No Book Left Behind

Meet the New Blog, Same as the Old Blog

2008-08-16T17:38:00.000-07:00

Come by and visit us at our new home!

http://www.nobookleftbehind.wordpress.com

Thank you so much for all your support.

Love,

The Readers

Reconstruction in Progress

2008-06-23T10:01:00.000-07:00

We will return shortly with a brand-new look and URL.

It's summer...what the heck are you doing inside?

NBLB at The Airport

2008-06-18T10:25:00.000-07:00

This entry was written during a layover in San Francisco Airport, which explains all the travel-related content. I could’ve posted this right away if not for the fact that the WiFi situation at SFO wasn’t so blatantly sucky. (Obviously I miss the free WiFi in Honolulu and Portland – heh.)

Just finished reading: It’s Called A Breakup Because It’s Broken – the book written by that guy from He’s Just Not That Into You. Yeah, I was supposed to catch up on my Mayle and Coelho and McEwan, but I thought that a frothy self-help book about separation anxieties should send the appropriate “don’t talk to me, I’m sleep-deprived” message to any prospective seatmates. (As if the coffee-stained inflatable neck pillow covered in cat hair wasn’t enough…) Not to mention that the advice and dating horror stories are funny as all get-out.

Speaking of prospective seatmates: No, I have not met that Sudoku-toting twin to Gerard Butler at all – and the closest I may have been to doing so must have been that one guy in the Detroit-SFO leg who I swear could be the missing link between Hugh Laurie (aesthetically) and Howdy Doody (vocally), who was reading The World Is Flat while patiently enduring the cute but noisy (and obviously unrelated) baby next to him. Luckily for him, he came armed with $3 Twizzlers, which said baby chewed on with reckless abandon.

Currently reading: This month’s edition of Real Simple, which promises “Easy Organizing: 99 Affordable Ideas” and “35 great summer reads.” (Still haven’t gotten around to reading either article, however.) Was tempted by O (with Oprah promising a similar review of summer reads) and Allure (Reader’s Awards for makeup, yes; Jessica Alba, meh) – but, hey, shows you where my priorities are right now.

(Postscript: Yeah, way to go, Real Simple, for putting authors together to recommend summer reads. Liz Gilbert’s recs are a gas, as are Sophie Kinsella's… but will somebody please serve Danielle Steel a tall glass of Shut Up? Or at least send her to the same Catholic parish where Anne Rice got her conversion, because I don’t think Joel Osteen is curing D. of her dullness problem.)

Buyer’s remorse: I really should have bought American Gods as a parting gift for Scribe as soon as I saw it selling for $4 on paperback at Mac’s Backs, but apparently it got snapped up while I wasn’t looking. ;) I also regret passing up Sammy’s Hill at Applewood Books… although, to be fair, I thought they’d be selling it for cheaper at Mac’s and Half-Price Books anyway, since it’s been out for years and Kristin Gore already wrote a sequel since then. (The Sammy books, however, will end up in my Must Borrow list -- next to Mort by Terry Pratchett.)

Buyer’s remorse, part 2: Four words – Powell’s City of Books. Apparently the main branch in Portland (OR) has four floors’ worth of books on sale. If I ever decide to spend more than 5 hours in Portland outside of PDX, I am SO going there.

Nicest airport employee: The clerk at SFO’s Aviator Bookstore actually saved my butt when I realized I left my Ziploc of liquid items at her cashier stand. “I was looking for you,” she told me as she handed the baggy to me. Score!

For Those of You Scoring At Home: Truths, Dares, and Consequences

2008-06-11T18:47:00.000-07:00

Grab a blanket, sister, we’ll make smoke signals

Bring in some new blood

It feels like we’re alone

Grab a blanket, brother, so we don’t catch cold

from one another

Oh, I wonder if we’re stuck in Rome

- Nickel Creek, "When in Rome"

So: The Keith Olbermann book.

I know it's kind of weird for an apolitical centrist like me to wring my hands over a man who's old enough to be my father - but that's to be expected, isn't it? I mean, how on earth does a guy go from coming up with the SportsCenter catchphrases of my generation to becoming famous for, as the subtitle of Truth and Consequences suggests, "Special Comments on The Bush Administration's War on American Values" ? More so, how does he get off on willingly playing the role of liberal pariah in an ocean of conservative talking heads?

I mean, I get the comparisons to Howard Beale - I can't even watch those clips of Countdown without throwing my fingers over my eyes, as if that would protect me from the blistering content of every newscast. I get that he's just as confused as I am over the turn of events - that a regular person like him or me should care about yellowcake uranium or Valerie Plame, but not in the shoddy, sloppy way that these stories have been shown by all the major news channels.

And, hello: I know that Keith Olbermann graduated from Cornell. It's one of those factoids I'm supposed to know about him, as a fangirl - no different from knowing that, say, he once rushed home late from Shea Stadium and ended up faceplanting against a subway car, resulting in a permanent loss of depth perception that has rendered him unable to drive for the rest of his life.

(...What? He did admit it once before, on-air.)

What I don't get, however, is why on earth he has made this - the whole "liberal-voice-in-the-wasteland" role he's playing for MSNBC - his particular cross to bear.

Reading the written, transcripted versions of his anti-Bush jeremiads in Truth and Consequences still doesn't make them any less vitriolic. Most times he sounds too much like Captain Ahab, casting his net too far and too wide to bring down the bloated old Republican beast - and, in case you've had doubts about his objectivity, he even tears down a few Democrats in the process as well. Sometimes he sounds like the people I knew in college - the ones who were so fired up by their idealism that they're always on the verge of totally diving off the deep end.

And sometimes, even when I know that he could be on to something, I fear that, unfortunately, he has fallen off the deep end. Which is where the hand-wringing begins, and I find myself muttering, as Mary has done in The Passion of the Christ: "When, where, how... will [y]ou choose to be delivered of this?"

But then, there are moments when the harpoons do hit the target where it truly hurts.

Consider, for example, the devastating introduction, where he starts with the announcement of David Bloom's death, and subsequently sought comfort - as he only knew how - in a baseball game, "where I could dial back the pain through the simple ritual of folding up my scorecard and then filing out of the ballpark to the subway." Consider his prefaces to the first Special Comment on Katrina - which, in retrospect, was actually buried in the hype by Anderson Cooper's no less subtle emotional response - and his speech at the very site of Ground Zero on the fifth anniversary of 9/11. Consider, even, this blistering critique of a speech delivered by Newt Gingrich (really!) in, of all places, an event celebrating the First Amendment:

What a dark place your world must be, Mr. Gingrich, where the way to save America is to destroy America. I will awaken every day of my life thankful that I am not with you in that dark place.

And I will awaken every day of my life thankful that you are entitled to tell me about it. And that you are entitled to show me what an evil idea it represents, and what a cynical mind. And that you are entitled to do all that, thanks to the very freedoms you seek to suffocate.

Come to think of it, for all the sound and fury about the Special Comment, what I appreciate the most about Keith Olbermann - and, if Truth and Consequences is an indication, what I fear he might lose - are those moments when he realizes that he doesn't have to play the prophet. He does, after all, note "the unavoidable symbolism provided by the reality that [Mr. Gingrich] answers to the name 'Newt.' " His skewering of Rudy Giuliani is prefaced with a hilariously dishy story of "America's Mayor" introducing him at the banquet by promptly forgetting his name. He even admits that he includes camera placement and blocking to the list of considerations for his Special Comments.

Perhaps my own favorite moment of Truth and Consequences, however, happens to be the one that tells the most about Keith Olbermann, the person: the preface where he talks about his own fake-anthrax scare, which began with an envelope and a letter covered in "grainy, shiny, powdery stuff" - and ends, one sleepless night later, with Hazmat suits, decontaminant showers, widespread police investigations, and a maliciously gossipy piece on Page Six of the New York Post that threatened, if anything else, to expose him as the hysterical ninny - even though the culprit's arrest, a few days later, revealed that similar letters had been sent to his fellow "demagogues" David Letterman and Jon Stewart.

Amidst the gallows humor and the possibility that the suspect was a loser who "lived in his mom's basement and thought Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, and Katherine Harris were the three hottest women in America," there are glimpses of humanity. He's worrying over his girlfriend, who was about to move in with him "into the very room where the powder had spilled..." (And here's the part where I sigh in relief, knowing that my longtime brain-crush has finally fallen in love - who woulda thunk it?) He's worrying about his neighbors, and whether or not they too may have been contaminated if the powder was, indeed, what he thought it was, even as he hoped that "nearly all the contents" of the envelope had been sealed and remained intact in the Ziploc bag where he'd sealed it: "But nearly, of course, only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades and threatening letters with white powder in them."

(Ironically, this anthrax scare "nearly" echoes, in my mind, another life-changing event for a TV personality: David Letterman's coronary bypass. Knowing how that bypass affected Dave, however, I can't help but wonder if there are plans to get cracking on bringing about an Olberspawn...)

Somehow, lest any one of us - even Keith himself - would actually believe all the quasi-Messianic comparisons to Howard Beale, the words of Oliver Cromwell continue to ring true:

I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.

Love Letters from Strange Men

2008-06-11T04:15:00.000-07:00

First up, from MSN and the Associated Press: That book from the Sex and the City movie, with all the love letters? Nonexistent.

The closest text in the real world apparently is "Love Letters of Great Men and Women: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present Day," first released in the 1920s and reissued last year by Kessinger Publishing, which specializes in bringing back old works.

[...]

Enough readers have been directed to the Kessinger anthology [...] that it ranked No. 134 on Amazon.com on Tuesday afternoon.

Personally, I'd prefer to just point you in the direction of Beethoven's original love letter to the "Immortal Beloved"... or, better yet, to a DVD of Immortal Beloved, which I still think is a brilliantly gorgeous movie.

Also, as somebody who watched Sex and the City with The Scribe last weekend, I beseech you: If you're going to plan that over-the-top wedding anyway - especially if there's a high chance of betrayal by your intended - pleeeaaaase don't do it at your local public library. Thank you.

********

Speaking of love letters from strange men - albeit a different kind of "love" letter altogether:

I just started reading Truth and Consequences yesterday. Oddly enough, it also coincided with the day of my first baseball game ever - Indians vs. Twins with the Scribes (and Mr. Scribe's mom) at Progressive Field.

First impressions - of the book, not the baseball game: The introductory chapter, where Keith Olbermann goes to the stadium after finding out about David Bloom's death in Iraq? Devastating. The rest... well, it is a compilation of his blistering Special Comments from his MSNBC show (prior to the one delivered above), so the great bulk of it would be familiar to Olberfans and news junkies alike - but I, personally, am more interested in the post-fact prefaces that he writes at the beginning of each chapter, which I think gives more insight into the workings of the man's brain. He's a twisted number, all right... but an insanely talented one, which makes the whole deal more frustrating.

Of course, I'm speaking as somebody who thinks Keith Olbermann would make a brilliant real-life analog of Mr. Big. But that's a discussion I'm saving for the full review. ;)

Portrait of An Artist as a Young Woman: Anita Amirrezvani's The Blood of Flowers

2008-06-10T08:50:00.000-07:00

First there wasn't and then there was. Before God no one was.

Under the brilliant reign of Shah Abbas the Great, Iran flourished, its minarets casting long shadows over busy bazaars filled with peoples from every civilized point of the world, mullahs calling out prayers above a gorgeous mix of cultures, swirling like the intricate knots in its celebrated carpets, the objects inspiring Anita Amirrezvani's Scheherazade of colors and patterns, a talented, dangerously impulsive narrator without a name, a simple village girl who must adapt to the temptations and glories of the Shah's capital Isfahan in the early 1600s.

The novel begins with a curse from the sky. A comet streaks through her village, leaving cosmic destruction in its wake. It seems our heroine is destined for ruin...but she defies the stars at every turn, to the dismay of her passive, traditional mother. This is a kohl-rimmed peek into a jeweled world of women's rivalries, hopes and dreams, veiled struggles in a male-dominated society. Left without a father protector, the young girl and her mother must throw themselves at the feet of a wealthy relative, dependent on his charity and the malicious schemes of his wife. Traditions trapped and protected women - from the sensual mystery created by chadors; to marriage contracts that brought impoverished brides into temporary sigheh unions in exchange for money. We see all sorts of women: our ambitious heroine, her long-suffering mother, her greedy aunt Godiyeh, her pampered cousins, and the sad, steely Naheed, her best friend and surprising rival for one man's capricious affections. It was not easy being a girl, whatever station in life. Especially one as determined as our narrator, who longed to take her place among the celebrated carpet designers employed by the Shah himself.

There are a lot of obstacles - most created by our impatient heroine, whose desperate need to be free of an unwanted marriage contract costs her the comforts of her uncle's home. Sometimes I wanted to cheer her on...and many times, I wanted to throw the book across the room in frustration over her foolishness. I felt like a parent watching over a headstrong daughter - she had to make her mistakes to succeed...but what mistakes! What tangles she creates with such horrible decisions! As she realizes how her actions prevented her from realizing her full potential as an artist, our heroine's bad luck star fades into the deep indigo of the desert sky. She learns to accept who she is.

I will never inscribe my name in a carpet like the masters in the royal rug workshop who are honored for their great skill. I will never learn to knot a man's eye so precisely it looks real, nor design rugs with layers of patterns so intricate that they could confound the greatest of mathematicians. But I have devised designs of my own, which people will cherish for years to come. When they sit on one of my carpets, their hips touching the earth, their back elongated, the crown of their head lifted toward the sky, they will be soothed, refreshed, transformed. My heart will touch theirs and we will be as one, even I am dust, even though they will never know my name.

Tradition provides the loom, her mother's stories as yarns of experience. But only her nimble fingers, her own efforts, could create the designs, the tiny knots holding her life together. It was her choice, in the end, to be happy. The story ends within another story, and we have no picture of her hand in hand with a handsome suitor - a traditional happy ending. Instead, we have a clear vision of an artist finally coming into her own.

I could not guess what fate promised me, but I knew I would strive to make a good life...I thought of my father, and his love coursed through me like a river. As I began to fall asleep, I could hear him giving me advice. He said, "Put your faith in God, but always fasten your camel's leg."

We'll Cross the Bridge When We Get There...

2008-06-05T06:18:00.000-07:00

...but until we can gather more content while I'm still here in Cleveland, enjoy this real-time video of a now-familiar sight along the Flats of the Cuyahoga River.

(BTW: The Scribe did take me to Coventry Library and Mac's Backs in her Cleveland Heights neighborhood. It was AWESOME. We also found some breathtaking Annie Leibovitz books at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and are about to make a pilgrimage to the Cleveland Public Library soon. Also, there may be a vlog and a possible page redesign in the future.)

Booked Non-Stop to Cleveland

2008-05-28T06:25:00.000-07:00

So yeah: I really am here in Ohio, crashing at The Scribe's place (and swaddled in all manners of fleece blankies and layering shirts, as a tropical girl often is in this sort of weather), typing away on my Compaq while she's chasing down sources for last-minute stories. It's cold outside - blame the funnel cloud system over Missouri - and even Scribe's beloved Kittensley is hiding under the bed, bemoaning the weather. But I type on, having been up since 6:30 and running on decaf since.

Anyway, I post about The Cleve here because Scribe and I did a book exchange last night - I gave her a copy of The Tipping Point (to paraphrase the sign I saw at Powell's Books at the Portland airport: "What do you mean, you haven't read this yet?") and my copy of Honeymoon With My Brother to lend, and in turn she has both The Witch of Portobello (on loan from Coventry library) and Something Rotten on paperback.

I'm also still finishing From Bauhaus to Our House, which was the only book I was able to read while running from gate to gate (and snarfing all sorts of food along the way) at the airport. I'll admit that I was a Tom Wolfe newbie before this - even though I've had copies of The Right Stuff, Bonfire of the Vanities, and A Man in Full kicking about my shelves at various points in my life. It's a compact read, but I'm totally blown away by how Wolfe sets up - and knocks down - the Bauhaus renaissance in the United States (especially houses like these) as the impractical, imperfect dogma that it really is; it's a book that's as much about architecture as it really is about power, status, and intellectual snobbery. A perfect read, especially on an election year as mind-bending as the one we already have right now.

I also take back what I said about LAX having the best airport bookstore, too, after experiencing both Powell's at PDX and the notoriously huge airport bookstore at Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. That's where I scored a copy of Ian McEwan's Saturday, which I forgot to read back home (I returned it to the Hawaii State Library so I wouldn't incur any more fines). I've saved this along with The Zahir (recommended highly by, of all people, my Dad), on my list of airplane reads for the trip back to Honolulu.

Finally, I don't think it would be right for me to write a Cleveland entry without mentioning a certain literary institution in the city...

That's right. Mac's Backs, I am so coming after you.

NBLB Weekend Survey #8: Your Newsroom, or Mine?

2008-05-20T11:07:00.000-07:00

Note from the readers: We'd like to apologize for the infrequency of these posts AGAIN - although, if you've been following our respective blogs, you'd realize that we can't be faulted completely for having a life, especially when a certain one of us is preparing to visit the other one in a matter of days, which warrants another blog entry altogether. In the meantime... enjoy.

Once upon a time, our readers sacrificed blood, sweat, tears and valuable REM cycles at the news altar - so much so that one of them (who majored in journalism) sold her soul to broadcasting gods and sponsors, while the other (who majored in English) took a job as an editor for a public-relations firm. Along the way, they met all sorts of characters that we swear we thought would never have existed in real life: for every mentor and sidekick who treated us with pure compassion, there were all sorts of mean beasties, deceptive lotharios, and just plain temperamental archetypes that would've been right at home in the imaginations of, say, Neil Gaiman or H.P. Lovecraft, to say the least of The Brothers Grimm.

You'd think that would've lured us away from reading books about the profession that we so simultaneously love and hate, but noooooo. Far from it, in fact - we've found that good writing sometimes has nothing to do with good journalism... and the world may actually be a better place for that.

The Scribe: It's a blood-sucking business, all right.

1) Favorite local newspaper columnist: Bias alert! Gen Suzuki, of course, for Honolulu. I have to also mention the totally awesome writer/editor behind Culture Jamming for that one weekly.;) Hometown fav: Jessica Zafra.

2) Least favorite local newspaper columnist: I'm really not into local gossip columns - especially in Manila - probably because I'm so out of it, I really don't recognize any of the names/insinuations to join in the fun!

3) Favorite nationally-syndicated columnist: Me so shallow: Ted Casablanca. If we're going to go by regular reading (since the late 90s), Casablanca's Awful Truth definitely fits the bill.

4) Least favorite nationally-syndicated columnist: I couldn't name one specifically - the more conservative ones, definitely make my teeth ache.

5) Favorite book written by a broadcast journalist: I cheat by mentioning fiction - Fangland by John Marks of 60 Minutes. Vampirism and broadcasting...quite a good read, I must say. I haven't read Baba Wawa's Audition yet, so I cannot offer an opinion (though I am DYING to learn more about The View cat fights from a primary source!).

6) Least favorite book written by a broadcast journalist: It's hard for me to slam any of these memoirs, because all the ones I've read so far have been so well-written.

7) Broadcast journo you wish would write a book, already: Christiane Amanpour needs to write her memoirs - she was always my broadcast idol.

8) Which existing comic strip would you like to see in compiled anthology form? House of Mao, from Singapore - I cannot find the shorter anthologies any more. I would love to buy the compilation if it exists.

9) Which comic strip series/artist would you like to put out of their misery? Garfield, I'm sorry...but it's just not funny anymore.

10) If you came across a book by a journo whose political affiliations were different from yours, what will actually motivate you to read that book? Curiosity, most definitely - I have no problem reading different points of view.

Meimei: Olberfan-girl Since 1997... and proud of it, sort of.

1) Favorite local newspaper columnist: Because I live in Honolulu (and can’t relate to the dailies in Manila any more – although Zafra and RJ Ledesma both get my vote): Charles Memminger of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, and Wanda Adams of the Honolulu Advertiser.

2) Least favorite local newspaper columnist: I will go on the record and say that I have demanded the immediate retirement of Wayne Harada for the last 12 years. Seriously, the man’s not getting any younger – his writing has gotten very cliché as of late, and rumor has it that a few slebs that get bold-faced in his columns are getting tired of him, as well.

3) Favorite nationally-syndicated columnist: Ten years ago I would’ve answered Dave Barry, but his writing has gotten rusty lately. Roger Ebert, on the other hand, has been anything but rusty in spite of his health problems, and his film reviews are always fun to read.

4) Least favorite nationally-syndicated columnist: My list is pretty damn long for this, especially since the MidWeek does a great job of compiling all of my most hated journalist frenemies into one paper. Two of them in particular: Michelle Malkin (shut up, humorless conservative who brings shame to most Filipinos) and Amy Alkon (shut up, desperate but rapidly aging Carrie Bradshaw wannabe)

5) Favorite book written by a broadcast journalist: Before Keith Olbermann became a self-inflating, anti-conservative talking head, he and Dan Patrick co-wrote the hilarious ESPN tribute The Big Show, which I read obsessively as a college freshman. It’s too bad, then, that I have yet to read a SportsCenter tell-all that effectively measures up to this one… just as I have yet to meet an ESPN anchor team who measures up to the original Dan and Keith Show. (Although, considering my Hawaii bias, I actually think Neil Everett isn’t doing too bad – orange perma-tan notwithstanding.)

6) Least favorite book written by a broadcast journalist: Like the Scribe, my options are limited here – some of the broadcast-related stories I’ve read are pretty well-written. For the record, however, I doubt that Bill O’Reilly will ever be able to write anything more inventive than the infamous “Caribbean shower fantasy” (aka the "I'll rub you with my falafel" monologue) that was posted on The Smoking Gun.

7) Broadcast journo you wish would write a book, already: Keith and Anderson have already written theirs, and Scribe already nominated Christiane Amanpour… so I’m definitely waiting on Lisa Ling and Meredith Vieira to start telling their own sides of the story, since they were the classier parts of The View. Also, if Joe Moore finally comes through on his long-awaited threat to force himself into retirement, I would rather that he sit down and write his memoirs ASAP… because I’m betting that the old gorilla’s got a lot of bitchy dirt to spill when he really gets down to it.

8) Which existing comic strip would you like to see in compiled anthology form?As much as I like 9 Chickweed Lane, I would really love to see Brooke McEldowney compile the entire “Hallmarks of Felinity” sub-series into one single anthology. Never have I seen a comic-strip artist do so much with so little dialogue.

9) Which comic strip series/artist would you like to put out of their misery? You should’ve seen the dance of joy I recently did when Lynn Johnston of For Better or For Worse announced her retirement – it’ll be a matter of time before I never see those overly melodramatic Pattersons ever again. Now, if only Tom Tomorrow would do the same…

10) If you came across a book by a journo whose political affiliations were different from yours, what will actually motivate you to read that book? This is difficult for me, seeing as my politics are not as strongly defined as it should be – ironic, considering that I’ve become even more apolitical in spite of my religious background. I’m more likely to be let down by bad writing than bad politics, though, so I’ll be willing to put up with some carefully-written arguments.

