What I’ve been doing

Whoops, sorry, didn’t mean to abandon the blog for nearly a whole month. I’m still around. What I’ve been doing:

• Enjoying spring. The redbuds are almost entirely gone and the cherry blossoms are definitely gone, but the dogwoods and azaleas are all out now, so I need to take some more pictures for you. Oh, and the wisteria this year! It’s bordering on the ridiculous.
• Reading. (Of course.) The one thing I have been updating regularly on the blog is my reading list. Compared to last year, my reading volume in January was particularly pathetic, so I’ve got to keep going if I’m going to beat 100 books in 2009.
• Entertaining. My bestest college roommate, Ann, accompanied by Abbey (one of Ann’s flatmates during her semester in London) and Abbey’s adorable daughter, came to visit for a long weekend. We had a lot of fun discovering the wonder that is climbing stairs over and over, and finding out how amazingly communicative one can be with a vocabulary of just “hi” and “uh-oh.”
• Stitching temari. I’ve been on kind of a temari roll lately, and in the past month and a bit, I’ve done 7.5 new ones. Pictures to come.
• Karate. My women’s-only class students all passed their belt test at the end of last month, so now I’m starting on teaching them new stuff for the next test. (It’s amazing how fast time goes when you only have class once a week.) I’m also going to my own classes, and now Mark has started taking the new jiu jitsu class on Fridays, during which time I lift weights (a hateful activity that is unfortunately good for me.) Fortunately, the jiu jitsu class is fun to watch, so I may say more about that later.

So, internet, what have you been up to?

Signs of Spring: Cherry Blossoms

Another picture from my walk through the Gardens. This one dedicated to my mother, whose birthday is today.

Signs of Spring: Redbuds

The blooming trees around here haven’t actually gotten me to run my car off the road yet, but not for lack of trying. I took a walk through the Gardens before I left work today and took a few pictures. I thought this very close-up shot of a redbud branch was interesting. It certainly does at least give you an idea of the color, if you’re not in NC right now. The best part is that most of the regular trees haven’t even started to leaf yet, so it’s as if streaks of flaming purple have started simply appearing among the branches, especially since these blooms stay so close to their own rather twisty branches.

The Official 2009 Birthday Card

It’s my birthday again! You know how I can tell? Because I got my official Ray & Anita handmade birthday card in the mail yesterday. Here is this year’s card, beautiful as always:

Last year’s card is here.

I will blame it on the trees

I would just like to say this now: If I have a traffic accident in the near future, it will be because of the trees. On my way to work, before I even make it out of my neighborhood, I have to pass an enormous flowering pear tree and two impressively old flowering cherries. A few blocks away, there is a whole strip of cherries. When I turn onto the street that my office parking lot is on, I have to drive the back side of the university gardens, which are full of magnolias, gardenias, and yes, cherries. Not to mention that I just noticed the redbuds are just beginning to bud out.

It is not safe for me to drive at this time of year!

That said, if I ever remember to charge my camera when I’m at home, I’ll try to get some pictures to post. The particularly impressive pear around the corner from our street is particularly spectacular to me because the rest of that house’s yard is the remnants of what was once an attempt to go maintenance-free by covering the whole lawn with ornamental gravel. Said gravel is now only visible in patches amongst the weeds that grew up through it anyway. Now that the tree has bloomed, though, you’d never even look that far down. It takes up almost the whole lot. It is amazing.

Celebrating Grammar in Style

It’s National Grammar Day today, and to celebrate I really wanted to wear my grammar shirt. Alas, it is too cold here to go around in a t-shirt, so I’ll show my pride here instead.

Grammar pride

My other favorite language nerd shirt is this one.

The Lolita Experiment

For the past two weeks, I have been conducting an experiment with my friend Mike. To give you some background first, this is how it started:

Back in November, Mike asked for some reading suggestions, and I of course jumped in. He immediately rejected one of my favorite authors (Neal Stephenson) as unreadable, however, which led me to start a more philosophical discussion with him about how he felt he read books, since we seemed to have such widely diverging standards. After a bit of back and forth on that subject, he then suggested the following project: that we would each recommend a book for the other person to read, and email our impressions of the book to the recommender as we went along.

Mike’s suggestion for me was Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. Below are my impressions as I read through it, only slightly edited from the original emails. Note that they do contain spoilers (for those who intend to read the book someday) or references to specific points in the story that won’t make sense (for those who haven’t read the book and don’t intend to).

********

Day 0, before starting

I have long had a wary relationship with, ahem, literature. While it’s true that Heidi was the first book I can recall reading on my own because doing it chapter-by-chapter before bed was too slow, it seems that once I discovered series books, I never wanted to go back. I remember having arguments with my mother in the children’s section of the library one summer about her extremely cruel requirement that I read two actually non-series books, rather than loading up with more of the juvenile mysteries I actually wanted. As I recall, I actually ended up thinking that Island of the Blue Dolphins and whatever the other one was weren’t too bad, but darned if I was going to admit it at the time.

