Seasons' Readings, Fall 2007

Only managed a paltry four books read this season, as the majority of my time was consumed with my new full-time teaching gig. In fact, the only reason I was able to read these books was that they were on audiobook on the way to school (or rather, schools - one I learn at, and one where others learn from me).

But now that I am on Winter Break from both schools I am hoping to play some reading catch-up.

Ah well, on to what I read:

I continued Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series, reading "The Fortune of War" and "The Surgeon's Mate." Both continued O'Brian's tradition of stirring sea tales with characters to invest in; I particularly enjoyed "The Fortune of War" for it's descriptions of early 1800s Boston.

Then I read the first two travel books by Monty Python alum Michael Palin, "Around the World in 80 Days" and "Pole to Pole." I preferred "80 Days" for its wealth of exotic locales, but both were excellent for Palin's humorous perceptions, relating his curious experiences in circum( and semi-circum)navigation.

In addition, I read several short stories by Guy de Maupassant, Leo Tolstoy, and others, in order to have an idea of what I was talking about when I taught them.

Seasons Readings, Summer 2007

A healthy ten books comprised my summer readings. This season I particulary followed my prediliction toward existing upon a school year schedule, where summer readings were for the most part fun, genre reads - nothing too emotionally involving or academic: a mentally necessary summer vacation from the intellectually engaging labor of the books I "Should" be reading, in favor of books that exist for me solely as entertainment.

And I'll start with the Big Momma of Summer Reading for the majority of the world's readers, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." Utterly fantastic, exceeding my expectations. J. K. Rowling deserves her booksales - indeed she deserves every accolade for offering us four thousand-one hundred pages of exquisite characters who evolved before us - characters I could love, despise, pity, and mourn; breathtaking events in expertly realized places; a breathing world populated with creatures of imagination. If you haven't read the Harry Potter series get over yourself and do it.

Now I'll continue this document of reading by genre:

Horror:
Stephen King's, "Gingerbread Girl" - Now it's been a while since I read Stephen King, so I don't know if his tone has changed or if I am just imagining it, but this novella seemed singular stylistically for King. I can't entirely articulate how - that it's more jocose than I remember is the best I can come up with. Oh yeah, and I enjoyed it. Being a novella and during summer vacation, I was able to experience King as he should be: a one sitting, in the night.

Thomas Harris, "Hannibal Rising" - Harris remains the most psychological and erudite of horror writers with this logical origin story for Hannibal Lechter, but has yet to match his previous masterpieces "Red Dragon" and "Silence of the Lambs."

Thrillers:
Jeffrey Archer, "A Matter of Honor" - entertaining, but ridiculous.

David Baldacci, "Absolute Power" - very well done. Disappointed with the Clint Eastwood adaptation now after reading the source book.

Naval Fiction:
Patrick O'Brian's "The Mauritious Command" and "Desolation Island" continued the vastly entertaining Aubrey-Maturin series. "Mauritious" took perhaps a bit too long to get going, but otherwise offered fascinating naval lore, action and intrigue; "Desolation" in particular had some amazing tension.

English Mystery:
Agatha Christie's "The Mysterious Affair at Styles", which introduces Hercule Poirot was quite enjoyable, but her "And then there were none" was a masterpiece of plotting.

And, finally, for something completely different, I read Lou Anne Johnson's "My Posse Don't do Homework", which was an excellent memoir of her first years teaching (and the basis for the film "Dangerous Minds"). In turns frustrating and inspiring, but always true. A resource for all potential teachers, especially in English.

Other than these, I continued crawling through Mark Twain's "Roughing it" - enjoying it anecdote by tall tale.

Till next season - keep on readin'

Bibliographical Augmentation

Hail readers! My first foray into worlds nonfictional is available, namely my essay on the first line of Maurice Sendak's classic Where the Wild Things Are, published in the Fall 2007 issue of The First Line (www.thefirstline.com).

It concerns reading as formative experience, memory, and mischief, and is a particular favorite of mine.

Enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

The Wrinkle smoothes behind me (RIP Madeleine L'Engle)

Though I was not an English Major in college, I did manage to take Creative Writing as an elective, where I had the great fortune to meet and hear Madeleine L'Engle. Quietly inspiring, she elevated that class into an event, into an experience.

I am sorry that I had not encounted that fine woman through her fiction before meeting her: her stories were of the kind that I should have benefitted to discover in my youth. I did not read her luminous "Wrinkle in Time" series (one of which I still have not got to yet; two if you count "An Acceptable Time") until the summer after I graduated college; but you can be assured that I will introduce my children to the lady and her stories soon.

