Lost in Books: May 2009

May 31, 2009

TSS: May Round-Up!

I had a good month in May. I read 13 books, finished 12, and have started 2 more. Here is a look at my reviews for the month:

1. Call Me Sonya Grey: A Young Girl’s Poems about Death, Life, and Adolescence by Sonya Tupone Lloyd

2. The Scalpel and the Silver Bear by Lori Arviso Alvord, M.D. and Elizabeth Cohen Van Pelt

3. Finding Happiness: Monastic Steps for a Fulfilling Life by Abbot Christopher Jamison

4. Shattered Reality by Kimberly Cheryl

5. Octopussy, Dry Kidney, & Blue Spots: Dirty Themes from 18-19c Japanese Poetry edited by Robin Gill (DNF)

6. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver

7. I’m Fine with God…It’s Christians I Can’t Stand by Bruce Bickel and Stan Jantz

8. In the Heart of the World: Thoughts, Stories, and Prayers by Mother Teresa

9. Coffee with the Buddha by Joan Oliver Duncan

10. Good Books Lately: The One-Stop Resource for Book Groups and Other Greedy Readers by Ellen Moore and Kira Stevens

11. Bare Bones by Kathy Reichs

12. Beloved by Toni Morrison

13. Girls in Trucks by Katie Crouch (a little premature: I have 2 chapters to go, but will finish them today)

That puts my total number of books read in 2009 at 45. So I am right on track to read 100 books this year! Yay me! I am excited anyway because 45 is more books than I have read in a year. I usually hover somewhere around 30 for the year.

The two books I have already started, but have not finished yet, are Matrimony by Joshua Henkin and A Lucky Child by Thomas Buergenthal, both ARCs.

As you may know, I have devised a Summer Reading List that I want to get through between June 1st and August 31st. You can find the whole list here. These are the books from the list I want to start with for June:

1. Simple Taoism by C. Alexander Simpkins and Annellen Simpkins (to complete the Spiritually Speaking Challenge)

2. A Lucky Child: Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy by Thomas Buergenthal (which I mentioned above)

3.The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki

4. Matrimony by Joshua Henkin (which I also mentioned above)

5. A Worthy Legacy by Tomi Akinyanmi (ARC)

6. Fibromyalgia for Dummies

7. The Angel Experiment (Maximum Ride Series, Book 1) by James Patterson

What book(s) are you reading now? Are there any you want to make sure you read next?

Review: Octopussy, Dry Kidney, and Blue Spots

BOOK #: 43
CHALLENGES: none, ARC
RATING: 1 Star (DNF)

The long title of this book is Octopussy, Dry Kidney, & Blue Spots: Dirty Themes from 18-19c Japanese Poems. It also says "or, senryu compiled, translated & essayed by Robin D. Gill" and "Yet another good book the New York Times Book Review will probably ignore."

In my opinion, the NY Times has good reason. The beginning of the book says that by the time you finish it, you will know what octopussy, dry kidney, and blue spots are. But I never found out. It was too boring to continue.

This enormous clunk of a book is filled with 18-19c Japanese poems, sure. Dirty themes? Sure. A variety of poems? Definitely. Interesting essays explaining the dirty themes behind the poems?

Uh-oh. Missing.

The explanations in this book were more droll to me than watching paint dry. It must take some amount of talent in order to turn ancient erotic poems into something so un-fascinating.

I did not understand Gill's heavy-handed explanation of what senryu poetry is, only that it is similar to haiku, which I could gather for myself from simply looking at the stanzas.

I think that given the size of this book (nearly 500 pages), some of the less interesting poems could be omitted. I thought there were far too many poems on 'farts' alone. Perhaps it is just me and my igorance in what the term 'dirty' means, but that wasn't quite what I had in mind. And the whole section titled 'The Sound of Piss' was also a tad much. There were plenty of other poems that were erotic in nature that these could probably go.

I also thought it was odd that there were random messages in the book, such as, "My Octopussy Embarrassment, or apologia, in the classic sense of rationalizing something the nincompoops may well object to." Um, what? What would make you put this into the pages? Okay, so someone objects. Deal with it. If this is an attempt at humor, it falls irritatingly flat.

