an hour in the bedding section, got completely frustrated, and left with nothing but a headache.
Barry Schwartz’s book, The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less, is about me. As soon as I saw the book, I knew I had to read it. His premise is exactly what I have come to suspect: as our society presents us with more and more choices for everything from jeans to careers, we become increasingly anxious and dissatisfied with the choices we make. We are often paralyzed by the number of choices available and end up making no choices at all. I can absolutely, totally relate to that premise. I feel like that all the time.
Schwartz’s points are logical, clear, and interesting. The concept of “maximizing”—always wanting to go with the absolute “best” choice available, versus “satisficing”—going with the “good enough” choice, is central to his discussion. He also delves into issues of regret, opportunity cost, comparisons, and the root of happiness, and how they all relate to how we make choices and react to choices we’ve already made.
Unfortunately, Schwartz spends most of the book—ten of its eleven chapters—presenting evidence for the psychological and societal causes of this phenomenon, and only one chapter giving suggestions for what we can do in our daily lives to combat it. Not that the ten chapters aren’t interesting, clear, well-written and supported. But it did start to feel a little like preaching to the choir, and all I wanted really was for him to tell me what to do.
Fortunately, one important thing I learned from this book is that though I sometimes feel overwhelmed and unhappy in the exact ways Schwartz describes, I am not doing too badly overall. While I may remember the Macy’s incident vividly, I guess there are many more instances where I am more practical and “satisficing” about my choices. I am apparently not as much a maximizer as I feared, and I already have put many of his tips into practice (for example, deciding before comparing vacation destinations that I will only choose between two or three or not dwelling on the options not chosen once a choice has been made).
The good news is that I think I am better at making the big life choices, like real estate and marriage. It’s just the body lotion and shoes that still get me every time.
While I'm not a big Douglas Coupland fan and I thought Generation X was just alright, I have to say the little bits in the sidebars are spot on. I think I've just made it in the tail end of being a Generation X-er, and I know exactly what Coupland's talking about in these psuedo-dictionary entries.
Fame-Induced Apathy: The attitude that no activity is worth pursuing unless one can become very famous pursuing it. Fame-Induced Apathy mimics laziness, but its roots are much deeper.
Option Paralysis: The tendency, when given unlimited choices, to make none.
Cafe Minimalism: To espouse a philosophy of minimalism without actually putting into practice any of its tenets.
The book I’m reviewing is called Gilda Joyce, Psychic Investigator. Gilda is a 13-year old with a case on her hands. One day, she visits her long lost cousin from San Francisco because of a “psychic vibe.” Juliet, her cousin, claims that she saw the ghost of her aunt, Melanie, when she was going to commit suicide. Now Gilda and Juliet are wondering why Juliet’s aunt commits suicide. I like this book because it is written very well, it’s funny, and it is thick.
It’s written very, very well. It is rich in details and it makes me want to read more. It is so well written that I take a flashlight and read it in the night. I just hope my parents don’t realize this.
The book is funny also. I don’t really know how to explain the “funniness” so you can read it and find out yourself.
This is a funny thing to mention. The book is pretty thick; the book has over 300 pages! I don’t know about you, but I like really thick books. It seems that no good book is long enough.
I have always wished I could draw, but it wasn’t until recently that I was spurred to action. (Recently means two years ago. Action commenced last Thursday.) Two things happened that gave me a specific artistic goal rather than just vaguely wishing I could draw.
The first was a friend of my parents’ who was a member of a tour group my mom put together. My mom regularly gets ten or twenty of their friends together to travel to some exotic place like the Silk Road, Peru, or Tibet. She told me about a woman who had brought a small diary with her on one of the trips, and would make notes and sketches of every place they went. When they returned, she photocopied her journal and put together a small booklet for each member of their group, an illustrated memory book of their trip. I loved this idea.
Not long after I heard about this woman, I read somewhere (The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton, I think) that in order to truly appreciate the beauty of something that you see on your travels, you must attempt to draw it. The act of drawing, even if you are a terrible artist, forces you to truly look at, even study, the object of beauty. It obliges you to make decisions about why this thing is beautiful or special, and the attempt itself of capturing what makes it exceptional brings about a greater appreciation of what you see. I loved this idea too.