Farewell, Madeleine L'Engle.

The Library vs The Book Shop vs The Box vs The Shelf

We recently bought a place, and so in moving we went through the emotional toil of determining what to pack and what to purge. The new space afforded me an opportunity to have displayed and on hand more of my library than was possible previously as we were going to do without our half of a storage unit, but with this loss of available storage there came also the necessity of culling part of my thirty-eight box collection of books.

As I surrounded myself with towers of boxes and precarious columns of books I found my organization take four forms: 1. the volumes I decided I could, actually, live without reading - mostly library-sale editions of authors unheard of with reason, or poor copies of previously read works with the idea that eventually I would procure a proper collectible copy - that would return to "The Library" for someone else to purchase; 2. the volumes I could live without reading for the above stated reasons in a state adequately presentable that I would try to trade them in at "The Book Shop" (which is the Hayward store's actual name in a celebration of brevity); 3. the volumes I still want to keep that I have either already read but can refrain from displaying until I get a larger library space (read: my Genre author All-Star team, including John Grisham, Anne Rice, Dean Koontz, etc), and those I have not read and will but cannot part with until they are read (read Genre All-Star hopefuls), who will remain in the titular "Box"; 4. Those volumes, read and unread, by my favorite literary writers and suspected future favorite literary writers, in presentable condition that I can stare at and imagine the explosions into experience they promise when I finally get the chance to open and consume them - alphabetically organized landmines of thought and pleasure - that await me on "The Shelf".

That, and - more importantly - make me look smart and well-read and shtuff to visitors.

Seasons Readings, Spring 2007

Not as much reading accomplished as I would have liked, but you know how that goes.

Continuing on the "Finally getting to the classics I know I should have read long ago" as my way of preparation for the California Single-Subject English Test (I passed, incidentally), I read:

William Golding, "The Inheritors" [Fantastic novel of neanderthal man - as visceral as "Lord of the Flies" with as much to say of civilization. I believe Mr. Golding has eclipsed James Dickey for my award of "Most Visceral Writer"]

Joseph Conrad "Lord Jim" [Good first and last thirds - the middle was tedious. I was expecting more insight into life at sea, but enjoyed it nonetheless.]


And then, since I was a little set with classics I should read, I picked up

Tom Robbins "Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas" [Another fantastic book by Robbins: hilarious, intelligent, rebellious. I envy his imagination through nearly every mad sentence.]

Ray Bradbury "The Illustrated Man" [Though I do like the occasional science fiction space opera, these eleven stories are literary science fiction that would not be out of place with your Margaret Atwood or Kurt Vonnegut]


And, on a lark, when I was substitute teaching one day during the last week before summer break (IE. I had nothing more strenuous to do than put a movie in the DVD player and make sure no one stole the yearbooks that hadn't been picked up yet), the teacher had a book on his desk whose cover looked interesting, so I read:

Brian Copeland "Not a Genuine Black Man: Or, How I Claimed My Piece of Ground in the Lily-White Suburbs" [I started out just browsing through this memoir, thinking if I enjoyed a couple pages I would put it on my list of books to pick up for a future classroom (so during any Silent Reading time students might have a choice of high interest books that may trick them into illuminating their worldview), then I realized that the childhood city the author was writing on was my childhood city of San Leandro. Reading further, I realized that the section of San Leandro he was discussing was not where I grew up, BUT was the neighborhood in which I was in right then, reading that book (The Manor); and, furthery-further in my reading, I realized that the apartment of his childhood, where he received such deplorable treatment, was not only on the very street of the middle-school in which I was at that second subbing, but was in the complex that was at that second being converted into condominiums, one of which we are in the process of purchasing.
Aside from the unexpected and enjoyed coincidences, the writing itself was entertaining, informative (I had never heard of the notorious racial issues he discusses in San Leandro, but then I grew up in a very different, infinitely more diverse area of the city), and heartfelt. And you've got to love his Grandma. Check him out at http://www.briancopeland.com/


Also, in preparation to read M. Allen Cunningham's "Lost Son" (which I'll pick up soon) I read,

