Because the Bottle Looks Classy

The heirloom tomatoes are beautiful. The basil leaves are bright and fragrant. I was out of olive oil.



Have you been to the olive oil aisle lately? My eyes started swimming. Or maybe it was my brain that was gasping for air. Faced with rows of choices, I made up some quick basis for elimination. These ones are too expensive. Those have too much extraneous stuff: I don't need citrus-infusion and twigs of thyme in the bottle. Greek olive oils are too strong for this dish. These bottles are too big. Those are too small.

And still there are too many choices.

Pretty soon, I am rejecting bottles for random reasons: the label color is too trendy, the font is trying too hard to be old-world, the description has too many exclamation points.

All I want is a good-quality olive oil. Short of tasting every single bottle, how was I to decide? Are the oils described as" vibrant" the same as those described as "fresh?" What does "harmonious" mean? And how is "distinct" a helpful adjective? Why can't I remember any of the brands that I'd read in Cook's Illustrated or some other olive oil survey done in Simple Magazine?

In the end I bought an unfiltered extra virgin olive oil from Italy. I am sure I chose it in part because of ridiculous reasons: the pleasing shape of the bottle: straight sides, skinny; its plain label in a muted green and well-placed letters in a sans serif font; and descriptions that are devoid of hyperbolic claims and exclamation points.

Publishing is supposedly doing fairly well in the face of all the uncertainties of the industry and the wider economy. Books are still being published, lots of them. But when I browse in a bookstore, not even necessarily a big one, I feel the same way as I did in the olive oil aisle. How do I know?

In the end, I go with award winners and honorees, I go with authors I've read before, I go with recommendations from other readers, bookstore employees, librarians, blogger friends, I go with captivating titles and intriguing subject matters. I am sure book covers play a role in my decisions, unfortunately. I've come across many fine books but I can't help but fee las if I am missing out on some gems because they haven't managed to call themselves to my attention.

My olive oil tasted fine, by the way. Subtle and mild but not bland. But I wonder about that other bottle with the trendy label or the one who surely looks too common to taste good.

Review: The Solitude of Prime Numbers

The premise/title of this book is one of the most original and promising I've come across in a long time. Prime numbers, as we learned in school, are numbers that are divisible only by themselves and the number one. Some of these are very close together, 41 and 43, for example, but they never touch, they are always separated by at least one other number. Prime numbers are destined for solitude.

What an elegant idea. The aloneness and close-but-not-quite relationships are perfectly captured in this title.

Each of the two protagonists in this novel makes a life-changing decision in their childhood. The tragedies that befall them as the result cast them into an isolation that nothing can break through, not even family, or perhaps, especially not family. The two of them meet up in their youth, drawn to each other without knowing the grief that lies in the other. In their adult life, they are apart, both wondering where and how the other fits.

The author uses a subtle way of telling the story. He doesn't belabor the emotional state of the characters but trusts that readers will deduce from the details he has provided. It works very well for the story.

This subtlety, of not spelling out the intended conclusion for the reader, didn't serve me as well for the ending. In the last quarter of the book, the plot picks up, suggesting a strong possibility of a particular type of resolution. Until that point, I was willing to go with the author, to see where he will take the story. With those events in the plot, I started thinking about an either-or solution. Not only was I disappointed in the direction that took me, but I was also frustrated by how the story actually ended.

I don't always need conclusions to be drawn and themes to be spelled out. I love endings that leave me wondering. But this ending wasn't one of those.

The reason, I believe, is that I don't think the relationship between the two protagonists have been shown convincingly enough for me. Because of that, it fell into a standard will-girl-get-back-with-boy plot rather than will-two-prime-numbers-who-are-misunderstood-by-the-world-find-each-other-and-how-will-their-lives-be-connected-if-at-all.

I got the pain and sorrow and guilt each one of the protagonists feels. I got their feelings of not belonging. I just never got the nature of the tie between them or how strong or unique it was. And that's the reason I didn't feel that the ending worked for me.

