Hunger of Memory by Richard Rodriguez

Richard Rodriguez was a speaker at the Festival as well. He's an interesting man. He is an essayist. I was going to write, he's got lots of opinions. But that's kind of a dumb thing to say.

Anyway, this is a memoir. He and his family were immigrants from Mexico, and he grew up in the Sacramento area. He talks quite a bit about the experience of learning English after only speaking and knowing Spanish in his home. He writes about the intimacy of the language they use at home vs. the public language of English in school. The experience was very significant, maybe even traumatic for him. He talks about the guilt of hearing his parents' halting English, about losing his ability to speak easily in Spanish although he continued to understand it fine. He also talks about being a "scholarship boy," someone who doesn't fit in with the people around him.

Although the process of getting his education in a different language than he'd learned as a child was traumatic, Rodriguez is definitely not a proponent of bilingual education. He sees it as part of a "decade when middle-class ethnics began to resist the process of assimilation -- the American melting pot." This reminded me of Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She talks about assimilating, too, and the need for Americans (and other countries) to have some beliefs and standards that people must agree to when they live in the country. It makes a lot of sense and I can see where speaking the language would need to be a part of that. I'm not so positive, though, that having some bilingual education would necessarily prevent the learning of English. I'd hope that it would be a gentler way to learn English. But it's true that the pendulum often swings too far.

I like the book. I haven't finished it yet but I plan to.

Peace Shall Destroy Many be Rudy Wiebe

I got this at the Festival of Faith & Writing. I've started it but I'm not very motivated to keep going. I'll try to get back to it.

It feels a little slow moving and heavy. It reminds me of some pioneer books I've read before. Not just the story of a pioneer but the thoughts and struggles.

It's about Mennonites.

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later addition

Kind of funny. I didn't finish this book and I also didn't finish this blog. Couldn't get through the book. It just seemed too slow.

The Emperor of Ocean Park by Stephen L. Carter

I heard Stephen Carter at the Festival of Faith & Writing, too. He was very interesting and articulate. I read his book The Culture of Disbelief quite a while ago. I know I liked it but I can't remember details, I'll have to find it and re-read it.


The Emperor of Ocean Park is a mystery. His mysteries involve politics somehow, and upper middle class black families. I'm only about 1/4 of the way into the book and I like it so far. The writing is excellent, and it's interesting. A member of my book club said that she likes the book but not the main character. Often if I don't like the main character, I don't like the book. I can see why this main character, Talcott Garland, may not be that likeable. So far he seems a little, I don't know, selfish maybe. But I'm still enjoying the book.


A review from the Washington Post on Amazon.com says (about another of his mysteries):

But let's be honest: No one should read a Carter novel for the mystery.

We know by now that the author is only partly concerned with whodunit; he'd rather ponder why any of us does the things we do -- especially the bad things. For instance, we know it's wrong to cheat, lie, steal or wound, and yet hardly a day passes in which most of us don't commit at least one of these transgressions on some scale. Human weakness is troubling, fascinating stuff, and Carter has spent much of his career plumbing its depths.

So I'll keep that in mind.


Talcott Garland is a law professor. He's married to a lawyer who is trying to become some kind of political judge. They have one child. Talcott's father dies near the beginning of the book and I'm up to the funeral. Talcott's sister has suggested that their father was murdered but Talcott's not convinced yet.

Eat This Book by Eugene Peterson

I saw Eugene Peterson at the Festival of Faith & Writing. What a wise man he seems to be. He wrote The Message Bible which is an amazing thing. I would have thought that was written by a group of people. Imagine sitting down and rewriting the entire Bible!


This book, Eat This Book, is about reading the Bible, "A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading." I have not finished it yet but it's good. It is written in a very conversational style. The title is based on a verse in Revelation where an angel tells John to take a book and eat it; it will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey."


I've just started the part where Peterson is writing about Lectio Divina. I've participated in some of that in a group but have not tried it myself. I'm eager to read what he says about it. He is trying to be practical and really describe what to do.


