Top 10 Nonfiction Titles

After my post on All The Tea in China, I started thinking about nonfiction. I read a lot of nonfiction. I think I would say that at this point in my life I prefer nonfiction. Not saying that I don't love to get lost in some imaginary world, but I'm a sucker for a book that will both teach and entertain me. So here are my Top 10 favorite nonfiction titles.

1. The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner
I read this book of Weiner's study of happiness and the places it can be found, and then immediately passed the book on to my sisters. The NPR correspondent looks at different scales of happiness and then sets out to visit the places that have been listed the happiest on earth (and a few of the least happy). Not only did the book introduce me to the concept of biophilia, but it made me want to travel to places like Iceland, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. His study of the different cultures is fascinating and I walked away thinking a lot about happiness and what really makes me happy in the end.

2. The Hive by Bee Wilson
I picked up this book, subtitled The Story of the Honeybee and Us, randomly in a tiny bookstore in Omaha. I read a lot of natural history books and this one was interesting. I had been wanting to eventually set up my own apiary. This book was so beautifully written and provided such an interesting history of bees that I read it over a two day period. Wilson shows how bees have been intertwined with our politics, sex, life, death, and of course food throughout history. A "bee"utiful book.

3. The History of the World in Six Glasses by Tom Standage
The only book on this list that I don't own, but I can't think of a nonfiction title that has more impacted the way I look at the world. Standage looks back through human history through the lens of beverages. Through beer, wine, tea, coffee, spirits, and cola, he traces how humans have been changed as these drinks rose to prominence. His last chapter, about the rising importance of water, changed the way I looked at the environmental movement for the better. One of the best books I've ever read. Period.

4. Isaac's Storm by Erik Larson
Larson might be my favorite nonfiction writer out there. At the insistence of my mother I've read almost all of his books. He makes history come alive in a way that I've never encountered before. Isaac's Storm, about the 1900 hurricane in Galveston, tells three stories. The first is about the actual hurricane, how it arrived and what it destroyed. The second is about Isaac Cline, the meteorologist in Galveston that year and how his lack of understanding caused some of the larger damage. It's through Cline's letters and journals that we get the most intimate picture of the catastrophe. And the last story is the story of meteorology itself, from a bunch of guesswork to a somewhat scientific study. All three stories wrap together to make for one exciting and informative read.

5. Longitude by Dava Sobel
This is really a story about sea travel, about the difficulties of sea travel, and about the perfect device that managed to make it less difficult. For centuries sea farers could tell with some accuracy where they were latitudinally but they had no idea what longitude they were at. They could tell how close to the equator they were, but not how far east or west. It was a perilous issue. This book chronicles the invention of the chronometer, which finally allowed sailors the chance to know where in the world they really were. A short, elegant read for anyone interested in travel, history, or inventions.

6. The Medici Giraffe by Marina Belozerskaya
Throughout history, animals have been used by man. Some for food, some for work, and some (as this book discusses) for status. This well researched and beautifully written book looks at how people have used exotic animals as symbols of power and status. It chronicles the early animal trade where exotics were brought back to live in private menageries or paraded down the streets for the people's pleasure. I had never really thought about how animals had been used that way until I realized how often animals are still given as gifts to heads of state. An eye-opening book.

7. The Road of Dreams by Bruce Junek
One of the more obscure titles on this list, although I have several friends who had read this travelogue before I had. The book follows Bruce Junek and his wife Tass Thacker as they bicycle around the world. I've read many "around the world" books but this one was the first to really feel like the authors were getting heavily into the cultures surrounding them. Focusing mostly on North America, Europe, and Asia, this book gave me my first glimpse into traveling lightly yet immersing oneself into a place. I was spellbound by the read as has everyone I've ever lent the book to.

8. Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson
After I started scuba diving, I started reading a bit about the history of the pursuit and about successful and unsuccessful dives. Of all the books I've read though, none of them kept me on the edge of my seat like this true story of a group of divers, working on a U-Boat they discovered off the coast of the US. Their tales of the dives they take to discover the identity of the sub and to explore it are gripping. While reading the last chapter I literally forgot to breathe and ended up taking gasping breaths as I flipped pages. Incredibly exciting reading.

9. You Just Don't Understand by Deborah Tannen
This is hands down one of the best books I've ever read about human communication. Tannen explores how and why men and women seem to speak differently. Giving clear examples she shows what each sex is trying to convey in their discussions. While I'll admit that not every woman or man fits a stereotype, this book really changed the way I look at why I say the things I say and what I really mean.  It shaped the way I speak and the way I listen.

10. Rowing to Latitude by Jill Fredston
I've read a lot of books about swimmers and rowers lately. I'm not sure what about the water fascinates me so much but I've been smitten. This book follows Jill Fredston and her husband as they row (as in rowboat) around some of the coldest and inhospitable places on Earth. In winter Fredston is an avalanche rescuer in Alaska. In summer, she and her husband row around the edges of Greenland, Norway, Alaska... to name a few. The writing is beautiful (I copied out tons of quotes), the locations are fascinating, and the interactions between the couple and the world around them makes me want to spend more time outdoors. Great read.