A movie is being made/has been made based on the book. And I think it may work better. Chemistry between people can be shown on screen much more effectively than on the page. Wonder if it'll be the case of this story.

This is the first review I've written since my post in which I declare myself no longer a slave to fear. Okay, maybe it's less dramatic than that.But I do want to share more of the things about books that give me pause. If only for the reaction I get from others who have read it.

So my question to you, my friends, is this: which is your reaction?

• "Oh, well. I'll probably skip the book."
• "Hmm. I wonder if I'll get it more clearly than she did. Let me read it to find out."
• "Not sure if I understand her problem with the book."
• Other. Please describe.
  

I'd really love to know.

Small but not Insignificant

This week I've noticed of a number of the small, the minute in among the Big, the Important.


Small action: a senator casting a vote, inspiring an end of a stalemate and hopefully a start to something better.


Microstyle Writing Contest by Gotham. Expressive economy of words. Miniature messages.

THE PRIZE
The author of the winning entry will receive bragging rights and:

• 10-week Gotham Writing Workshop
• $50 Barnes & Noble Gift Card
• One-year Subscription to The Writer (12 issues)
• Microstyle: The Art of Writing Little

Description of a Man Booker Prize longlisted book

...concentration on isolating tiny fragments of experience and apprehension makes for an intense and immersive read...

Beloved Character With No Soul, Paddington Bears,and Geek Love, or What Happens When You Throw A Question Out On Your Blog

My follow-up post yesterday to this one brought about some interesting outcomes. First, Domey Malasarn has been dared to write about a character he loves, one that is without a soul.


Second, F. Scott Bailey shares his antidote to reading books that are too grim.

And those are just the outward consequences. In responding to the insightful comments, I have been thinking and re-thinking about how I feel about difficult books. Reading The Solitude of Prime Numbers allowed me to discover a few things and now I am toying with the idea of doing another experiment.

But first, a bit of backstory.

Sometime last year, Jim McCarthy offered to give book suggestions to readers who told him the last three books they enjoyed. The book he recommended to me was Geek Love by Katherine Dunn. After reading about it, I decided to wait and chose to read some suggestions he offered other readers. I found Purple Hibiscus and This Is Where I Leave You this way.

One of the reason I shied away from Geek Love is its subject matter. From what I've read about it, the book is populated with people who do things that are difficult to understand. One character willingly ingested unsafe chemicals while pregnant in hopes of producing children who will be deformed. Just this bit of information alone gives me chills.

Yet I'd heard good things about Geek Love from different sources. And since I am exploring why I don't want to continue books that are bleak and depressing in which people do nasty things to others for unfathomable reasons, this book seems like a prime candidate to test that premise.

But I am not sure if I really want to.

Have any of you read it? Or if not, what do you think you would do if you were me?

It's difficult to keep reading

At the DGLM blog, Jim McCarthy asked if anyone has thrown a book after reading it. The post elicited quite a number of responses. Not surprising, since most of the readers of that blog are likely people passionate about books.

Thinking about readers being frustrated enough to want to throw a book makes me wonder about the reasons. I usually stop reading when I find the stories boring or the writing intentionally coy or pretentious, incoherent, or otherwise not engaging. But the most recent book I wanted to stop reading was extremely well-written by an author whose work I enjoy very much.

When I started Gary Schmidt's Okay For Now, I almost couldn't finish it. Not because I disliked the writing or the story but because what was happening to the protagonist was difficult to read about.

[minor spoiler alert}

This kid, Doug, has a father who's uncaring and cruel. His older brothers take after his father, and his mother stands aside, helpless. As an adult, a parent, and a teacher, I was deeply affected by the ordeals of this young man. But knowing that most juvenile fiction is essentially hopeful and contains ideas of redemption and change, I read on. And by the end, the fate of the protagonist isn't as bleak as the beginning suggests. The solutions are satisfying, though some of it rather rosy, but I was glad it ended the way it did.

I just started another book that I am tempted to stop. I decided to read Paolo Giordano's The Solitude of Prime Numbers because of the title. (Don't tell me you don't pick up books for quirky reasons! Why people read what they read: an interesting topic to explore and one for a future blog post.)

