I bought a book…

… called It’s a book.

This is an adorable picture book by Lane Smith that so accurately captures a reader’s love for books as well as a reader’s anxiety over the current status of books as an endangered species.

I am not sure how much a four year old would love this book, but I do so so so very much! Yesterday when I got the book, I went around the house hugging it. I was hugging this book, and also all books. I love the varying smells of different paper and ink combinations, the swoosh-swish sound made when you turn a page, and the fonts both elegant and serious.

I am displaying this sturdy hardcover picture book on my shelves. I stare at the cover that says “It’s a book.” This is a simple statement of fact of course, yet this also is what any bibliophile squeals when they locate a book, especially one he or she is fond of: “It’s a book. It’s a book! It’s a book.”

reading in public: Read what you want, including the weeks-old New York Times Magazine.

Reading the New York Times Magazine on the train has been an indispensible element of my Sunday routine. I first flip through the entire magazine, to the chagrin of whoever happens to sit next to me, to whet my reading appetite. Then I settle into my reading, starting from the very beginning with “The Way We Live Now” column. When I start to lose my concentration, or get antsy, or feel like briefly acknowledging the presence of the other people on the train, I look take a look around. In particular, I love to spot a fellow reader, especially a fellow reader of The New York Times Magazine.

I can’t resist checking which article the other person is reading. I am really just curious to see if at this moment, two strangers who happen to coincidentally be on the same car of the train, reading the same publication, are also reading the same article and possibly pondering the same ideas. But I must admit, if the other reader is on one of the longer pieces in the middle of the magazine while I am still enjoying the short weekly columns in the front of the magazine, I somehow feel behind in my reading. And if I happen to read the New York Times Magazine on a Monday or, gasp, a Tuesday, I feel a bit like a reading delinquent on display, a complete slacker who does not deserve to so effortlessly receive Virginia Heffernan’s witty column every week.

Then yesterday, I spotted another weekday New York Times magazine reader on the bus. I soon realized, after my compulsive checking of the article she was reading, that she was reading, not this past Sunday’s, but last Sunday’s magazine! I felt slightly superior, I am shamed to say. But then I realized that this lady does not care what anyone thinks of how much she is behind in her reading. She is proudly flopping the large thin papers of the two-week old magazine. I don’t really care either! I am going to read my super old periodicals in public too. Thank you brave lady who let life get her somewhat behind on her reading!

Normally, I don’t care if the book I am reading is 5 months old, 5 years old, or 50 years old. Granted news get old (and possibly irrelevant), I would enjoy my magazines and newspapers a lot more if I could just relax and ignore the imposing date printed on every page. A great lesson just in time: The New York Times last Sunday has already turned December-sized. It is thick with great holiday content like the fat book review and a holiday T-magazine. The date, especially on the Sunday paper with its surfeit of feature articles, shouldn’t be considered an expiration date… but a starting one.

And if that fails, I guess there is always reading these periodicals on a screen (e-reader, tablet pc, smart phone: take your pick). Then no nosy fellow commuter like me will be able to figure out if you are reading the current or the past edition of this or that publication, or if you are just starring at a blank screen to avoid making eye contact with people.

Letting go.

I had a major decluttering session last week and I came upon (one of) my dusty magazine racks. The old piles of New York Times in my navy blue IKEA rack symbolizes my naive belief that I can read, well, everything.

More words pour out daily, and a reader cannot keep up. It’s shocking and overwhelming to consider the amount of words that pour out each second, especially at a spiraling rate increase thanks to Twitter and such.

This is my shameful secret: I have “collections” of old periodicals—newspapers and magazines--that I can’t get myself to throw out because I haven’t quite “finished” with them. Of course I also have shelves and shelves of books I haven’t quite “finished,” but for some reason, it’s much more acceptable to have words bound in books than words bound in periodicals. But when all my piles of periodicals came together to an overwhelming heap of words I can only choke on, came crashing down was the belief or the desire to get through them all. So I decided take my first step to a manageable reading environment by throwing out the oldest pile, umm… I mean collection, of New York Times sections.

I am also trying to accept the fact that some things have to be left undone so that I can make room for new things, ya know, cut my losses. I figured that’s the grown up thing to do. So well, after I took a deep breathe (because it was a difficult decision but also because I did not want to breathe in the dust that soon would fill the room), I started making a paper recycling pile out of the old New York Times sections I would never read in full.

Initially I felt great! I was getting rid of a huge nagging burden (I think every one of my weekly to do list mentions something about attacking my periodical backlog… and it was never joyful to put that item on my list). I felt so free, free to fly over to current issues of nyt, vanity fair, in style, and huffington without feeling like I am cheating on the old issues that have been faithfully and patiently waiting for me. Adios yellowing hardening newprints.

But as I went further back into the past, I started getting nostalgic, which really proves that things get harder to throw out the longer you hold on to them, because with shared history, items become memory.

It was fun to go back in time though. I got to re-experience the New York Times the way it was a few years ago. Go back a couple of years, and the “Metropolitan” section was “The City.” The actual dimensions of the papers were larger. And is it just me, but did the New York Times Magazine contain more memoir like pieces than now?? In my decluttering/time traveling session, I got to relive some events that were vivid and hazy at the same time. For instance, there were Obama and McCain on the front page of 09/07/08 paper and Michael Phelps on the front page of 08/17/08 paper. But my journey ended on January 6, 2008, the earliest paper kept by me.

