Read more books

I read two books yesterday. I woke up, decided I wasn’t going to work, finished one book. Took care of all my stuff all day, and rewarded myself around 9 by starting a new book.

Never start a new book at 9 when you have to be up at 7 in order to do something kind of important (student teaching).

I don’t know what time I went to bed, but it was a 500pg book. Ugh.

ADDICT!

Before I get to books 25, 26, and 27, I need to reflect on book 23, All But My Life by Gerda Weissmann Klein. I had the incredible opportunity to see her speak yesterday at my university. She is such a strong, wonderful, funny, amazing and beautiful person. My best friend and I had our arms around each other the entire time crying and crying. Gerda was allowed to accept the Oscar when the documentary based on her book won Best Documentary, Short Subject. She referred back to this moment yesterday:

“People ask me how Hollywood was. Oh, it was nice. Looking at the audience, I was looking at the most privileged people in the world. The women in their dresses worth thousands of dollars, sewn with diamonds on them. And I saw those women crying in the bathroom! Why? Because they did not win this thing. I will tell you, the Oscar is nice. It is in my living room, it shines when the light hits it. But I remember, standing with my tin cup, waiting in the food line. And if there was still soup when I got to the front, it was a good day. And if they dipped deep into the soup, and gave me a potato, I was a winner. I don’t want to live in a world where a potato is more valuable than an Oscar. And I don’t want children to be in a world where an Oscar is so important that you forget that there are people who do not have a potato.”

If you ever have the opporunity to see her, or any other Holocaust survivor speak, please do. Eventually we will live in a world where there are none left to speak (but Speilberg taped lots of them, so you can still see them, actually).

25. Pretties – Scott Westerfield
In the second book, the main character and her best friend finally undergo the opporunity to become Pretties. Brainwashing ensues, blah blah blah. It was okay.

26. Specials – Scott Westerfield
If I were anything, I’d want to be a Special. Once again, brainwashing ensues, blah blah blah. It was better than the second, but not as good as the first. Unfortunately, you have to read the second in order to really appreciate the third, I believe. At this point, I decided no more. I knew there was a fourth book, Extras, but I was tired of the main character and her best friend, and I didn’t want to read any more about them.

I should not have started reading the excerpt in the back of the book from “Extras”, because it has completely new people and takes place in Japan. I’m learning Japanese, so I find this VERY interesting. I think Westerfield is preying on the interest in anime and manga, because in this community people get surgery to look like anime characters (what 13 y/o Japanophile doesn’t want to look like a perfect and lucious toon?), but I’m falling for it.

27. The Pickup – Nadine Gordimer
I was really really excited for this book. Gordimer is a South African Noble Prize Winner, and her book takes place in South Africa and a small Muslim village. Cool, right? I have to say, that of ALL the books I’ve read up to this point, this one was my least favorite. I would not recommend it to anyone. I hated the main character and disliked her boyfriend. I disliked this book so much, that I actually read it about 5 books ago and just had no desire to write about it. I usually dig the Nobel Committee, but…yeah. If anyone has read this book and loved it, I would love to hear about it

24. Uglies – Scott Westerfield
Basically, everyone who has ever felt bad about the way they look should read this book. It’s a young adult novel set in the far future, where, like every utopia, they’ve solved all the problems while creating more. The theory is that back in the old times (read: us, right now), people judged each other by the way they looked. People were jealous, hormonal, unhappy, sad. People killed each other because of the color of their skin. Crazy no? So in this world, the government decides to make everyone equal. From birth to 12 you’re a littlie, cute little kid. From 12-16 you’re an uglie. When you turn 16, you undergo a complete body plastic surgery that makes you ideal. So pretty that you’ll think Angelina Jolie is ugly. If everyone is pretty, everyone is equal….

23. All But My Life – Gerda Weissmann Klein
This is a Polish Jew’s memoir of surviving the Holocaust. Genocide has become a very important issue to me right now (see: We Wish To Inform You Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families) and I think it’s pretty fucking shameful how little everyone seems to know about it in the past and present day. I’m having a really wonderful opportunity through my uni program to attend a workshop about teaching the Holocaust in the secondary classroom. I’m also going to see Ms. Klein speak this week at my school.

There is nothing to say in ‘review’ of the book except: read it.

21. A Cook’s Tour by Anthony Bourdain
I was about 3/4 of the way through it last semester and never got around to finishing it (probably because I read it for a class, and didn’t finish it before my assignment was due, and then I moved on to my next assignment). It’s a good interesting book that will get you really into food. Reading this has made me a more adventerous eater and cook.

