08.Feb.2010 Mailbox Monday – 3 Months Acquisition

You can relax, because I didn’t acquire that many books in 3 months :)

Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off: Love Quarrels from Anton Chekhov to ZZ Packer, Selected by Kasia Boddy, Ali Smith, and Sarah Wood — from Basement Books for $9.95. Isn’t the cover the cutest?! I first saw it at Paperback Reader, and Claire later reminded me again about it, so I was so happy to see it with slashed price!

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa – from Basement Books for $4.95! Another amazing finding! I can’t believe they sold the new ones for $4.95 ea when the RRP in Australia is about $25.

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel — mooched from bookmooch.com. This book is not available at my libraries, so I’m so happy to be able to mooch it!

I got the next 3 books from last year! I feel bad that I have not acknowledged them!

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick — won from Dewey’s 24 hour read-a-thon. No, not the October one. The April one! Kathrin had been very nice to send it all the way from Germany. But it was sea-mail, so it took about 4 months to arrive to Australia. It was an interesting wait :)

Alfred Nobel: The Man Behind the Peace Prize by Kathy by Jo Wargin and Zachary Pullen – won from Dawn @ 5 Minutes for Books, it is a hardcover large picture book. It would be nice to learn about Alfred Nobel from a picture book!

I Am a Cat by Soseki Natsume — bought from bookdepository.co.uk, which I have started reading for tanabata’s read-along, but it lays dormant after the first part (out of three).

Apart from these, I went to Sydney Japanese Foundation last Tuesday to find that they withdrew some book from the library and gave them away for free! I weeded through the pile pretty quickly and went back to the office with 2 bags of books. Oops! A lot of them I had never heard before and many are short stories collection. But who knows, I might be able to find some gems. I left the books at the office and will only bring them back home slowly, so more details will be on my next Mailbox Monday post (whenever that is).

07.Feb.2010 Bone: Treasure Hunters and Crown of Horns (Last 2 Volumes)

Like all good adventure story, Bone is ended with a great battle between good and evil ala The Lord of the Rings (not that I’ve read or watched LOTR). Bone series has been such a fun journey and I’m sad that it has ended, though the ending is pretty open to possibility of a sequel. But really, Jeff Smith has spent almost 10 years to complete Bone, so let’s give the guy a break.

To recap, I wrote some sort of reviews for almost every single volume, except no 2: (Well, if not full review, it’d be an exclamation “Hey, another great volume!”)

1. Bone Vol 1: Out from Boneville
2. Bone Vol 2: The Great Cow Race
3. Bone Vol 3: Eyes of the Storm
4. Bone Vol 4: The Dragonslayer
5. Bone Vol 5: Rock Jaw Master of the Eastern Border
6. Bone Vol 6: Old Man’s Cave
7. Bone Vol 7: Ghost Circles
8. Bone Vol 8: Treasure Hunters
9. Bone Vol 9: Crown of Horns

If I can encourage you to read one post, it’d be the first one! I wrote a rather lengthy post when I first read Bone in late 2008, in which I compared the Bone brothers with Mickey, Donald, and Goofy (I’m so surprised nobody else has!), the comparison between graphic novels and comics, and Bone the game.

It’s hard to give rating for individual volumes at this late stage of a series, but as a whole I would give it:

Took half a star off, just because some parts of storyline left me confused near the end. But the humour and characters are great, the drawings are always amazing. It’s a fantastic series and very well worth reading!

I guess this means goodbye to Bone for now… *sob*

Challenges
Graphic Novels 2010 (book #2, 3)

Also reviewed by
Beth Fish Reads: Treasure Hunters | Crown of Horns (I’m so impressed that Beth managed to properly review each volume!)
Things Mean A Lot | nothing of importance (the entire series)

06.Feb.2010 Short Saturday: Borges and Nabokov

Mark David has recommended The New Yorker Fiction Podcasts to me for a while. In fact he has written a post on it last month. But only last week after he shouted at strongly encouraged me to try one when I talked about Borges’s The Library of Babel,  did I manage to listen to two of them.

In each episode, a contemporary writer reads a short work by a classic writer. There’s a bit of talk and discussion before and after the reading of the story. I loved the discussion parts of the podcasts, but I’m not sure if I got much out of the two stories being read. I’ve mentioned before how I’m a poor listener, and it doesn’t help when the story is not very listen-able. (We have word for readable! How about listenable?)