2 Questions

There are two questions that I get asked repeatedly and regularly. They both make sense for people who know me and my habits, but I don't think I ever answer them properly. So I'll answer them here, where I don't have to think on my feet. 

1. Are you going to get a Kindle or Nook?

I don't know how many times I've been asked some variation on this question. I get asked about my feelings on e-readers often enough that I've developed something of a pat answer. I don't hate the idea of e-readers. In fact, anything that gets people reading is a wonderful thing. I hope people read regularly and broadly. I hope they fill their e-reader with books and catch up on modern novels, classics, and nonfiction. Seriously, I don't care what form you read as long as you read. As for myself, I would probably love a Kindle or Nook. I like the idea of having hundreds of books handy. But it's not something that I'm going to go out of my way to buy. If I end up with one, great. But even if I do, that doesn't mean that I'll stop buying print books. I prefer to read off paper. I find my concentration isn't quite as deep when I read on a screen. And even if I find that I love the Kindle/Nook and I love reading on it, I'll still buy paper books as well, and not just for that wonderful old book smell. There is something about being surrounded by paper and books that makes me feel at home. I'm never more happy then when I'm in a library or bookstore, surrounded by stories. Browsing those shelves I find books I would never have expected to read, that become favorites. I find new ideas. I can't get that browsing experience electronically. Because I prefer to read serendipitously, I'll never stop book buying. Even if I do purchase a few electronically. 

2. Are you ever going to get a Keurig?

I drink a lot of coffee and tea. I'm the queen of hot beverages. So it's natural to assume that I would want a Keurig. I have friends that love theirs. I've used them in hotels and been happy with them. But I'm never ever going to get one. I have two reasons. The first is purely personal. As I mentioned before, I drink a lot of coffee. I drink a pot of coffee every day at work. Decaf of course, but it's a full pot. I pour cup after cup. I can't imagine if I had to get up to make a new cup of coffee each time I ran out. Currently I just pour some fresh stuff from my 12 cup maker on top of the cooling coffee. I can't imagine drinking less and I can't imagine having to make it in individual sized cups. 

The second reason that I won't get a Keurig is only partly personal. I started to notice that K-cups now make up more and more of my grocery aisle at stores. Box after box of K-cups are available in every possible brand. And each of those little cups is made of plastic. That means that every time I make a cup of coffee I'm contributing a tiny cup of plastic to our landfills. While that may not seem huge, now imagine that everyone in your town does that each day. If every person in Des Moines drank one cup of coffee each day (and used a K-cup) that means that over the course of a year, Des Moines alone (with a population of almost 600,000) would add 219 million little plastic cups to the landfill. 219 MILLION!!. In our relatively small city. Now imagine the number of K-cups coming out of a city like New York City. So far I haven't heard anyone talk about the environmental impact of the Keurig but I bet we will start talking about that soon. I can't think of a more wasteful device out there. They look lovely and make decent coffee, but they also make a ton of trash. 

For All the Tea in China

Most people who know me know that I'm a huge coffee drinker. Even after going decaf a couple years ago I still drink a large amount of coffee. But I really should say that I'm a hot beverage person. I drink not just coffee but tea, cocoa, hot cider, mulled wine, and even just hot water. If it's a warm beverage, it's for me. I love tea. There are so many varieties, and unlike with coffee I can easily tell the difference between flavors. And this week I'm inspired to try even more different types of tea.

I just finished the book "For All the Tea in China" by Sarah Rose and was blown away by how much I learned in a scant 250 pages. The book follows Robert Fortune, a botanist in the 1800s who was sent by the East India Company to China to steal tea. Up until that point tea was only grown in China and Britain was becoming dependent on the drink. So the East India Company wanted a source that they could control. So it was decided that tea should be planted in India, a country already under the company's control.

Over three years Fortune was able to gather and smuggle out of China enough tea plants that India was able to produce a crop and in a short period of time nearly end Britain's reliance on Chinese tea. Rose describes it as one of the greatest industrial thefts of all time. It was one of the first instances of industrial espionage which nearly destroyed the Chinese economy. Especially since India was still shipping thousands of pounds of opium to China (If you haven't read about the Opium Wars, they are a fascinating topic.).

Reading the book made me even more curious about the East India Company, a company I knew something about but never really realized the full horror of what it did. Can you imagine having a for-profit corporation in control of your government? All your basic services at its whim? While we talk about corporate control here in the US I still don't have to rely on Wall Street for my fire protection or schools. Rose spends some time talking about the Honourable Company (as it was sometimes called) but left me wanting more, the mark of a great nonfiction book.