Having the artistic purpose of drawing interesting sights on my travels made it easier to take the plunge and do something about it—two years is, after all, not that bad. I had been thinking about it off and on, searching Amazon every once in a while for a highly-rated beginner drawing book, but never finding anything that seemed right for me, a total beginner with no artistic skills whatsoever.
Last week, however, I stupidly remembered that there was an art school around the corner from my office. I had been working there for six years, and I just thought of it. That afternoon, I read all about the classes online and then walked over in the pouring rain to see it in person. I wasn’t impressed with the place. There were only three students in the adult/teen class, and they seemed already to be much ahead of my level. The classroom was drab and the instructor standoffish. However, I was told that the instruction was based on a specific method detailed in the books Drawing for Children and Drawing for Older Children & Teens by Mona Brookes.
Why spend hundreds of dollars on classes when you can just buy a book?
By Thursday afternoon I had Drawing for Older Children & Teens (the subtitle is A Creative Method for Adult Beginners, Too) in my hands. By Thursday evening I had read half the book and had begun the simple seeing shape exercises. On Friday, I started attempting to draw from real life, and completed a few sketches of a pink lawn flamingo and animal figurines. They were the most amazing sketches I had ever drawn: they actually looked like the object I was drawing.
I couldn’t believe how effective this book was in teaching me how to see the elements of shape in what I was looking at, and duplicating them on my paper. I have never been prouder of anything I’ve ever drawn.
E and I spent most of the long weekend at Big Bear Lake skiing and snowboarding, but I thought about drawing all weekend. I couldn’t wait to get back at it. Finally, yesterday evening I continued in the book, learning about contrast, perspective, and shading, and completed some more exercises. I grabbed a snapshot of me from our last trip to China and drew myself petting a tiny puppy. I couldn’t believe that I was able to draw something that looked like me petting a puppy. I’m still amazed. Amazed.
I’m not yet able, however, to whip out a pad and do a quick sketch of a view in front of me. Every line I place on the paper is still slowly and painstakingly deliberated over, erased, and redrawn three times. I can see how one’s seeing and drawing skills would increase over time, and how, like anything else in this world, practice is the key. According to Mona Brookes, anyone can learn how to draw. I believe it now.
I have less than four weeks before E and I leave for our trip to Asia. I’m going to practice my butt off so that I might be able to keep a small illustrated journal of our trip. It may still be beyond my abilities, but it’s the trying that counts, after all.
There is nothing I like better than learning a new skill, buying supplies or reading up on how to do something, and then making something for the first time.
In the ten years since I graduated from college, I have taken on the following hobbies: calligraphy, backpacking, crochet, matting and framing, snowboarding, baking, gardening, cardmaking, blogging, and podcasting. While I try not to spend a lot of money on my hobbies, I do try to take each one seriously for at least one year. Then, I feel, I will have fully acquired the skill (albeit at a lower level) and will be able to pick it up whenever the mood strikes me. For instance, I haven’t crocheted anything since the scarf I made for M, but if I wanted to, I could pick up my needle and keep going without having to relearn anything.
I have sewed a few times in my life, but I never considered it a hobby, nor was I interested in taking it up. However, I just got The Cute Book by Aranzi Aronzo (a Japanese brand with a slew of licensed products, not unlike Hello Kitty) and now I want to start making things with fabric. The Cute Book is essentially a craft book with clear, step-by-step instructions on how to make those tiny, darling little Japanese critters that you might see hanging off of girls’ schoolbags or keychains. Every mascot is made from felt and embroidery thread and stuffed with cotton. And because I assume the book is intended for girls, the sewing is simple enough for a beginner like me to follow. And each mascot is really so cute! There’s the quintessential felt bunny, but there are also squirrels, pandas, dogs, cats, frogs, and monsters. All cute, all very reasonable to make yourself. I want to make the sheep!
I’m going to add sewing to my list of hobbies stat.
A dilemma: I have run out of shelf space for my books. E says that instead of buying more bookcases, I should get rid of the books I'm not going to read. Given that I can now sell my books to Powell's online, this is a sensible option, to be sure. But going over my unread books, I find myself in a bind.
What should I do with the books that I probably won't ever read, but are signed and personalized by the author?
