Books and Other Stuff

Stuff - Lost Sounds and Books

2011-12-14T20:56:00.001-06:00

I've been offline too much. Too much schoolwork and elder care issues and just regular work. I need 2 maids!

I've been catching up with my magazine reading and found two interesting items in the Smithsonian Magazine.

The Top Ten Books Lost To Time - these books have been mentioned in other works or diaries, but they can't be found. If you run into them, you will be famous! The authors are many-unknown-but-inspired-by-God writers (including an Arctic explorer monk) Homer, Jane Austen, Sylvia Plath, Thomas Hardy, William Shakespeare, Herman Melville, Robert Lewis Stevenson, and Ernest Hemingway.

The Museum of American History has experimental sound recordings that Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, and Emile Berliner made. However, there is no machine to play these voices.

The Museum and the Library of Congress joined forces to recover the audio. Hear a test batch of recordings by Bell and his associates.

Books - Book Review - Midnight on Julia St - Ciji Ware

2011-08-17T11:41:00.000-05:00

I received a copy of this novel from Sourcebooks.

This novel is set in pre-Katrina New Orleans; it's a reprint, but many of the locations described by Ware still exist. The neighborhoods and buildings that she talks about are close to the banks of the Mississippi River and weren't wiped out during the Katrina.

Corlis McCullough is a television reporter who moves to New Orleans from California. She doesn't realize that her ancestors have ties to the city, until she starts getting visions and discusses them with an aunt who knows the family genealogy.

But, the visions are not figments of Corlis' imagination; they are events that really occurred around the 400 block of Canal St., the main business street which divides the "New" New Orleans (the American side) from the "Old" New Orleans (descendants of the original French and Spanish settlers and the free people of color). The time frame of the visions is the 1830s.

At first, she is disturbed by them, but she enlists the new friends to find out what the visions mean. She is also researching the proposed razing of a historic building that housed businessed that used to be owned by free African-American many years before the Civil War.

I took this novel to Atlanta, when I visited my friend. I was also supposed to be studying for two finals. I would pick up the book as a reward for studying for certain amount of time, and my friend thought that I was spending all my time reading instead of studying. I left my copy for her to read; since she has a young family, she has to be selective about her reading. I highly recommended the book to her.

The novel deals with the razing of the Sanlin building.

Behind this modernist facade, there is an older building. Here's an article that describes the history of the building:

Ware was able to capture a historical event in an interesting manner and also combine it with a modern story. I had a hard time putting it down, and if you like works with a bit of the supernatural and history, you will enjoy it also.

Books - Book Review - Tout Sweet - Karen Wheeler

2011-08-09T21:43:00.000-05:00

Sourcebooks kindly sent me a copy of this memoir.

Karen Wheeler had a interesting life: a great job and home in London, a French boyfriend, and a few good friends. However, her outlook changes, and she decides to buy a home in a village in France and to move there.

Since other foreigners have moved to France and renovated homes, her experiences weren't as frustrating as Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence. She made friends with a neighbor, who chided the craftsmen who didn't do a proper job. Wheeler made her renovations slowly and even did a lot of the work herself.

However, not all is perfect in this new life. She has a falling out with one of the ex-pats, she must drive far to eat in a decent restaurant (gasp!), and she must adapt to not being able to walk to grocery stores to buy organic fruits and vegetables.

She is still able to make a living as a fashion writer by doing freelance work. And her life has balance. "It is June and the courtyard is in full bloom. The French have a word for this e'panouie. But it doesn't apply to flowers, It can also be used to describe the blossoming of a person.. I am never short of company. In fact, I have made more genuine friends in the short time that I have lived here than I did in almost two decades of living in London."

Wheeler gives a realistic view of a major lifestyle change. The discouraging events are described as well as the small triumphs.

If you are tempted to chuck it all in and start over in another place, this memoir will give you an idea of what you would experience!

Books - Book Review - Hash - Torgny Lindgren

2011-06-28T13:18:00.002-05:00

Kevin From Canada offered an intriguing review of this novel,so I decided to take the plunge!

An old man in a nursing home in Sweden writes in his notebook. He was a journalist until his editor found out that everything that he wrote was fiction. The editor forbade the journalist to write another word; he followed the order until the editor had died. He assumed that he was now free from the edict.

The old man writes about two men in northern Sweden who ride a motorcycle looking for the best hash (a type of stew, with everything thrown into the pot). The first man is Robert Maser , an ex-Nazi official; he now works as a peddler selling clothes. The other man is the school teacher, Lars Hogstrom.

Lars contracted TB in his childhood and spent most of his youth in the sanitarium. When he was cured, he really didn’t want to go out into the world. ““The whole sanitarium, all its corridors and stairs and lobbies, full of the constant smells of stewing, and new-bake bread and cloves and oranges. Where in the world shall I be able to find such nourishing and well-cooked food?” He was particularily fond of the potted pork with mashed turnip and potato and pickled gherkin or beetroot. And herring pie with melted butter.”

Living in a foodie-loving place such as New Orleans, I can understand someone being fond of food, but these entrees sound unappetizing to me.

Lars asks for and get assigned the most tubercular school district in the northern Sweden. Both he and Robert are newcomers and find out (funnily) that they share a love of music and sang together some evenings. And later on, they go on the hash quest during the summer.

Everyone in the district makes their version of hash (even the winter ones) and wait for the men to taste and comment on their hash.

When Lars and Martin go to Ellen’s home, to taste her hash, “they broke off small fragments with their fingers and pressed them against the roof of their mouths, where the hash dissolved on its own accord and trikletle over their tongues and molars. They didn’t chew, they let the air filter in between their lips so that nothing of the experience would be lost, and they delayed swallowing as long as they could.”

Between the story of the people in this region of Sweden, the novel goes back to telling the story of the journalist and his life in the nursing home. This portion of the novel (and Lars’ unethusiatic return to work) can be seen as a comment on the government’s policy to take care of everyone. The home had an obligation to take care of the journalist but now the administrators were worried about the costs; he kept on living and didn’t die.

Two words of caution. The novel is a bit strange. It doesn’t really follow in the traditional pattern, but you will get accustomed to the rhythm. Another think is the descriptions of what is put into the hash can turn your stomach. Don’t read this after a nice meal.

The format reminded me of Magnus Mills’ works. Both authors make commentaries on their worlds, but there is really not too much action. Both writers have the characters going in circles or loops as they live out their lives. You have to be in the right mindset to enjoy this novel and any of Magnus Mills’ works.

I am going to look for more of Lindgren’s novels to discover whether they follow the same pattern.

2011-06-20T15:52:00.001-05:00

This novel follows a similar format as Star of the Sea: a headline, a little summary about what will happen in this chapter, occasional photographs or drawings, and ballads.This story of the aftermath of the Civil War, told by many voices.

I started this novel in January but had to put it down, because of my spring graduate classes. I did have to review the beginning parts of the novel so I could pick it up again.

Eliza Duane Mooney, Mary's daughter from Star of the Sea, decides to walk from Baton Rouge, LA to a northern territory state, to look for her brother. The boy, Jeremiah, was a drummer boy for the Confederates and never came back. She heard (and I don’t know how!) that he was still alive and living up North. But, her trip was anything but pleasant; be prepared for graphic descriptions of her troubles.

Up in the cold northern territory (it's not a state yet, but it's close to Canada), the acting governor is trying to forget the horrors of war. James C. O’Connor was sentenced in Ireland to live in the penal colony of Australia, managed to escape and moved to the United States, where he fought on the Union side of the Civil War He became important on the lecture circuit, telling his story.

Two women play an important part in the telling of the novel. A former slave, Elizabeth Longstreet, lived in his home; she later moved to Liberia. O’Connor married the very rich socialite, Lucia-Cruz Rodriguez y Ortega McLelland.

You need to read this novel continuously. There are many characters, telling the story from their viewpoints, so that it’s easy to lose your place.

I learned about many aspects of the Civil War that I didn’t learn about in school.

I found this novel more difficult to read than Star of the Sea. Even though both deal with events that disrupted the lives of many people (The Irish Potato Famine vs the Civil War), O’Connor brought these events down to a personal level, so we could experience what the characters felt. However, the effects of the Civil War marked everyone more deeply than I thought possible.

This counts as a book for the War Through the Generations Reading Challenge - Civil War. I've set my goal low this year due to graduate school.

Books - Book Review - Maintenance of Headway - Magnus Mills

2011-06-20T15:27:00.002-05:00

In a large European city (most probably London), there are bus drivers who go round and round on their routes. The purpose of their work is not to take people from point A to point B, but to maintain the balance of the bus system.

If you finish the run too early, you will be chided. If you finish too late, you will also be chided. When obstacles are in the way (such as street repairs), the managers throw hissy fits and the drivers become stressed out.

The conversations between the bus drivers goes something like this. Jeff comments: . “ “Is there a difference between early running and running early?” he enquired. “Not really, “ I said. “Early running is the generic form. Running early is the deed itself.””

As in all of Mills’ novels so far, there are wry comments and commentaries on British life. For example, during a break, the guys were talking about the university graduates (who were hired by the company) and their failure to come up with an appropriate slogan. The narrator commented that it was a waste of taxes. However, Edward remarked “”The purpose of taxation is to spend other people’s money, “ he explained. “Therefore, by definition, it cannot be wasted. “”

In another phase of Mills’ life, he worked as a bus driver in London. So, the novel probably has some realistic scenes in it.

Books – Book Review – The Return of the Black Douglas – Elaine Coffman

2011-04-28T11:26:00.000-05:00

This book was sent to me courtesy of Sourcebooks.

A new genre is emerging in the historical romance novels: people traveling back to the Highlands of Scotland.

Elizabeth Douglas is there , doing genealogical research, instead of being on her honeymoon. Her fiancé decided he wasn’t ready to marry her.

Despite having degrees in anthropology, Elizabeth was a romantic at heart. Her twin Isobella, on the other hand, was logical and clinical; she was about to complete her medical residency at Johns Hopkins.

They are transported to the past in the same location to the early 1500s, but they don’t realize it at first. When Alysandir Mackinnon, the head of his clan, sees Elizabeth walking around in shorts and a blouse, he just couldn’t believe his eyes.

Elizabeth is really enjoying her time in the past. As an anthropologist, there is a treasure trove for her to find

The funniest part happens when Elizabeth is trying to prove that she is from the 21st century. She shows Alysandir a movie trailer of Braveheart from her Iphone. He points out what is historically incorrect. Elizabeth also tries to speak an English that has less of the Romance language influences, so that no one is asking her what she is saying.

Elizabeth does long to return to her time. She wants a shower, she wants to brush her teeth, and she wants to be able to read books, activities that are not so common in the 16th century.

The novel has good historical information, that was fun to learn. But as much as enjoyed reading this novel, I still don’t want to live in those times.

Stuff - not reading fiction

2011-04-28T09:44:00.000-05:00

I feel like I've fallen off the Earth.

I am taking two classes in grad school. I have been reading a lot of non-fiction but no fiction. I did have a chance to read one book during Spring Break, but it was one that I read yearly, so I went through it quickly.

I take my final exams in a couple of weeks, so after that I can hit my TBR pile.

Books - Book Review - If the South Had Won the Civil War - MacKinlay Kantor

2011-01-17T22:19:00.001-06:00

This was my first book for the Civil War Challenge. It was very short, because it was an article for Life magazine.

I was able to borrow an older version from the library. I don't know whether the reissued version has the illustrations that the older one has.

I am not going to present all the of events that Kantor visualized but here are some that I thought were important:

Grant died, and Atlanta didn’t burn.
The Confederates won the Battle of Gettysburg.
Lincoln evacuated the White House in a wagon and spent time in a prison. He moved back to Illinois
The new capital of the United States was in Ohio; Columbus was renamed Columbia
Confederate States of America had 13 states.
Washington D.C. became Washington, District of Dixie.
Texas was a country for a long time.
The slaves in the south were freed in the 1880s, but it was a gradual process that there were no lynchings and discrimination.
Cuba became a state in the Confederacy and REL Stuart, Jeb Stuart’s son, was the hero of the Spanish American War, not Teddy Roosevelt.
Alaska remained a part of Russia .
Woodrow Wilson (CSA President) wanted the USA and Texas to be united, after they all fought in WWI. Teddy Roosevelt (US President) and Roy Smith ( Texas ) agreed but it didn’t become reality until the 1960. That’s when the Russians started its campaigns to take over the world.
Washington became the capital of the new USA .

I enjoyed reading this book. One event, Grant's early death, could have really changed the course of history.

You do need some basic knowledge of American history to understand the implications of this alternate history, but you will enjoy reading what could have happened.

Books - Book Review - After Leaving Mr. Mackensie - Jean Rhys

2011-01-07T15:50:00.000-06:00

This book counts for the 2011 International Book Challenge.

A young woman constantly asks old lovers for money. She goes to bars by herself, and the men keep asking her to go back to their apartments or hotel rooms with them. She looks for sugar daddies and her life style is scandalous to the family.

I had to look at the copyright year to find out why I wasn't really shocked; it was originally published in 1931, and proper young women didn't do these things!

Julia Martin lives in Paris. She is getting older; she is now in her 30s. She finds it harder to get money, she drinks too much, and she must find cheaper quarters as each year passes due to the drop of income.

After meeting another guy and deciding to go back home to London to see her family, she finds that her francs don't go far after the exchange rate. She tries to be a better daughter and sister but discovers that she just can't do it. Her sister has an idea of Julia does for a living and is jealous that Julia doesn't seem to care too much about responsibility.

This novel is a bit dark and depressing.

But, it still applies today. Many women still want have the easy life, and they don't realize that youth won't last. There will always be someone younger!

(I gave the lady on the cover a bikini :})

Books - Book Review - Napoleon’s Buttons - How 17 Molecules Changed History - Penny LeCouteur and Jay Burreson

2011-01-05T15:42:00.007-06:00

One of my classmates from graduate school recommended this book on the class forum.

Two chemists wrote another view of history: certain objects have shaped world events, and this is the first record of how it happened.

For example, they used Napoleon’s loss in Russia. Besides the rough winter, the Russians burning all the crops, and a lack of supplies reaching the French troops, the authors believed that tin and quinine also caused the downfall of Napoleon on the Russian front.

First of all, tin, which was used in the uniforms as buttons. Tin crumbles when the temperatures drop. The soldiers couldn’t button their coats, and the cold penetrated them.

Quinine, which fights malaria, was not available to the troops either. That portion of Russia has swamps, as do other cold places. Swamps don’t exist just in the Deep South and other tropical areas. So, possibly, malaria helped to wipe out the troops.

This book also examines the chemistry of the elements or compounds. If you don’t like reading about organic chemistry, you can skip this portion of the chapters.

However, you might miss some interesting facts. Caffeine (which I am addicted to in the form of coffee) and tea and cocoa (in chocolate) differ only by one CH3 group!

Check here for the table of contents. Other events that are covered include, the Salem Witch Hunts, the start of industrial dyeing, WWII events,development of anesthesia, contraception, and other topics. I look at some of the dates and can’t believe that if I had lived just less than 100 years ago, a lot of diseases could have done me in!

Books - Book Review - The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga

2011-01-02T14:48:00.002-06:00

This books counts for the International Book Challenge.

Munna, later known as Balram Halwai, was born somewhere in the interior portion of India. He did learn how to read, but he didn’t have much of a chance in life. He wasn’t even given a proper name; Munna means Boy.