Without further ado, the two I picked were:

The Gospel According to Mark by Jorge Luis Borges, read by Paul Theroux

I’m not sure if I got it. I repeated the ending about 5 times and each time it made me go “huh?”. But I continued on and luckily Paul explained more about what’s going on in the story. Originally published in 1970, it is about a young man who visits a friend’s holiday house in Argentina. He meets a family of illiterate workers to whom he reads some books, but the only one they’re interested in the most is an old Bible. He reads the gospel of Mark which contains the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and the forgiveness He granted to the world. When he was found to lay with the daughter of the family, well…

Paul Theroux actually read to Borges when he was alive (and blind). And that’s awesome because Paul is a fantastic reader. I’d never heard of him before this. Apparently he has written many novels and travelogues. After quick wiki-ing, I found that he won James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1981 for The Mosquito Coast (join win with Salman Rushdie’s Midnight Children) and Whitbread Prize for Best Novel  in 1978 for Picture Palace. Have you read any of his books before?

My Russian Education by Vladimir Nabokov, read by Orhan Pamuk

I feel kinda bad to say this, but most of the words read by Pamuk went over my head, because I had problem with his accent. Therefore I’m unable to rate this in any way. But I’m sure I will (re)read the story in text format in the future, because it’s Nabokov’s autobiography, though published as fiction. The story is based on how his father was shot dead. It was originally published in 1948 by the New Yorker and it is one chapter out of 12 that was later published in 1951 as a book titled Speak, Memory (My Russian Education is Chapter 9 in the book).

I loved to listen to how Pamuk loved Nabokov. I always love the whole writers speaking very highly of other writers. It’s very adorable. I read Lolita by Nabokov in 2008 and I really admired how Nabokov used English language. Sure, I didn’t understand a lot of the passages, but that’s beside the point… because I admired the ones that I did understand! :)

Did you read any short story this week?

01.Feb.2010 Japanese Season Has Ended, For Now

Can you believe we have gone through the third round of Japanese Literature Challenge, and it has again, ended?

I did a lot better this time around than last year. Funny. Last round I intended to read a lot and ended up reading much less. This round I intended to read one or two, and ended up reading 4 books by Japanese authors and 3 books by non-Japanese, which is uum.. 5-6 books more than planned.

Books of Japanese origin:

1. Snakes and Earrings by Hitomi Kanehara (finished 08/09, )
2. Strangers by Taichi Yamada (finished 09/09, )
3. I Am a Cat (Vol 1) by Soseki Natsume (finished 12/09, )
4. Oishinbo: Ramen & Gyoza by Tetsu Kariya and Akira Hanasaki (finished 01/10, )

Books about/set in Japan by non-Japanese authors:

1. Squeamish about Sushi by Betty Reynolds (finished 08/09, )
2. Kabuki: The Metamorphosis by David Mack (finished 08/09, )
3. Clueless in Tokyo by Betty Reynolds (finished 10/09, )

The first three books of Japanese origin were on my original list, so really, I can’t be happier with the result.

I love Japanese Literature Challenge. Not only because of the challenge itself, but also because I seem to meet a different bunch of people that I wouldn’t normally meet anywhere else in the blogosphere. Do you think so too or is it just me?

Thanks again Bellezza, for such a wonderful challenge and for being such a wonderful host. I look forward to sharing more Japanese works in the future with you! And of course, with all of you.

31.Jan.2010 Calling Pride and Prejudice First Timers

Are you one of the few people left who have NOT read Pride and Prejudice?

I’m going to read it in the month of February (what with Valentine and all), with David and uncertainprinciples, and I thought I extend the invitation, just in case there are some of you who feel like you always want to read it but are not sure when, and feel pretty lonely because everybody else seems to have read it 16 times since they were 12. I have never read a Jane Austen myself, so this would be my first.

Just for fun, I worked out a schedule. But if you’re reading in rabbit speed, you can hop away and leave the turtles behind :)

week 1: chapter 1-17 (finish by 7 Feb)
week 2: chapter 18-34 (finish by 14 Feb)
week 3: chapter 35-47 (finish by 21 Feb)
week 4: chapter 48-61 (finish by 28 Feb)

My copy is 352 pp, so each week is about 88 pages. I don’t plan to post updates in between, unless I have something to say (also because in week 3 and 4, I’ll be going back to the land where Internet is ancient and mindbogglingly irritating). I will post my thoughts some time in the first week of March. If you read the book and post any thoughts on it between now and then, I would love it if you come back and leave a link to yours. Who knows, we may trigger some interesting discussions.