But the book also made me more curious about tea. I read a section about the Assam teas from India and was excited to realize that I had just picked up a Golden Assam from our local tea merchant, Gong Fu. The book talked about the Darjeeling teas, which I realize I've never had a great example of. There was a small discussion of monkey-picked teas, something that I had always been curious about (and now won't be trying). Suddenly I want to run down to Gong Fu and try all their teas. I want to sample them and write tasting notes the way people do with whiskey and scotch. A fascinating book. But be warned, it will make you crave tea. I don't want to think about all the cups I drank over the last two days of reading it.

Books!

My mother tells me that when I was less than a year old, I used to sit on the floor in the living room, pull a book off the well stocked shelves, and flip through the pages as if I were reading. Although I'm not sure I believe this completely, she tells me that I didn't even rip the pages. I do remember being six and pulling down the A book from the World Book to flip through. I was particularly fascinated with the page that showed the variety of apples. I spent most of my childhood flipping through those books. I still do when I'm over at my parent's house. I spent 60% of my childhood stretched out on the couch in my parent's living room reading. 

My parent's house is filled with books. There is not a single room in that home that doesn't have books. It was such a regular part of my childhood that upon entering a friend's house I was filled with a sense of unease. It was half way into my visit before I realized that there was not a single book in sight. If you walk into my living room right now you'd find: two books and a notebook on the couch, four library books stacked on the dining table, a bookcase filled with cookbooks, a stack of magazines and one lonely paperback on the coffee table, and at least a half dozen books on the stairs waiting to go up. And this isn't where I keep my collection. I keep the majority of my books in the library. But like my parents, you can't find a room in the house where you don't find reading material. 

I've been thinking about my passion recently. I want to find what makes me the happiest, what makes time fly. I want to figure out what I'm the most passionate about. Then I look around. And find myself surrounded by books. I realize that one of the things that bothers me the most about my job is that I'm not working with books regularly. I notice that I'm donating my time at the library. And that when I enter a library, a bookshop, or someone's personal library, time seems to slow down. I browse, running my fingers gently along the spines of books. I can spend hours glancing at titles, picking up books, copying quotes from books, collecting books, and of course reading books. I don't know about you, but that seems like the definition of a passion. I think I found it. My great passion is books. Now to find a way to make that my occupation. 

Spine Poetry

A couple of bloggers that I follow have been doing book spine poetry in preparation for April which is National Poetry Month. I had some time this evening and thought I'd try it. It was much more fun than I expected. Here is my poem, called Books.

Books
by Cat's Library

Books,
a pound of paper,
fragile things,
the road to dreams and
the wellspring.
Shelf life,
slipping into paradise,
a place of my own.
A passion for books,
the geography of bliss.

Try it at home with your books. I bet you can find some fun and interesting combinations. And let me know what great poetry you create.

On the Hunt

I've been reading a lot of books recently about book collecting. While I don't collect in a traditional sense, with one eye on price tag, I buy books that I love or that interest me. And I could see myself eventually becoming a collector. I certainly understand the urge. I'd collect picture books, and perhaps versions of Alice in Wonderland or The Wind and the Willows. That might be inexhaustible.

I don't often pay attention to cost of books but there are a few that are on my radar that amaze me with their prices. A decade ago I spent $80 or so to buy a children's book for my sister called The Sugar Mouse Cake. This sweet tale by Gene Zion is about a boy who gets help from a mouse to bake the most beautiful cake in the kingdom for the king. I've read it a couple times but it was one of my sister's favorites. It's also incredibly rare and valuable. Currently prices range from $70 for an old library copy to $480 for a decent worn but unmarked one. I've only seen ex-library copies. That year my sister wound up with two.

The second book I've been looking for is purely for nostalgic purposes but so far its rarity has made it a tough find. As a kid I liked mysteries and none were more loved than the Detective Mole series by Robert Quackenbush. My favorite of those was Detective Mole and the Secret Clues, where our deerhunter-capped, trenchcoat-wearing main character has to find the clues that will help the duck family inherit their uncle's mansion. The house had a dumbwaiter and secret passages. It, like another series I just read, had a very important sugar bowl. I loved this book. There are three used copies on Amazon right now, none for under $300. Abebooks, my favorite place to shop used rare books, has a couple copies but most are pretty worn sounding, at least the ones in my price range.

 And I could do more to shop online but for me that takes some of the fun away. Half of the fun is the hunt. I remember hunting for years for a copy of The Hungry Thing by Jan Slepian. When I finally found it, I grabbed the book out of the dusty box and clutched it to my chest. Of all the books I came home with that day, that was the one I treasured the most. The search had made the book even sweeter. I read it occasionally but I think most of my desire was to own it, to find it. I'm sure that the others will be the same way. Hunting is much better than just buying. For all you collectors out there, happy hunting.

The World is Quiet Here

{Spoilers in this post. If you have any interest in reading A Series of Unfortunate Events, this is not for you}

The first time I read A Bad Beginning, the first book in the series A Series of Unfortunate Events, I hated it. I didn't understand the author's brand of humor and his constant definitions drove me crazy. I chocked it up to "not my taste" and put it away. Then I picked it up again this past year and loved it. I read every one of the 13 books. I couldn't stop talking about them. I loved the humor. I loved the characters. I loved the definitions. But most of all I loved the VFD.