In one part he wrote about praying after reading the Bible and asking, "How can I obey?" I'm reading a devotional that has a short passage for each day. Last night's passage was the parable about an enemy planting weeds among the seeds a farmer had planted (not the one where there's different soils). In the parable the farmer sees the weeds and decides not to take them out because he may mistakenly take out the good with the bad. He says he'll separate them at harvest. When I prayed after, it seemed to me the way I could obey was to continue to grow strong in the Lord regardless of the "weeds" around me. A kind of simple answer but not simple to do.

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen

I am loving this book. It's cracking me up! I heard about, and saw, this writer at the Festival of Faith & Writing. It's a memoir. She grew up in a Mennonite family, moved on to live outside the Mennonite community, and then went home after her husband left her and she had a bad car accident.

She writes in a very witty way. I wish I could talk and write that way. Here's an excerpt. She is writing about after coming home from the hospital with a catheter, and planning a shopping trip with her friend.

And so it was that I sallied forth into public carrying my pee bag in an aqua patent tote, shopping with urinous enthusiasm...And less than a week later my doctors upgraded me to the kind of pee bag you strap on with Velcro around your leg, under your skit, like a nasty secret. I taught for half the semester like that. And dang, I'm here to tell you that when it's ninety degrees outside, nothing reminds you of your own mortality like a steaming hot bag of urine hugging your thigh.

I'm happy to report that I made a full recovery from the netherworld of tube and clamp...Whereas before I had taken for granted my miraculous ability to run without wetting my leg, I now silently praised my bladder, "Good show! You're holding up great in there honey!" I'd sneeze and think, Bravo! You have achieved true excellence, my friendly little sphincter!

Some parts where she writes about her mother made me laugh out loud until I cried. I'm not finished yet and I'm not looking forward to being finished. Always the sign of a good book.

Imperfect Birds by Anne Lamott

Good book. It's a story of a family with a daughter, Rosie, in high school who gets into drugs. The mom and dad have to figure out how to handle it. Rosie excels at academics and is great with kids, but she lies repeatedly about where she is and what she's doing.

The characters are in a previous novel, according to what I've read. She's got a novel called Rosie so I imagine that's the one. I need to go back and re-read it.

I liked this book. It's not funny or sad, it's just a good story, well written. It felt real, the way the parents reacted, what the mother was thinking. The end does not tie everything up but it still felt like a decent ending. You don't know what's going to happen, you hope for the best.

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

Last night one of my book clubs met to discuss Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese. We all liked the book.

It's about twins who were conjoined at the head and separated after birth, born in a hospital in Addis Ababa to an Indian nun. They were brought up by an Indian couple living and working at the hospital.

We wondered about the name. "Cutting for stone" is in the Hippocratic oath so we knew that was part of the reason for it but we weren't sure what the phrase actually means. One member said it meant quarrying, searching for something, which made sense.

Our discussion drifted when we started talking about the way the two boys in the novel would fall asleep with their heads touching, as they'd been in the womb. We started talking about sleeping with our siblings and having our kids join us in bed. My kids all learned to go to Randy's side of the bed because I couldn't take their wiggling around and bumping me.

We all liked the character Ghosh a lot. He was like the boys' father, although not their biological father. He was a rock, everyone could rely on him and he always had sage advice.

I recommend this one, too.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

So, it's been forever since I've written, but I'm going to try again. I won't try to go back and do all the books I've read since my last post, but I'll do a couple anyway.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett is a very good book I read for a couple of my book clubs. It's set in Mississippi (how fun is it to write that, thinking "M-i-crooked letter-crooked letter-i-crooked letter-crooked letter-humpback-humpback-i"?) right at the beginning of the civil rights movement. Three women are the "voices" in the book. One is a young white woman who wants to be a writer and decides to write the stories of the black women in the town. The other two are two of the black women.

I was afraid it'd be more of that Southern women's book kind of stuff but it really wasn't. The women's voices seemed genuine, and it felt like you kind of got in their heads. The women served as maids/housekeepers and also nannys. There was definitely a comment on the way that these women were trusted so implicitly with such an important task as raising the family's children, yet they were not allowed, in some cases, to use the same bathroom facilities. And then those children grew up to have servants of their own.

I recommend it.