His father is a rickshaw driver, his mother is dead, and the grandmother is a true matriarch. He and his brother survive the best they can by working in tea shops and other minor jobs. He has to practically bribe someone to teach him how to drive; the tutor is so horrible to Balram, telling him he will never drive, because he is of the sweetmaker caste and doesn’t have the brains to learn such a difficult task. He does master the car.

The ruling family comes back to the home village of Balram, and he is employed by them to be the driver.

The novel is set up in an unusual manner; Balram is writing a LOOOONG letter to Wen Jiaboa, a Chinese Premier, who is coming to visit India. Balram’s is a memoir, an essay of the defects of Indian society that prevents its advance, and a reflection of what attributes India needs to adopt to have the economic prosperity of China.

Some of the facts of India not progressing are known to me: corrupt government, disdain for anyone living in the provinces, crazy traffic, high pollution levels, beggars, and discrimination according to caste, even though it’s been outlawed. However, Balram shows us the people who work just a tad better off than the squatters. He has to sleep in a dormitory with the other servants, he has a filthy bed with a net to keep out the roaches and other vermin, he shares a communal bathroom to keep clean, he works 7 days a week, and other indignities. He notices workers who are constructing skyscrapers live in tents next to the building, and there are no sanitary facilities for them.

The one thing that I didn’t like and other reviewers have commented on is that Balram reveals a murder that he commits too early on, in one of the letters to Premier Jiaboa.

Despite this being a bit depressing, I found it hard to put down this novel. I wanted to know what Balram would do next in the big city.

I also liked learning about some little things:

Empty Johnny Walker bottles can be sold; they make great containers
Regular working people don’t have time to do yoga or to meditate
Used, dusty books from the UK and the USA are sold for a fortune in markets
Chauffeurs and maids can’t go into shopping malls; a guard keeps them out.

Caveat: you need a strong stomach to read this novel. Don’t read anything after a big meal.

2011 Reading Challenges

2011-01-01T19:06:00.013-06:00

My reading really dropped during my first semester in grad school,so I am hoping to read some of the books that I didn't read in 2010.

Check out A Novel Challenge for more reading challenges.

Dewey Decimal Challenge

Master Level - 3 Books

Enigma - The Battle for the Code - Hugh Sebag-Montefiore
A book about the Arctic (saving this for the summer)
New Orleans Architecture - Vol. III - The Cemeteries - Leonard Huber, Peggy McDowell, and Mary Christovich (just looked at the pictures :} )

War Through the Generations Reading Challenges - U.S. Civil War

Dip Level - 3 to 5 Books

March - Geraldine Brooks
Redemption Falls - Joseph O'Connor
If the South Had Won the Civil War - MacKinlay Kantor

2011 Read 'n Review Challenge

I will read most of the books on my TBR stacks that I either started and never finished, or the ones that I never even cracked open.

Microscripts - Robert Walser (I won this novel in July 2010, looked at it, but haven't started it yet ;{)
Travels with Charley - John Steinbeck
The Winter of Our Discontent - John Steinbeck
The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
New Voices - A Collection of Soviet Short Stories - Raduga Publications - Moscow
Shorter Fiction - Oscar Wilde
Lady Susan - Jane Austen
Martin Sloan - Michael Redhill
Moby Dick - Herman Melville (Daily Lit - still need to read a few more emails)
To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
We - Evgeny Zamyatin
William - An Englishman - Cicely Hamilton
The Coming Race - Edward Bulwer-Lytton
People of the Book - Geraldine Brooks
The Law of Eternity - Nodar Dumbadze

Haruki Murakami Reading Challenge 2011

Sheep Man - 3 Books

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running - A Memoir
and .3 - still deciding

International Book Challenge

Marco Polo - 10 books or more

This is an easy one for me: I am a member of the International Fiction Book Group of New Orleans.

After Leaving Mr. McKenzie - Jean Rhys (London and Paris) COMPLETED
The White Tiger – Aravind Adiga (India) COMPLETED
Through Black Spruce – Joseph Boyden (Canada)
The Shipping News - Annie Proulx
Suite Française - Irène Némirovsky (France)
Purge - Sofi Oksanen (Estonia and Germany)
After the Fire, a Still Small Voice - Evie Wyld (Australia, Viet Nam, Belgium)
A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
By Night in Chile Roberto Bolaño
The Restraint of Beasts - Magnus Mills (Northern England)

Books - Book Review - The Winter Sea - Susanna Kearsley

2010-12-21T19:01:00.002-06:00

Review Copy - Courtesy of Sourcebooks.com

Carrie McClelland, a Canadian historical fiction writer, is working on her newest book about the attempt of James Stewart trying to regain his throne in Scotland in the early 1700s. Carrie went to France, where the King and his entourage were in exile, to learn more about this king and to be inspired. However, she was getting writer's block.

She took a quick trip to northeastern Scotland, to visit her agent and to meet her agent's baby.

While there, she runs into Slains, a castle where some of the planning to return King James to Scotland took place.

Carrie takes her agent's advice and starts to write the novel through a woman's viewpoint and starts dreaming of things that really happened. She writes as though possessed.

This novel switches from the present day to the 1700s. I liked reading about the writing process, how even being in an very inspiring place can lead to no writing.

Carrie follows her instinct and the story starts to write itself.

I learned a lot about this period of history and I enjoyed Kearsley's writing style and how she set up the novel.

One place sounded familiar: Kirkcudbright. I started looking at the atlas and found out that I probably saw the name on the bus ride that I took from the Dumfries to Newton-Stewart, on my way to Wigtown, Scotland. It was cool to read about a place that I actually saw!

I read this novel as quickly as I could. I really wanted to find out about King James and the roles that Carrie's characters played in this historical event.

Books - International Fiction Book Club of New Orleans

2010-12-20T21:48:00.009-06:00

We meet at the Blue Cypress Books at 6:00 p.m. to discuss the novel.
Map to: 8126 Oak Street - New Orleans, LA 70118

NEW MEMBERS and Out-of- Town VISITORS ALWAYS WELCOME.

Contact Isabel at 504 975 5064 or workingwords100@yahoo.com for details.

No attendance records are ever kept, so if LIFE gets in the way, it's ok. If a book doesn't interest you, you aren't obligated to attend the meeting.

We read books that are meet these conditions:

Foreign author, foreign setting

Foreign author making observations about US setting

US author going to a foreign place

A couple of non-fiction works are OK also.

2011

January 19 - After Leaving Mr. McKenzie - Jean Rhys

February 16 - The White Tiger – Aravind Adiga

March 16 - The Heat of the Day – Elizabeth Bowen

April 20 - Through Black Spruce – Joseph Boyden

May 18 The Shipping News - Annie Proulx

June 15 Suite Française - Irène Némirovsky

July 20 Purge - Sofi Oksanen

August 17 After the Fire, a Still Small Voice - Evie Wyld

September 21 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

October 19 By Night in Chile Roberto Bolaño

November 16 The Restraint of Beasts - Magnus Mills

2012

January 18 My Son’s Story - Nadine Gordimer

February 8 (moved due to Mardi Gras) Foe - J.M Coetzee

March 21 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

April 18 Island Beneath the Sea - Isabel Allende

May 16 Dancing to Almendra by Mayra Montero

June 20 Rose - Martin Cruz Smith

July 18 Saturday - Ian McEwan

August 15 Little America – Henry Bromell

September 19 A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini

October 17 Heat and Dust - Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

November 21 No Place for Heroes - Laura Restrepo

2013

Jan 15 On Rue Tatin: Living and Cooking in a French Town - Susan Loomis

Stuff - I want to be Daryl Dixon

2010-12-14T19:43:00.004-06:00

I finally finished my first semester in library school. I learned a lot and I worked a lot. Yeah.

Next semester, 2 classes.

I haven't had too much time to blog, but I've read a bit.

I got hooked on the AMC show, The Walking Dead. I found this survival quiz. I answered the questions differently each time, but I still can't get to be Daryl Dixon, the guy with the bow and arrow.If you figure out the right combination, let me know.

Only six episodes were filmed, so I was curious to see what might happen next. The tv show is based on The Walking Dead graphic novels by Robert Kirkman. I read no 2 and 3 and decided that I that won't read anymore. I don't want to confuse myself too much between the show and the novels.

Books - Book Review - Purge - Sofi Oksanen

2010-10-20T10:50:00.004-05:00

After reading reviews by Simon and Reading Matters, I was hoping that this book was available on this side of the world, and I am lucky that it is.

I liked it so much that I will recommend it for my book group.

It's not an easy read. Two women are caught up in history, and the men don't treat them well. Their stories are interwoven throughout the novel, but there are dates at the beginning of each chapter, so that you won't get confused as to whose story you're reading.

Aliide Truu grew up in the Estonain part of the USSR during WWII, but the story really begins when she is a young women, during Stalin's reign of terror. She has some information that the local KGB wants and will do anything to get it from her. Warning: Don't read this part on a dark, stormy night nor after you've eaten something.

Zara grew up in the other side of the USSR - Vladivostok and lives with her mother and grandmother. She goes to work in her maternal grandfather's homeland, Germany, but it's not a wonderful experience. She manages to escape her pimps and ends up in Aliide's home.

Aliide distrusts Zara, thinking that Zara has been sent by thieves to "case out" her home. But, Aliide is not a rich woman; she knows how to grow some vegetables and cans them for the winter. Zara helps out in this task and gets to know Aliide more.

Once Zara feels that Aliide won't turn her over to immigration, she tells her how they are related: Zara's grandmother is Aliide's sister.

I won't tell you more of the plot, because I will give away too much.

This novel poses important questions:

If a women has to choose to save her child or her husband, who should be sacrificied?
Was it selfish of Aliide to do what she needed to survive the Stalinist terror, given the decision that Ingel (Zara's grandmother) made so many years ago?
What is home in a society that all should be shared?

It was hard to read this book; certain portions are truly horrific. I did more homework, but I still wanted to find out more, so I gave myself permission to read a bit, but I had to sacrifice my sleep. And it was worth it!

Some people didn't like how Zara escaped and called it unrealistic. It isn't; I saw several episodes of Law and Order: SVU where people escaped their pimps. L&O:SVU is based on actual events.

Here are some of the book covers for other translations of Purge. There is a reading guide availble, if some of the storyline is confusing. And here's a brief history of Estonian Germans to explain how Zara's grandfather ended up there.

Stuff - Having a little bit of Fun

2010-10-06T09:53:00.002-05:00

I was hoping to catch up on my blogging (I'm not even reading my favorite ones right now, as much as I used to), but I just learned of more homework that will help me in my final project, which is a biggie. So, I don't have the time to catch up.

The fall has finally arrived in New Orleans! I went bike riding twice this past weekend, and I didn't faint from the heat. I loved looking at Lake Pontchartrain and the blue skies.

I attended a lecture by artist William Cordova. His work is really modern, and I don't understand everything, but it was interesting to hear.

Here are some of his works:
http://www.artpace.org/aboutTheExhibition.php?axid=317

http://laxart.org/exhibitions/view/william-cordova-untitledchicanas/#images

http://www.arndtberlin.com/website/artist_963_image

The interesting fact that he revealed is that since graduating he has built up a body of work and has made many contacts in the art world by applying and receiving artist's residencies. He didn't want to be a "starving" artist and didn't want to work at a day job and come to his studio, with little energy to do art. He says that since the recession, more artists are starting to do what he has been doing. Smart idea. He is currently at a residency in A Studio in the Woods.

Later that evening, I was the "bartender" at the opening for Cemeteryscape exhibit opening, at Hotel Le Cirque. I I served wine for this benefit for Save Our Cemeteries. I met a lot of nice people and learned about a new restaurant that I want to go to by talking to one of the chefs there.

Stuff - This is where I have been

2010-09-21T19:56:00.002-05:00

No, I haven't been on vacation. I've been in school!

I am in the Master's Program for Library Science at Louisiana State University. I've spent the last week of August just getting familiar with using the program that keeps me in contact with the professor and my classmates.

The professor has included a lot of supplementary reading to help with the homework and future work. It's a good thing that I enjoy reading, because it's been a lot.

I am a bit behind, because I have to learn to use a program and my final project is based on it! This is the week for doing that reading.

I don't have to travel to Baton Rouge to take the class. The professor is in a special classroom that has a satellite feed. I attend my class in New Orleans and can see/hear her. If I want to ask a question, I press this button, and the camera on my site sends my video feed to Baton Rouge.

I attend this type of class on Saturdays. The rest of the time, I do my homework and readings from the on-line board.

It's been an adjustment for me. I don't watch as much TV anymore; I am having serious Law and Order withdrawals. Work has been very hectic lately, so I come home tired but know that stuff is waiting for me. (No, I don't have time at work to do my homework!) I have been reading but having no energy to blog. I write a lot for my homework, so I need to find a balance for doing things that I like to do.

Here's a sample of the homework that I need to do. Wish me luck and send me some energy.

Assignment: Multidisciplinary Sources

Due date: Saturday, 11 September 2010, 09:15 PM

Submitted, Graded

Assignment: Biology Question Set

Due date: Saturday, 11 September 2010, 08:00 AM

Submitted, Graded

Assignment: Botany Question Set

Due date: Saturday, 18 September 2010, 08:00 AM

Submitted, Not graded yet

Assignment: Zoology Question Set

Due date: Saturday, 25 September 2010, 08:00 AM

Not submitted yet (3 days 12 hours early)

Assignment: Astronomy and Chemistry Question Set

Due date: Saturday, 2 October 2010, 08:10 AM

Not submitted yet (10 days 12 hours early)

Assignment: Environmental Sciences Question Set

Due date: Saturday, 9 October 2010, 08:00 AM

Not submitted yet (17 days 12 hours early)

Assignment: Geosciences Question Set

Due date: Saturday, 16 October 2010, 08:00 AM

Not submitted yet (24 days 12 hours early)

Assignment: Physics and Mathematics Question set

Due date: Saturday, 23 October 2010, 08:00 AM

Not submitted yet (31 days 12 hours early)

Books - Book Review - For the King's Favor - Elizabeth Chadwick

2010-08-30T19:49:00.000-05:00

I received this novel as an e-ARC from Sourcebooks. It will be released in two days, on 9/1/10

This is the first novel that really spells out what some mistresses of kings were: rape victims.

King Henry II of England (in the late 1100s) was the guardian of the orphaned Ida de Tosne. When he selected her, it was one of the worst nights in her short life. She later becomes pregnant and has a child. Since she was brought up as a Catholic, she was not comfortable that she was living in sin and had a child out of wedlock, even though none of these events were really her fault.

Ida realizes that Henry will not be interested in her for much longer, so she starts to look for a decent man to marry; otherwise, Henry might marry her off to someone who would benefit him but not be good husband for Ida. She manages to attract the attention of Roger Bigod, a nobleman who has to work hard to regain the lands and castle that the previous Bigod had lost.

What I liked about this novel was the aspects of life outside the court. Roger had to work very hard. Once he was a hostage in Germany with his liege; he left his family for many months and had no contact with them. He was a traveling judge; he had to hear cases and decide the outcomes. He had to renovate his castle. He and Ida had to turn over a lot of jewelry and other treasures to the royal treasury from time to time. He had to spend more time than he wanted at court, to give advice to the king and administer parts of the kingdom. He also had to gather soldiers and go off to fight in several battles.