The concept of a secret society that for lack of a better word fights crime appeals to me. Even better a secret society that uses knowledge to do it, whatever form that knowledge takes. The title of this post is the VFD's motto. It hung above their library, a safe place in a chaotic world. They are a society that values learning, that values creativity, that values curiosity. The idea is inspiring to me. For me the tales of the Baudelaire orphans were more about learning how much power they had through their curiosity and knowledge.

Klaus, the reader and scholar, is who I identified with, but each of the characters has their own strengths. Klaus's ability remember the things he reads, his unrelenting curiosity, his copious note-taking, are all things I admire. He's the bookworm of the three and I saw myself in his role. I'm not an inventor like Violet or a cook/biter like Sunny. But I can read and remember with the best of them. As Klaus stood in that burned library and read the words above the door, I had chills go through me. Partly they were about the burned library (horrific) but partly they were because I'd found a motto I could agree with.

The world is quiet here, is what I think every time I walk into my own personal library. Here I can learn and study and be at peace, away from the stress of the world. I want to paint it above my door. I want to tattoo it on my skin. Curiosity and knowledge are two things I value very highly. How wonderful to find the same value in a children's book series.

Book Darts

I'm sure it will come as no surprise to anyone who reads this blog regularly but I am a pen and paper type of person. E-readers certainly have their place in society but it's not in my hands. I love the feel of a book well made, or an old book that has survived the decades. I love the weight of a book as it rests in my hands. I'm partial to fountain pens and well bound journals. I love the scritch-scratch of a nib across rough paper. And a couple years ago I discovered one of my favorite new book tools: the book dart.

 Stephen King's On Writing with about a dozen book darts to mark quotes.

Book darts are tiny strips of metal that fold over with a point on one end. Just that simple. They are used to mark a quote, an interesting point, or a unique fact in a book. I bought my first set about 10 years ago and quickly ran out. I bought more and ran out of those. I find a lot of interesting quotes and facts. So a couple years ago I decided that I would write down those points and reuse the darts. I bought a commonplace book (a book for keeping miscellaneous facts, quotes, bits of trivia...) and hand write all things I find into that journal so I can re-pull the darts. Each time I read a book I mark lines and quotes I like, then when the book is finished, I copy the quotes and pull the dart. I have the information I want but don't need to buy a lifetime supply of darts.

I own eight sets of darts now so I went out to find something to store them in. Something portable that I could carry with me constantly and have available when I read. I found this wonderful beat-up antique box in one of the antique stores in town. The Y&S company still makes licorice but they now make it under the trade name Twizzlers. I love the well-used look of the box. The same way I love the feeling of hand copying my quotes and facts into a beautiful wood covered journal. And to make all that seem more archaic and romantic, I use the fountain pens for a lot of my copying. I feel a bit like a Luddite but that's not the reason for it. I just love working with the books and the darts and the pens. There's something tactile about it. It makes me feel a bit like a scholar.

 A jumbled pile of book darts, ready for use. 

A Boy and a Bear In a Boat

 The American cover, the one I have

Only twice in my life have I finished a book, taken a big deep breath, and then reopened it at the first page to read again. The first book was Charlotte's Web and I was only nine or ten. I so badly wanted Charlotte to be alive again that I started the book over. And cried the second time. I almost restarted Kushiel's Dart when I finished it but regained my sanity as I stared at the 800 or 900 pages before me. On Sunday I read a book called A Boy and a Bear in a Boat. I put the book down, smiled, and instantly picked it back up to start rereading. The first reading had taken me 2 hours. The second one was shorter.

I'm not sure how to describe Dave Shelton's book. The plot, quite simply, is about a boy and a bear and the boat trip that they take together. The boy wants to cross to the other side and the bear is the captain of the boat. They set off on their journey but before long the boy realizes that they are lost. Hopelessly lost, unless you ask the Bear. He knows exactly where they are at. He even has a map (it looks like the image below). So they keep going. And from that, a number of adventures happen. They find sea monsters, The Last Sandwich, tide anomalies, and abandoned ships. It's a book with both a comic no one understands and a ukulele. It's an odd story (blissfully odd). But that's only part of it. It's a story about attitude, friendship, and the unwillingness to give up.

The UK cover, which is so perfect that I will need to find a copy, no matter what cost. 

The book Siddhartha by Herman Hesse always leaving me with an incredible feeling of peace whenever I finish it. I've read it many times over the course of my life. Always when I need to be mentally cleansed. It's a book that restarts my brain. A Boy and a Bear in a Boat might become my new cleansing book. The lessons that this book teaches are simple but I remember feeling completely changed after reading it. It's a bit story, a bit zen koan, and a bit magic. We never find out the boy's name or the bear's name. The boat is named but that's about the only character that has one. We learn what we need to know about the characters though. When I finished I loved Bear the same way I loved Charlotte all those years ago. He was a wonderful character. And the boy grew so much during the course of the book that I wanted to cheer for him. I closed this book (I won't tell you the ending) and I felt completely at peace. It's a magical book, even if I'm still trying to puzzle it out.

