Doris Buchanan Smith, A Taste of Blackberries (1973) & Philippa Pearce, Bubble & Squeak (1978)

When I was in grade school, it was popular to order books from Scholastic. We'd browse the catelog & choose our books. Our parents would write the check, & our teacher would place the order. Weeks later, the books would come in & we'd all pass them around the classroom in excitement. I couldn't wait to get home & start reading.

Two of those books have stayed with me over the years, traveling from house to house, state to state with me. One of them was A Taste of Blackberries, a touching story of a boy's friend who dies of a bee sting & how the boy deals with the loss. I'm not sure why this book resonanted with me when I was 12 years old. I hadn't lost any friends & all of my relatives were still alive. Still, I remember treasuring this book as a tween, & I've kept it ever since. Rereading it now, I still really like the story, & would recommend it to any kid, whether they've experienced a loss or not.


The other Scholastic book that I kept was Bubble & Squeak. I wound up naming my own gerbils after this story. Even though I didn't remember much of the plot, I kept the book on my shelf to remind me of my little gerbil friends. Now, after reading the story again, I realize that it's not such a good influence on a kid. The mother is sneaky, the children manipulative, & the step-father is complacent. I would not recommend this book for a sprouting teenager.

Paulo Coelho, Veronika Decides to Die (1998)

A 24-year-old woman decides to commit suicide, not because she's depressed or lonely, but because she feels that she's contributed all that she can to the world & thinks it would be a waste of everyone's time if she continued living. So she takes four bottles of sleeping pills. Of course the attempt fails, & she winds up in a mental institution, where they tell her that, although she survived her attempt, she only has one week to live because she has damaged her heart beyond repair. The rest of the story chronicles her week at the crazy house & the life lessons she learns while there.

I loved Coelho's The Alchemist & so I was looking forward to reading Veronika. In both novels he tells a story to make a point. In The Alchemist, he encourages us to follow our dreams. In Veronika, he gives us reason to believe that life is worth living. Coelho's style is easy, yet profound. He really does have a point.

Sandra Cisneros, Woman Hollering Creek (1991)

I loved The House on Mango Street, so I was looking forward to reading this collection of short stories by Cisneros, who has an amazing talent for imagery. It helps to be familiar with Latino culture when reading Cisneros, who is of Mexican decent, because she peppers her stories with references to the Latino way of life.

One of the stories in this collection, "Eyes of Zapata", is an account of Emiliano Zapata's life as told through one of his lovers. I'm not very familiar with that part of Mexican history, so I didn't get as much out of it as I could have.

My favorite story was called "Eleven" in which the author writes:
"What they don't understand about birthdays & what they never tell you is that when you're eleven, you're also ten, & nine, & eight, & seven, & six, & five, & four, & three, & two, & one ... Like some days you might say something stupid, & that's the part of you that's still ten ... That's what I tell Mama when she's sad & needs to cry. Maybe she's feeling three."

Isak Dinesen, Out of Africa (1937) & Shadows on the Grass (1960)

It took me over a month to finish it, but I finally did!

Not that this was a bad read. It was really interesting to read about the experiences of a European woman living on the "frontier" of Africa at the beginning of the 20th century, especially since I know very little about the continent or its people, or the time period for that matter. I guess it was just a really long book, 462 pages to be exact.

At one point, Dinesen talks about a grumpy old Danish man who lived on her farm in Africa: "Old Knudsen, although he would sometimes sing of the sailor's bride who loves the waves, in his heart had a deep mistrust of woman, and saw her as the enemy of man, by instinct, and on principle, out to stop his fun." Which could be said of any man & any woman.

I'm looking forward to seeing the movie. My friend Michelle says that the movie & the book are completely different. Apparently Dinesen had so much information for her memoirs that what didn't make it into her book made it into the movie.

Leonard Nimoy, You & I (1973)

I saw this book at a thrift store & just had to have it. Leornard Nimoy, poet!

Turns out he's a really bad poet. After a Google search, I found out that he's also a musician (yikes!) & photographer (not so bad).

Thalia Zepatos, A Journey of One's Own (1992)

Although this book was written before 9-11, before email became common-place, before cell phones & Skype, it has some great information for any single traveler, & some especially useful information for a woman traveling alone. There is an updated version that was published in 2003.

The book includes lists of travel resources, ideas for working while traveling, reasons why you should go off into the world alone, & why it's not as scary as you may think, as well as travel tales from women who've done it.

