Tag: 2013 books

The Best American Travel Writing 2012

I’ve been reading this series of travel writing for about a decade now. I almost always find one or two selections that engrossing, provocative, or find the overall collection varied and interesting. This year’s selection was not as stimulating as previous ones. It was much more serious, somber and gritty.There were two stories about Northern Ireland and its troubles since the Peace Accord, one about South Africa and apartheid, and two on Mexico.

Perhaps it was the that 2011 year didn’t offer that many choices, but each year is slightly different due to the contributing editor. It isn’t as if the articles were badly written, but I’ve come to expect a mishmash and eclectic mix of articles from this series, and I found there was more uniformity in this one. I found myself forcing to read the book to finish it and not because I looked forward to the articles. I still adore this series, but the 2012 edition was not one of my favourites.

Read February 1st-7th 2013.

Checking back on my GoodReads account, I noticed I missed 2008 and the years 2001-3. My library does not have 2001, but I must have missed out on 2002 or 2003 for some reason. 2008 I missed out because I was not in the country. I will definitely pick up the 2008 to read.

Sandman: Dream Hunters

The Sandman series is my favourite graphic novel series, and I have read all the novels and the companion pieces except this one. This is actually a 20th anniversary special comic book adaptation of the earlier Sandman: The Dream Hunters which was drawn by Yoshitako Amano. It has been a few years since I read that one, and the only thing I remember from it were the surreal and interesting graphics.

It is a Japanese folk tale incorporating love, revenge, and greed. Classic themes all in the landscape of the Sandman’s playground. I have been on a Japanese kick lately so the timing was good for this and reminds me how long it’s been since I’ve seen the Asian folk tale trope of animal spirits and their ability to play tricks. The story is still all Gaiman though and Morpheus emphasizes that even though things ended the way they did, everyone learned a lesson through his intervention and his realm. Things are not fair, but at least one can learn from them even if it is just about yourself.

Recommended for those who like the series and Gaiman. I do think that Endless Nights and the two Death companion pieces ranks above this one, but I love this universe so anytime I get to read stories from it is a pleasure.

Read January 31st 2013.

The Giving Tree

My parents did not read to me as a child so I had to read a lot of children’s classics on my own as a kid or now, later as an adult. I also remember being read to a few times in school of course, but not this classic.

Most people know this story already but essentially it is about a tree who loves a boy

I really liked the book as I read it, and I had certain expectations for the ending such as the boy repenting about what he did to the tree or treat it with respect. But no, he just sits on her stump and she’s just happy about it. I was perplexed about this. Then I read all the polarizing views about this book. Frankly, I am not sure what I would rate this book.

This book is highly subjective. Many people likens the relationship to that of a parent and child, some see it religiously (Tree as a Christ figure), others frame it in political/economic terms, and more directly, a story about humans and the environment. Having recently read Cloud Atlas, I’m inclined to the human nature, greed and abuse of the planet aspect of it.

There is also the interpretation the relationship between the anthropomorphic tree and the boy represents all loving relationships and how selfless or self-sacrificing love is or should be at the end of the day. In love you give, but you ask nothing back in return. On the other hand, if this book really is about parents and children since there seems to be a story of growing up with the boy, it is the idea that all parents must give to their children. Where this analogy takes a real dark turn is that the parent must be cut down for the child.

After the ending and thinking it through, I am not sure I would read this to a child. I think if I read this as a child, I’d be really sad about the tree and quite angry with the boy (so I haven’t changed much in that regard). Also, perhaps guilty about human nature’s inclination to take things from the environment, from each other, etc. It could make me feel that you should not ask for so much from anything nor you should take things for granted. It is not spelled out like that at the end though. I do not mind sad endings even for children’s books, but this ending was very ambiguous. It felt unsatisfactory in its lesson whatever that may be.

I rated the book out 3 of 5 on Good Reads in the end because I think it is though provoking. Not many other picture books can generate this much interpretation or controversy and doubtless will continue to. It makes you consider the book at all angles. I recommend it to most people just for that reason.

Read January 31st 2013.

Fifty Shames of Earl Grey

As one can postulate from the title, this is a parody of Fifty Shades of Grey. I am going to keep this review short; I probably shouldn’t have read this book since I only found this book just Okay. On the other hand, it was so over the top and silly at times that I actually laughed out loud a few times. Some of the moments were so stupid and absurd that I had to laugh.

Some of the other moments were just very strange. There were a couple of gross moments which is why I think the author was going for since the original work does have those moments too. The book was a bit too long as well; I do not think novel length parodies are really my thing. It did remind me again how awful the Fifty Shades Trilogy actually is. I think the parody’s Anna is actually smarter than Ana Steele.

I only recommend this book if you have a dark sense of humor and if you found the actual Fifty Shades trilogy funny because it was so very bad.

Read January 30th-31st, 2013.