Games of Thrones

Since I've gotten home from St. Louis, I've done nothing in the evenings except read. I come home, say hi to Jeff, and plop myself down on the couch to read. At 11 or so I'll move upstairs and then read until I either fall asleep or read until I think I'm going to have problems waking up the next day. To say that I've been a little focused is a bit of an understatement.

I've been told by at least half a dozen people that I need to read at least the first book of the Song of Ice and Fire series, A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin. Jeff had received the book as a gift last Christmas and it's been sitting in my stack. So last week I picked it up. And I was immediately sucked in. The characters are all so unique. Throughout the book I would fall in love with different characters. Eddard, Tyrion, Arya, Catelyn, and Jon Snow all have been favorite characters at one point or another. They are each so well described and their individual stories so fascinating. The book follows the Starks of Winterfell, the lord, his lady, and their five children, as they set out into a very well described fantasy world. Each has their own role to play in just this book and I know that those roles will be every futher expanded as I read the rest of the series.

Martin tells a story that's both raw and truthful, which is a tough thing to say for a fantasy series. The word he creates falls its own set of rules beautifully. Magic exists in small doses but it has it's place. Dragons and other creatures have or do live in the world. But each part of the book rings true. Martin creates a history for the world, a mythology for the world, religions, and enough ruling classes that sometimes they are a tad tough to keep straight. He does provide an overview of the houses in the back, but you're so focused on the Starks that I didn't find I had to consult it often. The book has political intrigue (a lot of political intrigue), a fascinating family story, myth and legend, war, and a bit of sex. It's everything I enjoy in a good book and I can't wait to continue on and find out what happens next.

Yep, I'm a series reader again. I broke my rule with the His Dark Materials trilogy, and shattered it with the A Series of Unfortunate Events series. I already the next book of the Song of Ice and Fire series and after a small break I'll dive back into that one. But it won't be tonight. I should probably catch up on the housework I've been ignoring since I started the first.

The Stacks

There's a reason I don't reread my books that often. It's below.

This is my bookcase of books that I haven't read yet. Not just one of the shelves, the whole case is unread. This isn't even the whole case. There's one more row below of oversized books. Books come and go from the case but it's never empty. And often books will stay on there for years before I finally get to them. Buying books is a matter of moments, reading them is slower.

This is my stack of books that I haven't read that don't fit on the bookcase. Currently they are sitting in boxes in my closet but I drag them out occasionally to pick from them.

As you can see I have plenty to keep me occupied. I could choose not to buy or borrow another book for two years and I'd probably still have enough reading material. I've accepted that I'll never read all the books I want to read. But I would like to one day empty the bookcase above. Of course that would mean avoiding the library and the bookstore. So, it's probably never going to happen.

Rereadings

I'm sure it won't surprise any of you to know that I read a lot. And I mean a lot. I spend much of my free time with my nose stuck in a book. What might surprise you is that I don't reread. Ever. I can list on one hand the number of books that I've read a second time or more. Siddhartha by Herman Hesse gets reread every couple of years. I think of that book as a re-grounding. I read it to refresh myself. Pride and Prejudice has been read at least four times. Charlotte's Web gets pulled off the shelf occasionally, and yes I still cry no matter how many times I read it. I've reread two others for a book club I'm in. Other than that, nothing gets reread.

I once started a book only to find within the first three chapters that I had read the book in high school. The whole plot flashed back to me and I put the book down and moved on to something else. Something new. But this weekend I started a book that I was pretty sure I'd read before. It's a memoir about reading called So Many Books, So Little Time by Sara Nelson. I was sure I had read it years ago and every once and a while I would get flashbacks of chapters. But it never came back to me fully. I read her discussions of books and had the odd sense of deja vu that comes with rereading but even up until the end, I never remembered the book enough to put it down. And it wasn't in my LibraryThing (I'm CatB if you're interested). So I read the book for perhaps the second time and enjoyed it.

The moment I put it down I grabbed another, and this one I knew I had read. I picked up Russell Hoban's The Mouse and His Child. I read this book as a child and it had the biggest impact on me. Here was a book that was on the surface about a wind-up mouse and his child, trying to find some friends and evade an enemy. But even as a child I recognized that the book was so much more than that. It was an allegory. I saw the discussions of infinity and trying to define Being and cause and effect and the book intrigued me, even at a young age. So when I found out that the book had been reprinted with illustrations from David Small, one of my all-time favorite illustrators, I made it a point to find a copy. I had glanced through the book after buying it but didn't plan to reread. After all, it was the illustrations I was looking for. But today, after finishing one potential rereading, I purposefully picked up the book and read.

