Books read recently by J. Zimmerman.
Inspired in part by Catarina.net's book blog.

Check disclaimer or links or archive or best book read. Our current web log of Books. The Mental Health of George W. Bush.

Reader's Bill of Rights - after Daniel Pennac in Better than Life as quoted in the November 2003 Utne Magazine - includes the rights to: Skip pages Reread Not read Not finish Not defend your tastes

Dorothy L. Sayers: "The best remedy for a bruised heart is not ... repose upon a manly bosom. Much more efficacious are honest work, physical activity, and the sudden acquisition of wealth."

The Creative Habit: Learn it and Use it for Life by Twyla Tharp ( 2003). Devoured it in a single day. This is the best book I read in 2003 . It inspires the reader to move into the creative zone and do the work essential to being any kind of professional artist. Twyla Tharp (the leading and innovative choreographer) is a brilliant mentor and a no-nonsense delight. Check our review. Read the book. Do the exercises. Do your art.

{ March (marzo) 2004 }

• In progress: Poems for the Millennium: Vol 2; From Postwar to Millennium Jerome Rothenberg and Pierre Joris.
  A huge book (almost 900 pages) - and this is only one of two volumes.
  This global anthology of twentieth century poets begins with Charles Olson and Paul Celan, Anna Akhmatova and John Cage. Then it ranges wider, including:
  • the Vienna Group,
  • the Tammuzi Poets,
  • Concrete Poetry
  • Beat Poetry,
  • the Art of the Manifesto
  • Postwar Japanese Poetry,
  • Language Poetry,
  • The Misty Poets,
  • Cyberpoetics Poetics.

(03.27.2004)

• Finished Borderliners by Peter Høeg (1994).
  An unusual and haunting book about an attempt to integrate children with mental illness into a "normal" school, and how the school fails them, and how the children try to help and heal each other.

  See also Høeg's The Woman and the Ape another of our favorites.

(03.25.2004)

• Finished Local Time by Stephen Dunn (1986).
  Some good poems in his 5th book. (His New and Selected Poems 1974-1994 contains 15 poems from this book.)

  My favorites include:

  • Round Trip - the long opening poem
  • At the Smithville Methodist Church, which starts and ends thus:

    It was supposed to be Art & Crafts for a week, but when she came home with the "Jesus Saves" button, we knew what art was up, what ancient craft. ... You can't say to your child "Evolution loves you." The story stinks of extinction and nothing exciting happens for centuries. I didn't have a wonderful story for my child and she was beaming. All the way home in the car she sang the songs, occasionally standing up for Jesus. There was nothing to do but drive, ride it out, sing along in silence.

  • Accident in the Snow on the Way to Amadeus, which ends:

    The streetlights were invisible, though their light illuminated the snow, seemed almost to bring it down.

  • Two Women, which ends with an adrenaline clarity:

    The rest of the day was bright yellows, greens, every little thing coming out of its hiding place to be seen.

  • and Sleeping with Ghosts.

Finished Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life ( 2004) by Steven Johnson. Great! One of the Best of 2004. "Using a mix of experiential reportage, personal story telling, and fresh scientific discovery, Steven Johnson describes how the brain works, its chemicals, structures, and subroutines."

(03.16.2004)

• Finished The Last Great Cause: The Intellectuals and the Spanish Civil War by Stanley Weintraub

  American and European writers and intellectuals wrote about the Spanish Civil War and often fought in it. The War began when the Fascist Franco attempted to overthrow the elected Socialist government and to enhance the power of the military, the Catholic Church, and feudalism.

  The book shows how the initial enthusiasm and excitement by Hemingway, Orwell, Auden, Spender, Koestler, Dos Passos, and so many others (including nearly 4000 American volunteers, half of whom did not return home) became disillusioned.

  "When a man hath no freedom to fight for at home, Let him combat for that of his neighbor; Let him think of the glories of Greece and of Rome, And get knocked on his head for his labors." George Gordon, Lord Byron

• Finished Darwin's radio (1999) by Greg Bear.
  A fascinating tale of the appearance of the discovery of a virus that had been hidden in human DNA for thousands of millennia, until its activity begins in the human genome again ...

• Finished The Last Judgment by Iain Pears.
  A soft-hearted murder mystery. Rather ironic to read this is the quiet pauses while working at a Polling station.

• Finished An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears.
  A murder mystery set in the year 1663, in Oxford, England, during the Restoration and its hydra head of political intrigue.

  Written in 4 different voices, by 4 men each with different social rank, political allegiance, and personal agenda, and each with his own link to the mystic Sarah.

