Year in Review

There is no way I am going to finish Great Expectations by the end of the year--I am halfway through Volume II--so I thought I would post my 2007 stats. With everything going on this year, I'm surprised I was able to read as much as I did.

I only had three 2007 Reading Goals. I reached two of the three goals.
1. Read 65 books
2. Read 20,000 pages.
2. Have 25% of books read be non-fiction

Total books read: 76
Total pages: 27,572
Total non-fiction: 13 (17%). This is better than last year, non-fiction only counted as 11% of total books. So there was improvement!

• Books written by women: 58
• Classics: 10
• Mysteries: 9
• Books in translation: 9
• North (& Central American) authors: 30
• South American authors: 2
• European: 12
• African: 4
• Asia: 8
• Australian/Oceania: 1
• Books borrowed from the library: 40
• Re-reads: 9
  

Weekend Book Acquisitions

I'm tired, crampy, achy, and bored. So what else to do on a Sunday morning to cheer me up but go to the Baltimore Book Thing?

For those who may not remember, or are relatively new to my blog, The Book Thing is a nonprofit organization that collects any and all used books to give out to schools, libraries, shelters, prisons, soldiers in Iraq, basically anyone and anywhere that needs a book. On the weekend, they open their warehouse to the general public and you can go browse around and take as many books as you want. For free. To keep. It is my favorite place in Baltimore.

Browsing the shelves today, I saw a few books that were possibly part of the 3 boxes I donated a month or so ago. The rest seem to have found a home already, which is always a delight to think about. And, of course, I came away with a bag of my own new-to-me books. No amazing finds, like what I found last time: A pristine Catcher in the Rye with the original dustjacket, or half of the 40-something volumes of Honore de Balzac's La Comedie Humaine, with a publication date of 1896. (I will most likely be searching and/or acquiring the rest of that set for many years to come!). But I still came away with some gems:

1. Stones from the River - Ursula Hegi. I recently read a review of one of her books on another blog. Who was that? I can't seem to find it again!
2. The Tin Can Tree - Anne Tyler. Anne Tyler books are in large supply here, her hometown. I have found quite a few of her books at The Book Thing.
3. Anil's Ghost - Michael Ondaatje. Not his most well known novel, but this story takes place in Sri Lanka, Ondaatje's country of birth, and sounds intriguing.
4. The Brothers K by David James Duncan. Although this copy is slightly beat up, I was very excited to find it, I've been meaning to read this book for years.
5. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. I know this book has a lot of hype, which I have largely ignored. I can't wait to judge it for myself.
6. The Testament by Elie Wiesel. I love his non-fiction writing, so it was a joy to find one of his novels.
7. Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle. One of my favorite finds for today, I can't wait to delve into this Booker prize winning novel, in my slow but steady effort to read all of the Booker winners.
8. An Academic Question by Barbara Pym. I am acquiring quite a few Barbara Pym books, this is my sixth. They are all gems.
9. Best American Essays edited by Susan Sontag. This 1992 edition includes essays by Joan Didion, E.L. Doctorow, Jamaica Kincaid, John Updike, and Gore Vidal.
10. The Best Known Works of Henrik Ibsen. This one was published in 1928.


1. Rebecca by Daphne du Murier. I have been waiting to acquire my own copy for quite a while. Maybe now I will actually get around to reading it.
2. The Tempest by Shakespeare. Another Shakespeare to add to the collection.
3. The Constant Gardener - John Le Carre. I have never read anything by Le Carre, but I really enjoyed this movie.
4. Eva Luna by Isabel Allende. Another Allende for the collection, this is one of the few I haven't read.

New Books!

We just returned from a relaxing, albeit hot, vacation/visit with hubby's family in the Phoenix, AZ area. The temperatures barely dipped below 100 and were more frequently between 105-110. Needless to say my 32-week pregnant self spent a large amount of time in the pool!