Cute (Character) Overload, Book-to-Film Edition

2008-05-15T10:15:00.001-07:00

Yeah, I haven't been able to write a decent review either (that's what you get when one's family is visiting to celebrate one's graduation ceremony) but since we're here, I might as well share some of my favorite clips from adaptations of my favorite books...

1) Sense & Sensibility, 2007-2008. Forget the fact that Willoughby looks too much like that weaselly Samm Levine for my taste, or that Marianne resembles the Clueless-era (and pre-destroyed-by-fame) Brittany Murphy. The scenery is fantastic, the acting is near pitch-perfect... and if you've ever wondered what on earth I ever saw in David Morrissey in spite of his role as a jackass in State of Play (not to mention his other craptastic roles - really, Basic Instinct 2 and The Reaping?!?!?!), start at the 4:30 mark when Marianne arrives at Delaford... and keep watching as he shows off his mad falconry skillz. He's definitely no Alan Rickman, but at least the perceived age difference between him and this Marianne isn't as squicky.

2) A Room with a View, 1986: Apparently the YouTube gods may also have realized that people hated the recent remake as much as Happy Scribe and I did... which probably explains why and how the spoilerrific videos from that hot mess disappeared from the site. (A pity, since I would've loved an endless HD loop of Rafe Spall-as-George giving Lucy her first kiss in the fields of Tuscany.) So please do enjoy this video of Helena Bonham Carter lying to Julian Sands' handsome face.

3) Shattered Glass, 2004. Okay, technically not a book adaptation - and this trailer is more like yet another excuse for me to post more proof of the hotness that is Peter Sarsgaard, as if I needed another one. Still, this trailer is a preview of what we have cooking for the upcoming Readers' Survey, which we'll also post late this weekend.

And speaking of excuses to post more proof of hotness...

Mr. Darcy says, "Kindly tell that walrus that I do, indeed, have his bucket. Thank you."

Linkidy-Split: Books about wasting the hours away

2008-05-13T16:00:00.000-07:00

Hey clockwatcher, if you're clicking onto this site to kill some time (why, thank you - we aim to amuse...even for five seconds) check out Slate's special Procrastination Issue, hot off the pixelated presses. There's a neato article on novels about wasting time - click it, and shave off a few more minutes 'til the end of the work day.

Meatier posts in the making...we promise. Really.

NBLB Weekend Survey #7: Books on a Plane!

2008-05-09T04:48:00.001-07:00

Can't you tell we need a vacation? Here's the travel-themed NBLB survey of the week: Books on a Plane!

(Yep...sooo punnnyyyy...)

Mei: Give the Sudoku-toting dude a doll-sized drink!

1) Do you take too many (insert Sammy L.J. expletive here) books on a plane? Why? (Or why not?) No, never. Two books in the hand-carry are too many already. This is coming from somebody who always ends up at the boarding gate with copies of Allure and Entertainment Weekly.

2) What are your travel reading rules? My main rule is to always pack something that I shouldn’t be afraid to put away if I can’t finish it – that way I won’t feel guilty if I have to put the book down in case I need to sleep, which I’d rather do on long flights anyway. I guess that’s what makes me so different from my Dad – his “airplane books” of choice are almost always suspense novels, which I have the compulsion to read from cover to cover without breaks. I also tend to carry a lot of serious books with me – for example, I read Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink while trekking through the Visayas with my family, because I knew nobody would “get it” well enough to read it over my shoulder.

3) Name one author/topic you will NEVER pack in your handcarry. If the book’s plot points center on something gruesome and macabre, it’s not going on the plane with me. Also, as much as I love my trashy romance novels, I can never bring myself to read them in-flight… unless I want to arrive at my destination crankier than usual.

4) What was your last impulse airport bookstore purchase? I spent a near-fortune on children’s books on my way to the Philippines. It was a good investment, considering that I bought them for my cousins who don’t have a lot of access to quality children’s books back home.

5) Finish this sentence: If I see cute fellah next to me reading ___________, I will try to strike up a conversation about___________ over our doll-sized inflight alcohol rations. Here’s where I out myself as a geekazoid: If said doppelganger-of-Gerard Butler happens to be carrying a book with the words “edited by Will Shortz” on the cover, he better start buying me those $5 rations of booze! There’s nothing like bonding over the clues to the New York Times crossword puzzle. (Extra points if he gives me dibs over the Sudoku.)

6) After a trip, how many pounds (approximately) of your luggage can be blamed on book purchases? Roughly two to five pounds – I usually just buy all sorts of omiyage anyway (especially from Trader Joe’s and Bath & Body Works), so some of those books won’t end up on my shelf. And the ones that do – well, my brother has a habit of giving me running and exercise books every time we see each other, so that counts.

7) Dream book browsing spot: If I ever visit New York, Boston, or London, I will make sure to visit one of those mom-and-pop bookstores that I keep seeing in the movies.

8) (Already visited) Best vacation bookstores ever (include locations if you can remember!): I remember seeing an English bookstore in Rome that made me swoon with delight – I just stumbled right into the door and went crazy. I also swear that LAX has the best airport bookstores, ever.

Also, for those of you visiting Hawaii: We have Borders (Ward Center and Waikiki) and B&N (Ala Moana and Kahala), but you will definitely want to visit the UH Manoa Bookstore for some serious Hawaiiana. [/shameless plug]

9) What sort of books do you buy as souvenirs? I usually just buy books with tons of pictures in them – nothing too heavy (again, see #6), so it would be easy to browse through.

10) The tentative title of MY travel memoir would be: I Hope This Flight Exists. It’s based on an infamous Mei-family anecdote of a bratty tantrum that I threw as a teenager in Bali, when I couldn’t find our flight to Jakarta on the departure board at Denpasar International Airport. What can I say? I was very hormonal at that time. (And obviously not carrying any books with me to read – no wonder my Dad got me started on John Grisham the following summer.)

The Happy Scribe: Don't talk to me, I'm reading.

1) Do you take too many books on a plane? Why? I really, really, really do try to bring only one book (I do!). I end up bringing three. Most of my flights are over ten hours, give or take a few stops. If I bring one, I finish it too quickly and am bored the rest of the trip. Two really should be enough, but then I almost always end up buying another during a stopover. Bad, bad, bad.

2) What are your travel reading rules? Boredom is my biggest enemy on a long flight. The sounds of the plane machinery and so many people in an enclosed space already freak me out, so I need a very good story to distract me. Also, I don't like conversations with strangers next to my elbow - if my nose is in a book, DO NOT DISTURB. If I have to hear you snore, don't cut into well-written dialogue with inane small talk. (This is why I usually go for the aisle seat - I hate feeling boxed in. If my fellow passenger gets too chatty, I leave for the bathroom.) I also prefer fiction over non-fiction during flights - unless it's a travel memoir, I generally like the realms of imagination over reality during vacations.

3) Name one author/topic you will NEVER pack in your handcarry. Nothing that will make me cry. I'm already anti-social as a lone passenger. Sobbing also provokes unwanted conversations with strangers.

4) What was your last impulse airport bookstore purchase? Atonement by Ian McEwan at the MPLS airport, during what seemed like an endless walk to find my terminal.

5) Finish this sentence: If I see cute fellah next to me reading ___________, I will try to strike up a conversation about___________ over our doll-sized inflight alcohol rations. The cute fellah would be my hubby - and he will be reading a photography magazine. We will be talking about Kittensley, as usual, over our $5 vodka tonics.

6) After a trip, how many pounds (approximately) of your luggage can be blamed on book purchases? Ten pounds, easily...and if I'm lucky enough to keep it that low.

7) Dream book browsing spot: I really need to slow down the next time I browse through the little San Fran bookstores. I blame the rain and dim sum cravings - note to self: eat before book shopping. Actually, to have enough time to prowl new bookstores in any culturally alive city would be a dream come true.

8) Best vacation bookstores ever: Oxford's book stores are so much fun. I tend to go into full book consumer mode when I visit any university-oriented town - Oberlin, Oxford, Berkeley...eyeluvem. Another great place to buy books: Singapore - I adore the mix of Asian and European authors, and cannot keep my hands off the Penguin books that don't make it to mainstream U.S. stores (a.k.a. my entire Jean Plaidy and L.M. Montgomery collections).

9) What sort of books do you buy as souvenirs? I love discovering the local humor - comic strip collections and funny books are a must! This is how I discovered the works of Malaysian cartoonist Lat, one of the most hilarious comics I've ever read. (The New Straits Times is a great place to discover Asian humorists.)

10) The tentative title of MY travel memoir would be: Babies On Board and Other Plane Truths. I seem to have the "seat near mother and child" sort of face. I don't think I've ever had a quiet flight - there always seems to be a hundred babies, all screaming in unison, during the longer plane rides I've had. Or toddlers who like to drool over my arm (ah, the flight to Sydney...the memories...). The parents seem to think it's all so very cute for their kids to grab my pony tail, or to burp over my food tray. It's so NOT.

Post Warmer: I can has vampire book?

2008-05-06T14:29:00.000-07:00

I'm a big icanhascheezburger fan. Those delightfully-captioned furballs get me every time. I also love Cute Overload. Nothing like clicking on to photos of fuzzy Shetlands and fidgety fennecs to keep one going during a long work week (and this is definitely one of them, oui?).

Ah, but icanhascheezburger is the awesome, I must say.

Especially when one includes a black kitteh (with Kittensley white chest spot!) echoing my current guilty pleasure reads:

A comparison of fictional bloodsuckers forthcoming - including the Barrow vamp series 30 Days of Night, which scared the crap out of me in movie form, despite Hartnett's wooden acting. Too toothy and messy, methinks...but the story is intriguing, which is why I have every single copy of Steve Niles' frozen bitefest on hold from the library. (I'm still trying to practice the best "these are for my nonexistent kid brother" look for my concerned librarian, who had to hand Laurell K. Hamilton's Incubus Dreams over without an audible "tsk." I think she's starting to worry about me.) Also on the boards: David Sosnowski's hilarious Vamped, Elizabeth Kostova's Vlad Tepes quest The Historian, and the broadcast-inspired (why do I always feel the connections aren't so far-fetched?) Fangland, written by a former 60 minutes producer (and apparently also in film gestation, with Hilary Swank as the heroine...hrm). It's really interesting how many authors have tried to define and refine the vampire myth.

So stay tuned for biting commentary and a semi-historical breakdown of vamp lore. Are they humans with fangs and a bad blood habit? Or are they monsters who must be shot/staked/beheaded on sight? And what do you prefer - the glamorous undead...or down and dirty fangsiness?

Why do I have a feeling this upcoming post is going to majorly suck?

NBLB Weekend Survey #6: A Drink With Your Book, Sir?

2008-05-04T15:05:00.000-07:00

Now that both of us are way past the legal drinking age, we can now gleefully admit to enjoying our favorite books with our favorite tipples. Some of our beloved book-and-drink pairings are definitely unassailable (e.g. A Room with a View and a glass of Tuscan red); some are painfully obvious (e.g. Ulysses and a dram of absinthe with a Xanax chaser), and some... well, you obviously weren't there when Meimei tried to convince The Happy Scribe that Chianti tastes best with fava beans, even without the liver of one's preferred frenemy.

Here are some of our favorite combinations, along with some helpful serving suggestions and kind warnings in case you find yourself in the middle of a Hunter S. Thompson monologue....

Meimei: A good sip of whisky can't be that hard to find.

10 –
BOOK: Any of Nick Joaquin’s work
DRINK: San Miguel Pale Pilsen - ice cold in a bucket and straight from the bottle, just the way Nick himself would've liked it
SERVING SUGGESTION: Beef tenderloin tips sautéed with tons of garlic, salpicao-style (save the exotic meat for the repeated viewings of Andrew Zimmern and Tony Bourdain instead)
NOTES: Joaquin was the closest thing the Philippines would get to their very own Hemingway – next to the post-war dandies who tried to rewrite the Western canon, he had an unmistakable swagger and a streak of originality – and his romanticism for Old Manila calls for something equally sophisticated, yet still meaty enough to keep the tunog kalye credibility.

9 –
BOOK: A Good Man is Hard to Find, by Flannery O’Connor
DRINK: Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 Sour Mash
SERVING SUGGESTION: On the rocks, if you can’t handle drinking it straight up
NOTES: You would never expect good ol’ JD to be the kind of booze that goes with everything, but it does. It’s great in barbecue sauce, it puts the edge back in chocolate… and, in combination with the iron-knuckle-in-Red Velvet prose of O’Connor’s stories, it may even bring you one step closer to Jesus.

8 –
BOOK: Thousand Cranes, by Yasunari Kawabata
DRINK: Matcha or hojicha – no milk, lemon, or teabags
SERVING SUGGESTION: Try to see if the Japanese ceramics store near you will sell you a mug-size cup to serve the tea in; trust us, you’ll need it
NOTES: Thousand Cranes may be one of those books about cultural repression that will make you want to slap every single character in the face, but one vignette stands out: the discovery of a white tea cup with an unwashable lipstick stain, belonging to a character’s mistress. That one passage alone is enough to sum up the whole book: outwardly irredeemable, even in perfection.

7-
BOOK: Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco, by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar
DRINK: Single malt scotch
SERVING SUGGESTION: Plate up some Ritz crackers on the side; avoid all cigarettes and tobacco products while reading
NOTES: John Grisham and Po Bronson could only dream of serving up a work of fiction that comes anywhere near this real-life tale of leveraged buyouts and corporate backstabbing, made even more delicious when you consider that none of the players in the story would even think of serving up revenge, or anything else, on a Ritz cracker.

6 and 5 –
BOOKS: Appetite for Life: The Biography of Julia Child, by Noel Riley Fitch; and Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen by Julie Powell
DRINK: This year’s Beaujolais… or vermouth, if you’re feeling particularly frisky
SERVING SUGGESTION: Coq au vin – a la Julia Child, of course – and some crusty bread
NOTES: You will definitely want to read these simultaneously. The critics are justified in taking Julie Powell to task for her self-centeredness – seriously, love her, but she can be whiny enough to make Elizabeth Gilbert sound like Anne Frank – so you will need Fitch and her deliciously detailed passages from the scandalous life of the former Julia McWilliams. Who knew that the Amazonian TV chef we knew and loved was actually a former employee of the OSS… whose sensual and culinary awakenings collided with each other, upon her marriage to a sexy older man?

4 –
BOOK: Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri
DRINK: Mango lassi
SERVING SUGGESTION: Potato samosas and chutney
NOTES: Think Indian literature is too intimidating and rich for your palate? Start here with Jhumpa Lahiri’s little slices of subcontinental angst, served with tiny dashes of East Coast attitude.

3-
BOOK: Of Love and Shadows, by Isabel Allende
DRINK: Chilean red wine, of course
SERVING SUGGESTION: The book’s meal of choice is mondongo, the scent of which drives one character to proclaim that he can recognize it “from the bottom of the sea”… but if you’re not a big fan of tripe, a nice bowl of sancocho should do in a pinch.
NOTES: Despite the ominously romantic undertones of the title, there’s something comforting about Of Love and Shadows – especially when you read Allende’s descriptions of quiet family dinners and impromptu picnics, sandwiched between all the socio-political nastiness.

2 –
BOOK: High Fidelity, by Nick Hornby
DRINK: Bass Pale Ale
SERVING SUGGESTION: Order takeout and play all your records at top volume
NOTES: Reading this book will not only give you a better appreciation for pop music and relationships, but will cause massive snorting of any liquid up your nose. I also would recommend reading the book before watching the movie, lest you find yourself plagued by people who use the words “sonic death monkey” out of context.

1 –
BOOK: Oh, the Places You’ll Go!, by Dr. Seuss
DRINK: Asti Spumante – chilled all day and served liberally in fluted glasses
SERVING SUGGESTION: Molten chocolate cakes and a MythBusters marathon on HDTV.
NOTES: Tradition from la Hacienda de Meimei dictates that this book should be passed on from generation to generation (or at least sibling to sibling) upon completion of any degree or education program that requires marching down a crowded aisle in a tasseled hat. Then again, any grown-up occasion that calls for readings of Dr. Seuss will always be a good occasion for a little Asti, and vice versa… as long as you make sure that all children under the age of 18 have been put to bed, or at least sequestered in their rooms with YouTube and a Nintendo DS.

The Happy Scribe: Green Swizzles and Cosmos for everyone!

10 -
BOOK: The Forsyte Saga, by John Galsworthy
DRINK: A glass of tawny port
SERVING SUGGESTION: With a nice cigar, in your well-appointed study filled with leatherbound books
NOTES: You can't read the Saga in big gulps - like port wine, small sips are required, the warm flavor rolled around the tongue. Imagine Soames Forsyte with a similar glass in hand, simmering over his wife's rejection.

9 -
BOOK: Any Jeeves and Wooster story by P.G. Wodehouse
DRINK: A Green Swizzle

2oz rum
1oz (green) crème de menthe
Juice of 1 lime
1tsp fine sugar or sugar syrup
2oz soda water
2 dashes bitters
Crushed ice
Swizzle stick

Save the soda water for later. Pour all other ingredients into a cocktail shaker. Play some 1920s tin pan alley piano as you shake it up. Top it off with soda water in a Tom Collins glass. Don't forget the swizzle stick.

SERVING SUGGESTION: Make sure you have Jeeves' hangover elixir ready in the morning.

NOTES: "If I ever marry and have a son, Green Swizzle Wooster is the name that will go down in the register." -- Bertie

8 -
BOOK: A Suitable Boy, by Vikram Seth
DRINK: A cuppa hot Darjeeling tea, brewed strong from leaves (not of that sachet sacrilege) with honey
SERVING SUGGESTION: On a beautiful tray, with sliced lemon pieces and saffron garam masala cookies.
NOTES: This 1471-page novel about the caste/class struggles in newly independent India requires a lot of stamina, hence the caffeine and cookies pairing. You won't regret taking a few afternoons off to find out if Lata gets the right boy - the descriptions are beautiful, like that perfect sip of bittersweet tea.

7 -
BOOK: Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo, by Hayden Herrera
DRINK: A shot of Tequila Rose
SERVING SUGGESTION: Have paints and a blank canvas nearby
NOTES: Anyone who has seen the movie starring a hirsute Salma Hayek will remember scenes of the painter/feminist chugging tequila like water. Yet the artist herself was a beautiful mixture of toughness and gorgeous femininity - a color warrior clad in flowers. Watch for the burn down your throat amidst the strawberry sweetness of this shot...much like viewing a Kahlo painting.

6-
BOOK: The Griffin and Sabine Trilogy, by Nick Bantock
DRINK: Parrot Bay Breeze (with a straw) - coconut rum with pineapple and cranberry juice
SERVING SUGGESTION: You need one hand free to open up the letters in these beautiful books.
NOTES: Otherworldly romance requires an escapist drink.

5 -
BOOK: A Year in Provence, by Peter Mayle
DRINK: Pastis
SERVING SUGGESTION: He does describe a fox stew. May I suggest some yummy cheese and pate instead?
NOTES: Mayle fulfills a long-cherished fantasy: to live and write in the South of France. This light yellow drink, usually served in a squat glass, evokes that cliched vision of France - old men idling with glasses of star anise liqueur sparkling in the late afternoon sun, waiting their turn at petanque.

4 -
BOOK: Sex and the City, by Candace Bushnell
DRINK: A Cosmopolitan
SERVING SUGGESTION: Wearing cute shoes, surrounded by your besties
NOTES: Obviously, this is a toast to the upcoming film release of New York's favorite fictional columnist. Fashion and girls' nights out were never the same after Carrie and company dominated our screens.

3-
BOOK: Brain Droppings, by George Carlin
DRINK: Just a plain ole cuppa black coffee
SERVING SUGGESTION: No frills, no Starbucks frou-froofiness
NOTES: Warning - you may want to stay away from other irritating human beings after this book.

2-
BOOK: Anne of Green Gables, by Lucy Maud Montgomery
DRINK: Currant wine
SERVING SUGGESTION: Don't mistake it for raspberry cordial.
NOTES: Even clean-cut Prince Edward Isle teens get drunk. Eyeloveet. One of the best coming-of-age stories ever.

1-
BOOK: Any of the Twisted series, by Jessica Zafra
DRINK: San Miguel Cerveza Negra

SERVING SUGGESTION: Dress up in your old alternative rock tribute t-shirt, wriggle into something flannel and forget about the Internet, ipods and SATC for a day or two. The earlier collections of Zafra's columns brings me back to my teen years. Her later works still keep me grounded. Good times. :)
NOTES: If you have any Pinoy rrrrock at hand, play it loud and proud.

Les Liaisons dangereuses: Revenge is best served cold, in a corset

2008-05-02T18:20:00.000-07:00

This 1782 novel of scandalous lettres by Pierre Ambroise Choderlos de Laclos came to me in xeroxed fragments. I read every salacious word under the pretext of studying the Ancien Regime in my advanced French classes. I suspect my professeur thought it was a jolly good read anyways - and sought to break up the boredom of dissecting Rabelais and re-enacting Mollere (which, admittedly, wasn't boring at all) with the story of the famous literary libertine Valmont. I couldn't help feel a thrill of finally inhabiting a language I've studied for over a decade. Yes, there were constant journeys through my trusty Robert Micro - bought in Paris with a triumphant "hellyeah!" that shocked the chic bookseller - as well as a shit-ton of questions about certain archaic expressions.

Most people know the story via the 1988 film starring a deliciously evil Glenn Close and John Malkovich (though you should check out Valmont, a 1989 film starring Colin Firth as the oversexed aristo villain - deliciously camp!) - or through the teen drama version Cruel Intentions with post-Buffy Sarah Michelle Gellar and the preppy innocent, Reese Witherspoon. It's a tangle of calculated deductions orchestrated by the indomitable Marquise de Merteuil, who uses the rake Valmont to accomplish her fiendish plots. The fact that this story is still a viable screenplay vehicle to this day makes me think how clever de Laclos was as a social satirist. Hindsight made it an important reference work for the zealots of the French Revolution, but even at the time of its publication, even the most conservative members of Marie Antoinette's court took to disreputable characters like bees to honey.

La belle Marquise is always my favorite character - she leaps off the pages, stage, and screen as a strong, cultured woman despite her devilish machinations. She is always in control - until her downfall at the very end, the full devastation rarely brought to life in the glittering celluloid versions. She is the general of relationships - her strategies are mind-bogglingly heartless. There is no love here - it is action-reaction, a series of erotic formations designed to fulfill her ambitions. The Marquise's actions are pure Hell's fury from a woman scorned: she schemes for an innocent girl's ruin, just because the doe-like creature is about to marry her former lover. How awful! How cold! How deliciously decadent! This cold dish of revenge is served up with a series of plots carried out under the sheets. The intricacies are so delightfully Baroque, the descriptions like soft-lit photographs of Versailles in the afternoon light. These are aristocrats with too much money and time on their hands, with Marquise at the very helm of these cruel games of the heart.