Ida's life wasn't easy either. When Roger was not home, she had to oversee the renovations, raise her children, run the household, oversee other management issues, and keep her spirits up, despite not being to communicate with Roger as much as she wanted to.

Some things that I take for granted are wonderful for the people of the times. Farmlingham, the home for the Bigod family would have "plenty of windows and these would be filled with glass." (I guess some castles had open window, in spite of the cold winters.) And the whitewash on the walls was applied with brooms, not paint brushes.

The food was also interesting. One of hostages, who spent time in Germany with Roger, was looking forward to having "a hot eel pie and a horn of honest Norfolk ale brewed by the Gythe at the Tub at Yarmouth." In May 1199, the Bigods had a small outdoor party held at Farmlingham. The menu included: "..dainty fritters and pies, cold roast fowl, bream from the mere, custard tarts and honey cakes studded with raisins."

Many of the names and words had a strong French influences; I then remembered that England had been under Norman rule since 1066.

The only quibble that I have is that sometimes when the main characters spoke, they sounded like 21st century denizens instead of 12th century.

Elizabeth Chadwick has complied links that tell the history behind her novels. So, by reading her works, you will be learning some English history at the same time but in a fun format.

A note on ebooks: This was my first time finishing an ebook. I like being able to find information more quickly, but I missed holding the book and marking pages with my darts. Even though my laptop is light, I had to lie down on my back to read the novel and couldn't lie on my side, as I sometimes do when I read a book. No, I won't buy a Kindle or Ipad. I think that I will stick with paper copies as long as I can.

Books - Book Review - Star Island - Carl Hiassen

2010-08-24T20:43:00.004-05:00

I received a copy of this novel from Random House.

This novel is the perfect summer read: a fun read but also a commentary on the US' obsession with celebrities.

Cherry Pye is an out-of-control pop singer who lip syncs at her concerts. She is in a constant drug or alcohol haze. She doesn't care with whom she is intimate.

Ann is Cherry's double. When Cherry is too sick to go out in public or is rushed to a hospital, Ann is the person that is photographed. And Cherry is never told about Ann's existence.

Cherry employs a lot of people, but she doesn't take care of anything. Publicists, managers, accountants, and bodyguards do all the work.

The novel starts picking up in pace when a photographer feels that Cherry is his soul mate, Ann gets kidnapped, and a new bodyguard is hired to keep Cherry sober! Other wacky characters add to the flavor of the plot.

It offers a insider's view of South Beach, Key West, and how the world of tabloid reporting works, without being preachy.

Stuff - Real Life and Fiction

2010-08-19T13:33:00.003-05:00

Just a few things to tell you about.

A. I recently reviewed The Outside Boy by Jeanine Cummings. Danielle wanted to know if the travellers still exist and I sent her a list of recent books.

I must now report that some about to be evicted from their home in England. Check it out here!

B. Paula Morris, author of Ruined (my review here, with pictures of some locations), gave a lecture and reading as part of the Save Our Cemeteries Educational Programs. Her talk just a few feet from where her characters drink coffee.

She revealed that it is a tradition of having ghostwriters for some serial novels, such as Nancy Drew! I didn't know that and neither did the audience. Also, YA novels must have a plot that moves along quickly; if there are too many flashbacks, the audience will revolt.

The audience was mostly past age 35 with about 7 teens. (There was a very bored 6 year old boy with his grandmother.) The teens related well to the characters and agreed that teen girls can be mean. The girls also said that they would jump a fence and go inside the Lafayette cemetery at NIGHT!. The author said that she wouldn't have done that at that age.

Morris will continue to write YA books, but they will be set in other ghostly cities, like Rome and York, England. She disappointed a teen by telling her that Rebecca from Ruins will probably not appear again in print.

3. One Book, One New Orleans has selected Louis Armstrong's memoir (Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans) as the 2010 selection.

I haven't participated too much this year, but I am hoping to attend the kick-off party.

I looked at some of the pictures, and the streets don't exist anymore! City Hall or a parking lot might occupy his home. I need to check my cholera map of 1800s New Orleans to find the street.

4. Louis Armstrong spent some time in the Milne Home for Boys. It got swamped in the Katrina. Our new mayor has announced that it will be renovated. Click here for some pictures taken in 2009. It still looks like that, and sometimes the grass is so high, because it's not mowed for a long time.

5. The International Fiction Book Club of New Orleans had 11 people last night. Patricia Livingston had a great piece in her weekly column of Uptown events, which encouraged people to brave the heat and have a great discussion.

This is the largest turnout ever, and for being in August, I was really surprised!

6. I am still in Arctic (Anthony Brandt, author), with the British trying to find the Northwest Passage. Franklin is still "alive" although he has eaten his boots.

Stuff - Versatile Blogger Award

2010-08-16T21:28:00.009-05:00

(2523 Prytania St)

(1140 Royal St.)

I received the Versatile Blogger Award from BookGirl, so now I have to tell you 7 things about myself.

I can drink coffee at 9 p.m. and fall asleep in a few minutes. If I drink wine at 9 p.m., I will stay awake past midnight.
I read the Enquirer and Star tabloid magazines while shopping at the grocery store and then put it back on the display rack. I buy a copy, maybe once a year.
Law and Order (in New York City, all permutations) is one of my favorite TV shows. I am not sure whether I will like the new one, which is set in Los Angeles.
Coca-Cola saved my life. When I was small, I had double pneumonia. The only thing that I could keep down for a long time was a small bottle of Coca-Cola. The doctor said it was OK, as long as I got some liquid inside me. When I told my newest doctor about what I did to stay alive, he freaked out.
I ate a flower/barnacle salad at Sooke Harbour Restaurant on Vancouver Island.
I drank the water in Machu Picchu and didn't get sick. A large stream of water came from the ground. I took a chance and assumed it was pure. I had been drinking bottled water and just wanted some fresh water.
I've been in TWO homes once owned by Nicholas Cage (the actor). The home on Prytania was actually a chapel when I was growing up. The author, Ann Rice, was able to purchase it and it was NOT announced by the priests until it was too late to protest. She renovated it and sold it. The other person then sold it to Cage, who lost it in foreclosure. Many years ago, I attended a friend's party on the Royal St home. It was sold to Cage; he renovated it and later lost the home.

So, now I am passing the award to:

A Guy's Moleskin Notebook

I can't wait to read what you write.

Books-Book Review - Zeitoun - David Eggers

2010-08-09T20:18:00.002-05:00

Zeitoun is a non-fiction book that reads like fiction. It tells the story of a family that is separated during the Katrina and how they work hard to reunite.

Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a native of Syria, owns a painting / contracting company in New Orleans. He is so beloved and trusted, that whenever a hurricane is heading toward SE Louisiana, people who are on vacation call him and ask him to board up the windows in their homes and store anything that can turn into a projectile.

He married Kathy, a convert to Islam. She brought a son to the marriage, and she and Zeitoun have three more children.

Eggers writes about their childhood, how they met, and their life before August 2005.

Kathy and the children went to Baton Rouge to escape the storm. She went to her family but couldn't stay there too long. They didn't approve of her religion and food restrictions. Kathy finally goes to a friend's home; sometimes a "family" can be people who are not your blood relations, but those who really care for you.

Zeitoun stayed behind to protect his main home, rental properties, and business. He rowed to these places, rescued people, and telephoned Kathy as long as the landlines worked.

And, now this is the part that is hard to believe: Zeitoun was arrested just ROWING WHILE ARAB. (Similar to African-Americans who get harassed for DRIVING WHILE BLACK.)

Homeland Security was still concerned about 9/11; I believe that the law enforcement officials were told to look out for people who could destroy important structures. (But didn't they see that there was really nothing left to destroy after the levees broke? Duh.)

Zeitoun was taken to Camp Greyhound, the national bus company terminal turned jail. Then, he was taken to a jail near Baton Rouge, LA. He was never given the ONE PHONE CALL; Kathy was frantic trying to find him.

Eggers tells the story well. It was well organized, and the narrative moved along at a good pace.

I will have a supplemental entry soon, illustrating the places where Zeitoun rowed. I have a copy of a 1849 flood map and a 1873 cholera map of the city. When I decide which one to use, I will decorate it and indicate the distances of his home, his rental home, Camp Greyhound, and the Super Dome. Imagine rowing in nasty water with so many things floating around, like rats, snakes, dead animals, trees, pieces of homes, gasoline, etc. I found a link of Camp Greyhound a few months ago; I hope it's still up. I will also post pictures of the Greyhound station today.

Stuff - Will My Old Blog Entries Be Deleted

2010-08-03T19:46:00.004-05:00

I read some of the articles in the New York Times Magazine at work.

A interesting one that appeared on July 25, 2010 by Jeffery Rosen mentions that an idea: to wipe early posts or entries from blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

The article mentions a new book called Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age by Victor Mayer-Schonberger that cover this topic in more detail.

It will help hapless people not to be judged by youthful mistakes.

Well, I am not hapless. I don't write bad things about anyone or anything. I try to not to publish too much about my personal life.

However, this article has also added another to-do item when I approach senior citizen status: the fate of the my blog. Should I delete altogether or let it exist until the internet ends?

It's too hot right now to think about that. I'll tackle it in the fall.

Books - Book Review - The Outside Boy - Jeanine Cummins

2010-07-29T14:59:00.004-05:00

I received this novel as a prize from BookGirl.

I knew of Travellers from one of my favorite TV shows. Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Season 2, Episode 21, "Graansha" was about a murder of a probation officer who belongs to a family of Irish Travellers.

Christy (a boy) lives in 1959 Ireland. He is a Pavee or a Traveller, the Irish version of gypsies but without the Roma bloodline. Despite not going to school most of the time, his little group decides to spend several months in a town, so Christy and his cousin, Martin, can get confirmed. They both attend a Catholic school, where they are placed in a lower grade to make up the lost schooling.

Christy is realizing that their way of life is slowly coming to an end. There is less work in tinkering (fixing pots), fortune telling, begging, or even stealing. The times are changing and some authorities run them off former camping sites.

However, in death, the travellers go back to certain spots. Christy's grandfather died, and the Travellers went to a town where his great and great-great grandparents were also buried. Christy muses, "I never fancied towns, the buttoned-up, closed-in feeling of them, they way houses crowded theirselves onto the narrow streets, pressed their shadows forcefully on passersby. I preferred the open tober, the road, out the country, where all the rain-fed colors would be washed fresh and green."

Some Travellers didn't bother at all to learn to read, because they didn't have a need for it. But, they had other ways to remember events. "..the beady pocket waslikea mpa ofher memory. Every Pavee woman had one: a long, black pocket that tied 'round her waist and hung to the side of her apron, where she kept her personal artifacts. But really it was the outside of the pocket wher the memories was stored, because them pockets was decorated all with bright-colored stitching, and then, pinned and sewed in among the stitching, there'd be all the collections of hold relics and medals, all the beads and buttons and brooches the women swapped along the tober."

This novel is not all all idealistic. There are instances of prejudice against the Pavee. Camping outside in the fall and winter was not the most pleasant experience; neither was living with no running water and bathing in a cold pond! But, Christy manages to find a kind bookseller, who helps him solve a mystery. I like how the mystery is solved, pre-Internet era.

Cummins provides a reading list, if you want to find out more about the Pavee.

The only quibble that I have (and it proves my observation that publishers are not editing as much as they should) is that a newspaper photo identifies an unmarried lady as Ms, which didn't come into common use until the 1970s. The caption should have read Miss.

The novel presents a world that is probably not as common as before. Christy's observations of tober life and town life are enlightening. I really enjoyed this present.

Books - Book Review - Dracula in Love - Karen Essex

2010-07-27T06:02:00.000-05:00

I received an Advanced Readers' Copy of this novel from Doubleday Review. This novel will be released on August 10th.

Karen Essex is a favorite author of mine. I like the way she goes into an era and adopts the speech of the time.

This tells the Dracula story from the viewpoint of Mina Murphy. (OK, confession time: I haven't read the Bram Stoker novel, but I have seen several film versions. I don't remember her too much from the movies.)

Mina is an young lady, who teaches young ladies at a school in London. She is an orphan and looks forward to getting married.

However, since her childhood, she has visions of seeing a mysterious man, dreams about him, and even hears his voice in the winds. One time, he materializes and helps her from a thug.

She goes live in a sanitarium to help her husband recover from a psychological trauma. She is allowed to wander about the women's ward while her husband is in treatment. (That wouldn't happen today!) While in there, she encounters the state of the art treatment for hysterical women, who love to escape the sanitorium and run out into the street, just wearing a nightgown and no shoes! (Oh, the horror.)

Since I work in a medical library, I have access to some old journals. I copied excerpts of two of these articles. Essex did not make up this part of the novel. I've transcribed the pertinent portion.

If you like to read about Victorian times, this novel is perfect. Or, wait until Halloween for a great treat!

The Lancet, May 28, 1881

Notes on the Systematic Treatment of Nerve Prostation and Hysteria Connected with Uterine Disease by WS Playfair, MD, FRCP, Professor of Obstertic Medicine in King's College and Physician for the Diseases of Women and Children to King's College Hospital.

(He notes the latest literature and then discusses one of the treatments for hysteria)

3. Electricity - This forms a valuable subsidiary means of exercising the muscles. The interrupted current is employed twice daily from half to three-quarters of an hour. Here, again, some practical skill is necessary, but with a little careful teaching on the part of the practioner, the use of the battery can be safely and efficiently entrusted to the nurse. The poles, armed with wetted sponges, are placed on the muscles to be operated on in turn, about four inches apart and slowly moved until the muscle is fully and freely contracted. Commencing with the feet, the whole body, except the head, is thus systematically gone over. There is no doubt that this is painful and disagreeable, but it is on unquestinable utility, especially in cases such as the one presently narrated, in which there was a longstanding hysterical paralysis and conswquent atrophy from diuse of extensive groups of muscles.

The British Gynaecological Society - Wednesday, December 27, 1890 - CHF Routh - President of the Chair. Adjourned Discussion on Dr. Barnes' Paper on The Correlation of The Sexual Functions in Women with Mental Disturbances.

He mentioned one case in which he had removed the ovaries for mental disturbance. The lady was married to a gentleman much older than herself, and she happening to be a woman of ine physique and strong passions, her husband proved to be physically incapble of satisfying her frequent demands. Eventually she became subject to sexual paraoysms associated with manifestations of violence, during which she broke furniture, injured those about her, and so forth. She had been under the care of his predecessor, Dr. Palfrey, for some years, and in order to get hew away from all that might excite those outbreaks he got her to come into the London Hospital, where he removed the labia minora, which were enormously hypertrophied. She had one of the fits whilst in the hospital and ran down out of the ward into the street in her night-dress. She subsequently left the hospital and came under his (Dr. Fenten's) care. He decided to remove the ovaries, after explaining the operation was purely empirical. In spite of her having a fit of mania whith twenty-four hours of the operation, during which she tore off the dressings and sat up in bed and assulted her nurse, she did perfectly well. That was nearly six years ago, and he has seen very little of her since until the preceeding week, when he had ascertained that the paraoxysms had been few in number, the intervals between gradually become longer and longer, only one or two a year, and when did occurs, they were shorter and less severe. He thought that this case would serve as a precedent. Her age was thirty-two when the operation was performed.

Stuff-My Summer Readings

2010-07-24T17:29:00.004-05:00

A few bloggers have asked me about my readings.

