Scary.

Or in my case, ALMOST losing my blog. By luck, I migrated host a few months ago so still have the database zip file from sometime last May in my temporary Download folder somewhere in my laptop. By luck, I haven’t been updating much at all since May, so I only needed to manually search google cache for six pages and copy pasted them manually (the comments I only copy pasted in one big chunk so you will see them all in one comment per post).

Not so cocky now, aren’t I? You always think these things would never happen to you. But even the most careful squirrel falls from the tree!

Now that I’m posting though, I should probably talk a bit more about Bookie Mee.

Since year 2000 when I first entered University I have always had a personal space on the Internet to express myself. But like my self in real life, my personal space moves around too. Some last longer than the others, some have very short life. As I remember it, Bookie Mee is possibly the longest spot I have ever stayed on. It’s been over four years now since August 2007.

But now I’ve decided that I’m going to step back from the whole book blogging world (or I probably already am). Not that I stop reading, but I would most probably stop reviewing. There’s much give and take in this community, and as much fun as that is, I’ve decided that it’s time to channel my time and energy somewhere else.

What does it mean for Bookie Mee? I will keep it here. I might be back once in a while still to talk about books I’m excited about, but no promises.

What does it mean for you? You all stay on my reader which I still check once in a while whenever I’m in need to be in touch with the book world. All of your resources combined are so invaluable. I will lurk a lot on your sites, but may not leave as much footprint. Hope that’s okay, and hope you would still recognize me if I pop up once in a while. (though don’t ever feel obligated to reciprocate)

Even though this blog will continue to exist, it feels good to have some kind of closure. To announce that I’m stepping out of the inner circle and retiring. Consider me as a bystander now if you will.

Thank you all, it’s been a blast! :)

2006, 132pp

First line
1978 was the year that Ivory Coast, my beautiful country, got to see its first television ad campaign.

Award
Winner of the best first book at the International Comics Festival, Angouleme, 2006

At the end of the book there are some tidbits of information with pictures about their piece of clothing (e.g. pagne (pa-nye) is a piece of brightly colored, wax-printed cloth. Every pattern has a meaning so you need to watch what you wear.), drink (Gnamankoudji, known as ginger juice), and there’s even a recipe! I would really like to try making their African peanut sauce (which is more like stew). A lot of Indonesian food has peanut or peanut sauce, so it’ll be interesting to try this one.

Peanut Sauce recipe

2 lbs beef (or 1 free range chicken)
4 large tomatoes
1 can of tomato paste
2 large onions
1/4 lb jar of unsweetened peanut butter
1 hot pepper
salt
2 maggi cubes

Trim and cube the meat. Dice 1 onion. Brown the meat and onion in a heavy pot, add a bit of salt, cover and simmer for 15 minutes.
When all liquid has evaporated, add 4 tomatoes, cut into quarters, the second onion, cut in half, and a can of tomato paste.
After 10 mins, add water to cover the meat. Stir in the peanut butter, a pinch of salt and the hot pepper (don’t slice or crush – the pepper is meant to perfume the sauce). Remove the pepper after a while (serve it separately for people who like their food spicy), cover and simmer for half an hour.
After the 30 mins, remove the tomatoes and onions, blend them in a food processor and return to the sauce. Add a maggi cube. Top off with enough water to barely cover the meat. Place a lid on the pot and simmer for another 30 mins.
When a film of oil appears on the surface of your sauce it’s done.
Skim off the oil if you like and season to taste. Add the second maggi cube. Your sauce should be rich and flavorful. Serve with rice.

Unfortunately I cannot say the same with Through the Looking-Glass. I’m not sure if it was the timing or if it’s really a less piece of work, but the magic I found in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was a bit lost in the sequel. It was still a pretty good read, but I did not love it as much.

I read the Vintage edition on the right which has both Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, both with illustrations by John Tenniel-the original illustrator. I decided to wait a bit for the second book after reading the first one, hence the gap (they were actually published with 6 years gap anyway).