I picked up this ARC of Girl's Guide to Witchcraft at BEA last year, and had the author, Mindy Klansky, sign the book to me. Now that it's nine months later and I'm sort of down on chick lit right now, and I'm not that interested in the whole witchy-magic thing to begin with, I think I can safely say that I'm not going to read this book. But it's signed with my name and everything! What are your thoughts? Does anyone have suggestions or rationalizations?
E and I don't celebrate Valentine's Day on February 14th. Every year, we pick a day, depending on our schedules and what we want to do, other than February 14th to celebrate. Maybe we do it just to be ornery, but it is nice not to have to worry about dealing with the hype and the crowded restaurants. Also, it seems as if the day we choose is more special because we're the only one's celebrating.
So-- today is Valentine's Day and we are going to go to dinner at Vic Stewart's and share the dry-aged ribeye. Because who needs a pound of beef all to themselves?
Hope you have a happy Valentine's Day, whenever it may be for you!
In this episode of BookTalk, callers talk about books inspired by love.
We welcome your calls and your book thoughts! Call (415) 992-8622 before March 31 to participate in the next episode. The theme is Heeby-Jeeby: Scary Books. What books scare you the most?
Visit the BookTalk site for more information and for episode notes.
We decided to join a tour while we're in Japan in March, so we will only have two days in Tokyo on our own. Then the plan is to take the bullet train (how cool is that?) to Osaka and meet our tour group, and from there we will see Osaka, Kobe, Nara, Kyoto, and some other outlying sights that I am not familiar with.
Our tour is run by a Chinese-American company based in California that my mom found through her travel agent. It will be conducted entirely in Chinese. I figure I'll just bring along my Kyoto guidebook, and as long as I can understand what time we're supposed to be back at the bus, we'll be fine. E is excited to practice his Chinese skills with our fellow groupmates.
"Europe and the United States before learning they could not imagine people drink coffee, eating steak, Kobe makes cake. Now turn to teach them how to drink coffee, eating steak, done cake. Kobe steak, coffee and cake in the world, it must be your son."
We will be on our own in Tokyo, however, and I checked the Lonely Planet Tokyo Condensed out of the library. This has essentially the same format as the book we used in Hong Kong, so we know that it will be a good one. Especially since we only have two half-days in Tokyo, the "highlights" section of the book will come in handy. But since the whole book is a slim, pocket-sized volume of only 128 pages with well-organized and useful information, I will be able to read the entire book on the airplane and choose the sights we like best to visit.
Every day, when I read through the eighty different blogs I subscribe to, I invariably come across one or two links to some crazy or wonderful thing on the internet that I am sure is the most amazing thing ever invented. But yesterday, I discovered, all on my own, something that is by far and away the most ingenious and useful use of the internet ever.
All you do is type in a list of ISBNs for the books you want to sell. After a few moments of clicking and whirring, you get back a list of which books of yours Powell’s will buy, and a price for the lot of them. If you like the offer, you confirm and then print a prepaid shipping label. Box the books up, slap the label on, and drop it off at the post office. After they receive the package and make sure you sent what you said you’d sent, the sum of money is deposited into your Powell’s account to be used to buy more books. (Yes, it’s store credit only, no cash. But isn’t that what you wanted anyway?)
I have to say, I hate lugging grocery bags full of books to the local used bookstore, having the employees go through my treasures, reject half of them, and then make me take the rest home. But what’s really jaw dropping about this technology is—How does the Powell’s computer know that it wants to give me $2.62 for Emily’s Balloon by Komako Sakai but that it doesn’t want my copy of Waiting for Gregory? How does it know?!?
Anyway, I for one am all about new technology. Now that I can sell the books I don’t want online, I get my produce delivered, and I have a Francis! Francis! espresso machine, I will never need to leave the house again.
Just finished listening to Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets on CD today. As I must have said before, Jim Dale is my hero. He's awesome. Now I'm really looking forward to the next book because people have said that #3 is the best one.