During the summer, I can't go out too much. And to forget about the heat, I tend to read books that deal in cold places.

For the past few summers, I've reading books set in Antarctica and anything about Ernest Shackleton. But this year, I've been heading toward the Arctic region and it's all been by chance.

Simon blogged about getting a Hesperus Press book from his library, so I decided to find some. I want to borrow The Frozen Deep by Wilke Collins but I received Under the Management of Mr. Charles Dickens - His Production of The Frozen Deep, edited by Robert Louis Brannan. Both of these work deals with Captain Franklin and his doomed trip in his search for the Northwest Passage.

I am now on a search for 4 Arctic books about Captain Franklin. Kevin recommended Lady Franklin's Revenge by Ken McGoogan. Whispering Gums told me about Richard Flanagan's Wanting and Andrea Barrett's The Voyage of the Narwhal. I want to read The Man Who Ate His Boots by Anthony Brandt.

And, I've been going to other parts of the Arctic. Trevor wrote about Archipelago last year, and I wanted to get a few. When I received a bookstore gift card, I ordered A Dream of Polar Fog by Yuri Rytkheu. It's set in Siberian. A Canadian, John MacLennan, lives with the Chukcki.

I've been reading stories about other cold places. Recently I was in Leningrad during WWII, thanks to Helen Dunmore. I will be soon "travel" to Fort Amity: A Story of Canadian Life in the Time of Wolfe and Montcalm by A.T. Quiller-Couch, the last of my Wigtown, Scotland book buys.

Summers are always hot and humid in New Orleans. Real temperatures can reach up to 100F (38C) but with the humidity and lack of rain makes it feel like 110F (43C). I park my car in a covered garage at work, so it's in a shaded area. But walking to my car drains me. I turn on the air conditioning, but the interior is still hot. My lungs have been hurting lately due to particulate release during burning of oily glob in the Gulf of Mexico; I don't know when that will be over.

So reading keeps my mind off the weather and the glob and hurricanes.

Don't feel sorry for me. I enjoy my mild winters.

Books - Book Review - John McDonald - Fume o Peat Reek

2010-07-20T06:23:00.000-05:00

This book of poetry counts for the Wish I'd Read That Challenge 2010.

John McDonald write haiku. I save his works when I need a jolt to my brain and a sense of inspiration. The heat here in the Deep South drains me so much, that I always want to read his work during this time of year.

Fume O Peat Reek is Fragrance of Peat Smoke in Scottish. I always read the Scottish version first and try to figure out what it means in English before looking at the translation.

Why do you give it try to some of my favorites?

craw swops

frea a howe i the taur:

how bleck he is

(Hint: Did the road melt?)

campers gane

yowes nip

on a bricht spat

(Hint: Summer is over.)

hairst mornin -

maple leaves

on a gean tree

(Hint: A transportation)

If you read them out loud, you might get them all. Here are the translations:

crow drinks

from a hollow in the tar:

how black he is

campers gone -

sheep graze

on a bright patch

autumn morning -

maple leaves

on a cherry tree

Click here to be inspired more by John's poems.

Books - Book Review - After Dark - Haruki Murakami

2010-07-17T14:38:00.002-05:00

Haruki Murakami writes a lot about the youth of present-day Japan, and this novel is no exception. But, the story has a lot of weird connections, that somehow makes sense, and is creepy at the same time. During this time, this large Japanese city feels like a little town.

It takes place between the hours of 11:56 p.m. and ends at 6:52 a.m.

Mari is studying at a Denny's when Takahashi, an acquaintance of her sister's starts talking to her. He later goes off to play in his band at an abandoned building. But, about an hour later, Kaoru comes in looking for Mari; Kaoru knows Takahashi, who told Kaoru where Mari was studying and that Mari can speak Chinese.

Mari's linguistic's skills are needed because Kaoru works at a love hotel, and a young, Chinese prostitute, who doesn't speak Japanese, has been beaten up badly.

Not until I read this novel did I realize why love hotels are needed over there; there is not enough space for privacy for lovers, so they go to these places to have fun. However, it can also be dangerous; some people who go there work for the organized crime syndicates. Despite there being so many people in Japan, illegal aliens do manage to sneak in.

The American influence on the Japanese society is really apparent in several sections of the novel.

Kaoru and her co-workers at the love hotel are trying to determine who beat up the poor prostitute by looking at the film of the surveillance camera and blowing up the image.

Korogi exclaims, "Wow! Look at what you can do! Like Blade Runner!"

Takahashi goes to a Seven-11 to pick up food. And the Denny's where the novel begins, does serve breakfast 24 hours a day, but you are allowed to smoke there.

On this morning, Takahashi decides to give up his dream of playing in a band and start seriously studying to be a lawyer. At 3:07 a.m., he tells Mari of his experience of observing a court case:

"I'm sitting there listening to the trail, and all I can see in my head is the creature (an octopus). It takes on all kinds of different shapes - sometimes it's 'the nation' and sometimes it's 'the law' and sometimes it takes shapes that are more difficult and dangerous than that. You can try to cutting off it's legs, but they keep growing back. Nobody can kill it. It's too strong and it lives too far down in the ocean. Nobody knows where its heart is. What I felt then was a deep terror ! And a kind of hopelessness, a feeling that I could run away from this thing, no mater how far I went..."

And in spite of having this feeling of doom, Takahashi decides that it's time to grow up, realize that his musical talent won't take him too far, and to study the law. Is this how many of the young Japanese people feel or just the ones that become dedicated to their work? I don't think Murakami feels like this about being a novelist.

And this is not the creepy part of the novel. There is some sort of spirit, a malevolent one, watching the sleeping Eri, Mari's sister, all this time. And, when Mari went to a restroom at 1:56, "The Mari in the mirror is looking from her side into this side (the world that the characters live in). Her somer gaze seems to be expecting some kind of occurrence. But there is no one on this side. Only her image is left in the Skylark restroom mirror."

After reading this work, I was left a bit disturbed and thought about it for days. A group of young people being awake when everyone else is sleeping gave me a lot to think about.

Stuff - Too Hot

2010-07-15T18:26:00.003-05:00

The weather has been a bear lately. It's so hot, that it's not worth complaining about.

I didn't want to attend the Crescent City Farmer's Market until it got cooler. So, one day I bought some frozen food for lunch and found them disgusting. I hope that the asphalt doesn't melt so I can continue to buy fresh food and not ruin my shoes.

It was so warm that Graison Gill of Babcia Kubiak's Bakery did have the energy to flirt with me. (I think he flirts with all the female customers so we buy more bread :) )

My book news - I won 2 books: here and here! I have also received a few ARCs.

I've been reading them quickly but haven't gotten around to posting my reviews. Well, I have an excuse. Yesterday, I was feeling so sickly from the heat, that I took a nap from 6 pm to 7 pm.! I even missed my knitting group, which I had been looking forward to attending.

Hopefully, I'll have more energy this weekend.

Books - Book Review - The Siege - Helen Dunmore

2010-07-11T17:20:00.003-05:00

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you know that during the summer, I like to read stories of cold places to forget about the heat in New Orleans.

I found another excellent book that kept my mind off the weather and the glob in the Gulf of Mexico: The Seige.

Set during the first year of the blockade of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) in Russia, it describes how Anna, a young lady of 22 years, fights to feed her family and an old family friend.

Although she is from England, Dunmore has captured the spirit of Russians during WWII.

Mikhail Ilyich Levin, a semi-banned writer, recites a lot of Pushkin poems and volunteers to dig trenches to "save the Motherland." (shades of War of Peace). Ann learns how to make soups and teas with strange ingredients that will provide nutrition for her little brother(wallpaper paste and leather.) She also lines up for bread and learns how to save the diminished rations. Earlier in the novel, she also digs trenches to slow down the German entrenchment.

This novel also discusses how everyone uses anything they can to burn to build fires and methods to keep out the cold. The water in the pipes freeze, so flushing toilets become a memory and so do hot baths. Some people survive by cannibalism but not Anna's family.( In two other non fictions that I read (Moscow and Stalingrad), the survival methods are more gruesome.)

I enjoyed reading Andrei Mikhailovich Alekseyev's (a fourth year medical student who "becomes" a doctor without graduating) descriptions of his Russia:

"But in Siberia, at twenty degrees below, the cold sings. Siberia's more than a place, it's a spirit which cant be translated anywhere else. People talk more openly there. They're not so scared.

In Siberia, there is too much of everything. Too much space, too much sky, too many thousands upon thousands of trees, marching away towards a horizon that never grows closer, too great a crowd of stars on winter nights. But when you know it, it's not frightening at all. Siberia becomes the only place where you can really breathe."

It reminded me of the short stories in Money for Maria, which are set in Siberia.

Not all of the novel is doom and gloom. There are moments of happiness and also moments of gratitude. Even for a little onion or a pinch of sugar.

Books - Book Review - My Name is Red - Orhan Pamuk

2010-07-05T20:30:00.003-05:00

Orhan Pamuk has won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

I've tried reading his novel, Snow, and could not finish.

I have not had much luck with My Name is Red either. Even though it was a book club selection, I gave up after 33 pages.

The premise is interesting: a book with images is to be made for royalty. However, in Islam, illustrations of people are considered sinful.

There are many narrators in the novel, but my problem is that they all have the same voice. I kept getting confused of who was talking and gave up. It's too hot for me to concentrate.

I might try again in a few years, when I am older.I might need more patience.

If you finished this novel, let me know.

Books - Discussion - The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

2010-06-30T13:19:00.003-05:00

This novel was a bookclub selection, but I haven't written about. I kept putting it off, because so much was still stirring in my mind.

First of all, none of the readers could believe that 25 years had passed since its publication. They remember reading it in college and thinking that the events seemed improbable. But now, events in recent times have them thinking that this dystopian world could happen.

The start of this dark society was the government's reaction to an Islamic attack. Talk about falling out of our seats. After 9/11, there has been more surveillance! At least, that part of the novel has become reality.

Many of the readers weren't sympathetic to the Narrator. She was too passive for many, especially when she first lost her job. However, if she had resisted, maybe a fate worse than Moira's awaited her, like being sent to the toxic wastelands.

The listless personalities of the other women also surprised the readers? Why didn't they rebel against the Aunts? There were enough of them to overpower them! There was a hint in the novel that the women were drugged, so that's why they didn't resist at all.

The readers then pointed out that being a Wife was worse in some sense than being a Handmaid. Even though the Handmaid was raped once a month, if she was lucky, she got some treats and went out a bit. The Wife had to be humiliated every day with the presence of the Handmaid, and if the ceremony "took," then raise a child that wasn't hers. The Wife was always reminded that she was infertile, that she was incomplete.

The readers enjoyed the lighter moments, like the Scrabble Game between the Narrator and Fred. The double entendres amused everyone.

I later pointed out that all of Atwood's dystopian novels are set in the US and that Canada is seen as the promised land. We still aren't sure why she doesn't believe that such an environment could exist in Canada also.

Our discussion just touched the tip of the themes covered in this slim work. We also wondered how it could be updated. When it was published, only the very rich could afford cell phones and the Internet was used primarily by scientists. Could the Narrator use cell phone technology to start a rebellion after first losing her job? Could a Facebook group be formed to protest the government's takeovers? Or, would everything be shut down so quickly that everyone would be in the dark?

Stuff - A Concert

2010-06-29T21:12:00.003-05:00

I must confess: I went to this concert in order to hear the Royal Philharmonic. I don't know when I would be back in London, so this might be my only chance.

I was surprised to really enjoy hearing Sting sing. His voice is still strong although he doesn't jump around as much as I remember from MTV videos (when MTV just showed videos).

Sting would tell us a bit about each song. The orchestra members wore pants, vest, and a turtle neck shirt. Steven Mercurio, the conductor, was the only one in a tuxedo.

Most of the audience could be the grandparents of the ushers! But, I enjoyed the subdued yet positive energy.

Here's a review of the concert. Wish you could have been there.

Stuff - Please Send An Email

2010-06-23T19:33:00.007-05:00

I attended a meeting to find out about saving the Master's program in Library Science.

The Board of Supervisors hasn't made a final decision. So, an email writing campaign has been started. If you send an email to Mr. Rasmussen ( rrasmus@lsu.edu ), he will forward your email to the Board of Supervisors and to President Lombardi of LSU.

Here is a suggested format. Don't mention my name. Please edit as you see fit.

Thanks for helping me out. You can forward this post to your friends.

*************************************************

Dear President Lombardi, Mr. Chatelain (Chairman), and the members of the Board of Supervisors:

Even though I live in (name of your city), I am writing to support the School of Library Sciences program.

(State some examples of how librarians or libraries have helped you and why you think that new librarians are needed - like many are getting ready to retire.)

Louisiana needs to have positive news; eliminating this program will be sad. Students will go to other states for their education and might decide not to come back home. The state will lose the increased revenue from the higher salaries of the graduates, and the brain drain will continue.

Thank you for reading my email. I hope that you will permit this major to continue educating future Louisiana librarians.

Your name

Your location

Your blog or other on-line affliation

Stuff - Illustration Friday - Paisley

2010-06-22T21:23:00.003-05:00

I like my new dress - my paisley dress.

An Illustration Friday entry.

Books - Book Review - Gourmet Rhapsody and The Elegance of the Hedgehog - Muriel Barbery

2010-06-22T07:33:00.002-05:00

The International Book Club of New Orleans read both of these books.

We liked reading about writing about food that Pierre Arthen wrote about in Gourmet Rhapsody. As a person, he was one of the worst in literature. My personal theory is that since he is an Arab, he had a inferiority complex. He disguises it by becoming the best food critic in France.

Barbery's second novel is about all the people who live in a building in Paris. Arthen is one of the tenants, but he dies early on in this novel.

Rene'e Michel is the concierge. A very grumpy lady with one friend, she reads a lot but passes herself as an idiot. Kakuro Ozu moves into Arthen's apartment and notices how much she knows about literature and history and they become friends.

Rene'e also becomes friends with Paloma Josse, a lonely pre-teen who doesn't feel there is anymore to learn in life. Paloma sees a boring future ahead for her.

The novel alternates between Paloma's and Rene'e's stories but their voices sound the same. I had to look at the title of the chapter to see who was talking. Other book club members had trouble also.

All the members felt that Kakuro's friendship with Rene'e was improbable. None of us liked the ending!

We see a future for Barbery; there are still more tenants in the condo and more life stories.

Book Review - The Ice Princess - Camilla Lackber

2010-06-21T07:52:00.000-05:00

The novel was sent to me courtesy of Tandem Literary.

I don't like to read mysterious too much. It frustrates me that I can't figure out the bad guy. But, I enjoyed The Ice Princess, even though I did manage to pick out the wrong person AGAIN.

Camilla Lackberg is a best-selling author in Sweden and around the world. She's published 9 books in Swedish, but only two have been translated into English and six in Spanish.

The curious person in the novel is Erica Falck, a biographer who returns to her hometown of Fjalbacka to clean her parent's house, after their death.

Her childhood friend, Alex, is murdered, and she is asked to write an tribute. Her curiosity leads her to find out what caused Alex to end their friendship so many years ago and to discover how this event shaped the rest of Alex's life and choice of men.

Despite her success as a biographer, Erica doesn't feel that she is a true author. She wants to use her research into Alex's murder to write a novel.