I have only read 5 or 6 chapters of this book and I am again so disturbed by what's happening to the protagonists, both young people, that I don't feel like reading on. The ugliness within human nature that the events in this book touches on is disturbing. I am not disgusted so much as overwhelmed by the darkness that is possible in this world.

Maybe I'm a light weight when it comes to confronting the dark and the horrid. Maybe there's enough sadness in the real world that I don't have the energy to take much more in the fictional world. Maybe I don't have the gumption to read about young people affected by depravity.

But why is it that I have no trouble reading other books in which people face evil? Katniss's fate in Hunger Games is worse than bleak. Several people attempt suicide in A Long Way Down. The narrator in The Lovely Bones is dead. I had no trouble reading any of it.

So I don't know. Your thoughts?

Do you have books you can't read? I know people who won't read books in which children are tortured. Many have a limit for the degree of violence or gore. What are the books that are difficult for you to read?

Edited to add: I just remember another book, Room, in which the small child has to face an unimaginable life. I liked the book and had no trouble reading, even though I was immersed in his world and felt the horror of his life but didn't stop reading. So what is it?

Which is your list?

Gotham Writers complied top ten/must read lists from 14 sources, including Newsweek, Oprah, Christian Science Monitor, and The Atlantic. I am a shoe-lover in Nordstrom, a foodie in Hong Kong, and a indie film enthusiast at Sundance.

I find myself picking and choosing from different lists even though I feel my tastes run closer to some than others.

Take a look and let me know if there is one list that hits all the rights spots for you or if you're like me, choosing from different ones.

Now to find the time to read all of them.

The Making of a Bookworm

I became a bookworm because my brother needed a break from his annoying little sister.


I was 9 and he was 18, home from college, jet-lagged and worn out by playing with me. Eventually he handed me a book so he could have some peace and quiet. So of course I pestered him incessantly about the meaning of the words I didn't understand. (To his credit, he remained unfailingly patient.) After a couple of pages, however, I was so caught up I just skipped ahead. There was a story to be discovered, what were a few unknown words?

Peace and quiet for him, a lifelong love of fiction for me.

I need to back up and tell you that my siblings and I were born into a household of reading materials: Chinese classic texts and literature, foreign stories translated into Chinese, issues of National Geographic, a set of encyclopedia. I read mostly Chinese books when I was in grade school. In English, I read captions for National Geographic photographs, jokes from Readers' Digests, and comics from the English daily newspaper. My vocabulary was limited. (And often skewed by my misunderstanding of lyrics in American pop songs.)

Turned out my brothers had a whole collection of Enid Blyton books: on boarding schools, adventures, mysteries, fairies and gnomes and elves. I spent the next years devouring all of them, multiple times. I enjoyed the Famous Five adventures and boarding school stories. I even wrote a story, when I was about 13, that took place in a boarding school in England, with a protagonist named Bronwyn or Beatrice or something else with a strong British flavor. Yes, my characters had midnight feasts and drank ginger beer and routinely turned as red as beetroot. I still remember characters from Mallory Towers and St. Clare's: Darrell and Felicity Rivers, Pat and Isabel, Alicia, Mary Lou, a perfect head-girl named Rita, a teacher named Nosy Parker, and a new girl who was unjustly sent to Coventry. I longed to be allowed to wander around an island with my cousins and solve mysteries, and craved bacon and eggs for breakfast instead of milo and bread with kaya.

Sigh. Memories.

Despite all the criticisms of Enid Blyton's work, I am enormously grateful that she chose to write. These books opened my eyes to lives in foreign places and unfamiliar customs, made me a fluent reader, and laid the foundation for a habit of reading.

What are the first books that hooked you?

Fellow readers who grew up with Enid: which were your favorite books? What are some phrases you remember from her books, besides "red as beetroot?"Did you want to be one or another of her characters?

But why?

I finished a thriller/suspense novel a little while ago and am not sure what to make of it. I enjoyed the first third, but by the middle of the book, I had lost interest. I finished the book just to see if the ending would capture my attention again. It didn't.