The best satire or commentary of the trilogy is still Jen Reads 50 Shades of Grey trilogy. She’s on the last book now.

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

This was a clever and well written book. It was ambitious and unique.

It took me awhile to read this book. It was on my Kindle so I often forgot I had it and it didn’t give me incentive to read it in time like my library books. The other reason I would forget about this book is the different narratives from this book. It is very well written and I liked it more than other books that had this kind of style such as Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad. It does mean that once you get comfortable with one chapter’s story, it changes and you have to start all over again.

It took to reading the sixth and final narrative in the middle of the book that I realized what Mitchell was doing. At that point, I had to finish the book. It became gripping and I really liked the every changing structure and tone.

The best thing about reading on the Kindle besides the convenience of having dozens to hundreds of ebooks in a small vessel is the built in dictionary. I don’t have to pause and look up the word on separate dictionary. I am not really a wordsmith, but I do love words and language so it is always fun to read an author who clearly can employ a number of unusual words.

The diction and vocabulary was quite neat in the earlier stories since Mitchell used a number of archaic words. I really enjoyed that bit and enjoyed Mitchell’s ability to shift his structure and style with each story. He had suspense, character development, great writing style, and most of all, consistent themes which weren’t too cloying.

“What precipitates outcomes? Vicious acts & virtuous acts. What precipitates acts? Belief.”

All of the stories deal with the idea of how human nature does not change and that it never really will. The idea that greed, oppression and controlling civilization will always be present is quite true and very sad. There are moments of hope of course and a lot of the stories have good endings, but I am wary to reread this again. There was something melancholic about all the stories since death and oppression were in all of them. It was not the most depressing read, but it is not one that makes you feel good. It is a good reminder of the darkness of human nature in a well written novel form.

I recommend this book for those who are interested in speculative fiction and unique structure & styles. This book is literary and also thought provoking.

Incidentally, Mitchelle was apparently influenced by Italo Calvino’s If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller which is a book I just took out from the library last week. It is one of those books I requested while browsing GoodReads so now I actually have even more incentive to read that as well.

Read on the Kindle October 31, 2012 to January 27, 2013.

The Movie

Cloud Atlas

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Yes, Chef by Marcus Samuelsson

This is a food memoirs by an Ethiopian born, Swedish adopted and now American chef. I had not heard about Samuelsson before this memoirs. I think I picked this up because it I read some good things about it as a memoirs about food.

The book discusses not only food, but adoption, culture, soccer/football, and many countries including: Ethiopia, Sweden, Switzerland (it made me miss it!), Austria, New York City, France (I always miss it), time spent on a cruise ship, Ethiopia and more New York. I appreciate any book about travel and observing cultures. The author is a product of that in many ways so it was interesting to see his life over three continents and his journey as a top chef in America.

I did like the food moments and learning about little things from each food culture such as Swedish rustic cooking. I wanted to know more about Swedish pickling’s 1-2-3 method (Swedish vinegar, sugar, and water). I also liked the metaphor of fine dining as museum curation. Food as art that after consumed, you would see the world differently.

Like some chefs, Samuelsson fell into it after failing at being a football star and he admits he sometimes feels like a failed football more than anything. I don’t know if Gordon Ramsay has said that, but cooking was also his secondary choice after his failed football career. Ramsay is actually mentioned in this book. I have read a few things about Ramsay. I have watched and liked a lot of his British (not American) shows. I even just bought one of his cookbooks during my Boxing Day cookbook spree. I don’t find a lot of his food accessible (too fine, too limiting for my tastes), but I bought the one which had reviews for being accessible. I think he tries too hard with his persona, but I also think it’s somewhat admirable how driven he is about everything. There are a number of British chefs who have worked and been made by Ramsay. Two of the most prominent are women. In a boy’s club such as the restaurant kitchen, female chefs are rare especially those running one of Ramsay’s three star Michelin kitchens. Therefore, Ramsay is mostly in my good books. On the other hand, a lot of people have mentioned what a jerk he is and I don’t mean on TV, but behind the scenes. The jerk American persona is mostly played on his US shows. He has badmouthed a number of people, including the author of this book apparently. He’s allegedly a serial cheater. I also think he is arrogant sometimes, but so are a lot of TV chefs. Reading about how he screamed at Samuelsson and with a racist remark did give me pause.

I digressed a bit, but the book does discuss race and ethnicity a number of times. Fine dining is very much a man’s world and sadly, a white man’s world at that. It was intriguing to read in which Samuelsson tried to reach out to the Harlem community, employ women and not tolerate prejudice or abuse from his employees.

While the topics of the books were interesting and a couple of times, touching and candid, there was something about this book that I didn’t love. It had moments and I even felt sympathy for the author, but I didn’t fall in love with this book. It is not a must read, but a decent one if you like memoirs and biographies that feature food and chefs.

Read January 28-29th 2013.

Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman

A book about books that I’ve wanted to read this for a number of years. Anne Fadiman wrote 18 essays over four years about reading and books.

The essays cover such wide range of bookish topics such as book arrangement, poetry writing, book treatment, writing new and unknown words from books whilst reading, book inscriptions, reading books in the locations they are set, private readings, secondhand books, and a few more.

“What a blessing it is to love books as I love them, to be able to converse with the dead, and to live amidst the unreal!” — Thomas Babington Macaulay

This is definitely one of the better books about books I’ve read over the years even though I can’t relate to the author all the time, more on that later. Still, I think because of that difference, it was thought provoking. The essays gave me the idea to arrange books in chronological order especially for those classics pre-20th century. Right now, I arrange my books haphazardly over four locations by subject and priority in the read queue. I do arrange my cookbooks by colour though two of them are vintage and all 15 cover four decades.

Her essay on how to treat and love books was interesting. She divides them between courtly book lovers (those who maintain their love by keeping the books pristine) vs carnal book lovers (they love their books to bits including writing, ripping, breaking them). I am definitely more the former than the latter. I don’t really like writing in books, and when my copy of Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince split, I was sad and went out to buy a new one. I also am wary of lending my books out for a similar reason; I’ll usually just give them away or give another copy. Few things annoy me more than people who rip and write unnecessary notes in library books. I don’t care what people do to their own books, but library books are public common goods. /End Rant.

I should really read out loud more though and be open to inscribing books to my friends. As well as writing new words from books. I always read too fast to stop and use a dictionary, unless it’s in the Kindle.

“Alas, where is human nature as in the bookstore.” — Henry Wood Beecher

Fadiman comes from a literary family and has one of her own. Her husband is also a voracious reader and a writer. I can’t really imagine if my life would ever be so literary. It’s so hard to find a boy who reads even a tenth of what I do. Fadiman’s bibliophilia is fostered by a prominent intellectual father and a war correspondent mother. Not all readers are raised equal. I think she makes a good point that most writers are fostered by parents who actually love to read.

This book was published 1998 so it does not address recent prominence of audiobooks (though it does mention it once), ebooks and ebook readers. It actually feels dated in a way because people of my generation do not view books the way Fadiman does. Books use to be one of the main sources of entertainment for people and now it’s down the list. Also there is an even steeper decline in classics, language or bookstores. It makes me a bit sad, and reminds me of what Nick Hornby wrote in More Baths, Less Talking that book lovers of his and Fadiman’s generation are older and not the majority. Ultimately, books are not as omnipresent in people’s lives as they use to be. There is far more competing for our entertainment.

In any case, a lovely book about books that I recommend to all my fellow bibliophiles.

Read January 19th 2013.

The Beauty of color by Iman

This is a book about makeup and beauty for women of colour. Even though I rarely wear makeup (more of a skincare person), I do enjoy looking at beauty books and am interested in makeup. Also, even though I am East Asian, I am on the paler side (MAC NC20), so most of the tips in this book didn’t apply to me so much.

Having said that, I think this a good beginner book for people who are just getting into makeup as it has several looks and makeup tips for women of colour. Like Iman, I do agree there is a dirth of good makeup products and looks for these women. She doesn’t specify specific products which means it gives the reader the ability to explore her options, but maybe daunting for some beginners with no makeup knowledge. There is some excellent photography in this book too. I also picked this book up because I have always liked Iman when I see her TV appearances and interviews.

Most of the tips in this book I know from other resources, but I have some Notes and Things I took Away:
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The Jane Austen Marriage Manual by Kim Izzo

As it usually happens, I don’t remember where I read about this book that made me request it from the library. It probably wasn’t a proper review, but somewhere made it sound interesting.

I don’t know why I didn’t expect a chicklit novel, but I got a chicklit novel. That’s fine since I’m use to them. As with many books in this genre and romantic comedies, the premise is outlandish and preposterous. The protagonist basically is conning people for most of the book by portraying a wealthy aristocrat named Lady Kate in order to catch a rich husband. I can understand her motivations, but her actions were still crazy.

Also, this novel was too long for a fluffy romance. Towards the end, I just wanted it all to end quickly and to get with the romantic lead. There really wasn’t enough of them together to be honest.

Quotations from Jane Austen books start every chapter and in a way, the author is writing a real theme about how Austen and today’s modern world meet. It doesn’t necessarily work. I do not recommend it for Austenites looking for any insight. This is just a chicklit novel with Austen in the title and a few references.

It wasn’t all bad. The ludicrous antics of Lady Kate were rather funny and I did laugh out loud a couple of times. That has to be worth something. I also found Kate relateable because we are out of work, broke, and single. It is tempted to think about winning a rich husband, but it’s a bit of second hand embarrassment how she does it.

Still, a somewhat amusing novel. Only recommended if you like chicklit novels.

Read December 31st, 2012 to January 1st 2013.