Because of movies and the global economy, Erica does things that remind me of what young women would do in the US. When she doesn't feel like cooking, she gets a hamburger from McDonald. She also can't decide whether to wear the sexy underwear or the comfy granny panties for her date (shades of Bridget Jones.)And, she worries about Weight Watchers points.

But since Erica lives in a cold climate, she something that is not done in the South. She doesn't have time to take a shower, so she washes her underarms and then puts on her clothes. No deodorant! I would be smelly after 10 minutes.

There was only one element missing: what happened to Erica's brother -in-law? Maybe it will be explained in the next novel.

If you want to try your hand at writing mystery/crime novels, she has some guidelines here.

Books - Book Review - The Bradbury Report - Steven Polansky

2010-06-20T15:50:00.003-05:00

I received a copy of this novel courtesy of Tandem Literary.

In the year 2071, a reluctant rebel in the United States writes a report about cloning.

The narrator, code name Ray Bradbury, (after the author who wrote novels about the future) really didn’t think too much about the process. “The very terms we use - “original, “ “copy” - ..to be less scientific, less clinical, more palatable, ultimately blinding...cloning is taken, gratefully, for the centerpiece of a federal health care system.”

Ray was a grumpy widower who is contacted by Anna, a college roommate of his late wife. She wants him to help her take care of a clone that escaped.

Anna’s husband was very active in the anti-clone movement, and she took it up after her husband’s death. Through Anna’s conversations, Ray finds out what has been going on in the rest of the country, what the government has been covering up.

For example, people in North and South Dakota were expelled to create the Clearances, the cloning factory. No anti-clone member has been able to get in to discover what went on there. But, one clone did escape, and the pieces of information were shocking: the clones worked from childhood to grow their own food, they were not educated, they didn’t speak English, they attacked each other for sexual release, they are drugged in order to be compliant.

The 20 or so year old clone had a hard time in the withdrawal phase. Anna taught him how to read, eat, and behave socially, Ray couldn’t “think about him as fully autonomous,fully human. This is deplorable, beyond a doubt, but one can almost be forgiven feeling this way at the very start of things. He had no name. Going forward, I wlll call him Alan.”

The trio travel through Canada to evade the US government. Anna has no contact with her children, so they won’t be implicated. Alan becomes more “human” as time goes by.

This page turner has aspects of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novels that protray the US as a place of genetic manipulations and Canada as a place of refuge and reason. And the clone’s story reminds me of Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, even though Alan really doesn’t tell too much of what happened to him.

Not all is gloom and doom, though. Alan enjoys seeing old photographs. Ray observers that “they are faithful, if misleading, copies of reality As he himself is. Alan is a Winnipeg Jets hockey fan and is able to enjoy one live game.

This novel will get you thinking about a misuse of cloning and the consequences of the recent health care act.

Books - Book Review - The Unwanted - Kien Nguyen

2010-06-15T19:09:00.000-05:00

This book is my fifth selection in the War Through the Generations - Vietnam (Reading Challenge)! I have completed the minimum requirements of this challenge, but I still want to read a couple of more novels.

This memoir by Kien Nguyen follows his family at the end of the Vietnam War and the beginning of the new regime.

Kien's mother, Khoun, learned how to speak English and worked with Americans. She had two sons without marrying the fathers. When the men left Vietnam, they left money to her and she was able to buy a home. What surprised me is that her parents lived with her; I would have thought that they would be embarrassed by their daughter's actions, even though she provided well for them. Her sister, however, did not approve of her lifestyle and was very happy when Kien's mother lost all her property and money.

Kien's grandparents didn't want to leave Vietnam, despite all the pleading by Khoun. Khoun and the boys just missed the last helicopter out of Saigon and were trapped.

Khoun was a beautiful but haughty and vain woman. She treated most servants with disdain. She mostly ignored her children. When the new government took over, the former gardener took over her house and threw her out. She went to live in a tiny house, next to her sister and brother-in-law.

The family was able to somewhat survive due to Khoun selling her jewelry and working in a stand selling soup. She needed permits to do other work, but she was denied most of them because of her being a capitalist. But, instead of treating her children and parents better, she became bitter and thought mostly of herself. Even her last boyfriend, a horrid Vietnamese, would bring grief to the family.

The ones who suffered the most were the boys, Kien and Jimmy. Having round eyes gave away their paternity. They experienced discrimination in school. Their own cousins beat them up, and the authorities really didn't care.

Kien's early life was difficult; no child should ever live through what he did. But, despite all this, he was essentially a good person, who never gave up.

Kien did have some happy moments; he made some friends, he reunited with a servant who loved him a lot, he was able to study. However, at one point, he realized that he had no future in the new Vietnam and started writing to the United Nations and the US Embassy in Thailand to ask for asylum. I am surprised that the letters were allowed to travel to their destination. And, one day, his wish did come true.

The Amerasian children in the village heard about his success and came to Kien to seek his help in filling out the application. "Two black girls, the first in line, grinned at me." They needed help in filling out the paperwork, since they couldn't read. " "We saved some money to pay for your services." She opened her hand to show me a wrinkled twenty-dong note. She must have held it so long and so tightly that the bill was nearly decomposed from the perspiration of her palm." Despite needing money for a trip to Saigon, Kien told them to keep the money.

Khoun remembered the girls from a noodle store and asked about their mother. "She died last year. The doctors said it was from syphilis. We have been on our own since."

This memoir is difficult to read but he considers himself one of the luckier one.

Books - Book Review - This Must Be My Brother

2010-06-14T15:48:00.009-05:00

This is the fourth book that I have read for War Through the Generations - Vietnam Challenge.

Carol Dey and LeAnn Thieman are two moms from Iowa City who did volunteer work for FCVN (Friends of Children of Various Nations). They did low-key activities like raising money in bake sales. The Thiemans were in the process of adopting a FCVN child.

But in 1975, they took a plane ride that could described as terrifying and blood-curdling.Dey and Thieman were supposed to take just six orphans to the United States, but the end of the Vietnam War was very near. They ended taking 300 babies to the US!

Remember, during this time, cell phones and the internet were at its infancy. They called the State Department for updates on conditions in Saigon. Each lady made about two calls to their husbands, so everyone was in the dark. It must have been trying time for the husbands and families, not really knowing what Dey and Thieman were experiencing.

On arriving at the orphange, they started helping in taking care of the babies. There were many dedicated Vietnamese women who worked there. Despite the high humidity and heat, everyone did their best to fed, clean, and cuddle the infants.

Many of the children were not really orphans; they were of mixed race or Vietnamese whose fathers were not known. The mothers knew that their society would not treat their children well, so that's how many ended up in the orphanage. Some mothers even heard of the flights and gave up their older children at the door of the orphanage, denying their maternity, so that the child would have a chance of surviving!

The preparation of papers to release the children, the trips to the airport, the loading of the children on the plane, and the waiting for takeoff were difficult. I would have had a hissy fit at any point of this process.

The frantic flight to the US was surreal. "all but a few seats were removed and had been replaced with long benches along the sides. Down the center was a row of about twenty cardboard boxes..Two to three babies were lying in each box. A long strap was secured at the one end of the plane...Toddlers and the older children sat with seatbelts on the long benches."The food and supplies were inside metal trash cans.This flight was not the only one that carried children. Dey and Thieman helped load children heading to Australia; there were probably others going to Europe and Canada.

This book has pictures of the orphanage, so you can see how the children lived and were transported.

The epilogue is great; the authors traced many of the children and workers at the orphanage. Most are living in the US; some of the adults were able to return to Vietnam or went to other parts of the globe, where children need help.

This is a hopeful story. I am glad that some of the children were able to be rescued.

Stuff - Need Advice

2010-06-07T12:48:00.000-05:00

My happy report about being accepted into graduate school for library science has been spoiled a bit; the university is considering eliminating the program in about 2 years!

An email from a dean of graduate school assures all participants that they hope to help all students starting in the Fall of 2010 to finish their program. However, I never planned to take a full load, since I work full-time. Plus, I have elder care obligations and can't devote all my time to studying, even though many of the courses can be completed on-line. I am afraid that the courses that I need will start to be eliminated.

Do you know anyone who is encountering this problem? Did getting a degree from a soon to be defunct program affect their job prospects?

My plan so far is to take courses in the Fall and maybe transfer to another school in the future.

There are protests and a letter writing campaign and a Facebook page to fight the closure; however, I believe that the state will pour all its resources in fighting and cleaning up the BP oil release, so there won't be much left for education.

Books - Isabel Allende's Reading/Rebecca Scott's Research

2010-06-06T20:30:00.008-05:00

Sorry for not writing more. I've been a bit down in the dumps about the oil spill and its effects on everyone. Now that it's spread to Florida, maybe something will be done. The white, sandy beaches are more exciting than the boring marshes.

So, now I want to share what I did recently.

I spent on delightful Friday evening (May 14th), listening to Isabel Allende reading from her latest novel, Island Beneath the Sea. And, I wasn’t the only one; there must have been about 300 to 400 people at the reading, which was held at a Catholic school auditorium. The most amazing thing to me was that everyone was able to find parking; a large synagogue was having Friday services, and both locations are in an older part of town, where off-street parking is hard to find.

Allende came a bit late and was tired; her flight from Dallas was delayed, and New Orleans was the last city in a multi-city book tour. But, when she started to talk about her latest novel and how she came to write it, her energy level went higher.

Allende came to New Orleans to do research for a previous novel, Zorro. She ran across information about the Haitian Slave Revolt and migration of Haitians to Cuba and later to New Orleans.

Her characters a New Orleans that was a major slave trading center. Free people of color existed at this time, and some of them also had slaves.

Zarite’, the main character, is of mixed races. She is sold as a child and suffers a lot. She travels from Haiti, Cuba, and New Orleans, while trying to get her freedom.

Allende explained that through this novel, she wants her readers to be aware that slavery still goes on today in all over the world, even in the US. Child laborers and sweat-shop workers are some examples. She also wants to bring awareness to her foundation, which helps to empower women.

If you think that such events really didn’t take place, then you need to read this essay by Dr. Rebecca Scott, whom I met in my previous job.

She is writing a non-fiction book about Rosalie, who traveled the same route as Zarite’. Dr. Scott went to archives in Haiti, Cuba (before all the hurricanes and earthquakes hit those islands), and New Orleans and was able to piece together Rosalie‘s life, through the legal documents that Rosalie filed.

Rosalie‘s son, Edouard Tinchant, wrote some letters, that are in Havana, talking about his business. The family sold cigars and eventually moved to Belgium, to prevent from being enslaved again.

Dr. Scott was able to meet Rosalie‘s descendants; some were happy to learn of their brave ancestor. Dr. Scott explores legal implications of slavery, so this book, Freedom Papers: An Atlantic Creole Itinerary, will be deep reading. I’ll be keeping an eye for it.

Books - Letter to Suzanne Collins

2010-05-21T09:43:00.007-05:00

On Thursdays, The Times-Picayune has a section for small news. This article is an alternative view of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. The contest was a clever way for students to write a book review. Lusher is a public school that concentrates on the arts. Algiers is the only part of New Orleans that is on the other side of the Mississippi River from most of the city. Ben Franklin is a college-prep public school.

Addison Howenstine's view a more positive than my review. I am glad that this novel reaches young people in a different way from cynical adults.

Here's the article and congratulations to Mr. Howenstine!

Lusher student from Algiers finalist in national competition

By Melinda Morris, The Times-Picayune

April 19, 2010, 12:07PM

Lusher Charter School eighth-grader Addison Howenstine, of Algiers, said he is a more compassionate person after reading Suzanne Collins' book "The Hunger Games" and that he is more likely to speak out against injustice.

Reading the book also led to recognition for the 14-year-old in a national writing competition, Letters About Literature, a program of the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. Addison was one of 15 national finalists, and the only student from Louisiana among that group.
Addison Howenstine, of Algiers, is a national finalist in a writing competition sponsored by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress.

He said he was not sure how far his entry would go when he wrote it. But, "I prayed about it, and it worked.''

He advanced to the national competition after placing first among seventh- and eighth-graders in the state competition sponsored by the Louisiana Center for the Book in the State Library of Louisiana, in partnership with the Louisiana Writing Project.

Spokesman Jim Davis said the state went from 41 entrants last year, before the Louisiana Center for the Book's sponsorship, to 1,286 submissions this year.

Addison's teacher, Cassie Seiple, submitted his letter. Davis said the support of teachers and librarians is crucial; few letters would have been submitted without their guidance.

To enter, students wrote a personal letter to an author, living or dead, from any genre -- fiction, nonfiction, poetry, contemporary or classic -- explaining how that author's work changed their way of thinking about themselves or the world and how the chosen books impacted their life or world view.

Addison wrote about "The Hunger Games,'' a science-fiction novel. In the book, the Hunger Games are an annual televised event in which the Capitol randomly selects one boy and one girl from each of 12 districts who are then pitted against each other in a game of survival and forced to kill until only one remains.

In Addison's letter to Collins, he wrote: "From this book, I have learned that if there is nothing that I think I can do to help someone -- whether it is starving children in other countries, or the kid who gets free lunch at school -- the least I can do for them is to be kind to them.

"Your writing has changed the way I feel about the phrase told to young, American children like me, 'You are more fortunate than others.' When kids hear this phrase we think about the kid at school who gets free school lunch, or we think about the homeless man with the long, dirty beard under the bridge -- the fact of the matter is that, even though they are less fortunate, they are only a minute bit of the poverty attacking our world."

He also wrote, "I have learned that we fortunate people should do the best we can to help others who are less fortunate than we are."

Addison said he has always enjoyed reading, and that he reads at night before he falls asleep. He said he is not sure what he plans to do after graduating from college. He will be a freshman at Benjamin Franklin High School in the fall.

He said he is proud to represent Louisiana as a national finalist in the writing competition.

"I feel really blessed,'' he said.

Stuff - News

2010-05-19T22:22:00.002-05:00

I've been quiet, but I've been busy.

When there are controlled burnings of the oil floating in the Gulf of Mexico and the wind blows my way, I feel badly. I have to use my inhaler on those days.

Plus, I have been admitted to graduate school; I will be studying for the Masters of Library Science at LSU-Baton Rouge. However, I don't need to go there, except for orientation. One class is on video, and the other is computer based.

I have been running around to get all my shots, sending more information, registering for classes, and looking for textbooks.

I also attended the Isabel Allende reading for her latest novel. I'll write about it soon.

Stuff - Living in Dystopia??

2010-05-03T20:29:00.004-05:00

Living in the Deep South this past week is like living in pre- dystopian reality.

First of all, the big oil release. 11 men died. Is the energy needs of the country more valuable than their lives? (The same can be asked for the 29 miners who died in West Virginia.)

The Louisiana coast will be hurt. Many hurricanes have already eroded it. How much can it tolerate?

Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida are also recovering from either Hurricane Ivan or Katrina. Their beaches will be full of tar balls if the release can't be stopped.

Louisiana provides 1/3 of the seafood for the country. So many fishermen are idle now. Who knows when they can work again?

The other issue that has disturbed me is the immigration issue. I believe that it's time to get things in control. In Michigan, women fly in from Islamic countries, have their babies, and leave a few months later. Then, the Baby Talibans / Al Quedas can come back in 18 years to wreck havoc here.

If I were in Europe or Mexico illegally, I would be detained and even jailed, and worse.

But for citizens who look like immigrants, what can be done to protect us from being held? Should there be a national ID card, or a chip implanted on my arm, with all my data? I've been carrying my voter registration card since 2008, because I saw how rough ICE personnel were with some women.