Coincidentally, Harry Potter is big news again this week, with the release date of the 7th and final book of the series announced (July 21st, in case you just returned from hibernation). On the official J.K. Rowling website, Rowling has written a bit of her thoughts on the end of an era:
"I always knew that Harry's story would end with the seventh book, but saying goodbye has been just as hard as I always knew it would be. Even while I'm mourning, though, I feel an incredible sense of achievement. I can hardly believe that I've finally written the ending I've been planning for so many years. I've never felt such a mixture of extreme emotions in my life, never dreamed I could feel simultaneously heartbroken and euphoric... While each of the previous Potter books has strong claims on my affections, Deathly Hallows is my favorite, and that is the most wonderful way to finish the series." Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Audio) by J.K. Rowling, read by Jim Dale
Last week I read directly from Lemony Snicket’s A Bad Beginning to Daniel Handler’s recent book for adults, Adverbs. They were so different they might have been written by two separate people. But they weren’t, and curiously, my reaction to the two books were almost the same as well.
Here’s what I wrote about A Bad Beginning last week: “My impression of the book was that while I could appreciate Snicket’s (Handler’s) gift with language, his wit, and his humor, I never really got into the story. I felt detached from it all, smiling at the jokes but not particularly moved one way or another.” Yes, that is pretty much how I felt about Adverbs.
Adverbs is the type of novel I normally like. It’s non-linear, it’s about many different characters that are linked tangentially or coincidentally, and it’s about love. What more could I want? Each chapter is cleverly titled with an appropriate adverb, and each is like a short story unto itself. But as you read along, you start to recognize characters from one story to the next. A minor character in a story four chapters ago might become the main character of the one you’re presently reading. I like all this, I do. Handler’s writing is clever and exciting, sometimes beautiful and sometimes heartbreaking. His portrayal of love as it functions in the real lives of imperfect people is brilliant.
But I just didn’t care that much.
Perhaps the structure was a bit too disjointed, or too obscure. Characters that seemed familiar turned out to be different people, feeling like a missed connection. At the same time, vaguely familiar names and details piled up like sand dunes, pressing against my memory anxiously. I couldn’t keep all the different names, situations, and timelines straight. I began to worry. Then Handler included a chapter in the “author’s” voice, implying that similar names and details did not necessarily denote the same people or situations, and that it was all the same, or not. I’m not sure if that made me less worried about my reading or more.
I wish I liked this book more. I think it was a well-written collage of emotions revolving around the ever-elusive idea of love. It just didn’t hit a nerve with me.
Oh, the excitement! E and I have finalized our travel plans for March (mostly) and the decision goes to… Taiwan and Japan!
We’ll go first to Taiwan with my parents and visit my grandmother. While there, we will probably relax, eat a lot, and take a short trip to a tiny island off the east coast of Taiwan called Green Island. My parents have discovered the joys of snorkeling, so we may get a chance to see some tropical fish while we’re at it. Hopefully we’ll also spend a few days in the capital, Taipei, as well, since my grandmother lives in a much smaller city without too much excitement.
The real thrill of the trip, however, will be six days in Japan. And if we’re lucky, we’ll be able to catch the beginning of the all-too short cherry blossom season. We haven’t decided whether or not to join a tour while we’re there, but if we don’t it will surely be an adventure. The places I really want to visit include Tokyo, Mt. Fuji, and Kyoto. With absolutely no knowledge of Japanese, I hope it’s not too difficult to get around.
As soon as the plane tickets were booked, I realized that I don’t really know anything about Japan’s geography, language, or customs. For some reason, I feel comfortable and confident wheeling off to Europe because I know what to expect: a certain range of attractions (palaces, churches, museums) and a certain palette of flavors and cuisines that I am familiar with.
But Japan… I realized that I didn’t know where Tokyo was or what types of foods there are besides sushi and ramen noodles. I don’t think I know how to say “please” and “thank you” in Japanese, and I can’t even count to three. I have a lot of work to do in six weeks. I have already reserved five travel guides to Japan from the library, so I’ll report back on the best ones.
Luckily, my job is to publish and sell children’s books about Asia. I went straight to the Japan section of the bookshelves this afternoon and looked around for anything that might be useful. That’s when I remembered the book Squeamish About Sushi by Betty Reynolds. I pulled it off the shelf and brought it home with me.
If you know anything about me, you’ll know that I love to eat—especially exotic cuisines and unusual dishes. When we travel, the most important part of the trip is the food. I always want to try the most authentic, traditional, local dishes and flavors as possible (the only place this didn’t work out so well was in Vienna, where the most traditional meal was a slab of boiled beef and potatoes). Squeamish About Sushi is basically a food-lover’s travelogue in pictures.