In Through the Looking-Glass I found that characters often appear and disappear too suddenly (literally–like poof!) which I don’t remember happening as much in the first book and kinda baffled me a little bit. I laughed reading the first one a lot more too. Lots more. The second book is probably supposed to be smarter because it integrates chess moves throughout the entire story, but I never have much interest in chess unfortunately!

What I found interesting was a few key events or characters that were taken from Through the Looking Glass and get adapted into the Disney’s version of Alice in Wonderland, like:

the garden of live flowers (John Tenniel’s illustration on the right)

bread-and-butterfly

tweedledee and tweedledum (John Tenniel’s illustration on the right–as if you’re gonna get it wrong..)

and Mickey Mouse short where he goes through mirror and finds world on the other side of it is an obvious tribute to Through the Looking Glass!

My super favorite passage:

“‘Well, in our country,’ said Alice, still panting a little, ‘you’d generally get to somewhere else — if you ran very fast for a long time, as we’ve been doing.’
‘A slow sort of country!’ said the Queen. ‘Now, here, you see it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!’” ~ p196

which I think so reflects the fast pace of our modern life.

1871, 170pp

I hate birthdays (and I mean mine!). There’s so much pressure to be happy and social and get confirmations of love from people around you. And often the birthdays fall on work days, people ask whether you’d do anything special so you feel like you really have to even though you may not feel to do anything after a long day at work. On top of that you get older another year, forcing you to think whether you have used your years on earth in the best way possible. The clock is ticking, you get less time and more things to do in life.

In other words, birthday is exhausting! So exhausting that I often get sick on my birthdays (oh heat of the pressure!). And worse than the rest of my other birthdays, this year I hit the big 30. I have spent almost the entire year of my last 2, thinking that this is it, this is the last twenties. Have I done everything I wanted to do before I turn 30? Where is my checklist? What do I need to prepare to be 30 and beyond?

Actually I’m not sure why I even write this post. Half of me really just wanted to close my eyes hoping the day goes by quickly and to emerge on the other side of the decade totally indifferent and unscathed. But the other half of me want to acknowledge that yes no matter how you think about it, it is a pretty big milestone (though completely arbitrary in the big scheme of things), so a bit of reflection is called for. I mean, really, 30 is a big deal. You jump to a different age bracket! Even visa and residency rules are getting harder when you turn three-zero (important for me who is citizen of the world).

Going back to the checklist. Honestly, it wasn’t carved on stone. In fact it was never written on paper. I’m guessing everybody has this mental list about things they want to do before they reach certain age. Some you manage to do some you don’t, and I guess the part of growing up is to accept that life is what happens when you’re planning to do something else. Looking back I do tick all the major points that I want to do by the time I’m 30, some I never thought I could do but happened anyway (love the surprises of life!). I have lived in 7 different cities in 4 different continents, married my high school sweetheart, taken a mortgage, done a month of backpacking trip, credited for 3 video games and 1 animated movie, published a piece in a magazine, and gone for lots and lots of traveling and road trips. Sure I have not jumped out of a plane or been to Japan, but they’re easily achievable within a year or two. I have not had a dog (not since I was a kid)–that’s probably one of the hardest to achieve with my nomaden style of living. Some things I thought I wanted to do, I no longer do. That’s the great thing about the list. It’s fluid and it’s changing all the time as the wheel of life goes on.

But if I was to learn anything in my 30 years of living, it’s that friendship and relationship is the hardest of them all. Probably especially for me who in the past 13 years never stays in one place longer than 3 years continuously. Despite my (sometimes their) best effort to keep in touch, physical distance does make a big difference. Friendships fade away. If I used to believe that the best of friends would always be there for you though you may not hold hands all the time, I learned it the hard way that it’s not true. That you do need to hold hands, keep in touch, nourish the friendship, and if you don’t the day you need them the most you’ll turn back and find they’re no longer there. So yes as you can tell, though I make new friends every time I go to a new place, I lose friends too. I lost a couple of important ones for reasons I cannot fathom. I don’t regret it as such because I guess part of growing up is to accept that people do grow in different directions and to let things go. If anything it does make me appreciate those who do stay and those who might come into my life in the future.