I am behind on book reviews, but I just didn't feel like blogging about them.

However, I needed a laugh. I found this hilarious remake of The Telephone. The soldiers are in a worse situation than I am and they are making the best of it. I need to have their attitude!

Stuff - Illustration Friday - Ahead

2010-04-29T07:13:00.003-05:00

Ok, it's a little late (it's Thursday already), but here's my entry for ahead - A head.

When I was in grade school, the teacher would give us a long word, and we had to find as many words as we could, using the letters from the big word.

This is a visual version of this word game.

Books - 2010 Tennessee Williams Festival

2010-04-24T19:43:00.006-05:00

I was able to take 1/2 day vacation to attend the 2010 Tennessee Williams Festival to hear a conversation with David Eggers. Susan Larson, the newly retired book editor of the Times-Picayune, provided the questions for this session.

The room was packed! Some audience members had to sit on the carpet.

David Eggers is an author who has other interests that are related to literacy, reading, and writing.

Although he wanted to be an artist and had the talent to do so, he realized that he was a better writer. He has fond memories of his English teachers and has kept in contact with them. Some of them are now tutors at Chicago branch of 826 Writing and Tutoring Center, a writing center for young people, now located in 7 US cities.

Even though he majored in journalism in college, he felt that he was well trained in how to write well and what he learned has helped him in being a better fiction writer. Other authors who were journalists before becoming novelists include George Orwell and Joan Didion.

Eggers realizes that print journalism is in trouble right now, but he believes there is a place for newspapers. McSweeney's Issue 33 was a newspaper. He passed around a copy to show that a more readable format must be different and worthwhile so that people will read them again.

Eggers gave advice to aspiring writers. He encouraged everyone to join a writing group. The members must be willing to give constructive criticism and help with the editing, by reading your piece six to seven times. Editors at publishing companies aren't doing the necessary editing anymore.

He shared with the audience his method of writing Zeitoun. He and Zeitoun traveled in to the sites where Zeitoun paddled around. When they went to a place for the second time, Eggers videotaped ghd location. Using this method, Eggers was able to reconstruct Zeitoun's experiences in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

After the conversation ended, audience members were able to ask questions. What a nice way to make the audience feel closer to the speaker. It was a great way to spend a nice afternoon.

Click here for other highlights from this conversation.

Stuff - St. Louis No. 2 Cemetery - Tour and Guide

2010-04-23T20:51:00.000-05:00

In late 2008, when I was bored and unemployed, I assisted a friend in proof-reading a guide (print and Excel version) of people buried at St. Louis No 2 Cemetery. The guide is now in another revision stages; students from Xavier University are verifying or adding names in the guide as part of a service activity.

On March 27th, I was able to see the actual cemetery as part of the Save Our Cemetery Guided Tour. This cemetery is not very safe; it's in a high crime area, so don't visit this on your own.

I found out that during Hurricane Katrina, the flooding wasn't so deep: just knee deep. Many of the tombs are still standing; I really admire the craftsmanship.

Many of the people buried in the 1800s had one thing in common: their dislike of the new Americans. African-Americans and Caucasians were buried side by side, and the writings were in French and Spanish. Americans were really not welcomed here.

Some of the tombs are really elegant. This marble engraving depicts the steamboat explosion that killed a young man. Angels are ready to receive him in heaven.

This is a larger view of the same vault. Notice the elegant guardian angels. And 1-10 in the background.

Many tombs have fences around them. I love the elegant designs.

In the 1800s, benevolent societies were formed. It paid for the burial of members and assisted the widows and children. Many people paid in and were buried in one vault. (Some families also had multiple burials.)

However, not all the tombs are in good condition. Family members must maintain the tombs. However, if a family or organization don't exist or moved away, the burial places can be damaged and if no one comes forward, it can't be touched for 50 years. Only then, can the Catholic Church take over and make the repairs.

For more photographs, click here.

I plan to go on another cemetery tour in the future. Keep an eye out for the post.

Stuff - The Eruption

2010-04-17T21:36:00.004-05:00

The Eyjafjallajokull eruption has disrupted modern life. I wonder whether it will inspire new novels like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein during the Year without a Summer.

The good thing is that no one has been killed.

Many aspects of a dystopian novel are happening now!

This blog from the Guardian on-line paper reports the following scenarios that I never imagined would ever happen:

Taking a $5400 cab ride from Norway to Belgium (paid by John Cleese of the Monty Python fame.)

Vegetarians going hungry! If flights don't resume soon, the grocery stores will run out of fruits and vegetables. Most European refrigerators are so tiny, that even if you can freeze these foods or make lots of casseroles, you can't store much in them. Wonder how long one can eat canned veggies and fruits?

No medivacs! Helicopters are also banned from flying. I just hope that no one gets seriously hurt and needs to be transported to a hospital via helicopter.

Spring break extended! Many students and teachers, who went abroad, can't get home for the last weeks of school.

Flooding! Instead of lava flows, the volcano is shooting ice in the air. The heat causes the ice to melt. And, some Icelandic farms are now underwater.

This force of nature is allowing me to use my imagination. I thought that President Obama would go the state funeral of late President Lech Kaczynski and his wife by flying west, landing somewhere in Russia, and then taking a train to Poland. My father mused that since the President is the Commander in Chief, he could hop on naval submarine and still arrive in time for the funeral. Well, he did neither and is staying home in D.C.

So, what else do you think could happen?

(Photo from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2010/apr/17/natural-disasters-air-transport)

Books - Book Review - A Dream in Polar Fog - Yuri Rytkheu

2010-04-13T19:53:00.004-05:00

I found out about Archipelago Books from the Mookse and the Gripes

Of course, I got on the website and found many books that interested me.

I had a gift card that was about to expire and decided to spend some of it on ONE Archipelago book.

Readers of this blog know that I am always looking for books about cold places to read in the summer, to keep my mind off the heat. But, Polar Fog was so beautiful (wonderful paper, comfortable size) that I couldn't wait until June to start reading it.

The story is about a Canadian, John MacLennan, who is on an expedition to Siberia in the early part of the 20th century. He gets injured and is left in the care of the Chukcki. They attempt to take John to a Russian doctor in Anadyr. However, a storm overtakes them, and they stop in a village. The spiritual woman/healer is the one who cures John.

John returns to Enmyn with the Chukcki and reluctantly accepts the fact that he will be stranded there for a long time.

Orvo, who travelled on ships and learned English, is John's friend and translator, tries to make the other villagers to make John feel comfortable. Toko didn't like John's "icy, cold eyes. They had the strange quality of looking right through a person, as though that person were an empty space."

The more time that John spends in Enmyn, the more he tries to contribute to the gathering of food for everyone, instead of being a burden. One day, John observes his tanned skin and tells Toko that he has almost become like the Chukcki. Toko thinks, "Sson (their way of saying John's name), this helpless, pathethic person who had not the slightest inkling of how a real man ought to live, was gradually becoming a human being...Not long from now, Sson won't be any different from real people. He'll be able to go along, not just hunting, but to the ceremonial sacrifices..."

Sson learns the language and the ways of the Chukcki. For many years, he has no contact with any Westerners. He doesn't feel like reading the only book that he has or the need to write down things.

Of course, time doesn't stand still, and incursions happens. Sson's and Orvo's knowledge of corrupting influences helps to keep the Chucki as close to their life as possible. But, there are several discussions on how much modernization is needed and how quickly it should be done.

I enjoyed the novel, because it's told from the viewpoint of the Chucki and not the Westerner. It's interesting how they don't think that Sson knows anything and is really not human. There are many definitions and clarifications of weather conditions and clothing that the Chucki experience. Also, I learned about hunting techniques, household duties, and how to see the beauty in the Arctic.

Archipelago Books will publish another one of Rytkkeu's novels in 2011. I am looking forward to getting it for my birthday next year.

Books - Book Review - Read, Remember, Recommend - Rachelle Rogers Knight

2010-04-08T21:53:00.002-05:00

I received this book from the publisher.

I am one who hates to compile lists. When all the literary prizes are announced, I look at the nominations but I don't blog about the list.

So, this book saves some of the work for me. Knight has listed winners (and sometimes shortlisted authors) from various awards. There is also room for 2010 to 2013 winners. She also gives a brief history of the prize and a link to the website.

I also learned about other important literary awards, such as the Miles Franklin Literary Award and James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction, that I've never read about.

What I enjoy about the lists are some books that I need to add to my TBR. Some of the prizes go back to the 1800s, so this will be fun activity to hunt these books down.

Knight's book is not just lists; there are also sections for noting books on your personal wish list, journal pages to write thoughts about novels, and several pages to keep track of books that I lend to friends.

My favorite chapter is: Resources. This lists websites or blogs related to books and literary terms. I will have fun checking out the lists.

This spiral bound book would be a perfect present for yourself or a book looker in your life!

Coming Back Soon

2010-04-04T19:09:00.004-05:00

Sorry, I've been away. I am still in town, but so much has been going on, I just haven't been able to blog at all.

Work has really been busy, busy! I come home, and I am tired. Plus, everyone at work has had little colds or exposed to people with pneumonia! So, I've been feeling weak for about a month.

And now, my car is in the repair shop. There is a slight computer problem. No, it's not a Toyota. My Saturn Astra keeps turning on the winter driving light, even though it's spring. I keep shutting it off, but it stays on. Hopefully, the Chevrolet dealer can find some Saturn technicians to fix it. (Saturn went out of business late last year.)

I have so much to write about: 4 book reviews, one literary event, one cemetery tour, one nice bike ride, etc.

Hope to start again soon!

Books -An Important Author coming to NOLA!

2010-03-25T22:12:00.003-05:00

I am very excited by this visit! Need to start saving my pennies!

Come HERE if you can!

Store Events - May 14, 5:30 p.m.

	Time: Friday, May 14, 2010 5:30 p.m. Location: Garden District Book Shop Title of Event: Isabel Allende/An Island Beneath the Sea Isabel Allende discusses and signs her book An Island Beneath the Sea. If you are unable to attend,you must call the book shop to order signed books.

Island Beneath the Sea
by Allende, Isabel
Format: Hardcover (Cloth)
Price: $26.99
Published: Harper, 2010
Inventory Status: Coming Soon -- Available for Pre-Order Now

From the sugar plantations of Saint-Domingue to the lavish parlors of New Orleans at the turn of the 19th century, Allende's latest novel introduces yet another unforgettable woman--a slave and concubine determined to claim her own destiny against impossible odds.

UPDATE: NEW LOCATION -

Bob & Jeri Nims Fine Arts Center
4301 St. Charles Avenue (Across from Fat Harry's)
New Orleans, Louisiana 70130

Books - 3 on Northwest Passage

2010-03-17T20:41:00.006-05:00

Serendipity. It's the only way to describe my latest reading adventure.

I was jealous of Simon, when he posted that his library had copies of Hesperus Press. I looked at my work's library and found out that I could get some also.

Since I am in the Interlibrary Loan Department, I ordered the book myself but made a mistake and instead got Under the Management of Mr. Charles Dickens - His Production of The Frozen Deep, edited by Robert Louis Brannan. This is a non-fiction account of how Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens wrote a play in 1856.

About 9 years earlier Sir Franklin, who was later credited in finding the Northwest Passage, was lost and died in the Arctic. Someone went looking for him and reported that everyone under Franklin's command became cannibals to survive, before finally dying of cold.

Dickens was outraged! How can Englishmen be accused such sickly acts?? Dickens wanted to clear Franklin's name and help raise money to help the widow and child. (I guess that the Royal Navy didn't pay family members for lost sailors.) Plus, Dickens wanted a creative outlet that didn't depend on publishers' demands.

Collins wrote a play to show how noble the crew was. Dickens produced the play and contributed to the revisions.

Dickens was so influential that he convinced Clarkson Stanfield, a member of the Royal Academy of Art (specialty: landscape and marine paintings) to be the stage painter. He also remodeled his home to accommodate the play.

All the actors were amateurs but very good ones, including several of Dickens' children. Dickens himself played Richard Wardour, the first fiance of Clark. Collins played the Frank Aldersley, the second fiance.

Dickens invited theater critics and important Naval officers to see the play in January 1857. He presented the play to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert at their palace.

The play was also presented in Manchester and did raise a lot of money for the Franklin family and helped clear his name.

Brannan's book includes details about the play and the actual play.

Collins later wrote the novel based on the same event. It's similar to the play, except that there are more details. For example, the officers' quarters (which were separate from the regular sailors). Collins also had more details about John Want, the cook, who says he doesn't complain, but complains the most!

I enjoyed reading Collin's version of the subject. He shows how noble the officers were.

Then, this week, I read about a new book by Anthony Brandt concerning Franklin's voyage. And, it looks like they didn't eat each other but their shoes. I am looking forward to reading this

version of the trip.

Books - Book Review - On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan

2010-03-11T20:22:00.005-06:00

This work counts as my second selection for the Wish I'd Read That Challenge - 2010.

This novel was not one of my favorites; I prefer Atonement. But, I enjoyed the discussion because I was able to get other viewpoints.

Most of the novel concentrates on the honeymoon night of Florence and Edward, two virgins who marry in the early 1960s. The sexual revolution had not happened yet, so the world was still in the 1950s mode: everything very controlled. Many club members commented on the fact that McEwan is able to capture one moment that changes the course of the characters' lives without making it boring.

The novel shifts back and forth from her view to his thoughts. However, one book club member noted that toward the end, we read about only Edward's side. All of us wanted to know what Florence felt later in life.

I noted that Edward didn't feel successful, because he didn't achieve his goal of writing books about obscure historical figures who play a large part in a pivotal moment of history but then goes back to a normal life. (Similar to how McEwan writes.) But, Edward wasn't useless; anyone who can buy an apartment in London has my admiration.

The feeling of the novel reminded me of the beginning of Doris Lessing's - The Fifth Child. All the characters in both novels are young in the early 1960s and are in a hurry to become adults. In those days, getting married was the sign of maturity.

The book group members also thought that Florence was sexually assulted by her father but were confused as to McEwan's lack of clarification on this matter. Is it because this is a topic that was not mentioned in the 1960s? Or, is it because that event would deviate from the narrow focus in the plot?

I still don't find this novel my favorite, but I appreciate the details and construction of the novel.

Books - Books

2010-03-04T20:25:00.006-06:00

Last year, I participated in health wellness program at work and selected this prize: gift cards for Borders. I recently found the cards and decided to spend the remaining money.

Last year, I learned of Archipelago Books from Mookse and the Gripes, so I ordered this one: A Dream in Polar Fog by Yuri Rytkheu. I'll be saving this novel for my summer reads, when I read about cold places to stay cool.

A few weeks ago, Simon wrote about his library having Hesperus Press works. (I was so envious). So, the other gift card selection for me is The Coming Race by Edward Bulwer-Lytton.

I started looking at my work's sister library and found out that they had some Hesperus Press book. So, I decided to request The Deep Freeze -Wilkie Collins. However, I made a mistake and ordered another book; it is the same work by both Collins and Charles Dickens. They collaborated to make the Deep Freeze as a play many years before Wilkie wrote it as a novel. It will be interesting to compare the play to the novel.

In book club news, we now have three new members. I enjoy their viewpoints. I'll need to review On Chesil Beach; it was a very interesting discussion.