{ February (febrero) 2004 }

• Finished The Hours: A Novel (2000) by Michael Cunningham.
  Intertwines three novellas of depression and suicide:
  (1) creative writing on the life and death of Virginia Woolf; Cunningham couldn't figure out how the reality of Woolf's life could fit his book, so he reorganized it.
  (2) 52-year-old Clarissa Vaughan in 1990's New York City and her dying friend, Richard, who named Clarissa for the protagonist of Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway".
  (3) Laura Brown, a bookaholic 1949 Los Angeles wife and mother

  OK, but not as special as reviews had led me to believe. The writing reminds me more of the opinionated Ayn Rand than the opinionated Virginia Woolf, because Cunningham puts North American expressions into the mind and mouth of Mrs. Woolf (who would not, for example, plan to "walk for a block").

• Abandoned Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood: A Novel by Rebecca Wells.
  An over-rated tale of a whining girl and her alcoholic, child-beating mother.

• Finished Napalm and Silly Putty by George Carlin (2000).
  Hearing Carlin's own voice on the recording helps you sympathize with "his goal of improving humanity by pointing out its flaws." An amusing loose cannon in the USA ship of state. Only rarely does his outrage exceed his humor.

• Finished Mrs Pollifax Unveiled by Dorothy Gilman (2000).
  A lightweight and consoling story yarn of an elderly lady acting as a karate-skilled CIA agent in the Middle East.

• You can change the world with one or two dollars per day, by moving purchases away from unfair companies to others with greater social responsibility.

  "The average US household spends nearly $8300 each year on food, clothing, and home goods. This year challenge yourself to shift 5% of that money - just $415 - to fair trade products and pay small-scale producers a fair price for their goods." [Oxfam Exchange, Winter 2004.] The Fair Trade Federation lists retailers specializing in fair-trade items.

  Oxfam scored the world's 4 largest coffee roasters in 2003 on the basis of price paid to farmers and support for social programs:

  • 49% for P&G (Proctor and Gamble). Their Millstone brand includes Fairtrade coffee.
  • 43% for Nestlé. While they buy directly from farmers, they do not pay a fair price.
  • 38% for Kraft, which fails to buy Fair-Trade Certified coffee.
  • 27% for Sarah Lee, which "has performed the worst of the major roasters in almost every aspect of dealing with the coffee crisis." [Oxfam Exchange, Winter 2004.]

• Finished BEOWULF translated and read by Seamus Heaney (2000).
  An epic tour de force on top of deep skill, hymning the poetics of the warrior-cult. From the original broadcast by the BBC.

  Heaney rejoices in the cut and thrust of his version of this ancient (composed in 10th century Britain to record stories from 7th century) European text on how a hero saved a European kingdom from the rampaging Grendel, from Grendel's Mum, and from a gold-hoarding dragon. In Heaney's poetics, the self-sacrifice, blood-feuds, and insane beserker courage make a little more sense.

  See Heaney's book for the side-by-side presence of the original Old English (Anglo-Saxon) with Heaney's version of the poem.

{ January (enero) 2004 }

Bought almost 30 books & magazines in Mexico during my trip.

See also: El Herido (1946) de Alfredo Zalce. Los Aztecas: sus números, sus días y sus dioses.

My "to read" list now includes these specific authors:

Arrelola, Juan José, Antología de Juan José Arrelola. Ortiz, Gilberto Rendón César Cascarón Darío, Rubén, Antología poética Fuentes, Carlos, Aura Lorca et al., Lorca, Machado, Jiménez: Tres grandes de la poesia española contemporénea Pacheco, José Emilio, El principio del placer Paz, Octavio, El laberinto de la soledad. Paz, Octavio, Lo mejor de Octavio Paz, Selección y prólogo del autor. Rulfo, Juan, Pedro Páramo y Llano en llamas Rulfo, Juan, 2-cd set of Rulfo reading selections from the above two books Saramago, José, La balsa de piedra.

and these specific subjects:

Arqueología México (6 issues). Dioses Prehispánicos de México El simbolismo precolombino El universo de Quetzalcoatl Fechas históricas de México Historia sinóptica de México: de los Olmecas a Fox. La Tierra de la Peregrinación. Quidditch a través los tiempos by Kennilworthy Whisp. Revista de literatura Mexicana contemporánea. Sintesis de Historia Mexicana Virgen de Guadalupe

Related pages: Poetry - Learn How to Write Your Own. Books on Learning Spanish. Forests of California and Trees of the World.

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