The recycling truck came and left with my really really old newspapers. I think I truly did the right thing for myself, even if my grandchildren won’t be able to see Obama selecting Biden to be on his ticket.

Whetting my appetite for children’s books

I know last August was a time when readers of children’s novels were eagerly anticipating the release of Mockingjay, the third and final installment of The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. As for me, I generally dismissed children’s novels… until I read a pretty cool one last summer that got me hooked on children’s novels. When you reach me by Rebecca Stead was a very fun summer read. I don’t generally read Sci Fi (although I am really dying to read “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy), and honestly, I didn’t even know the book was going to be very  Sci-fi.

I read a nice review in the New York Times book review that made me want to read the book. Then I forgot all about it until a sixth grader lent me the book. I looked forward to the puzzle and a story about growing up in nyc. I loved the fact that it was such a New York City story and enjoyed how all the characters were so well developed. The abstract topics were balanced well by the ordinary concerns of a teenager involving friendship.

This book makes me want to read Young Adult books (well, maybe not the ones about cliques and vampires). I realize that children’s books can have a well written and sophisticated storyline. And it’s nice to read a short, concrete, digestible book once in awhile, a book you can read in one subway ride. Too bad today is the official first day of autumn and I feel compelled to read more serious books.

A lazy Saturday afternoon…

I have felt a tug or two but never a compulsion to read The Lovely Bones, Revolutionary Road, Twilight, or any other book before the movie version premiered. Still, I’m extremely annoyed with myself for not being able to pop in the 1995 Ang Lee directed “Sense and Sensibility” into the DVD player because it’s taking me a ridiculously long time to finish the book. I bought the movie at a great bargain weeks ago thinking that I’ll see the movie very soon when I finish reading the book. The DVD has been starring at me in its pristine, transparent wrapping, kind of judgmentally and impatiently.

Oh but it has become an event to read Jane Austen for me ever since I bought  the novels that came all bound together in a very pretty but unwieldy tome. Yes, it was one of those “complete works” door stopper. I love the ornate book, and I thought it a great idea at the time to get the enormous book since I had a great desire to consume all Jane Austen books and I can accomplish that task from one book. But since the book is heavy and entirely not portable, I don’t open the book in proportion to how much I love to read Jane Austen.  But today, I let tea in Alice’s lovely New Orleans teacup settle me into Sense and Sensibility, concerning myself with the frustrations of Elinor’s life. The hot weather outside also deterred me from reading some tiny book outside. I’d rather escape to Jane Austen world and deal with the living things in its many gardens than contend with the sweltering summer heat outside. What a blessing it is to be able to sit around on a Saturday afternoon sipping tea and sliding into Sense and Sensibility!

Dickinson is for the spring.

I started reading Emily Dickinson in April, when spring was the only fathomable season, to celebrate the poetry month. Today, a weekend away from the official beginning of the summer, I have finished my book of Emily Dickinson, all 1775 poems. Summer is my least favorite time of the year when the humidity outside matches the one in my mind, intensifying the stickiness I actually feel. There are people and other living things to contend with everywhere. So although I am kind of impressed with myself for having read all of Dickinson poems, coming to the end of that gray tome is quite sad.

The poems were so effective that just reading them would make me sneeze. But my sinus is slowly chilling out, and I am shedding my knitted hand warmers. I guess it’s time to stop reading about the raiment of nature and taunting eternity and get into my sluggish summer reading. 

Defying expectations

When you discover a surprising aspect to a person you thought you had all figured out, it can be pleasant or disturbing. Same goes for books. Books often take us on unexpected journeys, the kinds you couldn’t have envisioned just by looking at the cover or reading the author’s previous works. Readers love the thrill of finding worlds they know were previously unfathomable before and often find themselves in intriguing and fantastic realms.

Then there are books that take you on journeys you wish you had opted out of. I distinctly remember the disappointment and confusing I had endured in the seventh grade when I thought I had found a book in the vein of the beloved Charlotte’s Web. The cover had pictures of farm animals and the petite volume looked so approachable even shelved in the classics sections. Of course the book was Animal Farm and my middle school self kept wondering why the animals are sort of twisted and mean.

I had miscalculated again just last week. Remembering I had liked reading “No Exit” by Sartre in college, and noticing that the volume had three other plays in it, I grabbed the book for an interesting Saturday afternoon reading. I thought I would read three other plays about people sitting around in an ornate living room for all of eternity attaching words to their woes. All three plays were nothing like that.

The prose of those three plays came sharp and disturbing. I even had a nightmare about one of the plays. And I can’t decide if reading is wonderful or terrifying. What a risk we take when we follow the words on a page!

A bit of nostalgia.

Okay, so I’ve been wondering about this for a couple of months now… is it just me or is the New York Times, the actual inky paper edition, smaller than before? And no, I don’t mean ‘is it thinner?’ It has been skinny for awhile… but are the physical dimensions, the width and the length (or is it the width and the height), actually smaller?? Or…of course… is it all just in my head?

