2010 Jan-Mar zdino book log

Books read recently by J. Zimmerman.

Disclaimer. Links. Booker Prizes Chocolate.
Books read Best books read in 2009.
Best writers of poetry and prose
Harry Potter; also Harry Potter en Español.
New books on Christianity and Spirituality
by Pagels, Ehrman, et al.

Why read a book?
boo The Mental Health of George W. Bush

William Zinsser (from On Writing Well, 1998):
"Few people realize how badly they write.
Nobody has shown them how much excess or murkiness has crept into their style
and how it obstructs what they are trying to say.
... you have to strip down your writing before you can build it back up.
You must know what the essential tools are and what job they were designed to do.
... you are practicing a craft that is based on certain principles.
... If your verbs are weak and your syntax is rickety, your sentences will fall apart."

Reader's Bill of Rights [after Daniel Pennac in Better than Life from November 2003 Utne Magazine] includes the rights to:

Skip pages Not read Not finish Not defend your tastes

{ March : marzo (see also books on learning Spanish) 2010 }

(3.30.2010)

Notes From the Gean 2010 (issue #4): includes haiku by moi and tanka by moi.

(3.29.2010)

Finished dipping into Mah Jongg (or Jong) book:

The great mahjong book : history, lore and play, by Jelte Rep.

(3.27.2010)

Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies, by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith.
Visiting a friend I found that she has this book, suggested by someone else in her book club. She is rather annoyed with the idea of it so she had not cracked it open, but it is on my "to read" list so I spent my two-day visit reading it and "explaining" to her why it was such a winning book. e.g. Elizabeth Bennett and her four sisters have been training in how to kill zombies; so when zombies invade their elegant ball, Mr. Bennett shouts, "Girls: Five-Point Star of Death" and they go into a ninja dance routine that really adds a lot to Jane Austen.
You couldn't do that with Wuthering Heights or similar by the Bronte girls — their books already have more than enough psychotic characters, so the zombies would be too similar to what's already there.
Austen books read:
- Emma (1815)
- Northanger Abbey (1817 — posthumous)
- Also Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies (2009) (Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith).

(3.24.2010)

Finished listening to Northanger Abbey (published posthumously in 1818 after the author's death in 1817) by Jane Austen (in a pretty good narration by Flo Gibson).
What a HOOT! I last read it when I was about 12 and had Completely Forgotten that Ms. Austen was SOOOOOOOOO sarcastic!
See also the Jane Austen World in Red Dwarf Series 7 (episode 42: Beyond a Joke).

(3.22.2010)

Rooms are Never Finished, poetry by Agha Shahid Ali.

(3.20.2010)

Finished listening to The Ghost (2007), by Robert Harris (excellently narrated by Roger Rees).
This is the novel on which is based the recent The Ghost Writer movie. The novel is more clearly and cohesively plotted than the movie, but both are excellent paranoid romps.

(3.18.2010)

Seeds from a Birch Tree: writing haiku and the spiritual journey (1997) essays by Clark Strand.
Excellent calm introduction to haiku and zen.

(3.15.2010)

A Shropshire Lad (first published in 1896), poetry by A.E. Housman.

(3.14.2010)

Finished listening to Unnatural Exposure by Patricia Daniels Cornwell.
Interesting details on the forensics with Cornwell's signature tight-arse PO'd power players.
Less complex than her ok All That Remains, but better than the others of hers I've suffered through:
- At Risk: light-weight.
- From Potter's Field very predictable.
- Postmortem: a boring and flat serial-killer novel.

(3.12.2010)

Finished listening to Parable of the Sower (1993), a futuristic, dystopian and religious novel by Octavia E. Butler (beautifully narrated by Lynne Thigpen).
Makes me curious to read the second book in the Earthseed trilogy: Parable of the Talents. (The third book Parable of the Trickster was incomplete at Butler's death.)
Earthseed proposes:
Why is the universe? To shape God. Why is God? To shape the universe.
Parable of the Sower deals with some of the things-fall-apart issues that Lessing addresses in The Sirian Experiments: The Report by Ambien II, of the Five (1980), but in a way that places them close to us.
Much of it is an on-foot road-trip past social chaos: I suspect Cormac McCarthy read this and leveraged it for his 2009 novel The Road.

