Has beloved Strand gone green?

I heard a disturbing news, a news made more disturbing by the fact that I was not able to check the validity of this news until last Sunday. Shee and Esther Unni informed me a couple of weeks ago that there is a GREEN banner at The Strand bookstore, replacing its signature RED and WHITE motif. I expressed my sincere hope that it was just for the holidays, that since they already had lots of red, they perhaps wanted to add some green temporarily to mark the festive season. Shee pointed out, however, that the banner looked pretty permanent.

Well, this Sunday, on my way to buy my 2010 Moleskine planner, I had a chance to check out the said banner. Walking down Broadway, I was able to see that there was indeed a dancing Strand banner in green. Oh but still hoping that this was only for the holidays, I overcame my intense dislike for talking to people and asked a person working there about it…

I was able to confirm with her, as far as she knew, that the banner is temporary, JUST FOR THE HOLIDAY SEASON!

Whew!

Not that I hate green. In fact, it’s my favorite color. And I’ll admit, it was a nice banner, one that was definitely adding to the holiday spirit. The banner, however, did trigger my fear that the bookstore is changing. I don’t know why I hate every change made to the store, even the good ones like the addition of air conditioning. I guess I just hate the idea of changing what I’ve grown comfortable with… man, is this what it’s like to grow old?

Anyway, I think change is (sometimes) necessary, but I hope the bookstore keeps alternations to minimum to make grumpy New Yorkers like me happy. Besides, their red and white candy cane colors are festive enough for any season.

Happy holidays and may everyone encounter many lovely bookstores they don’t want to see changed in 2010.

Jane Austen.

I am falling quite in love with Jane Austen. Although I've only read 2 of her books so far (Pride and Prejudice as a teenager and hated it; Northanger Abbey recently and loved it), I am quite positive she is one of my favorite authors. Her sentences are not elaborate and experimental like Virginia Woolf's, but I think she's got the psychology down acutely and playfully. I am already sad for my future self who has already read all of her books.

Right now, I am working through Sense and Sensibility. The characters’ Myers-Briggs personality traits are caricatured in hilarious ways. Austen makes the characters seem so human: they are terribly annoying but also so terribly vulnerable. I suppose that’s why I find myself rooting for the characters, all of them, to find true love and, ultimately, contentment. What's great about an Austen novel is I know they will have a happily-ever-after if they just hold on patiently for the last chapter.

Readings (Un)done.

It’s December. And although there is a whole lot of marketing to distract us, it’s really hard to not to ignore, which we’ve actually been able to do quite successfully all year, the things we haven’t accomplished for this year. Case in point: the books I have planned to read this year yet have not gnaw on me.

Some of the books I haven’t finished do not upset me terribly. I am perfectly okay with myself, for example, for not finishing Home Comforts: The Art & Science of Keeping House by Cheryl Mendelson. I can become more domestic next year. Besides, the only person I know who has read this book through is Esther.

Oh but Jane Austen! She bring me back to June of this year, the month I’ve even named the Jane Austen Month. At the end of Spring, I, so full of promise for the year, purchased an elaborate and beautiful volume containing every Jane Austen novel. Half a year later, I now have to admit to having gotten more use out of the book adjusting the fan height in my room than turning its pages.

Feeling rather dejected and upset at myself, I started reading the Austen book again last month. The beauty and the clarity of her writing makes me feel even worse: How could I have deprived myself only because it hurts my wrist to hold up this mammoth book!

Well, I am not sure if I can start 2010 having read all of Austen novels, but hope to make a dent in the anthology this month as I move on to feel guilty about other previously forgotten but now remembered old year’s resolutions.

An Addition to my Library

Some lovely additions to the bookshelf with great deals from Strand:

The Faith of a Wrter: Life, Craft, Art by Joyce Carol Oates.

Fieldwork by Mischa Berlinski

Such beautiful spines! Too bad they won’t go together on the bookshelf.

I already read the Joyce Carol Oates book. It was very exciting reading her for the first time. The Faith of a Writer is a great gem that gave an insight into the mind of a prolific writer. I can’t wait to read her fiction.

I am currently reading Fieldwork. Unfortunately, since that is currently my “carry on public transportation to avoid people” book, it is no longer in the pristine condition depicted in the photo. It is a very clever book though. It’s not simply an ethnographic novel, but also a travelogue and a mystery. About 1/3 way through and reading about a thoroughly fascinating missionary family.

my new lappy is here…

Finally, my brand new and very red lappy is here. There is no more excuse to not update this blog… although playing around with this lappy is cutting into my reading time.

Anyway, here is a test entry from windows live writer.

Reading: A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)

Alas, it is impossible to knit and read simultaneously. The only solace: knitting is a hobby that opens up a new genre of pretty pattern books. But still, I am a busy young lady and I never get to both read and knit to my heart's desire in one day. I tried to solve this problem by seeking out novels with a lot of knitting in the story. But I ended up on a pretty dismal path along the poorly-written-chick-lit lane. I am now mostly recovered from that experiment and finally ready to try again. This time I am starting "A Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens. Here I go into the world of knitting and revolution!

Subway Reading

I loved this last Sunday's article in The New York Times about reading on the train. The article and the accompanying photographs say that the anonymity and the alone-ness (no cell phone and internet connection) offered by the underbelly of our city allows the riders to read all sorts of things for their personal goals. I was disappointed though at missing the perfect opportunity to check off an item on my bucket list, that is to be photographed by the NYT as being a New Yorker doing a very New Yorker thing.