Janette Kok: Child of the Seventies

Janette Kok: Child of the Seventies

A Salty Piece of Land by Jimmy Buffet

My book club at work, the Pivot Book Club, decided to read a book by Jimmy Buffet and chose this one. I'd describe it as okay. It was kind of fun as an escapist read; you got that I'm-on-a-tropical-island feeling. But even that meant suspending disbelief in a big way for me -- I hate humid heat and I know how miserable I am in places like Florida, so I kept thinking, "This sounds beautiful but I bet if I were there I'd be all sticky and hot and crabby."

One other member, Sherri, read the book and pretty much felt the same way about it -- okay but not compelling. It was kind of like a series of short stories, which he writes, too. And I felt it had a real man's voice to it. Not that that's bad but to me it felt almost like what you'd hear men talking to men about.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski

This is one of the best books I've read in a long time. Although it's not really the same, as I began it I thought this was kind of like when I read Anne of Green Gables for the first time. The story was so good. I was reading every word - no skimming, as I often do when there are descriptions or long passages not central to the plot. After that thought came to me, it occurred to me that might mean something sad was going to happen, as when Matthew died. When I read Green Gables I had no idea it was coming and it was the first book that made me cry.

Something sad does happen, several times. But even though it's not a happy story, it's a good one. It's a nice, thick book and one where I didn't want it to end.

The main character is Edgar, who is growing up on a farm owned by his parents. They raise a particular breed of dog that Edgar's grandfather began, based on breeding for an ideal dog, not a show dog. Edgar is born with no voice. He can hear but can't speak. The doctors don't know why. When I read that in the summaries and reviews I was afraid I wouldn't like the book. It sounded too odd. But I was wrong.

It was a good thing I didn't read what some wrote, that it was part ghost story. That would've turned me off. But when those scenes happened, they didn't seem out of place. In that way it reminded me of Leif Enger's book, Peace Like a River.

And, really, it's not just a story of a boy and his dogs. Not at all. All the characters are so well drawn. And you really are IN the book. You see his life, the characters, the setting.

I guess I can't really write too much about the story or I'll give a lot away. I liked the book very much.

I Feel Bad About my Neck by Nora Ephron

I heard of this book quite a while back and thought it sounded like it'd be fun to read. Nora Ephron wrote quite a few screenplays I like -- You've Got Mail, Sleepless in Seattle, My Blue Heaven, When Harry Met Sally, to name a few. I thought of this book again last week when I tried to take a picture of myself.

I'd posted a new profile photo on Facebook and my sister Jan said she'd like to see my new haircut. I thought I'd take a picture on Sunday morning. I sat in the chair and held the camera with my arm extended and took a "selfie", as Cori called it. I couldn't get one that I felt was acceptable! My neck! I've always been self-conscious about my chin anyway, and unfortunately the getting old thing does not help. Cori told me the secret is to take the photo from way up high. Maybe I'll try that. Or Photoshopping may be the answer.

Anyway, I've started reading the book. Each chapter is an essay. The title is from the first essay. Here's a bit I liked, "If I pass a mirror, I avert my eyes. If I must look into it, I begin by squinting, so that if anything really bad is looking back at me, I am already halfway to closing my eyes to ward off the sight."

Actually, I don't avoid mirrors too obsessively. I've grown to accept myself a lot more than I used to. I still hate seeing my big old pot belly but I don't let it get me all crazy.

I'm enjoying the book. It's amusing.

Catcher in the Rye at the Pivot Book Club

Here's what I wrote about our discussion about Catcher in the Rye at the Pivot Book Club:

We had a pretty good discussion about "Catcher in the Rye". Sherri said it wasn't as engaging as she'd thought it would be. It's short and she thought she'd easily finish it quickly and didn't. It didn't keep her going. I had read it before and also didn't finish re-reading it, although I do like the book a lot. Elida did finish the whole thing. We agreed that it is a unique book, and Holden has a very unique "voice". There are funny places and turns of phrases, such as when he said things "killed him" or talked about "old Phoebe" and that kind of thing. Some touching places too, such as the stuff about his brother Allie and sister Phoebe.


After our Jimmy Buffet book we thought we'd read another classic, "Pride & Prejudice" by Jane Austen. So that'll be next our book.


We had a bunch of possibilities of books we were looking at. Some "also rans" were

"I Feel Bad About my Neck" (http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl/9780307264558.html) by Nora Ephron, which is something I want to read because it expresses how I feel -- and also sounds hilarious.