I always return from visits with my in-laws with new books; they generously pass on paperbacks they have already read. Here are my latest acquisitions:

1. The Robber Bride - Margaret Atwood
SIGNED!!! After finding out that Margaret Atwood is one of my favorite authors, my father-in-law completely surprised me by giving me his signed copy of The Robber Bride. Woohoo!!! This book is added to my small, prized collection shelf.
2. The Egyptologist - Arthur Philips
3. The News from Paraguay - Lily Tuck
This one won the National Book Award but only averages 2 stars on Amazon. My in-laws liked it, I look forward to finding out for myself how it is.
4. The Great World - David Malouf
5. The Winter Queen - Boris Akunin
This is the first book in a historical mystery series that is very well known in Russia.
6. Seven Types of Ambiguity - Elliot Perlman
7. The Peppered Moth - Margaret Drabble


The little monkey is one of the gifts we received at the baby shower that was given for us. This little guy, a Miyim organic monkey (no pretensions here, he's as natural as can be), also happens to be a book lover! Until Maya is old enough to name him, we shall call him Darwin.

The Booker Short List has arrived

The Booker judges announced in London yesterday that they have laid another egg, and have come to a decision on the shortlist.

The six short-listed books are:

• Darkmans by Nicola Barker
• The Gathering by Anne Enright
• The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
• Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones
• On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
• Animal's People by Indra Sinha

And for those who did not see the Chair's blog entry after the announcement of the long list, you don't want to miss this metaphor:

The atmosphere in the judging room was somewhere between a book club and a maternity ward. What could be more agreeable than a freeform discussion of 110 novels, when you know that everyone else in the room has read them all and - even better - is obliged to display at least a polite interest in your exciting views? The only fly in the conversational ointment is that you are under the cosh to deliver 13 favourites at the end of it all.

Around five o'clock we gave birth, with Ion Trewin as an unlikely bearded midwife.

The Best Novels in My Opinion

I have decided to start compiling a list of novels that I consider the cream of the crop, including both classic and contemporary authors.

This list is followed by a much shorter list of authors I am supposed to like, and many others love, but I do not. Of course, I am only listing books I have already read, which is why you might spot some gaps, but I hope to come back to this list to update it over time. An author is only represented once: if I love many of their books, I have chosen the one I love the most.

• Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. A gem from the African continent, and one of the best portrayals of the introduction and impact of colonists I have ever read.
• Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Purple Hibiscus. I also highly recommend Half of A Yellow Sun.
• Alcott, Louisa May. Little Women.
• Allende, Isabel. The House of the Spirits.
  
• Anonymous. One Thousand and One Nights. I never grow tired of these enchanting tales, and adventures with Scherazade, Ali Baba, Aladdin, and Sinbad the Sailor, to name a few.
  
• Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid's Tale. I love many of her books, but this remains my favorite.
• Austen, Jane. Emma. I have yet to read Pride and Prejudice, so we shall see if Emma remains my favorite of her works.
• Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. I revel in Jane's outlook on life, her tenacity, and unfailing goodness.
• Cather, Willa. O Pioneers.
• Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. An emotional (and at the time it was written, taboo) journey that is not easily forgotten.
• Christie, Agatha. A Caribbean Mystery. The grand Dame of mysteries. It was hard to pick just one.
• Diamant, Anita. The Red Tent.
• Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...
  
• Dreiser, Theodore. Sister Carrie.
• Dumas, Alexandre. The Three Musketeers. There is no adventure to big for this delightful trio.
• Greene, Graham. The Heart of the Matter. I started reading Graham not sure I would like him. What a wonderful surprise to see how much I enjoy his books!
• Garcia, Cristina. Dreaming in Cuban. This book was my first introduction to magical realism (which led me to Allende, Marquez, and many others). It remains one of my favorites in that genre.
• Golding, William. Lord of the Flies.
• Hardy, Thomas. Tess of the D'urbervilles.
• Hesse, Herman. Siddartha. In the shade of a banyan tree, a classic story is born.
  
