Book List: End of 2007

After a year of reading and adding, this is what the 2007 list looked like:

A Cloistered War - Maisie Duncan
A Dictionary of Asian Mythology
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - Dave Eggers
A History of Malaysia - Barbara Watson Andaya & Leonard Andaya
A History of Modern Indonesia - M.C. Ricklefs
A History of Selangor - J. M. Gullick
A House in Gross Disorder - Herrup
A Point of Light - Zhou Mei
A River Sutra - Gita Mehta
A Spy's Revenge - Richard V. Hall
A Will For Freedom - Romen Bose
Abraham's Promise - Philip Jeyaretnam
Agnes Smedley - J.R. & S.R. MacKinnon
American Born Chinese - Gene Luen Yang
Amerika - Franz Kafka
Anna Magnani - Patrizia Pistagnesi
Asian Labour In The Japanese Wartime Empire - Kratosha, Ed.
Baba Nonnie Goes To War - Ron Mitchell
Bang Bang in Ampang - Norman Cleaveland
Beating the Blues - Thase & Lang
Believer Book of Writers Talking To Writers - Vendela Vida
Better Living Through Bad Movies - Scott Clevenger & Sherri Zollinger
Between Two Oceans - Murkett, Miskic, Farrell, & Chiang
Bird by Bird - Anne Lamott
Bonfire of the Vanities - Tom Wolfe
Captains of Consciousness - Stuart Ewen
Captives of Shanghai - David H. & Gretchen G. Grover
Chandranath - Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay
Chinese Blue & White - Ann Frank
Chinese Customs - Henri Dore
Clay Walls - Kim Ronyoung
Colonial Masculinity - Mrinalini Sinha
Crusader's Cross - James Lee Burke
Daniel Deronda - George Eliot
Daughters of A Coral Dawn - Katherine Forrest
Daughters of the House - Indrani Aikath Gyaltsen
Death and Justice - Mark Fuhrman
Dena-Paona - Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay
Devdas - Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay
Devil's Guard - George Robert Elford
Don't Know Much About Mythology - Kenneth C. Davis
Ethan of Athos - Lois McMaster Bujold
Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Mackay
Folklore of Tamil Nadu - S.M.L. Lakshman Chettiar
Force 136:Story of A Resistance Fighter in WWII - Tan Chong Tee
Foreign Land - Jonathan Raban
From Pacific War to Merdeka -
Fun Home - Alison Bechdel
Fury - Salman Rushdie
Gaijin - James Clavell
Ghost Baby - Wong Swee Hun
Glory - Vladimir Nabokov
Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling
Heroes & Other Stories - Karim Raslan
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
Heart Politics - Fran Peavey
Heavenly Intrigue - Gilder & Gilder
How I Adore You - Mark Pritchard
How To Write A Damn Good Novel - James N. Frey
I Married A Barbarian - Dennis Bloodworth & Liang Ching Ping
Imaginary Homelands - Salman Rushdie
In My Dreams - Kassandra Kane
In Pursuit of Mountain Rats - Anthony Short
In The Grip of a Crisis - Rudy Mosbergen
Jai Bhim - Terry Pilchik
Japanese Gods & Myths -
Kempeitai - Raymond Lamont Brown
Krait:The Fishing Boat That Went To War - Lynette Ramsay Silver
Kranji - Romen Bose
Kuching Past & Present - Elizabeth Pollard
Labour Unrest in Malaya - Tai Yuen
Lest We Forget - Alice M. Coleman & Joyce E. Williams
Life As The River Flows - Agnes Khoo
Living Hell -
Making Monsters - Richard Ofshe & Ethan Watters
Modern Japan -
Moving Targets - Birch
My Brother Jack - George Johnston
My Life In France - Julia Child
Nectar in a Sieve - Kamala Markandeya
Niskriti - Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay
Nonsense - Robert J. Gula
On Beauty - Zadie Smith
On the Beach - Nevil Shute
Operation Matador - Ong Chit Chung