Here’s to another decade of life and surprises!

No I didn’t get sick this year. And had a lovely day too :). Like I said, I survived!

Well, at least the list nudged me to write this little post, right? I’m not staying long now, but I do have a couple of books I want to talk about so I’ll come back soon. In news of reading, you might have noticed on my sidebar that I started to read Jane Eyre months ago. Well I’ve been neglecting it a lot (all books really) and so far I’ve only got to around page 150ish, just when Jane meets Mr Rochester on the street when he falls from his horse. Now yesterday I was watching my foodie hero Jamie Oliver on the web, when somehow the newest Jane Eyre movie ads just showed up again and again (the movie was out months ago but I think the DVD is coming up soon hence the ads), and I was panicking everytime the ad showed up, because I hate spoilers! So imagine me frantically trying to mute the ad on my laptop and not see the clip at the same time (MUTE! MUTE! I don’t wanna hear what Mr Rochester is saying to Jane! I don’t want to see them kissing! Aarrgghh!). On a hindsight I probably should’ve just pressed the mute button on my laptop keyboard instead of trying to click the mute button on the small web video window with eyes half closed. Anyway, all that made me start to read the book again today as I want to find out what happens next.

Be back soon!

So instead of reading a book, I read the free newspapers. Now the free papers are kinda new to me too. In Australia we have one free paper, and that’s only in the evening, only available in the city area. The free paper MX is quite thin and mostly contains unimportant things, like magazine in a form of newspaper: gossip, light news, horoscope. But in London, there are one free paper in the morning from suburban area, and one in the evening. There is also a free magazine every Wednesday which I quite like (Stylist). The papers here are quite thick, and feel almost like real paid newspapers (actually I never pay for newspapers, so I don’t know what they’re really like). Okay, after a couple months, I started to notice that they contain mostly either murders or what Kate is wearing that day, but other random bits and pieces are perfect for the rather short tube rides I have.

Apart from the free papers, I read travel books, photography books, Japanese language learning books, I listen to podcasts. At home I read cookbooks and watch movies on my laptop (no TV yet). Anything but sinking into long period of reading. Especially at home, there’s far too much distraction for me to settle. Therefore I find non fiction to be a lot easier for dipping in and out. I get frustrated with fiction, with how slow my progress is by reading only a few pages in the morning.  I started a few books and have not finished any. I don’t want to name names, because I think it’s me, not the books!

Now going back to the one I did finish. There’s good reason for that. It’s only 89 pages long, with a few illustrations. The book is tiny. Has almost no weight. So on a good day I could even read it on one hand standing up. And it was given lent to me by a friend before I left Sydney. I think it’s very sweet to lend a book to someone before they go on a long journey. Sort of like saying, we’ll see each other again. (Though in my case he also wrote his address on the last page of the book so that I could send it back…) He asked me to REALLY return it because he can’t find it anywhere else. (Actually that part is not true either because I can see it in amazon.) I said, well what if I don’t return it back. After all I’m going to the other part of the globe. He can’t chase me for it. He said, “Oh you will. I’ve lent it to dozens of people. The book always comes back.”

So, that’s the story how the book came to be. It is Fup by Jim Dodge, an American, set in California. I’m not quite sure why he thought I would like it. It has nothing to do with where I’m going/am. It’s about a cranky old grandaddy and his grandson Tiny, a gentle giant young man, living in the farm. Grandaddy is obsessed with home brewed whisky and Tiny with making fences. And then there is Fup, a big duck, who is part of the family.

I wasn’t quite sure about the whole granddaddy grandson thing at the beginning, but I loooved it when the duck has come into the picture. The dynamic between the three characters is so endearing. I had many grins and laughs and heartwarming moments. At the end I’m still not sure what the whole point is, but I think it’s a lovely little book and I know why my friend liked it. It’s got him written all over it.

So, thanks Matt!