Had I been interviewed, here's what I would've told the fabulous reporter:

"I read on the train because I hate people and I don't want anyone talking to me. Once I sat on a bus without a book and I had to talk the entire 20 minutes of the trip talking to a nosy old man..." No no, that makes me sound misanthropic and bitchy. Start over...

"Well, I read on the train so that I wouldn't look so lonely and awkward as I tend to feel in a crowd." Argh! Stop, that makes you sound nothing short of pathatic. start over...

"What I've always wanted to read on the train is the NYT, but I never do because I still haven't mastered the origami of turning the unwieldy subway map-sized papers into neat quarter sheets. In fact, because I want to easily escape to my book while making the whole thing look effortless, I carry a small book to public transit: of the four books I read simultaneously, one of them is designated as "a book for the MTA cars." It's really only the size that matters; the content and the cover haven't gone into consideration. I did hesitate a bit when I was reading "How to stop worrying and start living" because I didn't want the world to know how neurotic I was. But I convinced myself not to be so narcissistic. No one cares what I am reading because everybody is busy with their own pages and ruminations. But now that I know there's a reporter and other interested people out there scoping out the underground reading scene, I'll now be leaving my selfhelp books on my bed stand." Alright, you're still weird and neurotic, but trying to avoid that would make the comment disingenuous... so this is fine.

Even though I didn't get to be in it, I am clipping the article. It's hard to spot other readers these days, not simply because I am avoiding making eye contact, but because everyone seems to get on and stare at their screens. And no, only a very few are kindles. So I'm glad to find out there are others who still read the newspaper, the novel, the school assignment, the self help book, the Bible and the New Yorker trying to get lost in the world of words together with strangers. Happy autumn reading above and underground!

word links

I am not a huge fan of linguistics, so I don't particularly love words for all the history and usage they come loaded with. But I do adore words because they make the page I am reading taste better. Here are a couple of my favorite word links:

1. freerice: rice for people who need them and words for people who have rice. What a marvelous concept! Great for the GRE studying too.

2. wordnik: so effortlessly puts all the info about a word on one page, including definitions, examples of usage (including usage in twitter posts), pronunciation, and flickr photos I suppose tagged with the word.

Will be back with the ramblings-on-what-I-am-reading posts soon!

A Sluggish Saturday...

The Ingredients:

• Rain that tappity taps.
• A new skein of bright yellow cotton bamboo yarn on its way to becoming a summer scarf.
• An ornate Jane Austen book.
• A cup of joe.
• The Saturday Show on WNYC.
• A week old (almost) New York Times Magazine.
• And a mind made up to enjoy a rainy Saturday morning reading and knitting instead of fretting.

The New York Times magazine is a lot more manageable now that it's 9% less in its size. But I don't think I would've noticed if the editor didn't write a cute note. In fact, I am surprised that it was and still is, even after the shrinking, "one of the tallest and widest magazines in America." After handling the extremely unwieldy paper, the magazine has always felt docile. Still any change to the New York Times upsets me. What's more upsetting also is that I think this sensitivity to change signals I am getting old. But this one is not as upsetting as say the disappearance of "The City" section because the accompanying changes in the design of the magazine are quite pleasing. I like the new font (what's the difference between a font and a typeset?), the new icons and the new layout. The only thing I don't like is the decision to crop the photo of the Deborah Solomon interviewee. I liked the way it was before when the full length photo makes the person seem larger than life. Oh but I should stop complaining lest I become an old harping lady.

A To-Read List

Sheenae surprised me yesterday with an Alice Munro book Runaway. Despite what I said about the practice of lending and borrowing books, I really appreciated her lugging around the hardcover book all day long so she can lend it to me. I have heard lots about but never read her. And I started thinking about some of the people I want to read but haven't:

• Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Chekov (The Russians)
• Italo Calvino
• John Cheever
• Herman Melville (Moby Dick)
• Proust
• Flannery O'Connor
• Gertrude Stein
• Joyce Carol Oates
  

After Alice Munro though, who shall I read next? The prospect of discovery excites me.

The Complete Works of...

One thing I can't figure out: why do people buy The Complete Works of Someone Prominent? The thickness and the subsequent heaviness necessary to contain a person's entire published works in one volume makes the book more suitable for hurling at a roommate/spouse/significant other/robber than reading. Besides, buying books isn't always about the reading, so really, why do people buy those monsters?

Consider also: there is a steep activation energy curve for those books--you have to pick one up (oh the ATPs required!) and carry it over to the cash register. Then you have to fork over money for the thing and lug it home. So many onerous steps in which to simply give up. So it must take some singleminded determination to carry the mission through and become the owner of all thoughts published by someone.

Some guesses: People want to reference their revered writer. I see this a lot with people who own the Complete Works of Shakespeare. But there must be other reasons... you wouldn't go around referencing Plato, would you? So is it maybe a form of homage to a favorite writer? Or is it a form of therapy: you feel a pride of ownership and therefore feel good/intellectual? Or, is it to alleviate a different form of insecurity--the insecurity that stems from possibly not being able to open up a book and point to a quote when you want/need it? Is that similar to why people used to buy a set of encyclopedia? Did they feel relieved knowing they owned knowledge itself (until the next edition came out)? Did anybody actually read the encyclopedia the whole way through? If you don't read it, do you really own the information? Ah, but now I am getting into a list of things to ask Google. So going back to the complete works...