22. Predictibly Irrational – Dan Ariely
Really interesting book, but mistitled. A better title would be “Really Weird Things People Do And Why”, like why we can’t get out of a bad relationship even though we might find someone new, why teens and people don’t practice safe sex even though they know they should, why we love the things we own, why we can’t live with less. The writing was not so hot, but the information was highly interesting making it a worthy read.

The Color Purple – Alice Walker

What a book. Tackles life, love, God, and Africa, all four subjects I find interesting.

The fluidity of the relationships was really intriguing to read about. The definition of monogamy and marriage are really loose, and in these cases it’s always for the better. As one woman leaves, another woman steps in to care for the children, etc. Commentary on relationships aside, I think that sense of community could do the entire world a bit of good.

I long to live in communities where people felt the need to help each other and felt a responsibility for one another.

Last week I borrowed an egg from a neighbor for some dinner rolls, today we borrowed a dolly from a different neighbor to help move a new tree. I live in Las Vegas, an large city like any other, where these are rare things.

19. We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families – Philip Gourevitch

This book a fairly big read (350ish pages) about the genocide in Rwanda of the Tutsi people.

Woman in my women’s studies class: “Why don’t they teach us this stuff in school? I remember learning about the Holocaust and thinking ‘that’s terrible, good thing that doesn’t happen anymore!’, but it does, and no one tells you.”

Mom: How can you read stuff like that? I couldn’t read it, it would make me too sad…it’s just hard
Me: I think it’s a lot harder to be a part of a genocide than to read about it

That basically sums up my feelings about the book. It’s definetly the most important book I’ve read all year and I urge people to read it, be informed, be educated. The first step in stopping these things is admitting that they are real, they happened, and they are still happening around the world. As long as we pretend genocide is not happening, it will continue.

My boyfriend picked up a slim book entitled Genocide and passed it to me at the bookstore, so I guess genocide is my theme right now. It basically covers everything from Carthage to Darfur.

18. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress – Dai Sijie
I think it’s easy to tell that this is Sijie’s first book, but it’s also just as obvious that Sigie is a wonderful author with great skill. The way the story is told is not quite gelled together, but it’s a lovely story nonetheless. A short quick read, my only complaint is that it did not last longer.

17. Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingslover
Oh MAN. I rarely read books that are rural or farming or anything of the like, because I was born and raised in Las Vegas and it’s just not interesting to me. But MAN this book is terrific. Wonderful. Amazing. There are three intertwined stories (Old Man, Farmer’s Wife, Park Ranger) and honestly all three were completely interesting. Usually in these kinds of stories I’ll find myself more interested in some of the plot lines, but all three were wonderful. I highly highly recommend it to basically anyone. Especially anyone who has even the teeniest interest in nature, organic farming, pesticides, predators, etc. Very very interesting.

16. Cupcake by Rachel Cohn
I’ve been a Cohn fan since I read Gingerbread back in high school, so I was pretty excited to see this book for sale at the education library (lots of YA goodness, yum). It continues the evercomplicated love story between Shrimp and CeCe. For me, the best best best part was a plug for Emergency Contraception, how to get it, and when to use it. That kind of sneaky information needs to be in more YA books.

Today a friend text messaged me to ask what makes me happiest. I texted her back “curled up in bed reading a good book with my boyfriend curled up next to me.”

But I’m glad he wasn’t curled up next to me for book 15 because he’d be like Why are you reading Memories of My Melancholy Whores.

15. Memories of my Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Before I read Love in the time of Cholera, I wanted to read this book because it sounded interesting. For his 90th birthday, homedude decides to buy himself some time with a sweet lucious virgin. The madam obliges him with a 14 year old and dopes her up a little bit to help make her first time easier…unfortunately the dose is too much and the girl is just sleeping. Thus starts a completely sexless love story between a guy and a would-be whore. I thought the premise was totally intriguing. It was a short book, but a good one.

14 – Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpra Lahiri
I never used to read short stories, but now I really love them, and this set has to be one of the best. I don’t know how to describe it or recommend it. If you like people and the stories of people then you should read it. If you’re at all interested in Indian culture or people then you should also read it.

13 – Love in the Time of Cholera
Wow! I have to say that it’s one of the best love stories I have ever read in my life.
12. NAMAKO: Sea Cucumber – Linda Watanabe McFerrin
If you’re learning Japanese or at all interested in Japan then I think this is definetly worth a read. Or if you really really like sea cucumbers, just because they’re rarely a part of literature, eh?