The writing is good and the plot interesting, but the characters' motivations remained unaddressed. I followed along, despite not knowing why this character would go there and that character would turn up here, but I felt like a small child being told to stay quiet and not ask any questions on a long and complicated journey using multiple modes of transportation. It went from being frustrating to infuriating to numbing.



This experience made me think about the importance of motivation in a story. Why do characters do what they do? Are they confined by their personalities: a loving person cannot help but choose the loving thing and a curious person cannot help but seek out answers? Are they succumbing to circumstances? Sophie had to choose one child or the other. Are their actions solely dictated by plot?

I don't mean that we need to know at every point why a character would something. Keeping it hidden for a while keeps the readers intrigued. Keeping some motivations hidden the entire time makes the reader ponders even after the book ends. But keeping almost all the motivations hidden most of the time makes a story just a series of arbitrary events. Why would any reader care?

How much tolerance do you have for not knowing why characters do things in a book? Have you read a book that frustrated you this way?

Review of Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro

Nocturnes
by Kazuo Ishiguro

Nocturnes is a collection of short stories that revolve around musicians: crooners, jazz musicians, has-beens, not-yet-beens, guitarists, cellists. This collection made me realize anew how much I love short stories.

I have always thought Ishiguro writes with a certain musicality and I knew this was a book I had to read. I was not disappointed. The musical details are real—so grating to find inauthentic descriptions of a musician’s world—and the thought processes and struggles familiar. There are heartbreaking events, but the author treats them, and the characters: despondent, clueless, or disappointed, with sensitivity and care.

What struck me the most about this collection was the choice of the narrator. Except for Nocturne, the most substantial story of the collection, the others are told by a bystander, like Nick Carraway telling the story of Daisy Buchanan and Jay Gatsby. The first story, Crooner, the narrator helps the major players of the story complete a task without knowing his role. In the last story, Cellists, the narrator has but a passing acquaintance with one half of the main characters and no relation at all to the other half. The narrators in the other two stories, Come Rain Or Shine, Malvern Hills, while steeped in their own concerns, unwittingly play a part in the reunion / breakup for another couple.

The choice of narrator, the choice of point-of-view, is one that usually doesn’t call attention to itself to a reader. Yet as a writer, I know how important it is. It sets the tone of the story, gives the story the certain bias, highlights some details while deliberately excluding others.

Ishiguro’s choice in this collection results in a balance between intimacy and distance that works perfectly. Obviously, using an observer to tell a story isn’t a magic pill. In lesser hands, this would probably be as ineffective and self-conscious as harvesting a crop with safety scissors.

And that’s the thing about reading a consummate writer. We can dissect and analyze and come up with principles all we like. But unless we keep writing, incorporating these new ideas or throwing them out, all the analysis and studying is still not going to make any difference in our own work.

Is that why they brought in Robert DeNiro?

Some works set such a high standard that sequels often come with unreasonable expectations. Take Godfather: can you imagine the pressure Coppola had when he began Godfather II?


The success of Hunger Games made Catching Fire and Mockingjay tough standards to live up to. (For the record, I thought both of them were done superbly.) Harper Lee stopped after To Kill a Mockingbird. Star Wars...never mind.

[The only redeeming factor]

Writers jump through hoop after hoop after hoop to get published. It's easy to think that once there is a contract, things will get easier. (Here I pause for my published friends to interject and tell me it ain't so.)

I believe them. When you write a book that is loved, you feel your readers' expectations. Authors who keep besting their efforts are amazing. I am reading Tana French's third book, Faithful Place, right now.

A friend loaned me The Likeness and I read it without being aware of the buzz it had garnered. It was a wonderful reading experience. I then picked up In The Woods and enjoyed it just as much. When I found out last year that she had come up with a third book, I was thrilled but apprehensive. Can she live up to the first two books or will I have to watch Sofia Coppola act?

I finally picked it up this week and I am two thirds of the way through and I have to say I am relieved to find the writing just as impressive and the story just as captivating. Actually, I'll go even further to say I think this is the best of the three.