31.Jan.2010 Oishinbo: Ramen & Gyōza by Tetsu Kariya and Akira Hanasaki

Oishinbo (美味しんぼ, lit. “The Gourmet”) is a long-running cooking manga published between 1983 and 2008, but only in 2009 it is published in English in thematic compilation volumes, which includes: Japanese Cuisine, Sake, Ramen & Gyôza, Fish, Sushi & Sashimi, Vegetables, The Joy of Rice, and Izakaya: Pub Food (7 volumes so far). Thematic compilation means it contains “best of the best” and does not follow the original manga chronological order. There are a few minor storylines that jump forward and back. But I guess in the big picture of things, it does not matter that much, because the food is really the central of excitement here!

I saw some of the volumes at Sydney Japan Foundation Library and picked the Ramen volume out of whim, since I LOVE Ramen.

If you think you don’t like ramen, well, let me tell you, you just have not eaten the good one. Believe me, I know! I used to think I only liked dry or fried noodle, not soup noodle. But then one day, I tasted the BEST RAMEN EVER (I absolutely do not exaggerate). With one sip of the soup, I could hear the birds chirping and see the sun rise in dramatic scene.

It was divine.

The broth, the noodle, the soya egg, the roast pork. Cooked to perfection.

I never look back ever since. It is my mission in life to constantly look for a perfect ramen.

In this volume of Oishinbo, you’d find many people go very serious over a bowl of ramen. Who could blame them?

Look at the soupy goodness.

(Photo from actual ramen that I ate)

Apart from ramen, there are also gyōza (dumpling) episodes. Being a huge foodie that I am, it was fascinating to learn so much from a manga. There are many comparisons to Chinese food (chūka ryori), since many Japanese food are originated from Chinese food. There are history of Japan and China relationship, making of noodles, miso, bonito, kurobuta (black pig), the sauces, and more.

The food names are all in Japanese and there are notes at the back of the book that explain everything, which is exactly the way I like it (notes at the bottom of the pages would be more convenient, but some of them are obviously too long). I hate it when they translate food items to English. Not only on food, the notes also explain cultural elements that may not be obvious to foreigners, for example sempai-kōhai (senior-junior) relationship.

One interesting note is about how the word used for the title is not “ramen” in Japanese, but rather chūka soba, or Chinese noodles. Although the term chūka soba can be used interchangeably as a name for ramen, it also refers specifically to the noodles themselves, which are Chinese in origin. Because “ramen” is the name by which almost all Westerners know the dish, that’s what they’ve decided to use in Oishinbo.

I have fallen in love with the series, so I’ll continue reading the others. Highly recommended if you’re interested to learn more about Japanese food and culture, in a fun way at that.

2009, 272 pp

Challenges
Japanese Literature 3 (book #4), Graphic Novels 2010 (book #1)

I love Japanese cooking shows. They make everything so dramatic. Have you watched Iron Chef? You should watch Iron Chef. It’s the most exciting cooking show ever. The Japanese one, not the US remake one (though the latter is not so bad). For anime, Yakitake!! Japan is very fun series about a boy whose dream is to become a bread master. I kept wanting to eat bread the whole time I watched it. When I was small, I used to watch Cooking Master Boy (or I think that’s what it was). I love to watch the reactions of the people eating the food. I think that’s how I learned to be excited about food.

This is my last book for Japanese Literature Challenge 3, which ends today. I’m going to post my wrap-up tomorrow. So see you then!

30.Jan.2010 Short Saturday: Murakami, Borges, and Babel

As you know, if you read the header above, I’ve been talking about Capote’s A Christmas Memory like a broken radio. But from last week conversations in the comments, I just remembered that there was another short story that blew me away with the same magic! It was recommended by a friend IRL years ago and I read it online. I have probably read it a couple of times by now, which is unheard of for me.

It is none other than:

On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning by Haruki Murakami

which you can read in full online (thank you, steph tai). It is available at more sites, but I love that particular one, because of the illustration and the way the text is put together. Tips: if it appears too small on your browser, press Ctrl + (plus sign) until it gets to the right size.