I also joined another club and we discussed People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks. I will recommend this novel for the first book club! Next month, we will read Junot Diaz' The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao. I volunteered to translate the Spanish words (curse words included for the members.)

Next week, I will ask for vacation time to attend the Tenneessee Williams Festival. I want to attend talks by Joseph Boyden and David Eggers. I received news that since I am a book club member, I can receive 10% off. Yippee!

A blog friend told me that he is reading Zeitoun by David Eggers; I sent him an email about links of stories and pictures that would enhance his readings!

Have a good weekend!

Stuff - Illustration Friday

2010-03-03T19:02:00.002-06:00

This week's theme is perspective.

As time goes by, thoughts become smaller.

Books - Book Review - The Eaves of Heaven - A Life in Three Wars - Andrew Pham

2010-03-01T19:37:00.004-06:00

This is my third book for the War Through the Generations - 2010 Challenge: Vietnam. This is my third book in this challenge.

Pham fictionalized the life of his father and wrote this novel, who survived three wars: Japanese occupation during WWII, the French occupation and the Vietnam War.

The main character, Thong Van Pham, starts the story as a rich boy in a large family in a country mansion in northern Vietnam. His father, lived mostly in Hanoi, but would come to the country once in awhile.

I enjoyed learning how Thong's family gained power. "As was customary in the feudal order for the richest man in the area, he won the privilege of lord portectorship over all the villages within a day's ride by horseback of his home. He assumed the post, raised a big family with three wives, and lived out his days in comfort...And so it went generation to generation, both lands and titles passed as birthrights from fathers to firstborn sons. By the time of my grandfather and father, ours grew to be the richest clans in the province, our holdings spreading out in the horizon."

Thong tells about childhood games. One game cleared up a question for me from Novel without a Name, about crickets. The children would collect crickets and keep them in matchboxes. Then, on certain times, the children would challenge each other to cricket fights. The champion would be the one with the uninjured and live cricket. The descriptions of the various types of crickets were amazing. Being a city girl, I've never really noticed them, except for the green ones.

However, Thong's childhood is not so peaceful. During the Japanese occupation, everyone in Vietnam had to contribute food to feed the troops. After awhile, the small farmers had nothing left for their families. Thong's family has enough food to share food twice a day. But later, there was only enough food to distribute only once a week. Thong had enough to eat, but he did notice how the others suffered.

In all the movies that I have seen, the French Legionnaires were noble men, looking for a new life. Pham writes about the crudest bunch of men that I have read about. What an eye opener.

Eventually the family left for Saigon when the Communist forces took over. Some people in the family did well in the new environment. Others pined for the old days and did nothing. And some people lived a mundane existence.But having an education made the transition from a rich family to a lower-middle class refugees a bit easier.

The novel richly relates life in a Vietnam that doesn't exist anymore. I really recommend reading this work.

Stuff - Watching Movies to Help with the Reading

2010-02-22T18:05:00.006-06:00

When the summer comes, I will once again try to finish reading Moby Dick and War and Peace.

I am having trouble with these classics; there is just too much description in them. However, I started to think of original audience for these novels and realized that movies hadn't been invented yet. So, when a novelist wanted his readers to know the world of the characters, he really had to go into details.

I've read about half of Moby Dick. Many parts of the novel bore me; I really don't need to know all the details of how to prepare a dead whale for the market. But, reading about Nantucket, before it was overrun by tourists, and learning what innkeepers served for breakfast (lobster bisque). I also laugh at some of the nautical terms; they are words that rap star use but have nasty meanings now.

I've seen both movies recently, and it will help me understand some of the background. I'll keep you updated on my reading progress later in the year.

Books - Book Review - After the Fire, a Still Small Voice

2010-02-16T19:47:00.003-06:00

This is my second book for War Through the Generations - VietnamI received my copy of After The Fire, a Still, Smal Voice from the publishers.

This novel is the story of three generations affected by different wars:
1. Leon's parents, who escaped certain death during WWII, by being smuggled from Holland to Australia, instead of going to a concentration camp. The parents had a bakery shop, and the father fought in the Korean War
2.Leon Collard, who fought in the Vietnam War and really fell apart with the death of his wife
3.Frank Collard who is Leon's son. He didn't fight in any war but has trouble with relationships.

The story is not told linearly. Leon tells the story of his parents' adjustment to Australia and the post-traumatic stress that his dad suffered after returning from the Korean War. Leon's struggle to stay in school, and later, to run the bakery by himself, is recounted in the voice of a young man.

Another stream of the novel is Leon's experiences in Vietnam, and the start of his own post-traumatic stress. When he drives around in Australia as a veteran, he experiences same thing that US Vietnam veterans experienced: scorn. Leon saw a woman with a t-shirt that said "GIRLS SAY YES TO BOYS WHO SAY NO. STAY OUT OF VIETNAM."

The third stream of the novel is Frank, telling of his relationship with his horrible father, Leon. Frank doesn't have much love for his father and manages not to have friends and has trouble with his relationships to women.

Frank moves from Canberra to Mulaburry, which seems to be in the northern Australia. It's the town where his grandparents moved, before Leon went to the Korean War.

Frank talks to Linus, an Aborigine who met Frank's grandparents. Linus was suprised that Mrs. Collard was interested in his life and experiences and called Frank "a European." Frank thought that was weird; I suppose being in Australia two generations and not knowing anything about his grandparents was enough to distance him from Europe.

This novel has some Australian slang. I've seen enough Aussie movies and read many novels to know what the words mean. However, I really want to find out what a bunyip is. Frank tells Sal that it's like Father Christmas, a ghost, birdlike, a criminal,etc. If you can help out, let me know what it is.

I finished reading this novel about a month ago, but I spent a lot of time thinking about it. For being Wyld's first novel, the construction is impressive; the streams of the stories kept my mind working. And, I realized that a main theme is emptiness: the vastness of Australia, the time spent away at war and how it affects the family, and no knowledge of one's family's past can leave a hole in the next generation's soul.

Stuff - Starting and Restarting

2010-02-09T22:35:00.006-06:00

It's time to restart my collage/creative journals. I am starting small with Muddy for Illustration Friday. Muddy doesn't have to involve dirt, but it can be something that is obscure.

Thanks to BookGirl for getting me the elusive UniBall Signo White Pen. Both of us were on the hunt for this pen, but she found the prize. I had fun creating the dots with the Signo.

Does this count as a new start or restart? You decide. When I was younger, I had a penpal; I loved receiving my letters. (This was before email existed for the general public.)

Simon also misses receiving letters, so he is starting a club that matches bloggers to the books that they like in common. Do you want to join. Read here for details!

Stuff - They Won

2010-02-08T19:30:00.002-06:00

The Saints won the Superbowl. Yeah.

Listen here to songs that are popular with the fans.

Books - Book Review - Novel without a Name - Duong Thu Huong

2010-02-03T19:32:00.003-06:00

This is my first novel for the War Through the Generations Challenge - Vietnam. I am interested Vietnam War literature. I know almost nothing about this era; I was a kid when the war ended, and there weren't really a lot of movies made of this era, like WWII.

Huong's work is about Loung, a North Vietnamese soldier who serves about 15 years. Most of the novel deals with events that happened during the 10th year of service. Quan finds out that a childhood friend, Bien, had a meltdown. Another friend, Luong, enlists Quan to get Bien to another unit, so he can have a chance to recover. However, the novel doesn't stay in that year; Quan thinks of events from his childhood and early days of his army stint.

He recalls: "This war was not simply another war against foreign aggressions; it was also our chance for a resurrection. Vietnam had been chosen by History: After the war, our country would be humanity's paradise..

Houng, the author was jailed for a time in Vietnam. Her views of the "paradise" didn't follow the company line. In the same section, she writes about Quan's views after 10 years of fighting, "..The deeper we plunged into the war, the more the memory of that first day (when the soldiers first went off to war) haunted us. The more we were tortured by the consciousness of our appalling indifference, the more searing the memory of our mother's tears."

Another snippy comment is made by two high officials, who opine that Marxism was the opiate of the people.

I enjoyed reading the metaphors, which are so different from my world. Two pale men, were not pale as ghosts, but "as pale as two crickets left too long in a match box." Quan's realization that he and his father would never understand each other led to the description of the relationship, "like two ponds in the same field with no canal to link them."

Even though Huong has a lot of descriptive and thoughtful passages, she always gets the reader back to the reality of the war. The earlies scene was of Quan and Luy burying decaying women's bodies, who had also been raped and beaten before their deaths. Dao Tien gives Quan a package to take to Tien's family: "a comb made of aircraft metal for his daughter, a scarf made of parachute netting for his wife, and an American ballpoint pen with three different colors for his son."

This novel opened my eyes to a closed society. It's not an easy read, but you will benefit from it.

Books - Book Club Discussion - Magnus Mills

2010-01-31T19:49:00.002-06:00

In mid-January, the International Fiction Book Club of New Orleans met to discuss All is Quiet on the Orient Express by Magnus Mills.

One of the members didn't really like it, because she said that nothing really happens in the novel, but she ended up liking it.

The other two members liked it, because it was a quiet but eerie novel. Not much does happen, but what happens is spooky. The narrator camps in the Lake District of England during the late summer and never manages to leave. The townspeople want him to stay, because they kind of like him. However, everyone keeps taking advantage of him.

We discussed all the little events and laughed. All of us enjoyed Mills' dry humor. But none of us want to live in that little town in the Lake District.

Books - Book Reviews - Cemeteries of NO-A Journey through the Cities of the Dead-J. Arriago & L. McElroy and Images of America-NO Cemeteries-E. Brock

2010-01-31T17:13:00.010-06:00

As a new Board of Director of Save Our Cemetaries, I need to catch up with these historic but quiet places. So, I decided to read and look at the beautiful pictures of Cemeteries of New Orleans - A Journey through the Cities of the Dead - Jan Arriago and Laura McElroy and Images of America - New Orleans Cemeteries - Eric Brock. (Arriago's books counts as my first challenge read of 2010 for Wish I'd Read That Challenge 2010.)

I knew people are buried above ground due to the water table is too low and no one wanted their dead to float awy. But, I also found that Spain and France have similar burial methods, and the water tables are not as low those in New Orleans. However, the Jewish cemeteries follow ancient customs of in-ground burial.

I learned that a lot of famous people are buried here:

Ernest Bellocq - Photographer of Storyville (St. Louis Cemetery #3)
Buddy Bolden - Jazz great (Holt Cemetery)
Jefferson Davis - President of the Confederate States of America (Metairie Cemetery)
Ruth Fertel - founder of Ruth's Steakhouse (Metarie Cemetery)
Marie Laveau - Vooddo Queen (St. Louis Cemetery #1)
Homer Plesssey - plantiff in the Plessey vs Ferguson Supreme Court case (St. Louis Cemetary #1)
John K. Toole - author of A Confederacy of Dunces (Greenwood Cemetery)

Brock's photographs are in black and white, but it includes pictures from the late 1800s and 1900s. It also has pictures of the Girod Cemetery, which no longer exists. (It was rumored that the New Orleans Saints couldn't win, because the Superdome was built over Girod). Arrigo's and Atwood's book has color pictures of not only New Orleans cemeteries but of ones in towns near the city and depictions of local customs.

I enjoyed looking at the pictures. I often drive by many of the cemeteries shown in these books on my way to work and take it for granted. There are many beautiful sculptures there.

Stuff - Save Our Cemeteries

2010-01-30T18:42:00.005-06:00

I received this email from Save our Cemeteries, of which I am now a Board of Directors Members. However, I have edited the contents, so I won't get sued by the NFL (National Football League). If you don't need this candle, you can order some books here.

When you order something, please mention my name, Isabel. I need to bring in a certain amount of money each year, so any little bit will help.

Show your devotion to an American football team and the preservation of New Orleans' historic cemeteries with this fleur de lis candle!

Candle features an image of fleur de lis ironwork found in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1.

All monetary proceeds support Save Our Cemeteries programming. $15 each (includes cost of shipping)

Call (504) 525-3377 or e-mail soc@saveourcemeteries.org to order yours today!

Stuff - New Orleans Saints Going to the Super Bowl

2010-01-24T21:44:00.005-06:00

I didn't watch the entire game. I must confess: I don't know the rules of football and don't like it that the clock stops, unlike the real football (soccer).

I was switching among three shows: the game, Law and Order: CI, and Emma by Jane Austen.

So, to fake it at work, I will ask: Where will Archie Manning sit at the Super Bowl? Archie used to be a Saints quaterback. One of his sons, Peyton, plays for the Indianapolis Colts, the other team to play at the Super Bowl.

Please keep my secret. I am happy but not terribly excited. My neighbors are happy though; I hear firecrackers going off.

Books - Book Review - The Year of the Flood - Margaret Atwood

2010-01-15T17:35:00.006-06:00

From reading other blogs, I have concluded that there are two camps of Atwood's fiction readers: those who love the dystopian/sci fi/speculative fiction novels and those who really like her other works, such as The Robber Bride and The Blind Assassin.

I am of the dystopian/sci fi camp. I looved The Handmaid's Tale and prefer the darker works. So, this review will incorporate this viewpoint.

First of all, this is a companion of her previous novel, Oryx and Crake (2003). If you haven't read it, you can read The Year of the Flood first, and it won't affect your understanding. (In fact, some characters that are briefly mentioned in Oryx and Crake have a prominent role in Flood and visa-versa.)

The Year of the Flood is set in the North American continent, probably the U.S. There are three divisions of people, the have-nots, the genetics people, and the semi-have nots. Oryx and Crake deals with the people related to the scientists, administrators, and families related to those who develop the new genetically enhanced foods, animals, and people. The Flood examines people that were middle-class and have moved to the semi-have nots (those who cater to the genetics people) or have lost it all and don't live very well (the sex workers, the fast food servers, the garbage collectors, and the roving gangs).

A fourth group, which is the main group discussed in this novel, are God's Gardners, who live outside the other people. They try to grow all their food, despite the droughts and lack of farming knowledge (which they are getting back by experimentation and maybe reading old books), reject all the new genetically enhanced products, and recycle whatever they can. They recruit new members by walking around the city and singing. They also rescue people from horrific situations.

Some new members bring their children, and some Gardeners rescue children from the streets. However, some of the children want to know what happens in the world besides the very strict domain of the Gardners and leave the group when they become adults.

The Flood is not a watery event, but a genetic infection; the origins and consequences are dealt with in Oryx and Crake. In Flood, the effects of this plague comes up the people without warning, although the Gardners have been predicting such an event for years and had been preparing provisions.

In the world of the Gardners, there is an order to living. Everyone has chores to do, which will help in the survival of the group. Everyday is a day of a Saint, but not necessary Catholic ones. Some are 20th Century scientists, like Saint Dian Fossey-Martyr (Biologist and defender of Gorrillas) and Saint Crick (DNA co-discoverer.

There is a service, similar to a Mass, in which Adam One gives a sermon on the Saint Day and everyone sings a song from the Oral Hymnbook. Some bloggers found this section annoying, but I enjoyed imagining what the song would sound like. Then, I listened to this sample and found out how close my imigination was to these musicians: click here and scroll down.