And the book lived up to its memory. I loved it for a second time. The story was familiar, but I was amazed at how much I had forgotten. There were characters that I hadn't remembered at all. There were subplots that hadn't meant anything to me as a child and were therefore forgotten. And the ending surprised me. I'm not sure how I had forgotten it. Although the characters were the same I read this like a brand-new book. And it got me thinking. I wonder how many of my childhood favorites would be worth going back to reread? How many stories have I forgotten enough of that they would be worth revisiting? I might have to go through my shelves. And create a stack to reread. After all, if it hadn't been for the illustrations, I would never have picked up this wonderful tale again.

Underground New York Public Library

The Undiscovered Self by Carl Jung

As a librarian and a lover of books, I love to see other people reading. As I keep hearing about the death of books and how less people are reading, I keep a look out for people who are bucking the trend. I'm a huge fan of paper books and although I have no issues with e-readers,  I think that you lose some of the connection to the book. Plus when I see a reader, I often try to peek to see what book they are enjoying. That's tougher with an e-reader.

(Left) The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, 

(Right) The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Because of this love for paper books, I've become a huge fan of the blog, the Underground New York Public Library. The blogger (Ourit Ben-Haim) is a photographer who travels the New York City subway, taking pictures of people she finds reading. The Reading Riders are then posted along with the title of the book they were reading. It's a fantastic blog that offers people watching, reading suggestions, and a reminder that print books are not yet dead.

 Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

The blogger is a street photographer and most of the subjects are not aware that they are being photographed. I love how absorbed in their books they seem. When a photo cannot be taken unaware, the blogger is careful to explain the project and then ask the person to go back to reading. Once they are engrossed again, that's when the shot gets taken. It's all about catching a reader in that moment of engagement with the book. They always look so much more relaxed than the other riders. It's a wonderful image of the diversity of readers and their books of choice. Plus I come away from this blog with a ton of new books to read. Perfect.

Great Short Works of Dostoyevski

Blast From the Past

I'm fascinated by how memories work. While standing in the shower this morning I had a sudden burst of memory about a guide to a book series that I never read. Well I read the guide, just not the series. I'm sure my mother thought they were too adult for me or something. It was a series of books following a royal family in a fantasy world. I remember spending hours with the guide, looking at the characters and reading up about them. Considering I had never read their stories I wonder why this particular book and the characters fascinated me so much. But it had, and I knew that I had to find the book again.

I spent my shower trying to figure out anything about the guide that I could remember. I didn't remember which series it referenced or what the title of the guide was. I could only remember that the authors last name started with Z. Promising beginning huh? I ran through the list of Z last names I know. My first thought was Zindel but I knew that wasn't right. Then Zelinsky came to mind. But it certainly wasn't Paul Zelinsky, one of my favorite children's book illustrators. Then the name Roger popped into my head. And I instantly knew it was right. I knew that was the first name of the author. Zelazny quickly followed. Seriously, how do I know these things without conciously knowing them?

A brief internet search found me not only the series, but the guide. Roger Zelazy is best known for his Chronicles of Amber series. He mixes mythical characters into his fantasy novels to create a superhuman royal family whose exploits the books follow. The Wikipedia page tells me that there were 10 original Amber stories. Again I haven't read a single one, although I have The Guns of Avalon on my shelf to be read for some odd reason. The guide I was thinking of was The Visual Guide to the Castle Amber. At least I think. I can't for the life of me remember the title. But I know the cover above, and I would know the pages in an instant. Each character had an illustration and a biography. I remember reading about the brothers and sisters and seeing the images. It's a book that I pored over. And now I have to find it. I must own this guide. Even if I never read any of the books that inspired it, I know I have to own the guide, something I read and loved 25 years ago. I just have no idea why it popped into my head this morning. Memories are funny things.

A Love Letter to a Love Letter

Jeff and I unboxed books for a book sale this past week. We were assigned the paperback romance novels which was actually a lot more fun than I thought it would be. Some of the titles were pretty cringe worthy (The Greek Billionaire's Forced Bride). We were discussing good romance novels at knitting last night (think Gone With the Wind and Pride and Prejudice) and discussing if we had ever swooned at a book.

So this morning I'm thinking about swooning moments. Moments that are just so romantic and wonderful that they capture your emotions. And I thought of one. One of the few times where I've actually swooned at a book. It's from Jane Austen's Persuasion. Persuasion was the last book that Austen wrote, and her most sad. It's about unrequited love, something I have some good experience with. And it's my favorite of her novels. At the end of the book there is a love letter that made me weak in the knees when I read it. It's a love letter filled with passion and hope and a bit of pain. It's some of the best romantic writing I've ever read. So I thought I would quote it here. Sorry for the spoiler. If I destroy the book for you, I apologize. Although it is still well worth reading, just for Austen's wonderful phrasings.

"I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others. Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice, indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in F. W.
"I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look, will be enough to decide whether I enter your father's house this evening or never."

