Reading log: February

February has not been a productive reading month. It's the shortest month of the year, and on top of that, I've grown increasingly distracted (in a good way) with planning for our Spain trip.

The Place You Love is Gone by Melissa Holbrook Pierson
Grade: B- Pierson's elegy to her lost hometowns is poignant in parts, and obnoxiously preachy in others ("we have sold our birthright to the devil in exchange for a wide selection of bath mats"... barf). Sadly, one of her main points--that everyone develops their own specific language of signs and symbols that define their personal brand of nostalgia--definitely applies here. I was so not moved.


The Fated Sky: Astrology in History by Benson Bobrick
Grade: A- I don't usually love history books, but hot damn, this was a good one. I have to ding it half a grade because I don't think any collection of "wow, neat-o!" moments throughout history, no matter how well-written it is, can shake me up and change the way I think forever. As far as the validity of astrology itself, I'm still a skeptic, though it sounds like some of the really old-school pure mathematics-based stuff just might hold some water: Bobrick does a blind reading of Hitler's birth chart using principles from Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos and comes up with some specific conclusions that seem a bit too dead-on to be mere coincidences.

Next up: a book on social engineering and human experiments (yikes)... probably the only book I'll be reading in all of March because I'll be too busy stuffing my face with gateau Basque. ;-)

Reading Log: January

January was the month of anti-heroes...

Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie
Grade: A
Visceral, full-bodied writing + an unstoppable plot + sassy characters you probably wouldn't want to run into in real life + well-executed magical realism... it's no wonder the LA Times Book Review drew comparisons to Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Quentin Tarantino. Really, really amazing.

Atonement by Ian McEwan
Grade: A
I loved this book about as much as Rushdie's, but for opposite reasons (Shalimar the Clown : a juicy Zinfandel :: Atonement : a grassy, crisp Sauvignon Blanc ::*). McEwan's book is all about a controlled unveiling of a carefully architected plot, but it somehow manages to be very passionate throughout, even in its restraint.

Villages by John Updike
Grade: B+
After reading a novel set in a disputed area of Kashmir and another novel that centered around Victorian England and World War I, what better way to lighten up the month than to bear witness to the tribulations of a adulterous computer programmer in Connecticut? I really did enjoy reading this book, as hollow as it sometimes felt compared to the previous two novels, but it lost big points with me for two reasons: (1) pardon the ageism, but it was disturbing to read extremely graphic sex scenes written by a 75-year-old man, and (2) female characters were consistently simple-minded fools who serve as supports to Updike's simple-minded generalizations about women.

*Sorry for the lame wine analogy. I couldn't resist. Paired with the nerdy analogy structure, I should really be ashamed--but it's funny, right? Please continue being friends with me.

Reading Log: December

Happy New Year, everyone! Having some time off for the holidays has been great--I got a chance to celebrate Christmas with my family, run around Point Reyes with Eli and his parents, catch up on Six Feet Under (4th season now), bake macaroons, and sleep in most days. New Year's Eve was spent enjoying the triple threat of brunch, shopping, and Keyvan, followed by some Chinese takeout, Korbel (Ronni, we thought of you), and a shockingly graphic History Channel documentary. Though I can't say I'm quite ready to go back to work, I've had a pretty good run.

I also got a chance to read! I really didn't think I was going to make my four-book goal this month--I blame caffeine withdrawal and the glacial plotline of Never Let Me Go--but a chunk of sweet, unstructured time came in and saved the day.

Bad Girls of Japan, edited by Laura Miller and Jan Bardsley
Grade: A- A fascinating collection of essays on how traditional female gender roles have been turned on their heads in Japan, from the cannibalistic mountain witches of Japanese folklore to the brand craze that had modern-day shoppers hooked on luxury goods. I did find some of the analysis to be a stretch (schoolgirls making ugly faces in photo booths equals subversion?), but academia must be indulged here and there.

Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro
Grade: B- Creepy and atmospheric, yes. "Wrenchingly desolate", no. This book got great reviews from critics, but I should have known it was going to be less than awesome when Amazon recommended it to me. :)

The Basque History of the World, by Mark Kurlansky
Grade: A-. I have always wanted to travel to Spain, and to San Sebastian in particular, but I never knew very much about Basque or Spanish history beyond a few proper nouns seared into my memory from my high school Spanish textbooks. I was totally drawn in by Kurlansky's obvious love of his subject (Basques are cool, seriously--did you know they were expert whalers and were the first to bring chocolate to Europe?) and his cheerful attention to detail.

The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama
Grade: A- Obama lays out his stances on "the issues" with elegant, emotive prose. I found myself unsatisfied at times with some positions that appeared precariously balanced--in seeing both sides, the cynic in me alleges that he's simply trying to stay marketable to as many people as possible. But one of Obama's core themes that resonated with me is that the real world's complex problems demand nuanced treatment and substantive, empathetic debate, in place of the stark and oversimplified polarizations that are so common in today's politics.

Reading Log: November

This was a yawn of a reading month. Maybe these were just the wrong books at the wrong time...