1997, 89 pp

“You know, I’ve seen 30,000 sunsets, and no two that I can remember have ever been the same. What more can we possibly want?” ~ Seven Moons, p67

Claire of kiss a cloud for The Complete Maus!

Congratulations Claire!

Wish I could send you all a book because you’re all my favorite bloggers and people *

* including the ones that did not enter the giveaway but left nice comments :)

I’ve been quite frantic in keeping up with all the new things going on every single day, so my reading (and blog reading) has not gone back to its usual activity. But with work started just last week, I hope to start settling into routines of some sort soon-ish, reading or otherwise.

Also, I’ve been on tumblr a bit, trying it out. So I’m sharing Mee’s Adventures in Wonderland, in case you’re interested photography, traveling, London (for now), and the walking-with-camera side of me. It’d be mostly photos with short captions and quotes. One of my favorite so far:

Piccadilly Circus tube station (don’t you just love the name?)

On another note, I met Jo and Jackie on a Friday morning last week in Bracknell, a lovely little town, about an hour train trip from London, with awesome secondhand bookshops! Thanks to these two who dragged me from one shop to another, I came back with a good loot and started filling my bookshelf. What is a home with empty bookshelf, right? I can’t remember why we didn’t take picture of us. I wish we did!

Lastly, happy long weekend to those in UK! It baffled me that you can have a public holiday for no reason at all. Just “bank holiday”. One bank holiday at the beginning of May, and then one more at the end. That’s it. No reason. Well, I’m all for random public holiday! I was thinking to go to the Hay festival and stay for a night but it seems all cold and rainy for the weekend and I don’t feel like spending too much time outside. Maybe next weekend? Is any of you going or have gone before?

Yes, as of yesterday the 10th of May 2011, I am officially a London based blogger. Surprise!

A little bit of a flashback. I started to look around for new job opportunities in January/February. Adventurer at heart, it’s only natural that I looked overseas. All you UK bloggers always made me green with envy with your cool bookshops and literary events and the whole Europe at your doorstep, so I decided that I WANT TO LIVE THERE.

And by struck of luck it is actually happening. I mean UK is not the easiest place to get into right now, what with the change of coalition government and stricter visa rules and allowance. My job title is on the shortage occupation list however so my new company was able to sponsor me.

It didn’t happen overnight of course, so there were weeks of thinking and considering and fretting. First, my husband would not come with me, not at first anyway. He was just settling in in Australia and started a pretty good job, so we think it’s best for him to stay there a bit more and see how things go. Then early on, around the same time as the London company replied to my application, out of the blue I was contacted by a game company in Kyoto to see if I was interested in their Japan based position, adding complications to the mix. So at one point after interviewing and negotiating process, I had two job offers, for two different job roles, from two completely different countries, both of which I have always wanted to go to or live in.

I was completely torn. UK or Japan? London or Kyoto? Film or game? Which one? Which one? Whichever that I picked would have a big impact to the rest of my path. I would do different things. I would meet different people. Both opportunities may only come just once. So I tossed and turned and lost sleep for many nights.

But you know the end of my dilemma. I picked London. Hubby and I think that this is the better move for my career path, and the salary gap could not justify the Kyoto position. I don’t say goodbye to Japan for sure, just “not now” :). (I found this website to be quite accurate for broad comparison between two countries: ifitweremyhome.com. For example, if Japan were my home instead of the UK, I would make 7.39% less money and work 9.4% more hours each year. If Indonesia were my home instead of Australia, I would die 10.67 years sooner and make 89.96% less money. The 10 years gap of life expectancy is so true. Most old people/relatives I know in Indonesia including my grandparents died in their 70s while Australians generally look and feel younger in their 60s, 70s, and 80s. Uum I’m going on a tangent here… Let’s go back.)

So. That’s a long way to explain why I only put up like 2 posts per month for the last 3 months…

Admittedly I am in a pretty bad book slump too. Feel like I haven’t read properly for ages. Maybe it’s the stress of waiting and the anticipation of moving. I’ll just have to wait it out until the mojo comes back.