Rainer Maria Rilke "Diary to a Young Poet" [Stephen Mitchell translation; which I discussed in a previous blog.] & "The Book of Images" [Edward Snow translation. My favorite poems include:
-"Girls II" [Played pretty well into my version of Modern Romanticism - of boys who hid volumes of poetry in their backpacks during high school who have arrived at college where their tastes are validated, so they can appear true before women.]
-"Childhood" [Do childhoods like the one expressed in this poem still exist outside of book pages? I see no proofs, and fear we are the worse for it.]
-"Human Beings at Night" [Frightening, while alluring]
-"The Neighbor" [Exquisite, and a distinct counterpart to Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being with its line, "Life is heavier than the weight of all things." I see in this relationship the pupil (Kundera) reaching that ultimate point in his progression when he transcends the ideas of his master. A necessary step?]
-"Pont du Carrousel" [The first Rilke poem where the imagery takes a Gaiman-esque tone. Very Neverwhere; I see the blind man before a world in fast-forward.]
-"The Voices" [A diamond of truth about literature]
-"The Blind Woman" [A poem play?! Also Gaiman-esque to me: Sandman could be The Stranger
-"The Son" & "The Ashanti" & "Fragments from Lost Days" & "Requiem" [Liked em, but don't have anything interesting to comment on them.]]


and finally, continuing through the series I began last season, I read:

Patrick O'Brian "Post Commander" & "H.M.S. Surprise" [More intensely entertaining historical nautical fiction from O'Brian]

That's it for this season. Have a happy Summer Reading Season!

Livvie and Rilke and Me

People talk of Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet" as a fate-driven catalyst - it is put in their hands by a mother, or a lover, and skews their life to a new direction. I have, in fact, never heard of anyone buying the book for themselves, it is always a gift - frankincense and myrrh before the new writer. I take the fact that I did not immediately read the copy my mother gave to me as another indication that I am not a poet (besides the fact that every poem I have attempted has been an embarrassing failure).

My daughter Olivia, just turned four, not content to wait for an agent of fate to offer the book to her, ripped the dustjacket off of my copy at two - clawing it from the bookshelf. Like a spiderweb, I would find the book in the most unexpected places: tucked between sheets, stacked with her Disney DVDs, on her bathroom stool. A storytime fidgeter, she would bring the small burgundy volume to me, devoid of illustration, sit quiet and statue-still in my lap, insisting that I read it to her. This is all the more curious, in that her older brother is much more inclined toward the solitudinous persuasion of Rilke's insistence then her hell-on-all terrain-wheels.

Finally reading the pair of Rilke books I solely own, including "Letters", in preparation to read M. Allen Cunningham's new novel about Rilke "Lost Son", I recognize what all the Rilke fuss is about. But unless I am overcome by the occasional urge to attempt poetry again, Rilke will only speak to half of me - the lover of literature, over the creator of literature - for though I recognize the truth in his observations, I feel that for "Letters" to have a catalyzing effect on me in my writing, it needed to be administered earlier, when my chemistry was still in tempest; now I feel more viscous in my process and motivations, so that even if I was penetrated by Rilke's advice and insight it is not immediately quantifiable. I tend to be more influenced by writing, than writing about writing, the majority of the time.

"Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt"

It is amazingly rare for me to read an entire novel through more than once. There are novels I have read that I say to myself, "In a few years perhaps I'll read that again," that will probably do nothing else for me but sit and look impressive on my bookshelves. Kurt Vonnegut is the only author where I have read not one, but two novels, more than once ("Breakfast of Champions" and "Slaughterhouse Five").

Vonnegut did nothing new and exciting with language - nothing obtuse or fancy. All Vonnegut did was write stories that snuck up, tied your shoelaces together, and then made a sudden noise for you to fall right over. I laughed (particularly at the author being chased by an irrate doberman in B of C"), I cried (the war film Billy Pilgrim watches backward I regard as one of the high points of my reading life), I sighed in frustration with Eliot Rosewater, Kilgore Trout, Eugene Debs Hartke, and Rabo Karabekian, and I look forward to meeting the rest of the inhabitants of Vonnegut's imagination.

Kurt Vonnegut has died at 84. So it goes.

Seasons Reading, Winter 2006-2007

As an abstract part of my studying for the CSET - English Single-Subject Exam, I got to reading many of the books I "should" have read in high school. Including:

Stephen Crane "The Red Badge of Courage" [The Civil War has never held much interest for me, but I loved this book. I'm still haunted by the dead soldier in the beautiful forest.] "The Open Boat" [A great little suspense short] "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky" [Pleasant surprise, realizing "High Noon" was based upon this tight story], & "The Blue Hotel" [Great technically; I just wasn't that into it]

Harper Lee "To Kill a Mockingbird" [Absolutely everything it was lauded to be. Pure engrossing story. Also one of those rare occurrence's where the film adaptation does it justice.]

William Golding "Lord of the Flies" [Splendidly dark, and visceral. I can't remember feeling such fear for the well being of a character as I felt for Piggy.]