Do you do that? Worried about your expectations being too high for a beloved author or filmmaker? Do you have favorite sequels?

Most memorable books I read in 2010

It's that time of the year again, when we look back on the year and take stock, noting the highlights and milestones, and of course, my year-end contemplation is incomplete without remembering the books I've read. Here are some that have touched me in some way:

Loveliest book to read aloud with children:

The Magician's Elephant by Kate DiCamillo

Authors new to me whose work I must check out:

Nick Hornby
Aimee Bender

A book in which plot, character, language share equal weight, marrying genre and literary seamlessly:

In The Woods by Tana French

A middle grade series featuring two young adventurers, a boy and a girl, a trait that characterizes several other series, but manages to feel fresh and captivating:

Leviathan by Scott Westerfield

A book that rewarded careful, slowed-down reading

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing: The Pox Party by M. T. Anderson

A book that is much less gimmicky and much more pleasurable to read than at first glance:

Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

An irreverent book that made me think about important stuff:

Lamb by Christopher Moore

Two favorite books that captured me, stayed with me, and completely baffled me as to how the authors managed to come up with what they did:

Let The Great World Spin by Colum McCann

Tales From Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan

Let me know which of these book you've read and share some of your favs this year.

Follow up to the hiatus

Thanks for the good wishes for my blog hiatus. I thought I'd provide an update.

I finally completed the revision of my MG novel and sent it off. There was so much energy from the high of having completed an important task, I thought it would carry me to my new task, which was to work on my WIP, a YA novel.

But I couldn't write. There were too many thoughts, all going at high speeds heading toward different directions, in my mind. Scattered, cluttered, over-energized. The only way to calm down, I found, was to read.

I picked up three books, all different from one another, and from what I tend to write: The Underneath by Kathi Appelt, The Discomfort Zone by Jonathan Frazen, and Oryx and Crake by Margaret Attwood.

When I went back to my WIP a few days ago, my mind was relaxed and refreshed, and I was able to see how I needed to proceed.

And now, I seem to have found a flow for working on this book that I don't want to let go. Blogging has to take a back seat yet again.

I wish I could write and blog and live as a member of my family in a balanced way but I am apparently wired to focus on only very few things at a time.

I will see you all, if you're still around, when I next surface from my writing.

A Long Way Down: A Review

A book about four people who went up to a rooftop on New Year's Eve to commit suicide but abandoned the idea and formed an unlikely alliance: Who wants to read a book like that? Wouldn't being in the heads of not one, but four, suicidal people be depressing? And if there is any light-heartedness or humor or cleverness, wouldn't it get old or annoying after a few pages?

That Nick Hornby can avoid these and other pitfalls of a book with this premise makes him a hero-author to me.

I was engaged throughout the book. The writing is authoritative (a novel told in four first-persons point-of-view had better exude authority) without being arrogant. Morality was something that was touched on often, but never with a heavy hand.

When people contemplate suicide and life, they are bound to have many moments of reflection and rumination, yet none of it in the book is announced and treated as Deep Thought Moments. The characters wondered about things, observed the newest unexpected turn of events, and came to certain conclusions, but these moments never felt contrived or overwrought. And while some of the events seemed bizarre, they didn't feel forced.

At the Lit Lab yesterday, the topic was on novel structure and the reinvention of the form. (They are much more articulate over there and you should read the post and the comments.)

I am not convinced that A Long Way Down qualifies as a novel that broke the mold but its form was most definitely the outcome of the story. Because it didn't follow any formula that I recognized, my reading experience was an adventure. I was never quite sure what the next chapter would bring but I didn't care. I did not miss having any idea about where the story would lead; I just wanted to follow it as it unfolded. The anticipation and fulfillment were often very satisfying.

I am going to check out more Hornby books. I don't know what to expect, but I secretly hope each one will dictate the structure and I will continue to be drawn to pursue what comes next.

Any other Hornby fans out there? Detractors?

It's Alive!