Palli Samaj (The Homecoming) - Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay
Pandit Moshai - Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay
Passions of the Cut Sleeve - Bret Hinsch
Pather Dabi - Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay
Pioneers of Singapore -
Plays, Vol. 2 - Bertholdt Brecht
Popular Songs & Ballads of Han China -
Power Politics - Arundhati Roy
Praxis - Faye Weldon
Prometheus Rising - Robert Anton Wilson
Pronatalism - Peck & Senderowitz
Rabbit-Proof Fence - Doris Pilkington
Reading Lolita In Teheran - Azar Nafisi
Reality Isn't What It Used To Be - Walter Truett Anderson
Red Sorghum - Mo Yan
Rehearsal for War -
Republican Like Me - Harmon Lear
Robert van Gulik - van de Wetering
Rosie - Anne Lamott
Seventeen - Colin Cheong
Silences - Tillie Olsen
Singa - Gurcharan Singh
Singapore & The Many-Headed Monster - Joe Conceicao
Singapore English In A Nutshell - Adam Brown
Singapore The Pregnable Fortress -
Singapore's River - Linda Berry
Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas - Maya Angelou
Soldiers Alive -
Sometimes A Great Notion - Ken Kesey
Spices & Condiments - J.S. Pruthi
Stones From The River - Ursula Hegi
Strange Tales of Liaozhai - Pu Songling
Take the Cannoli - Sarah Vowell
Tears of the Giraffe -
That Fellow Kanda - AUPE
The Age of Diminished Expectations - Krugman
The Alchemist - Jonson
The Amber Spyglass - Phillip Pullman
The Art of the Novel - Milan Kundera
The Book of Tea -
The Bonfire of the Vanities - Tom Wolfe
The Bride Price - Buchi Emecheta
The Boss Dog - M.F.K. Fisher
The China Study - T. Colin Campbell, PhD, & Thomas Campbell
The Courtship of Robert Browning & Elizabeth Barrett - Karlin
The Devil Finds Work - James Baldwin
The Double Tenth Trial - C. Sleeman, S.C. Sillein, Eds.
The Early Stories - Anton Chekov
The Easy Way To Stop Smoking - Allen Carr
The End of the War - Romen Bose
The Family:They Fuck You Up - Granta
The Ginger Man - J.P. Donleavy
The Golden Compass - Phillip Pullman
The Hollowing - Robert Holdstock
The Image - Isaac Bashevis Singer
The Jungle is Neutral -
The Literature & The Story - Vivian Gornick
The Marquis - A Tale of Syonan-To - S.J.H. Conner
The Mind's I - Hofstadter & Dennett
The Pacific War -
The Physics of Star Trek - Lawrence Krauss
The Plague - Albert Camus
The Post Office - Rabindranath Tagore
The Rise & Fall of the Knights Templar - Gordon Napier
The Sabahan - P.J. Granville-Edge, Rajen Devadason
The Secret Sharer - Joseph Conrad
The Sleeper Wakes - Knopf
The Subtle Knife - Phillip Pullman
The Ugly Chinaman - Bo Yang
The Unabomber Manifesto - Ted Kaczynski
Timaeus -
Tipping the Velvet - Sarah Waters
'Tis Pity She's A Whore - John Ford
Travels in Siam - Henri Mouhot
Tropical Vegetables - Periplus
Understanding Media - Marshall McLuhan
Virtual Reality - Howard Rheingold
War & Memory in Malaysia & Singapore -
Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen
Where The Oceans Meet - Bhargavi Mandava
Who Killed Rosalind Yong? - Sit Yin Fong
Why I Am Not A Muslim - ibn Warraq
Women, Outcastes, Peasants & Rebels - Bardhan
Women's Lip -
You Shall Know Our Velocity - Dave Eggers
You Must Set Forth At Dawn - Wole Soyinka
You'll Die in Singapore - Charles McCormac
Your Future, My Faith, Our Freedom - Chee Soon Juan
Your Memory:A User's Guide - Alan Baddeley

I've left out some of the authors because I finished the books, packed them away, and must now unearth them to update this post with author names. Will do, I swear.