(3.11.2010)

The Invention of Love (1997), a play by Tom Stoppard.
I read this because Alberto Manguel (p. 126 of his The Library at Night) quotes Tom Stoppard's The Invention of Love thus: "Love, said Sophocles, feels like ice held in the hand by children". But the actual quote seems to be (p. 95 of The Invention of Love) it is a fictionalized Oscar Wilde that says somewhat different words:

Before Plato could describe love, the loved one had to be invented. We would never love anybody if we could see past our invention. Bosie [his beloved] is my creation, my poem. In the mirror of invention, love discovered itself. Then we saw what we made — the piece of ice in the fist you cannot hold or let go.

A witty play whose audience might be limited to graduates of Oxford and Cambridge Universities. It helps to read a smidgen of Housman's history (e.g. at wikipedia) before you read/attend the play, so that you know "A. E. Housman was an English classical scholar and poet, best known for his cycle of poems A Shropshire Lad. ... Housman was counted one of the foremost classicists of his age, and has been ranked as one of the greatest scholars of all time. He established his reputation publishing as a private scholar".

I am sure that a lot of its jokes went clear over my head. But it does make me decide to read A.E.Housman's poetry!

(3.10.2010)

Gave up on The Sirian Experiments: The Report by Ambien II, of the Five (1980), by Doris Lessing. Very cerebral and stately and not much fun, even if this novel was nominated for the 1981 Booker Prizes.

(3.8.2010)

Haiku (2009), a novel by Andrew Vachss. Startling and engaging story about six a homeless outcasts on a joint mission to atone for and recover what each has lost. A delightful and compassionate tale. And yes, in the end there is even a haiku (a good thing as I picked up this book in the library because of its title)!

(3.6.2010)

Finished dipping into a few Grand Canyon books:
- A field guide to the Grand Canyon (1996) by Stephen Whitney. Geology, flowering plants, ferns, birds, and animals of the 277-mile-long Grand Canyon, whose canyon walls drop from the rim 3500 to 6000 feet to the Colorado River.
- Downcanyon: a naturalist explores the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon (1995) by Ann Zwinger. Helpful maps and other line drawings. Describes the Colorado River from Mile 0 (Lees Ferry) to Mile 278.5 (Grand Wash Fault), at river's brim level. A most practical book for someone about the run the river.
- Where the rain children sleep : a sacred geography of the Colorado Plateau (2004) by Michael Engelhard. Nature writing from a year of walking 120 canyons. "The essays in this volume spring from a growing concern that the song of the land, the stories and voices of these places, and their nonhuman and indigenous inhabitants might not be heard, against the din of bulldozers, powerboats, turbines, and four-wheelers.'" "The vivid thread connecting these essays is the Navajo concept of a 'sacred geography.'"

(3.2.2010)

Negotiating with the dead: a writer on writing, essays by Margaret Atwood.

(3.1.2010)

Finished dipping into the library's An illustrated field key to the flowering plants of Monterey County — and ferns, fern allies, and conifers (1997) by Mary Ann Matthews.
Detailed and useful key for the plants of Monterey County.

{ February : febrero (see also books on learning Spanish) 2010 }

(2.28.2010)