However, I must say - I prefer her action to the malleability of the other characters. On my slappable list: the virgin-turned-wanton Cecile de Volanges and the prudish Madame de Tourvel. Maybe I just can't stand passive aggressive creatures - in fiction or real life. They make me want to scream at their simpering. Cecile and Marie are the good girls, but they never seem to have any of the great lines. They are pale female phantoms next to La Marquise - in modern times, they would be serving her coffee and walking her dogs while she takes over Wall Street, Washington AND Bryant Park. Ah...and there is her evil partner, Valmont, her glittering snake - the ultimate emotional vampire. He only grows weak when he falls for Marie - letting his heart take over the reins away from his calculating intellect. Ah - but what a waste! The convent girl and semi-virtuous wife doth protest too much, even in the original French. And the hapless Danceny reminds me of the calf-like Charles Hamilton in Gone with the Wind, one of my top ten "goodie-goodie" idiots of all time.

Like any translation, there are certain subtle nuances best read in the original language. However, it would do your library (and certainly your historical collection) a load of good to have this cautionary tale built on lace, lies, and forbidden love in your shelves. Valmont as sexual mercenary is an interesting paradox. Making war through love didn't die at the guillotine - it merely festered into other incarnations. There is a Marquise in all of us, if we are not careful...just as there is a stupid Cecile or a hopeless Marie. While this is a tale of revenge, constant re-readings and re-watchings of the various adaptions has taught me one thing: you have to fall in love with your heart, soul AND mind. It is a dangerous liaison without trust, understanding, and mutual respect.

Follow This Meme: LibraryThing's List of106 Unread Books

2008-05-01T16:49:00.000-07:00

From a meme thread started by LibraryThing. The rules: Bold what you have read and italicize what you didn't finish. There was something about striking through a book you hated...but I just can't HATE a book totally...unless it was a math textbook.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and punishment
Catch-22
One hundred years of solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The name of the rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
A tale of two cities
The brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The time traveler's wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The kite runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great expectations
American gods
A heartbreaking work of staggering genius
Atlas shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury tales
The historian : a novel
A portrait of the artist as a young man
Love in the time of cholera
Brave new world
The Fountainhead
Foucault's pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A clockwork orange
Anansi boys
The once and future king
The grapes of wrath
The poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One flew over the cuckoo's nest
To the lighthouse
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver's travels
Les misérables
The corrections
The amazing adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The curious incident of the dog in the night-time
Dune
The prince
The sound and the fury
Angela's ashes : a memoir
The god of small things
A people's history of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A confederacy of dunces
A short history of nearly everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
The mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud atlas
The confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity's Rainbow
The Hobbit
In cold blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

Worst. Weddings. EVER.

2008-04-27T02:27:00.000-07:00

You might think that a singleton like myself would remain cynical about weddings, after having attended more than a fair share of them. That, unfortunately, is not the case - and not because the reception gives me too many opportunities to indulge in cake and champagne while secretly bemoaning the absences of Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson. The local weddings I've attended in Honolulu have always been such happy, family-oriented affairs, and if there were any humorless Bridezilla moments - other than the ones that may have been instigated by certain bridesmaids (*ahem* yours truly *ahem*) - I should count myself glad to not have been subjected to them.

And if I should encounter such horrific nuptial conditions at some point or another - either on my own wedding, or with others' - it should come as a great comfort for me that none of those will ever compare to the ones I've encountered in my own reading history.

(Note: I've decided not to include Honeymoon with My Brother in this list, since that one's more of a foregone conclusion. And, c'mon, Franz Wisner got a holiday in Costa Rica and an Oprah guest appearance out of it.)

Should've Spent More Money on the Caterer: Like Water for Chocolate, by Laura Esquivel

It's the wedding that started it all: Because Mama Elena was way too hung up on the "tradition" thing, Tita loses her true love, Pedro, to her older sister Rosaura - and not only that, but she also suffers the indignity of having to cook for their wedding reception, which also included an extravagant Chabela Wedding Cake, scaled big enough to serve hundreds of guests. Ultimately overwhelmed by emotion, Tita cries into the cake batter... and the icing... and though her tears do not change the flavors per se, the guests who end up eating the cake at the reception are overcome with such intense longing and bitterness that pretty much escalates into weeping, wailing, wide-scale vomiting... and even death. (Makes you wonder what could've happened if one of the guests had been litigious enough to sue for damages, right?) Luckily for the rest of us, Esquivel makes up for the disgusting spectacle with other tasty treats - including the triumphant wedding* which marks the penultimate chapter of the book. (Hee, I wrote penultimate.)

Blood on the Sheets: Chronicle of a Death Foretold, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

A flamboyant man and his clueless bride commemorate their wedding with an extravagant celebration, and everyone who is everyone in their small town - that is, the entire population - takes part in the revelry. Hours after the last drink has been raised, however, the bride is taken back to her family by the furious groom, claiming that the girl was not a virgin on her own wedding night. What happens afterwards - up to and including the moment when the girl is forced to give up the name of her supposed "lover" - leads to a cycle of vengeance, and a murder so horrific that I felt like I was aiding and abetting the crime myself.

I guess this is the part where I tell you that Gabriel Garcia Marquez must be an artist and a genius for making me feel this way as a reader, blah blah blah, but: no, sorry. That death scene - described repeatedly in both foreshadowing and flashback form -was so grotesque that I couldn't even look at a ham sandwich for days.

Get A Room: On Chesil Beach, by Ian McEwan

By now you've probably heard that Ian McEwan came perilously close to winning the Bad Sex in Fiction Award from the UK Literary Review for his not-safe-for-work descriptions of a honeymoon between two virginal idealists. (Sample passage can be read here.) Really, it's not like anyone reads McEwan for passion and sensuality - again, Atonement notwithstanding - and it's pretty obvious that the author nearly dodged a bullet here just for being a perennial critic's darling. Still and all, it's not like I was holding out any hope for the poor couple in the first place; I knew that their marriage - and the book - was immediately doomed from the time I got to McEwan describing our couple's honeymoon dinner as "long-ago roasted beef" with "soft boiled vegetables" and "potatoes of a bluish hue." Oh, yummy. (See also: Like Water for Chocolate, above.)

Premature Miscalculation: Swimming with Scapulars, by Matthew Lickona

On Chesil Beach may have had the bad food and appetite-killing sex scenes, but it's a mere trifle compared to the real-life wedding night woes of Matthew Lickona. Without giving much of the book away - and this is just but one chapter of many in this book of "confessions" - let's just boil it down to the particulars: Let's just say that you're a devout Catholic, and you've waited longer than forever to finally say your vows before man and God. You know - or you think you know - that you don't want kids, but you can't use birth control outside of Natural Family Planning. So what happens, then, when your wedding night approaches... and you find out that your lovely bride... is in the middle of her ovulation cycle?

Thankfully for the rest of us, Lickona spares us the gory details (he is, after all, a Catholic writer and a married man), but he does handle what could've been scandalous subject matter with a healthy dose of humor - and not a hint of Joshua Harris-esque sermonizing. Not only do he and his wife stay together and consummate the marriage, but they also go on to become parents themselves. Five times over, as a matter of fact. (Thank God for tequila.)

Try To Set the Night on Fire: El Filibusterismo, by Jose Rizal

If only those annoyingly extravagant "high society" weddings in Manila could be interrupted so easily. Here's what happens to the doomed wedding in El Fili (aka Subversion or The Reign of Greed) from the Wikipedia plot summary:

Simoun then tells Basilio his plan at the wedding of of Paulita Gomez and Juanito, Basilio’s hunch-backed classmate. His plan was to conceal an explosive inside a lamp that Simoun will give to the newlyweds as a gift during the wedding reception. The reception will take place at the former home of Captain Tiago, which was now filled with explosives planted by Simoun. According to Simoun, the lamp will stay lighted for only 20 minutes before it flickers; if someone attempts to turn the wick, it will explode and kill everyone inside the house. Basilio has a change of heart and attempts to warn the people inside, including Isagani, his friend and the former boyfriend of Paulita. Simoun leaves the reception early as planned and leaves a note behind..

[edited to remove GIGANTIC SPOILER for those of you who have not read the book at all]

As people begin to panic, the lamp flickers. Father Irene tries to turn the wick up when Isagani, due to his undying love for Paulita, bursts in the room and throws the lamp into the river. He escapes by diving into the river...

...And yet, Paulita Gomez remains married to the hunchback. Gee, "thanks."

*EDITED 05/01/2008: For those of you who have read Like Water for Chocolate, the "triumphant wedding" that I referred to in this section is actually not between Tita and Pedro. To say anything more would be to give away the massive spoiler of the ending (and I should know, having watched this movie so many times in college that even my frat-boy housemates have started saying "te amo" to each other)... so until then, my apologies.

NBLB Weekend Survey #5: Book Fiend Confessions

2008-04-25T10:47:00.001-07:00

You can run. You can hide. But that tell-tale bulge in your book tote speaks volumes. You gave in. Your library card's scanned heat burns through your wallet. Your Mastercard digits are fresh in your mind after a hasty purchase on Amazon.com. Books are falling out of your shelves. Your nightstand looks like the display case at Borders.

We know what you did.

We did it too - and we're telling all on this weekend's NBLB Survey #5...the Book Fiend Confessions edition.

The Happy Scribe: Undead Histories

1) What books did you buy recently? I seem to be on a history and politics binge lately: Daniel J. Boorstin's The Seekers and The Discoverers; along with Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance and The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream.

2) What's on your Amazon wish list? I want a Kindle. Badly. It's probably another gadget I won't use after its novelty wears off in six months...but I covet it every time I check my account. Though the price tag will keep my reading to paper-based books for a good long while. I can't deal with iPods, but I'm a-tremble over the Kindle. Whadyya know.

3) Complete this sentence: "If I had an unlimited book budget, I would acquire _____" ...A leather bound set of the classics, just like my mom had in her library while I was growing up. There's just something about gilt-edged paper and the smell of leather while reading Cervantes, Thucydides and Shakespeare.

4) Name one hard-to-find book you would love to see on your shelf. I have been hunting for a copy of Eleanor Hoffman's Mischief in Fez for YEARS. I can't just settle for the text version. The original illustrations were so beautiful. Love of that delicate fennec drawing could quite possibly be the root of my infatuation with fluffy, sharp-eared animals.

5) Name one book on your shelf right now, that you would NEVER SELL. My copy of The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain. My mother bought me this thick volume edited by renowned historian Kenneth O. Morgan at Oxford, after we saw the famous dining hall. There is absolutely no way I would part with this book. Some of the twentieth century discussions are already out of date (this edition ends with Thatcher) and I've spilled coffee on some pages (notably, the Tudor years, which were my chosen area of study in college), but no other compilation explores Britain's two thousand year old story with such aplomb.

6) What is the most expensive book (or book-related purchase) you have made? Cherry wood folding shelves for my living room. I realize my current book collection has already spilt onto various windowsills, but I will not settle for ugly shelves. Hubby has the more expensive books, since arts and photography anthologies do cost quite a pretty penny. I'm a cheap book date in comparison - most of my current collection are from my childhood/college stash, or refugees from library sales.

7) If you could design your dream library, what would it look like? Cozy - full of pillowy couches and arched reading lamps in worked nickel, all four walls reaching ceiling-high in books. Huge windows for daylight reading, with a fat, purring cat in the corner. Oh...and all the time in the world to read every single volume.

8) Complete this sentence: "When I walk into a bookstore, I save my wallet from impending doom if I bypass the ___________ shelf/section." The bargain history book pile, especially those big discounts on DK books with all the great pictures. If it's under $15, I'm stuck to it like mud on a farm horse.

9) List ALL the books you currently have on loan from your local library. Deep breath: Eight Laurell K. Hamilton books (Anita, you saucy minx), Mary Janice Davidson's Sleeping with the Fishes, Shobhaa De's "sari-ripper" Bollywood Nights, Duncan Sprott's ancient family saga The Ptolemies, Meg Cabot's Queen of Babble in the Big City, Hester Browne's The Little Lady Agency and the Prince, and several art compediums. I read them simultaneously, so I could dabble in a little Hamilton paired with MJD (because I need her humor to wash down all those leather pant descriptions), or some Cabot spiced with Bollywood adventures. All those Anita Blake books lately? My librarian thinks I'm doing research on vampires. I don't correct her.

10) "I love my local library because...." It's my sanctuary away from my distractions. And my librarians are pretty cool, despite all that vampire literature they've had to stack for me in the holds' shelf.

Meimei: Wine and Coelho on Loan

1) What books did you buy recently? My parents are reading this blog, so you won't find out here about the trashy bodice-rippers I just purchased on the sly. Apart from that... I just picked up Paulo Coelho's Veronika Decides to Die, which I will get around to reading soon.

2) What's on your Amazon wish list? Since it's freshly updated: My Life with The Saints, by James Martin (highly recommended by my sister); some yoga DVDs; a couple of books by GK Chesterton and Scott Hahn; Harry Wong's The First Days of School (more on this later) and Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitting Without Tears. Also, LOVE (the Beatles/Cirque du Soleil collaboration), Cranium, and Living Language's In-Flight French in CD form.

*Cue Meimei's sister reading this and thinking: Girl, you have GOT to start editing that list already.*

3) Complete this sentence: "If I had an unlimited book budget, I would acquire...." Great Tastes Made Simple, by Andrea Immer (now Andrea Immer Robinson). This is the book that got me really interested in wine. Immer has an engaging way of writing about wine that doesn't make you feel stupid if you can't tell your Barbera apart from your Barolo. It's a pity this book is way too heavy and pricey for me to keep!

(Note from NBLB: Andrea Robinson also wrote Everyday Dining with Wine. Prepare to part with more of your money, Mei.)

4) Name one hard-to-find book you would love to see on your shelf. In a just world, I would have owned a decent Filipino cookbook - a well-written one with amazing pictures, sturdy paper stock, and great recipes that won't leave my Mom screaming bloody murder for suggesting such insane substitutes should I decide to make the dish outside of the Philippines. It's a pity that Jessica Zafra can't cook and Clinton Palanca is way too high on his own self-importance to write down a decent recipe!

5) Name one book on your shelf right now, that you would NEVER SELL. The Soul of Education, by Rachael Kessler. This was the book that really got me revved up about teaching; it's up there with Parker J. Palmer's The Courage to Teach and Harry Wong's The First Days of School (which I also haven't purchased) as the Holy Triumvirate of Books No Teacher Should Leave Behind, Ever.

6) What is the most expensive book (or book-related purchase) you have made I remember paying upwards of $25 for Kevyn Aucoin's Making Faces when I first bought it here in Honolulu. Worth every flipping penny.

7) Close your eyes: if you could design your dream library, what would it look like? (Erm...you can open your eyes to type the answer...) I'm the kind of person who never leaves her books in the same place, ever... but if I must, I definitely can imagine a Victorian-style personal library, with floor-to-ceiling shelves. Not a lot of hardcovers (unless you count some of my ED textbooks, which I refuse to part with), but you'd best know that the ones I reach for the most would be the ones that are within eye level. No "airplane books" or double-shelving, just my fiction, nonfiction, and cookbooks mingling together. Also, hidden compartments for my respective stashes of booze, herbal teas, and fine dark chocolate.

8) Complete this sentence: "When I walk into a bookstore, I save my wallet from impending doom if I bypass the ___________ shelf/section." I don't have to worry about the romance and fiction sections any more than I have to worry about the cookbooks and DIY crafts! The bargain bins at B&N and Bestsellers are lethal, though: quickie gifts, gag books, gorgeous journals, anthologies of the trashiest bodice-rippers and canned-soup recipes ever written... not to mention $2 Sudoku compilations not edited by Will Shortz. Ay naku!

9) List ALL the books you currently have on loan from your local library.

From the Hawaii State Library System:
- Isabel Allende - Zorro (yes, it sounds cheesy, but I'm curious about how Allende managed to class up the joint here)
- P.G. Wodehouse - Carry On, Jeeves and The Code of the Woosters (a little British humor, for a change of pace)
- Flannery O'Connor - A Good Man is Hard to Find (I much prefer her dry Catholic wit to the balmy Southern Gothics of Faulkner)
- Ian McEwan - Saturday (I hear that this one is much better than On Chesil Beach, but I'm not touching this until after all that Wodehouse and Allende)

Also on loan from Chaminade's Sullivan Library: Coelho's The Alchemist and Allende's Of Love and Shadows, which I still need to return on Monday.

10) "I love my local library because...."

- They ENCOURAGE you to sit down and read, just about anywhere you can grab a book. It's a refreshing contrast to Barnes & Noble, where you get sales clerks every five minutes looking down their nose to tell you to stop lingering so much in the aisles and/or buy a Frappuccino if you intend to finish your book and still keep your seat in the cafe.
- In the same vein: Librarians won't give you that empty stare when you ask them for a book that you can't find anywhere, or give you a condescending sneer if they catch you with a particularly dirty title in your hands.
- Most of the public libraries that I frequent in Honolulu (Hawaii State, McCully-Moiliili, Manoa and Aina Haina) are air-conditioned in a way that's comfortable and doesn't require an extra layer of clothing.
- If there's a kids' event, you get free pizza coupons if a staffer mistakes you for a teenager. (Yes, it has happened to me!)

Bodice Ripping Cliches, Part 3: A Swift Kick In the Crown Jewels

2008-04-24T01:35:00.000-07:00

I'll be the first to admit that the romance novels of Bertrice Small were the source of much unintentional comedy between myself and The Happy Scribe in our younger years. For all the talk about Mme. Small's devotion to historical accuracy and painstaking research, even I will have to admit that our tolerance for romance-novel cliches were diminished by our repeated reading of her oeuvre.

Let's run down the cliche list, shall we? Coercion? Check. Stockholm Syndrome? Check. Horny Scottish Lairds? Check. Repetitious sequences involving kinky sex in harems? Check. Too many underage milksop brides trying to be feisty, yet throwing their corsets to the wind as soon as the Horny Intrepid Hero(es) entice them to bed? Check, check, check.

But the most tiring Bertrice Small cliche of them all, in my opinion, is the one involving the Excessively Horny Real-Life Royal. I swear, after reading so many Bertrice Small novels, you'd think that all these European royals were never taught how to keep it in their pants; not the impetuous young princes, and certainly not the lecherously Dirty Old Kings who ought to know better.

Say what you want here, but apparently Bertrice Small may have taken Henry Kissinger's words about power being "the ultimate aphrodisiac" a little too far here.

Don't even get me started on the repetitive nature of each plot line: Royal seduces our heroine in the most lascivious way; Royal shows Heroine a "good time" in bed; history intervenes (regardless of whether or not our Heroine actually becomes enceinte from their one night of "passion"), and Our Lovely Heroine parts with the Royal on relatively civil terms so that she can be reunited with Our Intrepid Hero. Ho. Freaking. Hum.

With all due respect, I'm the kind of romance reader who would rather enjoy a book where the leads engage in Hot, Sweaty, Exclusive Monogamy. No partner-switching, no plot-driven adultery, not even a single attempted rape. Which is why I find it ironic that I've actually found a Bertrice Small novel that actually defies the cliches I've written above, even with a Horny Royal romping about the premises.

Do not be fooled by the cheese-tastic (and horribly inaccurate) cover: Love, Remember Me is actually Not That Bad. Intended as a sequel-of-sorts to the also semi-cheesy Blaze Wyndham, this novel follows Nyssa Wyndham - the daughter of the titular Blaze - into the court of her mother's ex-lover Henry VIII as a lady-in-waiting to Anne of Cleves, rendered here as a pragmatic, good-humored German princess who sees her sham marriage to Henry for what it is and agrees to part with him on civil terms. Here Small's historical research pays off nicely - the court of the Tudor King, and its surrounding characters, have never been rendered with so much rich detail.

Yes, it starts out very, very badly: Amid speculation that the virginal - and brunette - Nyssa may be in line to be Henry's next mistress (which... considering that her mother used to do the nasty with the King himself: awkward!), certain forces conspire to have Nyssa wake up in bed naked next to the "notorious rake" Lord Varian de Winter, in order to take her out of contention and replace her with Catherine Howard. That the devilishly handsome Lord Varian would also turn out to be an illegitimate relation of Cat Howard also factors prominently in the story, since the rest of the story is centered around the rise and fall of a woman who married for power and ended up in the history books as the "beheaded" between Anne of Cleves ("divorced") and Katherine Parr ("survived").

But enough about poor Cat Howard, who would never have lost her head had she actually kept her own legs crossed. I know some readers have complained about Love, Remember Me having too much history and not enough hot lovin', but I thought that the side action (ahem) between Nyssa and Varian dovetailed nicely with the rest of the history-book aspects of the novel. Nyssa starts out as a feisty but proper 18 year old, who is rightfully freaked out to find herself being gossiped about in relation to both Varian (approximate age in book: 32) and the grossly obese fortysomething King Henry (who, as other characters would point out later in the book, may as well have been her own father... again: ewwwww). Once Nyssa enters the marital chamber, however, Varian handles her "first time" with a surprising amount of finesse and sensitivity... and that's just the first of many heartbreakingly intimate revelations between man and wife. Suffice it to say that Teh Sex between Lord and Lady De Winter may be hot, but it's not as devastating as the quieter conversations they have between all the rumpy-pumpy. It's a testament to Small's restraint that not only do Varian and Nyssa remain faithful to each other throughout the story, but that the only other attempt at Nyssa's post-marital virtue is swiftly thwarted by Nyssa with a few well-placed knee jabs delivered to her attackers.

Despite the age difference between them - not to mention the inordinate amounts of sex - Varian does treat Nyssa with more than a fair measure of equality; as he mentions in the story, he was already preparing to settle down when he met her, and he would have been lucky to choose her as a wife anyway. Nyssa also grows to love Varian - and bears his children (yes, folks, she has twins) - but she also learns to find her own strength, and her growth from lady-in-waiting to fiercely protective matriarch becomes a striking parallel to Cat Howard's infidelity, which Nyssa observes with appropriate puzzlement. By the time Cat ends up facing the chopping block, loyalties are tested and lessons are learned... and our beloved Lord and Lady De Winter emerge from the scandal more ferociously devoted to each other.

Yes, it sounds so cheesy and trite on paper - especially after I've left out some pretty spoilery bits out of that summary above - but the great majority of elements in this book do fit together nicely. You'll be surprised to find how a love story like this could actually turn out to be even more touching amidst all the skullduggery - and even more so to find that such a tastefully developed story could come out of the mind of Bertrice Small, who might as well have bartered every single character in this book into white slavery. At the very least, it should save you some trouble for your next European History midterm.

Salacious B(uffy): The Anita Blake Series

2008-04-23T12:13:00.000-07:00

The librarian hands me a pack of hardbacks, eyebrows raised at the titles printed from the computer: Cerulean Dreams, The Lunatic Cafe, Micah...Anita Blake, much? How did I end up becoming a Laurell K. Hamilton junkie?