I Want a Daemon

I broke my series streak when I picked up a bound three book edition of the His Dark Materials trilogy. Philip Pullman has been a polarizing figure for years, with a fever pitch after the movie The Golden Compass came out. The books have been condemned and banned all over the world for being anti-religion. I knew of the controversy before but knew little about the books. So when I found this edition, for a decent price, I picked it up to see what all the fuss was about. I figured I'd just read the first book, as is my usual trend.

But after sitting down and getting twenty pages into the first book, I was intrigued. The concept of other worlds and dust and the church seemed so out there. So odd. I was hooked. I looked up at Jeff and made the understatement of the week. "I'll be in this book for a while". What I meant is that he wasn't to bother me. What I didn't realize is that I was going to read all three books in a little over 48 hours. I read while I ate. I read while I got dressed. I read late into the night. I simply couldn't put the books down. I won't even try to go through the plot here. I could be here for days trying to describe and explain everything that happens in these books. These are plot and character rich books.

And although I loved the characters, the concepts, and the settings, it was the idea of the daemons that drove me to finish. In Lyra's world (the main character) a daemon is a being that is tied to you from the very earliest days of your life until the very end of your life. It is a creature that is constantly with you. It can hear your thoughts and you can hear its. It cannot be separated from you without pain. It's a companion in the closest possible sense. And the bonds between the people and their daemons are emotional at their finest level. The thought of separation between a human and their daemon (something brought up frequently in the book) was enough to make me cry. I broke down on numerous occasions not because a character had died but because of their daemon's reaction to the eminent death. It was heart-wrenching and reduced me to tears.

I loved the books for a number of reasons but the biggest one was to see what would happen to Lyra and her daemon. To share in the bond between them. I found the book mystical and spiritual in a way that made me question all the hype about it. This was not an anti-religious book but an anti-established church book. It was about not giving the church too much power and to see the rest of the spiritualness around you. But for me this was a story about companionship. It made my heart ache to know that I'd never have a daemon. To know those kind of bonds. It hurt me as much as it hurt Lyra to be separated from her daemon. It was a set of books that made me feel more than anything.

Hiding, Reading, and a Possible Theft

A couple weeks ago I had made a comment about disappearing as part of my Poetry Friday posts. I'm sure that for some of you that sounds a bit like a joke. I can't really disappear of course. But I do go into hiding on a somewhat regular basis. This weekend was one of them. Other than breakfast on Saturday with Jeff and a brief drive that day, I haven't left the house since Friday. I did check email for most of the weekend. I certainly didn't write any. I grumbled whenever the phone rang. Other than occasionally checking Facebook and a video chat this afternoon I had almost no contact with the outside word. I was a hermit this weekend. Lately I'm feeling overwhelmed. This was my way to cope. It appears to have worked. I feel refreshed now.

What I did this weekend was read. I read five books this weekend. Most of them were young adult so it isn't the grand achievement that it sounds like. I burrowed into the couch and read some of the classic YA stories that I've heard so much about. I read Ursula LeGuin's A Wizard of Earthsea, Lloyd Alexander's The Book of Three, Susan Coolidge's What Katy Did, and E. Nesbit's Five Children and It. I made another library run to pick up a graphic novel called Page by Paige which has to be one of the most brilliant books for creative people I've ever read. I copied tons of quotes out of it. I must own it. The reading was good this weekend. I might (and I mean might) continue on with the Earthsea series, and you know how I feel about series. I lost myself in books this weekend. And found some wonderful characters.

I also received a bill that has me a little worried. On Saturday Jeff picked up the mail and noticed that there was a bill from one of the local health providers. It was addressed to me, but was for someone I don't know. Nothing about the name was familiar. After losing my wallet in February I was terrified that this person had used my insurance. Of course no one was open on Saturday or Sunday. So today I called. I guess this person was seen at the hospital and gave my name as a guarantor. I'm pissed. I concerned that this is a case of identify theft. Or that this person has my wallet. I was kind of hoping that whoever had found it had just taken the case and tossed the rest of the wallet. Now suddenly I'm not so sure. I've talked to the hospital and their billing and the issue has been resolved. But there is a feeling of uneasiness in my mind. What other bills will I be getting? And who is this person? Thankfully I research people for a living. Time to do some digging on my possible thief.

The Emperor of All Maladies

It's something that has touched every single one or us in one way or another. It's the dreaded "C" word, something whispered about in families in the early centuries. It's been the focus of decades of highly specialized research and public outcry. It's cancer, the emperor of all maladies. I haven't posted much this past week because I've been lost in a good book. I've been lost in a world of clinical trials, aggressive treatment, genetics, surgery, and research. A week or so ago my dad lent me The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee and I haven't been able to put it down. For such a depressing topic, Mukherjee really makes the topic fascinating. I haven't wanted to leave the book.