Finished listening to (and re-listening to parts of — it was that good!) How Perfect Is That (2008) by Sarah Bird, brilliantly narrated by Susan Bennett.
Hilarious romp down the social ladder of Austin, Texas, where women are either trophy wives or trailer trash or (as in Blythe Young's case) both, and where men are (this was pre-2012 elections) George W. Bush clones or unsuccessful musicians. Despite all indications from the start, it's a story about friendship, loyalty, creativity, and true love.
And end-of-month clean-out for donating to library though it's a short list:
- Dogen's Pure Standards for the Zen Community (1996) translated by Taigen Daniel Leighton.
- Getting to Yes (1981) by Roger Fisher and William Ury. Their advice (would that politicians headed it) includes:
  - Don't be a victim: maybe begin with: "Look, I know this may be a little unusual, but I want to know the rules of the game we're going to play. Are we both trying to reach a wise agreement as quickly and with as little effort as possible? Or are we going to plan 'hard bargaining' where the more stubborn fellow wins?"
  - Separate the problem from the people.
  - Focus on interests, not positions.
  - Invent options for mutual gain.
  - Respond to deliberate deception (misrepresentation about facts, authority, or intention). Verify 'factual' information. Ambiguous authority: Level the playing field on mind-changing (taking an agreement to a boss). Dubious intentions: if the other is 100% certain then they will not mind a contingent agreement. Remember that less-than-full-disclosure is not the same as deception; one can be candid that information is not being disclosed; one might even agree on full disclosure to a trusted 3rd-party, who can advise if agreement is likely.
  - Respond to psychological warfare (tactics designed to make you uncomfortable). Stressful situations: identify and negotiation changes to distractions and prejudicial physical surroundings. Personal attacks: comments on your personal appearance; keeping you waiting; interrupting; implying you are ignorant; refusing to make eye contact. Good/bad guy. Threats: "good negotiators rarely resort to threats".
  - Respond to positional pressure. Refusal to negotiate: communicate on refusal to negotiate, to find out their interests in not negotiating; suggest some options; insist on using principles (do they want you to set preconditions or want others to refuse to negotiate with them).. Extreme demand: bring the tactic to their attention; ask for principled justification. Escalating demands: reopening 'settled' issues; asking for additional concessions; respond by taking a break to consider whether and on what basis to continue. Lock-in tactic: avoid making public commitments central; de-emphasize to allow back-down. Heard-hearted partner (c.f. Dickens). Calculated delay: like lock-in, setting a 'favorable' deadline can backfire.
- The Essentials of Psychology I (1994) by Linda Leal.
- Shame and Pride (1992) by Donald l. Nathanson.
- Shinto: Meditations for Revering the Earth (2002) by Stuart D.B.Picken.
- The Training Of A Zen Buddhist Monk (1934) by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki.
- Zen (1981) by Toichi Yoshioka translated by Hakuyu Maezumi, Peter Gregory, and Don Kenny.

(2.27.2010)

Elkhorn Slough (1989) by Mark Silberstein and Eileen Campbell. The history, habitats, and inhabitants of Elkhorn Slough.

(2.26.2010)

Re-read Poems to Eat tanka by Ishikawa Takuboku (b.1886), translated and introduced by Carl Sesar (1998).
Brilliant poems. One after another of his brief poems bears so much insight and passion.

(2.25.2010)

Read

Point Omega: A Novel (2010) by Don DeLillo.

A meditation on mysteries of transience, emptiness, need, and loss.

French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin invented the term "Omega Point" to denote "a maximum level of complexity and consciousness towards which the universe appears to be evolving" and which "is also the actual cause for the universe to grow in complexity and consciousness" (ref. wikipedia).

The novel indicates that the brainy reaching for the Omega Point falls apart and seems to reverse into a physical collapse when a great personal loss occurs. In effect, it seems to deny the existence of the Omega Point.

Later I saw that The New Yorker (March 1, 2010) has an unattributed and unenthusiastic Briefly Noted one-paragraph review (p. 75): "thin novel ... most[ly] ... resistant to the reader's focused attention — it reaches for enigmatic profundity but meanders".

Though I find an apt quote (p. 82) in Anthony Lane's review the Scorsese movie of Shutter Island, in a quote of Umberto Eco who, "In a celebrated riff on Casablanca ... wrote, 'Two clichés make us laugh but a hundred clichés move us, because we dimly sense that the clichés are talking among themselves."

There are a lot of clichés in the novel — the intellectual sucked into war planning, people that don't appreciate what someone states is art, people that do appreciate it, fantasies pursued, obsession with a person, obsession with a project, parental control, parental responsibility, the use of the desert as a place of clarity, ditto as a place of loss, dot-dot-dot. I like this richness and their interconnections.

Also when the war intellectual Richard Estler describes his work, he references haiku [p. 29]:

"Haiku means nothing beyond what it actually is. A pond in summer, a leaf in the wind. It's human consciousness located in nature. It's the answer to everything in a set number of lines, a prescribed syllable count. I wanted a haiku war," he said. "I wanted a war in three lines. This was not a matter of force levels or logistics. What I wanted was a set of ideas linked to transient things. That is the soul of haiku. Bare everything to plain sight. See what's there. Things in war are transient. See what's there and then be prepared to watch it disappear. ... That's what I was there for, to give them words and meaning. Words they hadn't used, new ways of thinking and seeing."

But finally, after Estler's daughter disappears, perhaps in the company of a psycho-killer and perhaps not [p. 98]:

The omega point has narrowed, here and now, to the point of a knife as it enters a body. All the man's grand themes funneled down to local grief, one body, out there somewhere, or not.