Please read it too. You’ll fall in love with it. I promise.

This short story is included in his short story collection Elephant Vanishes, which I sadly do not own, and it is not available at my libraries. Another of his short in the collection called Sleep was recommended by Rob (link to Rob’s review), which he rated 5 stars, and is “about an insomniac wife who gets into a habit of reading literature all night”. That sounds amazing! I have to get hold of the book.

---

Last week, I roamed around my library and found this lovely anthology called In the Stacks: Short Stories about Libraries and Librarians, Edited by Michael Cart.

The cover looks very plain, but really, shorts about libraries and librarians?! How enticing is that? And look at the big names inside! Italo Calvino, Ursula K. LeGuin, Isaac Babel, Lorrie Moore, Francine Prose, Alice Munro, Ray Bradbury, Jorge Luis Borges, and more!

This morning I went straight to:

The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges

“The universe (which others call the library) is composed of an indefinite, perhaps an infinite, number of hexagonal galleries, with enormous ventilation shafts in the middle, encircled by very low railings.”

The Library of Babel is a universe of books, the world where people are born and live, where every book ever written in every possible language resides.

Knowing how famous it was, I was quite surprised to find how short it was! However, while the premise can’t be more amazing, I found the writing was rather hard to get into. The translation maybe? Borges was Argentinian, it was translated from Spanish. It did feel like reminiscence of Calvino’s If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler. It also bothered me that he mentioned alphabet has 22 letters. Does Spanish have only 22 letters?

It deserves a re-read. But for now, I’ll rate it

Some of you may wonder what happened to My Mistress’s Sparrow is Dead. I had to return it to the library. (Library!) I’ll borrow it and continue again later, because there are more that I want to read. Isaac Babel’s story is one of them. So when I saw In the Stacks also has his short (a different one) in it, I jumped into it.

The Public Library by Isaac Babel

With mere 3 pages long, this must be the shortest of shorts I’ve read so far. But it’s a nice complement after The Library of Babel. The Public Library shows a glimpse of a public library, its attendants and regular visitors.

“You can feel straightaway that the book reigns supreme here. All the people who work in the library have entered in communion with The Book, with life at second-hand, and have themselves become, as it were, a mere reflection of the living.”

I liked the writing, and I’ll watch out for more Babel in the future. (Just realized the author shares last name with Borges’s short… Coincidence?)

I mentioned Lorrie Moore last week and am excited to find she also has a short in the anthology titled Community Life. I’ll save that for next week ;)

Okay, I’m gonna have breakfast now. I woke up, read the 2 shorts and wrote this post first thing in the morning. Argh, what am I doing?! I haven’t even had tea or something!

Hope you have a fabulous weekend!

28.Jan.2010 Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

People often started their reviews by saying this book so-and-so made them cry. That doesn’t mean anything to me. I don’t cry for a book.

Little did I know that I would begin my review now by saying this book made me cry! And not just a tear or two, but more like weeping for 5 minutes. At least TWO times! The last time I cried because of a book was probably The Time Traveler’s Wife, which I read in 2004.

Charlie was born retarded. He lives his entire life with not much more than broken memories and haziness. But Charlie wants to be smart. He knows he’s lacking something and that he wants that something so he can be like everybody else. One day an opportunity arrives. A research facility needs a human guinea pig. If the experiment is successful, Charlie would become.. normal, though of course, there’s a chance that it might fail. Charlie doesn’t care. He’s going to do anything to be smarter.

I have a little confession to make. For me, it’s very important to be smart. As a kid I was obsessed with IQ tests. I started doing them since I was three. I knew I wasn’t a genius, but my IQ was high enough to be, say, the highest in class, and in general, to get away with a lot of things. Some people might be the funny one, the pretty one, the talkative one, the kind one. But me, I need to be the smart one. Most of the time this thought lays deep at my subconscious mind, but at certain times when I feel my brain fails me big time, I could get pretty depressed, and the worms are out in the open. What if I’m just not that smart? What would I be? WHAT IF? –I would heap on my despair, sink in my misery.

I could relate with Charlie in many ways. I always feel the need to be smart. I understand how the little child in us always needs to get our parents’ approval. Look at me Ma! I am smart! I am somebody!

Boy, did I cry!