Maybe the book is really pretty on the bookshelf. The complete works do tend to look like real books: hard cover, maybe leather bound, substantial and serious looking. Or or or.... maybe the book is bought to actually be read?

Ah for me it was both the extreme prettiness of and the desire to read the works of Jane Austen that prompted me to buy the Barnes and Noble produced book of seven Jane Austen novels. I am usually not a huge fan of Barnes and Noble classics. Though they are well-priced, the paper doesn't smell so nice and, in general, the binding is cheap. But the Jane Austen book was pretty. It smelled nice. And more importantly, I saw it when I was just starting to get obsessed with Austen. Yea, I know girls in their late teens fall in love with her novels. But having totally misunderstood Pride and Prejudice in the seventh grade, I vowed never to subject myself to books so boring and insulting to women. I even argued with my 11th grade English teacher when she said Austen was a feminist. Not my most proud academic moment, but eventually I saw how clever she is when I read Northanger Abbey a few months ago. And now I am hooked on the world of parties and marriages.

So here I am trying to read all of Jane Austen in one book. I even went far as saying June is my personal Jane Austen month. Reading thin, almost translucent, paper with font 10 writing while breathing in the allergy inducing gold dust is a whole new experience than reading a paperback.

Ah, but I still don't really get why people buy the complete works of someone. Full disclosure: I do own a couple of other complete works of... Emily Dickinson (a great bargain) and Plato (college class). But can we really own the complete works of someone? What about the unpublished writings? Or the thoughts that were disrupted before being put on paper? Or the thoughts that went unrecognized? Even The Bible, with its various versions that leave out different texts, isn't the complete works of God.

borrowed books; lent books

The access to books I don't own (the public and friends' libraries) is a huge boon on a promiscuous reader. While I love to buy books for the euphoria of being a book-owner, it can also be too much of a commitment for someone like me who finds it a crime to throw out a book, even a bad one. My vanity (don't want the number of books I own to go down), of course, outweighs my moral indignation (can't throw away someone's thoughts).

When you buy a book, you are in a sense committing to read that volume. If it sits on a bookshelf for too long (more than a year?), you feel guilty. The ambient questioning with a tinge of recriminations begin: "Why did I buy that book if I wasn't going to read it? Why am I so lazy? Why haven't I read that book yet? God, I don't read enough." My favorite is the perennial leftover thought from college: "Why are you so behind with your reading?" To avoid the self-directed psychological torture, you have to buy the books you know you will like. I even have a couple of friends who, for this very reason, only buy books they have already read (and liked).

You can be more loose when picking a book at the library. You can try a new author (some famous award winning author you haven't yet read), or a book you aren't sure you'll love (fiction you see in bookstores and best-selling lists). You can also read a book you kinda sorta wanna read but don't wanna buy (non-fiction books that you want to read but is still in hardcover). Finally, library is a great place for guilty pleasure reading (chick lit, for example). You have the option of stopping 50 pages in if the book is so very bleh. And ultimately you will purge yourself of the so-so books and the guilty pleasure reading books you didn't wanna own when you return the book. Though the purging feeling is great, having to make the trip is very annoying. Hence, one of the factors that go into borrowing a book from the library has to be portability. That explains why I have not finished the Harry Potter series (yes, I know the movie is coming out and hence the time is running out). The real danger with borrowing from the library, of course, is that you will find a book that you truly love, a real gem, and it'll hurt to part with the book. For example, Gilead. So despite the recession and all, I don't frequent the library that much.

Borrowing from friends' libraries is a bit different. More specifically, with friends, we are willing to take even greater risks than with the library books. We venture, not only into a new author's books, but a whole genre. Irrationally, we even delude ourselves into borrowing books we are pretty sure we won't really like that much, or a really long book that will take us more than this lifetime to read. Maybe she always talks about this book, maybe she has a book you've been hearing a lot about, or maybe she flaunts a book you know you should read but don't really really want to. Before you know it, you've asked to borrow it.

Then a whole new beast: the books they force on you. They bring the book over and say, "hey, borrow this book." Even worse, "you SHOULD read this book. I KNOW you'll love it." You protest politely saying, well, you just don't have enough time and you don't want to hold the book hostage. But alas, they even say you can take a while to read it. Okay, full disclosure: I have been guilty of springing books on people as well, most recently on Alice. But what can we do when, as Agatha Christie notes in "A Murder is Announced":

If anyone is determined to lend you a book, you never can get out of it.

Not to say I am not grateful for friends' libraries. Really. I have read some really great books at the insistence of earnest friends. And there's something really intimate about sharing books.

But the problem is with friends' books is similar to library books: they must be returned. And here we must carefully weigh the potential schism in friendship over the potential boost in friendship from sharing. Let's face it: we tend not to return books. And nothing breeds resentment like not returning a book. That's a crime forever remembered. I myself had an internal list of books that never made their way back to me. And now I have an external list where I keep track of books lent. Never mind that I have books on my bookshelf that aren't mine. Perhaps it's not resentment. It's more like a thread of hope... that if you keep remembering the book and send it good thoughts, it'll find its way back to you.

Despite all the hassle and the risks, we continue to lend. We INSIST on lending. Confession: I want people to borrow my books. I don't want my books to get lonely and neglected. And I don't subscribe to the philosophy of keeping books in pristine conditions. I want to "break in" my books because the books that look "used" are unique. And really, I do think sharing books is a great sign of friendship. Hence I welcome people to borrow my books, write in them, and read them. Just (try to) remember to return them.