Meanwhile, in the spirit of my tradition, I’m having a giveaway! New job, book giveaway. Makes perfect sense, no? Here’s the list of all English books that I have read since 2003 by author. To enter, let me know what book you would want from the list if you win the giveaway. If no title catches your interest, you can pick another title that I haven’t read by any of the authors in that list. And while you’re here, can you also tell me what is your favorite book either by a British author or set in UK? If you don’t have any, just a favorite book will do, or book that you think I should read immediately! I’m hoping that some recommendations from book bloggers will take me out of my book slump. Help!

Giveaway opens internationally for 2 weeks. Will close on 26 May 2011. I look forward to your comments! :)

East of Eden is an epic novel of the oldest topic in the history of mankind, or “the only story we have” according to Steinbeck: good vs. evil. Set in early 1900s US, we follow the life of family threads for generations. It’s the era of settlement. People migrate, look for a place to stay, and cultivate the land. New towns and cities are built. Everybody tries to fit into a role: blacksmith, businessman, farmer, student, soldier, sheriff, seamstress, pimp, whore.

East of Eden has biblical undertone, with the story of Cain and Abel resonates throughout the book. The two major conflicts between brothers are the focus, along with conflict between Adam and his … not Eve, but Cathy. For me Cathy is easily the most interesting character in the book. It is made clear from the very beginning that there is something lacking in her. That she seems to be born with no conscience, doing one evil deed after another with no guilt nor regret, except when it endangers her situation. The other very interesting character is Lee, the Chinese-descent man who lives with Adam, first as his servant, later as his trusted friend. Clearly it was a time where racism was rampant, so even though Lee is all American born, everybody sees him as an outsider. To fit into the mold people expect him to be, he talks pidgin–broken English with heavy fake Chinese accent.

I would say East of Eden is a character centric novel, which I really enjoyed as I like my novel to have strong believable characters, while plot could be secondary. I do have a slight nagging feeling that the book is possibly enjoyed more by men than women. There is a myriad of major male characters, with only one major female character, who is the epitome of evil. I could be wrong. If you have read it, what do you think?

Steinbeck’s prose is straightforward and beautifully descriptive. I enjoyed the 600-page tome very much, though at times I wished it could be a little tighter. Will surely read more of his books in the future!

1952, 600pp

Memorable Quotes

“You can boast about anything if it’s all you have. Maybe the less you have, the more you are required to boast.” ~ p4

“When a child first catches adults out–when it first walks into his grave little head that adults do not have divine intelligence, that their judgments are not always wise, their thinking true, their sentences just–his world falls into panic desolation. The gods are fallen and all safety gone. And there is one sure thing about the fall of gods: they do not fall a little; they crash and shatter or sink deeply into green muck. It is a tedious job to build them up again; they never quite shine. And the child’s world is never quite whole again. It is an aching kind of growing.” ~ p19

“I’ll have you know that a soldier is the most holy of all humans because he is the most tested–most tested of all. I’ll try to tell you. Look now–in all of history men have been taught that killing of men is an evil thing not to be countenanced. Any man who kills must be destroyed because this is a great sin, maybe the worst sin we know. And then we take a soldier and put murder in his hands and we say to him, ‘Use it well, use it wisely.’ We put no checks on him. Go out and kill as many of a certain kind or classification of your brothers as you can. Ad we will reward you for it because it is a violation of your early training.” ~ p24

“I think the difference between a lie and a story is that a story utilizes the trappings and appearance of truth for the interest of the listener as well as of the teller. A story has in it neither gain nor loss. But a lie is a device for profit or escape. I suppose if that definition is strictly held to, then a writer of stories is a liar–if he is financially fortunate.” ~ p73

“Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.” ~ p131

“”Do you have Chinese ghosts?” Samuel asked
“Millions,” said Lee. “We have more ghosts than anything else. I guess nothing in China ever dies. It’s very crowded.”" ~ p261

“It was not laziness if he was a rich man. Only the poor were lazy. Just as only the poor were ignorant. A rich man who didn’t know anything was spoiled or independent.” ~ p339

Project
Guardian’s 1000 novels everyone must read | Nobel Laureates in Literature

Also reviewed by
A Guy’s Moleskin Notebook | Rebecca Reads
(Did I miss yours? Let me know!)