One of the stories told it like it is: "A man I met on the plane flying to the South Island offered to give me a ride to the hostel. I accepted, but was on my guard the whole way, wondering if he would take me down a dark road & rape me. But no, he delivered me to the door, shook my hand & said, 'Have a nice holiday.' Coming from the United States, it was hard to orient myself to a place where I was really safe - I wasn't used to that."

Another passage said, "Your chances of getting robbed with a weapon are much lower outside the US."

Wow! We, living in the US, are constantly told that we're "free", that we're "safe" here. But we're really not, are we?

Other resouces that I plan to check out are:
Transitions Abroad Magazine
US Servas Committee

The last sentence in this book reads:
"If I could say one final word, it would be 'Go.' "
I will.

Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007)

An unfortunately ugly, socially inept Dominican-American boy goes through life wondering when he'll ever get laid. The first half of the story is told from the perspectives of several different characters, the second half from the perspective of Oscar's best friend, who isn't really that good of a friend after all.

I was looking forward to reading this book, especially after reading Díaz's Drown, which I really enjoyed. But I found myself forgetting about this book when I wasn't reading it. When I did think about it, I had to struggle to remember the plot. One of the merits of this book was that it is wrought with footnotes, an unusual feature in novels. The footnotes offer true (yet biased) tidbits from the Dominican Republic's history. It's a sort of historical fiction that sometimes reads as a straight history book.

My friend Ryan had advised that I read Watchmen before reading Oscar Wao, in order to understand the novel easier. Oscar was definitely interested in graphic novels, anime, role-playing games, etc., but I'm not sure that Watchmen was ever specifically mentioned in this novel. Though I'm glad that I read Alan Moore's graphic novel, it's definitely not a prerequisite to Oscar Wao. However, I do think that a good companion to this book would be In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez.

Julie Jaskol & Brian Lewis, City of Angels (1999)

I'm a sucker for great illustrations, & this book has them!

Each page highlights a different landmark or neighborhood in & around Los Angeles, making sure to cover many of the different cultures represented in the city, from China Town & the Mariachi Plaza, to the Watts Towers & the Getty Center. The illustrations are packed with colorful images, in a Where's Waldo sort of way. (Can you find the angels on each page?)

This would be a great gift for any child - or adult - who lives in or plans to visit our second largest city.

Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go (2005)

I spent this whole book wondering what it was about. In the end, I still don't really know.

***SPOILER ALERT***




The one question that lingers now is: What three organs can one "donate" & still live? One lung, one kidney, & ... the spleen?

Gavin Menzies, 1421 (2002)

The author of this book theorizes that the Chinese discovered the Americas in the year 1421, well before Columbus thought of sailing the ocean blue. China did many other things first, so I was interested to read what the author had to say.

The book is well over 500 pages, so it was a bit intimidating to start. But by page190, I knew the theory & was bored with the supporting evidence.

This book was passed on to Robert Rossing.

Augusten Burroughs, A Wolf at the Table (2008)

I read this book after reading Running With Scissors, thinking that I would get better insight into the author's experience of his father.

Though Burroughs was clearly unsatisfied with his relationship with his father, this book does not illustrate the supposed magnitude of his father's "evilness". Burroughs was afraid that his father was homocidal, but failed to convey that sentiment in this story. Yes, he was an unaffectionate & unpleasant person, but evil? The only thing that suggests malice is the account of his father letting the guinea pig starve to death. I'm not saying that letting a small, defenseless animal suffer is forgiveable. I just didn't feel the fear that I expected to feel from reading this memoir.

Burroughs's writing is filled with incredible detail about events in his childhood. He includes dialog, facial expressions, hand gestures - even birds singing in the trees. I find myself trying desperately to recreate an event from my own youth with such precision, failing every time. After reading two of Burroughs "memoirs", I'm more inclined to call them novels with autobiographical undertones.

This book was passed on to Liane Kido.

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner (2003)

Wow. What an emotional, unbelieveable, overwhelming story. I firmly believe that fiction is reality with different names, & this fiction is beautiful & horrific.

Near the end, I wanted to shake Amir, the protagonist, for still having such poor judgement, such a poor sense of what's right, after all that he supposedly learned from his trip to Afghanistan & his journey within.

I can't wait to read A Thousand Splendid Suns.

This book was passed on to Sherry Dunn.