The Recurring, Ineluctable Summer...

Memorial Day Weekend is here (horray!?) signaling an unofficial beginning of summer. The imminence of summer is turning me quite grumpy. I don't like the summer; it's my least favorite season. I hate the heat, the living things, the mocking sun:

Not that I'm losing my grip: I am just tired of summer.
You reach for a shirt in a drawer and the day is wasted.
If only winter were here for snow to smother
all these streets, these humans; but first, the blasted
green. I would sleep in my clothes or just pluck a borrowed
book, while what's left of the year's slack rhythm,
like a dog abandoning its blind owner,
crosses the road at the usual zebra.

From "A Part of Speech"
Joseph Brodsky

At least the Strand is air-conditioned,' I momentarily thought on Saturday. The bookstore provided a much needed shelter from the sweltering metropolitan heat. But wait a minute--I am so sure the Strand was NOT air conditioned a few years back... I can even hear the inefficient fan in my mind. Yet shee doesn't remember the Strand not being air-conditioned. So can someone tell me if my memory is real or imagined?

In any case, I am not sure if I like air-conditioned Strand. That means I will have to contend with other people when I shop for books this summer. Granted, people buying books preserve the place (already the annex near the sea port closed down...), but I'd rather deal with the heat and the stuffiness (of the air) than (stuffy) people. You have to be oddly assertive at the Strand, especially near the popular fiction stands. Are you going to progress around the corner and check out all the books that are displayed so that you can give yourself a chance to pick up that book you always wanted to read for five dollars, or are you gonna back off because there's three other people in front of you? I never had a problem though--I can usually squeeze by. Besides, you can always escape temporarily down to the psychology section that lines a wall in the basement. The shelves tremble every few minutes as a train pulls out of the Union Square Station and you feel so safe from the crowd in the underbelly of the city sustained by dusty psychoanalytic writings.

So okay, I will probably cope with the air-conditioning, but I don't know if I can if they add a cafe and comfy chairs.

The summer isn't quite here yet. I still have maybe a month of reprieve form the heat, the people and the mosquitoes. I will miss the days when it's still a bit chilly in the morning. I will miss reading under a comforter and wearing knitted things. But maybe reading at the beach a few times will make me forget and abide by the summer rules.

signs of aging...

You have to please excuse me and perhaps indulge me in some spring whining. The gist of it every year is that I feel old. Oh the many signs are there. And indeed it's a spring time ritual of mine to list them. This year is especially hard though: alas the effects of the accumulating years has finally seeped into my reading life where I thought I could forever be young.

Big shock I was not ready for: I have read a memoir, a MEMOIR!, written by someone approximately my age. Here I am thinking my life hasn't really begun, and someone has written a memoir about our generation. The someone happens to be Sloane Crosley. The book is called: I was told there'd be cake. And okay, she's actually a bit older than me and the book is excellent... but still. Perhaps growing old means finding an increasing number of new novels that allude to times and events that one has lived through. One day, the Philip Roths of our generation will pop out, every few years, books about coming of age with too many possibilities, no marketable skills, and the facebook.

And no longer deniable: I accept that there are a finite number of books I can read in my lifetime. Seems so obvious to me now, but even five years ago, I didn't really believe I won't get to read everything. Before you consider me totally silly, ask yourself this: when you were in fifth grade, did you think you can be done with reading? Did you even think you will make it to the 30 minute mark assigned to you to read? I know the logic is pretty clear. Human beings are mortals; mortals can only read a finite number of books; I am a human being; ergo, I can only read a finite number of books. A young heart, however, is not ready to accept certain logical conclusion. So it makes me feel really sad (and old) that I accept I will one day read my last page.

And there you have it. Maybe a life is a sum of pages read: You accumulate the pages and then you die. I better choose wisely.

april the poetry month.

One of my pet peeves is hearing the phrase, "i don't get poetry." I know why this phrase bothers me so much: I know exactly what that means. As much as I like feigning ignorance and giving quizzical looks every time I hear someone say that they won't read poetry because they don't "get it," I must admit to often feeling the same. I like the sound of but truly don't get Sylvia Plath. I read Ariel like my Spanish Lit books: in awe of the sound and certain clever phrases but knew deep inside that I would have to read the English translation before class and really I can't major in Spanish Lit.

But it still annoys me when people say that. I think people don't give poetry a chance. It really puzzles me how avid readers who read through many awful fiction and nonfiction don't try more than three poets.

Okay, poetry does make us feel guilty. It's a prime suspect for inspiring, "oh I really should've read this person" feeling. And it also makes otherwise over-educated people feel stupid: "I don't get exactly what this poet is saying here and I have a nagging feeling that every other word is some sort of a metaphor I can't get." Now in our culture, it's okay to not get the first law of thermodynamics because, ya know, there's calculus involved and such, but poetry is just a string of words and not "getting it" makes people feel illiterate.

But how can those same people then go and stare at paintings at museums for modern arts in various cities. Do you "get" those? Why is poetry different? Why don't we just enjoy poems instead of trying to get them as if we were desperately trying to be a part of an inside joke? Even though I often don't "get" poetry, I find that poems are all I can read when it becomes really difficult to read anything or when I feel especially despondent precisely because I don't have to "get" it.

Anyway, I am being bitter and judgmental because I can afford to be. I have a friend who includes a poem every once in awhile in his email (bry), another who handpicks poems for me to try according to poems I already like (alice, my personal netflix-like poetry recoomandation system), and a friend who sends me a book of Joseph Brodsky poems through snail mail (natalie). So it's easy for me to find poems to try.