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer
Grade: B. Quirky, touching, and very human... but I really need to stop reading books narrated by eccentric/misunderstood kids.

No Country for Old Men, by Cormac McCarthy
Grade: B+. Like watching a really thoughtfully directed, masterfully acted, gorgeously shot... action movie. Ooh--or having a glass of really fancy scotch on the rocks. I know it's special and worthy of acclaim... but I didn't enjoy reading it very much. It's not like Cormac wrote this book for a girly girl like me anyway.

On Beauty, by Zadie Smith
Grade: B. An entertaining read once you get past all the inaccurately rendered American slang. I'm not the hugest fan of Zadie Smith's writing style, but this made for a pretty interesting story, if not the groundbreaking look at intersections of race and class that I was hoping to get.

The Cultural Politics of Food and Eating, edited by James Watson and Melissa Caldwell
Grade: B. With all the novels this month, I was ready to go back to non-fiction. Full-blown academic writing, however, felt a bit taxing. Still, lots of cool stuff in this volume--fast food in developing countries, the marketing of coffee in the US, the politics of artisanal chocolates in France... sadly, nothing on Thanksgiving.

This was kind of a sad roundup... I've got my fingers crossed for December. :)

Reading Log: October - Happy Halloween!

There appears to be a seasonal bent to my reading selections this month, a lot of books that were Halloween-y (from genetic mutations, to the afterlife, to the Japanese beauty industry); belonging and identity were another running theme.

Heavy Words, Lightly Thrown: The Reason Behind the Rhyme, by Chris Roberts
Grade: D. This book looked so promising: scores of etymological mysteries solved--with bawdy, morbid, delightfully British explanations! But no, it was drier than a blacksmith's boot.

The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri
Grade: B+. This novel centers around a first-generation Bengali family and the bittersweet coming-of-age story of their son, named after Russian writer Nikolai Gogol. Lahiri really has a gift for describing those complex, compound feelings that characterize growing up between two cultures.

Mutants: On Genetic Variety and the Human Body, by Armand Marie Leroi
Grade: A. I love good science writing, and this is it. There's lots of stuff in here that will make your stomach turn (extra renegade skeleton??!?), but Leroi is also quick to point out the beautifully intricate orchestrations that make order and life possible in the first place.

Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, by Mary Roach
Grade: B-. This book isn't nearly as joyous an undertaking as Roach's previous book on human cadavers--you get the feeling she was a little bored the entire time she was sniffing out the answers--and while I still love her sense of humor, there was a lot of uncharted territory here that wasn't covered. Still a fun read.

Beauty Up: Exploring Contemporary Japanese Body Aesthetics, by Laura Miller
Grade: B. This was the first real academic book I've read since college, and while at times it definitely read like a dissertation (reifications, anyone?), it was such an interesting and refreshing take on gender studies and Japan studies. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and not everyone is trying to emulate the West. Bam!

I haven't forgotten about our trip to Vegas. You'll hear about it soon, I promise. Hopefully, Eli will make a guest blogger appearance. :-P

Reading Log: September

I love to read, but it has been hard to make time for it. Not so, after moving to Cupertino!

My goal is to read 4 or 5 books a month, roughly one a week, so to borrow a page from Young's playbook, I'm going to keep track of the books I read every month to keep myself accountable and record my impressions. I used to keep a reading log in my sassy Jordi Labanda blank book, but it's labor-intensive to write out all the quotes I like by hand.

x The Sea, John Banville (B+; beautiful/pompous)

I was plagued by coincidences; long-forgotten things were suddenly remembered; objects turned up that for years had been lost. My life seemed to be parsing before me, not in a flash as it is said to do for those about to drown, but in a sort of leisurely convulsion, emptying itself of its secrets and its quotidian mysteries in preparation for the moment when I must step into the black boat on the shadowed river with the coin of passage cold in my already coldening hand.

x Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously, Julie Powell (B; a fun read, if a bit self-indulgent)

The reason people despise liver is that to eat it you must submit to it... you've got to give yourself over to everything that's a little repulsive, a little scary, a little just too much about it... you can never get away from the feral fleshiness of it.

x The History of Love, Nicole Krauss (A; I wholeheartedly agree with the Washington Post's review--it's "at least as heartbreaking as it is hilarious")

Sometimes I thought about nothing and sometimes I thought about my life. At least I made a living. What kind of living? A living. I lived. It wasn't easy. And yet. I found out how little is unbearable.

x The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Mark Haddon (B; charming, sort of pointless)

All the other children at my school are stupid... I'm meant to say that they have learning difficulties or that they have special needs. But this is stupid because everyone has learning difficulties because learning to speak French or understanding relativity is difficult and also everyone has special needs, like Father, who has to carry a little packet of artificial sweetening tablets around with him to put in is coffee to stop him from getting fat, or Mrs. Peters, who wears a beige-colored hearing aid... none of these people are Special Needs, even if they have special needs.

Now if I could only muster up the courage to keep myself just as publicly accountable for my fitness goals... ;-)