Book List 2007: Beginning Of The Year

This is what our book list looked like in January of this year:

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Abraham's Promise - Philip Jeyaretnam
Agnes Smedley - J.R. & S.R. MacKinnon
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - Dave Eggers
Amerika - Franz Kafka
A Spy's Revenge - Richard V. Hall
Believer Book of Writers Talking To Writers - Vendela Vida
Better Living Through Bad Movies - Sheri Zollinger and Scott Clevenger
Bird by Bird - Anne Lamott
Bonfire of the Vanities - Tom Wolfe
Captains of Consciousness - Stuart Ewen
Daniel Deronda - George Eliot
Daughters of the House - Indrani Aikath-Gyaltsen
Death and Justice - Mark Fuhrman
Don't Know Much About Mythology - Kenneth C. Davis
Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Mackay
Foreign Land - Jonathan Raban
Glory - Vladimir Nabokov
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
Heart Politics - Fran Peavey
How I Adore You - Mark Pritchard
Imaginary Homelands - Salman Rushdie
Jai Bhim - Terry Pilchik
Moving Targets - Women, Murder, and Representation - Birch
My Life in France - Julia Child
Nectar in a Sieve - Kamala Markandeya
On the Beach - Nevil Shute
Passions of the Cut Sleeve - Bret Hinsch
Plays, Vol. 2 - Bertholdt Brecht
Porphyrys' Letter To His Wife, Marcella
Prometheus Rising - Robert Anton Wilson
Pronatalism - Peck & Senderowitz
Rabbit-Proof Fence - Doris Pilkington
Reading Lolita In Teheran - Azar Nafisi
Reality Isn't What It Used To Be - Walter Truett Anderson
Republican Like Me - Harmon Leon
Robert van Gulik - van de Wetering
Rosie - Anne Lamott
Spices & Condiments - J.S. Pruthi
Stones From The River - Ursula Hegi
Take the Cannoli - Sarah Vowell
The Age of Diminished Expectations - Krugman
The Art of the Novel - Milan Kundera
The Bride Price - Buchi Emecheta
The Courtship of Robert Browning & Elizabeth Barrett - Karlin
The Devil Finds Work - James Baldwin
The Early Stories 1883-1888 - Anton Chekov
The Ginger Man - J.P. Donleavy
The Hollowing - Robert Holdstock
The Image - Isaac Bashevis Singer
The Inner Eye - Satyajit Ray
The Mind's I - Hofstadter & Dennett
The Plague - Albert Camus
The Secret Sharer - Joseph Conrad
The Sleeper Wakes - Knopf
The Unabomber Manifesto -
Tipping the Velvet - Sarah Waters
'Tis Pity She's A Whore - John Ford
Where The Oceans Meet - Bhargavi Mandava
Why I Am Not A Muslim - ibn Warraq
Women, Outcastes, Peasants & Rebels - Bardhan
You Shall Know Our Velocity - Dave Eggers

We took a bunch of books off this list, and read a bunch more. Next post is our revised book list at the end of 2007.

Quote from Midnight's Children

I was born in the city of Bombay ... once upon a time. No, that won’t do, there’s no getting away from the date: I was born in Doctor Narlikar’s Nursing Home on August 15th, 1947. And the time? The time matters, too. Well then: at night. No, it’s important to be more ... On the stroke of midnight, as a matter of fact. Clock-hands joined palms in respectful greeting as I came. Oh, spell it out, spell it out: at the precise instant of India’s arrival at independence, I tumbled forth into the world. There were gasps. And, outside the window, fireworks and crowds. A few seconds later, my father broke his big toe; but his accident was a mere trifle when set beside what has befallen me in that benighted moment, because thanks to the occult tyrannies of those saluting clocks I had been mysteriously handcuffed to history, my destinies indissolubly chained to those of my country. For the next three decades, there was to be no escape. Soothsayers had prophesied me, newspapers celebrated my arrival, politicos ratified my authenticity. I was left entirely without a say in the matter. I, Saleem Sinai, later variously called Snotnose, Stainface, Baldy, Sniffer, Buddha and even Piece-of-the-Moon, had become heavily embroiled in Fate - at the best of times a dangerous sort of involvement. And I couldn’t even wipe my own nose at the time.