But if you don't have friends who offer poetry, you can try The New Yorker. In fact, one of the poems I told Alice about was found in the magazine. Or you can try "The Writers' Almanac" with a daily poem on WNYC at 8 PM (precisely!). Okay, these sound like awful suggestions, sorry, but I hope people find poems they like if not for the intrinsic value of poetry in their lives then to feel less guilty about not having a favorite poem.

It's spring; it's the national poetry month; it's time to not suffer from a sense of low self esteem due to being word-challenged.

For me, I am celebrating the national poetry month (really for the first time in my life) by trying a new poet. After reading a NYT magazine article comparing Emily Dickinson to Twits, I thought she would be perfect for someone like me who is concentration-challenged. But when I tried to read her, I found that I didn't, what-do-ya-know, "get her." So I tried Joseph Brodsky (thanks again Natalie) and oh I get him, sorta, and I definitely enjoy reading him.

lonliness...

I found a perfect description of "togetherness":

"Having a sister or a friend is like sitting at night in a lighted house. Those outside can watch you if they want, but you need not see them. You simply say, "Here are the perimeters of our attention. If you prowl around under the windows till the crickets go silent, we will pull the shades. If you wish us to suffer your envious curiosity, you must permit us not to notice it." Anyone with one solid human bond is that smug, and it is the smugness as much as the comfort and safety that lonely people covet and admire."

Housekeeping
Marilynne Robinson

I don't have any sibling and I am convinced that shuts me out of understanding a specific type of bond. but I have felt smug with a friend. And being alone is, more than anything else, embarrassing:

"I have often noticed that it is almost intolerable to be looked at, to be watched, when one is idle. When one is idle and alone, the embarrassments of loneliness are almost endlessly compounded."

Housekeeping

Marilynne Robinson

I am used to being alone. I prefer it at times. When friends are not around, books can work quite well. The world watches you and you can feel it, but you are not idle. You are reading, or pretending to while considering their gaze and shifting your perspective so you can see how you must look to the others. I like to read, I like words, but also, I need my book to accompany me so that I am not lonely, I am not idle. I don't want to be caught on a bus twiddling my thumb. The iPod works pretty well too. but the words, the pages, they better isolate you.

I have been feeling uneasy this week and I couldn't quite identify what I was feeling. It wasn't good. It was something mixed with anxiety. Then I read Housekeeping and apparently I am lonely. Not for the lack of people. But because we are all alone in our pods, stuck in our perspectives. When I am acutely aware of my loneliness, it's hard to imagine what it's like not to feel this way:

"... once alone, it is impossible to believe that one could ever have been otherwise. Loneliness is an absolute discovery."

Housekeeping
Marilynne Robinson

P.S. (4/4/09): Even holding a book in public is comforting because the book is my escape plan. The presence of words alleviates my fear of being stuck in a situation, in a world I can't escape. I guess this is simply a fear of commitment. I think my generation is deeply infected with this phobia. So we should all read and live in our heads.

a reference

I was so often reminded of my intent to read Middlemarch by many Middlemarch references everywhere. Now that I have read the said book, I have not found any... until now. In the March 22 NYT Book Review, Steven Johnson anchors his review of "How we decide" with a Middlemarch reference! ah... this is my first post-reading Middlemarch reference and it is so sweet. I understand what he was saying and, more importantly. I do not feel guilty. Now if I can finally read Proust...

By the way, "How We Decide" sounds like a fun book. I haven't read it but it seems like a book that resulted from "Predictably Irrational" and "Blink" getting married and having a baby.

acquisitions...

On sat.21.mar on the first day (or is it the second?) of spring 09, I have acquired the following pretty books (for between 4.95 to 6.95) at strand bookstore:

From knitting project photos

from left to right:
housekeeping by marilynne robinson
northanger abbey by jane austen
essays of e.b. white by e. b. white (mickey i am finally going to read the essay you sent me)
the learners by chip kidd

How do you know what to read?

I started reading Gilead entirely because of Alice. I've seen it in bookstores but the cover wasn't sufficiently pretty and the premise not terribly attractive. Besides, I am always skeptical of novels, probably because I have read so many terrible fiction. But anyway, Gilead was Alice's discovery. And because I like Alice, I trusted her and read the book. It is an amazing account of existence. That sounds really vague and pretentious. A better way to put it is perhaps that Gilead makes me want to write positive books and live a positive life. But the book is not cheesy. Really. Argh. It's hard to talk about Gilead. You should just read it and remember to thank Alice.

Anyway, I got to thinking about how we choose the book to read. It can be a daunting question especially for people who do not read. Whenever someone asks me how I know what to read, I give a detailed response devoid of an answer...I ramble on and on because I really should know the answer to that question. So sorry about that (esp to my students)! Well, I hope this entry sorta answers your question.

Picking books has become effortless. I have an ongoing list of books I want to read in my mind and on my Amazon wishlist (mostly because I don't trust my memory and neither should you). When I walk into a bookstore, I can identify right away the book I wanted to read, how much I wanted to read it, and whether or not the price is right.

But I guess what people are asking me is how I pick the books to go on the wishlist. Well, reading is addictive, isn't it? Initially, you have no idea what to read. But books pull you in. It's all very dangerous. You read an author you like, and then you read something else by that writer. Then you realized that you like to read a certain genre in general. You start reading the NYT book review every Sunday and drool. Your cool friend Natalie sends you Russian lit, and you are open to another genre. Then you find Alice's favorite book and you read it. Yea, that's what happens. The more you read, the more you know what book you will like before opening the book. Unfortunately, you inevitably do read a lot of bad stuff to get to this point.