I prefer DeLillo's shorter books, his novella like this one and his even better The Body Artist:

Other books by DeLillo:

Cosmopolis: a surreal farce of sociopathic greed.
Falling Man: his "9/11" novel.
Point Omega (2010).
The Body Artist: a slender story about how one artist creates her work from her passions and her losses, from the aggregation of her experiences and her memories. And how she integrates and communicates them through her medium, which is, for the novel's heroine, her body.
Underworld: his weakest book that I've read; the book's mass is like that of a small moon of Jupiter; the tome is merely a collage of information, which the diverse and intermittent narrative fails to hold together. DeLillo writes (a third of the way through the book): "Pain is just another form of information". And in this novel, vice versa.

(2.24.2010)

Attended Kay Ryan's Stanford reading from her The Best of It: New and Selected Poems (2010). Contains new poems plus about 90% of the poems of:
- The Niagara River (2005).
- Say Uncle (2000).
- Elephant Rocks (1996).
- Flamingo Watching (1994).

(2.23.2010)

Finished listening to At Risk by Patricia Daniels Cornwell.
A lightweight novella with Cornwell's signature tight-arse PO'd power players.
Less complex than her ok All That Remains, but better than the others of hers I've suffered through:
- Postmortem, a boring and flat serial-killer novel.
- Cornwell's very predictable From Potter's Field.

(2.22.2010)

Belonging (2002), excellent poems by Dick Davis, reviewed at Ariadne's Web.

(2.21.2010)

Finished listening to The Garden of Eden and other criminal delights
by Faye Kellerman.
A fun collection of cozy noire and "dark psychological thriller" short stories, read by a strong variety of authors.

(2.20.2010)

Finished A Natural History of Ferns
by Robbin Craig Moran.
I've been browsing this tremendous book, rich in both science and anecdote, in conjunction with my annual Big Basin OWCH hike to Chalk Mountain and Berry Creek Falls: flowers, banana slugs and ferns.

(2.19.2010)

Read issue 41.1 (Spring 2010) of Modern Haiku.
Includes a haiku by moi.
See also our comments on previous issues of: Modern Haiku:

(2.18.2010)

Re-read The Book of Light, poems by Lucille Clifton, in honor of her life and recent death. Interesting poems in all of the book's three sections, particularly the third.

(2.17.2010)

Finished Henri Cole's Middle Earth: Poems (2003).
Many of the poems are written in 14 lines though they have no rhyme scheme nor traditional progressions.
I feel held at arm's length, having to often guess as to context and meaning. The use of so many abstract words adds to the self-protection that the poet seems to use, as does the all-too-frequent use of Latinate polysyllabic words.

(2.16.2010)

Browsed Hitched! : wedding stories from San Francisco City Hall (2005)
edited by poet Cheryl Dumesnil.
A collection of memoirs told enthusiastically and straightforwardly about the process by which 4037 gay and lesbian couples married in San Francisco City Hall for about four weeks during February and March, 2005.

(2.15.2010)

Finished The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America (2009)
by Timothy Egan.
A quick read, with some repetitiveness but a lot of enthusiasm, telling of the enormous 1910 wildfire that burned about three million acres in NE Washington, north Idaho, and western Montana. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of small fires had started during a dry summer, but a fierce wind system (the violent Palouser) boosted the fires so that they merged into an unstoppable firestorm (August 20-21, 1910), believed to be the largest fire in recorded U.S. history. 87 people died, including 78 firefighters.
A lot of the politics (centered on Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinochot) at the start of the book to set the context. The heart of the book is the central section with the personal stories of the people that fought the fire, the incredible bravery of Ed Pulaski and others.
This was The Fire That Shaped the U.S. Forest Service, which was thereafter tasked to prevent and battle against every wildfire to prevent the opportunity for such a firestorm.
Also see wikipedia on the Great Fire of 1910.

(2.12.2010)

Re-read Kay Ryan's The Niagara River (2005).
Great. Keeps her at the top of my list of best poets that I read and reread.
One of the best books read in 2006 -- and 2010. Almost as good as her previous book, Say Uncle.
See also previous blog of The Niagara River.

(2.11.2010)

Re-read Kay Ryan's Say Uncle (2000).
Just terrific. Exceeds all her previous books in concision and wit. Shows Kay Ryan's fully established style.
The best book read in 2000 -- and one of the best in 2010.