East of Eden The Movie (1955)

The movie covers only the second part of the novel with Cal (Adam’s son) as the main character. Here’s what is off: Cal in the book is the unlikeable kid with the dark face while Aron is one with angelic face who everybody likes. Well, Cal in the movie is soooooo good-looking. Seriously, it is unlike me to gush over a movie star, but my gosh I could not take my eyes off him. WHO IS HE? WHO IS THIS PRETTY YOUNG MAN? I looked him up and apparently he’s James Dean! Whose name I had heard of before of course, but I never quite knew what he looked like or what movies he was in. Apparently East of Eden was one of only the three movies in which James Dean played a major part, and he died on a tragic car crash at the age of 24! What a loss! (It’s also so weird that I feel so much loss over someone who died more than 55 years ago because I just found out about him yesterday!) James Dean was nominated for Oscar for Best Actor in 2 different movies posthumously (East of Eden was one of them). It was the first official posthumous acting nomination in Academy Awards history. Imagine what he could achieve had he stayed alive!

Apart from James Dean’s nomination for Best Actor, East of Eden was also nominated for Best Director and Best Screenplay. Jo Van Fleet won Best Actress in Supporting Role for her Kate role. It’s really a decent movie, just that again it’s a bit off in its portrayal of Cal and Aron. I felt so much for Cal (SO HURT AND PERFECT-LOOKING) and Aron was this insensitive prick who is really quite annoying (also not so good-looking). So uum.. yes I had stopped being objective and all, what with James Dean stealing my heart completely.

Another big change was the inexistent of Lee the Chinese man. What a shame. I would’ve loved to see how they would handle it. Most of his roles in the story is taken by Abra (Aron’s girlfriend). The love story here is also more emphasized than the book.

Would I recommend the movie? Yes yes yes. Two words. James. Dean.

Rating: 8/10

Look at that gorgeous face

ps: Some birds said that a new East of Eden movie is in the making. It’s a huge book so I’m curious to whether they’d take the same portion of the book to screen as the 1955 version. And who’s going to play Cal? (assuming his story is in) Who wants to be compared to James Dean?! Wouldn’t want to be him.

“The Red Tree began an experimental narrative more than anything else: the idea of a book without a story. I’ve always loved Chris Van Allsburg’s classic picture book ‘The Mysteries of Harris Burdick’ (1984) which is a great example of word-picture enigmas, exhibiting partial fragments of unknown stories and leaving the reader to use their imagination. It has no sequential narrative, which is something a picture book is ideal for – you can open it at any page, go backwards or forwards, and spend as much time as you wish with each image.” ~ Shaun Tan’s comment on The Red Tree

I was intrigued when he mentioned Chris Van Allsburg. Never heard of him before. A quick browse of his name showed that not only he’s a very successful author and illustrator, of books that have been made into films like Jumanji and Polar Express, but also how close his artwork style is to Tan’s. It’s easy to see where Tan got his inspirations from. The images reminded me distinctly of The Arrival. I’ll be sure to look out for his books in near future!

Going back to The Red Tree, it contains ones of the strongest images that I have seen several times featured by other bloggers. And the book is as good as everyone raves it to be. It’s really hard to imagine The Red Tree to be read by little children, fairly dark and depressing as it is, even though it ends with a hopeful note. (In case you missed it–I did, there’s a small almost unnoticed red leaf at every page, symbolizing hope)

“nobody understands”

“sometimes you just don’t know what you are supposed to do”

“or who you are meant to be”

The Red Tree is such a beautiful book. Every page could stand on its own as a surreal painting. I love having it in my Shaun Tan personal library.

2001, 32pp

The Red Tree as puppet-based theatre production (Queensland, 2004) — with some spectacular images

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su[shu] | things mean a lot | mental foodie