It’s still true that I prefer to turn to authors and characters that are tried and true for my pleasure reading. I no longer have quite the tolerance for a played out world that I used to, so I did eventually have to give up on anything new coming out of Pern and Valdemar, though I will still return to my old favorites from those series. But even as I find myself spurred to find new authors, I still love series and genre fiction above all else. I like authors and worlds I know I can trust.

Of course, a great deal of my distrust of non-genre fiction undoubtedly comes from all those middle and high school English classes I took, that sucked all the fun right out of reading whatever was assigned. Even the one time we were finally assigned some fantasy, Le Guin, as I recall, it became dry and dull, and seemed especially bleh once all the students who had never read any fantasy and never intended to again got into the discussion. When I got to college, I didn’t take a single English class at all. In the years since high school, I have been gradually branching out into reading things that might possibly have been school assignments in the past, and I have discovered that they are actually enjoyable if I get to just read them on my own. Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice suddenly make sense. Such books will never take over the majority of my reading, but there is definitely a place for them now.

And so I find myself willing to take on your challenge of reading Lolita. I’m curious what it will be like, because I read, for my Japanese Film & Fiction class at Grinnell, Naomi, the book that is supposedly the Japanese version of the Lolita story. Will my annoyance with the main characters from that book influence my reading of this one? Will I finally come to understand all those cultural references I only half-got before? Will Gothic Lolita fashion trends suddenly seem more witty and less borderline tasteless? (Hmmm, maybe not that last one.) And more importantly, will Nabokov become one of my trusted writers?

BBC 100 Books Meme, v. 2

Thanks to the comment Mike left on my original post, I now understand where the initial list came from (a BBC reader poll to determine Britain’s favorite book.) This explains some of the weird inconsistencies in the list, such as why some single books are listed in addition to a series that includes said single book, etc. However, I also noticed that the list as it shows up on the BBC today (Feb. 20) is rather different that the list that was getting used on Facebook. Primarily because I score a lot higher on the updated list, I’m redoing it below.

Instructions:
1) Look at the list and put an ‘X’ after those you have read.
2) Add a ‘+’ to the ones you LOVE. (I’m also adding ‘-’ to ones I hated now.)
3) Star (*) those you plan on reading.
4) Tally your total at the bottom.

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien – X+ (in Spanish, strangely)
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen – X+
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman – X- (I’m checking this as read now, because I did read the first one, just hated it and refused to go further)
4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams – X+
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling – X+
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee – X
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne – X+
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis – X (in English & Spanish)
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë – X+
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë – (x – got halfway and couldn’t take it anymore)
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame (? – can’t remember if I actually read it or not)
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott – X+
19. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres – X
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone, JK Rowling – X+
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling – X+
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling – X+
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien – X
26. Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck – X-
30. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll – X+
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez – X (in Spanish)
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert – *
40. Emma, Jane Austen – (x – only halfway)
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery – X++
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald – X-
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell – X
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian – X
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher

BBC 100 Books Meme

Yes, I confess, I am cross-posting this from a Facebook meme. I have been assimilated. Please stop gloating. Anyway, the BBC at some point put up a list of 100 books (best of all time? that everyone should read? I’m not sure.) Apparently the BBC reckons most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here.

Instructions:
1) Look at the list and put an ‘X’ after those you have read.
2) Add a ‘+’ to the ones you LOVE.
3) Star (*) those you plan on reading.
4) Tally your total at the bottom.

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen X+
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien X (in Spanish, strangely)
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte X
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling X
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee X
6 The Bible -parts
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte (half, and then I got sick of it)
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman (read the first one, hated it, did not read the other two)
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott X
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (I’ve read some of them)
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien X
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger *
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald X
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams X+
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck X
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll X
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen (read about half, then decided I had overdosed on Austen in too short a time)
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis X (English and Spanish)
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hossein
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres X
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden X+
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne X
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell X
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown X
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez X (in Spanish)
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery X+
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood *
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding X
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan

The Reading Year in Review – 2008

Since I don’t actually ever get around to talking about the books I’ve been reading on this blog very often, I figured I’d take a moment to look back over this year in books. For handy reference, note that I do regularly update the Reading page of this site, so if you’re ever curious what I’m reading at the moment, you may click on that stylish and convenient tabby thing up at the top. (My Goodreads account gets updated far less frequently, for those of you there.)