I think that the idea that Gill is trying to sell here is a good one, but the execution needs improvement. I would be more likely to buy this book if it were much smaller, say 50-100 pages, with several really good examples of senryu, than a giant book filled with what looks to be all the dirty-themed senryu that can be located. I read several of these, but they were most unfortunately overshadowed by the numerous other poems that were mediocre at best. Just because it is available to the public, doesn't mean the public needs, or desires, to read it. If you want to introduce us to senryu and help us develop an appreciation for it, then please take care to be more selective of the poems you introduce us to first.

Review: Coffee with the Buddha by Joan Oliver Duncan

BOOK #: 44
CHALLENGES: Spiritually Speaking Challenge, Triple 999 Challenge
RATING: 4.5 Stars

How do we develop compassion?
If desire is a problem, why do we keep wanting?
Does everybody go through reincarnation? What is it that's reborn?
What's your message in a nutshell?

These are just some of the questions answered in this compact-sized, but mega-informative book.

Coffee with the Buddha is one of a series of Coffee with... books. The series allows you to discover what it would be like to sit down and have a cup of coffee and a relaxed conversation with some of the world's most brilliant people. This particular book shares what the Buddha would tell you if you had the chance to speak with him, perhaps through time travel. While Buddhism has fascinated me for a while now, I had never understood the basic concepts so well as I do after reading this book.

From explaining the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path to speaking of marriage and tantric sex, this book definitely covers the basics and gives a, pardon the pun, enlightening breakdown of Buddhism for the novice student.

"Just as what we like inevitably changes or leaves, so too what we don't like passes."

"Karma is the natural law of moral causality that says: We reap what we sow. Volitional actions generate karma. Intention is key. Karma invites us to take responsibility for our behavior."

I kept my notebook with me as I read this book, making sure to record everything I wanted to remember. The advice is so easy to understand and full of common sense when you break it down, that everyone can learn something from this book.

One revelation I found particularly interesting were the number of parallels between the life of Siddhartha (the Buddha before his enlightenment) and that of Jesus in Christianity. There were also set differences.

SIMILARITIES
-Rejection of an evil being during a period of "testing"
-The followers, or apostles, or monks
-The use of parables to teach and explain
-Spending life spreading the word of enlightenment/salvation
-Sent others out to spread the word after them
-Attempts on their lives
-The messages of both the Buddha and of Jesus were messages of hope for a better future, a way to end suffering, and how to live a better life.

DIFFERENCES
-Jesus was murdered at the age of 33; Buddha lived to be 80
-Siddhartha was entirely human; Jesus was all human but also all God
-Siddhartha needed to be persuaded at first to share information on how to reach enlightenment; Jesus knew his destiny was to share how to reach Heaven.

I also learned a lot of new terms and phrases. Here are a few:

-Siddhartha means 'one who accomplishes'
-Chakravartin means 'a world-turning monarch'
-Mahapurusha is a Sanskrit word meaning 'great man' or 'supreme spirit'
-Jnanas are the states of absorption the Buddha passed through in meditation
-Dukkha is the Pali word for 'suffering'
-Bhikkus means 'monks'

I am looking into buying more books in the Coffee with... Series. Which ones catch my eye the most? Hemingway, Plato, and Mozart.

May 30, 2009

Take Me Away To Turkey

Take Me Away

Take Me Away is a new feature I am trying out for Saturdays. As a lover of books that take place in different cultures and are about different cultures, I thought this was a good way to share this love with you, my readers and friends!

Each week I will feature a different country or culture (ex. Cherokee, Jewish, etc. that do not have a specific country per se) and list some books that can transport you there.

I am keeping a map of the countries we visit and a list of the specific cultures, which you can see at the bottom of this post. Last week we visited Chile. This week we are visiting the country of Turkey in the Middle East. Click on the titles to go to the book's page on Amazon.com to read reviews and/or purchase the book.

Here is an easy to see map of Turkey:

To learn more about the country of Turkey, click here.