I blame the following details:

* Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel
* Anne Rice
* Living next to a glamorous cemetery (I like jogging around old tombstones. The dead don't laugh at my thighs.)
* Waiting too long for my next MJD fix
* A hard-boiled newsie friend who admitted in a gush of red wine and late night neurosis how much she adored Narcissus in Chains. (This was eight years ago. I picked up my first Hamilton last weekend.)

I'm reading them as soon as I can get my hands on the goth-decorated covers. This is insane. I also gobbled (in twenty minutes) the graphic novel version of her first book, Guilty Pleasures. Since I can't avoid reading spoilers, I already know Anita has gotten it on with every type of Undead, from Jean Claude the Master Vampire and Richard the Werewolf, to Micah the Wereleopard (hrm...spotty...). I wouldn't be surprised if she finds an attractive zombie some day - though at this point, she does draw the line on decomposing lovers. Hamilton's imagination is as fertile as it gets - I totally understand how she hits the New York Times best-seller list every time she publishes. She writes about a world where vampires have recently acquired U.S. citizenship, throwing a monkey wrench into the usual stake-em-and-leave-em vampire slaying stories. Her heroine Anita is an animator (no, not da kine that works for Pixar - when I first read the description of her job, I was like "Eh? How does she go from drawing cartoons to killing badly-dressed vamps?" Dense = me.), able to raise the dead in order to settle court cases and police investigations. She's also a necromancer, which means she can CONTROL the dead, a power growing stronger with each novel (and each paranormal boinking, apparently).

While I'm hooked, and will keep reading until I've exhausted the tri-county supply of Hamilton books, I cannot help laughing at some outrageous details. Like how Hamilton has made the kinky menage a trois into a power-sharing "triumvirate" of inter-species power. So if Anita's dating a wereleopard and a vampire, they can draw power from each other telepathically, increasing their natural powers through metaphysical bonding...and well...physical contact. Wokey. There's also quite a lot of different "were" animals - it's becoming an undead zoo around here! In the beginning, I was thrilled by the idea of wererats, wereleopards, etc. Now, I'm a little scared...because Anita has a tendency to get "involved" with the latest species (no were-snakes, Anita!!!). I haven't read Narcissus yet, where sex becomes an important act to keep the main characters alive (oh dear!). And I can't decide if I do prefer the characters clothed...because some of the S&M themed outfits are just too much to bear in my (shallow watered) Vogue-loving head. I mean really - do all male vampires shop at Leather Pants R Us? It makes Angel's all-black ensembles seem rather nice in comparison (and they were, weren't they?).

Argh.

But I keep reading. So far, my favorite is The Laughing Corpse, a voodoo-themed novel about killer zombies and the unscrupulous humans who control them. Very gross. Lots of supernatural fighting. In other words - less naked tussling and more clothed whupass. Hamilton is a great writer because she's able to (Count Dracula laugh...PUN) suck you into her improbable world, where a tough heroine with a penchant for guns and stuffed penguins reigns supreme over all other beings. If you can suspend disbelief at Anita's sexual prowess and shield your eyes from the odd fashion choices, this series is worth a few guilty reads in the near-dark.

NBLB Weekend Survey #4 (FINALLY!): Literary Smackables Galore

2008-04-21T10:53:00.000-07:00

Finally, after letting Real Life get in the way of blogging during this weekend, the readers of No Book Left Behind have managed to sit down and unleash their anger issues on ten literary characters of their choice. We've both had so much fun trashing our least favorite characters throughout the week that unleashing the can of Literary Whup-Arse on more of our non-favorites would be apt.

Special thanks to the American Library Association for their "Read" posters, and to Tim Gunn for holding the fort and "making it work."

The Happy Scribe: Whiny vampires and milksop heroines need not apply.

10) Fanny Price. Can. Not. Deal. The only Austen heroine who I feel needs a backbone transplant.

9) Bridget Jones. Liked the movies better than the books. Heroine is v. v. annoying. Smoking and kvetching gets old, especially in second book.

8) Louis. Yes, his immortal whining launched Anne Rice's career. But oh my god...someone stake him already if he's so unhappy with his sucky immortality.

7) Edmund Pevensie. I really hoped all that Turkish Delight would make him explode.

6) Fleur Forsyte. Egh. Why in the world she had Jon AND that budding baronet around her spoiled little finger was beyond my comprehension! Maybe because Soames was already a pill...his daughter was just...too much!

5) Dorothy. I loved Baum's other characters. Dorothy was just a little too self-righteous for my taste.

4) Briony Tallis. Too many exclamations from my reading corner on how her dangerous fancies and childish ignorance ruined her sister's chances at love.

3) Bertie Wooster. I adore P.G. Wodehouse's class romps, but in fairness, I feel Jeeves should've filled stupid Bertie's socks with jelly and left to serve the Queen.

2) Fred the Mermaid. Mary Janice Davidson wrote a mermaid series as well. Sometimes I wish Fred would stay underwater. Not my favorite MJD heroine.

1) Any Bertrice Small heroine. See Mei's bodice ripper cliches. (Though in hindsight, these ladies might actually get turned on by a smacking.)

Note: I did not mention Anita Blake because she could probably kick my ass with all her limbs tied together.

Meimei: Shut up, Daedalus. (You too, Judith Krantz and Jean Rhys.)

Before I begin with my list, I have to explain that these characters represent the tip of the iceberg as far as slap-worthy characters are concerned. I’ve already explained Bridget Jones last week; I was also tempted to add Anita Blake, but that’s more of a hate-on-sight (without having read a single book) than a genuine kind of hate. And, while both Agatha Christie and Ian McEwan have written slap-worthy characters, I can’t put them on the list because none of them inspire me to bring on the Slapsgiving that these have.

1) Stephen. Freaking. Daedalus. No other character has ever deserved such a violent smacking – and not just because anyone who has ever gone to the same high school as myself and The Happy Scribe has Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man to blame for turning our otherwise fun IBH English classes into depressing slogs. I can’t remember having read Portrait without repeating the words “shut up” so many times - sometimes loud enough to scare my parents - and as much as I actually tolerated Molly Bloom’s soliloquy, I still have Daedalus to blame for ruining the rest of Ulysses for me.

2) Holden. Freaking. Caulfield. The runner-up to Stephen Daedalus in the “Stream-of-Consciousness”/ Douchebag division, easily beating out both Dean Moriarty and Sal Paradise from Kerouac’s On the Road (talk about two people who just won’t Shut Up). The only saving grace I could find for Holden comes towards the end of Catcher in the Rye, when he takes his sister to the carousel… but other than that? Grow up, already!

3) Goldilocks. Just because there’s a successful Filipino bakery with your name on it doesn’t make it OK for you to barge into a stranger’s house unannounced and make catty, unwarranted comments about their food and furniture. I hope those three bears caught up to you.

4) Jewel Bundren, from William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. In a book full of slap-worthy characters – including poor dead Addie – Jewel stands out as the whiniest and most incompetent of them all… and that’s saying a whole lot, without giving the “plot” (ha ha) away.

5) Mama Elena, from Like Water for Chocolate. Unlike her fellow archetype Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Mama Elena’s cruel hounding of her own biological daughter seems way too telenovela-ish for me. Did Laura Esquivel really need to manifest her as a vengeful ghost and a hypocrite at the same time? At least Elizabeth Bennet got to dispatch of Lady Catherine with one of the best smack-down monologues ever written; Mama Elena’s come-uppance, on the other hand, comes a few chapters too late, and even then – both in the book and the movie - it’s handled way too abruptly.

6) The titular character from How Stella Got Her Groove Back. It didn’t take me too long to realize that this Stella was Terry McMillan’s version of a Mary Sue… and that’s before she realized that her Hot Jamaican ~~Mandingo~~ Lover Man was actually a gold-digging little queen.

7) Every single female lead character in the Danielle Steel oeuvre. “Hi, I can’t decide what I want for myself because my mother was too frigid to love me as a child, and Danielle thinks that giving me an actual personality would ruin all those dramatic ‘scenes’ and ‘monologues’ she wrote for me. Watch me as I screw my way through this book like a dispassionate sexbot!”

8) Billy Ikehorn, from Judith Krantz’s Scruples series. “Hi, I can’t decide what I want for myself because I’m used to being a horny, power-hungry slut, and Judith’s idea of giving me a personality is to have me screw rich and powerful men so I can dump them when they get bored of me. Watch me as I sleep my way to self-esteem… through three books!”

9) Waverly Jong, from The Joy Luck Club. True, she was the uppity daughter of an uppity mother, and Amy Tan did take both of them down a few pegs towards the end of the book. That doesn’t make the scenes where she rubs the other Joy Luck girls the wrong way any less painful, though.

10) Bertha Rochester. Fine, I say: Mr. Rochester was an idiot to keep her in the attic. And, from having watched the first movie adaptation of Wide Sargasso Sea, maybe there are a few reasons for me to be sympathetic towards her. But, c’mon – of all the interesting side characters in Jane Eyre, did we really need Jean Rhys to tell us how horrible Bertha and Edward were to each other? (And would the world be a better place if it had been Jasper Fforde’s province instead?) Extra slaptastic points goes to Bertha’s most recent adapted-for-screen incarnations – not just for getting to play “Touch My Body” with Nathaniel Parker and Rafe Spall (note to Rafe: Final season of LOST – look into it) but also for damn near defacing the lovely visage of Toby Stephens, who recently became one of my favorite OG Rochesters.

Please Stand By

2008-04-17T22:42:00.000-07:00

Those of you who have been waiting for the NBLB Weekend Q&A may need to be patient; both of our reader-bloggers have been incredibly busy lately with non-blog-related business, which means that our regular weekly feature may be a tad delayed in posting. Fret not, however - there's a lot more reading and reviews in store over the weekend!

In the meantime, you can get your own Tim Gunn poster - and other celebs, too - at the online store for the American Library Association.

Big Ole Brain Crush: Daniel J. Boorstin's The Creators

2008-04-17T13:04:00.000-07:00

If you ever get a chance to cruise downtown Oberlin, OH, check out the used book store (that is, if you don't blow your money at the bead shop...advice: start at the coffee shop and walk to the right). I got twinkly little stars in my eyes from cool book overload. Yellowing and yet in pristine condition on the crowded shelves were out of print copies of fairy tales, drama anthologies and classics. I nearly went home with an E.M. Forster biography and an illustrated Shakespeare, but my cash didn't stretch that far (we still have to eat this week, darn it). So, practicing the same restraint I apply to shoe stores, I browsed, bovine-like in my constant chewing over of titles and authors. What I love about Oberlin's liberal atmosphere is that the clerks are friendly, but not pushy. They're used to students and artists with limited budgets, so the "buy! buy! buy!" schmooze doesn't exist. (I would, however, still steer bead lovers to my neighborhood's City Buddha versus the crazy expensive stuff at the bead shop...still, those Peruvian bags were way cool...sigh...)

Anyways, when I finally made my choice, there was no question what my home library missed: Daniel J. Boorstin's Knowledge trilogy.

There are three key things that saved me from completely chucking myself out my 13th floor window (lucky, yeah?) while writing upper level European history essays: coffee, the love of my late (great) Pomeranian, and a copy of Boorstin's The Creators: A History of Heroes of the Imagination. This book needs to be in your library if you adore art and history, and want to maintain that love affair despite the rocky essay deadlines and those interminable recitals of dates and religious upheavals. Boorstin's take on history's greatest artists isn't written like classroom text. This was what was so great about reading this book in my early high school years - history became a flesh and blood story, not a distant, dusty timeline. Critics of Boorstin's work tend to skewer him for presenting a Western-slanted account of the past 3,000 years. I was glad I didn't see it that way - I discovered this book as a story of how individuals left lasting imprints on society - how the efforts of one man or woman could be remembered from the works and words they left behind. It's as close to immortality we humans can achieve in THIS life.

I first read this book between trips to Europe, sandwiched between my childhood exploration of the Louvre, and when I dragged my Dad and little sister through it as an adult. My professors spanning high school and college were then treated to massive chunks of quotes from Mr. Boorstin's series of biographies in last-minute essays.Then I read it one really bad night while I cried about my own "art" alone in my college apartment. I don't care what the critics say. Boorstin's short biographies don't have to be read in order - for one day, Michaelangelo provides healing and guidance, for another, it could be Mohammed providing inspiration - it's good to have this option from a heavy history tome. The book is divided organically, according to themes - of God, structures, images, words, music, time/space, and the intangibles of the human soul. Appealing to my journalistic spirit is the prevailing question of WHY - the search for the answer to this question over the ages, versus the more utilitarian (and therefore more cold) question of today, HOW to get it done. The answers are in the architecture, the poetry, the philosophies, the religions, the paintings...it lifts the heart to think this can be a neverending exploration. You'll want to read Dante and Dickens, view Picasso, listen to Bach - you will want to experience it for YOURSELF.

I didn't find The Creators at the bookstore, but I did scoop up Seekers and Discoverers. Both deserve a re-read, after nearly three years of missing Boorstin from my library. I have had a huge brain crush on this man's writing for over a decade. "The nation's collective IQ took a nosedive on February 28, 2004, when Daniel Joseph Boorstin - historian, professor, writer, curator, librarian, and great American Booster - died of pneumonia at age 89." (The New Atlantis obituary) His career reads like an account of ten lives, all mashed together into this big, beautiful intellect. More importantly, he lived and wrote generously. The Creators points to the beginning of a path -wherever your mind is inclined. He is criticized for lack of elaboration - but he was not motivated to impress us with a huge tsunami of research (which he undoubtedly had to swim in, to produce these marvelous books). He gives us a compass to discover our own roads to expression. This is the survey class of your dreams - that first brain crush on art, history, religion and cultures, culminating in a lifelong love affair.

These creators, makers of the new, can never become obsolete, for in the arts there is no correct answer. The story of discoverers could be told in simple chronological order, since the latest science replaces what went before. But the arts are another story — a story of infinite addition. We must find order in the random flexings of the imagination.

-- Daniel J. Boorstin

Hook, Line, Sinker: Agatha Christie and Le Train a Grande Perfidie

2008-04-14T21:12:00.000-07:00

I had been on a major Agatha Christie kick lately - which is actually a late-in-life discovery for me, having been hooked by the televised versions of the Miss Marple series. (And yes, I am aware that the recent versions were not faithful to Dame Christie's version - though I'll admit that I will still take them over last Sunday's desecration of E. M. Forster.) While I'm up here, I'll also say that I have not always had the chance to watch David Suchet's portrayal of Hercule Poirot on TV. I did, however - geek alert! - download and waste hours of my time on the computer-game versions of Death on the Nile and Peril at End House. Yes, the games do bear the signature of Dame Christie by way of a nifty licensing agreement - though not necessarily faithful to the plots of the books themselves (see the Wikipedia entries for both books if you want more spoiling) - and the game play is superb.

That said, I plowed through the first two Hercule Poirot books from my stash - Evil Under the Sun and The Mysterious Affair at Styles - both of which turned out to be quick, addictive reads that made me lose track of time at the bus stops and office desks where I tried to sneak them in. I figured, since I was already hooked, I might as well get cracking on the third book in my stack: Murder on the Orient Express. How hard could it be, right?

Easier said than done. It took me three days to get through this whole novel, even though it was no thicker than the two other books I had just finished.

How hard is it, anyway, to get through a claustrophobic murder mystery surrounding the not-quite-cold corpse of a wealthy, obnoxious American? How hard is it to figure things out when Dame Christie's publishers were kind enough to even provide me with a diagram of everyone's accommodations? How hard could it be for anyone to figure out who the murderer is, with all these passengers on board - bound only by a common hallway on a passenger cab - and a snowdrift blocking the train's way from Istanbul to Calais?

By then I was no longer a stranger to Christie's recurring theme of treachery in close quarters - not after having played the games and watched the movies - so of course I had to find out which one of the twelve passengers was the culprit. Midway through the book, however, I was practically suspicious of everyone on board - even with all the airtight alibis and lack of access to crime-fighting resources. CSI this certainly isn't. And if you thought the mystery surrounding Le Train a Grande Perfidie (a little pun, by the way, pour les Francophones et Francophiles) was going to get tied up neatly in a pretty bow, with Hercule Poirot offering a pithy soundbite while twirling his Mustache of Justice... think again.

I had to read the last chapter of the book three times this afternoon, just to make sure I actually got everything straight - all while screaming all sorts of obscenities (in my head, of course) and wondering how in Dame Christie's own mind did she able to manage to wrap such a dark mystery in so much skull-duggery without making the whole thing sound so depressing. Any other writer would've come close to putting the same elements together, and still would never have come up with something so intricately structured and engineered.

In Hercule Poirot's own words: "The whole thing was a very cleverly planned jigsaw puzzle, so arranged that every fresh piece of knowledge that came to light made the solution of the whole more difficult."

And it took me another re-read to realize that this was more than just another story about a dead American on a train; it was, after all, the story of the world at large in the early 20th century, where globalization in commerce also brought about the globalization of scandal and treachery. (Ian McEwan, are you taking notes?) True, the Americans in this story are nowhere near heroic - though the Europeans don't fare any better, either - and Christie even manages to sneak in a "ripped-from-the-headlines" allusion to the Lindbergh kidnapping case to drive home her point... but that's just a small fraction of the bigger picture - as M. Bouc, the train-company executive who helps Poirot solve the mystery, gives us a clue at the very beginning:

"...All around us are people, of all classes, of all nationalities, of all ages. For three days these people, these strangers to one another, are brought together. They sleep and eat under one roof, they cannot get away from each other. At the end of three days they part, they go their separate ways, never perhaps to see each other again."

But are these passengers really strangers to each other - trains passing in the night, so to speak? Can they truly get away from each other, in the light of such grand tragedy? And what does this case have to do with those other places in that particular point in history, where people of all classes, sexes, and ethnicities often found themselves with no choice but to co-exist with one another while living with their own consciences? (Let me put it this way: If it were truly up to me, Barack Obama should be reading this book right now.)

To say anything more about the book at this point would be to ruin the grand mystery behind such perfidy; I can't even tell you whether or not the solution to the mystery actually leads to the resolution of the crime. What I can tell you for sure, though, is that Murder on the Orient Express could not be any more relevant now than it was in the 1930s, and it will definitely make you wonder how much of what we now know as history has been foreshadowed by the undisputed Queen of Mysteries in this singular, treacherous train ride. You won't be sorry.

O Death, Where Is Thy Eyeliner?

2008-04-13T08:35:00.000-07:00

During my early teens - and at the same exact time when The Happy Scribe buried herself in sci-fi and fantasy books - I was too busy experimenting with alternate realities of my own. Unfortunately, for my parents and my fantasy-loving brother, that period of experimentation did not involve the piles of Asimov, Bradbury, and Tolkien paperbacks that had been intentionally given to me for my own study. Instead, my reading material of choice revolved around the unholy texts that I smuggled into my homework breaks after school - texts with the words Seventeen and Sassy brandished along the covers, with smiling faces and exhortations for self-improvement sandwiched between full-page spreads for Cover Girl and Maybelline.

Yes, I was a teenager. Yes, I was interested in fashion, and boys. But since it was such a challenging moment of my life - none of the "fashionable" clothes really fit me body-wise, and the boys in my particular school were not exactly interested in dating curvy, dark-skinned girls who wrote book reports on Jane Eyre and The Pelican Brief - I turned my attention towards the sections that really mattered to me: hair and makeup.

(You can read part of my makeup journey in this classic entry from Domesticity, which I devoted to the most important discovery I made as a teenager: Red lipstick changes everything.)

So imagine my joy one day when, as I waited at the airport for one of my older siblings to fly in for the holidays, I stumbled upon a copy of Allure. (I didn't buy it then - remember, this was the time when the fashion spreads in Allure were more interested in featuring crinolines and bondage pants than "suggesting" fashion themes.) Imagine my delight when I found out that the great majority of the magazine's content was devoted to makeup: how to put it on correctly, how to wear it without looking like a circus freak. And imagine how my eyes widened as I saw the name of the makeup artist who was responsible for transforming those faces: a young man (definitely gay, I thought) by the name of Kevyn Aucoin.

In those heady mid-to-late Nineties, there was nobody else I wanted to do my hair and makeup, if I had the money - and nobody else did it better. I loved reading his articles in Allure, and watching him do makeovers on Oprah. I remember purchasing my copy of Making Faces at a local bookstore in Honolulu - one of my first "grown-up" purchases - and poring over every page obsessively, trying to memorize his detailed descriptions of eyebrow shapes and lip-lining techniques before committing them to my own face. Let me tell you, I didn't always succeed at replicating the master's work, but his written encouragement buoyed me through those strange moments in college:

That's why I began doing makeup in the first place: I was hoping that through helping people see the beauty in themselves, I could try and find it in me.

At one point, I mentioned Kevyn Aucoin's books to The Happy Scribe, who was also going through a dark period that chipped away at her own self-esteem. Her eyes widened; up until then she'd only heard about him from magazine spreads and second-hand stories from her fashionista relatives about his amazing generosity and character. She borrowed Making Faces and Face Forward from the library, and immediately found solace - not in replicating the makeup per se (yeah, good luck to both of us recreating ourselves in the image of Linda Evangelista) but in reveling in the kind words and open-heartedness that became as much of an Aucoin signature as his magic touch with the makeup brushes.

Life is too short to spend hoping that the perfectly arched eyebrow or hottest new lip shade will mask an ugly heart.

Kevyn Aucoin is no longer with us, having succumbed to complications from a brain tumor before the launch of his now-successful makeup line. His death did come as a shock to me; what I thought were quirks in his personality - all the kind words, the lack of cattiness, and his boundless optimism for the future - suddenly became clear to me as the work of a genuine soul: one who saw himself not as a gran maestro but an active contributor to society, despite the indentured nature of his chosen livelihood. Imagine that - a fashion insider who believed in the truest, purest form of beauty as a beacon of hope.

Today I choose life. Every morning when I wake up I can choose joy, happiness, negativity, pain... To feel the freedom that comes from being able to continue to make mistakes and choices - today I choose to feel life, not to deny my humanity but embrace it.

Every single person who has ever been involved in the fashion and beauty industry - from the top makeup artists to the lowliest of beauty bloggers in the periphery - all of them owe their love of beauty to the fabulous Mr. Aucoin. It's impossible now to read a blog entry or magazine story about a runway look without seeing somebody comment about how they've seen that particular technique in one of Kevyn's books. How apt, then, that the recently released book celebrating his life and legacy would bear such a wonderfully apropos subtitle: A Beautiful Life.

Gateways into Other Worlds: Death's Apprentice, Masked Androids, and Spicy Worms

2008-04-12T12:42:00.001-07:00

Nothing grabbed me as a young reader quite like the sci-fi/fantasy sections. I was a lonely kid with big glasses and braces, more prone to be banged in the face by locker doors than the sort to boldly go into perilous situations filled with hostile aliens (the cafeteria at lunchtime, for example). I loved the library because no one in my middle school and early high school classes went there during their breaks - unless it was to find a spot where they could flirt quietly amidst the stacks (which meant they didn't have enough oxygen to call out insults). In this sanctuary away from teen dramas, down went my backpack amongst the myths, legends and fables of distant and imagined worlds, my face hidden behind books covered in starships, dragons and wizard hats. It was heaven. I didn't want to leave when the bell rang.