Now, however, time (having no further use for me) is running out. I will soon be thirty-one years old. Perhaps. If my crumbling, over-used body permits. But I have no hope of saving my life, nor can I count on having even a thousand nights and a night. I must work fast, faster than Scheherazade, if I am to end up meaning - yes, meaning - something. I admit it: above all things, I fear absurdity.

-- the first two paragraphs of Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie



If you have never read Salman Rushdie, treat yourself ... oh, yes, it is a treat. The man has a wicked sense of humor. Plus, his writing is so delicious. His sentence structure is often intricate and I'll say to myself "what's he getting at?" ... and the sentence unfolds and everything becomes clear and then I'm filled with envy. That healthy kind of envy that pushes you forward in your own writing. Not the debilitating kind.

Woody Allen on his legacy

"Rather than live on in the hearts and minds of my fellow man, I'd prefer to live on in my apartment."

-- Woody Allen

Orson Wells quote

I want to use the motion picture camera as an instrument of poetry.
-- Orson Wells

Mayor of Castro Street to be filmed: Update

As reported in today's Leah Garchick column in the San Francisco Chronicle:

Matt Damon, who was spoken about for the role of Dan White in the movie version of "Milk," is out, replaced by Josh Brolin. Sean Penn, as planned, is Harvey Milk, and Bob McDowell tells me that there are rumors that James Brolin, Josh's father, may play George Moscone. Activist Cleve Jones will be played by Emile Hirsch, who starred in "Into the Wild."

Sounds good to me. Josh Brolin was fabulous in No Country for Old Men. (Actually the entire cast was so good.) I hadn't seen him in many things ... that I recall ... and he just impressed the hell out of me in that Coen Brothers' movie. I really believed he was who he was playing in that movie.

Same goes for Emile Hirsch. He was brilliant in Into the Wild. And ... was it yesterday? Mr. Hirsch got a SAG award nomination for that role?

[Oh, my god! From the previous comments above ... I actually sound like I get out and about! These are two of the five adult movies I've seen all year. No, no ... I always make that mistake ... not "adult movies" ... I mean movies made for grownups. I usually go to children's or family movies with my kids. But not so many made for grownups.]

Want to read my previous post on this? Please click here.

Not Only the Eskimos (Inuit, Inupiaq, Yupik)

This is my all-time favorite winter poem ... I send it out this time every year to friends ... written by the wonderful poet, Lisel Mueller.

Happy Winter Solstice, Everyone!


Not Only the Eskimos*

We have only one noun
but as many different kinds:

the grainy snow of the Puritans
and snow of soft, fat flakes,

guerrila snow, which comes in the night
and changes the world by morning,

rabbinical snow, a permanent skullcap
on the highest mountains,

snow that blows in like the Lone Ranger,
riding hard from out of the West,

surreal snow in the Dakotas,
when you can't find your house, your street,
though you are not in a dream
or a science-fiction movie,

snow that tastes good to the sun
when it licks black tree limbs,
leaving us only one white stripe,
a replica of a skunk,

unbelievable snows:
the blizzard that strikes on the tenth of April,
the false snow before Indian summer,
the Big Snow on Mozart's birthday,
when Chicago became the Elysian Fields
and strangers spoke to each other,

paper snow, cut and taped
to the inside of grade-school windows,

in an old tale, the snow
that covers a nest of strawberries,
small hearts, ripe and sweet,

the special snow that goes with Christmas,
whether it falls or not,

the Russian snow we remember
along with the warmth and smell of furs,
though we have never traveled
to Russia or worn furs,

Villon's snows of yesteryear,
lost with ladies gone out like matches,
the snow of Joyce's "The Dead,"
the silent, secret snow
in a story by Conrad Aiken,
which is the snow of first love,

the snowfall between the child
and the spacewoman on TV,

snow as idea of whiteness
as in snowdrop, snow goose, snowball bush,

the snow that puts stars in your hair,
and your hair, which has turned to snow,

the snow Elinor Wylie walked in
in velvet shoes,

the snow before her footprints
and the snow after,

the snow in the back of our heads,
whiter than white, which has to do
with childhood-again each year.