Snow by Orhan Pamuk
A Turkish poet who spent 12 years as a political exile in Germany witnesses firsthand the clash between radical Islam and Western ideals in this enigmatically beautiful novel. Ka's reasons for visiting the small Turkish town of Kars are twofold: curiosity about the rash of suicides by young girls in the town and a hope to reconnect with "the beautiful Ipek," whom he knew as a youth. But Kars is a tangle of poverty-stricken families, Kurdish separatists, political Islamists (including Ipek's spirited sister Kadife) and Ka finds himself making compromises with all in a desperate play for his own happiness. Ka encounters government officials, idealistic students, leftist theater groups and the charismatic and perhaps terroristic Blue while trying to convince Ipek to return to Germany with him; each conversation pits warring ideologies against each other and against Ka's own weary melancholy. Pamuk himself becomes an important character, as he describes his attempts to piece together "what really happened" in the few days his friend Ka spent in Kars, during which snow cuts off the town from the rest of the world and a bloody coup from an unexpected source hurtles toward a startling climax. Pamuk's sometimes exhaustive conversations and descriptions create a stark picture of a too-little-known part of the world, where politics, religion and even happiness can seem alternately all-consuming and irrelevant. A detached tone and some dogmatic abstractions make for tough reading, but Ka's rediscovery of God and poetry in a desolate place makes the novel's sadness profound and moving.

Less Than a Shadow by David Chacko
When Alfred Rydell, a American journalist, is murdered in his Istanbul apartment, Inspector Onur Levent is ordered to find the killer quickly for the sake of Turkish-American relations. But Rydell's family has political clout. Thus Jason Ender with the U.S. State Department is rushed to Istanbul to find the answers demanded. When Ender meets Levent, the expected clash of culture, methods, and objectives doesn't happen. Instead their professionalism allows them to combine their resources and move on quickly. Neither man believes there was a simple motive behind Rydell's death. As they probe ever more deeply, the scope of their investigation suddenly expands into a desperate search for terrorists. Time passes too swiftly as Ender and Levent race to thwart the terrorist plan intended to collapse the economy and government of Turkey, the only democracy in the Middle East. And thus to bring chaos to the entire region.

The Virgin's Knot by Holly Payne
(one of my favorite books!)
Payne's debut novel is a beautifully written and evocative fable set in 1950s Turkey. Nurdane, a rug weaver of mystical power, is stricken with polio as a child, and is unable to walk without aid. Nurdane's gift for weaving becomes her sole focus, and her rugs become legendary. The people of her village believe that her rugs are imbued with magic that heals the sick and ensures the birth of male children, and thus Nurdane's creations become the highest prize in any woman's dowry. But she yearns for more from her life, and begins to realize that there is more she must do. Between the schemes of her father, the desires of the man who loves her, and the interest of an anthropologist on a quest to uncover the Goddess, Nurdane sees a way to fulfill her deepest desire. Payne has conjured an entrancing blend of myth, history, and religious feminism that results in a tale as compelling as it is elusive.

Complicated Favors: A Turkish Affair by Jeanne Reeder
While on vacation in Turkey, two friends unwittingly become entangled in a web of international terrorism. One, a forensic behavioral analyst for the CIA, is forced to cross a dangerous line from tourist to intelligence operative as she decides to work with an undercover Kurdish military team led by a Turkish spy. The mission takes the special operations team into southeastern Turkey's beautiful, rugged and vast Sat-Cilo mountains, where they enter a foreign world of intrigue and a surprising and exotic land of romance.

Seraglio: A Novel by Janet Wallach
Wallach builds her first novel around the abduction of a young French girl--a cousin of Napoleon's wife Josephine--at the end of the seventeenth century and her sale into the sultan of Turkey's seraglio. Aimee du Buc de Rivery was only 13 when her ship was captured by pirates and she was taken to the seraglio. Renamed Nakshidil, she is befriended by the eunuch Tulip, but she fights against her enslavement and the rules of the seraglio. As she adapts to her new life, she catches the eye of the old sultan. But it is Selim, the sultan who succeeds him, who captures her heart. She becomes his lover and his confidante, sharing with him the books and knowledge of the West. It is through her adoptive son, Mahmud, who eventually becomes sultan, that Nakshidil gains true power and influence when she is named valide sultan, the second-most powerful position in the empire. A lush, rich tale of a clever woman and her loyal friend who navigate a world full of treacherous politics and ruthless enemies.