I know the magazine shrunk last year… but the paper doesn’t feel as overwhelming or unwieldy anymore. It’s even submissive to the way I want it to fold… so I no longer wrestle with it….

I miss the paper, especially the main section around the holidays, when it is too fat to crisply fold. I miss the days when a day’s worth of paper felt overwhelming, and I had to turn the paper around this way and that to cut out an article for a school current events assignment. I miss the time when I saw other New Yorkers doing their elaborate and elegant NY Times origami on the train instead of starring at the manageable, portable screens.

The Idiot…

-----Spoiler Alert for The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky!!-----

Finally finished The Idiot, my first Dostoevsky. For 600 pages, I prepared myself for the tragic ending I knew was surely coming. When I read the last page, however, I couldn’t make up my mind. The prince certainly ends up in a sad state, but was it an unequivocally sad ending? In a way I am more than a little relieved that the prince was spared from the weight of a crushing guilt and the transformation of a romance into a marriage.

April gilded with the verses of Emily Dickinson…

It is Day 6 of reading Emily Dickinson and I cannot keep her from seeping in. My mind is full of thoughts about firmaments and bees. Her poems are consonant with the birdies outside, which is getting me to be more partial to spring. I think everything is so beautiful reading Emily Dickinson in the sun; then she breaks my heart with poignancy of death.

April the poetry month.

Although I am inconsolably fretful about pollen and people that come with spring, I am looking forward to April the National Poetry Month. This is the second year I am celebrating the poetry month by reading a poet I have not read before (outside of class). Last year I read A Part of Speech, an anthology of poems by Joseph Brodsky, gifted to me by natalie. This year, I will be reading The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas H. Johnson.

First I need to brag. I acquired, for two dollars, a beautiful hard cover copy of The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson at the Mid Manhattan Library book sale. Oh I loved to go there. The collection was eclectic, and constantly changing. This of course meant you couldn’t go there with a specific book in mind, but I think that’s what made the browsing experience so magical. You look through the shelves and find some lovely books you’ve had on your wishlist either to read or to own. That book sale, however,  is no more. And it is one of those things I knew about NYC and took for granted, gone, just gone. If the Mid Manhattan Library book sale ever gets resurrected, will someone kindly let me know? I want the bargain, but I also want to go back to the city I used to know.

I couldn’t resist buying a beautiful hard cover book containing the poems of Emily Dickinson. And I did really want to read her poems and thought I would if I had the book. I am quite ashamed to report, however, that I have owned the book for awhile but hesitated reading it. The closest I got to reading Emily Dickinson related stuff was reading a fun fiction called An Arsonist’s Guide to Writer’s Homes in New England by Brock Clarke (featuring the Emily Dickinson house) and it wasn’t even really about poetry. I think what kept me from reading her poems really is all that nature in her writing. Yuck.

Lately though, I am convinced reading about nature in poetry might not be so terrible. I may even like to vicariously experience nature through poetry just as I enjoy encountering nature as long as it’s through a car window. But then again, perhaps being a total city girl who finds comfort in the jungle of skyscrapers, I lack the ability to deeply appreciate nature imagery.

Well I am about to find out! I will read 25 pages of Emily Dickinson per day and I’ll have read through The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson by the end of the month. I am excited.

The pages accumulate and you reach the end of a book…

… or so I think. That must be true, right? A book is finite, I know.

But these days, “the ends” are quite scarce. It could be that I am reading too many books at once. It’s also my allergy fogginess. It’s become really difficult to follow a string of words. I hate it when reading becomes difficult, but this too will pass.

 

Why do I feel so great when I finish a book? A book is a terribly fickle unit anyway, one that could be any number of pages. I mean isn’t it enough to just enjoy the process of reading?? Of course reading is more essential than finishing a book. Still, getting to the last page is an affirmation that I can, not only start, but also finish something. Publishing an entry is like that too… and perhaps that is one of the main reasons why I blog and post these inane comments.

How Does a Neurotic Person Recommend a Book?: a case study.

A good friend left me with a weighty task: I was to lend him a book or two to take with him on a cruise. I can sort of fathom how this could be a simple task to some people. Why, however, pass over an opportunity to fret endlessly over the choice of books? Here is a chronicle of how I selected the books for my friend:

The number of books, above all else, must be decided on. I was very tempted to hand over a very large and onerous bundle of books containing every single book I’ve ever wanted to make him read. I mean what a great opportunity to make a friend guilty for not reading the books you loan him?? But I didn’t want to be so cruel when he was heading off to vacation. I’ve decided to be a good friend and not defer the task of narrowing down the number of books to him. I realized I couldn’t make him take more than 2 books for there are other things and people on the boat. Now to the subject matter:

I also realized I must lend him only fiction because the point of a cruise, like the point of reading (some) fiction was to escape reality. And so I eliminated, though entertaining, any Malcolm Gladwell books as well as the, not as entertaining, Rollo May books.

Of course the fiction I choose has to both be interesting and novel for him. Of course I wand to find a book or two that he would enjoy, but it also has to be a book he has not read yet. I mean the whole point of borrowing books is to read someone you wouldn’t pluck off the book shelves on your own. Furthermore, I want to seem, through my choice in books, like someone with a sophisticated taste in books. Oh the literary vanities!