• Hemingway, Ernest. Old Man and the Sea. I'm generally not a fan of Hemingway, but this short novel holds a special place in my heart.
• Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner. Of all the books published in the 2000's that I have read, this is one of the best.
• Hugo, Victor. Les Miserables.
  
• Kidd, Sue Monk. The Secret Life of Bees.
• Kingsolver, Barbara. The Poisonwood Bible. I read this quite a few years ago, but the story still haunts me.
• Lamb, Wally. She's Come Undone.
  
• Lee, Harper. To Kill A Mockingbird.
  
• Marquez, Gabriel Garcia. One Hundred Years of Solitude.
• Martel, Yann. Life of Pi. A magical reading experience that makes you want to start all over when you turn the last page.
• McCullers, Carson. The Member of the Wedding. There's just something about Frankie that grabs your heart and holds on tight. Although, Bone in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter ranks up there, as well.
• Mitchell, Margaret. Gone With the Wind. What can I say but, divine!
• Montgomery, L.M. Anne of Green Gables. I always believed Anne and I were kindred spirits.
• Nobokov, Vladimir. Lolita.
  
• Orwell, George. 1984. Eerily prescient today, I often reflect back on this book.
• Paterson, Katherine. Bridge to Terabithia.
  
• Pym, Barbara. Excellent Women. Her representation of a certain kind of woman of a certain generation in England is spot on. All of her books are delightful.
• Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Discovering the magical world along with Harry Potter is a true delight.
  
• Rushdie, Salman. Satanic Verses.
• Salinger, J.D. The Catcher in the Rye.
• Shakespeare. The Merchant of Venice. I really need to read more Shakespeare, I've only read 3 of his plays, but this one comes out in front of Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet.
• Shaw, George Bernard. Pygmalion.
• Shikibu, Murasaki. The Tale of Genji. This book is amazing.
  
• Smith, Zadie. White Teeth. Read this one. Skip On Beauty.
  
• Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. It is so difficult to choose just one. East of Eden, The Moon is Down, and Of Mice and Men are all great.
  
• Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom's Cabin. A must read for everyone.
• Thackeray, William Makepeace. Vanity Fair. Ah, Becky Sharp. Always the achiever.
• Tolkien, JRR. The Lord of the Rings.
  
• Tolstoy, Leo. Anna Karenina. The final scenes of this novel are permanently imprinted on my mind.
• Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse-Five.
• Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. Read the book. Then go watch the movie. Both are superb.
• White, E.B. Charlotte's Web. A heart-warming tale about friendship.
  
• Winton. Tim. Blueback: A Fable for All Ages. One of the rare times a fish has managed to capture my heart.
• Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. I know, I know, this is not fiction. But I had to throw it in. Go read it!
  
• Woolf, Virginia. Mrs Dalloway. This is the only Woolf I have read so far. If you take your time reading it, her genius shines through.
• Wright, Richard. Native Son. All of his books are an enlightening read.

Books that others love, but I do not:

• Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. Go read Chinua Achebe instead.
• Haddon, Mark. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. I am not a fan of Haddon's writing style, although his portrayal of an autistic child was very good.
  
• Naipul, V.S. The Bend in the River. I think I liked this book, but I don't remember anything about it.
  
• Paton, Alan. Cry the Beloved Country. Again, I just liked this book, didn't love it.
  
• Rand, Ayn. The Fountainhead. Blaaaaahhhh. You should have stuck to philosophy, Ayn.
• Rhys, Jean. Wide Sargasso Sea. Good. Not great.
  
• Waugh, Evelyn. Brideshead Revisited. Liked it, did not love it.
• Welty, Eudora. The Optimist's Daughter. This one is on the border. I enjoyed reading it, but when comparing it to all of the books above, I felt it didn't quite fit in.

Laura Lippman on NPR

I caught part of her interview on the Morning edition a few days ago. I never realized that her Tess Monaghan series (of which I have yet to read) is based in Baltimore.