A Fire in My Heart: Kurdish Tales (World Folklore Series) by Diane Edgecomb
(The Kurdish Culture)
A labor of love and a magnificent achievement, this collection of tales, legends, recipes, games and history takes readers vividly into the traditional village life of the Kurds, a little-known and politically beleaguered ethnic group whose homeland straddles the borders of Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. Supported partly by grants (including one from NSN), Edgecomb traveled into Turkish Kurdistan, collecting stories from villagers whose language itself had been banned. The resulting book brings lively and unusual stories to light, presenting 33 tales representing all regions of Kurdistan and the four main Kurdish dialects--from the Kurdish Cinderella story "Fatima" to animal stories and stories based on legendary figures (e.g., Rusteme Zal, the Kurdish Hercules)--organized by tale type.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. Do you know of some books that take place in Turkey that you want to share? Or do you want to share other thoughts? Please leave a note in the comments!

The Take Me Away Map of Countries Visited:

create your own visited country map

Announcing the Winner of Shattered Reality!

The winner is....
Teabird!!!
Congratulations! I will be e-mailing you to get your mailing info.

In case you are interested, here is how I arrived at a winner:

I made a list of all entries, in order, putting in your name again for each entry you made: first I listed those who left a comment on giveaway post, then those who left a comment on review, then followers, then twitter posts. Here is how the list looked:

1. Susan

2. Shelburns

3. Missy

4. Hil’Lesha

5. Cpullum

6. Teabird

7. Staci

8. Alexa

9. Sleeplessalamander

10. Shannansbooks

11. Mindy

12. A reader

13. Texasheartland

14. Mary

15. Wendy

16. Little eagle

17. Samf36

18. Susan

19. Shelburns

20. Missy

21. Teabird

22. Staci

23. Alexa

24. A Reader

25. Susan

26. Shelburns

27. Missy

28. Teabird

29. Staci

30. Alexa

31. Sleeplessalamander

32. Shannansbooks

33. A Reader

34. Shelburns

35. Shannansbooks

I used random.org and put in numbers 1-35. Here is how they came out:
(It is interesting to note that Teabird was not only first, but also last.)

Here is your sequence:

May 29, 2009

Friday Finds: My Stack Runneth Over

This week my TBR list exploded! You all are reading such fascinating books and I am so excited about them! Here are some books I am now coveting. Click on the blog name where I discovered the book to read all about the book and its review! (P.S. Some of these book covers are gorgeous, aren't they?)

Strangers by Anita Brookner
Found @ kiss a cloud

Undiscovered Gyrl by Allison Burnett
Found @ Stuff As Dreams Were Made On

Voodoo Season by Jewell Parker Rhodes
Found @ Stuff as Dreams Are Made On...

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Found @ Wonders and Marvels

Precious by Sandra Novack
Found @ Book Addiction

(I think I've gotten the most Friday Finds from Heather!)

The Disobedient Girl by Ru Freeman
Found @ Bibliophile By the Sea

More Than Just Race by William Julius Wilson
Found @ Nonsuch Book

Losing Kei by Suzanne Kamata
Found @ Maw Books Blog

The Moment Between by Nicole Baart
Found @ Book Critiques

A Gift from Brittany by Marjorie Price
Found @ my cozy book nook

Cut by Patricia McCormick (same author as Sold)
Found @ Book Addiction
(See yet another book thanks to Heather! ;))

The Last Dickens by Matthew Pearl
Found @ Nonsuch Book

The Boat by Nam Le
Found @ Reading Adventures

The Consequences of Love by Sulaiman Addonia
Found @ Bibliophile By the Sea

Who Do You Think You Are?: A Memoir by Alyse Myers
Found @ Bookopolis

Bronx Masquerade by Nikki Grimes
Found @ Po(sey) Sessions

The Accidental Bestseller by Wendy Wax
Found @ J. Kaye's Book Blog and @ Melody's Reading Corner

Prayers for Sale by Sandra Dallas
Found @ Bibliophile By the Sea

A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park
Found @ ChainReading

Painting the Invisible Man by Rita Schiano
Found @ Missy's Book Nook
(To read Missy's review is enough reason to go visit her in and of itself.)