-- Lisel Mueller

* Of course, now the correct respectful term for Eskimo is "Inuit" ... well, depending on the tribe. See this entry from dictionary.com:

Eskimo has come under strong attack in recent years for its supposed offensiveness, and many Americans today either avoid this term or feel uneasy using it. It is widely known that Inuit, a term of ethnic pride, offers an acceptable alternative, but it is less well understood that Inuit cannot substitute for Eskimo in all cases, being restricted in usage to the Inuit-speaking peoples of Arctic Canada and parts of Greenland. In Alaska and Arctic Siberia, where Inuit is not spoken, the comparable terms are Inupiaq and Yupik, neither of which has gained as wide a currency in English as Inuit. While use of these terms is often preferable when speaking of the appropriate linguistic group, none of them can be used of the Eskimoan peoples as a whole; the only inclusive term remains Eskimo. The claim that Eskimo is offensive is based primarily on a popular but disputed etymology tracing its origin to an Abenaki word meaning "eaters of raw meat." Though modern linguists speculate that the term actually derives from a Montagnais word referring to the manner of lacing a snowshoe, the matter remains undecided, and meanwhile many English speakers have learned to perceive Eskimo as a derogatory term invented by unfriendly outsiders in scornful reference to their neighbors' unsophisticated eating habits."

Zippy the Pinhead and Sartre

My all-time favorite Christmas joke ... don't know the origin.

[Zippy the Pinhead opening a Christmas present given to him by Sartre. ]

Zippy: Nothingness! You shouldn't have.
Sarte: I didn't.

Sandra Cisneros: Happy Birthday!

Photo by John Gay

Sandra Cisneros was born on this day in Chicago in 1954. If you have not read her ... oh, my, what a treat you have ahead of you!!

Start with The House on Mango Street. It will make you laugh among other things. If you're a writer, it will make you envious.

Then, Carmelo. I loved this book. Cisneros gives us history, family dynamics and drama, delicious writing, and so much humor!

From today's Writer's Almanac:

She went on to college, and she later said she was lucky to be a girl, because her father didn't care what she studied. He just expected her to meet her husband. So she was free to study an impractical subject like English. She kept writing, and one of her professors encouraged her to apply to the Iowa Writer's Workshop.

But once Cisneros got there, she felt totally out of place. She said, "My classmates were from the best schools in the country. They had been bred as fine hothouse flowers. I was a yellow weed among the city's cracks."

Oh, but weeds give us so much nourishment!

Enjoy her books.

Allan Bérubé, mon cher, repos dans la paix

Please see our sister blog for my words about my old friend, Allan Bérubé.

Terry Pratchett's Sad News

Terry Pratchett, best-selling author of many delightful books, which I actually read most of straight through because you can't put his books down once you open one - announced today that, at 59, he has a rare form of early Alzheimer's.

That's just so unfair. A man who has brought so much delight to so many people everywhere, and suddenly, the very thing which makes man something different than rocks, stones, beasts, or nebulae - is going, though not gone.

Pratchett reported hand-eye coordination and dexterity problems which led to a medical exam and the doctor involved informing him that he had suffered a mini-stroke with the resulting dead areas of brain tissue. Further examination has revealed it was not a stroke at all, but this unfortunate condition.

He's going to keep writing as long as he can. I hope his daughter and wife get to enjoy him a lot longer, although all readers of his discworld series will miss him terribly. I hope science comes up with some startling innovation to cure him.