(2.10.2010)

Re-read Kay Ryan's Elephant Rocks (1996).
This is the transitional book from tremendously good work to great work. See further comments at Kay Ryan's style.

(2.9.2010)

Re-read Kay Ryan's Flamingo Watching (1994).
A good early book.
See also previous blog of Flamingo Watching.

(2.8.2010)

Re-read Kay Ryan's Strangely Marked Metal (1985).
This, her first widely available book, shows a lot of promise.
See also previous blog of Strangely Marked Metal (1985).

(2.3.2010)

Listened to P is for Peril (2001) by Sue Grafton.
Pretty good escapist reading, well read as always by Judy Kaye.
Other books read in Sue Grafton's series include:
A is for Alibi .
B is for Burglar.
E is for Evidence.
F is for Fugitive: also a favorite.
I is for Innocent.
K is for Killer.
L is for Lawless.
M is for Malice.
N is for Noose.
O is for Outlaw (1999).
P is for Peril (2001).
Q is for Quarry (2003).
R is for Ricochet (2004).
S is for Silence (2005). my favorite in the series so far, perhaps because of the liveliness of the characters.

(2.1.2010)

Reread with great delight The Trouble with Poetry (2005), by Billy Collins.
I still delight in the accessibility of his poems, written in common speech that one might use in conversation, with a cheerful humor and yet a willingness to look death in the face.

{ January : enero (see also books on learning Spanish) 2010 }

(1.31.2010)

Finished out this month of reading the work of women with 100 Essential Modern Poems By Women (reviewed at Ariadne's Web) (2008) edited by Joseph Parisi and Kathleen Welton.
A hundred poems by 48 women poets with an essay (by Parisi) on each poet plus an essay on Elizabeth Bishop (whose will apparently forbade inclusion of her poetry in such an anthology).
Even Mary Oliver (whom I once heard say at a reading that she did not give permission for her work to be included in a women-only anthology) is there.
So is Kay Ryan: Perhaps she may have said the same as she is paired with Oliver for "special thanks" in the Acknowledgments.
For a blog that will report books by women for more than a month, see the interesting readingwomenin2010.blogspot.com, a book blog devoted in 2010 to 12 months of reading work by women.

(1.30.2010)

Finished dipping into Joseph Cornell: Master of Dreams a richly illustrated biography of the junk-framed-in-boxes-is-art Cornell, by Diane Waldman.
Interestingly, Joseph Parisi in his essay on Mina Loy in 100 Essential Modern Poems By Women mentions that Loy assembled art pieces from found objects and was a friend of Cornell. But Waldman does not mention Loy.

(1.29.2010)

Finished listening to All That Remains (1992 and 3rd of the 'Kay Scarpetta' series) by Patricia Daniels Cornwell.
Finally a decent book from Cornwell.
This book's improvements over her other books include:
- More complex and interesting plot, with substantial interest in people. An improvement over the abandoned Cornwell's Postmortem (1990 and 1st of the 'Kay Scarpetta' series), which I found to be a boring and flat serial-killer novel.
- Less predictable than Cornwell's very predictable From Potter's Field (1995 and 6th of the 'Kay Scarpetta' series).
Lord, there was even a flash of humor on a couple of occasions.

(1.27.2010)

Abandoned: Supernatural Love: Poems, 1976-1992 (2004), poems by Gjertrud Schnackenberg.
This is my third attempt to read this book. Although this poet's work has been well recommended, particularly as one of few "contemporary poets who handle strict forms and yet keep them transparent" for me there is not enough interest in the rhymes and rhythms to let me be willing to spend the effort on entering a whole book of her poems.

She is "too erudite" to me: I like erudition — either learning something from a poem, or both enjoying and trusting the author enough that I decide to do a little research to discover her references. Part of it may be that she when she is just mulling things over she thinks of Van Gogh and Homer, whereas in a similar situation I think about my house's plumbing, my flat feet, and what the next meal will be.

So my mind wanders when I read Gjertrud. A friend who knows about my statements "about readers' rights to toss, abandon, etc." thought that a recent article by Mr. Cowan in the Washington Times is relevant. I like Cowan's arguments including:

"If I'm reading a truly, actively bad book, I'll throw it out," he says. His wife will protest, but he points out that he's doing a public service: "If I don't throw it out, someone else might read it." If that person is one of the many committed to finishing a book once started, he's actually doing harm.
Mr. Cowen, who says he couldn't finish Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers or John Dos Passos' U.S.A., offers a more direct economic rationale. He notes that many up-and-coming writers complain they can't break through in a best-seller-driven marketplace. "We're also making markets more efficient," Mr. Cowen says. "If you can sample more books, you're giving more people a chance."