The novel goes back and forth in time. You need to read the time period at the beginning of each chapter, so you know where you are. Also Ren and Toby alternate in telling of the story, with a sermon and song from Adam One in each section

Toby, an Eve, who used to work in a fast food joint and was raped by her boss almost daily until she joined the Gardners, was trying to hide from some liobams on St. Crick's Day. "The lion-sheep splice was commissed by the Lion Isaiahists in order to force the advent of the Peaceable Kingdom. They'd reasoned that the only way to fulfill the lion/lamb friendship withou the first eating the second would be to meld the two of them together. But the result hadn't been strictly vegetarian. Still, the liobams seem gentle enough, with their curly golden hair and twirling tails..(the sound they make)...It's an odd combination of baa and roar: a bloar, thinks Toby.."

This short passage shows Atwood's imagination in describing a new world and her knowledge of Christianity with High Anglican/Catholic teachings, applied in an unexpected manner.

The world of the Flood is not a pleasant one for those who are not in power. It's very dark; I would suggest that if you read this, that you do so when you are in a cheerful mood.

The structure of the novel and the world that Atwood invents is different, and I enjoyed it.

I predict that the next novels about this time period will tell us why some people survived or how did the have-nots society survive before and after the Flood, and how the corporations rose to power and made distinctions on who lived well and who was not important.

Here are some recent reviews and comments: Caribou's Mom,Simon, Trevor, and Mae.

Stuff - Running Away from Home

2010-01-13T19:43:00.005-06:00

An Artic Blast reached the Deep South these past few days. It dropped to the 20sF at night (-6C or so.)

The heater decided to emit carbon dioxide, so I started using an electric heater. I was still cold.

We decide to go to a hotel. I call my friend, who is able to accomodate us.(Thank you, PD!)

This is the first time that I have played tourist in my hometown. Although, I didn't walk too much in the French Quarter; the entire weekend was too cold.

I slept in a corner attic room. Very nice and quiet.

We stayed there from Friday 8th to this morning.

One good thing out of all of this is that my electric bill will be lower than everyone else in the city. And, I was able to catch up on some reviews and start some new novels.

Maybe I can return to the Hotel St. Marie in the Fall to be able to enjoy the experience of being a tourist.

Books - Book Review - Bel Canto - Ann Patchett

2010-01-12T12:01:00.000-06:00

This novel was the last 2009 read for the International Fiction Book Group of New Orleans. At that meeting, I had just 30 pages to read the book and wasn't able to finish until late December.

This novel is set in Lima, Peru in the 1990s. The event that inspired this novel was a terrorist takeover of the Japanese Embassy in Peru in 1997.

(A little personal aside: my mom met one of the real hostages, when he was a Naval cadet. He is now the Vice-President of Peru'.)

In the novel, the setting is the Vice-President's home. The terrorists were trying to capture the Japanese-Peruvian president at a party held in honor of Japanese businessman, Hosokawa. The president stayed home to watch a soap opera. (In Latin America, soap operas last 2 or 3 months and are very addicting. My father lovves a couple of them.)

The terrorist are disappointed to capture only the vice-president and an opera singer, Roxanne Coss, and other foreigners.

During the seige, the men are really challenged. Many are used to busy lives and have a hard time keeping themselves entertained. Hosokawa just can't believe that his days are so slooow. The vice-president, feeling that he has to be a perfect host, starts to notice how much housework there is to be done, especially when everyone starts to throw trash on the floor and be generally messy. Coss acts like a diva, but she can get away with it, because she sings and bewitches everyone with her voice. When everyone starts getting hungry, they expect Coss to cook, and she haughtily declines. One of the Frenchmen volunteers to be the cook and teaches some other hostages and terrorists to help him out.

Everyone is surprised how young some of the terrorists were. Many were teens who could barely read in Spanish and some spoke more Quehua than Spanish.

Hosokawa's translator, Gen, was the only person who didn't rest. A gifted linguist, he spent his days translating conversations into Spanish, Japanese, Russian, French, English, German, and another one, I think.

Gen's skills interested Carmen, one of the young terrorists. She "wished that she could see inside his mind. She wondered if it would look crowded with words, compartments of language carefully fitted on top of each other. Her own brain, by comparison, would be an empty closet."

Carmen didn't have low self esteem, but she realizes that her life experiences were limited. She barely read Spanish, had not traveled much, except for this takeover. When she heard the Peruvians or Gen talk about art, music, culture, or books, she knew nothing about them. However, Gen realized her quick mind and started to teach her to read Spanish. She was learning a lot and desired to start on English.

This novel won the 2002 Orange Prize for Fiction. and 2002 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.

I liked this novel. I enjoyed reading about the men having nothing to do and learned about music.

Books - Book Review - In Other Rooms. Other Worlds - Daniyal Mueenuddin

2010-01-12T06:41:00.001-06:00

After hearing an author interview on PBS, I decided to give myself this book for Christmas!

This work is a collection of short stories. However, the common thread in the story is K.K. Harouni, a businessman and landowner in Pakistan. The stories are about his family and his servants. His person gives his view of Mr. Harouni plus we get a peak at life of many people in Pakistan, ranging from the very rich to the very poor.

Mueenuddin beautifully captured the lives of his characters. And, I was able to see how difficult life is in Pakistan, even for the richer women. I will re-read this collection in the summer and give another review at that time.

In the meantime, if you need to read a work for an international reading challenge, make sure to add this collection to your TBR.

Books - Book Review - The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins

2010-01-10T11:26:00.004-06:00

I read this book over the Christmas holidays; it was on my relative's nightstand.

This dystopic novel is set in the new United States. Denver is now the capitol. Cities in the eastern seaboard don't exist. There are 12 districts that rebelled against the rulers, and they have to pay a tribute each year as punishment. (The 13th district was wiped out completely shortly before the story began.)

Most people in the districts don't live well. To supplement their food supply, Katniss Everdeen poaches with a friend and trades some catches at a nasty market. If the hunting is bad, she and her family eat rats. Katniss also gathers herbs and berries, during her hunts. She is a teen and is not at school full-time.

The tribute is to send a teen boy and girl from each district to Denver to fight to the death. Imagine a combination of gladitor style games with "Survivor" reality show: the participants are dropped into different environments in each contest, hunt for their food and water, and plan to kill each other, until one person is left alive. All citizens have to watch. But, people in the Capitol want action;One year was considered boring; everyone died of thirst in the desert.

The winner gets more food and honor for the district.

This novel is a well-written YA novel, but I think it's rather brutal. However, if young people have watched Lord of the Rings or other recent movies that are a bit violent, then they shouldn't get nightmares.

Collins' world is totally believable. I was engrossed in the novel. If you want young people to read books, they should enjoy this work.

Books - Book Review - The Book of Fathers - Miklos Vamos

2010-01-09T21:39:00.004-06:00

I received a copy of this novel from Mr. Viardo from Blue Dot Literary, LLC.

The Book of Fathers was originally written in Hungarian. It follows the first born sons of the Csillag / Stern family, starting in the 1700s to the present day. There is a family tree in this edition of the novel so you can keep track of the family, and the name changes that happened over the years.

The first Csillag that we met is a printer who is leaving Germany and returning to his home country of Hungary, because he has heard that the infighting is now over.

He keeps a journal in which he writes what has happened to him. He is also teaching his grandson how to read and write. He and his little family encounter some fighting, but his grandson manages to keep the journal and stayed in Hungary.

The grandson soon realizes that as he reads the journal, he can visualize the events described as they occur. As I read the novel, I found out that all the first-born males in the family have this gift, and later, some can even see the future, although it's not clear.

Another gift that the first-born sons have is an extraordinary gift for music, languages, or business. And if an ancestor had the gift, the later first-born son develops his own gift and can also remember all that the ancestor did, so that descendant is stronger in that area than his ancestor was. For example, one Csillag / Stern was strong in signing. Another one also excelled in music and could play the same pieces that the musically-inclined Csillag/Stern played many years ago.

Richard Stern is one of these linguists. He knows several languages before going to Paris to learn more. He also writes a lot in the journal. "The lesson is that one must speak up if one is convinced somehting is right, whatever the cost, because not standing by one's beliefs is also a defeat and the thought of it will grow as much thereafter."

He also writes about an egg-shaped clock that has been handed down the generations and has been repaired recently. "But it remains a temperamental little creature, as it were not a timepiece but a traveler adrift in time. It loses a month or two now and then; on occasion it can be a decade in error."

Each generation has to overcome some sort of problem (mostly political). One way to adapt was to move to another country or change the last name to reflect the current ruler of Hungary. This family moved back and forth from Hungary a lot. The amount of travel really amazed me. I had the idea that Europeans stayed close to home as much as possible.

The only historical event that was not covered and would have been interesting was the 1956 Hungarian Revolution against the Communist powers. But by this time in the novel, the Csillags were living in another continent, so events in Hungary were not as significant in the latter parts of the novel.

I never realized how fluid the borders of this country was until I read this novel; I thought that Poland changed hands the most throughout history.
Hungary also had a similar fate as Poland.

It was also interesting to learn about the formation of Budapest and the rich, cultural events that took place there.

This novel is long, so you should read it when you are in the right mood. If not, you will lose your place, even though the family tree should help keep track of the characters. Sometimes, one character goes back into the past more than the others, which could lead to some confusion.

However, I did enjoy this family saga a great deal and would recommend this novel, especially if you like the concept of the first-born's visions and memories and learning about Hungary.

Books - Book Review - The Glass Room - Simon Mawer

2010-01-09T19:36:00.005-06:00

I received my copy of this novel, courtesy of Mr. Viardo of Blue Dot Literary, LLC.

The novel starts after World War I in former Czechoslovakia and ends in the present day. The Real Glass Room is located in Brno, Czech Republic. My version of the novel shows line drawings of different parts of the exterior of the house at the start of different sections of the story.

Viktor and Liesel Landauer marry and honeymoon in Venice. They meet the great architect, Rainer von Abt, who is later designs their modern home. von Abt wishes "to take Man out of the cave and float him in the air. I wish to give him, a glass space to inhabit."

The Landauers see the home to completion and enjoy it until Hitler comes into power. Viktor is a non-religious Jew, but he foresees a bad future ahead.

They leave their home, and the story continues. The home becomes like another character in the novel.

The room entralls everyone who sees it. After WWII is over, the home is taken over by the Communist Party and becomes a physicial therapy clinic for children who have deformed limbs.

Tomas, a doctor, pauses after a busy day. This passage also explains the difficulty of translation. He "referred to the gymnasium as the Glass Room. There is a language problem here. The word used for room, pokoj,
can also mean peace, tranquility, quiet...The place appeared quite withoutto period or style - just a space of light and stillness, where, when his work was over, he could be with Zdenka."

One of Leisel's friends, Hana, is later an important official who is interested in saving the home. We also find out what happened to the Landauers and to their driver, who was the caretaker of the house during WWII.

I liked several aspects of this novel: the discussion of modern architecture and language, learning of other early, luxury automobiles besides Cadillac and Rolls Royce, and Mongolian soldiers.

This novel was shortlisted for last year's Man Booker Awards and was worthy of the honor. It was a multi-layered read that I enjoyed a lot.

Books - My "Library"

2010-01-04T20:08:00.008-06:00

I have two built-in bookcases in my closet. It's nice to keep my stuff in one place.

Many bloggers have shown pictures of their libraries. And here is mine.

This is the bookcase on the left side. These books are my needlework books (crochet, knitting, and tatting) and some of my needles.

This is also on the left side. It's my creative journal section. Books and some of the my supplies.

The other bookcase is on the right side. The books on the left are the ones that I need to blog about. The stack in the middle are my journals about books that I've read. The right bunch are the books in my "Keep Pile."

The books and magazines on the left are my writing inspirations. The books in the middle and right are my TBR piles.

My next shelf are all the unfinished journals that I have. (I need to stop buying them for a bit) and some of my bookmarks.

I've had fun organizing my "library". I found some items that I've been missing. And also got rid of some papers.

Books - 2 Winners in Challenge

2009-12-29T19:21:00.004-06:00

My reading challenge was over two days ago, but I just notified the last winners!

Congratulations to:

4th Quarter Reader - Susan of Well-Mannered Frivolity

Prizes include: 2 Moleskin Notebooks, Persephone bookmark, a pencil, and a rabbit postcard by Teesha.

For reading all 9 books in the challenge - Cafe Shree

Prizes include: Occupied City by David Peace, a handmade journal (with letters) by BookGirl’s Studio, a rabbit postcard by Teesha, and a Moleskin notebook.

I enjoyed hosting this challenge and am seriously thinking of doing another one.

Greetings

2009-12-28T19:03:00.003-06:00

I hope that you had a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Winter Soltice!

I just came back from Texas and have a lot to do:

1. Announce two winners for my Reading Challenge. I'll take care of that in the next two days.

2. Write reviews for: The Year of the Flood (Margaret Atwood), The Glass Room (Simon Mawer), The Book of Fathers (Miklos Vamos), and The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins).

3. Get together with some friends who arrived in the New Orleans area for the holidays.

4. Get an oil change for the car.

5. Catch up with my favorite blogs.

Hope your holiday is also fun!

Blogs That I Visit

2009-12-25T21:15:00.006-06:00

BOOK BLOGS

I follow a few and use their links to get to other blogs

That's why my list is so short.

BOOK FESTIVALS

FAVORITE LOCAL BOOKSTORES

HAIKU

Ashi Words
Beatrice
Jem
Kami Haiku
The Four Seasons of Haiku (and I am a writer also)
Zen Speug

I have also participated in Haiku Winter 2006 to Spring 2009

FUN!

VISUAL & CREATIVE

2010 Reading Challenges

2009-12-25T21:00:00.004-06:00

If you need to find reading challenges, go to A NOVEL CHALLENGES!

(NOTE: ** = Finished reading and reviewing the book)

This is part of my reading plan for 2010.

Wish I'd Read That Challenge 2010

I received these books as presents and haven't read them yet.

Travels with Charley - John Steinbeck

The Winter of Our Discontent - John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

I need to read more poems and short stories in my TBR.

Fume o Peak - John McDonald

New Voices - A Collection of Soviet Short Stories - Raduga Publications - Moscow

Shorter Fiction - Oscar Wilde

I read these books and forgot to blog about them. So, I will re-read them and review them this time.

Lady Susan - Jane Austen

**On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan **

Martin Sloan - Michael Redhill

I am a Board Member of Save Our Cemeteries and need to read about them.

**Cemeteries of New Orleans - A Journey through the Cities of the Dead - Jan Arriago and Laura McElroy**

New Orleans Architecture - Vol. III - The Cemeteries - Leonard Huber, Peggy McDowell, and Mary Christovich

War Through the Generations - Vietnam

**Novel without a Name - Duong Thu Huong**

The Unwanted: A Memoir of Childhood - Kien Nguyen

**The Eaves of Heaven: A Life in Three Wars - Andrew Pham**

This Must Be My Brother - Leann Thieman and Carol Dey

**After the Fire, A Still Small Voice - Evie Wyld**

2010 Reading Resolutions Challenge - My goal is to read the TBR books that are 3 years or older or books that I didn't finish in last year's challenges.

1. Moby Dick - Herman Melville (I've read about 3/4 the book on Daily Lit but won't finish it before Christmas 2009)
2. Aesop's Fables (I've read about 1/2 book and don't think that I can finish by Christmas 2009)

The following are in my TBR and need to be finished:

3. Wildflower - Nick Bantock

4. Fort Amity - A Story of French Canadian Life in the Time of Wolfe and Montecalm by "Q" (A. T. Quiller-Couch)

5. To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf

6. We - Evgeny Zamyatin