I think Laura sums things up quite well when she says, "Anyone can love a perfect place. Loving Baltimore takes some resilience."

Laura Lippman's Baltimore: Loving A Flawed Place

Authors in Action

The start of autumn will be bringing a lot of book events to the Baltimore-DC metro area - I can't wait! My reading schedule will take some juggling to incorporate a few books by some of the authors listed below that I haven't gotten around to reading yet.

From September 28-30, Baltimore's Mt Vernon neighborhood (home to the Peabody Institute) will be hosting the Baltimore Book Festival. A celebration of Baltimore's diverse community is evident in the group of author's that will be making an appearance. A few I am looking forward to meeting and/or hearing speak are (and the books they are most well known for):

- Roya Hakakian, author of Journey from the Land of No: A Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran
- Pam Munoz Ryan, author of the young adult novel Esperanza Rising
- Tim Wise, author of White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son
- Laura Krauss Melmed, author of the children's picture book Moishe's Miracle: A Hanukkah Story"
The full list of authors appearing at the festival can be found here. One of the founders of The Paperback Swap will also be in attendance as one of the exhibitors.

Overlapping with the Baltimore Book Festival is Washington DC's 2007's National Book Festival, hosted by the Library of Congress and Laura Bush, and held on Saturday, September 29. Fortunately, the events I plan on going to at the Baltimore festival are scheduled for Friday and Sunday, or otherwise this would have been a tough decision! The National Book festival doesn't have quite as many authors I am interested in meeting this year (namely, Khaled Hosseini, I'm still a bit annoyed I missed his appearance there last year). But, there are a few:

- Sena Jeter Naslun (Ahab's Wife, which has been getting rave reviews from other bloggers and which I just checked out from the library, and her new book Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette)
- Jodi Picoult
- Susan Vreeland, author of many historical fiction novels including Girl in Hyacinth Blue, and Luncheon of the Boating Party. I hope to read Girl in Hyacinth Blue before the festival.
- Nancy Pearl, I will read Book Lust by the time of the festival!

Other well known author's coming to the DC festival include:
- Terry Pratchett
- Joyce Carol Oates
- David Baldacci
The full line-up can be found here.

Perhaps I should start setting aside some spending money now. :)

A Treasure Unearthed

Martin Memorial Library,

circa before I was born

One of my fondest memories as a child is going to the Martin Memorial Library each week in the summer, to browse through the vast collection of books, finding new treasures all the time. It wasn't until high school that I began to accumulate a library of my own. For the past few years, I thought that many of my books from my young adulthood had been lost on one of my many migrations north, south, east, and west (yes, I have traveled in all directions, and have yet to put down roots!). I had searched my parents home high and low trying to find all of them, to no avail.

And then, a few weeks ago I received a phone call. While cleaning out their garage--which happened to be filled to the brim with furniture from my grandfather's home--they discovered my boxes of missing books! It was with much delight that we picked up these little treasures yesterday. Ever since, I have been in book heaven. I had replaced some of my favorites, but there is nothing like reclaiming your original copy.Like pictures, so many books hold precious memories to me. They like to remind me how they have shaped my life, and helped make me who I am. There are the books I discovered in high school, when I was just starting to create my own uniqueness, figuring out my personality as separate from my friends. In choosing two selections I would memorize and recite in 10th grade Honor's English, (the only time in my life I ever had to memorize a part of a book) why did I choose the first paragraph of A Tale of Two Cities, and the following selection from Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice?

"I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?" (p.45, Merchant of Venice)

At 16, I was already exploring the depth of the human condition and religious tolerance (even if I may not have realized it). Like the prodigal son, I welcome with opens arms the return of my collection of Shakespeare plays I purchased over the years from the Folger Shakespeare Library. I delight in finding my beloved copy of Uncle Tom's Cabin, a book that helped me learn about slavery, more so than the lessons from my history teachers!