The book is told in a series of Charlie’s personal journal, so we could see how he progresses and gets smarter, then later finds out how things were never what he thought they were when he lived in his blurry state.

You know how sometimes even a good book slows its pace at some parts? It never happened with this book. The pace was good from beginning til end. Every page was a joy to read. Not only that, it’s packed with emotional punch. One thing for sure, I would never see a “slow” person the same way ever again.

I can’t recommend this book highly enough. To anybody! I love you Daniel Keyes! Thank you for your contribution to this world! (sorry, that just gushed out of me) I can’t believe my first two books of the year were so 5 stars! I have a good feeling for this year.

1966, 216 pp

First line
Dr Strauss says I shoud rite down what I think and remembir and evrey thing that happins to me from now on.

Awards
1966 Nebula Award for Best Novel

Quotes

“.. Miss Kinnian says dont worry spelling is not suppose to make sence.” ~ p24

“Now I understand one of the important reasons for going to college and getting an education is to learn that the things you’ve believed in all your life aren’t true, and that nothing is what it appears to be.” ~ p50

Challenges
Book Awards IV (book #2), Read the Book See the Movie (book #1)

Also reviewed by
Loved it! — Farm Lane Books Blog | Savidge Reads | Novel Insight | Reading Matters
Not quite. — Books for Breakfast

Charly (1968)

I had reservation about watching the movie, because the book was just SO good. There’s no way the movie can even compare. But I saw Cliff Robertson won Oscar for Best Actor in 1969 for the film, so I gave it a chance.

Well, I was right. It’s not horrible, but it’s nothing compared to the book. In the movie we lose a lot of Charlie’s inner thoughts, which are the main point of the book. A lot of his external and internal conflicts were cut as well, leaving mainly his love interest.

I would give the movie a pass.

Rating: 6/10

Apart from my reading challenges, I read the book (and watch the movie) to participate on Carl’s Sci Fi Experience 2010 (run in the month of January and February). Are you participating? You still have time if you want to! :)

After Flowers for Algernon I definitely have a lot more confidence in trying the Sci-Fi genre. A few years ago I told the person who gave me the book that “I don’t read science fiction.” But when we discussed some books that we’ve read, I mentioned The Time Traveller’s Wife and Kindred. He quickly pointed out that I do read sci-fi. Sci-fi does not mean all outer-space and machines. I agree that we really shouldn’t pigeon-hole books into a certain genre, and avoid them as a result. Imagine what great books that we could be missing out! I do plan to read more of what is called sci-fi books in the future. Nebula and Hugo award winners would be a great start. At the moment I’m thinking Stranger in a Strange Land.

Can you think of any books that you are passionate about that fall into the sci-fi genre?

26.Jan.2010 Happy Australia Day 2010

Spending Australia Day in the office with a giant cube of Lamington

24.Jan.2010 Read the Book, See the Movie Challenge

1 January 2010 – 31 December 2010

You do know that I need to join this challenge, right? Comparing book and its movie adaptation is really my thing. In 2009, I did that with:

1. Breakfast at Tiffany’s
2. The Color Purple
3. Silk
4. A Christmas Carol
5. Wicked (not a movie, but with its musical)
6. Dracula + movie (separate post)
7. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince + movie (separate post)
8. Intimacy (uum didn’t finish the movie because it was so bad..)

In 2008, I read the books and see the movies for The Woman in the Dunes, Atonement, Harry Potter 1-5, The Kite Runner, Wuthering Heights, Lolita, and Persepolis. Then in separate years, Memoirs of a Geisha, Battle Royale, The Joy Luck Club, A Walk to Remember. (I don’t link to the book reviews because I think I just started incorporating movie comparison regularly in 2008.) Really, the options are endless!

Therefore I’m quite confident that I can complete the Saturday Movie Marathon level, which requires four books/movies. Easy peasy :)

I know that I’ll be watching The Road and Burton’s Alice in Wonderland this year. Possibly The Reader, The Lovely Bones, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button–all of which I have read. Disgrace and The Secret Life of Bees piqued my interest too (books read). Hopefully I can squeeze in The Revolutionary Road and The Remains of the Day (books not yet read).

What pair would you recommend? I’m all ears!

The pair I did for the challenge:

1. Flowers for Algernon (01/2010)

Reviews Jan/Feb