(1.26.2010)

Finished listening to The Wedding Night (1999) by Linda Needham, read by Jenny Sterlin.
It's an easy listen: Sterlin's genre seems to be historical-engineering erotica as this book continues Needham's fixation on flirtatious baths and engineering descriptions of man-woman interactions.
As in the other book, the heroine is beautiful, clever, inventive, and able to keep her temper when her boyfriend is having a meltdown. And the hero
1. has a threatening and unconventionally handsome appearance yet is very tolerant of part-wild children (which is the very trope used previously in The Maiden Bride to show us how tender hearted its blustering hero actually was);
2. has a desk job and is entering middle age, yet he can swing a pick at a rock face with the best of the young colliers in an emergency.
A little predictable and clinchéd, but companionable enough for someone her January clean-out of cupboards and not caring if she missed half a CD now and then.
The Maiden Bride (2000) was a little more interesting and was less plagued by erotica.

(1.24.2010)

Push Comes To Shove: An Autobiography (1994) by Tharp, Twyla. Exuberant tell-all book about her development from infant to adult and her battle for control of her dancing, her choreography, and the people (especially the men) that she worked with.

This autobiography is interesting when it describes collaborations and creativity, but the personal details are skimmable. By contrast, her The Creative Habit (check our review page) was a much more interesting and relevant book:

The Creative Habit: Learn it and Use it for Life by Twyla Tharp ( new this year 2003).
Devoured it in a single day.
This was 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 (a leading and innovative choreographer) is a brilliant mentor and a no-nonsense delight.

(1.23.2010)

Pomegranate (2004), poems by Debra Spencer.
Excellent: reviewed at Ariadne's Web.

(1.22.2010)

8 10s at Eight (the 15th annual original 10-minute play festival, this year showing the best 8 of over 140 plays submitted; the 8 runners up will be March 25-28). Highlights:
- Best play: Hayley and the Man by Erin Marie Bregman (director MarNae Taylor). Set at a bus stop the play juxtaposes deep tragedy and childlike humor; moving and heartfelt.
- Funniest play: The Case of the Cereal Killer by Doug Brook (director Shara Free). Set in faux-noire mode around the breakfast table, a man investigates his missing bowl of cereal and learns more than he wanted to know about his family. Somewhat predictable, but the admirable acting (particularly that of Jaye S. Wolfe) more than compensates.
  Doug Brook is also the playwright for Finding God, in the 2010 Pear Slices short-play festival, as well as six other plays in previous 8 10s at Eight (including Lot in Life and Retrograde, which was later produced on 42nd Street, New York).
- Best 'almost': Before the Crash by Ian McRae (director Andrew Stewart). Very strong part for the female lead, but the lines for her companion were relatively dull so the play was unbalanced.

(1.20.2010)

Listened to Cover Her Face (1998 BBC recording of a full-cast dramatization with Hugh Grant and others) by P.D. James.
An abbreviation of the classic book. Also watched the BBC DVD, which is a more complete version of the book and as a result more complex and interesting. Both are good.

(1.19.2010)

A Beginner's Guide to American Mah Jongg (revised 2007), by Elaine Sandberg: a chatty introduction to the complex and ever-changing American Mah Jongg (or Jong).
Thankfully in my first ever Mah Jongg (or Jong) game today, we played with Chinese rules, so this book of American rules is going back to the library.

(1.18.2010)

Buy 'Mah Jong, Anyone?' by Kitty Strauser and Lucille Evans.

Mah Jong, Anyone?
(1964, revised 2006),
by Kitty Strauser and Lucille Evans,
a concise and clear introduction to Mah Jong.