Now this means I have to make quite a few tricky assumptions about what he would find to be an interesting and fun read but has not yet read yet. I understand the assumptions I make at this stage, which will become manifest in the books I loan him, can make or break a friendship. Succeed at this and you show the deep connection and mutual understand in the relationship, but fail at this and then you open up the gaps in the understanding of each other. What potential disappointment! Oh the burden! My anxiety increases with the knowledge that I now only have a couple of days to finish this task.

Some of the books I was seriously considering were: Far Afield (by Susanna Kaysen), Housekeeping (by Marilynne Robinson), and The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath). I, however, eliminated them all because I realized: the books can’t simply be interesting; they must be happy. After all, these were books for the freakin cruise. A depressing book just won’t do. One problem: I don’t own that many happy books. Or could it be that the interesting novels are not happy? But that’s something to fret over on a different day; I still face an unfinished task!

I almost settled on a fun, psychological thriller by Agatha Christie titled Curtain. But then I came across yet another factor I had not considered before: portability. And of course my copy of this book is a hard cover. Argh! How could I have not considered this when I daily obsess over having enough portable books to sustain me on my commute??

Long at last, I decided on my two books: Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen and The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. I had to assume, though I really didn’t want to, that boys don’t really read Jane Austen. I also figured: even if my very literary friend had read an Austen novel, it’d be Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility. I was pretty confident that Northanger Abbey would be super novel and super fun. The Little Prince, however, I had to directly ask about. Thankfully, he hasn’t read it yet (at least in English). Isn’t The Little Prince a perfect book for travelling? I did well, didn’t I?

Unfortunately, I wasn’t quite done yet. The Little Prince was presentable, but Northanger Abbey wasn’t. The Austen novel was seriously girly looking with its varying shades of pink on the cover. So I had to cover the book with a nice piece of art paper to make it look more manly. After all, you meet people (i.e. girls) at a cruise and I wouldn’t want the book I loan him to be a girl-repellent.

 

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Whew! I feel I’ve done an adequate job at this crucial test of friendship… but oh, guess what happened? We had a glorious snowstorm in NYC and I never did get a chance to loan him the two books for his trip. Well, should I lend them to him anyway??

My speech to the shelves.

Today I am your commander: you have to station yourselves in the shelves assigned by me. I choose your mates according to my whimsy. Today you will stand next to a book written about the same topic. Then you will have lots to talk, or perhaps argue, about. But then I’ll notice that the shades of purple on your spines do not quite match. It’ll bug me quite a bit to watch you standing next to each other and well, a quick swap or two, and you’ll find yourself partnered with someone else. You may not get along but you have no choice. You faithfully stand guard to make me feel safe in my fortress of bound words.

At least that’s what I’d like to think.

But of course it’s entirely possible you are inwardly seething and patiently waiting… for you know you will one day outlive your commander. I will be gone and everything about me will be in the past. You, however, will march on to the future, holding tightly to the strings of words formulated long ago. Perhaps then you will meet a kinder commander, or a more indifferent one.

Still, I am sorry to say I’d rather be an ephemeral reader than an eternal book.

Currently reading: “Far Afield” by Susanna Kaysen

Far Afield by Susanna Kaysen is a great example of the kinds of book I was hoping my 2010 literary resolution would allow me to read. I owned this book since my second year in college but I am only now reading it as my current portable book to read on the public transit. This is also my fourth and favorite anthropological novel I’ve read so far.

I did twice before try reading this book but I found it impossible to get past the dreary and slow beginning.  There was also the issue of wrong expectations. The first time I tried reading the book was immediately after I bought it. And the sole reason for buying this book was that it was a Susanna Kaysen novel, the author of Girl, Interrupted. Since I loved her memoir, I somehow expected, despite the blurb in the back, that it’d be another coming of age book portraying psychological angst. Reading the first 20 pages or so not about that, therefore, has been disappointing. All I felt reading the beginning was an overwhelming sense of grayness coming off the pages and permeating reality. So I don’t really blame my younger self for not reading on to find out that this book was precisely about coming of age and psychological angst of the (usually intelligent) young people.

I couldn’t penetrate the grayness of the beginning on my second try either. But now I see that the beginning was so difficult because it was so compelling: I was transplanted into Faroe Islands feeling trapped by its coldness and humidity. Reality seemed to takes on different hues like their “unnatural” sun. Susanna Kaysen’s writing is so effective that I found myself travelling with Jonathan, the main character. I felt the ennui and the dread that Jonathan felt about his year ahead. All of this made me want to close the book only if to escape this world, and so I did not succeed finishing the book on my second try either.

Oh but on my third try, I kept reading, perhaps because I started this time with an adjusted set of expectations, but more likely because I was stuck on the train with only this book and I didn’t want to make eye contact with the other New Yorkers. And at this moment, I empathized with Jonathan, although he was a little arrogant in his youth and also a bit spoiled, because I, like him, wanted to avoid the very people I was sharing a city with. And so I was hooked.