And that's particularly discouraging, I know. It happens to kids. They read bad stuff (to them) in school and they think reading is bad. Adults too. They want to read. But there's a lot of bad stuff out there. They keep hearing about some awful fiction so they start reading it, get through the tediousness of it all, and well, by the end, they don't want to pick up another book.

But no, you have to plug on. Sometimes you pick a lemon, but that happens less and less as you become more experienced. I guess that statement can apply to every skill. So I guess my answer to THE question is that you kind of have to go by faith that the more you read, the more you'll enjoy reading.

Anyway, for fun, I am going to try to see how I picked the books I am currently reading and the books I have recently read:


Currently Reading:

"The Lost Art of Walking" by Geoff Nicholson: NYT Book Review + I liked one of his novel a lot + I am into walking now and thought maybe reading the book will inspire me to exercise more.

"The Nicomachean Ethics" by Aristotle: Alice got me in the mood for positive books + reading "Ours" reminded me of Natalie who asked me once if I had read this book + I really want to read Montaigne more but this book was shorter.

"Communicating Science" by Scott L. Montgomery: I like to read about writing than actually writing + book has info about academic publications that interested me.

"Interpretation of Dreams" by Sigmund Freud: I had interesting dreams + I missed reading Freud + I missed reading psychoanalytic literature.

Books I Recently Read:

"Ours: A Russian Family Album" by Sergei Dovlatov: I missed Natalie + I liked his other book + it was short and I wanted to read something that I can finish in one day.

"Gilead" by Marilynne Robinson: Alice Alice Alice.

"The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and other stories" by Robert Louis Stevenson: Reading Poe made me want to read scary stories + the book was small and portable + felt like reading some classics.

"The Raven & Other Poems and Tales" by Edgar Allan Poe: I missed my old gothic lit class + the book had a pretty binding and nice paper.

Okay, I can obviously go on and on and on but I get the feeling that this info is interesting to no one else. My survey seems to say that a mixture of these primary factors dictate my reading choice: past reading, recommendations (friends and reviews), nostalgia, and the aesthetics of the book. Coming up with the precise formula is beyond my math skills.

a cheap safe.

I definitely knew what Henry Alford was talking about in his essay, "You never know what you'll find in a book" in Dec 21, 2008 NYT Book Review. Books become a receptacle not just for the ephemeral thoughts of the writers but for the physical relics of the book owner. I have often inherited, when buying a used book, not just the book but receipts, notes, and bookmarks. And because of my promiscuous reading habits, my bookshelves have become a purgatory of bookmarks.

Here are some other things I found in my books: postcards; pressed flowers; letters; post-its with notes sometimes relevant to the subject ("review integration by parts!") and sometimes not (a first draft of a really bad poem); class notes; essay assignments; sleep diary entry; drawings; and my letters to o-chem.

And why not? A book is a marvel of engineering that holds a surprising number of things. Books are prefect for preserving and hiding (from self and others). So why not take advantage of these storage spaces? Here are a couple of things I am planning on putting into books:

1. Perfume samples in large textbooks: You know, those folded papers that hold the scent, usually found in fashion/women's magazines. I figured if I put them in my large (usually science) textbooks, I'd make the reading of thick textbooks a more pleasing experience. Some of these textbooks go on and on for a thousand pages or so and they don't treat you like a human being with feelings. Besides, reading a science textbook is more like reading a magazine than a book: The reading material is not linear on the page because you constantly have to consult the illustrations (figures); there are columns of writings; and pictures and graphs abound. At least the Women's or fashion magazines are lovely to read because the colorful layout is visually appealing and there is a whiff of something nice every time a page is turned. Now of course good magazines don't smell quite nice due to the lack of perfume samples (The New Yorker, for example) and some magazines are too saturated with the samples resulting in a crowded elevator smell. But the point is, maybe adding a little scent to the textbooks will make reading those books more fun.

2. Notes to the next owner of my books: I also thought about making the process of leaving things for the next owner more incidental than accidental. I think I should write a brief note to the next owner of the book. I guess something like , "Hey you, I am the previous parent of this book. The fact that you have this book probably means I am now dead. I loved this book so very much and I hope you enjoy it too." And if I ever get really famous, this person can get super rich by selling the copy on ebay.

the notepad technique

Even though I obsess about reading, I am a pretty inefficient reader. I envy my friend shee, who reads super fast.

My problem seems to be intruding thoughts. It's too noisy in my head even when I read. And any reading material spins out a web of thought all fascinating and entertaining to me but causes me to slow down to a grinding halt with the book. A sentence later, same thing happens. My mind is like a nagging child who won't let me read.

So I started employing the notepad technique: I have a little notepad with me when I read and when there is an intruding thought, some related to the reading some not, I jot it down and move on. My mind does protest--I have to think those thoughts NOW! But I assure her that the ideas will be there to obsess over after I finish reading so please leave me alone with my book or now.

This method once helped me in college when I had too much on my mind and had trouble studying. I hope it helps me become a more efficient reader as well. The danger of course is having too many notebooks where my thoughts and lists proliferate. I feel I spend more time planning than living.

spring

Casually, shee and I commented that the worst must be over. It was Saturday and I went from two to one layer of down. And yesterday, we hit 60 degrees and it was bright. I predict we'll have a stretch days when it'll be freakishly cold, but yes, the worst must be over.