With this extended entry, I feel the thrill of an ambassador about to present the untold riches, peoples and creatures of Narnia, Middle Earth, the Federation, Discworld, Oz, Arrakis, and the Sandman's World of Dreams. In these places populated by the fantastic, one misfit child's mind felt liberated. The authors' vivid descriptions and unforgettable characters brought me to the Decameron, Shakespeare, Dante, Cervantes, Proust, Joyce, Tolstoy...they were my gateways to loving literature, in all its glorious possibilities.

There were certain novels that sparked the journeys into each land, those I heartily recommend for those new to a particular series and/or author. Here is a list of sci-fi/fantasy "gateway novels" - the literary appetizers garnished liberally with the hope they will foster a lifelong craving for some of the world's best storytellers:

J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth: The Hobbit

If you haven't read much elf-and-sword lore yet, this is THE starter book, paired heavily with Edith Hamilton's Mythology (read why you should have this slim volume in your book stacks from the great Filipina writer Jessica Zafra here). I was lucky to have read this before diving into the Lord of the Rings saga and the rest of Tolkien's books, (including The Silmarillion, because I'm a huge geek like that). I don't think I would've really caught on to Middle Earth's feudal-fantasy landscape without Bilbo Baggins as my Virgil at the gates. You meet all the LOTR regulars here - from the tricky Gandalf, the glamorous Elves, the disgusting goblins, and one Ring-crazy former Hobbit called Gollum. Bilbo is not a starry-eyed Frodo - he is a lot more cunning, and I must say, quite the furry-footed kleptomaniac (keep a tally of how many magical objects his sticky little fingers manage to carry away). With evil wolves, a dragon, giant spiders and a burly bear-man, I'm surprised Peter Jackson didn't attempt to do this book first. (Ah, but would we have seen Orlando preen so prettily into the camera with his humongous bow if this book superseded LOTR in theaters? We musn't contemplate such things!) The pre-Viggo fight scenes will be hitting the silver screen in condensed form for fans soon - Guillermo del Toro is directing the prequel set for release in 2010. For readers, I do hope you'll make time for The Hobbit way before then. Tolkien was just discovering the boundaries of his created world. Beware...beyond the first page, there be dragons. And what a sight it must've been - for the very first time in Tolkien's mind.

Terry Pratchett's Discworld: Mort

Here's one for you job hunters out there: would you accept an internship...from Death? Pratchett's Discworld series kicks off at The Color of Magic, but in Mort, his fourth novel, is where the author's delightful satire seeps through the pages with laugh after laugh, from the audacity of the Grim Reaper owning a horse called Binky, to the insane conundrums faced by Death's apprentice, the farm boy Mort. You'll also discover Death's "family" - his adopted daughter Ysabell, his cranky manservant Albert, and Death's mini-me the Death of Rats - the Addams-like residents of the Reaper's realm Mon Repos. Pratchett's Death is one of my favorite characters in the series - he evolves from the silent figure with the scythe, to someone who could possibly take the place of Discworld's version of Santa Claus, complete with all-capped HO HO HO's. Be prepared to LIKE Death after reading this book. You will be cheering for him in Reaper Man and Hogfather, and he definitely steals the plot from the main heroes in Soul Music and the Gaiman-Pratchett collaboration Good Omens. And watch out for the cosmic struggle between Death and the Auditors, the Universe's humor-deficient accountants. Death and Taxes are the two constants in life...but at least Death gets the punchline.

L. Frank Baum's Oz: Ozma of Oz

My first Oz book was not The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - there were simply no copies at my middle school library. At that time, I didn't have access to public libraries, so I made do with the L. Frank Baum books I could find. Ozma of Oz was my first glimpse of this American-spun world of talking animals and strange, scary half-creatures. Dorothy's prevailing common sense and inner strength stands out in this book - Judy Garland may sing prettily, but she is too delicate to fill the real ruby slippers of this sturdy, farm-raised heroine. I love how the author celebrated the power of women in his fantasy land, from the determined Ozma, Billina the hen, Dorothy and even the scary Princess Langwidere (a head-exchanging villainess who would be right at home in a Frank Miller graphic novel). This Oz isn't the pastel-colored, GP-rated world we all remember from the movies - it is a menacing place with hostile inhabitants, surrounded by a Deadly Desert and under constant threat from invading enemies like the evil Nome King (watch for him in later books - the short-legged bugger just doesn't give up!). I wasn't into Oz after seeing the movie, but after reading this book, I was thoroughly intrigued by the ensemble of characters in this American "fairy country," full of warring tribes, painful transformations, and malicious magic. Maguire's Wicked has deep roots - the dark Oz was always there...but of course, it took another mega-musical to get everyone else somewhere over the rainbow.

Star Trek The Next Generation: Masks by John Vornholt

If you read only ONE Star Trek book in your lifetime (and aren't afraid to admit it), John Vornholt's Masks stands by itself, placing the Enterprise crew in a world where everyone wears a mask denoting their social rank. The feudal society of Lorca and how these men and women of the future cope with a culture where appearance means EVERYTHING is incredibly fascinating. Usually, the new planet serves as a backdrop to the spaceship's dramas, but this is one of the few situations where the author takes the time to really build a culture that lives and breathes independently of the U.S.S. Enterprise's scandalous officers (yes, it IS a space soap after all...I lost count how many alien women Riker has romanced...he seems to want to top Capt. Kirk's record of most extraterrestrial affairs per season). There are some ridiculous moments - like how Picard's Lorcan love interest marvels at his naked bald head (I couldn't stop laughing) - but on the whole, it's an exciting, quick read for the fan and non-fan alike. I found this book (and the early Next Generation books in general) a lot more fun than most of the novels set in the original Star Trek universe. This could get me thrown out of a TrekKIE convention...but hey, I was always more of a TrekKER at the peak of my Enterprise-lovin' days (Why the emphasis between Trekkie/Trekker? If you're over twelve years old, consider yourself lucky NOT to know the difference.) This was my very first TNG book and certainly not my last - but it's the only one I've re-read more than once. Check it out. It's okay. Really. The Klingons don't bite...unless they like you.

C.S. Lewis's Narnia: The Horse and His Boy

I did not read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe first - I didn't even know this book was part of a series when I received it as a gift one childhood Christmas. This is one of the earliest books I remember reading as a kid - and I confess, I loved it for the talking horses Bree and Hwin. If you saw my book shelf as a child, I was more than a little pony crazy: displayed prominently among pastel My Little Ponies were Black Beauty, The Black Stallion and one of the most beautiful books I have ever owned, King of the Wind (this equine love affair will have to be a separate entry in itself). You can read this desert-themed Narnia book without the other volumes - at its heart is the coming of age of the hero Shasta, caught in a Prince and a Pauper-like case of mistaken identity (Shasta would be the Pauper mistaken for Prince Corin, who is the heir to the throne of Archenland). In his travels, Shasta bonds with a young aristocrat Aravis, who is running away from an arranged marriage to the grand vizier. They both "own" (I say this loosely) talking horses - the image-conscious war charger Bree, and his intelligent (and more humble) counterpart, the Narnian-born mare Hwin - who are on their own quest to free themselves from human-imposed "slavery." There are Pevensie cameos, but so minimal, a first-time reader won't need to run to previous books for explanations about English children and magic wardrobes. And anyone who adores a "ta-da!" surprise ending will adore how Lewis ties up all the loose ends into a beautiful ribbon of continuing relationships, sans whiny British tots craving Snow Queen sweets (I need to add Edmund to my list of literary smackables).

Frank Herbert's Arrakis: Dune

My husband gave me this book and told me to read it. No questions. No comments. I was terrified - I had fallen asleep on the film! I had laughed at the spice! And I didn't get the (ew!) worms! This was going to be disaster, I thought, covering myself in a comfy blankie as I opened the book. I started reading the first lines. Hubby says I didn't stop reading, glued to one place. I finished it in a few hours. Holy Bene Gesserit. It was awesome. I felt completely mind-blasted. Herbert's complex societies makes this book a twentieth century masterpiece. The story hinges on the coming of a world's Messiah, the Kwisatz Haderach, based loosely on the Hebrew expression "jumping of the path." It's insane how generations of directed breeding (via the Bene Gesserit sisterhood) focused on the creation of Paul Atreides. It's also similarly insane how the melange trade - "the spice!" - is so vital to Herbert's universe. And oh yeah, Baron Harkonnen is TOTALLY insane, for sure. But you know what's really crazy? How it all - the spice, the Fremen, the worms, Paul's glowing eyes - they all make perfect sense in THIS world. You are truly taken away from your reality...and at the same time can't help seeing where Herbert found his inspirations in THIS universe. No questions. No comments. My husband hugged me after I freaked out at the last page, totally stoned on the author's creativity. It's a wild worm ride of a read.

Neil Gaiman's the Dreaming: Brief Lives

Hitting the Sandman series is like injecting your brain directly with a caffeine-packed syringe. You begin to understand why so many musicians love Gaiman's graphic novels - there's this blaze, this grinding riff of creativity sparkling off each superbly-worded, beautifully-drawn story. I was completely intimidated by it at first - a comedian-slash-musician friend of mine found out about my Pratchett obsession and immediately asked me if I liked Gaiman (these authors are like the BoGo of British fantasy). When I told him I only read the collaboration Good Omens, he scoffed (just like when I confessed I was into guitar music, but had never heard Tuck and Patti until my radio station gave us free tickets...and I sat there in open-mouthed wonder while my friend mimed chords and slapped me on the back for coming to the party so late). So now I do love Tuck's rendition of Michael Jackson's Man in the Mirror..and I absolutely adore the stories of the Endless. Where had Dream/Gaiman (you have to compare photos/sketches to understand what I mean) been all my life? This was an adult discovery - I felt like I had missed out on so many years I could've shared Sandman quotes and quips - a huge continent in the fantasy world that required one very enthusiastic, guitar-playing Magellan to show me the way. Brief Lives was my first Gaiman. I was a little lost, but here is where Edith Hamilton (gods, bless her!) came into play - if you know your mythology, you won't be lost for very long. It's Gaiman's longest graphic novel, with lots of background revelations and plot twists. These are tales for grownups - the endings are not sugarcoated, the characters can be good, bad and in-between, and you'll see a bit of yourself in all of them...and that may scare you. I won't say more, because words can barely describe what's going on in Gaiman's head. You just have to read it.

Character Assassination (Or: Closure Is A Real Word)

2008-04-11T04:05:00.001-07:00

For those of you who read this week's NBLB weekend survey, and want to suggest that I watch the new version of A Room with a View on PBS this Sunday, I have these words to say to you: No, thank you.

I'm sorry to say this, but I did get spoilered because somebody had the bright idea to post the entire 2007 production on YouTube, broken down into ten parts. I'd post the link, but I'm still too upset to consider what they did to one of my favorite books.

It does go without saying that I am insanely partial to the original Merchant-Ivory version, with both Helena Bonham Carter and Julian Sands at their best (before both of them devolved into caricatures of their former selves), with a young Daniel Day-Lewis (who, I believe, grew back his Cecil Vyse mustache when he started drinking those damn milkshakes) and a plethora of top-shelf British acting talent supporting them. That's why I was looking forward to this new version - I was hoping they'd breathe some fresh air into what was threatening to become a musty relic.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.

Say what you will about messing with classics (see also: criticism of the the ongoing Miss Marple series) or about how E. M. Forster was unable to relate to A Room With a View later in life (see also: Maurice), but I don't think I'm buying what Andrew Davies is trying to sell here - not even to justify the time shifts, the "new" "ending," or even the currently-disputed fact that Forster did write a postscript to Room which reflected his more cynical view of life and love. Yes, I'm part of the horribly gauche masses who do want George Emerson and Lucy Honeychurch to end up together, as they should have been: blissfully in love in Italy, showering each other with kisses. And why, pray tell, should that be a problem?

What also gets to me was that the "liberties" taken by the producers and screenwriters with this novel are a massive waste of everyone's time and talent - most especially the adorable Rafe Spall (seen here in another production), who could not have been a much cuter George Emerson if he tried. He does remind me a bit of Heath Ledger, in a way - if Heath (God bless his soul) had become hopelessly addicted to IHOP instead of partying- and watching him yearn soulfully for Lucy Honeychurch brought home all the great reasons why I've loved George Emerson the way Forster intended him to be. And yes, he does have certain delicious scenes without his clothes on, including the final scene of him at the Pensione Bertolini.

But then... the freaking ending. No. No. No. They should never have done that to poor George and Lucy. Wasn't it enough to have them risk ostracism by eloping, thereby liberating Lucy from the narrowmindedness of her quaint English countryside town? Again, say what you want about whether or not it's an ending that would have made E. M. Forster's heart proud, but: unnecessary, blasphemous, and a great waste of both George Emerson and Rafe Spall.

And this raises yet another timeless question: Why do we even bother with "happily ever after" in the first place, if so many people dislike it so much to mess around with it?

Don't get me wrong. There are days when I do feel that a sad and/or messy ending is appropriate - witness my love for Ian McEwan's Amsterdam, for instance. Sometimes, however, there are days when readers like myself and Happy Scribe have no use for bitter cynicism. Yes, we understand that sugar is bad for you, and can be kind of fake when you just slap it on... but does it really help to be bitter, especially at a time when most people have a reason to be cynical? Come on, people: how easy is it, anyway, to find somebody who is actually happy about living on a diet of nothing but spelt and Brussels sprouts?

My theory: If Forster (or anybody else) wanted to prove a point by showing a more realistic view of relationships by rewriting George and Lucy after their elopement, that's fine - but that also betrays a lack of trust between author and audience, especially when the "creative risk" means destroying people's perceptions of characters they have grown to love. Most people who read books would rather prefer to leave what happens next to the imagination, regardless of what they think about the ending or the author's intention. The synergy between reader and author is what makes messing with an established ending - especially an established happy ending - a complete waste of time; there's a reason, after all, why closure is a legitimate word.

NBLB Weekend Survey #3: Questions of Character

2008-04-10T04:38:00.001-07:00

An early start to your weekend this time around - pardon us, we here at NBLB have had an eventful week, and are ready to curl up with stacks of library finds until the next Monday. Friday cannot come too soon!

This week's survey takes on literary characters - those you love, and those you love to hate...as well as the ones you wouldn't want to touch with a ten-foot pole. Here's a questionable list from your NBLB-ers - copy, paste and post your own!

Meimei: Rumplestiltskin gives her the shivers.

1) Who is your all-time literary villain? This is difficult for me. Experience tells me that villains are merely characters who cannot overcome flaws; my upbringing, on the other hand, has taught me not to love a villain. So, because I'm hard up for an answer... Rumpelstiltskin. (Don't look at me like that. The Brothers Grimm do count as literature, y'know.)

2) On the opposite end - who is your all-time fictional hero? Fitzwilliam Darcy may be THE template for the ultimate romantic lead - and I'm not denying that - but my heart has been irrevocably claimed by George Emerson, from E.M. Forster's A Room with a View. Who can't resist a free spirit who loves without pretense?

3) Who would you date? NOT Rumpelstiltskin, obviously.

4) Which fictional gal/guy would be your best pal? Miss Jane Marple! She may be an old biddy, but I do have to admire someone who relies on her knowledge of human nature to solve mysteries. We'd spend endless hours knitting, gossiping, and refilling bottomless cups of Earl Grey. Come to think of it, I could plan an entire dinner party with Agatha Christie's detectives. It would be worth it just to hear Hercule Poirot say, "Zees CSI Miami - eet ees nonsense!"

5) Which fictional monster creeps you out the most? Here's an unpopular opinion for you: Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights. Will somebody PLEASE tell me what's so romantic about him? I understand that he was heartbroken, and I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't read it... but, really, now, all that crap he pulled after losing Catherine Earnshaw? Way past pathetic.

6) Who do you want to give a good smack? Another unpopular opinion: Bridget. Freaking. Jones. Sorry, but she lost my sympathy during Edge of Reason... so imagine how happy I was when I realized that the movie did not follow the book.

7) Which hero/heroine is YOU - like "whoah, took the words outta my mouth" sort of YOU.. I have to say this without having read the book: Catherine Morland from Austen's Northanger Abbey. Trashy novel addiction? Check. Inquisitive nature? Check. Strong yearning for love conquering all? Obviously. Now I want to know more about her story.

8) If you could have an hour long interview with a great literary character, who would it be? Mr. Rochester, from Jane Eyre. Just so I can ask him about those WTF questions (see #10).

9) Who would you lock in a room with your worst frenemy? The Devil, of course - preferably Milton's, from Paradise Lost.

10) Finally, which literary side character deserves a book all on his/her own? (If it hasn't been written yet) St. John Rivers, the jilted suitor/cousin from Jane Eyre. (Note to Scribe: What is it about this book, anyway? Does that mean I now have to read Jasper Fforde?) I was disappointed that the one "legit" JE spin-off that I know of - Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea - was about Rochester shacking up with crazy Bertha (yet another character that deserves to be slapped) in the Caribbean. Why couldn't it have been St. John sailing off to India instead?

The Happy Scribe: No clowns, please.

1) Who is your all-time literary villain? Professor Moriarty tops my list - a good villain in my book needs to be able to make one think they COULD intellectually trounce the hero's ass if given more time/resources/page space.

2) On the opposite end - who is your all-time fictional hero? Granny Weatherwax of Terry Pratchett's Discworld seems to be an unlikely heroine, being a grumpy witch from Lancre. Whenever she enters a scene, I feel like everything's going to be right as rain...as long as Esme has her way (she usually does).

3) Who would you date? I've had questionable dating choices in real life. I always thought Lt. Cmdr. Data from the Star Trek Next Generation series would be a fun date - everything "old" would be new to this android who aspires to be human. (While "Number One" William Riker seems the more dishy sci-fi choice, he had a wandering eye...which would force me to fictionally smack him.) My husband thinks I would prefer Darcy...but Fitzwilliam is more of the "who would you marry" type. (And hubby is rather like Darcy...the better-looking, more talented counterpart in real life. ;)

4) Which fictional gal/guy would be your best pal? The fantastically flamboyant lady novelist of A Room with a View - Eleanor Lavish and I would share many a macintosh square gossiping under the Tuscan sun.

5) Which fictional monster creeps you out the most? I'm very predictable: Pennywise from Stephen King's It, hands down - el Yucko creepo del mundo! I cannot stand clowns - there's something about forced merriment that makes me cringe (Pratchett illustrates this quite perfectly with the creepy Dr. Whiteface, of the Guild of Fools).

6) Who do you want to give a good smack? I mentioned William Riker, but if I really thought about it: Briony Tallis of Ian McEwan's Atonement begs a good shake. Also: most romance novel heroines (especially the ones who seem "feisty"...but their horniness throws brain and corset to the four winds in less than four pages), Anne Rice's whiny Louis, and (if it was possible before the double suicide - the Priest and Nursey deserve added whacks for not doing the smacking themselves) Romeo and Juliet.

7) Which hero/heroine is YOU - like "whoah, took the words outta my mouth" sort of YOU.. Scarlett O'Hara's "I'll never be hungry again!" definitely echoes my current state of mind (though I kept wanting to snap her hoops at her absolute blindness to Rhett Butler's devotion), as does Shakespeare's Beatrice, who is simultaneously protective and vulnerable. Hermione Granger of the Harry Potter books is also another personality doppelganger - fiercely loyal, very nerdy, and just the right amount of scruffiness.

8) If you could have an hour long interview with a great literary character, who would it be? That's a difficult question, because one thing that makes all these characters "great" are the multitude of layers we have yet to discover from them. I'd have to start off with a classic character if forced to choose - and this is a cop out - it would be Dante of the celestial worlds and words.

9) Who would you lock in a room with your worst frenemy? I would dress him/her up as a sperm whale and put them in a pool with Capt. Ahab. Thar she blows!

10) Finally, which literary side character deserves a book all on his/her own? (If it hasn't been written yet) Yes, Mei, you must read Fforde! I always thought Lady Macbeth needed her own nove l. Ah, and Wicked is such a phenomenon now...so there goes another "untold story." Villains deserve their own say, n'est-ce pas? Too many fall prey to violence and ruin while the milksop hero/heroine ride off into the sunset with all the glory.

Yes, We Have a Playlist

2008-04-09T12:37:00.000-07:00

What can I say? I had a lazy morning.

This week's task: Name all the literary references in the songs added to this list! (Clue: There's a reason why Led Zeppelin gets a mention here twice; at least three tracks were already mentioned on this blog, and the Coldplay one is a ringer.)

...And He's Just as Good in the Kitchen, Too

2008-04-07T21:54:00.000-07:00

(Editor's Note: We at NBLB would like to apologize, in advance, for the explicit adult content contained in this entry - and in particular for the improper conduct of the blogger in question, an unmarried woman who is otherwise regarded as a fine and upstanding member of the community when not pre-occupied with scandalous entertainment in her free time. If you find yourself being offended by this entry at any time, please feel free to browse our archives - or better yet, wait until Meimei finally recovers her composure, so you can go ahead and nag her about that pile of Christian-relationship books that she keeps saying she's going to write for us but never gets around to doing so in the first place. Thank you for your kindness and understanding.)

*********

Dear Dave Lieberman:

Let's get one thing straight. The main reason why I borrowed Young and Hungry from the library had nothing to do with all the great recipes made from fresh, affordable food for people like us on a budget. To be perfectly frank with you, I've actually gotten lazy with the cooking lately, and it's not like I'm going to have the best occasion any time soon to, say, use a spice rub or whip up a gigantic (but beautiful) potato-herb omelet for brunch.

What I'm telling you here is that the real reason why I borrowed the book had everything to do with the pictures. No, I'm not talking about those pictures - although I'll have to admit that this is pretty damn sexy, and this nearly made me drop my fork. (And let's not even get me started on this slutty little number, shall we? Not to mention this, which I am sure would be of interest to Happy Scribe's husband...)

You know very well which pictures I'm talking about, Dave. You don't even have to try and pretend that they never happened, because it's all in the book.

(Wait. Here's the part where I'm supposed to post those pictures I'm talking about - the more incriminating, yet fully clothed, ones where you're holding up produce like you're about to tempt your readers. Unfortunately, the just moral laws of Internet property rights prevent me from posting them on this blog entry... so read on.)

All you have to do is smile at me like that - yes, like THAT (you bad boy, YOU!) - and you've reduced me to rubble. But then you go ahead and pose for those pictures in your book with your food, like a frat boy's mockery of Nigella Lawson. You're killing me, Dave. You have no idea what that does to me, do you?