This story is unlike the other three anthropological novels I’ve read so far. Instead of meeting a young protagonist anthropologist thirsty for knowledge and (more or less) eager to go native, Jonathan, our thesis researching novice anthropologist, feels more ambivalent about becoming a participant observer. Yet he gets sucked in and even in the thickness of his involvement with the culture, Jonathan has doubts, fears, and still continuing and consuming ambivalence about the whole anthropological enterprise. It was refreshing to finally meet a more believable grad student who seems too well read, too neurotic, and too young.

And Susanna Kaysen doesn’t disappoint in writing another psychological story. The acute observations I loved in Girl, Interrupted are what made me feel a connection with Jonathan. I especially loved the inner dialogues Jonathan had with his overly academic self, overly critical self, overly untrusting self, and finally a self that resigns himself to the conditions, both glorious and pathetic, of life itself. I ended up rooting for him but found the book too depressing at times since Jonathan’s problems can so easily be generalized to the human condition I am trying to ignore in my youth.

Jonathan’s way of making all the concerns of the twenties abstract and academic especially rings true with me since I as well as a few close friends of mine have a tendency to trap ourselves that way. Is making everything abstract our way of avoiding life itself? Well then, perhaps we need an awakening similar to Jonathan’s filled with poop, blood, and animal slaughter, essentially a confrontation with the realities of living outside our books. 

A snowy day bookmark knitting.

I am back from my weeklong blogging and people break. This day has already become fuzzy in our memory but let’s recall a fantastic snowstorm we had in NYC a couple of weeks ago. I thoroughly enjoyed it because I knew there are not that many snow days left of this winter. Also, I never got tired of watching the snow dance outside. Inside, safe from the mad white swirls, I read and knit a bookmark.

I have been collecting bookmarks (and have been losing many of them as the blog title suggests). My collection dates back to 1994. Many of those skinny and sturdy pieces of paper carry personal memories and invoke a great deal of nostalgia which I fully indulge in as I read a book. Still, there is a special place in my heart for the knitted kind, a relatively recent addition to my collection since I did not start knitting in earnest until 2007.

I am always searching for bookmark patterns which usually leads to disappointment because there aren’t that many out there. That’s why I was ecstatic to find a lovely bookmark pattern by Kiersten Brandt. It was so beautiful and perfect for a snowy day knitting project. I really appreciate Kiersten Brandt for posting her bookmark pattern in her neat blog linked below:

http://knitoneblogtwo.wordpress.com/

(if you want the pattern, click on “free patterns” at the top of the blog. The pattern is called “Backbone Bookmark”).

The snowy day bookmark knitting didn’t progress very far though, probably because I was completely mesmerized by the swirling snow:

I took a couple more days to knit and block the bookmark. I finished by making the long beady strand that sticks out of the bookmark (is there a technical name for that??). I made it extra long because I love to hold on to that strand as I read or behold the book that helps me feel safe(r) in a public place filled with people (a book is an escape from the world).

 

A beautiful bookmark has to find the right book and vice versa. Some books I know I will like a lot better if I had the right bookmark. flanking the experience. This union between a book and a bookmark really makes or breaks the reading experience for me, and I’d like to think that a good pairing makes the bookmark and the beloved book happy as well in their literary marriage. 

This vital task, however, is not an easy one. There is, of course, an art to matching up a bookmark to a book.  The bookmark must match not only the content and the tone of the writing but also the physical dimensions of the book. 

My snowy day bookmark first lived briefly and temporarily in a book of poems by Billy Collins called Questions About Angels. I love that little volume of poetry loaned to me by Al, but the pairing of the book to the bookmark was not a great one. My choice was a haphazard one: I immediately found I really liked the book and while gulping down its content, I grabbed the nearest bookmark which happened to be the snowy day bookmark. The book, however, is too thin for this thick and elaborate bookmark. and the long strand hangs awkwardly over a floppy cover. Though I loved the poems, I should’ve chosen a more fitting bookmark.

This will be my snowy day bookmark’s first true home: Marisha Pessl’s Special Topics in Calamity Physics, a book I got at a great price on Christmas eve and a book I plan on reading next week. Oh, I think this is a perfect pairing! The book has a nice hardcover and thick papers suitable for a bookmark like this. I especially like how the long beady strand thingy sticks out of this book.

A couple more examples of where my other knitted bookmarks live (I am using my knitted bookmarks as examples because those are the ones I have pictures of). The green bookmark shown below is my first knitted bookmark. The bookmark is designed by Nancy Miller and is published as “Lace Bookmark” in One-skein wonders: 101 Yarn Shop Favorites, a lovely volume edited by Judith Durant. By the way, Judith Durant edited a couple more “one skein” series after this book and both of them are great as well (that is a recommendation Alice!). Anyway, this bookmark is now happily living in Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams, a book I am hoping to finish via my 2010 literary resolution.

 

I knit a few more using the same pattern for myself and a couple of literary friends. The white one below, which I kept, is perfect for any Jane Austen novel, don’t you think? Unfortunately, my Jane Austen novels, with the exception of Northanger Abbey are bound together in a gigantic tome that comes with its own ribbon bookmark. So for now, my lacy white one below is homeless. I am thinking I’ll place her in Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self and Emotion edited by Richard A. Shweder and Robert A LeVine but the cover for this book is the same white as the bookmark. I have to give this some more thought. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

By the way: I do very much like to knit bookmarks for friends as a way of wishing them great reading. Let me know if you would like a bookmark.