As I was trading my one layer of down for the pink spring coat yesterday, I thought about a couple of other trades I am making.

I will soon be shedding Middlemarch. Yes, I am still reading that, but I read seven other books in the process, so there. It's a lovely book, in fact one of my favorite. But it's long and bulky. The book is also white like the snow. And I think my reading spirit would be lighter after I am done with the concerns of Middlemarch. I found it unbearable at times to read the book because it was so poignant, piercing and true. I think, though I like the book a lot, I am ready to trade Middlemarch for a lighter, springy, sit in a park and read in the sun kind of a book.

I am also shifting from one-skein knitting to cardigan knitting. That signals to me that the warmer days are coming when I have no incentive to produce massive amounts of hats, scarves and mittens to adorn myself as well as protect myself from the cold. Now come the lazy, unhurried knitting of the time consuming lace projects or cardigans. I bought the 101 Luxury Yarn One Skein Wonders book, a concrete proof that the knitting weather is changing. There are lots of lace patterns there that'll keep me knitting very slowly, and frogging frequently. And who cares? it's the summer. I am not in any hurry to wear any of these things...

Another very attractive book, which I will get closer to the summer is:

French Girl Knits

They have patterns for things that I imagined as a non-knitter for things that I would make if I knew how to knit. In other words, a perfect, dreamy book. There are lots of lace patterns for cardigans. Lace + cardigans = lots of very slow knitting in front of the teli, wacthing House in an air-conditioned room. I like lace knitting. You get a very hole-y diaphanous stuff that makes you feel slightly more feminine than jeans.

Ah so I am getting excited about slow knitting. I am shedding middlemarch. We've come to a full circle; the spring is here. sorta.

more self-help adventure

Ah... so it turns out, the title of that self-help book about interpersonal relationship is "how to WIN friends and influence people," not "how to MAKE friends and influence people." Now I find it a little creepy that there exists a manual for winning and influencing people. But I am going to try it anyway because the "how to stop worrying..." book was so good. And if I am truly honest with myself, I guess I would like to know how to win and influence people!

self-help books

To combat excessive and persistent anxiety, I bought myself:

How to Stop Worrying and Start Living
by Dale Carnegie.

To my mortification, about three other people, whose opinions I do care about, joined me on the trip to the bookstore. I explained that this is the first time I am getting a self-help book because I've gotten desperate about my anxiety. Thankfully, my friends were nonjudgmental. However, Arthur pointed out that I need the How to Win Friends and Influence People badly. This is not the first time someone told me about that book. Mel confirmed my suspicion that it's not a good thing when multiple people recommend that book to me.

But the point is, I realized I had inadvertently lied to my friends for it was NOT my first time buying a self-help book. In fact, looking at my reading history, I consult a self-help book quite often. The book, It's all too much: an easy plan for living a richer life with less stuff, really helped me with decluttering and organizing my things. And my last entry in this blog was kind of a review of a self help book about graduate school.

So am I one of those people now who head for the prominent self help section at Barnes and Noble? Please tell me I am not one of them... When I was there with Shee a couple of weeks ago, I saw a waste of good shelf space devoted to cheesy and colorful books for illiterate and lonely people. There were way too many chicken soup books for distinctly afflicted souls. When a salesperson came up to ask if I needed help, I wanted to ask if there was a section on anxiety self-help books. I chickened out and asked instead if the self help books were organized by subject or author.

Okay, so it seems I am the judgmental one. I admit it. Ironically though I am kind of sold on self-help books. The "Stop worrying and Start living book" was amazing and it not only helped me to feel less anxious, but made me a better, happier person. I thought the book was going to teach me how to stop worrying, but it somehow hit at all my issues from interpersonal relationships to insomnia. Now I am actually starting to accumulate a list of self-help books to read.

It can be the recession of course. I read in the paper that people focus more on self-improvement during bad economic times. It can't be that these books contain novel jems. In fact the worry book told me things I already knew or things my parents, teachers, and friends have already told me. The book, though captivating and somewhat well-written, was not literary. So what is it about (good) self help books that actually allows me to help the self?

I came up with two things:

1. It's much easier to hear things (sometimes) from a total stranger who will never see you than from earnest friends and a loving family.

2. Reading these books delude me into feeling that I am making progress towards helping the self when in reality I am further procrastinating doing something about my flaws by reading.

Okay, those two things are rather cynical. I guess I don't want to accept that I am destined to watch Dr. Phil in two years. But I have to admit that some of them actually help. The worry book is awesome. Try it. Reading self-help books is probably a better way to cope than reading depressing poetry anyway.

grad school experience

I knew there's a book, a good book, about everything, but I have been having trouble finding one about grad school. But I did find one a couple of weeks back. If you are considering grad school (academic), check out:

Getting what you came for
by Robert Peters

It's more of a breadth than a depth book and despite what the author claims (multiple times!) I think the book isn't of value to current grad students (except maybe for comic relief). The book is best suited, in my opinion, for people contemplating grad school to get some basic info on admissions and the experience so that they can better decide for themselves if grad school is right for them. Of course there's no substitute to actually talking to grad students and professors, but I find that grad students are in general rather bitter and professors too positive about their chosen profession.

The book also has great advice, though nothing earth shattering, on grad school admissions and how to plan your years in grad school so that you are focused, efficient, and most importantly, graduate. But the chapter on getting an academic job is weak and dated. In fact, I was disappointed there wasn't a lot of info on how academic hiring process works and how best a young PhD can get that elusive assistant professorship.