College introduced a whole other realm of exploration. I delighted in the dystopian and utopian literature we read in my Women's Lit class. The Handmaid's Tale was my introduction to Margaret Atwood, an acquaintance who is now firmly entrenched amongst my favorite authors. You can not imagine how happy I am to have my original copy back in my possession. I may have never discovered Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower or Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland (isn't that book cover beautiful??) if it wasn't for that class. A few anthropology classes, which eventually turned into my second major, sparked my curiosity of other cultures, and a desire for a world that accepts and embraces diversity, with books such as Waterlily by Ella Cara Deloria and The Mountain People by Colin Turnbull standing out. No Shame in My Game by Harvard anthropologist Katherine Newman does a much better job of giving a voice to low-income workers than Barbara Ehrenreich has, as she interviewed and followed almost 300 low-income workers and job seekers in Harlem.

And of course there is the following tiny article, part of the Reader for the General Writing class, a required course for all Pitt freshman, that sparked my love for Frida Kahlo:
Finally, there are all of the books that I purchased to prepare myself for an adventure abroad on Semester at Sea, and the required reading for my onboard class, Post-Colonial Literature. If only Professor what's-his-face would have started with Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart instead of Conrad's Heart of Darkness, I might have enjoyed that class. We never got around to reading Tayeb Salih's Season of Migration to the North, and alas, seven years later it is still unread. However, the readings of Wild Swans by Jung Chang, A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro, and the Bhagavad Gita all remain vividly imprinted in my mind.

The Great Harry Potter Re-Read, Part 1

The countdown here has begun. I have just started my re-read of all six Harry Potter book prior to the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on July 21. Most of the books I have only read once, so I thought the best way to usher in the final installment was to reacquaint myself with Harry, his friends, and the Hogwarts world.

In lieu of recaps, I thought I would post some random trivia about each book.

Random Trivia about Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
(aka Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone)

1. Missing text - American readers are introduced to Gryffindor House member Dean Thomas before their British counterparts. The American edition retains the following text that was edited out of the British edition: "Thomas, Dean," a Black boy even taller than Ron, joined Harry at the Gryffindor table.
Note: When I read this sentence in the novel, I also wondered why black was capitalized.

2. Word Count: The first book contains 76,944 words.

3. Title: Refers to a stone sought after by alchemists, a stone which was reputed to turn other metals into gold and to grant immortality.

4. Cover art: You can go here to see Harry Potter cover art from all over the world. The original Bloomsbury cover by Thomas Taylor includes a rather bizarre-looking figure on the back. The man in the picture really doesn't match any character in the book, although fans have speculated that it is supposed to represent eitherDumbledore or Quirrell. After a few editions, the back cover was changed with a new image, this time clearly identifiable as Dumbledore, even holding a Put-Ouer. [source here.]

Iranian Cover Art

Themed Reading

While I procrastinate a bit on getting back to Grapes of Wrath (I love the book, it's just so disheartening), I revert to a favorite procrastinating activity: list-making. So, my lists today relate to some theme-reading posts going around at the moment.

If I were to be denied book-buying, and the library, here are some theme-reads from my bookshelf in which I could occupy myself (all books I have not yet read):

Australiana:
- Australia: The New World, pub. By Granta
- Oscar and Lucinda: Peter Carey
- Living with Crazy Buttocks – Kaz Cooke

Classics by Male Authors:
- Moll Flanders – Daniel Defoe
- Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe
- The Mill on the Floss – George Eliot
- Tom Jones – Henry Fielding
- Far From the Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
- Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
- The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne

Politics/Current Events:
- Standing Alone – Asra Q. Nomani
- Jihad vs McWorld by Benjamin Barber
- Hidden Agendas – John Pilger
- The Algebra of Infinite Justice – Arundhati Roy
- International Human Rights in Context – Steiner

Plays:
- A Doll’s House – Henrik Ibsen
- Phaedra – Jean Racine
- Andromache – Jean Racine
- No Exit – Jean Paul Sartre
- The Misanthrope – Moliere
- Twenty Seven Wagons Full of Cotton - Tennessee Williams

Books By Barbara Pym:
- A Glass of Blessings
- Some Tame Gazelle
- An Unsuitable Attachment
- Sweet Dove Died

That would keep me going for a good six months, I believe!