An addition to my library: “The Knitter’s Book of Yarn: the ultimate guide to choosing, using, and enjoying yarn” by Clara Parkes

A very exciting addition to my library, with the help of lovely Alice, is a very pretty book about yarns I’ve been coveting for many months. No I did not break my 2010 literary resolution—this book was acquired back in Dec. I, however, have only now started to read the book.

In The Knitter’s Book of Yarn: the ultimate guide to choosing, using, and enjoying yarn, Clara Parkes patiently teaches the reader about yarns handknitters would encounter from the fibers themselves to the end product in skeins. The book contains a lot of useful, but not an overwhelming dose of, information about yarn fibers, production, and quality. I especially appreciate her explanations on how to match the fiber content and the weight of a yarn with a specific pattern (design), a task that is both exciting and daunting for a novice knitter. The book makes me a more knowledgeable matchmaker for my next project. This, I think, explains and excuses the fact that the patterns in the book aren’t super exciting or novel. If you read the pattern notes, you can learn a lot about how to pair a pattern to a yarn.

Oh and of course, I enjoy this book a lot because I love the construction of the book itself: a delightful cover (featuring yarn flowers!); a bright orange inside cover; thick papers inside that are perfect for underlining and note taking. I did, however, wish there were more photos of the yarns/fibers themselves and illustrations of some of the concepts mentioned, for example, showing the difference between a woolen vs. worsted spun yarns.

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This is the second book I own that I would consider domestic, containing knowledge that every girl even a few generations would consider common knowledge but completely mysterious to me and my peers. My other domestic book is a comprehensive guide on how to keep house: Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House by Cheryl Mendelson.

I am not required to keep house obsessively or to knit. And I do wonder if I get excited about yarns because it’s a hobby and not an obligation. If the many years I logged in the classroom involved learning practical things, would these mundane knowledge about keeping house and fiber choosing be horribly boring to me? Well, the only way to find out is to make math optional and see if kids clamor to buy up calculus books and have integral sessions at Starbucks.

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This yarn book is also one of those books that can only be appreciated by readers with a certain amount of experience. While reading this book, I frequently told myself how wonderful it would’ve been if I had read this book back when I first started knitting. This book could’ve saved me from some bad yarn purchases or inappropriate yarn pairing to a pattern. Oh but I should not kid myself, for no, I would not have been able to understand this book if it weren’t for my awful mistakes with yarns. If I had no experience touching different fibers and puzzling over them, the discussion on fibers would be meaningless. And if it weren’t for all the disastrous yarn/pattern pairings, I would not appreciate the knowledge imparted to me.

I just have to realize that certain books can only be appreciated after accumulating mistakes. For example, I read The Elements of Style by Strunk and White back in the eighth grade and found the book awfully boring and full of information no one can possibly find helpful. I again read the book a couple of years back after I had given myself enough time to make oh-so-many writing mistakes (probably all the most egregious ones in the book). And this time I truly appreciated the advice and saw that the book was a gem. Yes, when I look at the little volume, it does sparkle happily on my bookshelf.

So mistakes are not to be feared because they make knowledge more yummy. I guess mistakes makes us more teachable too. So I am not afraid to knit or write badly. I am, however, terrified of technology. It made me feel perplexed and profoundly uncomfortable to buy a new lappy or try a USB drive for the first time. Technology is so super scary that I still have the impulse to do all my writing on my Moleskines instead of this electronic typewriter that connects to the internet. The issue is intuition. I don’t know when things go wrong and I have no gut feeling about how to fix the problems. I also don’t know how things work so everything is a profound mystery. That’s why even though I have recently started to covet an E-book reader (okay, I’ll say it—a “Kindle”), I will never be able to think of a book having a flat screen. Something about that makes me feel uneasy.

Ah, so I shall end this entry about everything and nothing. This is the result of a wicked headache that I hope will go away soon.

A (short) review: “How I got published: Famous Authors Tell You in Their Own Words” Edited by Ray White & Duane Lindsay.

I recently read How I Got Published: Famous Authors Tell you in Their Own Words edited by Ray White and Duane Lindsay. Even though I wasn’t familiar with the writers (a lot of them seem to be mystery/thriller writers and I don’t read that genre very much), I enjoyed the book. It gives a realistic yet inspirational glimpse into what writers do after they toil away and have typed up a manuscript.

The book is essentially a collection of advice for new/unpublished writers. The sage voices vary in style/tone and the authors have had different degrees of luck. Still the advice consistently boils down to: you’re a writer if you are compelled to write and actually write; don’t give up; however, don’t quit your day job (yet).

I think it’s courageous that these writers produce manuscripts and keep plugging along rejection after rejection with absolutely no guarantee of success. Even though the advice is specifically about writing, the suggestion is generally helpful to all young people: there are no guarantees so do what you love, don’t give up, but (of course) have a backup plan (i.e. a job).

The advice aside, I loved reading about what is a completely mysterious process behind the writing and the publication of books.