This "biography" looks at the history of the disease and the treatments and research that has been done to find the cure for cancer. It includes Imhotep's first mention of cancer (breast cancer) all the way to the most recent research being done on different types of cancer. And it's an incredible history. Galen (A Greek in AD 160 Rome) believed that cancer came from black bile building up in the body which would have to be drained. Not surprisingly this was disproved. In the mid 1800s Dr. Halsted believed that radical surgery was the only way to "cure" breast cancer. These surgeries would often remove whole sections of the chest cavity. Again this was proved false...after a couple hundred years. In the 1970s and 80s the cure was radical chemotherapy a practice of killing off any cell in the body that divided, cancerous or healthy, and then injecting healthy cells back in. All of these have been stepping stones in the War against Cancer. And all of them have changed medicine for the good or the bad.

If it had just been a history of the treatment and research I would have found the book interesting, but Mukerjee intersperses stories of patients who he has treated. He talks about the psychological effects of cancer, on both patients and doctors. He delves into cancer activism to see its effects on the national dialogue. And he discusses which cancers are being treated and which we are still looking to find some sort of solution for. He discusses the national obsession with a "cure for cancer" and the humility, hubris, hope, and despair that has gone alone with that search. He talks about doctors who can't see past their own arrogance and doctors who risk everything to find a medication that will work. He details the stories of drugs created, clinical trials failed, and every step on the road to where we have finally arrived.

There is now miracle drug at the end of this book. Mukherjee is quick to point out that cancer, is not simply one disease, so there can't be only one cure. But he condenses and distills centuries of history into a complete look at how we have failed and succeeded in finding treatments for the various different types of cancer. From the earliest treatment from Leukemia to the protein targeted drugs of today, this was simply riveting. I don't remember the last time I read something this technical, this detailed, and still found it both informative and entertaining. A great read. And a great history.

War and Peace

It started because I didn't have anything to read over my lunch hour. I apparently can't eat lunch without reading. My lunch plans had cancelled at the last minute so I had grabbed a sandwich and brought it back to the office. Now the issue of a book. I hoped on Project Gutenberg. I can always find a classic to read. As I browsed the authors, the name caught my eye. Tolstoy. There is something about reading Tolstoy in the winter. Something about curling up with a long book that talks about snow and cold while I'm comfortable inside. I'd read Anna Karenina a couple winter's ago. I decided that this year it would be War and Peace.

I knew nothing about the novel other than that it was long and most people consider it a classic. I assume it had something to do with...well...war and peace, shockingly. So I clicked on the link and started to read about the Prince Vasili and his witty banter with the duchess about the upcoming war with Napoleon. And slowly the book started to pull me in. I read three chapters before the lunch hour ended. I wrote down the number of my next chapter and went back to work. The next day I was back. I purposefully left my book at home so I could read more Tolstoy. I picked up where I left off and learned about the scheming Princess Anna who will do anything to find her son a good job.

Each day it was the same, two or three chapters over lunch to tide me over. I felt like I was making progress. I was really moving through the book. That is until I picked up a print copy over the weekend. I was a bit shocked at the size of the book. Weighing in at 1400 pages, it's a hefty tome. I've only finished book 2. I'm a little over 250 pages in and haven't even scratched the surface. I'm reading about war now, the early battles between the Russians and the French. My dad mentioned that I should read the book with a notebook to write down and keep track of characters. This wikipedia list is enough to make me dizzy. But still, I'm determined. And I'm enjoying. So breaking my typical rule of one book at a time I think I'll make War and Peace my lunchtime book and read other things in between. Otherwise I'll go insane or I'll never finish. Tolstoy is wonderful but he can be a bit...we'll say wordy....sometimes.

Groupings

Jeff and I were recently in Iowa City and as I got out of the car at the gas station I was startled by the sound of birds. Lots of birds! Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" number of birds. The trees right next to the gas station were filled with hundreds and hundreds of starlings. I stood and listened to them for a while but a thought kept bothering me. I had just learned what a group of starlings was called. They have a special name, not just flock. It bothered me all the way home.

We have lots of specialized words for groups. Almost everyone knows that a group of fish is a school. Or a group of lions is a pride. But not as many know that a group of starlings is a murmuration. Or that a group of owls is a parliament. Luckily I have a handy reference guide, that my sweet little sister gave me. An Exaltation of Larks by James Lipton (yes, that James Lipton) is filled with group names. A leap of leopards, a pod of whales, a host of angels. Some are more common than others. Others are far stranger.

The moment I got home from our trip I picked up my book and flipped through until I found the starlings. The book has no index so it's more about browsing than just finding. It is organized from most common to ones created by Mr. Lipton himself. The groupings are interspersed with pictures. My sister had seen it in a used book store and had bought it knowing my love of words and trivia. It is a joy to look through if you like words and wordplay.  It's a gift that I've come to appreciate more and more.

Here are just a few more examples of interesting grouping names:
A Murder of Crows (one of my favorite grouping names)
A Siege of Herons
A Singular of Boars
A Charm of Finches
A Tiding of Magpies
A Clowder of Cats
And of course An Exaltation of Larks

By the way, if you've never seen starlings in their flocks, you need to see this. Starlings (as much as they are disliked) have some of the greatest flying displays ever.