"People are Unappealing" by Sara Barron (http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl/9780307382450.html) was another also-ran that sounded very funny.

"A Reliable Wife" (http://www.readinggroupguides.com/blog/2009/03/librarians-view-robert-goolricks.asp) sounded intriguing.

"Dewey: The Small-town Library Cat who Touched the World" (http://www.deweyreadmorebooks.com/) might be a good, feel-good kind of story.

And "So Brave, Young and Handsome: A Novel" (http://www.powells.com/biblio/9780871139856) was written by Leif Enger and I really liked his first book.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Here's a note about the Pivot Book Club discussion of this book:

"One theme that supposedly was in the book was some similarity to the story of Jacob in the Bible. I know the story but I actually read a few chapters of Jacob's story in the Bible, trying to find the similarities. Of course, the main character's name is Jacob, and there is one place that the discussion questions referenced where Jacob in the book uses a stone for a pillow just as Jacob in the Bible does. But I just didn't see a lot more similarities than that. I'm probably missing something. 

"We talked about the title a bit. The phrase came from a scene in the book where a fellow resident in the home where Jacob lives says he carried "water for elephants" in the circus when he was young. Jacob gets very angry about this and calls the man a liar because elephants drink way too much water for anyone to have carried it. We wondered whether there might be even more meaning to the title than that. Sherri noted that that particular phrase began the whole story of Jacob's life. 

"As we talked about the circus animals, we drifted into some discussion of deciding what we will and won't eat when you know how much animals feel and think, humane treatment of animals, the way we are so distant from the actual source of our food. Robin said she does try to eat organic food and meats where animals have been treated humanely, such as grass fed and cage free. She told us about her husband's upbringing with raising some of their own food. Sherri's grandparents raised some of their food on their farm, too, and Sherri grew up at least having exposure to that, but when you think of our children, they are very distant from the actual animals who provide their food. Elida talked about visiting a relative in Mexico who actually killed a chicken and a turkey right in front of them. It was so intense for her and her brother that they couldn't eat."

All in all I enjoyed the book. At first I didn't like the way it skipped from the present, when Jacob is in a nursing home, to the past, as he remembers his life story. But I got used to it and especially the second time around I found both scenarios to be interesting.

Persuasion by Jane Austen

I am reading Persuasion. I am not sure if I am re-reading it or not. I may actually never have read it before, or if I did it was too long ago to remember. I have enjoyed the movie many, many times, as has my husband Randy. For some reason it was his "default" movie for a long time. He'd often put it on before going to sleep. He likes all the recent Jane Austen movies, actually.

Anyway, I've just started. There was a short biography of Jane Austen at the beginning. She was an amazing woman. So much in such a short life. And she seems to have been a devout, good person.

"They must retrench. That did not admit of a doubt." Retrench. I've never heard of that word except in Persuasion. I like it. With me on reduced hours and Randy having a 5% pay cut, we must retrench.

The Faith Club by Ranya Idliby, Suzanne Oliver, and Priscilla Warner

This is another book my mom recommended. Three women living in New York decide, shortly after 9/11, to get together on a regular basis to talk about their faith. One of the women is Muslim, one Jewish and one Christian. Their idea was to collaborate on a children's book discussing the three faiths, but they ended up writing this book instead.

They met kind of a like a book club, discussing topics of faith. They'd all write about the topics separately and then bring their writing to the meetings and discuss them. They had some rough times getting through some things.

They talk about some of the stereotyping they did, and do. I realized I don't know very much about Islam at all. A co-worker of mine, who's very bitter toward the Muslim faith, told me many times about how he'd read many things by Muslims and his conclusion was that Islam is the only faith in the world that says if you don't believe what I believe I have the right to kill you. I also read the book Infidel and the life of that author growing up in a Muslim household is very oppressive.

In this book, the Muslim woman is the one who starts the club. At the beginning of the book she is trying to find a Muslim community that is not like the ones you most often hear and read about. She doesn't wear the hajib and doesn't want anyone to say that because of that she is not Muslim. She and her husband do not believe in the oppressive things about women in that faith. This woman is Palestinian, her family's home was taken over by Israeli's. She has some feelings about that, of course, but she's very American and even talks about the need for the Muslim faith to have an American experience.