Joseph Conrad "Heart of Darkness" [A tad too verbose, but enjoyable - though not as much as I expected to] & "The Secret Sharer" [Couldn't bring myself to care about the characters.]

Christopher Marlowe "Dr. Faustus" [Browsing through my library sale cover-ripped first volume of the Norton Anthology I came upon this, and read it on a whim. A very enjoyable diversion, but certainly no Shakespeare]

Also read, as a writer:

David Foster Wallace "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men" [Technically superb, but so cold. While I marveled with envy at his talent, it wasn't until his story "Octet" that I began to enjoy it as entertainment.]

And to sate my sweet-tooth for genre fiction:

John Grisham "The Chamber" [Okay - not my favorite from Mr. Grisham. Mostly dried up my interest in law thrillers for the time being.]

Patrick O'Brian "Master & Commander" [I've always been drawn to tales of the sea, and military pageantry (I believe all military action should remain safely within the confines of fiction). A year of my college pleasure reading was consumed with Tom Clancy; O'Brian, for me, therefore, is the mature adult manifestation of military action and espionage. Though I can't say I know my mizzen from my reefs, I look forward to the remaining nineteen books in the Aubrey-Maturin series.]

And, I read, just because it was there...

Rick Beyer "The Greatest Stories Never Told" [A entertaining collection of 100 snack-sized historical anecdotes and overlooked occurrence's; a great book bathroom book.]

And finally, I ingested portions of these literary equivalents of steamed vegetables: Exceptional Learners, Teaching Today's Health, Elements of Grammar, and various CSET guides. Good for me, certainly, but not my preferred flavors.

Bibliographical Augmentation

Harken readers! A new microfiction story of mine is available in the Birmingham Arts Journal.

Entitled Black Fang, the story concerns the dying art of youthful exploration and play outside.

For those who can't stand the wait for your print copy of the journal, you can also view the entire issue (as well as their back catalog) online, here (http://jimreedbooks.com/baj1.html).

Happy Reading!

Oral, Un-randomly

My new favorite radio station, Columbia University's WKCR (FM 89.9 in the New York City Area) show "Art Waves" has selected my short story From Mamma to Mother and Back, among others for their feature on literary journal, The First Line (where the story was published, Spring 2006), friday January 19th, 9-10PM EST. Those not in the vicinity can tune in online (http://www.columbia.edu/cu/wkcr/); those who have social lives and actually go out and do things on Fridays, the show will most likely be archived there to listen to at your leisure.

Happy listening!

Season's Readings, Fall 2006

Not the most prolific reading season, which was due to not only a lack of concentrated time, but a general malaise that I believe grew out of not being too enthralled with what I did read. At a Christmas gettogether I was discussing writing and reading with writer M. Allen Cunningham, who asked what was the last novel that blew me away, and I was unable to recall any in recent memory, which says everything that I need to about my reading

-Peter Mayle "Encore Provence" [more mildly amusing anecdotes of the South of France, none particularly distinct.]

-John Grisham "The Broker" [Started good: I almost thought it was going to be a satire, from the opening chapter's tone; and I thought it would be a welcome departure from his more Law-centric thrillers. But then it got too bogged down in Italian lessons, building to a bland finale.)
and "The Runaway Jury" [I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't seen the film version beforehand.]

-Nick Hornby "Fever Pitch" [Loved it, like I love all of Mr. Hornby's works; the only problem I had with it was that I identified too much with him upon breaching his thirties [see my "Third-Life Crisis" blog for more details]

Franz Kafka "The Castle" [I enjoyed it more than "The Trial", but I still prefer his short stories - our country's enamoration with propagating bureacracy makes what should be ridiculous in "The Castle" frustratingly prescient; only really disappointing in that I expected to enjoy rhis novel so much more], and "Amerika" [My favorite of Kafka's novels; beautiful rendering of new vs. old world; plus I always love stories about the retention of innocence amongst a streetwise society.]

Curtis White "The Idea of Home" [an interesting find; I'll expound more on it in a forthcoming blog, let me say now only that in this novel I found a compatriot where I never expected to: my town]

Also, of mention, are the meaty chunks I ripped out of "Adolescence" by John W. Santrock, and "Those Who Can, Teach" by Kevin Ryan & James M. Cooper (a big reason for the limits of my outside reading), "Putting Your Passion into Print," (the latest in my Publishing-Book-Tower of Babel), and John Grisham's "Skipping Christmas" (abandoned for a lack of time and a proper holiday spirit).

Anyone with any "blow me away" book suggestions, please email.