Oh, don't give me that look now, Dave. You didn't just have me at "hello." How could I not love a full-blooded American male who's a self-taught chef and capable of making the most beautiful salads on this God-given earth? (Yes, I know you employed a professional stylist, but I don't care - besides, it's not like the average man notices when women who pose for FHM are Photoshopped within an inch of their lives, correct?) How could I not be swayed by someone who could make three kinds of tapenade - or even pronounce the word tapenade correctly in the first place - and still shamelessly admit to using yellow cake mix and frozen croissant dough?

And what about that one Christmas break when my Mom and I watched you make that bacon hash on TV? You should've seen the horror on my Mom's face when she realized that you were making hash out of bacon - bacon! - when you should've been doing that with corned beef in the first place. Did I care that you could have killed me with all that fat and sodium? Oh, hell no. The only way you could've made me a happier woman that morning was to throw in some chocolate-covered bacon on the side.

Don't even think about giving me that excuse about the Food Network honchos trying to pass you off as the American Jamie Oliver. As far as I know, you're not married, and freelancing as a personal chef in New York. You went to Yale, for crying out loud. You could just show up at my doorstep in a chef uniform and still get me hot under the collar. Heck, at this point I'm not even bothered by you being part-Jewish (and, if rumors are to be believed, deeply conflicted over the fact) - because I'd be more than willing to feed you all the prosciutto that your heart and soul can handle. Literally and figuratively.

You know what I want, Dave. The champagne's in the fridge. The bacon hash is on the stove. You know where to find me.

XOXO, Meimei

ps. And regarding Dave's Dinners (hee, "dinners") - mark my words: you know I'm gonna be all over that sucka as soon as I get my hands on it at the Barnes & Noble.

Bite Me: MaryJanice Davidson and the Feisty Undead

2008-04-07T04:48:00.000-07:00

Guilty pleasure confession from this past weekend: MaryJanice Davidson's Betsy the Vampire Queen series, kicking off with the hilarious travails of an outspoken heroine who just so happens to be immortal...but wishes she had a pedicure before she died. Midwest gal Betsy Taylor is mowed down by the soccer mom's weapon of choice - an SUV - only to find herself rising from the grave in the same week in "Undead and Unwed." Thus begins the chronicles of Betsy the Vampire Queen, who rules with a manicured fist... and her very sexy consort Eric Sinclair. Now at 7 books (so far!), Davidson's heroine has triumphed over rebellious minions, a scary vampire King, an attic zombie, a manic librarian, and her own pesky blood craving problem (solved by one very accomodating husband).

While real-life vampire wannabes scare the crap out of me, I did have my Lestat/Louis** crush in the aftermath of Interview with the Vampire. Yes, I bought the Anne Rice books and watched Buffy/Angel (sigh) religiously. I thought I left the bloody fiends behind until I added one of Davidson's pastel-covered books in my basket of chick lit (I'm dreadfully shallow when picking books from the library's humor section. A cute cover gets me every time). After breezing through a predictable "Dedication," the latest from "The Nanny Diaries" authors Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, I sat down and read Davidson's insane vampire chronicles in a few hours. Hot undead sex scenes? Check. Glamorous vampires? Check. Cute werewolf side stories? Check. Adorable vampire slayer? Check. An unstrained brain throughout this literary experience? Check, check, CHECK. It's not Tolstoy, chicas. But it was fun. Betsy isn't into all the vampire bullshit - and she swears like a sailor. Would Lestat be aghast? Something tells me he'd ask her liven up the perpetually moaning members of his coven.

The side characters are pretty awesome - especially her half-sister, the Anti-Christ Laura, the spawn of Satan who moonlights as a Born-Again prude to rebel against her famous mother (yeah, the Devil is a woman...who looks like Lena Olin). But let's not forget Antonia the psychic werewolf; knitting George, the former Fiend; Jon the vampire slayer with a massive crush on the Queen; Tina the lesbian minion; and a slew of wisecracking monsters and mortals. Speaking of mortals, most of the series' major characters live together in a mansion owned by Betsy's best friend Jessica. It's a wacky, weird kind of Full House sans Stamos, a dysfunctional family of freaks not unlike one's own gene pool, with supernatural weapons and fangs. I would also advise reading these books with access to a cold shower if alone...Betsy, you minx! While the sex scenes ARE steamy, it seems the immortals mate for eternal life - so the romance novel lover in me is more than satisfied by the happily ever...and ever...and forever resolutions to the various relationships in the books.

Davidson IS Betsy, by the way. "I don't know about you guys, but I'd rather be reading a book than listening to some self-important idiot blathering about - as Elaine from Seinfeld put it - `the excrutiating minutiae of everyday life,'" says the lady behind all those eye-popping biting scenes between the Queen and Sinclair. Perhaps this is why she speaks best through fantasy characters like vamps, werewolves and mermaids (yes, there's a series too!). She doesn't take herself seriously, a trait I appreciate in a contemporary author, especially when she writes in BOTH my favorite genres.

"I mean, the whole reason I brought up Betsy in the first place was because I was tired of the broody ancient vampire protagonist paired with the trusting virginal no-bad-qualities-at-all heroine," writes the author in her blog. "If I go to the bookstore today, there are all kinds of nutty heroines getting into trouble in the paranormal world, mistresses (sort of) of their own destiny. That works for me...I admit it: I like my romances frothy. Angst = yawn, as far as I'm concerned."

Thanks MJ, for breathing new life into depressed vampire lore. If Rice ever returns to her roots, one hopes a few fanged smiles are in order. After all, you can only spend so many lifetimes kvetching. At some point, you should fall in love...and get your nails done.

-----------------
** Lestat and Louis, ah such an ill-starred screen couple. One bad movie about a crazy primordial queen, a spiteful eternal toddler and ancient depression have kept them apart. Add one Born Again author who has denounced her best-selling series, and we may never see that ONE on-screen kiss/bite that should've happened.

You know there will be an Anne Rice post some day.

Poisoned Cupcake

2008-04-06T14:22:00.000-07:00

Come on, oh my star is fading
And I see no chance of release
And I know I'm dead on the surface
But I am screaming underneath...*

I remember that, in commenting about Ian McEwan's Atonement, I mentioned that I had read an earlier, shorter work of McEwan's, but I barely remembered anything about the plot or the title. That comment, I'll admit, smacked of utmost pretentiousness - something I'm usually guilty about when it comes to unplugging my piehole - but I was so convinced of having read the book that I actually re-borrowed it from the library and re-read it.

That book? Amsterdam.

I'm surprised that, given all the attention on that gigantic magnum opus that is Atonement - not to mention the post-Atonement kudos for On Chesil Beach - there really isn't enough attention being paid to McEwan's earlier works. But I think that's just me, because I tend to associate the author more with compact, twisted stories like Amsterdam than overwhelming period epics complete with Keira Knightley swanning around in green satin.

(And speaking of film adaptations of McEwan: The trailer for Enduring Love not only scares the Beelzebub out of me - what with Rhys Ifans serenading Daniel Craig with the creepiest cover version of "God Only Knows" - but it scares me so much that I can't even pick up the book without hearing that song. Nooooooo!)

Going back to Amsterdam: I can't read it without thinking of the book as a perfect little poisoned cupcake - and not because of the twist at the end, so dark and bitter that (to paraphrase a description of a recent conversation with an ex) bars of Valrhona and Scharffen-Berger are looking at it and thinking, "Damn, at least I have some sugar." I read this and I can't help but wonder how McEwan managed to fit so many moving targets in such a compact little story: friendship, infidelity, mortality, moral indignation, the hypocrisy of politicians, the twisted nature of the mass-media beast. Not even the creative process escapes McEwan's impeccable eye here, especially when it's laid bare, both as a wasteful self-indulgence and a vital component for the uplift of the spirit.

With so many ripe targets in such a tiny book, one's left to wonder if even a bare-bones summary - two friends meet at a funeral for a former lover; chaos ensues, beginning with the revelation of the woman's scandalous affair with a politician - is enough to give a taste of what really lies beneath. It's not the kind of book you really want to pass on to a friend, unless you're prepared for a difficult conversation: What price friendship? What constitutes a betrayal of a person's memory? What good would art and morality be, when the arbiters themselves are flawed? And more tellingly... in the last precious moments of your life, whose face would you rather see?

Stuck to the edge of this ball and chain
I'm on my way back down
Stood on a bridge, tied to the noose
Sick to the stomach
You can say what you mean
But it won't change a thing
I'm sick of the secrets
Stood on the edge, tied to a noose
You came along and you cut me loose...

- *Coldplay

The NBLB Weekend Survey, Part 2: Deal-Breakers and Regrets

2008-04-03T21:50:00.001-07:00

We had so much fun answering last week's Q&A that we thought we'd make this a weekly tradition - a carpe diem to close out our hectic weeks, so to speak. Why not try this week's questions on for kicks? The answers may totally surprise you...

THE HAPPY SCRIBE: The joys of reading with a glass of wine, and the agony of Scarlett Johansson's "acting."

1) Inspired by the NY Times article: What's the bigger deal-breaker in a romantic relationship: Guy Who Doesn’t Like to Read, or Guy Who Reads Too Many Pretentious Books and Wants You to Do the Same? Too many pretentious books, for sure - if he starts quoting The Fountainhead at me, THIS far down the line of the peak of its popularity/relevance, then I'm definitely on the bullshit alert. Other red flags: if his bookshelf is crammed with early (read: pre-repentant) Anne Rice and Anita Blake novels, with hardbound copies of Bram Stoker lying around. He probably sleeps with his hands folded across his chest. BEWARE!

2) In the same vein as #1: Would a similar issue be a deal-breaker for your friendships, as well? I never liked literature used as a way to lord over anyone. It's just tacky. Before the telly and reality shows, there were novels read for entertainment. Yes, some books change the world. Most of them are great paired with ice cream and/or a nice glass of wine.

3) Describe your ideal environment for reading. Rainy days curled up on my couch, with my cat purring next to me, are always wonderful. I also like to read before falling asleep. Some day, I'd like a little corner nook next to a huge window overlooking a garden.

4) How well do you take care of your own books? I'm getting better at this, since I borrow most of my books now from the library. When I used to buy more books, I do admit I did every heinous thing to them: folding pages, coffee accidents, and quite a few (when I had a tub) with water damage due to being knocked over in a warm lavendar bath.

5) What kinds of books did your parents like to read? Have you noticed any changes in their reading taste when you were growing up? My mother read a lot of mystical/philosophical books. My father always had histories - especially of ancient Rome. Now, they pretty much read magazines, cook books - if I give them a book, it has to be a practical one. They did read The Secret from cover to cover. And of course, they also read the Bible. Religiously. ;)

6) Strangest reason for not reading or finishing a literary classic. Catch-22 - I broke up with someone, and didn't want to read it anymore because it reminded me of him. I did eventually finish it - years later.

7) Author whose works you deeply regret reading, now that you think of it in hindsight. I don't know if I have any regrets! I've read all kinds of books for research, and to inhabit another points of view. Ditto books that were literary requirements in school - Faulkner gives me a headache, but his language is beautiful, and I'm glad I DID read the required novels back then. They opened up the complexities of other books I hold dear.

8) Book(s) you’d wish somebody would just develop into a movie, already. Okay, I seriously need to see a Terry Pratchett movie PRONTO. Hey Hollywood - Shia could play Mort, and James Earl Jones could definitely voice Death's ALL CAPS WITH FINESSE.

9) Book(s) which you wish was (or were) never adapted for film in the first place. The Nanny Diaries, with the exception of Laura Linney's brittle Mrs. X, was a painful experience. Maybe because pneumatically mono-expressioned ScarJo was involved. I have issues. I wanted Anne Hathaway in that part, but she already did Devil Wears Prada. Oh...and the Sci-Fi Channel's Dune movie. Heinous!

10) Book(s) you would like to wish on your worst enemy, preferably on their birthday. The scenario would be, this would be the book they would have to read over and over and over in a small room.

So in THIS scenario, for odious people...Ulysses by James Joyce.

And then they have to write a 50 page essay. That'll get deleted once they reach page 49.

+++++++++++++

MEIMEI: Revenge is a dish best served... with a generous helping of Dr. Phil.

1) Inspired by the NY Times article: What's the bigger deal-breaker in a romantic relationship: Guy Who Doesn’t Like to Read, or Guy Who Reads Too Many Pretentious Books and Wants You to Do the Same? Oh, I would DEFINITELY break up with Too Many Pretentious Books Guy. The main thing is, I don’t deal well with judgmental minds – regardless of whether or not they read - so if a guy wants to give me a hard time over my reading, or my indiscriminate tastes, it’s enough reason for me to tell him not to let the door hit his self-importance on the way out. I’m also more likely to break up with a guy over his CD collection… and if that’s the case, Ayn Rand novels – displayed prominently and quoted often – are the literary equivalent of Kid Rock’s Greatest Hits for me. Other deal-breakers: Mein Kampf, any book-of-the-dead/ Necronomicon-type stuff, vampire stories (yeah, I already dated that guy… in high school!), fundamentalist Christian/ right-wing tracts.

2) In the same vein as #1: Would a similar issue be a deal-breaker for your friendships, as well? Speaking as someone who was friends in college with Too Many Pretentious Books Person, I’d say that it does become a deal breaker in the long run. Like I’ve said, I hate being judged as much as the next person, so anyone who uses books to lord it over me (as opposed to gently recommending or giving something I’m not too crazy about) shouldn’t hope to stay friends with me very long. Although I’m still wondering what would happen if any of my friends stumbled upon my romance novels!

3) Describe your ideal environment for reading. On a bad day, I’d imagine a library – something like the den from Happy Scribe’s childhood home in Manila – with a comfortable couch, a soft blanket, and a fully stocked pot of tea. On a very good day, it would have to be a hammock and a quiet beach… or at least a fully-screened back yard.

4) How well do you take care of your own books? I used to be very bad – dog-eared pages, banged-up front covers and spines – but I’ve gotten better with making sure that all of my books are “gently used” rather than banged-up beyond recognition. A good reader, after all, should always remember the value of her own books.

5) What kinds of books did your parents like to read? Have you noticed any changes in their reading taste when you were growing up? My Dad is the king of the “airplane novel” – Clancys, Ludlums, Grishams, Le Carres, and Danielle Steels on paperback, with artfully broken spines for better reading on the plane. He was already in a mentally taxing job as an economist for a foreign-aid organization, which explains the mindless escapism. Mom was the more philosophical and literate one between the two of them; even as a devout Christian she never denied herself anything, especially when it came to Mary Higgins Clark or my reading list for IBH English. (I once caught her looking at my copy of Madame Bovary, to which she replied, “Darling, all the good books have been banned by the Church in one way or another.”) Since then, however, retirement has brought out more time to read, and while Dad still follows up with airplane books and best-sellers (which explains his fascination with Atonement and Barack Obama), both of them have been reading the same types of books, especially if they’ve been written by saints (e.g. Interior Castle by Saint Theresa of Avila) or mainstream Christian writers (yes, they both got The Purpose Driven Life and The Five Love Languages).

6) Strangest reason for not reading or finishing a literary classic. To Kill a Mockingbird – up until now I still haven’t finished the book or the movie, because every time I try to start it, I find myself taking a break… and the next thing I know, so much time has passed that I have to return it to the library. Also, I continue to resist Brideshead Revisited because of the miniseries... and in particular, certain Internet postings about the unintentional HoYay throughout the miniseries.

7) Author whose works you deeply regret reading, now that you think of it in hindsight. I do regret reading all those Sweet Dreams teen romances when I was growing up. I also regret being anywhere near vaguely interested in Judy Blume – yeah, yeah, Judy, I get it, Teh Sex is not Teh Evol, but did you have to keep harping on it? I’ll stick to learning about it in books with hot, repressed English noblemen in them, thanks.

8) Book(s) you’d wish somebody would just develop into a movie, already. For the longest time, I’ve been telling people that El Filibusterismo would make a great movie – take out the boring parts that spoke to the worst of Jose Rizal, and you’ve got a dark but very timely story about cultural identity, revolution, and revenge. On a more contemporary vein, I’m still waiting for Donna Tartt’s The Secret History - wasn't this supposedly in development ten years ago?

9) Book(s) which you wish was (or were) never adapted for film in the first place. The Cat in the Hat and He’s Just Not That Into You – why, God, why? I’m also annoyed with what Hollywood did to Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, The Scarlet Letter, and How to Make an American Quilt… and if what I’ve heard about the casting for Veronika Decides to Die does come true, I am going to be one very unhappy camper. Also, if we must talk about Filipino literature, I’m very disappointed by some of the Nick Joaquin adaptations I’ve seen on screen.

10) Book(s) you would like to wish on your worst enemy, preferably on their birthday. For this purpose, there is no finer gift in my eyes than the fatal combination of Finnegans Wake (ten million times more headache-inducing than Ulysses) and the complete works of Phillip C. McGraw, with an aperitif of vampire erotica.

Do you have examples of books more tortuous than a James Joyce novel? Can you come up with better reasons to recommend Brideshead Revisited? Any stories about dating non-readers? Let us know... by answering these questions on your blog, or leaving your comments for us! Hope you have a good weekend!

Coelho-palooza!

2008-04-03T12:27:00.000-07:00

Thanks to a tip from Aart Hilal, I just found out that Paulo Coelho has a blog.

**Meimei commences schoolgirl-type screaming**

And if anyone in my family* is reading this... my birthday's coming up, you know.

Browse Inside this book

Get this for your site

*Except you, Happy Scribe. You owe me a gift certificate to DSW. (Um, April Fool?)

Austenlicious: Confessions of a P&P Junkie...

2008-04-03T09:56:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, hubby and I laughed ourselves silly at the wonderful antics of the cast of Cleveland Play House's production of "Pride and Prejudice." I sat down in the darkened theater with a few doubts - already summoning the Colin Firth version in my head as a ready counter to anticipated distress and boredom.

But...

Quite the contrary! Absolutely delighted by Chaon Cross and Jason Bradely as the society-crossed couple-to-be Lizzie and Darcy, and the INCREDIBLE Judith Day as Mrs. Bennett, the loudest literary mother-in-law in existence. Yes (vapours!) the novel was chopped up to make for a more lively play. The moving roundabout stage, lovely costumes, and the narration-within-narration were all effective in bringing this story alive for fans....and the (don't deny!) significant others who were dreading a wordy introduction.

The stage experience of P&P does bring to mind how I've enjoyed the huge Austen multimedia blitz in pop culture over the past ten (twenty? I'm getting old) years, kicked off by BBC's Firth version, redone in Hollywood froth (and Hugh Grant muttering as the modern-day Wickham) in the Bridget Jones books/movies (I liked them - I am not ashamed of loving Helen Fielding's heroine or Renee's spot-on portrayal of the accident-prone "very important journalist and girlfriend to human rights lawyer."), and receiving added gloss with Keira's big screen Liz. There are also the "spin-off" versions - not quite as successful. (The "Jane Austen Book Club" - *koff, koff, SCREAM* - caught on a plane back to Cleveland, still haunts me**).

Why are we so in love with Darcy and Liz's (archaic?) mating dance, to the point we would see the same story reborn and reinterpreted, again and again and again? Unlike many Austen afficionados, I read the book AFTER seeing Bridget Jones, quite the P&P Philistine until I saw in my own mind's eye the intricacy of their protestations in the text itself. Wickham is so much more the villain in the book, just as Darcy's coldness fairly stings when one first encounters his first incarnation penned by Austen's witty hand. And those sisters! "Saffy" of Ab Fab fame still resonates as my ultimate Lydia, but now the stiffness of the pedantic Mary and Jane's quiet beauty are now claimed by the Play House thesps. How fickle the fan's imagination! (Don't ask me who my best Darcy and Lizzies are - I am frightened to say the Beeb's pair has been unseated by Cross and Bradely...fluttering ensues...)

What would be next? The P & P video game seems like something SIMs would take on - if they had a market for people remaining clothed throughout their virtual lives. Hankies dropped and picked up by blushing swains grants the lady the point, doubles for those who are able to dance a jig, read the classics outloud AND play the piano altogether (yes, geek reference to the word battle between Miss Bingley and Lizzie, obviouslY). Maintaining one's haughty distance and foiling the red-coated Wickham could be the Darcy thread of such a game, with Lady Catherine lurking with her cane in the cultivated shrubbery of the English country estate mazes.

(If there are gamers actually inspired by this exercise in the ridiculous, remember where you saw it first. And for heaven's sake, make sure the Mr. Bennett avatar is equipped with ear plugs...poor fellow!)

Why am I about to watch my Netflixed copies of the Beeb's version right after dashing off this entry? Why do I have a (very dogeared) library copy of P&P next to my bed? Why does it matter if hubby knows who Mr. Collins is? Who knows why this fascination continues throughout my lifetime. Is it the idea of those lost days when letters and dances could make one fall in love - without even the merest whisper of human touch? Is it the flowery language? Firth in a wet shirt? Or am I just a hopeless P&P consumer, bound by a Jane (Austen) Addiction so far gone, I will continue to pour time, money and my reluctant hubby into these recurring versions of the classic? Perhaps all. It's one of the world's most successful chick lit formulas still in rotation today - discovering one's self through human relationships...and falling hopelessly in love, despite all events and protestations to the contrary. I'm still hooked.

"In vain I have struggled. It will never do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you."
-- Mr. Darcy

--------------
** To be fair, "The Jane Austen Book Club" spans the whole Austen anthology, and must be watched/read as that. The book by Karen Joy Fowler has a sort of "Ya Ya Sisterhood" meets "The First Wives Club" feel to it, and I must say it wasn't a terrible read. The movie, however, grated on me immensely - perhaps because I read the book FIRST, and then saw it Hollywoodized (ie. younger characters rendered much more glamorous through the lens) before my jet-lagged eyes. Again - I'm willing to do a re-watch.

And yes, I am still going to Netflix "Becoming Jane."

Personal Legend

2008-04-02T02:24:00.001-07:00

Sometimes, you just know.

Soundes like a cliche, doesn't it? When you're looking for a job, or a mate, you hear those words and you think, What a crock. How could you just know, when you've been looking for one for the longest time, with all the tools in your hand - and still no closer to the intended?

On the other hand, when you use those four words to describe the first time you read a book... it suddenly makes so much sense. You pick up a volume, not knowing anything about what's inside except for an expectation of greatness between covers... and the next thing you know, you're in bed, hanging on to dear life for the final paragraphs, wondering how God has placed this book right in your hands.

That's how I felt when I - after years of resistance and hesitation - finally picked up The Alchemist.

Before I go on, however: I am not one of those freaks who regard this book as some sort of self-help bible or personal manifesto of life. Nor am I going to be the kind of person who's going to force this book on you with a promise that it will change your life OMG!!!111!!!! Fact of the matter is, I picked up The Alchemist without any knowledge of the book's plot or message - and, okay, because part of me wanted to be cool.

In a sense, reading The Alchemist reminded me of the first time I picked up The Catcher in the Rye - the lack of anticipation, coupled with the mystery of picking up something that I had only heard about but never really known. Then again, picking up Salinger at the age of 14 isn't the same as picking up Coelho as a grown but vulnerable adult, in that awkward holding period between graduate school and the professional world.