I started writing a post to follow up on my musicspeak post last week. It took me quite a bit longer than I expected, but it was a good exercise that made me think harder about and dig deeper into the subject of genres and labels and assumptions. I'm letting that post mull for a bit.

In place of a follow-up to last week's post, this is a follow-up to Monday's post, in which I wondered if writing had killed reading for me.

I am happy to report that reading is still very much alive!

Yesterday at the library while I was checking out books for my kidlets (Sid Fleishman and Gary Paulsen and Linda Sue Park, delish;) I picked up A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby on a whim.

So far, I find myself at times delighted and at other times, thoughtful and somber. It's a story about the New Year's eve when four people meet on a rooftop, each intending to jump to their deaths. Not the most uplifting topic, but Hornby manages to, so far at least, make me smile even as I am confronted with the cruel things in life that cause people pain and despair enough to make them consider suicide.

I have never read any of his other books but have heard good things about them. I find Hornby's writing is so unforced, and his observations so acute that I am convinced that underneath the humor and the seemingly casual treatment of people and their lives, is a thoughtful author who carefully scrutinizes his surroundings and ideas. And that, is a good draw for me.

Oh great, I meant this as a light-hearted post. Don't know why my thoughts keep wandering around unlight-hearted things. But I will rectify that. Here is a sentence from the book I hope you find as cool as I did:

If she hadn't tried to kill me, I'd be dead, no question.

Aqua fortis and Domey Malasarn both mentioned in the comments section last week about how, when they come across a book that captures them, they pause and study, to find out how the author did it. I, however, am feeling rather like I've just found a beautiful feast and just want to eat and leave the thinking about the recipes till later.

My offering to you today: food analogies, a surprising sentence, and a promise I will have that post up, soon.

Addendum: I realize I highlighted a book about suicide in a post titled "It's Alive!" Hmmm.

Banned Books week

To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, Of Mice and Men, Lord of the Flies, The Grapes of Wrath, The Handmaid's Tale, Speak: these are but some of the books that have opened my mind, affected my soul, made me ponder the wonders and abominations of life. To think that I might not have had the opportunity to read them makes me sad. I can only imagine how much poorer I would have been had not been for these books.

The people who want to ban books have one thing right: they know the power of ideas. But they also fear. What do they fear? On a day when I feel charitable, I think they fear the susceptibility of the naive. On a day when I am less so, I think they fear that their own belief system will be challenged.

Harsh? Perhaps. But in a democracy, where some of the most important decisions are made by by individual votes, why are we not given the same courtesy to choose the ideas we want to explore?

As a parent, I am acutely aware of ideas that are not (yet) appropriate for the absorbent and young minds of my children. And I do censor: books, TV shows, movies. But those decisions are borne out of my responsibility as a parent and based not just on the principles/beliefs our family adheres to, but also on my knowledge of my children. The fact that I choose for my children while they are still young doesn't mean I will tell other parents what their children should or should not read.

September 25th till October 2nd is designated Banned Books Week. Here is the American LIbrary Association's page with helpful information and links. Librarians and bloggers everywhere highlighting banned books in the next few weeks and I am going to participate in the Banned Books Challenge hosted by Steph Su Reads. For this challenge, I will read at least one banned book for general audience, and one for children's/YA and post my reviews here between now and October 15th.

Join me, if you're so inclined, and let me know after you sign up at Steph's. And even if you're not participating, do tell me which, among the banned books you have read, is one that you can't imagine not reading.

Degrees of separation: Moore, DiCamillo, Adichie, Tropper

Recently I read four books that seem very different from one another, yet when I finished, I realize common themes thread through them.

Christopher Moore's Lamb has a lot of the author's trademark: breezy dialogues, humor, humor, and yes, more humor, often of the crude sort. Even the subtitle tells you this book is likely to contain a good dose of irreverence: The Gospel according to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal. Yet underneath all that sarcasm and sacrilegious poking-fun lurks an authentic truth-seeker. And if the book itself didn't make me think, the author's afterword certainly did. The voice and tone of those pages are so different, I would have sworn they belonged to somebody else . But they don't, and it was truly eye-opening for me to see how sincerity and cynicism, respect and reverence can marry.


The Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has none of the light-heartedness of Lamb. It is a serious book on serious subjects, yet like Lamb, religion is on every page. As in Lamb, the readers are never told it's bad to do certain things in the name of religion, yet to see how the characters interpret their faith, we can't help but shudder, or at least reconsider our own beliefs and actions as a result of those beliefs.


I got the recommendation of Jonathan Tropper's This Is Where I Leave You from the same place, over at the DGLM blog, when Jim McCarthy recommended books to readers based on the last five books they read. And actually the book he recommended to me is Geek Love, but when I checked out the other recommendations, Adichie's and Tropper's stood out as ones I thought I would enjoy as well.

Religion sets up the backdrop for This is Where I Leave You. A family, who hasn't been very religious, has to sit shiva for a week when the father passed away. Like Lamb, Where I Leave You is filled with wicked wit and a (over)preponderance of sex. And like Purple Hibiscus, it explores dynamics among family members in an honest and raw manner.

Now, how on earth would I link these to Kate DiCamillo, you're thinking? Well, let me try. The book I just finished is The Magician's Elephant. A book that is written in a dreamy, almost surreal manner, where strange people do inexplicable things and where the lives of most of the characters are filled with regrets and sorrow. A book that is about magic. A book that is for middle graders.

What is the one thing that strikes me the most in the book? Not the quirky characters, or the amazing writing. It's hope.

The main event in the story drops into the lives of many who are dejected, tired, and given up. Yet, as it unfolds, every one of them finds hope.

And it is also hope that ties all of these diverse books together for me.

There is hope for the truth-seeker. If you don't buy into organized religion, if you find some of the practice or actions taken by practitioners abhorrent, you don't have to lose hope in your search. You don't even have to give into cynicism. It's fine and good even, to question standard practices; it's essential that you don't allow the sense of right and wrong, good and bad within you to be tainted by what you think the oppressive religious lot are insisting. Truth is not the exclusive property of those who claim they have it. Truth can be sought and found.

There is hope for the one stuck with people they don't know what to do with. People can learn to understand one another, even when the ways are clumsy and stupid, even when most of us prefer to shift blame and hold grudges, even when we will make lots of mistakes. If there is a bond, if there is love, then we will find ways to exist together.

I am not sure why I am in the sort of mood. Or maybe I do. Maybe that's what happens when I open myself to words and ideas and emotions that authors have poured into their books.

The adoration of Tales From Outer Suburbia

On this week's Grab-A-Line Monday, I quoted from Shaun Tan's Tales From Outer Suburbia and the word I described my feelings for the book is "adore." This is not a word I have used for many things, as Jim McCarthy also mentioned in his comments in answering a question in his post, but I do, I do, I so do adore Tales From Outer Suburbia.

It is unlike any book I've come across. And I have no idea how to classify it in my Goodreads page. Short stories? Graphic novel? YA? Fantasy? Picture Book? I finally created a new category called "Outside The Box."

If you clicked the link to the book, you'll have seen some of the illustrations. Those alone can make me sit and sigh for days on end. With the texts added, the result is one amazing book.

The stories are loosely linked by their locations as being from outer suburbia. But the emotional range is wide, covering family reunions; a sense of belonging; curiosity and acceptance of those different from us. Many of these stories take place in whimsical settings and the details are unusual, yet the underlying thoughts are recognizable.

There are quirky stories and stories with social commentaries embedded within. There is even a little violence and sorrow. There is also sweetness and hope. Some of them made me smile while others just tug at my heart.

I adore this book and I hope you'll check it out.

My favorite books in 2009, Part 2

Here is the second installment of the list of books I enjoyed the most in 2009. And thanks for your comments to yesterday's post. Keep 'em coming.

Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt
Of the dozens and dozens of books that take place in a school, this one manages to stand out. A big part of the reason is that his humor is pitch-perfect. No indication of trying to hard or straining for cheap laughs. The humor is ingrained into the voice.