(1.17.2010)

Listened to first and last 10% of Postmortem (1990), by Patricia Cornwell. Boring and flat serial-killer novel. Abandoned the book after listening to the first of 10 and the last of 10 CDs.
This is despite Patricia Cornwell being listed as number 38 in the April 17, 2008 Times (the original great London Times of course) list of crime novelists and called a "Shrewd pioneer of gruesome pathology". Their top five were:
1. Patricia Highsmith: "Rule-breaking master of amorality".
2. Georges Simenon: "The Trojan horse of foreign crime-writing".
3. Agatha Christie: "The original Queen of Crime".
4. Raymond Chandler: "The most profound of pulp writers".
5. Elmore Leonard: "The Dickens of Detroit"
Patricia Cornwell's All That Remains was recommended by the The Weekend Novelist Writes a Mystery and hopefully that will be better!
That is probably my last shot at Patricia Cornwell as I listened to From Potter's Field in 2006 and found it "Astonishingly predictable in terms of who is the 'Jane Doe' found murdered in Central Park, as well as where and with whom will be the final denouement."
Meanwhile my go-to serial killer author is still John Sandford (Pulitzer prize-winner John Camp), whose Detective Lucas Davenport matches luck, wits, and determination with one resourceful serial killer after another; e.g.: Mortal Prey. All that and a sense of humor also.

(1.16.2010)

Listened to The Spellman Files (2007), by Lisa Lutz, read by Christina Moore.
A delightful junior-PI mystery romp. Maybe what PI Kinsey Milhone would have been like as a younger person in a larger family, as in: S is for Silence (2005), my favorite in the series so far.

(1.15.2010)

Ribbons: Winter 2009 issue. Excellent: features a Tanka of J. Zimmerman on the back cover!

(1.14.2010)

The Lost Land (1998), poetry by Eavan Boland.
The first half is the 12-part poem "Colony", which has similar limitations to Against Love, though it is not as strident.
The second half, 17 poems in a section called "The Lost Land", has a more generous and poetic voice, with many poems in praise of a daughter.
Other books:
- Against Love (2001): angry nostalgia and furious grief. Too cross for me.

(1.13.2010)

Moonbathing; the premier issue (Autumn 2009/Winter 2010) includes one of my tanka, along with those of other terrific tanka poets.

(1.12.2010)

Finished listening to Christina Moore's CD reading of Island of Lost Girls by Jennifer McMahon.
It's a rather sad and muddled mystery story of several missing people and the eventual finding of what happened to each of them. Abduction, murder, child abuse, escape, nostalgia.

(1.10.2010)

The Binding Chair or, [punctuation is Harrison's] A Visit From the Foot Emancipation Society: a Novel (2000) by Kathryn Harrison.
While the writing and plotting are somewhat interesting, I skim-read when the material became repetitive or more graphic than I needed. The main protagonist, a bound-foot Chinese woman, is extremely manipulative and someone whose offer of friendship might be excessively costly. Indeed, I would be wary of an offer of friendship from any of the main characters in this rather scary tale of financial and sexual adventuring in China and France.
Harrison's books show her as an author fascinated by one person's obsession with another. In this book, we follow (albeit queasily) a young man's obsession with putrescence and the deformed bound foot.
Of her other books:
- Envy (2005): The first half is ho-hum with too much talking and analysis; The second half has more interesting events. But the book's bottom line is just too predictable once we learn one brother left the family in the lurch in the early hours of the other brother's wedding morning.
- Seal Wife (2002): terrific; sensual writing and a fascinating plot; a page-turning read of obsession, devotion, self-control, deception, and glory. Almost made my list of best books read in 2009.

(1.9.2010)

Writings on Writing (1980) by May Sarton.

(1.7.2010)

Finished listening to a rather strident CD reading by Blair Brown of The Amateur Marriage by Anne Tyler.
It's a tale of a mis-matched couple who make an opposites-attract marriage only to eventually dissolve it. What is most interesting is to see how their various children and grandchildren do and do not express their genes. And to see what subsequent marriage or relationships they each make. One lesson is that nothing is perfect. Another lesson is that yet again an Anne Tyler book is a little like eating a cafeteria meal: nothing special.
See also her Digging To America.

(1.6.2010)

Big Basin OWCH hike to Chalk Mountain and Berry Creek Falls: flowers, banana slugs and ferns.

(1.5.2010)

Reread Against Love Poetry (2001) by Eavan Boland.
The poems exude angry nostalgia and furious grief. While they may energize the poet, they exhaust me.
The poet complains that the country she was born in (Ireland) was historically colonized by the English. Yet she writes in the English language, emigrates to live in gilded fame and opportunity in another colonizer, the USA. To me, she often seems whiny and ill-tempered.
Despite that, I'm a little more impressed by this slightly grumpy collection of poetry than last year: I do find a few good lines yet still no stunning poem.