Even the revised edition was published in 1997 so the info on technology is quaint. But all in all, the writing is good and there's great value in unveiling academia for anyone considering grad school.

Now if you are considering riding out the recession by going to grad school, please don't. Other than it being a really bad idea, you will make it difficult for me to get in. If you are, however, considering going to law school (not that that's such a good idea either), check out:

Law School Confidential
by Robert H. Miller

That's a fantastic book for a prospective (or even current) law student.

book anxiety

When I feel anxious, I feel there must be a reason why I feel anxious. My mind is particularly good at finding something to ruminate about. The mind searches and sticks on to some minor thing like Velcro and no matter how mismatched the magnitude of my anxiety and the tiny thing I am obsessing over, it's virtually impossible to get unstuck. Well, my anxiety over books is a bit different. It's more of an ongoing anxiety. It's always there to some extent: sometimes I feel it acutely, sometimes dully. Anyway, I feel anxious that I will run out of things to read.

Okay, I need to explain this. I am not worried that I will read everything ever written or everything ever written that is worthy of reading. It's more like I am worried that I will find myself on the train without anything to read because I finished the book I was reading. Then I will have to actually bring myself into the real world and possibly interact with other human beings. So I always have something to read with me: books, newspapers, magazines. I worry about this before leaving the house: do I have enough pages on me? And I worry about things like: are my reading material the right size, are the pretty, do i feel comfortable with it today and does it go with my outfit?

Another one of my constant worries involves the ratio of read and unread books on my bookshelves. Having too many unread books makes me feel guilty. I start having thoughts like: why aren't I reading more? Am I lazy and unproductive? But when there are too few unread books, I worry that I will read all the books I own and then what will I read? What will I look forward to reading? And when all the possibilities in unread books, some of which will be wonderful and some undoubtedly disappointing, are gone, will I die?

Of course the optimal ratio or read to unread books is subjective and highly dependent on my mood. When I feel tired, there seem to be too many unread books on my shelves and ohmygod I have so many other books I want to read and there are just too many books to be read. But when I feel unusually productive and hopeful, I feel as if I will run out of things to read in a week.

So I worry on and on about the ratio. I can alleviate my anxiety in many ways but the best one for now is to get more books. That may result in higher percentage of unread books, but I'd rather own books and play with them and anticipate when to read the books than to worry about running out of the pages to read. Much better to be lazy and unproductive than to lose the possibilities, I think.

Thanks to Natalie for helping me out: the Russian lit books you sent me are fabulously beautiful to look at. I look forward to reading them and I enjoy fretting over just when I will read them.

remedy

I had no choice but to start another book when I was already actively reading 3. Here's the thing: two of them are long and one I read only on the bus. So... it seems like I won't actually finish a book in awhile and that means I can't enter a book in my list of books read. And even though I did the calculations and decided that if I read 100 pages a day, I will read 100 books this year, I am nonetheless feeling anxious. It's a phase I know but the paranoia is definitely making me not enjoy Middlemarch as much. So the solution: Read Freud's "The Ego and the Id," a 56 page book that I intended on reading anyway.

The problem with short books, however, is that they tend to be dense. I remember in college that the 50 page reading assignments were always tougher than 250 pg reading assignments. And so it turns out the Freud book is actually quite involved. But still, I will definitely take less time to read that than Middlemarch.

So I will finish the short book, enter it in my list, confirm that I will in fact see the end of books this year, and all is well once again. It is challenging living a neurotic life.

how many books should a person read in a year?

I wonder...

How many books should a person read in a year?

I think the (reasonable) upper limit is 365 books. That's if you read a book a day and I can tell you that's really hard to do. The minimum is obviously 0 books. So I'd say somewhere between 0 and 365 books. I think a reasonable goal is to read 100 books a year. Here's why:

An average book is between 300 to 500 pages. So I'll say on average 400 pages. 400 pages/book times 100 books equals 40,000 pages. 40,000 pages divided by 350 days (let's say you don't read at all for 15 days of the year) is about 114 pages/day.

I think it's reasonable to read 114 pages in a day. Some days you'll read less, some days more of course, but I think it's reasonable to read 114 pages per day. So if you read about 100 pages everyday, you can read 100 books this year!

conciseness is overrated.

Good writing should be concise and clear. Arguments should have a logical flow and a writer should weed out all unnecessary words.

Yes, I really believe that... but when I read Montaign's essays or Burton's "The Anatomy of Melancholy," I do find the rambling on and on style of writing charming. I wish I can just go on and on about my topic as well as tangential issues. Readers are not patient, I know, but reading Montaign or Burton makes me feel like I am sitting in a room with some really old dude and listening to him talk about everything. You can listen intermittently and still come away feeling wiser.

Ah... the good old old old days.

...

Finally finished the Einstein biography I have been reading forever. It's a fantastic book and I loved it thoroughly but for some reason, I have been having a hard time finishing a book. And this trouble is related to my general inability these days to get a lot of reading done. Even though I am constantly thinking about reading, pleasure reading seems to be the one thing that gets left out of my day. I guess I feel I should get more nagging tasks done before I settle down to read. But perhaps I should change strategy. Instead of fitting reading into my life, I should try fitting life around my reading:

We are such stuff as books are made on,
and our little readings are rounded with a life.

Happy 2009: I hope everyone has a good reading year!