Every page features an assortment of delicate little paintings describing an aspect of Japanese dining, from signs outside restaurants to types of sushi, drinks, and etiquette. Everything is labeled with handwritten Japanese words, phonetic pronunciations, and descriptions. Visually, it’s a colorful treat. But practically speaking, it’s an essential guide to everything I will ever need to know about the most important aspect of our trip.
Yes, I do need to know what foods I should buy from the vendors on the bullet train. No, I didn’t know that an Izakaya is a casual place to meet with friends, get a drink, and eat small dishes. What is this Okonomiyaki thing? A create-your-own pancake cooked right on a griddle at your table? I must try that while we’re there! And who knew there were so many different kinds of noodles?
Squeamish About Sushi is the absolutely perfect book to get me overly excited about visiting Japan. There are so many incredible foods to try and places to try them. I mean, how could you pass up the Karaoke Biru Basu, a city bus on which riders drink beer, eat sushi, and sing?
Today is E’s last day at his job! It is the most exciting thing that has happened since I’ve known him, because when I met him almost eight years ago, he was already working there.
I’m especially ecstatic about his leaving because the company he works for is the most dysfunctional, chaotic, poorly-managed organization I have ever heard of. If you asked me to devise a fictional company whose only goal is to torture its employees, I couldn’t even have come up with some of the scenarios that truly occur there.
So what’s up with today’s book? I chose Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth's Last Days by Tim F. LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins as an analogy to E’s departure. E joked that it his own personal rapture, when, on a certain day, he leaves this world of toil and strife, ascends to a much, much better place, and sadly watches the rest of his old world’s citizens struggle onward in a hellish place. Those poor souls left behind.
I have been looking forward to today for almost a week now, because last week I decided to sign up for a bi-weekly produce delivery from Planet Organics, and my delivery day is Thursday. I will be getting my first home delivery of produce (and a loaf of fresh bread thrown in) today! I can’t wait to get home from work.
In honor of my politically-correct decision to buy expensive, locally-grown organic produce from a family-owned local grocery company, I offer you Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma.
I’m guilty on two counts today. First, I haven’t actually read The Omnivore’s Dilemma, but it’s the book of the day anyway. I did read the review of it in the New Yorker and some of Pollan’s massively long article in the New York Times Magazine last Sunday. And there’s so much talk about it, it’s hard to avoid picking up information here and there. I think I’ve gotten the gist of it: Corn is bad, locally grown produce is good. Eat real food, not food-products. Is that right?
The other thing I must admit is that I didn’t really sign up for the expensive produce delivery because it was better for the world or better for me. The real reason I did it was that it seemed like so much fun. How fun is it to get a box of farm-fresh produce delivered to your door? Then, instead of always eating the same old boring vegetables I find myself buying every single time I go to the grocery store, we’ll get to eat whatever is freshest and most tasty right now. What a great opportunity to learn how to cook some new things—and have something to look forward to on Thursdays!
Alright, I do feel a little smug about the locally-grown organic thing. Because frankly, I too worry that Whole Foods is not all that it's cracked up to be. But I swear, that was not the main reason I did this. The Planet Organics delivery system is just so cool how could I not? You get to choose a “don’t like” list of produce that they will never send you. Then, on Fridays before your delivery, you can go to the website and see the list of what’s coming. Right on the website, you can modify your order if you want to add or replace something, and you can even add lots of (organic) grocery items like dairy products, fresh bread, or napkins to your delivery order. Click on confirm, and voila! It shows up on Thursday!
This is going to be great. And, well, if it’s a side effect, I guess I’m happy to help the Earth too.
Last weekend was the annual Reading the World conference at the University of San Francisco. As usual, we spent the weekend selling books in the book market to the hundreds of educators and multicultural book lovers that attend the conference. The conference is amazing: with keynote speakers like Jane Yolen, Joseph Bruchac, Yuyi Morales, and others, there is no shortage of talent walking around the hallways. Yet at the same time, the conference is small enough to feel cozy and make the authors seem more like real people than celebrities, and very approachable.
feed me