august 2006

jhumpa lahiri - interpreter of maladies (again)
the best american nonreuiqred reading of 2004
sue miller - the distinguished guest
sue miller - for love
sue miller - family pictures

started & couldn't finish:
jostein gaarder - sophie's world

asian lit

recently, thanks to ting, i've read a few books by chinese authors. and a few quarters ago i took a class on lu xun, another chinese author. and i think sometime last year she lent me a bunch of books written by japanese authors. and before that i had taken a class in west asian authors (india and such). so i've covered a few asian regions of lit. and i think everything i've read this far has been from at least the least century.

the problem with japanese and chinese lit, of course, is that they're not first written in english. and so it depends on the translator to do a good job. cause it's not just the story and the words. it's the tone, the quality, of the book. you need to keep that. and, of course, it's hard.

west asians lit is a little like japanese stuff in that it's very solemn. reverent and... thoughtful. but japanese lit seems more ...existential? chinese lit i like least. they try too hard to make a point. it's too exagerated and therefore unbelieveable. it's simply too hard to connect with the characters.

i think by far, west lit is the most beautiful. the language, the imagry, the colors even... it's just... it seems more intricate and gorgeous. i had read a couple things before my classes and loved the tone of each of those books. but taking a class in it made me realize that this quality i had so admired was like... a characteristic of their culture's lit. it's amazing. i think it's easier too. cause they write in english anyway.

recommended books: jhumpa lahiri's interpreter of maladies. i had picked this up at a library years before and just loved it. then i took the class and was very pleasantly surprised to find that we would be reading it too. it's a book of short stories and is everything i love about west asain lit. agha shahid ali's the half-inch himalayas. this is a short book of collected poems. there are many very beautiful works in here. khaled hosseini's the kite runner. a ny times bestseller. a rather heartbreaking tale of a boy growing up. salman rushdie. he's a notable author whom i just can't make up my mind about. i read east, west which i didn't like at all (too expiremental i thought). but i did enjoy midnight's children. i really should read the satanic verses. which is sort of what made him famous, but i just haven't gotten around to it yet.. eh.

july 2006

bergdorf blonds - plum sykes
su tong - rice
wang wen-hsing - family catastrophe
mian mian - candy
maya angelou - i know why the caged bird sings
aj jacobs - the know it all
joshua priven & david borgenicht - the worst-case scenario survival handbook
amin maaloug - ports of call
michael paterniti - driving mr albert
mineko iwasaki - geisha, a life
srah dunant - the birth of venus

picky picky

i have a system when randomly bookshopping. normally i'll be in the fiction / literature section. i'll check out the spines of the books first. i look for interesting images or color and possibly publisher. if i find one i like then i check out the title. it has to be interesting too, either the title itself or the font. if i like that too then i'll take the book out and look at the cover. good cover art is a must! it is only after i've deemed the book aesthetically pleasing will i turn it around and read the summary. i don't usually read the praise quotes. bleh. altho if it says 'funny' i usually put the book right back down. i like humor, but i'd rather borrow a funny book than purchase it. eh. but i esp like how newer books (usually the upper right corner) list the genre. if i like the book summary then i'll flip to somewhere in the middle of the book and read a bit to see if i like the writing style. it's only if i like all this stuff will i actually purchase the book. i mean, cause seriously, how else do you know if a random book is good or not? and it's too hard to get recommendations from people. they might not have your same taste in books. better to have a system that you can fine tune yourself.

june 2006

sylvia plath - the bell jar (again)
charlotte perkins gilman - "the yellow wallpaper" and other short stories (dover thrift) (again)
willa cather - alexander's bridge
stephen crane - "the open boat" and other stories (dover thrift)
camus - the stranger (again)
how i became stupid - martin page
to live - yu hua
the angel with one hundred wings - daniel horch

may 2006

richard north patterson - degree of guilt
jm coetzee - elizabeth costello
stephen king - rose madder (again)
frank mccourt - angela's ashes (again)
richard north patterson - the outside man
margaret atwood - the blind assasin
anne tyler - ladder of years
pete dexter - the paperboy
amy tan - the bonesetters daughter