Say what you want about The Alchemist, but I've personally found that reading this - and Coelho's works in particular - took on a certain quality that I can vouch for but never describe adequately. There's the romanticism, of course, and inspiration... but it goes beyond how our world currently defines "romance" or "inspiration," as something that can easily be picked up from watching enough episodes of Oprah. This is not the kind of comfort that anyone can boil down into bite-size quotes to post on a Facebook profile; in my case, it spoke to my own deep secrets and deeper truths, to the point where I didn't just want the book to end -- I wanted to live inside that story, to find my own way through the desert in search of my Personal Legend.

It's not the first time I had a strong reaction to Coelho. I still remember the time I picked up Eleven Minutes - absentmindedly, to be honest - and found myself getting way more absorbed than I should be, as if I was reading a stack of intimate love letters belonging to a stranger. The same goes for the time I tried, and failed, to read The Fifth Mountain - I felt like I was intruding on a personal conversation or internal memo, for which I may have to pay with my life if I were to even lay my eyes on a single line.

Perhaps The Alchemist really was the right book at the right time - although it shouldn't have been, given that I had just finished Chronicles of a Death Foretold and was hoping that my next book would be much frothier than the Coelho. (As it goes, the chick-lit novel I had chosen for that purpose remains unfinished.) Perhaps I am not as deep as a reader as I thought I would be, considering that I'd choose a fable of a shepherd boy looking for his Personal Legend over yet another heavy fictional tome full of allegories.

Or maybe I just knew it all along.

Our survey was psychic: New York Times, you read our minds!

2008-04-01T05:20:00.000-07:00

Nipping at the heels of our weekend survey is an article about book compatibility in the New York Times. Consider yourself linked - as we here at NBLB ponder the question: Would you break up over book choice? Would you really judge him/her based on the book covers you scan on their shelves? And does a copy of "DaVinci Code" signal a relationship "don't"?

Coming up (sometime this week)...a multimedia Austen anthology, more bodice-ripping cliches, "Compleat" cats, and anything we're able to read on the go...

'Til then...live to read! Click back soon!

The NBLB Survey: The Readers Answer...And Tag YOU!

2008-03-28T04:23:00.001-07:00

As we share other people's published stories, we discover our own - through the books we've read, want to read, and wished we'd written in the first place. What books have shaped your life? And which books will you always have close to your heart...and which ones you'd rather banish to the "illegible 4evah" pile? Welcome to the first NBLB Q & A - we're kicking it off with our own answers...and want to read yours too!

Meimei: From "The Good Book" to Coelho, a Barefoot Contessa, and not drinking Jamba Juice while reading at the airport

1) First book you remember reading from cover to cover. Barring any cookbooks, magazines, and any other age-inappropriate reading material, I'd say it would be one of those Bible story collections.

2) Book(s) your parents would hand to you, as the "guide to life." I would say "the Bible," except that Mom and Dad ended up giving me a copy of Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet before they let me get my hands on the NAB. For good reason, too.

3) Book(s) you read as teenage rebellion. Catcher in the Rye - the first one, and still the best - followed by the English translation of The Stranger (L'Etranger) by Camus, which FINALLY helped me understand the lyrics to "Killing an Arab" by The Cure. Oh, and Kerouac's On the Road.

4) Shakespearean play that embodies YOU. The Tempest. Poor Caliban, and not because I played him in high school.

5) That damned novel that you should've written. (Book embodying your LIFE) Love in the Time of Cholera. I fell in love with Marquez and magic realism because of this book.

6) Genre(s) you would find YOUR first novel displayed under... Asian-American Fiction, without a doubt. Too much talking for a romance novel; too much kissing to be considered mainstream Christian; too much fighting and cussing to be stocked in a Catholic bookstore.

7) Favorite non-fiction autobio/biography. A tie: Swimming with Scapulars by Matthew Lickona (one of those underappreciated Catholic Gen-X books worth reading) and What Should I Do with My Life? by Po Bronson.

8) Book you would read on the plane to keep strangers from talking to you. He's Just Not That Into You. Ironically, this book made me laugh so hard that it did keep strangers away from me when I read this at Jamba Juice!

9) Book you would give to a potential significant other. Without a doubt, a cookbook - Barefoot Contessa at Home, by Ina Garten.

10) Dream writing collaboration - who would it be? Julie Powell, of the blog-turned-book Julie & Julia. Food, blogging, autobiography - so many things to discuss! Happy Scribe and I should take her out for tapas.

11) If you were trapped on a deserted island...and you find a stash of books written by ONE AUTHOR...who would you want that author to be? Paulo Coelho. Good Lord, Eleven Minutes owned me.

12) What book/author is your reading "Waterloo"? Waterloo, meaning "I give the eff up - go away, book?" I think I did that with Smart Women, Foolish Choices - it's definitely one that has not stood the test of time, unfortunately.

The Happy Scribe: It's Pratchett Time!

1) First book you remember reading from cover to cover. I remember those Golden Book fair tales so well - those dolls dressed up as characters illustrating each page. My favorite was Cinderella in her frothy dress. I also loved the Gem Classics books, each with a color theme like Emerald or Sapphire, compilations of traditional myths and Grimm's tales. The visual impact of those stunning illustrations stay with me to this day - I wouldn't mind owning a set of these books again!

2) Book(s) your parents would hand to you, as the "guide to life." My dad handed me a copy of The Secret last year. It totally surprised me. Not because of The Secret's message. It's just that my dad is more likely to hand me the Ten Commandments DVD, being more of a movie buff.

3) Book(s) you read as teenage rebellion. Star Trek: The Next Generation novels and bodice-rippers scandalized my very conservative mother for different reasons, but ultimately, it was the parting lament: "We have a library full of great classics, and you spend your allowance on those trashy paperbacks!"

4) Shakespearean play that embodies YOU. Much Ado About Nothing. Beatrice and Benedick exchanging witty barbs in a word-filled Wimbledon are such vivid characters in my head. Peeling away the layers (and the arguments) to reveal the happy truths - I liked that.

5) That damned novel that you should've written. (Book embodying your LIFE) In my twenties, Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones books encapsulated my confused existence back then. Now...probably Peter Mayle's books - life spent in quiet contemplation of the passing seasons, writing and lots of good food.

6) Genre(s) you would find YOUR first novel displayed under... It's definitely Chick Lit/Romance. I'm not going to write the Great American Novel, but I think I can amuse a few people on long flights/train commutes. Also, the comic strip aisle, because I'll always have a furry animal story in me. (Long live Tarabella...and watch out for the adventures of Lord Kittensley Furface!)

7) Favorite non-fiction autobio/biography. Technically, Jessica Zafra's Twisted books are based on her newspaper columns, but as a longtime reader I adore the little peeks into one very sharp mind, whether it's currently preoccupied with tennis, Tolkien, or Manila traffic.

8) Book you would read on the plane to keep strangers from talking to you. Anything heavy and Russian, like Tolstoy or Doesteyevsky.

9) Book you would give to a potential significant other. Hubby totally got Terry Pratchett's Mort, which means we're soul mates. He then handed Herberts Dune and Huxley's Brave New World to me...the lifelong sci-fi/fantasy fan. We're a match made in other universes.

10) Dream writing collaboration - who would it be? I would die of pure geek overload if Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett said "hello" to me, much less wanting to share a byline with my name.

11) If you were trapped on a deserted island...and you find a stash of books written by ONE AUTHOR...who would you want that author to be? Terry Pratchett, if you haven't noticed! :)

12) What book/author is your reading "Waterloo"? James Joyce's Ulysses drowned MY stream of consciousness to the point I had to call in the mental Coast Guard. I cannot finish this book!

Need something to pass the hours between the news and Lost? Did YOU finish Ulysses? We're tagging you, fellow bloggers, to answer the NBLB Q & A on your own site.

Have a great weekend...and happy reading!

Hey Brutha, can you spare a belief?: Terry Pratchett's take on religion in Discworld

2008-03-27T13:57:00.000-07:00

My belief compass spins on the following cultural cosmic points: personal experience, Michaelangelo's vision of the Creative Spark (to be expounded on in a future post on "The Agony and the Ecstasy"), resilient mental residue of parental/professional mentors' advice, and Terry Pratchett's take on faith. On paper, I'm religiously scattered: Catholic school, fundamentalist Christian Sundays, Buddhist maxims, and Oprah. In my heart, it's just the good ole Golden Rule: do unto others...well, you get the drift. Don't tase me, bro and all that jazz.

Terry Pratchett's "Small Gods" was my mind's window into religions explained, set in the seemingly ridiculous scenario of a world carried on the backs of four elephants standing on a giant turtle swimming through space. This is Discworld, the finest, craziest fantasy setting since C.S. Lewis and Tolkien.

"In a chaotic universe there are too many things to go wrong."

Brutha, a devout Omnian (take one part fundamentalist Christian, one part Tibetan monk), has a prodigious memory. He remembers scripture word for word, with all their connotations.

He also remembers tortoises aren't supposed to talk.

But one does - to Brutha as he works in the garden, claiming divinity. In fact, the tortoise was the great God (with a capital G) Om. And oh, by the way, Brutha's the Chosen One."And it came to pass that in time the Great God Om spake unto Brutha, the Chosen One: `Psst!'"

Of course, communing with G(g)od isn't that easy when pesky things like huge church institutions and ideological wars come into play. Enter Vorbis, the head of the Quisition (excuse the inevitable Monty Python imagery), who uses the simple-yet-spongey lad to kick start an invasion into opposing territory. Inevitably, the story's plot leads to Vorbis' defeat, Brutha's acceptance of his place as the reforming (and more humane) Eighth Prophet, with Om learning a bit more about H(h)imself as super dooper deity. "When you can flatten entire cities at a whim, a tendency towards quiet reflection and seeing-things-from-the-other-fellow's-point- of-view is seldom necessary."

So why do I like this book so much? Yes, there are the talking creatures and fantasy situations of course. But Pratchett's gorgeous satire, those gentle pokes from his pen open tiny breathing holes for the mind...and the spirit. He takes on th ancient Greeks, Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism and popular bumper stickers with equal aplomb. It's everyone's truth...and everyone's doubts about organized religion.

"Now we've got a truth to die for!"
"No. Men should die for lies. But the truth is too precious to die for."

There are small gods everywhere in Pratchett's universe, yearning for a little belief so that they too can incarnate and mean something to someone. To think that faith, wherever it's directed, can create - the opposite of most monotheistic religions in this world - it's an intriguing thought, perhaps heretical in this world...but hey, in Pratchett's zone, Death has an apprentice, witches inexpertly fly on brooms for house calls, and belief isn't about how many angels are dancing on a pin...rather, it's how you react to a tortoise claiming to be the Almighty in your garden. Whether you gently nudge H(h)im on this way, scream or start talking notes...well, that's your business. "Small Gods" is about belief in the human spirit, one of the few "stand-alone" books in the Discworld series I heartily recommend for anyone who's in need of a bit of comic relief from your day-to-day Universe.

A Kiss is Not a Contract

2008-03-27T10:52:00.000-07:00

Here's an admission that will probably shock my churchgoing friends: Proud Christian that I may be (and yes, folks, practicing Roman Catholics can still be considered as Christians), I do not own a copy of the Christian-relationship classic I Kissed Dating Goodbye. Wait, scratch that: I may never own a copy of the Christian-relationship classic I Kissed Dating Goodbye.

It's not that it's a horrible book. I don't condemn people who read it for insight any more than I condemn people who take The Da Vinci Code as gospel, or who believe that Elizabeth Gilbert's little travel-and-divorce memoir belongs in the "self help" aisle. I also think that Joshua Harris, as a Christian and a writer, is pretty concise about making his points known - as we can see when we talk about his other books. I do have my own personal reasons for doing this, however, so please do forgive me if I do sound judgmental.

Reason #1 has something to do with my friend Bunny, who's a more conservative Catholic than I am. She and Josh Harris are around the same age, and both of them grew up in Maryland - not too far from each other, in fact, though not close enough to be passing acquaintances. She remembers vividly when IKDG first came out, when Josh was 21 and Bunny was in her late teens.

If I had been Bunny around that time - taking her own faith into consideration - my reaction would have been, "Oh, wow! Finally, a young person has written a dating book for Christians like me OMG!!1111!!!" But Bunny's reaction, upon reading the book herself at that time, was a little more blunt: HOW DARE YOU.

How dare he - a young person with no more experience than having gone through puberty - how dare he tell people to "not date" and give their lives to God instead, at an age when most people haven't even figured out their true calling! How dare he talk about courtship and dating when he himself had only gone through a "serious" relationship! Where was his discernment?

All things considered, Bunny had since gone to college, got a full-time job, lived out her (drama-filled) single years in service of the Church, and eventually married a wonderful fellow Catholic with whom she has three beautiful children and a blissful family life. Just like Josh Harris himself - who also got married, had children, and eventually became a pastor at his church - Bunny and her family continue to live their lives in service of God.

Which then leads us to Reason #2.

I did read the two books that Josh Harris wrote after IKDG - Boy Meets Girl and Sex Is Not the Problem (then titled Not Even a Hint). Both of these books addressed the prevailing irony of Harris' life: that the young man who "kissed dating goodbye" would then eventually find himself falling in love, getting married, and becoming a father - both to his children and his church community, as a young pastor. And in both books, Harris also talks about how much trouble "that dating book" gave him - how he realized that perhaps he had been too stringent and self-righteous about his dating advice; how young kids were telling him that they were "courting" when they don't understand the implications of the word; and how it even got him in trouble at Blockbuster whenever he rented popular mainstream movies that were obviously not "Christian" in content.

In retrospect, I thought the two books did a better job of meeting me where I was in my own journey than "that book" would have, considering how vulnerable I had been at that time as a renewed Christian/ un-lapsed Catholic. Even in Sex is Not The Problem - which would have sounded like a finger-wagging lecture to me - Harris acknowledges that not everyone has the same level of tolerance when it comes to addressing issues of relationships and lust in their own lives. It's not that he approves of "Christians" who don't mind owning vibrators or year-long subscriptions to Maxim, although Harris is a lot more frank about his sexual experiences in this book. Yet, it's not like he's asking working people to live their lives like cloistered monks and nuns when it's not practical for them. In this case, the wisdom of maturity actually works in Harris' favor here, along with a clearer and deeper understanding of human nature.

It's also worth noting that Josh Harris also gave a complementary blurb to a book that was written as a reaction to "that one" - I Gave Dating a Chance, by Jeramy Clark, which seeks to provide "a Biblical perspective to balance the extremes." I did read the Clark book, too - and that one's for another entry - and I found it to be a better companion book for Harris' Boy Meets Girl than it is for "the other one." For all of Harris' talk about "courtship" and chastity, I found Clark's approach to relationships and romances to be more true-to-life: It's OK, he says, if you want to hang out with somebody from the opposite sex, as long as you know where the boundaries are. It's not just a matter of keeping Tab A away from Slot B, but a matter of knowing where you and the other person stand with each other - otherwise one (or both) of you will get the wrong signals, and that's just more trouble than it's worth.

Which is not to say that I don't recommend I Kissed Dating Goodbye for anyone who wants to read it. In fact, I actually think it's a great idea for young people to read it, talk about it, reflect on the "lifestyle" that Harris has presented. I'm just saying that, as somebody who's well past her 21st birthday, I'm not sure if this book is going to speak to me any more than the other ones have done already.

And here's where we get to my main problem with "that book" - Reason #3, if you will - which I'm sure a lot of Christians my age have encountered: It's not the book itself, but the people who insist on making me read it.

Now we're talking. Surely the Meimei, she doth protest too much? Maybe I am. But I can't just sit there letting some "church" lady tell me that I should read this wonderful I Kissed Dating Goodbye book and how it should help me live my single life.

Well-meaning, yes. Pushy as heck? Oh, hell yes. Borderline hypocritical? Do the math. Add to that Reasons #1 and #2, and you've got somebody who doesn't even want to think about the shiny, happy, Christian relationships that have emerged from taking Josh Harris' advice.

Didn't God give us the concept of free will in the first place? For crying out loud. I'm not saying I won't read it, but really now. Let me think about it, pray about it - come to think about it, if you're so inclined, why not pray with me instead? God does speak to us in our own language, after all, and He - of all the authors in this whole universe - would not want His message to be used for bludgeoning and coercion. If He thinks this will help me, then so be it.

I think it goes without saying that the words of the backpacker Chad about the Lonely Planet guidebooks - encountered by Franz Wisner in the Indonesia chapter of Honeymoon with My Brother - sums up how I feel about I Kissed Dating Goodbye: "Excellent source of information. Use it as a reference, not as a bible."

(And, yes, I do have the New American in my bookshelf. Read it pretty regularly, too. Thanks for asking.)

Oh Briony!: Ian McEwan's "Atonement" and A Writer's Destructive Imagination

2008-03-27T04:47:00.000-07:00

I confess, I saw the movie before I ever picked up an Ian McEwan novel. The film's Romeo and Juliet-like plot made me cry, and Saoirse Ronan's brilliant portrayal of a dangerously fanciful preteen made me want to reach out and shake some sense into her. Gorgeous movie - and definitely deserving a much longer book-to-film review later on in this here blog.

But there is the movie...and there is the book. And McEwan's prose - rich, lyrical, and above all written with such insight into the soul of a writer - past, present, and future. Cecilia and Robbie's ill-starred love through the wide eyes of the bewildered Briony Tallis takes on many forms - her reactions all at once a younger sister clinging to her childhood, and a young woman feeling the first pangs of rejection. Perhaps you've seen the movie already, with Hollywood's compacted conclusion to this drama. I assure you - the book offers more than the welling up of regret in Vanessa Redgrave's watery visage.

This was a book that almost got left behind during my rather irritated stopover at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. After over ten hours of flying from Asia to the U.S. mainland, I found myself in a veritable maze of monorails and a whole alphabet of terminals and connections. I had already finished my stash of humor books - all written by the infinitely sharp and sassy Jessica Zafra, my teen writing idol (also due a much-needed post in the very near future). Boredom, my worst enemy, started to settle in with the exhaustion. I dragged myself to the nearest book kiosk, thinking of a light romance, or even a paperback mystery. "Atonement" featured prominently on the shelves, of course - as movie blockbusters do give any writer that added "buy me now!" gloss. I wasn't sure, almost picking up one of my favorite alterno-fantasy writers - Jasper Fforde - instead, taking a quick scan at a random McEwan page while waiting in line.

"The self-contained world she had drawn with clear and perfect lines had been defaced with the scribble of other minds, other needs; and time itself, so easily sectioned on paper into acts and scenes, was even now dribbling uncontrollably away."

Hrm.

And...as I am one of those perverse people who read the back of the book BEFORE purchase..

"The problem these fifty-nine years has been this: how can a novelist achieve atonement when, with her absolute power of deciding outcomes, she is also God? There is no one, no entity or higher form that she can appeal to, or be reconciled with, or that can forgive her. There is nothing outside her. In her imagination she has set the limits and the terms."

Hooked.

The relationships and the descriptions of a bygone age were so delicately wrought, I didn't want to deface the words by folding over the pages in my usual haste to mark my place (yes, I am also one of those awful people). My MPLS-CLE boarding pass slid in and out of this book like lightning - not even the fatigue or the bumpy flight could keep me off McEwan's narrative. "Oh ATONEMENT," exclaimed a particularly chatty seatmate...who proceeded to read over my shoulder in the most annoying fashion. I had to lean away protectively when I reached the scene of Cecilia and Robbie in the library, which went well beyond the already steamy grapple between camera-friendly Keira and James. (Hands-down, one of the hottest book love scenes ever - and the complete opposite of kilt-and-buxom maiden romantic cliches). And it has been a long time since a character made me as mad as Briony has - with her overzealous judgement, her child's logic of black and white marring one couple's chance for happiness.

Her saving grace, however, was her growth as a writer - my own chosen profession, passion, and many times, plague. When she struggled with rejection and rewriting, my heart went out to her - yes, even her, that little snot who testified so wrongly against Robbie - these creative growth spurts put to paper made her come alive as a full, however-flawed human being. She tried to lose herself in thankless nursing, scrubbing out her sins with the blood of the wounded - but that spirit remained alive, even during those traumatic times. She "took pleasure" in the competence and numbness that nursing offered - but she knew, scribbling away in private on a never-ending manuscript - that to feel deeply about life, to want to record all the aspects of the human condition, was her true calling.

"Here, behind the name badge and the uniform, was her true self, secretly hoarded, quietly accumulating. She had never lost that childish pleasure in seeing pages covered in her own handwriting. It almost didn't matter what she wrote...At the time, the journal preserved her dignity: she might look and behave like and live the life of a trainee nurse, but she was really an important writer in disguise. And at the time when she was cut off from everything she knew - family, home, friends - writing was the threat of continuity. It was what she had always done."

Her writing kept her from becoming a cookie-cutter villain, despite the horrible results of her childhood accusations. Her writing cursed her, because she kept returning to that one story, that one true narrative of events she tried to control...and failed miserably to understand. We can no more forgive her than condemn her in the end. Writing was her way of atoning for her past. It was the only thing she knew how to do - and face it, the only thing she really loved, above all the living, breathing characters in her life. It is a paper cut truth that lives within each one cursed and blessed with the pen's imperative to control, to mold, to manipulate reality into malleable words and sentences. Ah, Briony - I know thee well.

Bodice Ripping Cliches, Part 2: Och, Laddie!

2008-03-26T13:14:00.000-07:00

One of the most lingering questions I've had as a romance novel reader concerns the ongoing mythology of the hot Scottish laird as romantic protagonist. I've heard explanations of the phenomenon in terms of the decline of the native Highland culture since Scotland lost its independence from England - which to me sounds pretty logical, given the right amount of historical research; in the hands of a lesser author, otherwise, it risks bordering on the "Mandingo" theory that I wrote about in the previous entry.

And then there's the other theory I have, which has less to do with culture and more to do with (pardon my Masters in Ed here) visual learning. Simply put, mention the words "hot, sexy Scotsman" and one's mind immediately wanders to THIS...

(Insert inevitable "light saber" joke here.)

Or THIS...

(Aye, Gerry! Call me! Let me take that pink sweater off you!)

Or even THIS...

(That sound you just heard? That's me screaming bloody murder, having featured my mother's own Dream Man-slash-Fantasy Baby Daddy on my own site.)

Unfortunately, however, my regular interactions with Scottish men are limited to the likes of THIS...

And I say this as somebody who does find Craig Ferguson attractive, being the cheeky monkey that he already is on his talk show.

(Also: My science teacher in 8th Grade was from Scotland, and he used to scare the heck out of me whenever I got my periodic table wrong. Not dead sexy.)

Seriously, though - what is it about Scottish men, anyway? Is it the lingering suspicion about what's under the kilt? Is it the inherent hairiness of their bodies? Is it that air of danger about them, combined with the brokenness of lost nobility? Or is it the rough but warm tones of the Highland burr? I mean, it's not like Ireland is lacking in that department, either (as anyone who has watched any U2 video between 1989 and 1993 can tell you) but you don't read a lot about hot, sexy Irish men of fallen nobility in your tawdry little paperbacks, do you?