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
Every single book I'd read of this author--Speak, Catalyst, Prom--I've enjoyed. A lot. But this one has moved beyond even those high standards. There were many moments I had to put the book down because not only did she, the author, seemed to have completely gone into the head and heart of the narrator, who's battling her eating disorder and the death of her friend, she got me there as well.

Percy Jackson and The Olympians series by Rick Riordan
The Underland Chronicles by Suzanne Collins
Some series start off with a bang but cannot sustain the momentum the first book has set. These two start off with a bang all right, and kept the great stuff coming. Love. Them. Had to hide The Last Olympian from the 9-year old Percy fan aka my book-inhaler daughter, so I could read it before she did. I know, that's stooping quite low, but you know, I had to make sure there wasn't anything in the book that was inappropriate for her....okay, lame.

When I grow up, I want to be Rick Riordan, Suzanne Collins, or Laurie Halse Anderson.

My favorite books in 2009, Part 1

Here are the books I enjoyed the most last year, in no particular order:
(I've linked to reviews I've written for a few for them, in case you're interested.)

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
I am slightly ambivalent when reading a book that comes with a prestigious award (the Pulitzer in this case) or some other form of expectations. On the one hand, I know that it has convinced quite a few people of its merits, on the other hand, I have higher hopes, whether I realize it or not. And a few of these highly recommended books have disappointed.

But not this one. It is not a novel in the regular sense, but rather a series of stories that are interconnected (which has become more of a norm these days: Let The Great World Spin, another book that bedazzled me recently is written in this structure) around the character of Olive Kitteridge. She is not exactly the most easily lovable character, but over the course of the book, not only has she become a more sympathetic person, so have many other characters and events.

Not a flashy book, but an excellent one, with startling revelations about people and attitudes in the most unexpected moments.


Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Yet another book that came with such high expectations I was almost afraid to read it. But like Hunger Games, It continued to grab me, and refused to let me grow numb to the horror of the premise nor how close to home it hits, with the juxtaposition of extravagant luxuries and stark cruelty, all wrapped within a smooth cocoon presented by the twisted minds of spin doctors.

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead
In contrast, I picked up this book without knowing anything about it and while I was slightly thrown off by how the genre seemed to have changed toward the end, I still loved it. The main thing that struck me was how every single person, even the boy who punched and the man who kicked and the boy and girls who shunned were treated with understanding and compassion. There is no villain, only people.

The Likeness by Tana French
I was in a bit of a conundrum when I started reading this book. My Work-In-Progress, a Young Adult novel that deals with grief and guilt (such happy topics!) was stuck. I had started writing it over a year ago and had to stop to concentrate on revising my Middle Grade novel that I was submitting. When I returned to it, I realize my tone/voice for the new chapters has changed. As I oscillated between writing new scenes and revising old ones, it got confusing and eventually I couldn't write nor revise. I didn't know how to approach the story, how distant or close it would be. And I gave up momentarily out of indecision.

Reading this book, for some reason, got my writing juices going again, and in writing, I slowly came to a tone/voice that I could trust in.

If I were to describe why I enjoyed reading this book, I'd say it's the combination of the great plot (although the premise requires a bit of belief-suspension), superb character exploration, and evocative writing.

The Maze of Bones, Books 1 of the 39 clues by Rick Riordan
Whee!!!!!!

Next installment: tomorrow.

Books and more books

Here I am, still reading Best Of lists and trying to determine which ones I'd like to read, and The Millions are complicating things by looking forward to the books with buzz in the new year!

From my very cursory glance at their list, I am already thinking about John Banville's The Infinities (because I finished The Sea a couple of months ago and still think about it from time to time), Adam Haslett's You Are Not A Stranger Here (no, this is not new but his novel, Union Atlantic is coming out and it's pushing YANASH to close to the top of my list), and Sonya Chung's Long For This World (because I finally accept that my ethnicity/culture plays a big role in my writing and I am curious about how other authors view their cultures.)

Which are the books you plan to read this year? Any of the ones on the list by The Millions strikes you as interesting?