Going native: reading “Fieldwork” by Mischa Berlinski

Fieldwork by Mischa Berlinski depicts the variations in the attempts to see the world through someone else’s eyes. Most of us don’t do this: we’re born into a culture and learn to consider the world through its point of view for the rest of our lives. A few of us, however, venture out. There’s always a primary aim: religion, journalism, anthropology. Oh but whatever the motivation for donning a different set of lens, Berlinski shows us that leaving one’s rock solid point of view invariably is dizzying for the soul. The characters in the novel then discover the absolutely additive and all consuming nature of trying to escape one’s assumptions to see the world anew.

The anthropologist, the missionary, and the journalist in the novel enter the expedition without realizing that once started, there is no going back. Seeing the characters warped into their obsessions is fascinating. You want to tell them to go back to their ordinary, content lives. But a part of you hope they don’t for this is a chance for the you to live vicariously through the characters’ ever precarious psyches.

Well, I liked the book a lot. The story was quite clever, in my opinion. The only part that I found completely incredulous were not the spirits and the souls, but the very last paragraph: I don’t think academics get paid (well) to publish their papers in journals! Clearly that’s a minor point, but it still annoyed me. Still, I thoroughly enjoyed this unique and exciting story.

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This is the third anthropological fiction I read. The other two were Return to Laughter by Elenore Smith Bowen and The innocent anthropologist by Nigel Barley. When there is a career that interests me, I obsessively read about the experience. I also like to read about intense and obsessive characters and anthropological novels have not failed to give me those compelling characters.

Not surprising then, I suppose, that my next portable-reading-in-the-public-book is another anthropological novel: Far Afield by Susanna Kaysen. I bought the book back in my second year in college, not because of the ethnographic theme, but more in spite of it (anthropology wasn’t terribly interesting to me then). I liked Girl, Interrupted, written also by Susanna Kaysen, so I figured I may like Far Afield. Well, von voyage to me as I head over to the Faroe Islands with the book via the NYC subway.

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Is it possible to understand a fiction written by someone from a different culture when we are all so entrenched in our own? Of course we can read Tolstoy and Borges and be moved for there is more the humanity shares than not (otherwise anthropology would be impossible). But still, we must be seeing everything we read from where we are in history, culture, and point of development. What would it be like to understand fiction as the author saw it? For me, Latin American literature tastes different when I read it in Spanish. It’s not an issue of translation so  much as the fact that each language has its own pulse. And when you read in a different language, doesn’t the fabric of consciousness feels a bit unfamiliar and the world look a shade different?

It’s ultimately impossible to see the world from another’s point of view because it’s impossible to (completely) shed the self. But reading novels, and consequently accumulating them in our minds must help us get a glimpse of what it’s like to see everything from a different cosmic point of view. That is the power of the novels and if you think about it, it’s pretty scary. Clearly we should be more circumspect about encouraging kids to read or recommending books to friends.

2010 Literary Resolution!

Although I’ve made several hopeful new years resolutions (including one about this blog), I did not make one related to reading. Jan 1 is already a fading memory, but I am only now ready to make my 2010 literary resolution. I’d like to argue that the beginning of Feb, when the new year is still minty fresh but not shiny new, is the best time to make a new year’s resolution. A brand new year, unsullied by the marks inevitably made by living through it, inspires us to turn a bunch of unrealistic hopes into resolutions. We now, in the midst of February concerns, have the ability to make more sensible resolutions when 2010 has become a dreary winter reality.

And here is a dreadful and embarrassing reality I need to come clean about: my literary backlog is so bad that it’s even worse than my email backlog.

I am simply drowning in printed pages. I have way too many books I am a partially through and many I want to begin but don’t get around to starting because I am constantly buying more books. I have erected many piles of books: there is one on my bedside table, one on the floor by my bed, another on my desk, and another one, two, three on my coffee table. Books stay on the shelves for me. The ones that became members of these nonfunctional pillars represent my delusion: they are the books I am “currently reading” or books I think I will get to soon.

So, I must put a stop to this nonsense of accumulating printed pages at an ungodly rate. Two Saturday ago, I bought my last book for awhile for my secret project no. iv. And here is my literary resolution in three parts:

1. I will read what I want to and not feel guilty about what I am reading because of what I am not reading.
2. I will not buy any more books until mid-May.
3. I will read books I own, books I borrow, and books I am given.

I hope this will help me get rid of my literary backlog by finally reading the books I’ve acquired. I am actually quite excited to finally read the books I have been wanting to read for years (for example: Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond, The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton, The Savage Mind by Claude Levi-Strauss). An added benefit, of course, is that I’ll save some money. But most importantly, I think it’d be nice to look at my shelves instead of turning my back on them constantly trying to build my library.

So the resolution is, more than anything else, a training for an attitude change. My reading pattern of constantly starting new books and being afraid of running out of pages when clearly I am not finishing all the books I own already is a manifestation of a deeper issue. I am terribly afraid of commitment. I am constantly fretting over getting stuck. These pathological attitudes keep me from being a productive and non-neurotic human being. I hope that by changing my reading pattern for a while (oh and yes, it’s temporary—you are not trapped) and committing to my current library, I will learn how to be committed to this life and myself.