Of course not - it's always Irish for your earthy stablehands, English for your buttoned-up noblemen, and Scottish for your brave warriors... and if you're Nora Roberts writing about American men descended from these bloodlines, chances are you won't avoid it either. (Really, now, Nora - a hot-headed, whisky-swilling stablehand from California who's also descended from County Galway? How did I not see that coming?)

I think this just goes back, once again, to the main problem currently plaguing the romance genre in general: There's not a lot of room in these books to explore the actual nuances of human experience. Just as you won't expect interracial relationships to be explored beyond the "oooh, exotic!" level, you won't expect your average romance writer to get past the expected mold of Gaelic men and present them as actual human beings instead of "aye, lassie" cartoon characters. Which, to me, is a deeper problem that goes beyond any question of talent or research on the part of the author, and probes deeper into whether or not the sales/marketing/ higher-up folks at the publishing companies actually Get It when it comes to what readers want from their authors. In a day and age where issues of class, race, gender, and politics are pervasive in the cultural landscape, isn't it time to put away the childish generalities and start making room for some gray areas to temper the watercolored fairy tales?

Bodice Ripping Cliches

2008-03-25T12:32:00.000-07:00

Those of you who know me know that romance novels are my not-so-secret shame; there's no amount of college-educated veneer that can cover up my craving for far-flung adventures, flowery purple prose, and aesthetically pleasing protagonists who find themselves falling in love in the most improbable ways. (Don't believe me? Click here for the entries I wrote in my regular blog on this very genre.)

And, as I have mentioned on my blog before, I am excruciatingly picky about which bodice rippers I get to buy. None of your $4 Harlequin romances for me - give me the $6-$8 paperbacks with the shimmery gauze and flowers on the front cover (which often conveniently hides the potentially embarrassing Regency-era bodice-ripping tableau underneath), or your contemporary romances with cartoon women in fancy heels and silky scarves! Give me something that has the words "New York Times Bestselling Author" on them, and you'll know I'm a sucker from the get-go.

Now that we've gotten this out of the way, here's a sampling of romance-novel cliches that I truly believe should be retired as soon as possible:

- Coercion. Hello, romance-writing people - it's the 21st century already! How many times do we have to remind you that No Means No? And don't even try to retcon the whole thing by giving us the ol' "hard-to-get" trick, or that she ended up enjoying being in the sucker's own bed, because really - if she didn't enjoy it then, she'd be a fair amount of crazy to think it's acceptable later. It wasn't acceptable back in the days of Jane Austen, and it sure as hell won't be acceptable now.

- The Stockholm Syndrome. In the same token, please don't give us any more of those "heroine falls for her kidnapper" plots unless you can give us a plausible example of how it happens. I personally used to enjoy this particular plot, until I picked up an Ann Rule anthology that explained the Stockholm Syndrome to me in shockingly gruesome detail. Let's just say that a lot of books went back to the library that day, and there was vomiting involved.

- Fabio. Fabio the person is already reprehensible to me (not the least of which for his ongoing childish beef with my boy Intern George), but the concept of Fabio and his clones - the long hair, the rippling muscles - being brandished indiscriminately on the front covers of paperbacks is representative of everything that gives romance novels a bad, bad name. Am I, as part of the Dear Reader contingent, supposed to swoon like a maiden and lay myself down, expecting to be ravaged by this masculine beast? Also, judging by the shots from Old Fabs' guest appearance on America's Next Top Model, it's beginning to look more and more to me that the guy, er, doesn't seem to genuinely enjoy the company of women. I'm just saying.

- The Mandingo as Noble Savage. You will never, ever, find me picking up any books where Africans, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, Gypsies, and even Hawaii-based surfers are being held up as shining examples of manhood for the bored haole ladies who fall at their feet. Likewise, if you ever find me picking up books where bored haole men fall in love with equally "exotic" women, there's a good chance that you will definitely find me laughing in the aisles. There are relatively few novelists that are truly adept at making interracial relationships believable and plausible without having to resort to such borderline-offensive generalities.

- Vampires. Yes, I'll say it - I'm one of the few women in America who does not, repeat, not get turned on by the thought of an otherwise luscious ol' bloodsucker nipping at my heels (or any other part of my body, for that matter). What is the big deal about fraternizing with the undead, anyway? It's not like you could take them anywhere for dinner. For this, I blame Laurell K. Hamilton and her silly notions of ardeur.

- Improbable sex acts. Man, I wish I had the link to that one actual novel where Our Intrepid Hero takes "a flying leap" into, er, Our Lovely Heroine, with her lying on a wooden floor beneath him. Yowch!

- The Underage Bride/ Dirty Old Hero. If the age of Our Lovely Heroine is younger than the age of consent in a good majority of the 50 states, and/or the Intrepid Hero who's supposed to love and save her is older than her by more than 10 years, that's not romantic - that's plenty creepy.

-The sentence "I'll take that as a yes" as an acceptable closing line. The first time I read this was cute. The next three dozen books that I read afterward that had the same line... not so much.

Yes, I do seem to have more rules on romance novels than Barney on How I Met Your Mother has rules on dating. Please note, however, that not all bodice-rippers have these cliches, and not all romance-novel cliches are this excruciating to behold. It's all a matter of where you look.

Elizabeth Gilbert Will Have Her Revenge: Battle of the Oprah-Endorsed Books, Part 2

2008-03-24T12:17:00.000-07:00

Don't get us wrong. We at NBLB enjoyed reading Eat, Pray, Love. We both had so much fun recommending this book to each other, and to our friends as well.

I, personally, would like to invite Elizabeth Gilbert to sit down with me and talk about our travels over a never-ending array of coffee drinks and chocolate pastries. I honestly believe Liz when she tells me that she never intended her little memoir about chucking it all to see the world to turn into a "self help" phenomenon, and she never intended for people to copy her story to the very letter.

(I also think that my friend from Cleveland should really ease up on reading gossip blogs writtten by bitter gays... but I digress.)

That said. If I were to put EPL in a deathmatch against another Oprah-approved book, I'd put it on equal footing with yet another memoir about a selfish, broken-hearted, well-to-do American who chucked everything to travel the world and find one's self in the process. In other words...

I'll admit, I read Honeymoon with my Brother before I read EPL because I was aware of the inevitable Liz Gilbert backlash. (And also because I found a harcover copy from a neighbor's give-away stash while waiting for the Gilbert book to arrive from Amazon.) I'll also admit that Franz Wisner's writing doesn't exactly compare to Liz Gilbert's, especially when you consider that Gilbert is a professional, published writer with years of experience in the book business, and Honeymoon was cobbled together from a series of emails that Franz and Kurt Wisner sent to their (equally powerful and well-connected) friends during their ongoing trips all over the world.

The similarities are striking. Gilbert embarked on her "I, I, I" journey after a wrenching divorce and subsequently wrenching rebound romance; Wisner embarked on his year-long journey with his brother after his fiancee called off the wedding and left him clutching a non-refundable trip to Costa Rica. Both of them did end up in Indonesia at one point; in fact, both of them ended up traveling to both Bali and Gili Meno. Both of them supported themselves with visits to friends-of-friends, unexpected financial support, and the joy that comes with new experiences. Both of them even ended up with Brazilian paramours at some point of their journey. Both of them ended their journeys with new relationships, a new-found sense of self -- and the kind of exposure that any writer would kill for, starting with guest appearances on Oprah and the inevitable movie adaptation development deal.

And, look, both of them even have lovely meditations on the Brazilian Portuguese language!

Gilbert:

In bed he slips into adoring me in Portuguese, so I have graduated from being his "lovely little darling" to being his queridinha. (Literal translation: "lovely little darling.") I've been too lazy here in Bali to try to learn Indonesian or Balinese, but suddenly Portuguese is coming easy to me. Of course I'm learning the pillow talk, but that's a fine use of Portuguese.

Wisner:

"We loved Pau de Acucar," I said, pronouncing it as "pow day a-Sue-car." "Took the tram up there yesterday afternoon for the sunset. Beautiful, just beautiful, Pau de Acucar."

Claudia began to chuckle, prompting Deborah to shoot her a glance [...]
Her father grabbed his plate and started back to the kitchen. I thought I heard him laugh as well. I know I heard Claudia giggle some more. Ana Carolina, too. Deborah grabbed my arm, pulling my head below table level for an emergency conference.

"Do you know what you're saying?" she whispered. "You're telling my parents that you think your penis is stunning."
"What did I say?"
"You said pau instead of pao. Pao means bread. Pau means penis."

"So Pau de Acucar means sugar penis? I've been raving about my sugar penis?"

Portuguese pillow talk aside, it's not like either author is recommending that you should do as they have written, almost to the very letter. (Especially not the Wisners, whose unwise purchase of a Saab figures prominently in their adventure throughout Eastern Europe.) If you ask me, I'd rather watch the movie adaptation of Honeymoon than EPL - but only because I thought that Wisner's narrative lends itself more easily to a screenplay*, whereas Gilbert's is so rich and befitting of her literary experience that I'd hate to see people like Felipe or Richard from Texas get retooled as mere back-up characters next to Julia Roberts-as-Liz.

I also think that Wisner also has a slight edge because he doesn't even pretend to be anywhere near enlightened about the journey he has taken; he does acknowledge that he wants no pity or sympathy from the dear reader for anything that he has gone through. He doesn't even pretend that his breakup has changed his view of women and relationships, either - as can be seen in the sex scenes strewn around the book involving the women he meets up with in his travels, and the (admittedly) bittersweet nostalgia he held for his ex.

Readers who were worn down by Gilbert's insistent chorus of "this trip is for meeeeee" may actually find some solace in Wisner's take on family values; aside from the titular brother and the friends they encounter along the way, there's also the presence of the Wisners' grandmother-figure LaRue, whose loving relationship with the boys provide a much-needed contrast to their bumbling adventures. Perhaps, then, it won't come as a surprise that Wisner's story does not have the stereotypical Hollywood-style happy ending, especially when you consider that the woman who does become Mrs. Franz Wisner doesn't even show up in the book at all.

This isn't to say that I'd recommend one over the other; again, while I think that EPL is better-written and more contemplative, Honeymoon still stands as a solid travelogue, and Wisner's lack of polish as a writer actually complements the book. What I'd recommend, then, is to do as I have done: read both books, back to back, as a "double feature" of sorts. Treat both books as two halves of the same universal story, and then use them as an inspiration for your own travel plans.

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*Also because, as I have mentioned in Domesticity, I already have some casting ideas in my head: As much as I would kill to see Paul Rudd and Peter Sarsgaard redeem their careers as the Brothers Wisner, I won't mind at all if Hollywood went the obvious route and cast George Clooney and Aaron Eckhart instead.

Self-Help Smackdown: "The Secret" vs. "Eat Pray Love"

2008-03-24T10:34:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of common points between the "love yourself" blockbusters "The Secret" and "Eat Pray Love" (from here on, shortened to EPL...which I know, makes it sound like a pregnancy test...but where's your brain going, eh?). Both are written by women on the verge - or after - a nervous breakdown, have tons of quotable meditations on life...and probably are on your shelf courtesy of a recent "convert" to their maxims. Would-be writers drool over the sales figures both books have bagged and the Oprah accolades that have followed. There's something to be said about coping with personal tragedy by looking outward - and no doubt, both books, to a receptive mind, do provide some effective points on how we can all become shiny happy people. But which one would win a self-help smackdown here on NBLB? How does the Universe-as-genie-in-a-bottle (cue vintage Aguilera track) fares against a proactive traveling yogi with a big appetite?

Rhonda Byrne, an Australian producer, kicked it off with The Secret documentary, a video now passed on via YouTube and recommended on Netflix faster than you can put up your own visualization board. That video made up mainly of talking heads involved in "life coaching" professions (which include a slew of earnest philosophers, the author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books, a feng shui specialist, a dreadlocked pastor and some very wacked out quantum physicists) soon made its way in paper form, via the transcribed and annotated "Secret" book. Meanwhile, in EPL, we're all shown how heaven hath no joy more than a woman who can wield a pen and a passport simultaneously. Technically, EPL is a memoir with lots of interesting observations of life in Italy, India and Indonesia...but as" One Woman's Search for Everything," it also has lots of "true dat!" moments sure to make you want to eat pasta, do yoga and buy a Balinese woman a house to improve your lot in life.

I tend to group self-help books into two categories: those that set off my bullshit meter and make me laugh all the way in the opposite direction (this usually happens from the cover, which is why self-help is one section my browsing shadow rarely darkens)...and those that set off my bullshit meter, but somehow titillate my curiosity. Now "The Secret," to be honest, fell in the first category. From the mystical red seal on the covers, to the slew of quotes between short explanations...it rang my New Age kooky bell loud and clear. It took a lazy afternoon with my parents and a sheer lack of anything else to do, to get me to watch The Secret video. And...despite the cheesy as heck re-enactments (Um...men in togas? Cardinal Richelieu insinuation? And ...Byrne throwing her head back like Milla in the final scenes of The Fifth Element...wot?!?) and my giggling every time the dreadlocked pastor showed up on camera, the messages behind the odd images did, by Jove, make sense. So now I own the book, and while it's still quite a swallow of quotes and at-times outrageous claims, I'd keep it handy for those days when you feel a little blue. But it was the VIDEO that spawned the book purchase, mind you - if I were to base this book procurement on writing...I'd laugh my way back home.

Gilbert's travel therapy EPL, on the other hand, is immensely readable, first-person narrative in the hands of a capable writer who clearly was determined to feel better - in any time zone. Her journey from post-divorce depression to (spoiler alert!) finding an older Latin lover in Bali after living in an ashram seems like "Under The Tuscan Sun" with a whiff of patchouli. Her Italy section, filled with hedonistic descriptions of food, wine and good-looking Italians conversing in their poetic language, was my favorite part of her journey of self-discovery. After Italy, however, the book took a more spiritual - and gradually more serious - turn. India's ashram experience brought forth perhaps the book's most memorable character: the no-nonsense Texan yogi Richard who didn't mince words about his impressions of the extreme lifestyle, Gilbert's appetite (he called her "Groceries"), and yes...that quote: "mosquitoes so big, they could rape a chicken." Thank goodness for Richard - because at that point, after the requisite first encounters, Gilbert sounded more and more like the Architect from The Matrix.

If "The Secret" had that "Universe as genie" ridiculous moment, Gilbert's guru dreams and blue light special meditations made me want to ask her if she could PRETTY PLEASE talk about pasta again. By the time we reach Bali, it seems Liz doesn't even need the medicine man she befriends - he needs her. It becomes too neat - in this world where our books about self-discovery must have a certain messiness to be probable - girl gets divorce, goes traveling, gets her spiritual groove on, and meets cute older (balding?) dude. Maybe there's a bit of Schadenfreude seeping through these sentences as well. And maybe if we did have her kind of budget, this sort of spiritual discovery would be possible. In some way, this book is like a series of postcards, a "wish you were here," scrawled in pasta sauce and signed in the sand in Paradise.

So what's it going to be? Which feisty blonde wins in the self-help arena this time around? EPL, hands-down, is the better READ, but you could probably apply The Secret without getting shots or paying for airfare. Based on the messages, both call for a positive attitude to get over the rough spots. Each to his/her own, if you will.

If you go purely by best-selling stats (truth by numbers)...there's another feisty blonde that still kicks both their asses in terms of getting published after prevailing over adversity:

Harry Potter trumps yoga anytime. Accio!

Ruhlman's "The Soul of a Chef," a.k.a. "Michael Symon Rocks"

2008-03-22T18:13:00.000-07:00

I discovered Michael Ruhlman's delicious culinary chronicles stacked next to a shit ton of Harvey Pekar comics at the Coventry Library. It was the first time I remember venturing out of the chick lit and sci-fi sections, which were my default stops, still timidly exploring my neighborhood's literary offerings.

I was going for a Pekar anthology when I knocked over Ruhlman's "The Reach of the Chef." (The Universe apparently wanted me to go beyond my microwaved knowledge of the cooking world.) Result: I have yet to cook anything more complicated than scrambled eggs (sorry Mom), but after spending less than a day devouring Ruhlman's descriptions, I was hooked. This heat-filled, insanely competitive world thrilled me to my very toes. FINALLY, my former newsie self exhaulted, a profession that makes broadcast journalists look SANE in comparison.

Ruhlman's journalistic style makes reading about food all the more enjoyable. "The Reach of the Chef" takes on how chefs have become the new rock stars, captivating the public with television-savvy cooking and a barrage of nouveau gourmet products. As my gateway foodie book, I couldn't put "Reach" down. If you haven't read Anthony Bourdain's delightful cooking travelogues or Gael Greene's scandalous memoir yet, start with Ruhlman. He feeds the mind.

So, needing my next foodie-lit fix, I grabbed "The Soul of a Chef," the volume preceding "Reach." (I seem to be tackling Ruhlman's culinary trilogy BACKWARDS - eventually I'll get to "The Making of a Chef," his first-person immersion into the gruelling life of a student at the Culinary Institute of America.) The book starts off running, straight into a certification trial that had some of the country's best cooks in tears over a test filled with rigorous classical cooking, mystery baskets and some of cuisine's most discerning judges. Yeah, that's definitely an immediate page-turner right there - especially the parts when a major airline's head chef has a major meltdown. Of course, the REAL draw for "Soul" in MY book is a certain soul patched chef from round these parts...

It's hard not to have a foodie crush* on Cleveland (Iron) chef Michael Symon, the bald dude with the distinctive giggle delighting Kitchen Stadium fans on the Food Network. (For those who have yet to visit our fair city by the lake, Chef Symon and his wife Liz are the dynamic duo behind Lola and Lolita, two restaurants with definite "must eat there!!!" status for anyone wanting to claim they've experienced the best of Cleveland cuisine.) Apparently, Ruhlman likes him a lot too - for both his down-to-earth charm and his sky high cooking talent, devoting one of his three essays on the life of the professional chef to Symon and his quirky Lola crew. I got totally geeked with the local flavors seeping through the pages, from pieroghi-making to mentions of familiar street corners. And I definitley chuckled over his account of a local television crew's live coverage of the restaurant, how the reporter made Symon send out a plate over and over...until he protested the food was getting cold.

For Symon, the food is paramount, but his personality locks it all in. From what I've seen of Ruhlman on television, he doesn't seem like the sort to gush like a schoolgirl over just anything. And even in this book, it's not a hand-clasping sort of admiration. What seeps through this well-written observation is a deep respect - going beyond a shared city or profession. It's a deep respect of a person. This dude has soul. The accounts of the chef's self-deprecating jokes and generosity toward his kitchen staff makes me want to save up a good sum to really enjoy his menu and the ambiance of his restaurant.

It might be all stuff we here in Cleveland already know - how his crew adore him, how his prices aren't scary, and yes, yes, yes - how the food is insanely awesome...and somewhat comforting in its integration of familiar flavors, Mediterranean and Midwest styles with fresh local ingredients. (If I had the culinary know-how, no doubt I could go on and on about the food...but it might be a litany of "yummy! yummy! yummy!" after a while.) "Soul," however, brings us inside the kitchens where his staff prep hundreds of ingredients, dodge gas burns, and pull through some really crazy nights serving Lola's bounty to a packed house. It's exciting not just because of the frenetic pace of Symon's work day, but also for the level of talent bubbling over behind those swinging doors. While Ruhlman's book moves on to the hallowed halls and habits of Thomas Keller, the Lola chapter is worth checking out for one big giggly reason why Clevelanders are rocking foodie circles throughout the nation.

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* And apparently, non-culinary appeal as well: "Yeah, he's got that Chris Daughtry thing going," typed fellow NBLB poster Mei during a "who's yummy on Food Network" discussion via Skype.

Miss Austen Says No, No, No

2008-03-22T16:02:00.000-07:00

Like many geeky bookworms of A Certain Age, I spent a good chunk of my Sundays following The Complete Jane Austen on PBS' Masterpiece Theatre. Nevermind that they've reformatted the old public-television chestnut to include a softly-lit Gillian Anderson stiffly intoning intros against a background that Keckler of Television Without Pity rightfully likened to a "My Moment, My Dove" commercial - it's the Beeb's own reinterpretation of Aunt Jane's finest work, so how hard could it be to refuse?

For the most part, however, I did enjoy most of the adaptations, especially Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park (worth it just for Billie "Honey to the B" Piper reciting flawless dialogue in regency garb). I also enjoyed the adaptation of Persuasion, too, but somehow I couldn't get myself past the fact that the actress who plays Anne Elliot bore a strange resemblance to another talented British celebrity, albeit one more troubled than your average Austen heroine.

Here's Sally Hawkins as Anne Elliot...

...and here's the person whose face kept popping up every time Sally Hawkins was on screen.

That ought to put some things in perspective, shouldn't it? Oh, they have attempted to send me to a sanctuary for teetotallers, but I have steadfastly, adamantly refused. Why, verily, I have been foul, but when I am proper, you will surely and definitely be able to recognize it as so! I may not have enough time, and if Papa should believe that I am suitable, you can try to force me into temperance and surely, with defiance, I shall refuse to go...

Books? Really!

2008-03-22T01:02:00.001-07:00

This blog, as with most group blogs, started with a long conversation between friends - in this case, two bloggers who have known each other since high school, back when the Internet was nothing more than a twinkle in Al Gore's eye. Oh, sure, the bloggers in question were already dabbling in beauty and fashion (not to mention forays into Filipino-language snark and blissful affirmations for the American Midwest, respectively), and they were already dumping out some of their more personal stuff on Facebook... but we digress.

So why books, and why now? Well, let's face it:

1) We were both burning out on our regular blog-reading diets, which usually consists of bitchy gossip sites and otherwise well-written blogs littered with semi-illiterate posts. And really, there's so much drama that a person can take.

2) Everything in our lives had become more conducive to book-reading: our respective job situations, our declining interest in what's on television, even the weather (and yes, even a place like Honolulu can have depressing rainy days) - so instead of just sitting in our apartments IM-ing about the books we've borrowed from the library, why not let everyone else in on the conversation?

3) We're not after trenchant literary criticism or hipster posing here, even if one of us is an English major and the other is a freelance journalist. We read what we read, we like what we like, and we can't help but write about it all; it's just that simple.

Some of you may take this third point as a way of saying that this blog is non-commercial, and in a way it is. We've both decided to treat this blog as a work of love, as opposed to work work; otherwise we're just chasing deadlines like we do at our real life jobs, and it stops being fun for us. So forgive us, dear reader, if we don't post too regularly, or if we don't get to read anything that you feel that we have to review right away.

And finally: We call this blog No Book Left Behind because that's how we read: there's no book that's too trashy or low-brow for us to tackle. It's not our job to be picky or snobby about what you read, especially when we're just as indiscriminate about our book choices as everyone else. Let's keep this a safe and fun place for us to read about reading. Let's help bring literacy back into vogue again. Let's help make this world a better place by being well-informed readers ourselves.