One thing I didn't know, although now I see I should have, is that the Muslims read the same Old Testament stories as we do. Her kids have kids books about Noah, Moses, Abraham and so on. I was telling my minister about that and he said that they claim to be descendants of Ishmael. I've heard that but I guess it didn't click with me what that meant.

The Muslims, according to this author, believe that as a Muslim you must believe in the Jewish stories and the Christian stories but they don't believe Jesus was the son of God, just a prophet, in a line of prophets that leads to Mohammed, also a prophet.

People reading this book might accuse the three women of picking and choosing what they will and won't believe, and making up their own religion. I guess this could be true, but in a way we all do that, at least to some extent.

The book goes between the 3 women writing about the various topics and times of the faith club. They taped their sessions so the book also includes some of the actual recorded conversations, verbatim.

I recommend this book. I plan to reread it some day.

The Nazi Officer's Wife by Edith Hahn Beer

My mom recommended this book to me. A friend of hers had recommended it to her. It's a very interesting story of a Jewish woman who kind of hid in plain sight during World War II. She lived in Vienna when the war started. She took on the identity of a friend and went to Germany under that assumed identity, then ended up marrying a man who eventually was forced into becoming a Nazi soldier, an officer.

It's pretty unreal that that could have happened. She did tell the man that she was a Jew before he married her. Somehow he still married her although he also bought right into the belief that Jewish blood is bad blood and all that sort of thing. They had a child and once he saw that it was a girl he was pretty much finished with the whole thing.

Jewish people who did this kind of thing, hiding in the open, were called "U-boats".

It's really a good read, I thought. I enjoyed it.

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

My other bookclub chose the book Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. I had sometimes wondered what kind of writer Salman Rushdie is. I imagined something much more political and strident. His writing is very enjoyable and good and easy to read. However, I did not finish this book.

There were a couple reasons. One was I am a little tired of India. India's popular right now. I've read several books and seen movies about India, fashions are even being influence a lot by India right now. I didn't feel like reading yet another book about India.

The other reason was I got impatient. The writer is telling the story not just to the readers but also to his relative or maybe she's a nanny of some kind or something. Anyway, he sort of writes cyclically, saying something, remarking how it will matter later, circling back to an earlier time, going forward. It was just annoying me.

At our book club meeting discussing this book, some others expressed my same feelings. Others, though, said that if you kept reading, past "Book 1", he stops writing that way and they enjoyed it much more.

I'm not feeling like continuing to read to find out. But there you are. I'm sure they're right.

Twilight

So, I thought I'd write about some other books I've read in addition to those for the book club. One is Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, a very popular books especially for "tween" girls. It's been made into a movie.

A co-worker of my daughter's recommended it to her and she liked it. A while back I saw it on a bookstore shelf and thought I'd get it and see what I thought.

Well, I can't say I think so much of it. My daughter did enjoy it and went on to read the others in the series. It's interesting, in a way. It is interesting that a story can be written about a young girl falling in love with a vampire who is part of a small group of vampires who are sort of "vegetarians" of vampires. They don't drink human blood, only animal blood. It's pretty bizarre that anyone thought of it (and strange that there's also a t.v. show out with a similar thing, only the vampires on the show drink a man-made, sort of substitute blood and have come out in the open claiming that they should be treated better now that they don't harm anyone).

Anyway, I can see that this is an intriguiging concept, and it does say something that the story in no way grosses you out. But I just didn't feel a compelling need to read more of the story. I did complete the entire book, but I'm okay with that being the end of it.

I don't plan to see the movie because people who adore the book say the movie is so-so or don't like the movie, so I am pretty confident I would not find the movie any more compelling than I did the book.

Not a Genuine Black Man

And now we're up to the one we're reading for our next meeting, Not a Genuine Black Man. This was chosen as San Jose's book for the city to read. The author grew up in a white neighborhood in Oakland.

I'm looking forward to hearing what the club members will have to say. The author writes about several instances of prejudice, where he's stopped and mistreated simply because he's black. He writes about how often now people accuse him of not being a "real" black man. I think that happens because he doesn't talk with a black accent or maybe because he grew up in a white neighborhood. It's an interesting read.