May 28, 2009

Book Mooch Lottery- FYI

For those who want to know, Book Mooch is having its 3rd Annual Lottery. Go here to get more info. To register with Book Mooch, click here.

How to play the lottery:

1.) Choose your favorite author from the list below (go to lottery page on BM to view list).

2.) Also select a Bookmooch charity you would like to support.

This is our charity page

3.) Buy your lottery ticket(s) by first clicking 'charity' from your member home page and then typing in 'lottery' in the box at the base of the screen. Select how many points to give from the drop-down menu, and be sure and enter both your chosen author's name and your charity group in the box that appears.

How it works:

You can buy as many tickets as you like. Each additional point/ticket will increase both your share in the winnings and your charitable donation if your author is randomly chosen. But no matter how many points you give, you can only choose one author and one charity, so if you give us more than one of either, all points will be placed on the first names you submit.

On Monday, June 8th at midnight U.S. pacific time, one of the author's names on the list below will be randomly drawn. Your author's literary merits or popularity will not be taken into consideration :)

Each member who has selected the chosen name will win a share of the lottery jackpot!

So if 1000 points are collected, and there are 20 'tickets' with the winning name, each member will win (half of) 50 points per ticket.

If one member gave 2 points, 100 points will be rewarded, if another gave 5 points, 250 points will be rewarded.

Half of each winner's prize will be donated to their charity of choice and the other half will be instantly transferred to their account.

BTT: Unread

Question: Is there a book that you wish you could “unread”? One that you disliked so thoroughly you wish you could just forget that you ever read it?

There have been plenty of books that I did not like or couldn't even finish, but I don't know that there have ever been books that were so horrible I wish I could "unread" them. There are plenty of books I would give only one star to, though. But these same books, to someone else, could be five star books. There is not a book ever written that absolutely everyone would agree was so bad they wish they could "unread" it. Maybe I am having trouble with this terminology, I don't know.

I guess I can share with you some books that I did not enjoy reading. There is a difference between really disliking a book and not being able to get into it at the time and putting away for later (I have those too). If I put away a book for later (such as Atonement, Daughter of Fortune) that means I think I will be able to like it at another time. These are books that I didn't like and probably never will. But, as I have said before and I will say again, there is not a book so bad that I can't find anything positive in it.

Books I Gave One Star To On My Site:
-Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert

Books I Would Have Given One Star To (if I'd had this site when I read them):
-The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
-Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella
-Chloe Does Yale by Natalie Krinsky

What about you? Is there a book so bad you wish you could unread it???

View other people's answers here.

May 27, 2009

The Wednesday Short Report

The Wednesday Short Report

IN THE LAST WEEK (Since 5/18):

BOOKS READ: 3
Finding Happiness: Monastic Steps to a Fulfilling Life
Beloved
Shattered Reality

PAGES READ: 539

REVIEWS WRITTEN: 5
Above 3 books plus
I'm Fine with God...It's Christians I Can't Stand
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

POSTS POSTED: 25 (wow)
Including a Giveaway for Shattered Reality (until 5/30)

BOOKS CURRENTLY READING: 3
Coffee with the Buddha by Joan Oliver Duncan
Matrimony by Joshua Henkin
Girls in Trucks by Katie Crouch

REVIEWS NEEDING TO BE WRITTEN: 1
Octopussy, Dry Kidney, & Blue Spots by Robin Gill

POSTS WITH MOST COMMENTS:
#1 What's in a Name? 46 comments
#2 Take Me Away Saturday 14 comments

BEST COMMENTERS FOR THE WEEK:
#1 bermudaonion 12 comments
#2 Nymeth 8 comments
#3 Claire 7 comments
#4 Literary Feline 6 comments
#5 Vasilly and Sharazad 4 comments each

CHALLENGES UPDATE:
I finished the In Their Shoes Challenge, but missed the mark by half on the Book Awards Challenge, which ends next week. :( Oh well. You win some, you lose some. I am almost finished with the Spiritually Speaking Challenge and the Centuries Challenge. I have 43 books read for the year so far.