Some quick stats:

• I read exactly 100 books Jan-Dec 2008! Go me. I wasn’t even trying, that’s just how it turned out. I fear this will make me all self-conscious about ending up with a significant number in 2009 as well, but for now I am content with this being an inadvertent cool thing I did.
• 25 of these books were re-reads. I suspect 2009 will have quite a few as well, since my nearest library closed for 18 months of renovation back in November. Fortunately, my standard rule has been to only buy fiction that I think I’ll read again later, so I’ll be able to survive.
• 5 were graphic novels, so you can discount those as “real” books if you want, but I’ll insist that Fables and Strangers in Paradise have both literary and artistic merit, so they’re staying. (The two Iron Empires books that I read I didn’t find that great, but if I’m counting the others, they have to count, too.)
• Only 2 3! (found another one) were nonfiction, because my attention span shrank this year, what with all the house-buying and fixing and wedding-planning and stuff. I have several more nonfiction things that I bought when I was going through an overly optimistic Amazon spree, so maybe this year will see more reading in this category.
• 52 were fantasy, sci-fi, or some other form of speculative fiction.
• 36 were mysteries, most of them from series.
• 3 were “other” fiction, of which two were historical fiction, two dealt were set in Japan, and two had some paranormal elements but not enough to qualify as sci-fi. (Challenge: Draw a Venn diagram to see how these overlap. No one book contained all three elements.)

This was a pretty successful year as far as finding new authors/series to read went. New (to me) ones this year:

• Lisa See’s lesser known 3-book mystery series (Flower Net, The Interior, Dragon Bones) (Technically, I think I first discovered this in 2007, but I read 2/3 of it in 2008, so I’m counting it.)
• Naomi Hirahara’s Mas Arai mysteries, which has a lot of really interesting information and insight into Japanese-American culture in California. (Also, she writes monthly serials, linked on her website.)
• CJ Cherryh’s Foreigner series, which I really should have started reading years ago, because it is awesome. It also had the weird side-effect of taking over my brain while I was reading, so I had some interesting dreams. I still have 4 more to go!
• Patricia Briggs’s Mercy Thompson series* kept me up late finishing each book, because I always managed to hit the really exciting plot points just before bed. Can’t wait for the next one!
• CE Murphy’s Negotiator trilogy* was not quite as fun as Briggs, but still solid and enjoyable.
• Stephen Woodworth’s Through Violet Eyes* was interesting enough to get me to order the rest of the series from Amazon, so we’ll see if it lives up to its promise.
• The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova, was a very engrossing book, which I reviewed over at Geek Buffet, though I feel I should now add the caveat that if you don’t have a lot of time to read it all at once, you might not like it as much, because it’s much easier to keep all the plot threads straight if you read it straight through.
• The Teahouse Fire, by Ellis Avery, was a fascinating piece of historical fiction that worked in details about the beginning of the Meiji period in Japan, tea ceremony, and the main character was a foreigner learning to fit in in Japan, so I was more or less destined to like it. I talked about it in my tea ceremony post.

*All three of the ones with stars I found by trolling the backlog of Charles de Lint’s book reviews from Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine. I’ve had pretty good luck with his column so far!

And of course, there were a couple of notable new books from authors I already loved:

• Anathem, by Neal Stephenson, which is again one of those books you really have to be able to read all the way through, and I found utterly fascinating. It took up 3 whole days of our honeymoon. It ties together a lot of the ideas Stephenson has been exploring in his past books, particularly in the Baroque Cycle, but also a bit in his earlier books, and it made me an enormously happy geek. Also, it has a fun website that even has bits of music that the monk-like characters might have sung. (That will make a lot more sense if you’ve read the book, but if you have read it, it’s a great detail.)
• Sunshine, by Robin McKinley, which wasn’t actually newly published this year, but was new to me this year. Again, I don’t know why I didn’t read it sooner. I seem to like pretty much all of McKinley’s original stuff (as opposed to her fairy tale retellings, which I can take or leave.)

Looking back at the list, I don’t see any books that I didn’t enjoy reading, although in honesty, if I didn’t finish the book, it didn’t make the list. However, there were a couple of books I didn’t like as much as I thought I would.

• Feast of Souls, by CS Friedman. It was a book I picked up on a whim before I went to China, just so I’d have something to read. I like most of Friedman’s stuff, and this one was okay, but it was kind of dark and sometimes depressing, so I’m not sure if I’ll follow up with the next book in the series. That said, it does have an interestingly conflicted system of magic that I suspect they’re going to have to find a way to fix as part of the plot, so… maybe I will.
• Murakami’s After Dark was possibly my least favorite thing by him that I’ve read, in part because it was so light. The whole thing read like it was meant to be directions for a movie shoot, in that there was a lot of scene and soundtrack description, but not a lot of plot. It’s certainly a fast read, though, which turned out not to be what I was looking for at the time.
• An Evil Guest, by Gene Wolfe. I was looking forward to this one a great deal, having read a review that said it was like a noir detective novel set in a Lovecraftian world, but it turned out to have been written from the less interesting character’s point of view, in my opinion, so I ended up being disappointed that it was not nearly as interesting as it could have been.

Here’s to more reading in 2009!