The Book Thing

Thanks to A Work in Progress for the inspiration for the following post.

After a visit to The Book Thing in Baltimore on Sunday, I came back with some great finds. All-in-all I came away with 26 books that I have been wanting to read, or books I have read and loved but do not own.

The Book Thing is a wonderful resource, and I hope more cities pick up on a good thing. Their mission is simple, to put unwanted books into the hands of those who want them. Just imagine the thrill of walking into a used bookstore, browsing thousands and thousands of titles. Picking out some cherished favorites, you step over to the counter and record how many books will be leaving with you, smile and say thank you, and go home in utter bliss. It's like a library, except the books can be loaned out forever with no late fees! No pretensions, no admonishments for taking so many books, no requests for financial support. The quiet assumption is that whenever you are able, feel free to bring some books back to share with others. It works. The owner, Russell Wattenberg, says that an average weekend will see 10,000 books walk out of the unheated mini warehouse. For charm city, this is truly one of its greatest, and quietest charms. For every 10,000 that leave, another 10,000 are on their way in. Donations come from all over: rich families, poor families, couples moving in together and combining their books for the first time, public libraries (in a subversive and secretive way to get around beauracratic nastiness), and many many more. During the week, The Book Thing delivers books to public schools, shelters, prisons, basically, anywhere and everywhere books are needed.

So, after my most recent visit, I came away with some wonderful finds, with my favorites pictured above. Darling Isabel stands guard, admonishing me for not picking up any books by her namesake, Isabel Allende. Perusing the classics shelves I came across an old, worn copy of Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders. It was love at first sight. After picking up three more classics, Little Women, A Conneticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and The Scarlet Letter, I sauntered over to the Recommended Fiction shelves. Separated from general fiction, these are the books that are currently popular. And boy, did I get some great books! My eye quickly spotted Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and Geraldine Brooks' March (to go along with Little Women, of course!) in near-perfect condition - I was elated! Books that have been turned into movies seems to have been a theme for the day as I grabbed The Hours by Michael Cunningham and In Her Shoes by Jennifer Garner. Right next door on the mystery shelves, I was elated to find H,K,O,P and Q of Sue Grafton's Alphabet series.

I spent the next hour browsing the general fiction shelves. I came away with:

• A Patchwork Planet, by Baltimore's very own Anne Tyler
• Say When by Elizabeth Berg
• The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
  
• A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (I read this a few years ago but never owned a copy)
• The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch
• Tough Guys Don't Dance by Norman Mailer
• Lasher by Anne Rice
• Cujo by Stephen King
• For my mom: Labryinth by Kate Mosse and Puerto Vallarta Squeeze by Robert James Waller

I am in book heaven.

As for my current TBR book, The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, it's a tosser. Two challenges can not motivate me to finish this book.

The readability of the book is not the problem. But, it makes me so bloody melancholy for no apparent reason! Ayn Rand is not a novelist, she is a philosopher. I disagree with her philosophy, and I'm not about to torture myself by finishing this lengthy oratory of her
ideals with a shoddy plot, stilted dialogue, and unlikeable characters. I believe she may be one of the most over-hyped writers of the 20th century, and one of the few well-known female authors that I DID NOT LIKE.

I think I will be subsititing my alternate Untangling My Chopsticks by
Victoria Riccardi on my TBR list. But first I will read Half of A Yellow Sun, as I'm pretty sure I'm going to like this book. And that is after I finish Aman, by Virginia Lee Barnes and Janice Brody.