Now I am not terribly worried about running out of things to read. In fact, I am pretty confident (according to my rough estimate) that I will not run out even if no one ever lends me a book. But please, I’d appreciate it if you do for that will add an element of exciting experimentation to my reading this year.

If you see me reading Jane Austen’s Persuasion, then be happy for me because I am making a dent in my literary backlog. However, if you see me reading my organic chemistry textbook, please please have pity on me and lend me a book.

R.I.P J.D. Salinger and Howard Zinn

We lost two great writers in one day: both J.D. Salinger and Howard Zinn passed away last Wed.

I have always liked Salinger’s Franny and Zooey more than The Catcher in the Rye. In fact, Franny and Zooey was my favorite book in high school. I still remember gobbling up the book one hot summer night in 10th grade.

I have never finished Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States for the reason that it is too depressing and I can’t seem to take more than one chapter at a time.

Rest in Peace.

Required Reading

The Morgan Library & Museum is doing an exhibition called “A Woman’s Wit: Jane Austen’s Life and Legacy.” I plan on going there this Sunday and I am so excited. How wonderful it is that I get to visit when I am at the height of my Austen obsession! But one little prickly yet very exciting task: I am, in preparation for the visit, reading Pride and Prejudice this week.

How can I feel ambivalent about having to read Pride and Prejudice? While I am definitely enjoying the book, it is having a deadline that makes me a bit nervous. I do set reading goals for myself but this is different: I absolutely must read this book by Sunday as I’ve made a commitment not only to myself but to a close friend as well. I guess I can say, if I don’t in fact finish, that I’ve read the book when I was a teenager. But I don’t think it counts as I absolutely hated the book so much back then that it’s amazing I even got to the end. That is to say, I didn’t understand the book. So without a suitable excuse for not finishing, I have no choice but to read and enjoy.

But oh I am no longer used to doing a required reading. The deadline, oh the deadline, looms large! How will I concentrate and enjoy the prose when I am afraid I won’t make it? Yes, yes, I divided the number of pages by the number of days and yes yes, it is a doable number of pages per day. But still I fret.

I don’t know how I juggled all the required reading for many years as a student when the number of pages per day was not particularly doable. But then again, I did not juggle so well…

Tisk tisk…

It’s only the middle of Jan and you already started falling behind your blogging schedule?!? Terribly flaky!

Well, I am a bit under the weather so I need to head to bed early. But I promise to be back to the tue/thr posting schedule next week!

Additions to my Library

I have to first say: I do want bookstores to stay afloat, and I really (in most cases) believe the authors and everyone else in the publishing world should get paid well. However, I must admit: there’s something exhilarating about finding and buying a book that’s been lingering on my wishlist at a significant discount. Furthermore, I feel grumpy and jealous when I see a book I paid full price for on sale. For example, I paid full price for the hardcover copy of Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Issacson (alright alright, I made my dad buy me that one). I have now seen it in the Bargain Books section of Barnes & Noble a couple of times for less than ten dollars. Ugh, I feel upset. More weirdly, I find myself having to restrain myself from buying the book again just to feel great about having gotten the book on sale. When I find myself making a list of reasons for owning more than one copy of a book I like, I have to force myself to turn around and walk away. Oh but I have to admit—when the cover is different, it’s not that easy to do although I’ve been pretty much successful at not owning multiple copies of the same title.

In any case, made all the more special because it was on Christmas eve, I found a couple of great books at the Bargain Books section of Barnes & Noble (which doesn’t always happen).

One is a book I’ve been wanting to read for awhile:

Special topics in calamity physics: a novel... by Marisha Pessl.

Oh and it was autographed!

I also bought a book that might shed some light on the elusive world of publishing. It also seems like the kind of book I can read when concentration is a challenge:

How I got published: Famous authors tell you in their own words edited  by Ray White and Duane Lindsay.

Although it bothers me that a part of the front cover is obscured, I never peel off the pricing sticker. I like to see and reminisce the time I got a great deal on the book… but more importantly, I like the little affixed memento of the bookstore, the situation, and the point of my mental development when I got the book. I reminisce about the Seminary Coop Bookstore back in college when I see their distinct price label in a book I got for a class or for a weekend reading in Burton Judson. Strand bookstore labels I especially like because they have a date imprinted on them. I am not exactly sure what the date signifies, but I find that I purchase most books pretty close to the date on the label. So I time travel with the labels.

This year is off to a sluggish reading start… but I am excited with so many books on my bookshelf. Have a happy reading year!

Rituals and Routines.

One of my favorite things to read in the Sunday New York Times is the “Sunday Routine” column in Metropolitan section. I am not really sure why, but I think it’s a combination of the following: circadian rhythm is so elusive to me so I am always amazed at how everyone seems to possess a routine; adulthood is elusive to me so it’s fascinating to see how adults (successful ones, I suppose, to have been chosen by the NYT) maneuver their Sundays.

I’ve also been thinking a lot lately about (the sustainability of) rituals and (the value of) routines. And I thought, now that it’s a new year and I am allowed to make all sorts of plans, I should try posting more routinely here as a personal ritual. I am thinking Tuesdays and Thursdays. And what do you know—it’s Tuesday! I don’t always have things to say, but I think blogs are supposed to be updated regularly so here goes.