The Guardian has the details.

R.I.P. Ike Turner

He had many faults, but what he contributed to Rock 'n Roll can never be denied.

The Guardian has his obit.

AFAICT, the U.S. media are too busy getting their undies in a humongogantic wad over whether Hucksterbee really dissed Romney's weirdo cult or Obama really snorted coke, unlike our worthless drydrunk ex-coke addict of a current Dear Leader, who these days is positively looking gin-blossomed as well as zonked out of his mind on *some*thing. Probly stole the glassy-eyed wifey's Xanax prescrip.


At any rate, Ike Turner is dead and gone. Free at last.

Happy Hanukkah!

Happy Hanukkah! Blessings to all.

James Lee Burke: Happy Birthday!

From the Writer's Almanac:

It's the birthday of the mystery novelist James Lee Burke, (books by this author) born in Houston, Texas (1936). He's best known for his series of detective novels featuring Dave Robicheaux, an ex-New Orleans policeman, Vietnam veteran, and recovering alcoholic. The first novel in the series was The Neon Rain (1987) and the most recent, The Tin Roof Blowdown, came out this past summer (2007). Burke said, "I believe that whatever degree of talent I possess is a gift and must be treated as such. To misuse one's talent, to be cavalier about it, to set it aside because of fear or sloth is unpardonable."

James Lee Burke is one of my favorite writers. He wrote Crusader's Cross which I just read and think that it's very nearly perfect: He writes so well about setting (New Iberia, Louisiana), racism, and class; dialog is really good; characterization is right on ... and he philosophizes subtly. And he's deep. Highly recommended. His early books are raw and very dark. Those may not appeal to you. Start with Crusader's Cross.

Writers in Solidarity with Writers: You go, wrrrrriters!

Of course, I'm referring to the Writer's Guild of America strike. The Writer's Guild represents film, television, and radio writers working in the United States.

From Wikipedia:

The Writers Guild has indicated their industrial action would be a "marathon." AMPTP negotiator Nick Counter has indicated that negotiations would not resume as long as strike action continues, stating, "We're not going to negotiate with a gun to our heads—that's just stupid."

Okay ... let's be honest ... you mean the producers and other management types really would negotiate in good faith without that gun to their heads? Come on, we're not idiots.

Warming Hut Reopens!

Yesterday, a friend and I went out to the newly-reopened Warming Hut which is part of Crissy Field and the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy. The Conservancy includes places in the San Francisco bay area like Crissy Field, Point Bonita, Alcatraz, Baker Beach, Fort Funston, Fort Mason, Marin Headlands, Muir Woods, Point Reyes National Seashore, Tennessee Valley, Olema Valley, Mt. Tamapalais, Stinson Beach -- some of my most favorite places in the bay area.

To me, the Warming Hut is very special. The views are incredible. At the hut, you get a breathtaking view of the Golden Gate Bridge.



You can easily walk to the bridge's base on the San Francisco side. And, you can recreate that scene where Kim Novak jumps into the water (dangerous thing to do, not recommended) in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. You can see Alcatraz straight out in the Bay.



And, on a day like yesterday, the water and sky are beautiful and you’re likely to see lots of sailboats. Off to the right, is the city. The city by the bay per Herb Caen. Everything looked clean and vibrant yesterday. It was a glorious day to be out and about in San Francisco.


The Warming Hut had been closed because of a fire last January. The staff worked extra hard to get it back open. There’s a new kitchen, coffee and food prep area. We stayed and had brunch there. The food was scrumptious! Kudos to the chef. I indulged with a cup of café mocha. Yum!




The Warming Hut also has a wonderful gift shop ... lots of interesting and unique gifts. I got a seashore bird mobile, a couple of children’s books, and some uniquely packaged chocolate from Charles Chocolates.

I thoroughly enjoyed going to the Warming Hut yesterday! It was like those old coffee commercials used to say: perks you up while it calms you down.

All photos (c) 2007 K Smokey Cormier.